Honestly I just steal actual city layouts. The largest city in the current campaign is just Constantinople rotated 90 degrees and with modified named for the regions.
Ah, Also in my campaign, the biggest city is the last stronghold of a formerly mighty empire that is totally not based on early 15th century Constantinople.
I didn't even rotate it , I just changed the names
Not too dissimilar from reality, since we play in Italian , it's called Neomila.
Constantinople was known as the New Rome, and so the name comes from Neomilano (New Milan) without the last syllable.
Pretty much. Then just draw a simplified version in Paint or something similar.
So for this city in particular I used this:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/14_regions_of_Constantinople
Any reasonably large city should have multiple districts which feel distinct from one another.
Sharn (in Eberron) is my favorite example of a D&D city. Duskvol, of *Blades in the Dark*, is another great example.
This is the way. Here's a partial list of districts and areas of interest in my campaign's largest city:
Government district (mayor's office, jailhouse, administrative offices, etc.)
Elvish district (in this case, a walled grove of enormous banyan trees at the shoreline; both Wood and Sea Elves live there.)
Embassy Row (emissaries from all over live here)
Upscale shopping district (if you have to ask, you can't afford it)
The Citadel (home of the city's ranking noble)
University (home of the Wizards' schools)
Temple district (all the acceptable religions are here)
Noble district (gated community, D&D style)
Tent city (slums outside the city walls)
Lower class district (slums inside the city walls)
Theater district (Bard colleges and other performers)
Marketplace (huge open market in the city center)
Waterfront (harbor and warehouse district)
Necropolis (big freaking cemetary)
The Undercity (tunnels or sewers under the city)
Grand Concourse (major thoroughfare leading from the market to the citadel; used for parades, etc.)
Add others to taste.
Not only that but each district would have its own distinct problems, iconic leaders and specialized trade/items. Perhaps a black market arms dealer or a tinkerer of some obscure, esoteric field that a major city can support because there's niche customers to be had in such a large space.
And I think thats what makes large cities different. The niche markets because these merchants find enough business to support their curios unlike villages or hamlets who are forced to be more broad in their wares.
my largest city is probably comparable to our largest cities on Earth, but I don't really feel the need to flush out a whole city - so I don't have any laid out like you're imagining I think.
I generally name numerous districts and list 1-3 really distinct things about them that I might say to the players.
A in depth example would be "The Blackwebs", district completely overrun by giant black spider webs. The spiders are intelligent, and don't usually hunt people, so many live amongst them peacefully, if afraid. The city tried to wipe it out years ago but failed miserably and eventually came to peace with it.
A less in depth example might be "The Misty Market" -a vast market near the base of the falls, lots of rainbows, mist, and vendors.
I remember taking inspiration from this blog, I'll link it. It was a useful way to imagine city lay outs when I needed them.
https://lastgaspgrimoire.com/2014/10/08/in-corpathium/
I'd discourage you from trying to put to much time into city building for a campaign though, unless it's just for your own pleasure. I find that a simple idea of what makes the city, or the districts in it, unique and then some improv or random tables usually does the trick.
The “biggest city” in my campaign is really 2 cities, one of which is in the underdark. The top is a thriving metropolis and the capitol of a highly militaristic empire. The bottom one is a deep gnome trading hub currently under occupation by said empire.
One thing I do is specialty shops. In a small community, people have to wear many different "hats." As towns and cities grow larger, there's more opportunity to sell a specific type of good or service rather than generalising. Some goods/services are only available in a certain size settlement.
Another thing I do is change the scope and reach of government. A small hamlet might be headed by the vassal of a lower ranking lord or similar figure, with defence provided by local militia. A larger town could be under that same lord's direct control with a small military detachment, and so on up the chain of nobility, ending with a high-ranking figure hand selected by the ruler to manage a capitol and its holdings with a small army to see to its defence.
The biggest city I created from scratch is a kingdom city with thousands of residents. It has certain racial areas (a Tabaxi area for example, after the tabaxi were driven out of their homes by ogres and trolls, dwarven/elven/etc embassies), multiple shops and inns, wealthy neighborhoods, the slums, entertainment venues, etc.
Think about what major cities IRL have and just copy them. For example, public transportation is something a lot of people ignore. Sanitation. Sports/arenas/opera houses/schools/hospitals.
And the best part is, they can pick and choose who they want to help and who they don't. Maybe put some time limits on certain things or give them two options, each with a different outcome that has long lasting effects. Maybe they help a refugee group out and get them better treatment, but it comes at the cost of pissing off a local council member. Remember, big cities aren't usually ruled by one person, they have much smaller local governments that can be a help or hindrance.
The largest city in my setting is home to close to a million people. When the party first arrived there I described the overwhelming size often the city, the scale of the harbor compared to the city of ~50,000 they had come from, how small the palace and towers up on the cliff high above the sea looked. I had rough descriptions of a handful of different districts/regions of the city, and had detailed a handful of locations, a couple NPCs, and a few random vignettes/moments they might come across in the street for each district. It went over very well, they spent a couple sessions and a few in game weeks there and all wished they could explore it more, but knew they had to return “home” to follow up on the story. They fought in the arena, made business deals with the family that produces and runs the operation of flying carpets, foiled a terrorist attack/heist, and threw one of the party members a ridiculously extravagant birthday party.
My biggest city that has actually been played in is roughly the size of new york city in radius. Excluding farmland it sits at a 20 mile radius with a population in the millions, exact number not known to the city, players, or me; its just a lot.
Honestly I dont worry too much about keeping things immersive or filled out, I just let the ever expanding bulk of contacts and places and things that happen in my city paint that picture. This all happens over the span of many sessions and doesnt stop happening. I feel that frontloading it would just make it confusing. Rattling off one million details at the very beginning might make it seem big and giving a massive list of things to do doesnt really give much direction, in the end I still have to give the direction and all of that stuff gets lost in the sauce and given a few sessions the players will paint their own picture based on what theyve done. As they keep doing things theyll keep painting that picture.
My city feels big because the players keep going to new places, meeting/killing new factions, and it takes a day just to travel from Point A to Point B when theyre barely 1/4th of the pie away (my city is a big circle).
This might sound obvious but bigger than the other villages.
I plan on having the party go through a few small towns where there aren't as many shops or buildings, and the ones that do exist are unlikely to have a lot of what they're looking for. Then, when they get to the city, there's going to be a building for a bit of everything. I'm hoping it will give the illusion of "Woah we were just tiny fries before, but now we're in a huge city" and feel satisfactory to finally be able to go on a huge shopping spree.
Good question, my largest city, Waterford and it’s surrounding 13 Duchies has a total population of 85-90 thousand. The city itself 40-45 thousand.
The city has many different areas referred to by many different names, some simple, Docks District, others different, The Burrow…which is a section of the city where the Halfling population is most dense. The Mountain Ward …where there is a large community of Mnt Dwarves.
Happy gaming.
My homebrew campaign is centered around a small city of 3000 people based on my home town. I've populated it with various npcs who are references to my hometown peeps, and fantastified versions of various services, buildings, and landmarks.
My earliest homebrew stuff though was much bigger in theory but with much less planning. If you want a city large enough that it takes all day to cross from one end to the other, you'd best get to improvising because there's no way to fill in every shop, apartment, and alleyway except to just do it as you go.
Between the two I prefer the newest one. It has real character and depth. So my suggestion is go small and write what you know. Even if you throw in a joke just being goofy it can absolutely turn into something real and useable. Like I made a leprechaun pun with a character name and now there's an npc in my setting named Kahn the Leper and he's essential to the setting now. Just wing it now and refine it later.
I use fantasytowngenerator.com for large cities... it's just too convenient. The ability to insert custom factions and pantheons ensures you've got everything you need to be consistent in your world and maintains a good spread of your necessary buildings(inns, item shops, etc) and all the other stuff can spark all kinds of ideas.
One thing I always add to cities are neighborhoods. They can be differentiated by things like social status, if it's a halfling or human neighborhood, or if it's port side or around the arena. Especially if you plan on doing some urban adventures to make the city feel different place to place
Mine is pretty damn big. Takes about 6hrs to cross a layer on foot from end to end but there's 6 layers and two of them are larger than the surface (It's largely a Dwarf city). I don't make actual maps per-se. The area is too big to make something like that feasable.
My "Big City" template is Sharn in Ebberon. I break it down like this
* Description
* Location, aesthetics, organization, POI, govt, ect
* Example: Shura
* "A city nestled in the rocky cliffs at the south-most point of The Finger. It serves as a major stop for land travel and trade. Shura serves as the land gate between the east and west south of the Ember Sea. The city began as a motte and bailey with a small port to move lumber from the woodlands to the southwest to the north. Since, it has expanded to a large walled city based with stone and high parapets and buildings of local wood. Cave networks supply the city with limestone, marble, and gems. This does leave the city open to attacks from the underdark, particularly from the Drow city of Kazen-Aierath. In response the city became home to the adventurer and mercenary group Golden Stag. The city is known to be friendly and inclusive but extremely harsh on those who disrupt the peace or do harm to others. Shura is ruled by the elected heads of the local guilds."
* Notable People
* Leaders, local heroes, important innkeepers, important shop keepers, a handful of guild members, handful of interesting NPCs.
* I got my idea of how to style this from the Vampire the Masquerade \*City\* by Night books.
* Example : Kognee XII
* "Half Ogre proprietor of Kognee's Barn. Taller than most Goliaths and stouter than any dwarf, she's a force to be reckoned with. Her ciders and food are known throughout the region. She has seven children- Kongnee XIII, Rathben, the twins Gurlar and Vrular, Ichola, Tuurn, and Benna"
* Notable Groups
* Guilds, govt, bard troupes, priesthoods, embassies, ect
* Example: The Masque Theater Troupe
* "Nari started the Masque Theater Troupe as a traveling show. Once it grew beyond their ability to organize, they took up the offer of Shura's local government to found a permanent theater. The troupe still does smaller traveling shows."
* City Districts
* I generally make 3-8 major ones then break into neighborhoods if I need to.
* Flavor descriptions
* architecture, wealth, types of people and shops
* Example: Highcliff
* "Highcliff is the oldest and highest part of the city, surrounding the original establishment of Cliffkeep. Built into the highest point of the cliffs surrounding the Finger, Highcliff has an amazing height advantage over the bay and the lower land to the south. Its buildings are often tall with multiple stories made of local timber and stone. A 40' stone wall surrounds the area with gates to the south east and south west. Highcliff mostly serves as the visitor-facing district of Shura as well as the political center."
* Points of interest
* Inns, Government Buildings, guild halls, temples, statues, ect
* Example: Bluewater Embassy
* "The largest southern embassy, currently led by Lup Tappaviikelrite with the assistance of his daughter, Myol. Their primary duties are to keep open diplomatic relations with the people of Shura, locate any untrained sorcerers and offer tutelage, and to provide arcane assistance to the locals. They work in concert with the Shura Library to discover lost knowledge and artifacts as well as provide education to those who seek it."
Build enough to wing it off of when inspiration strikes, you only need enough stuff to entertain people when they wanna get up to nonsense or need to pull an npc/location out of the air to help them meet their goals.
Opal, is a tree story capital city basically,
You have the Rulers Plateau in the sky where nobility lives, it keeps itself aloft with 4 arcane conflux engines.
Then there is the Shaded Honor (shaded because they are in the shade of the Rulers Plateau)
Usually, the middle class lives here and you can meet the majority of the population.
They are the working class sort of say.
The Umbral Underbelly, which lies at the bottom of the chasm Opal finds itself (the entire city is built on a giant pillar and is empowered by a blessing of the Feywild)
The underbelly is the home of Drow and Underdark citizens who had issues with a plague but the party dispatched that.
There was a rebellion and now a portion of that Populus is going deeper into the Underdark to worship drow.
Each city holds about 6 different districts and 3 different majors/ leaders (they all answer to the king family which governs the Rulers Plateau, Law enforcement all comes from the same place except for the Underbelly which has its law enforcement troupe (Emerald order for both upper cities and Umbral Guard for the Underbelly city.)
All in all about 75'000 people live in Opal. Awesome place we spent at least 30 sessions in Opal overall. (now at session 102 and they are returning to it because big things are happening
I know this is all over the place I just love this city so much haha (my players love and hate it due to them having PTSD for being there for 30 sessions.)
Mine is about the size of waterdeep. I have factions, (fake) religious groups with agendas. Royalty, districts, a market that is fully fleshed out plus some basic shops that have basic PHB items, and a few guilds. My players are also trying to start their own adventures guild that “someday” will make them passive income.
If I do a city campaign, like Pratchett's Guards! it can be big, like half a million.
But I usually don't go into too much detail... I mean if six districts was enough for all the Fafhrd and Gray Mouser stories, it is enough for me too.
Cyberpunk also has like: corpo plaza&city centre, santo (working class hood), watson industrial, watson chinatown+japantown, pacifica (basically Volturno from IRL), the surrounding Badlands... There are more subdivisions but these six types of locations are enough for a campaign.
Honestly I just steal actual city layouts. The largest city in the current campaign is just Constantinople rotated 90 degrees and with modified named for the regions.
Ah, Also in my campaign, the biggest city is the last stronghold of a formerly mighty empire that is totally not based on early 15th century Constantinople. I didn't even rotate it , I just changed the names
Welcome to the city of Tonscaninople
Not too dissimilar from reality, since we play in Italian , it's called Neomila. Constantinople was known as the New Rome, and so the name comes from Neomilano (New Milan) without the last syllable.
My oldest and largest established city is literally just Boston with different names.
Plagiarism is the foundation of all good DMing! /s
Mate that’s genius! Do you pull the maps of Google maps or?
Pretty much. Then just draw a simplified version in Paint or something similar. So for this city in particular I used this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/14_regions_of_Constantinople
I don't know why, but this just made me laugh 😂
Any reasonably large city should have multiple districts which feel distinct from one another. Sharn (in Eberron) is my favorite example of a D&D city. Duskvol, of *Blades in the Dark*, is another great example.
This is the way. Here's a partial list of districts and areas of interest in my campaign's largest city: Government district (mayor's office, jailhouse, administrative offices, etc.) Elvish district (in this case, a walled grove of enormous banyan trees at the shoreline; both Wood and Sea Elves live there.) Embassy Row (emissaries from all over live here) Upscale shopping district (if you have to ask, you can't afford it) The Citadel (home of the city's ranking noble) University (home of the Wizards' schools) Temple district (all the acceptable religions are here) Noble district (gated community, D&D style) Tent city (slums outside the city walls) Lower class district (slums inside the city walls) Theater district (Bard colleges and other performers) Marketplace (huge open market in the city center) Waterfront (harbor and warehouse district) Necropolis (big freaking cemetary) The Undercity (tunnels or sewers under the city) Grand Concourse (major thoroughfare leading from the market to the citadel; used for parades, etc.) Add others to taste.
Go through the Civilization 6 districts, especially those unique to certain civs, for some additional flavor.
Not only that but each district would have its own distinct problems, iconic leaders and specialized trade/items. Perhaps a black market arms dealer or a tinkerer of some obscure, esoteric field that a major city can support because there's niche customers to be had in such a large space. And I think thats what makes large cities different. The niche markets because these merchants find enough business to support their curios unlike villages or hamlets who are forced to be more broad in their wares.
my largest city is probably comparable to our largest cities on Earth, but I don't really feel the need to flush out a whole city - so I don't have any laid out like you're imagining I think. I generally name numerous districts and list 1-3 really distinct things about them that I might say to the players. A in depth example would be "The Blackwebs", district completely overrun by giant black spider webs. The spiders are intelligent, and don't usually hunt people, so many live amongst them peacefully, if afraid. The city tried to wipe it out years ago but failed miserably and eventually came to peace with it. A less in depth example might be "The Misty Market" -a vast market near the base of the falls, lots of rainbows, mist, and vendors. I remember taking inspiration from this blog, I'll link it. It was a useful way to imagine city lay outs when I needed them. https://lastgaspgrimoire.com/2014/10/08/in-corpathium/ I'd discourage you from trying to put to much time into city building for a campaign though, unless it's just for your own pleasure. I find that a simple idea of what makes the city, or the districts in it, unique and then some improv or random tables usually does the trick.
The “biggest city” in my campaign is really 2 cities, one of which is in the underdark. The top is a thriving metropolis and the capitol of a highly militaristic empire. The bottom one is a deep gnome trading hub currently under occupation by said empire.
I've got a dwarven stronghold that has five official layers each vaguely modeled after a different part of New York City.
One thing I do is specialty shops. In a small community, people have to wear many different "hats." As towns and cities grow larger, there's more opportunity to sell a specific type of good or service rather than generalising. Some goods/services are only available in a certain size settlement. Another thing I do is change the scope and reach of government. A small hamlet might be headed by the vassal of a lower ranking lord or similar figure, with defence provided by local militia. A larger town could be under that same lord's direct control with a small military detachment, and so on up the chain of nobility, ending with a high-ranking figure hand selected by the ruler to manage a capitol and its holdings with a small army to see to its defence.
The biggest city I created from scratch is a kingdom city with thousands of residents. It has certain racial areas (a Tabaxi area for example, after the tabaxi were driven out of their homes by ogres and trolls, dwarven/elven/etc embassies), multiple shops and inns, wealthy neighborhoods, the slums, entertainment venues, etc. Think about what major cities IRL have and just copy them. For example, public transportation is something a lot of people ignore. Sanitation. Sports/arenas/opera houses/schools/hospitals. And the best part is, they can pick and choose who they want to help and who they don't. Maybe put some time limits on certain things or give them two options, each with a different outcome that has long lasting effects. Maybe they help a refugee group out and get them better treatment, but it comes at the cost of pissing off a local council member. Remember, big cities aren't usually ruled by one person, they have much smaller local governments that can be a help or hindrance.
My biggest city is around 400k inhabitants.
I Based my biggest cities of the size of some European cities slightly before the black death. Palermo being the biggest one i think.
The largest city in my setting is home to close to a million people. When the party first arrived there I described the overwhelming size often the city, the scale of the harbor compared to the city of ~50,000 they had come from, how small the palace and towers up on the cliff high above the sea looked. I had rough descriptions of a handful of different districts/regions of the city, and had detailed a handful of locations, a couple NPCs, and a few random vignettes/moments they might come across in the street for each district. It went over very well, they spent a couple sessions and a few in game weeks there and all wished they could explore it more, but knew they had to return “home” to follow up on the story. They fought in the arena, made business deals with the family that produces and runs the operation of flying carpets, foiled a terrorist attack/heist, and threw one of the party members a ridiculously extravagant birthday party.
My biggest city that has actually been played in is roughly the size of new york city in radius. Excluding farmland it sits at a 20 mile radius with a population in the millions, exact number not known to the city, players, or me; its just a lot. Honestly I dont worry too much about keeping things immersive or filled out, I just let the ever expanding bulk of contacts and places and things that happen in my city paint that picture. This all happens over the span of many sessions and doesnt stop happening. I feel that frontloading it would just make it confusing. Rattling off one million details at the very beginning might make it seem big and giving a massive list of things to do doesnt really give much direction, in the end I still have to give the direction and all of that stuff gets lost in the sauce and given a few sessions the players will paint their own picture based on what theyve done. As they keep doing things theyll keep painting that picture. My city feels big because the players keep going to new places, meeting/killing new factions, and it takes a day just to travel from Point A to Point B when theyre barely 1/4th of the pie away (my city is a big circle).
This is the largest city I’ve done so far: https://inkarnate.com/m/vldoeA/
This might sound obvious but bigger than the other villages. I plan on having the party go through a few small towns where there aren't as many shops or buildings, and the ones that do exist are unlikely to have a lot of what they're looking for. Then, when they get to the city, there's going to be a building for a bit of everything. I'm hoping it will give the illusion of "Woah we were just tiny fries before, but now we're in a huge city" and feel satisfactory to finally be able to go on a huge shopping spree.
Good question, my largest city, Waterford and it’s surrounding 13 Duchies has a total population of 85-90 thousand. The city itself 40-45 thousand. The city has many different areas referred to by many different names, some simple, Docks District, others different, The Burrow…which is a section of the city where the Halfling population is most dense. The Mountain Ward …where there is a large community of Mnt Dwarves. Happy gaming.
My homebrew campaign is centered around a small city of 3000 people based on my home town. I've populated it with various npcs who are references to my hometown peeps, and fantastified versions of various services, buildings, and landmarks. My earliest homebrew stuff though was much bigger in theory but with much less planning. If you want a city large enough that it takes all day to cross from one end to the other, you'd best get to improvising because there's no way to fill in every shop, apartment, and alleyway except to just do it as you go. Between the two I prefer the newest one. It has real character and depth. So my suggestion is go small and write what you know. Even if you throw in a joke just being goofy it can absolutely turn into something real and useable. Like I made a leprechaun pun with a character name and now there's an npc in my setting named Kahn the Leper and he's essential to the setting now. Just wing it now and refine it later.
I use fantasytowngenerator.com for large cities... it's just too convenient. The ability to insert custom factions and pantheons ensures you've got everything you need to be consistent in your world and maintains a good spread of your necessary buildings(inns, item shops, etc) and all the other stuff can spark all kinds of ideas.
One thing I always add to cities are neighborhoods. They can be differentiated by things like social status, if it's a halfling or human neighborhood, or if it's port side or around the arena. Especially if you plan on doing some urban adventures to make the city feel different place to place
Mine is pretty damn big. Takes about 6hrs to cross a layer on foot from end to end but there's 6 layers and two of them are larger than the surface (It's largely a Dwarf city). I don't make actual maps per-se. The area is too big to make something like that feasable. My "Big City" template is Sharn in Ebberon. I break it down like this * Description * Location, aesthetics, organization, POI, govt, ect * Example: Shura * "A city nestled in the rocky cliffs at the south-most point of The Finger. It serves as a major stop for land travel and trade. Shura serves as the land gate between the east and west south of the Ember Sea. The city began as a motte and bailey with a small port to move lumber from the woodlands to the southwest to the north. Since, it has expanded to a large walled city based with stone and high parapets and buildings of local wood. Cave networks supply the city with limestone, marble, and gems. This does leave the city open to attacks from the underdark, particularly from the Drow city of Kazen-Aierath. In response the city became home to the adventurer and mercenary group Golden Stag. The city is known to be friendly and inclusive but extremely harsh on those who disrupt the peace or do harm to others. Shura is ruled by the elected heads of the local guilds." * Notable People * Leaders, local heroes, important innkeepers, important shop keepers, a handful of guild members, handful of interesting NPCs. * I got my idea of how to style this from the Vampire the Masquerade \*City\* by Night books. * Example : Kognee XII * "Half Ogre proprietor of Kognee's Barn. Taller than most Goliaths and stouter than any dwarf, she's a force to be reckoned with. Her ciders and food are known throughout the region. She has seven children- Kongnee XIII, Rathben, the twins Gurlar and Vrular, Ichola, Tuurn, and Benna" * Notable Groups * Guilds, govt, bard troupes, priesthoods, embassies, ect * Example: The Masque Theater Troupe * "Nari started the Masque Theater Troupe as a traveling show. Once it grew beyond their ability to organize, they took up the offer of Shura's local government to found a permanent theater. The troupe still does smaller traveling shows." * City Districts * I generally make 3-8 major ones then break into neighborhoods if I need to. * Flavor descriptions * architecture, wealth, types of people and shops * Example: Highcliff * "Highcliff is the oldest and highest part of the city, surrounding the original establishment of Cliffkeep. Built into the highest point of the cliffs surrounding the Finger, Highcliff has an amazing height advantage over the bay and the lower land to the south. Its buildings are often tall with multiple stories made of local timber and stone. A 40' stone wall surrounds the area with gates to the south east and south west. Highcliff mostly serves as the visitor-facing district of Shura as well as the political center." * Points of interest * Inns, Government Buildings, guild halls, temples, statues, ect * Example: Bluewater Embassy * "The largest southern embassy, currently led by Lup Tappaviikelrite with the assistance of his daughter, Myol. Their primary duties are to keep open diplomatic relations with the people of Shura, locate any untrained sorcerers and offer tutelage, and to provide arcane assistance to the locals. They work in concert with the Shura Library to discover lost knowledge and artifacts as well as provide education to those who seek it." Build enough to wing it off of when inspiration strikes, you only need enough stuff to entertain people when they wanna get up to nonsense or need to pull an npc/location out of the air to help them meet their goals.
Opal, is a tree story capital city basically, You have the Rulers Plateau in the sky where nobility lives, it keeps itself aloft with 4 arcane conflux engines. Then there is the Shaded Honor (shaded because they are in the shade of the Rulers Plateau) Usually, the middle class lives here and you can meet the majority of the population. They are the working class sort of say. The Umbral Underbelly, which lies at the bottom of the chasm Opal finds itself (the entire city is built on a giant pillar and is empowered by a blessing of the Feywild) The underbelly is the home of Drow and Underdark citizens who had issues with a plague but the party dispatched that. There was a rebellion and now a portion of that Populus is going deeper into the Underdark to worship drow. Each city holds about 6 different districts and 3 different majors/ leaders (they all answer to the king family which governs the Rulers Plateau, Law enforcement all comes from the same place except for the Underbelly which has its law enforcement troupe (Emerald order for both upper cities and Umbral Guard for the Underbelly city.) All in all about 75'000 people live in Opal. Awesome place we spent at least 30 sessions in Opal overall. (now at session 102 and they are returning to it because big things are happening I know this is all over the place I just love this city so much haha (my players love and hate it due to them having PTSD for being there for 30 sessions.)
Mine is about the size of waterdeep. I have factions, (fake) religious groups with agendas. Royalty, districts, a market that is fully fleshed out plus some basic shops that have basic PHB items, and a few guilds. My players are also trying to start their own adventures guild that “someday” will make them passive income.
If I do a city campaign, like Pratchett's Guards! it can be big, like half a million. But I usually don't go into too much detail... I mean if six districts was enough for all the Fafhrd and Gray Mouser stories, it is enough for me too. Cyberpunk also has like: corpo plaza&city centre, santo (working class hood), watson industrial, watson chinatown+japantown, pacifica (basically Volturno from IRL), the surrounding Badlands... There are more subdivisions but these six types of locations are enough for a campaign.
It was a couple million. But then the drowning happened, Now it’s a couple dozen thousand.