/wbg/ - Worldbuilding General

It sounds convoluted but in my head the idea of barbed tridents of a sort might work, in that at giant size you could easily stab in with it on a bunch of tentacles, just twist it around halfway and pull like eldritch spaghetti.

Tearing tentacles away like spaghetti using a fork-like implement? Sounds like a hilariously cool idea, I can't believe I didn't think of that sooner. I'll put it to use.

TL:dr of my high concept, wondering if anyone finds it interesting at all.
Mainly need feedback before pitching it to my mates.

>Afterlife, when you die and if you weren't good/bad enough to get into whichever afterlife you wanted to, you go to this place
>Tiered world, each "plane" is different free-floating, disk - kind of like the discworld situation, but can be traversed to and from one another. Shortest description I could come up with is "Inversed Dante's Inferno".
>Below the bottom plane is a wasteland, where basically nothing but dead or forgotten gods and other things reside.
>Planes have splits, broken islands, etc - parts of one plane can fall down to the next.
>Each plane has an associated non evil god and they shaped how they wanted their planes to be, with big-daddy creator as the old god and god of the topmost plane.
>Evil gods exist but are in hiding.

>Planes are basically;
>>Arabian Nights Desert Plane
>>Africa meets Aztec Savanna Plane
>>DEUS VULT, Rocky Ocean Plane
>>Ravnica-esque City and Farms Plane ("generic D&D world plane")
>>Colosseum, Jail and Courthouse Plane
>>Garden of Eden / Paradise Plane
>>Holy City of Angels and Evangelists Plane
>>Kingdom of the Old God plane

>Each plane has matching wildlife and real world / fictional inspirations
>Angels roam around the place as general lawmen

Thoughts?

Sounds intiguing. Tell me more.

This is a 3am bump!

How do you go up? If you're on Plane A and worship God A as a cleric, then travel to Plane B, do your powers dampen? How deep are the planes? Are we accounting for less O2 the higher you go or is it more abstract than that? Can you see the plane above you? How does day/night work if there's a giant disc full of arabs above you all the time? Is interplane travel common? Is the order of the planes set/significant?

What is the meaning of each of the planes? Do they represent some sort of idea or concept?
If this is the afterlife, where does mortal life fit in? Do the associated gods of these planes interact with the mortal realm?

PosterAnon here.

Will post replies later, out at the moment and my phone is actual garbage.

What's your opinion on the unident, then?

Literally just a spear.

That doesn't answere the question you fucking retard.

You make a good point.

>How do you go up?
Some planes have tall enough mountains, naturally fallen structures creating pathways, or "man-made" methods of traversing between planes. Flying from one another is also possible.

>Worship
If a cleric who worships a certain god is on any plane, they will receive normal benefits, but if they actively devote themselves while on the plane of their Deity, they will receive blessings and eventually become more attune with the plane itself - understanding weather cycles, "feeling" the earth, and so on.

>Can you see the plane above you
I'd imagine it'd be faint, not like the moon on some clear days but more or less like a real far away object obscured by clouds.

>Day/Night
Magic realm levels of bullshit, have the sun and moon arc so that the desert plane, while on the bottommost plane would get the most sun while the upper planes get increasingly less and less. Middle plane is basically a normal 14 hours daylight, 10 hours dawn/dusk/night. Cycles would Technically be two days worth, because East side rises, is then eclipsed by topmost plane giving darkness to the planes below it, then falls to West giving another "day" to the rest of the planes. Sometimes a sunrise will actually be a "Sunfall".

>Interplane Travel
While magically capable, there's almost a kind of tax associated to it. You basically move in correlation to where you stand. If you want to travel from the centre of plane A, to the Far west of Plane C - you'd need materials that "push" you up 2 planes, and other materials to force you to the West.

>Plane Order
Top to bottom, Oldest to youngest deity/planes (minus the the wasteland beneath the first plane).

>What is the meaning of each of the planes? Do they represent some sort of idea or concept?
If I were to write an Essay on it, No. But I've used a couple of ideas that kind of inspired their development.
I also happened to forget a "plane" so I'll add it as well, going from Bottom to Top

-Wasteland: Purgatory
-Great Fortress (On the same "level" as the Wasteland): Refuge from Damnation, Limbo
-Desert: Survival through Instinct
-Savanna: Survival through Thought
-Ocean: Survival through Faith
-City & Farms: Temptation, Greed, Group Think
-Court + Law: Law and Punishment as Theater
-Garden: New undiscovered life, both spiritually and in terms of wildlife
-Holy City: The Gates of heaven, literally.
-Kingdom: Pretty much the throne of god. A plane that's basically a long hallway leading to a big old chair.

>If this is the afterlife, where does mortal life fit in?
This is kind of the hard part to explain, It's basically a "second life", your spirit was intercepted and conveniently placed into a near perfect copy of your body - you retain all memories and aspirations of your past life. So you're mortal, but in a non-decaying body due to it being a spiritual/magical realm.

Mortals who somehow manage to get to the plane without dying are treated normally - age normally too, if they were to die in realm somehow, they'd probably default to their preferred afterlife.

>Do the associated gods of these planes interact with the mortal realm?
Yes and No, Most can actively assume a physical form and be present on their plane and other's if need be - One of them cannot assume a physical form, because they are literally the God of Boundlessness. The Non-Evil gods don't actively fuck with mortals, like they can do things like create a storm and accidentally kill someone - but it wouldn't be on purpose, but then there's the Evil Gods - one is literally the God of War and Slaughter, having his own, hidden city on a plane just for a shits and giggles Battle Royale.

I should also add/Clarify:

Water is seen as a "container" of knowledge, as you look at moving water you feel like you've seen someone else's memories in a way., maybe your own or someone who had died

>Interplane travel:
If you find a tall enough tree, mountain or some other means, you can physically "climb" to another plane. While taxing on the body, it'll certainly require less gathering of possibly rare materiel.

What's a good alternate name for Venus?

Aphrodite?

Suneev.

I should have clarified, I was referring to the planet Venus

Ayyyyy

Who named it and why does Venus not fit?

It's hard to come up with good alternatives if without knowing the criteria and it becomes case of throwing random words at the wall in the one sticks.

It's for a near scifi setting that consists of three worlds, Eden (Earth) Barsoom (terraformed Mars) and terraformed Venus.

Not!Venus follows early scifi depictions as an oceanic, marshy world with heavy cloud cover and precipitation. (Possibly naming it Atmor after Burroughs other work or Perelandra after Lewis's work)

Unident needs to hit the fucking gym. Get swole. Master its gainz.

Perhaps Cytherea, which not only has a good Sword and Planet retro-scifi vibe but is also the watery birthplace for Aphrodite?

Not too generic and not too alien or abstract. Concepts are decent enough. I would read short articles and vignettes about your lore.
7/10 good work

I dig it. And it fits with the capital city name I had pondered for it as well, Atlantis.

...

A world ruled by succubi and incubi:

>At some point in the incubi's evolution, female incubi (succubi) have evolved to live on lind, where incubi remained in the ocean.
>As such, they have radically different sexual dimorphism.
>Succubi are what you might imagine a succubus to look like. Odd colored skin, large breasts, and horns.
>Incubi look like tentacle beasts the size of human men.
>Because of their unusual evolution, succubi have dominated land and incubi dominated the sea, forming vastly different societies and cultures.

Reproduction (Focusing on succubi for simplicity):
>Despite their differences, succubi and incubi retain a peaceful relationship due to their reproductive cycle.
>Whenever succubi and incubi make love, they secrete large amounts of a slimy substance.
>Said slimy substance contains innumerable special cells that contain a small portion of the person's genetic code.
>The slimy substance is then stored in a jar, which a succubus comes to collect once a week.
>Failure to do this is the succubus equivalent of abortion and is not only illegal, but very taboo.
>The succubi that collected the jars delivers them to a special breeding pool, where slimy substance from both succubi and incubi are disposed of.
>The cells in the substance will seek out other cells of the opposite sex and fuse together.
>More and more cells and fusions of cells can fuse into each other.
>This process continues until a bay is eventually formed.
>If the baby is a succubus, it will swim to a bay
>If the baby is an incubus, it will swim through a special canal to get to saltwater
>The newly formed baby succubus is then then taken to a nursery.

Fuck off.

>Do Dragon's hoard things in your setting?
Yes, they hoard secrets.

>Why or why not?
Because the "Dragon" rune is a secret and they'd like to keep it that way. By monopolizing the concept of "Secret" they hope to uncover the Secret rune and use both to make it happen.

>Are Dragons sapient in your setting or just intelligent animals?
Fully intelligent.

>Are they divine? Demonic?
They are malformed gods. Every living thing is pulled from a pool of formless primordial spirits.

>Gods are spirits that discovered their own runes.
>"Spirits" as humans know them are those that did not get a unique/special rune.
>Humans themselves are beings created to worship. They are unique in that their rune was the first to be created by modifying another.
>Beasts were the first attempt at this but were too stupid to speak; hence the Man rune is a modified God rune.
>Dragons were the very first attempt at this. Too clever by half and their form is all jumbled up; the first two dragons ate the god that created them.

>Do they like riddles?
Yes.

Hey i nedd an advice for a last kingdom for my setting. I've made some specific reign aiming for specific cultures in them.
If you guys are interested i can expand the description but for now i'm gonna keep it short
1- Loa/Voodoo kingdom of lizardfolk
2- Holy kingdom similar to Vatican city and with a Pope
3- 2 swords Diarchy , Sparta clone
4- Drektar Lands - Lands full of sciamanic tribes like Wow Mag'har
5- Gauche Empire - PreRevolutionary france
6- Leovoleren Republic - Venetian city ruler of seas
7-Quin Kingdom- Chinese kingdom of Tengus
8- Djer Kingdom - Late Egyptian kingdom
9- Utexar Fortress - a city under a lake made by technomagic stuff ,steampunk vibes
10- Enclave- Small city-state that is more a confinement for "barbaric" races made by the "pope" army
11- Amazon, pretty self explanatory
12- Free cities - Post revolutionary united states fighting with Indigenous peoples
13- ForoYar - Big Island covered in ice, gaelic vibes
14- Sarnath- Small city with a big curse, eldritch vibes

The dragon died. It was only one, but he was gigantic and he literally reduced civilization to a few kingdoms and a bunch of tribes.

The place of his death is forbidden because there is algae-like magic veins spurring from the land, and the whole area is poisonous. Only the undead can stay there for long. So they appropriated the area.

>primordial dragon
>its a wyvern

Thanks mang, anything glaringly obvious that I should attempt to fix or perhaps include?

My setting has a racial family of Fetchfolk- mortal beings descended from fairies. So far I only have generic Keebler elves and people with green fire for heads, but I want 3-4 more of them.

So in my setting, magic is centered around this primordial, all-encompassing material. Thing is, I don't actually know how it's used in spellcasting, or how the material is refined. I feel that because it's so nebulous that maybe different schools of magic come from different refinement processes. But even then, how do these processes differ for different elements or subschools?

So I need advice for portraying a world that is basically a post roman era, old continent spanning empire is long dead and remnants are picking up the peaces and rebuilding some trying to reclaim old glory or trying to do things different.

What sort of arms and armor would plain peoples near this world's antarctic use, assuming they have access to metal, and that this world is roughly 2° Celsius hotter than our own?
I've ran into a bit of a block here.

>plain peoples near this world's antarctic use
Spears, laminated composite bows, and heavy woolen outfits supplemented by leather, hide or mail

Thanks user, that sounds about right.

I'm writing a not Dark Ages Britain setting. How do you write for conflicting belief systems? Not just warring gods in the same pantheon but a conflict of exclusive belief systems like Christianity vs Paganism?

Anyone else want to rip on my setting / give feedback?

Whats everyone's opinion on changing/removing some of the standard elf variants and making your own?

For example:
Instead of high elves, the most common elves are islanders (think Maori or Polynesian).

>>Instead of high elves, the most common elves are islanders (think Maori or Polynesian).
So, you switched high elves out with a variant of wood elves.

So first question is, why did the empire die? Were its cities razed so no one lives there? Have the people abandoned them to return to a nomadic lifestyle or smaller, more sustainable farming communities? How much infrastructure is left?

Also consider, if the empire is gone, there is a power vacuum. How many factions now vie for power? Maybe this takes place later than the initial power vacuum and things have settled. Where are the new states/kingdoms lines drawn? What sort of people rule these new areas? Why did they stand above the others? How are they running their countries?

I am planning on doing a bunch of things actually, I just kinda was wondering if playing on the tropes is worthwhile, or I should keep it simple for my players.

So far I have:
>Savage elves (green skinned, jungle origin)
>Sea elves (basically night elves crossed with tropical fish color schemes. Live in coral reefs)
>Glacial elves (pale skin, arctic, nomadic viking types)
>Deep elves (standard drow only instead of spider focus, the underdark has been flooded and become the underdeep. So crabs, squid, and deep ocean critter themed)
>Blood elves (red skinned, desert dwelling barbarians)
>Volcanic Elves (arcane enfused elves living near the portal to the plane of fire)
>Chaos elves (pick two elf types, mix and match appearance. Rare, same stigma as half-elves)

Even as an elf-fag I would say that you don't need so many elves.

yeah I did go a little crazy. But thats largely cause there arent any dwarves or orcs at the moment in the campaign. So I wanted to give a little more regional variety to them.

At the very least, lose the chaos elves.

yeah, they arent a separate culture, just a weird mutation when two different elf parents co-mingle. So I'll just have that as a rule if players ask and want to be special snowflakey. Good call

Bumpity.

Lads...

Why are using elves for races that already thematically fit the descriptions you've given?

Watch history documentaries on the subject, us giving you an answer would be a little unfair because of cultural bias (also if we aren't from the UK, we probably aren't the best people to be asking.)

A Feudal kingdom that's full Charlmagne/King Arthur romantic, with exotic and monsterous cavalry

Exotic Not!Persia/Not!Babylon ruled by Sorcerer cabals

Something piratey, maybe based on the Barbary Corsairs or Sinbad to contest your Not!Venice

I like it. The imagery of water, and impossible towers/trees leading to new world is pretty sick

To be honest, if you aren't going for the full fantasy race soup, I don't really see the point of using Elves when you could just use human cultures instead. Unless of course the setting is going to actually explore the racial difference between Elves and Humanity, or you've got players who desperately want to play Elves.

I need some tips and tricks on how to design/map modern towns and cities. I'm this close to just using Sim City.

Look at real world maps from 16/17/1800's. Specifically European cities. They have such a chaotic, inconsistent design that you could base an entire city off of an old map.

All cities need a water source. Where's yours? Draw it. Where/how/why was this city founded? Put down the original city boundaries. How long has the city existed? What's the current population? Expand boundaries as appropriate.

>Do dragon's hoard thing in your setting?

Yes, they do! It's fun.

>Why or why not?
I don't know, honestly. I never thought about it. It's a common trope. Perhaps I need to consider making dragon religions...

>Are dragons sapient...?
Yes; most dragons are incredibly intelligent.

>Are they divine? Demonic?
Neither; they're long-lived, powerful creatures, but neither divine nor demonic in origin. They are one of the original races.

>Do they like riddles?
Yes.

So, I'm working on my world, and I wanted to have multiple moons. One moon is bigger and silvery, in a similar fashion to Earth's moon. The other is small and red, and on an elliptical orbit.

Then I thought about it: What would the moon phases be for a moon on an elliptical orbit, as viewed from the ground? I realize I have no idea!

My first thought is that it would mean that a portion of the phases would be shorter, as the moon's passage gains speed as it rockets towards the planet, then slows as it gets to its apogee.

Suggestions?

What is this terrain called, is it a desert?

>All cities need a water source. Where's yours?
Underground.

Is this good enough as water source? I don't really know how wells work, and how much water they can cover, enough for a village, a town?

not user by the way

Taiga, maybe? I think I see snow

Temperate desert/Badlands

Taiga is dominated by pine forest

>Temperate desert
Near the ecuatorian then? Thanks user

more in the middle. Temperature deserts commonly form in the rainshadow of large mountain ranges (think US midwest, Tibet, central Eurasia, Patagonian steppe). They're still affected by winters but are cut off from water which in turn leads to reduced vegetation.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_deserts_by_area

I see, I can work with that. Temperate deserts are also cold deserts according to your link. Meaning the night is cold as shit and winter is also incredibly cold?

I tried to make a thread for this, but that did not work. Maybe that was a poor move, and this was the proper place to ask? If this is the wrong place, let me know and I'll delete my post.

I want to run a Cyberpunkish game. I was thinking maybe The Sprawl or 2020, but the specifics don't matter.

For the life of me I can't find any good tools for map creation with this type of setting. There are a ridiculous amount of available tools and resources if you want a fantasy setting, but everything I've found is unbelievably lacking for cyberpunk.
The only thought I had was using the map editor in Shadowrun Returns, but how would I even export those to a state usable for pnp purposes, like for roll20? Not to mention it's isometric, which would probably throw problems my way long-term.

If anybody as any clues for me on cyberpunk map creation, or at least tips on if my dumb idea of exporting from Shadowrun Returns' editor is even possible, please let me know. Sorry if this wasn't the right place, or if this was a dumb question.

Have you tried asking ?

I will look around the web, and check my files if I have some.

I haven't, but I will do so right away. Thank you so very much.

Depends on the size of the wells. How are they refilled?

>Meaning the night is cold as shit and winter is also incredibly cold?
pretty much.

I don't know how they work actually, got any tips?

Rainfall refills ground water in aquifers. Aquifers are where wells get their water. If a major city survives off well water exclusively then the weather must be incredibly rainy to keep the wells fed.

>Do Dragon's hoard things in your setting?
Yes.
>Why or why not?
They hoard wealth to start the economic trade of their Hive between them and local settlements, using it as a personal bank. Other valuables are kept in personal hoards, where they can enjoy them at their leisure.
>Are Dragons sapient in your setting or just intelligent animals?
Dragons are sapient.
>Are they divine? Demonic?
They're divine, created by Bahamut and Tiamat to serve as guardians of the material plane, in case Mara and her Demon children break into reality once more. A lot of shit went down after that and there aren't many Dragons left who directly serve their original purpose.

>I don't know, honestly. I never thought about it. It's a common trope.
You should come up with a reason for it even if it's just a "they have a racial compulsion to do it"

New game:
>Take a real picture
>Write something adding it to a setting you're making or have made
>Post new picture with writefaggotry

The legendary Bakery of St Bundil has stood as a landmark in the kingdom of Regorak for almost one thousand years, ever since a halfling priest managed to finally exorcise the Demon King Malgolgoz out of the Child Empress and into a loaf of bread. In commemoration of his deeds, clerics from all across the world make pilgrimages to this temple in order to learn piety and humility through baking.

Now someone do the next one.

Thanks user!!

I need some ideas for a mostly barren stretch of land [desert/ash] away from the greener civilization and some mcguffins ideas for curing a king of sudden onset eldritch abomination imprisonment.

Current Ideas:
A roving band of orcs live in the current area, PCs can interact with them and become allies

Dwarves reside in the mountains to the south, to the north is the kingdom they are protecting, a new ruler has caused tensions to rise, therefore possible dwarven invasion.

Here,

I have a question that I really don't know how to ask. It's about converting typically monstrous/evil monsters/races of fantasy into more communal and accustomed to "normal" life.

For example; Medusas in my setting - after death, typically have a choice to go back to their secluded lifestyle or they can make the effort and try to ingratiate themselves with a society. Typically speaking the Medusas of the system I'll be using (4e), are exclusively evil - it says they are either secluded or in small packs and only wish torment upon others who happen to trespass, they keep slaves of those they didn't kill.

Am I walking over the lore or is it believable enough that a once monstrous being that has had a life time worth of contemplation could reform? I mean, there will be some true-to-form Medusas still, but it's the more "Human-like" ones that I'm trying to really figure how to handle. Asking because I plan on one of the rulers of a city being reformed a Medusa.

This basically goes for any race too, I was thinking about reformed Minotaurs, Goblins and the like.
It tickles me thinking about an Orc that runs a legitimate real estate business.

In other threads and websites all of these map designing softwares are promoted
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In the fucking map making general? Fucking Inkarnate lmao,that's pleb-tier

>is it believable enough that a once monstrous being that has had a life time worth of contemplation could reform?
Yes but there needs to be a turning point. Some conflict or event that causes this change. You don't meditate in a cave for a decade and decide not to be evil. I've found the amount of trauma needed to convince a sapient person to reform is proportional to how old they are.

Young creatures could be reformed without too much trouble. Consider Goku from Dragonball, who basically just had brain damage that stopped him from being evil. Naturally you want something other than having evil lobotomized from these characters.

If you want an established evil creature to stop being evil you need to think of a few things:
1. What happened to these creatures that shocked them out of their racial alignment-stasis?
- "I just don't think I want to be evil" doesn't work
- Drizzt (An moral character from an evil race) had a morality to him taught by his father. While his father was also a Dark Elf and should have been an evil asshole, it's not impossible that being a whipping boy (male) to an evil matriarchy would make him rebel in his own way.
- Either throw out the "They're always evil" part of the race or give them a good reason for why they're not evil
2. Why don't the creatures they live with just lynch them out of principle for being from an "evil" race?
- Did they prove themselves to the society they live with through some act of charity or heroism?
3. What steps do they need to take so murderhobos who don't know that they're not evil don't cut their heads off for exp at the drop of a hat?
-Work through intermediaries?

Godsend user, this actually helps quite a lot!

What are some interesting knightly order ideas? Here's a bit of information I gathered on the subject.

pastebin.com/YWf7PdK1

One of my favorite tropes for this is the 'too nice to be a monster' monster.

There was a book I read once about a doppelganger, who had to kill whoever he took the place of, mostly out of necessity. He didn't like killing, so the resolution to his conflict was that he'd go live in the woods and eat animals and shit and not kill people. It was kind of a shitty book, but I hope you understand what I'm saying here. They're a monster, and they might have to do terrible things to live, but their conscience bothers them about it. Usually it gets worse as they age, to the point where they're old and tired and maybe they feel they can't change their ways because they've been doing it so long, maybe the local monster hunters know the monster personally because it ate a brother or something and they feel they can't just turn over a new leaf with all this bloody history and monsters in their closet.

I also have a thing for old soldiers/assassins/whatever with the same mentality, but hey, that's a different story. John Wick is a good movie.

Does this seem like a good motivator to reform?

>IXCHEL, MEDUSA QUEEN OF TIENITE
>A reformed Medusa, who in her previous life had across an Elven baby as a means of offering at the entrance of her cave, instead of killing the baby or petrifying it, she had raised him.
>While being a rather strange child growing up with his out of race mother, they learned to love one another.
>She had taught the boy much and begun to contemplate a life not of solitude but that of communal activity with another race, seeing how her “Son” had grown into a man, she let him venture off into the real world.
>He had returned with travel partners, many of which who were uneasy about being in the presence of a Medusa, she took no offense as people had still been giving her offerings, she understood that she was still seen as a monster. She had covered her eyes in an expensive fabric to try and place trust in the hearts of his friends.
>After some time they had left, and the Son said his final goodbyes, saying he was travelling to a distant land. Ixchel was heartbroken and wept for days on end.
>On a cold wintry night, Ixchel had heard an unusual sound in her cave, a light crackling like that of a nearly doused fire, she noticed that the townsfolk had invaded her cave and surrounded her. She was beheaded without warning.
>She didn't feel anger or sadness towards her assailants, in the past years living with her Son - all she desired was to be among others.

Man, there must be a hell of a timezone difference.

>Rainfall refills ground water in aquifers. Aquifers are where wells get their water. If
Uh, ground water level is where wells get their water. Of course rainfall is part of what supplies ground water, but it's by no means the sole thing. You can make wells even in fucking deserts if you dig deep enough.
While most cities were build around rivers, it was more for logistic reasons than explicitly to draw drinking water - that was always mostly supplied from town wells anyway.

My point mostly was that precipitation was the key thing, but you make a good point. Thank you.

>Whats everyone's opinion on changing/removing some of the standard elf variants and making your own?
I think you are better off inventing interesting human cultures than trying to modify established fictional trope ones. Elves work in Lord of the Ring because of what they are, but they don't need to be transplanted hap-hazardly to every other setting, and they don't need to be further stripped of the few things that did make them interesting in the first place.

Alternatively, if you don't want to rely on mainly human cultures, turn your attention to the mythological and folklore counterparts that inspired elves, rather than to elves themselves.

>My point mostly was that precipitation was the key thing, but you make a good point.
It's good to consider things in broader perspective. Mecca and it's Zamzam Well being a fairly good illustration.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zamzam_Well¨
Mecca not being particularly known for it's high rainfall volumes.

Other examples of cities that are not build on rivers/lakes or in areas of heavy rainfall still historically relying on ground water could be Johanesburg, most of Mexico City, Jaisalmer, Los Angels. Though it is true that three of those are actually fairly modern and probably would not exist (or at least would not exist in their current form) without modern technologies. Or at least have some form of lake or something nearby.

In general, like 80% all slightly more relevant cities in the world have been build either on a river, or on a shore of lake or sea in the end, though. But it really isn't necessarily for the water itself, but rather because those provide easier means of transportation, food source, and in case of rivers even power.

Bumpity.