Sketches – City Neu Blarfstat am der Zee

Neu Blarfstat was one of the older cities in Groenvelt, one of several industrial port towns that had come into existence during the industrial revolution. As the beginnings of modern chemistry, metallurgy and power generation took root, more and better shipping became paramount, and the small fishing village of Blarf found its old industries of fishing and sitting around being replaced by shipping and chemical processing. The new city quickly grew on the south side of the river, quickly outstripping the small town in size and smell.

As technology advanced, rail lines were replaced by maglevs, and ocean freight soon found itself being replaced by suborbital cargo lifters (small starship-sized cargo ships optimized for atmospheric flight and quick loading and unloading). The former shipping docks were reinforced and rebuilt as cargo pads, and the harbor soon found itself empty of large ocean-going freighters.

Oh. This city. I’d actually forgotten that I had even done this little sketch until I scanned it in. Like the other city I doodled, it was done during a bit of downtime during a D&D session. This was the first one I actually drew, and it’s name came from a random comment during the session. Yes, someone actually called a place Blarfstat. And so I chose to run with it, at least for now. I might change the name in the future, or just make it so that this place is at best a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it kind of a place. We’ll see.