Il Podesta ("podsim" for short) is a basic settlement simulator/generator for RPGs. Written in Rust.
I've been running D&D games for several years, and I like to give the players a rich world to explore, where the town is more than just a single shopkeeper and bed in between dungeon trips. To that end, I created a settlement generator in Excel a few years back, but gave up on it as I began experimenting more with how my world worked: one struggle was to provide options for me to generate a settlement randomly from scratch and other options to create a settlement gradually, allowing myself to be involved. Furthermore, one crucial issue was not resolved: the settlement only came into existence once the party needed to visit. Before then, there might as well have not been anything on the spot.
podsim is a big project to solve those issues and recreate the generator in Rust. It creates a "blank" settlement to begin with on a particular terrain, then prompts the user to get involved at their leisure as it grows and develops. New quarters (essentially neighbourhoods) are constructed, filled with many people and buildings. Heroes, bags loaded with gold and rare items may make their way into the settlement, only to disappear years later. Strange and wonderful events take place each year, each one recorded in the history of the settlement.
podsim is a WIP and will not be complete for many months. I've chosen to keep the repository publicly available in case anyone interested stumbles upon it and wishes to provide comments, insight or constructive criticism.
The Italian word "podestà" refers to "certain high officials in many Italian cities beginning in the later Middle Ages" (Wikipedia), typically the chief magistrate or the local imperial administrator. Since podsim is about generating and managing towns or cities (and the default data files create late medieval fantasy cities), it seemed like a fitting name.