Small People in the Big City
When society keeps getting more cosmopolitan, cities of mixed racial makeup start to appear. Neighborhoods dedicated to specific races will occur.
An interesting city district could be one where halflings, dwarves and gnomes dwell - all the doors are four feet high, streets busy with merchandise as dwarves pound away in their workshops, halflings sew, cook and do carpentry jobs and gnomes tinker with magic and machinery. From the various dwellings, work-songs in foreign languages sound, tiny children run around frolicking and playing withj papa's anvil, while a hundred inns offering specialities 'just like home' dot the place. The bridges are low too, and passages narrow, so all those agoraphobic dwarves feel comfortable. The dwarves build all walls sturdy of precisely hewn stone, while the halflings plant parks and paint the houses nicely.
This setting is unique in many ways - in an ordinary city, you turn a corner and seem to have grown, for all is diminutive. In all shops, there will be two sorts of wares - one for the small folks, one for the big 'uns. Rowdy dwarvish inns might provide a place to brawl, or to get into lots of trouble by calling someone a lawn ornament, You can run afoul of a gnomish experiment gone awry, or try to chace a criminal ... on knees, as the low ceiling will not allow it otherwise. Of course, swinging a halberd, a greatsword or maul might b quite difficult in there! Not to mention the logistic difficulties of carrying a longbow!
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? Responses (4)
'In the Ghetto'
Well, having seen too much news lately the thoughts about minority revolts and such come easily to mind, but I won't go there. I like this. It is very high fantasy, but then again you are very high fantasy, and as such it is a nice neighbourhood idea and one with potential to boot. Of course I have seen similar, the Forgotten Realms setting is all about locations such as this, but your examples and short description did appeal to me.
If you expand this stub I will certainly expand my vote :)
I like this too. Any city with large numbers of minorities and an intrest in keeping them content,will let them build their own houses. I would find it awkward to live in the house of a Giant,so a dwarf or halfling would find it hard to live in a human sized house.
Another Doh! of course moment.
Very sensible place. It would have to exist. Perhaps they would subdivide an existing apartment into quarters appropriate to their statue (each large room becoming the equivalent space of huge apartment to the smaller dwellers.
A great detail for a city.