Bath Imaginable

This weekend I visited Montreal for the first time and spent most of it wandering around aimlessly looking at the sites. Overall I was very charmed. At times I was overwhelmed.

I thought a lot about Electric Bastionland.

I thought about the different routes we took, the strange and wonderful encounters we had, and when I got home I decided to work on a Montreal-inspired, mountain borough for Electric Bastionland.

Of course, this Mountain Borough will be based on a hazy weekend impression of a major city, not the city itself. But I think that’s how the designer intended the game to feel.

For now, all I have are my routes.

Subway (to Bastion). Leads deeper into the city, a starting point (or exit).

Subway & Streetcar. Fast, unreliable, and mostly underground. Easy to get lost. Connects to borough’s underground.

Broken Gondola & Bike Path. The gondola used to get you up the mountain pretty fast, but now people bike below it.

Canal. Runs throughout the borough, connects the mountain lake to the coast.

Highway Tunnel (to Deep Country). A claustrophobic, noisy tunnel lined with crumbling tiles.

I never made it to the top of Mount Royal in real life, so I can’t say for sure what’s there, but in this borough its an abandoned museum (abandoned because the gondola is broken, of course) and clubhouse for loud youths.

I want to define some factions before I commit to any locations on my map. I’m thinking there’s 3 big players in this so-far-unnamed mountain borough.

Mountain Broadcasting Company. Revolutionary youths broadcast weird hypnoses over radio waves. Recently they stole machine parts from the Union. They’re funded by the Syndicate through fronts throughout the borough.

Machinists’ Union. Consultants ritualistically rearranging the tangled wires of the broken-down gondola and interpreting divine providence from their everchanging conduction patterns. They’re contractually funded by the City of Bastion for another half-century.

Canal Syndicate. The Canal is ruled by subterranean monsters hoarding treasure in the Underground. They deal in hallucinogenic river eels and smuggled goods. Recently they sabotaged the Highway Tunnel to seize control of the borough.

So each faction probably has a headquarters on here somewhere. The Mountain Broadcasting Company obviously operates out of the abandoned museum at the top of the mountain, the radio tower is built on the roof.

It seems only natural that the Machinists’ Union would have their headquarters near the gondola? Well, it was probably cheaper to rent offices further from the canal and they’re in no hurry to get the gondola working so I’m going to put them in the bottom left corner of the map in some distant warehouse and they commute on bike each morning with all their equipment on their backs.

The Canal Syndicate will operate at the northernmost intersection of the subway/streetcar and the canal, giving them access to both the canal and the underground. I’m thinking most of their territory will be sketchy storefronts with hidden stairs to the underground.