When discussing cities that use canals for transport the first one mentioned is usually Venice, Italy. But there are many cities of canals throughout the world: St. Petersburg, Russia; Amsterdam, Netherlands; Suzhou, China; Cape Coral, Florida, USA; and Tigre, Argentina are just some of the other cities of canals that offer unique opportunities for presentation and adventure in your campaign.
Water Transport
Canal cities mean sometimes the primary or fastest ways to get across the city is over water, rather than land. This can present different dynamics to transporting goods or chases, adding both the danger of being sunk as if on open water, while still being relatively contained as if on a street. Cities offering both street and waterway travel can lead to sequences of constant swappping, keeping players on their toes or slowing them down as they re-adjust their sense of navigation. In other cities, waterways may be so clogged with traffic that running (or parkour) would be a more viable option in a chase or getaway.
Flooding
As with many cities built in watery areas, canal cities can be prone to flooding. Venice, for example, features a season of flooding in the fall where it floods almost daily in November in an event called acqua alta. As the residents in canal cities are more used to waterway travel, boat ownership is likely more prevalent, so a flood can be seen as more of an inconvenience than a catastrophe. Visitors to a city during floods may find the additional water a greater challenge. And, during a flooding season it’s wise to have the proper footwear.
Living City Atop Sunken City
Most cities are built on top of the ruins of older cities or have an underground system that reflects a previous era. For some canal cities, as the tide rose previous entryways and parts of buildings remained underwater, leaving behind a sunken city. These city remnants could be used as entryways into the above-water city or temporary hiding places for goods or people—provided they can be protected from the surrounding water.
Food and Sundries
Depending on their canal cities may have the same issues that are present in any small island city or town, namely that resources are not natural to the city or its surrounding area and must be imported. In such situations the majority of foods and goods will have an inflated cost, due to demand and import fees.
In Fantasy
Canal cities are rare, but not unknown to fantasy games. Pathfinder has Westcrown in Cheliax. Dungeons & Dragons’ Forgotten Realms offers a canal city of Eltabbar. In a world of various races, canal cities may offer new ways to have sapient and intelligent water-living races interact on a daily basis with land-dwelling races; merfolk may inhabit a sunken city below the humans. Trade, politics, and adventures could occur in a combination of over overland and underwater. If the city is under attack, characters may be defending a single point from the skies, land, and underwater all at once.
In Sci-Fi
Sci-fi offers many of the same possibilities as fantasy regarding canal cities, with tech substituting (or accentuating) magic. Cities could be shared with water and land races, but tech offers more opportunity for unique underwater domiciles for even those who can’t survive for long periods underwater. Some canal cities could feature heady skyscrapers and deep undercities, with the cost of living rising the further from land one lives. Depending on the tech, vehicular travel in these canal cities could be so thick that traffic and navigation requires horizontal and vertical examination.
In Post-Apocalypse
A post-apocalypse set in a canal city may feature a permanently flooded city with little technology or not enough resources to rebuild higher. The water damage would cause additional degradation to the city, and few citizens would be likely to stay for long. Unless, of course, the water itself has become poisonous or the problems of living in a dying canal city are protections from the problems outside of it—for now. A zombie apocalypse might feature boiling water spots and water-logged zombies who weigh too much to escape the canals in and around the city.
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