I had originally planned to do a post on the HSS History’s Hope this week but I’m not quite ready for that. Instead, I’m giving you the outlines of a small town on Pale, Myha’s Beach. While I developed this as part of my Star Frontiers campaign, you could easily drop this town on to any world in any game.
Location
In my game, Myha’s Beach is located about 300-400km east of Point True on the sea coast. Here’s a map of the region around Point True.
I can’t seem to find where I recorded it, but I believe each of those grid boxes are either 300 or 350 km on a side.
History
Myha’s Beach started as a small fishing village founded shortly after the sathar were driven out of the Frontier. The village was built about five kilometers south of the crater left from the sathar’s destruction of a former costal city.
Not long after the basic city infrastructure was in place, the small town became a favorite beach destination for vacationers wanting to get away from Point True. The waters are warm and clear as the spur of land to the north keeps the cooler arctic waters from flowing into the bay. The city has embraced this role and now tourism employs a major portion of the city’s workforce.
About a decade after the city was founded, Streel decided to get into the shipbuilding industry and brokered a deal with the city to open a shipyard some 10 kilometers to the south of the city proper. This caused the city’s population to grow once again as the shipyard workers moved to Myha’ Beach and more services grew up to support the new citizens.
City Layout
Myha’s Beach is a long narrow city that sprawls out along the seacoast. The original village lies toward the northern end of the current town. The original marina is still in use. As the tpwn began to grow, it was originally small, 4-10 room hotels that were built both north and south of the original village, with almost everything built with access to the beach. This region of small hotels and private residences comprises the northern 3-4 kilometers of the town, centered on the now historic original village center and marina.
With the construction of the Streel shipyards to the south of the town, the town’s growth began to shift more in that direction with new residential and commercial districts being built southward with the residences on the beach and the commercial districts more inland. While growth continued to the north, it slowed considerably. At this same time, several large resort-style hotels were built on large swaths of the beach south of the existing city.
The city’s growth northward was effectively halted in FY18 with the construction of Brekstoone Manor. The manor is simply referred to as Observatory Manor by the locals, due to the large observatory dome on the manor’s north tower. The Brekstoone family secured a large tract of land that ran from the sea several kilometers inland on which they built the manor. With no more room northward to grow, the town continued to grow southward.
The 3-4 kilometers around the initial resort hotels was zoned for more of the same while the area between these large hotels and the Streel shipyards was reserved for the smaller hotels and residences. As this area filled in the city began to grow inland from the seashore with more commercial and residential areas to support the growing resident and tourist population.
In FY36 a small spaceport was built about 30 kilometers inland from the town to reduce the noise and air traffic impact on the town. This allows offworld visitors to come straight to Myha’s Beach instead of having to go to Point True first.
Current Population
The current resident population of Myha’s Beach is about 20,000. It is about 55% human, 20% yazirian, 15% vrusk, 9% dralasite and the remaining 1% made up of Rim and other races. In addition to the residents, the city supports between 20 to 40 thousand visitors, depending on the time of year.
About 5% of the resident population work at the Streel shipyards. Another 10% work in the town’s still thriving fishing industry supplying fresh seafood to both the local residents and tourists but also to Point True. A quarter of the resident population works directly in the tourist industry running shops, hotels, equipment rentals, and as guides both to the ocean and the inland areas. The remaining population works all of the support industries including city services, maintenance, restaurants, and stores that keep the city running.
Your thoughts?
That’s the city of Myha’s Beach. What other details would you like to see in a city write-up like this? Do you have any suggestions for other things that should be included or discussed? Let me know in the comments below.