A city for my campaign

[thebax2k]

Glad you found a couple of ideas you could use Loogie. As I said, I'm curious to see how your city turns out.

One additional thought, since nothing in the city is quite what it seems to be, why not have the surrounding wilderness follow the same theme as well? The pc may have been told that the frontier is dark, untamed, brooding, savage wildlands that must be conquered and controlled. However, on a deeper look he may find it a place that holds allies, hints that things are not quite what he thinks them to be, and a final reveal that far from civilizing, the city is despoiling the lands around it. Megaliths, stone circles, eldritch ruins from civilizations long past would be perfect to hide in the deep wilderness.

Perhaps very deep in the wilderness is a site sacred to the evil deity the merchant follows? (Which is why the city may have been secretly founded in the first place--the city dwellers think they are settling the frontier, but are really there to provide sacrifices, slaves, soldiers, and workers for when the evil deity's site is fully empowered and/or the deity is released--I'd suggest that the pc dealing with the merchant and fort be low to mid level adventures, while taking out the remote site and possibly traveling to the planes where the deity is imprisoned should be APL 12+.)