The City

Well, hopefully you’ve read the How To Play that is on the game server and you already have some idea of how the city is laid out. I’ll reprint the text here for you so we have a base to start with and then elaborate on that to give you a more thorough understanding of the details.

The city has 100 streets crossed by 100 streets; the streets in one direction are numbered, those in the other are named in near-alphabetical order; the first fifty are alphabetical trees and animals, the second half are alphabetical minerals and malaise. Navigation is, therefore, mostly quite easy. NOTE! They are not in alphabetical order, they are in two sets from A-Z, one in the west half, one in the east. As a vampire, you stalk the humans on the streets. If there are many vampires gathered within a single square, no more can move there until it's cleared out. Streets are indicated by grey squares, with signs at the intersections. Black squares between streets indicate blocks of buildings, which you can pass through in the alleyways. Blue squares indicate impassable regions - either they are overcrowded, on the edge of the city, or some other reason.

I also address this in the FAQ, so I’ll explain it using the same info I do in that document.

Ok, let’s start with the first bit about the number of streets and their names. First, you should get a map. There ought to be one available right here.

Obviously they run in numeric order from top to bottom, so it’s 1st street and in order to 100th street. Then there is the tricky bit. The named ones.

The 100 named streets run in alphabetical order of sorts. First divide the city in half. Then figure two streets for each letter of the alphabet, except the letter "X". The first half of the city is animals and trees. The second half is stones and moods.

So in the first half, the west side, it starts "Aardvark" (a type of animal) "Alder" (a tree) "Buzzard" (animal) "Beech" (tree) and so on through "Zebra" and "Zelkova". So in order of animal, tree, animal, tree, all through the first alphabet side, skipping "X".

The second half of the city, the east side, is stones and a variety of negative emotional states. Like the west side, they always follow the pattern of stone, mood, stone, mood. So after "Zelkova" from the west side is "Amethyst" (stone), "Anguish" (mood), "Beryl" (stone), "Bleak" (mood) and so forth until "Zinc" and "Zestless", skipping "X".

Now, if you look at your vampire on the map view when you log in you will note that each street is actually two squares. The ‘street’ square in gray and the ‘alleyway’ square in black. This applies to both the numbered streets running top to bottom (or North to South), and the named streets running left to right (or West to East). There’s an important point on addressing here, so pay attention…

When you are given an address in the city, with only a couple exceptions for powers quests, it is always in the black square bottom right of the actual streets intersection, or the South East square of the streets.

You’ll note how if someone tells you a bank address of Yew and 4th, when you get there, you go into the black square with the little blue sign declaring it a bank, putting the actual streets of Yew to your left and 4th up above. That black building/alleyway is where all buildings or shops or guilds will be located when you get an address, usually with a sign.

As for the part about ‘blue’ or ‘overcrowded’ squares, this is the result of many vampires, I believe seven, occupying that square and it becomes impassable to you without a special power. You can actually use a SoTurn to ‘clear’ the blocked square and then get into it, but those cost coins and the power ‘Surprise’ makes this much easier. We get to items and powers later.

Also, note that humans do not add to the square’s possibility of ‘bluing out’. There could be five humans in one square and four pires, but it would still be passable. Of course, if you luck upon five humans in one square I’ll be impressed. That’s pretty rare. At this point I ought to mention that vampires ‘Lost in Shadows’ do add to the possibility of a blue square.

Oh yes. A last remark. Many people call this fair city RavenBlack City, but it’s worth noting that it has no official name. Raven Black has not and refuses to name the city, so you may call it whatever you wish. I usually just name it the City. But lets get on to the buildings I keep talking about.