Planning "Sokka's Eleven" - Part 3
Last time, we got into heavy details about what Sokka's team would look like. I still had one slot to fill with a couple more that weren't yet completely certain, and people gave me some great suggestions to work with. However, I'd like to step away from that now without finalizing the team. I do have an idea of what I think the final team will look like, but I'd rather not set it into stone until I flesh out more of the plot and The Plot. So let's get started with that by looking at the foundation of the story- the setting.
Ideally, the setting of a story is a good reflection of its themes while also providing lots of elements that can be used and abused by the plot. I've written stories that basically just inherited a setting from some element of canon, and also stories where I had to create my own setting but basically did just a new take on a something known like "Earth Kingdom city." For this story, though, I'm going to be diving into something completely new. That is, of course, the steampunk casino.
My original idea was to have the casino be right next to Ba Sing Se. There would be a contrast between the hedonistic environment of the casino, and the regimented culture in Ba Sing Se. The casino would have been on an island in Full Moon Bay, and the island itself would have been an artificial structure of ice maintained by Waterbenders. For, you see, the casino and the island were to be owned by the Northern Water Tribe. This came from my vision for the casino's owner, someone who would contrast against Sokka while also sharing many similarities, and Sokka's old relationship with Yue would be part of the mental journey he takes in the story. Thus, I decided that the casino would be part of a new trend in the world for the Nations to have stronger ties with each other, culminating in the Northern Water Tribe buying the rights to open a floating casino next to the Earth Kingdom's capital, where they could glorify their own culture and sell a "theme park" version of their lifestyle to wealthy patrons. This would play into what I see as an essential element of a major casino- the fantasy facade that allows people to separate their actions from consequences. Casinos make money by getting people to indulge in luxuries they can't afford, and play games that are mathematically designed to profit the house in the long run. Thus, this casino would be the same thing, trading in the image of the Water Tribes- with furs on display and guards carrying bone clubs and blubber-based delicacies in the dining rooms- except altered to fit foreign tastes and used to cover a modern and emotionally dead business.
The island itself, as I mentioned, would be made of ice. There would be a staff of Waterbenders who work in shifts to keep the ice from melting, and naturally that had me wondering if part of Sokka's robbery plot should be to either sink the casino or simply make it seem like it would sink. I wavered on whether the casino building itself should be an ice-palace, or just certain parts of it. I think, if you're not from one of the Water Tribes, living in an icebox would get old quickly. However, even if other materials were involved, I still planned it to like like an Ice Palace in style. Then I began to wonder if the whole idea of an ice-island in a temperate zone would be too unrealistic. Besides, Ba Sing Se itself wasn't going to factor too heavily into things.
So, since taking this whole concept back off the shelf, another concept occurred to me. What if, in the same way that the United States government granted land to the Native Americans where they could run their own mini-nations, the Fire Nation gave an island to the Water Tribes? It could be recompense for their losses during the war from Zuko, one of the outer-most islands in the Fire Nation without any great amount of natural resources. And then the two Tribes worked together to, like the Native Americans, use the advantage of the lack of gambling laws and taxes to make casino resorts where the rest of the world could spend their money. The island would be jointly owned by the two Tribes, but the casino in question that Sokka is targeting would belong to the Northern Tribe, and be run by that rival I was planning for him. Perhaps his public justification is some business deal that went sour for the Southern Tribe, and so he's merely taking back what his people are due? That could work.
This also invokes the feel of Las Vegas itself, the setting of all but one of the "Ocean's Eleven" movies. Vegas was nothing but a strip of desert that was developed to be a paradise of vice, and has seen its fortunes rise and fall based on how much of that vice is available elsewhere.
This would change the nature of the casino itself, in my mind, because now the island has a Fire Nation legacy, and since it's not made of ice it no longer screams "Water Tribe" to its very foundation. I began to think more that the island could boast several destinations, with some aspect of all Four Nations referenced. There could be one casino that is faux-Fire Nation, one that's a mini-version of Ba Sing Se's Upper Ring, and of course more than a few that try to sell the "authentic Water Tribe experience." Perhaps the casino Sokka means to rob has a full Four Nations thing going, but in as untactful a way as possible. The Water Tribe wing would play up the spectacle of Barbarian life, there would be a Fire Nation wing that uses the exotic feel while stripping away the color red and any actual references to the Fire Nation itself, an Air Nomad wing where "Historic Airbender Meat Sticks" are served in cafes made to look like Temples, and an Earth Kingdom wing that mashes together the Upper Ring with Gaoling and Omashu and treats that like the full spectrum of the nation's culture.
Pretty unsympathetic, huh?
So, now it's time to envision some of the specific settings for the story. The casino we see the most of is the one Sokka is going to rob, so that's the one we need to nail the details down on. I'm thinking, given the "Four Nations" theme, that the rooms would offer a similar variety and divide. Each floor, or group of floors, of the hotel would be a different Nation. I'm thinking that Sokka's crew is going to make a suite in that hotel into their main base of operations, but which nation should I give them? I can see any of the choices working, from the "wrongness" of the Water Tribe style to the discomfort that would come from staying in a Fire Nation room in a Water Tribe casino.
Speaking of the casino, I'm thinking that the main casino floor would be the one area where the different national styles would be mixed, because that's where the owner wants everyone to congregate. The games themselves would need to have a strong Avatar flavor in order to keep this from getting too real-worldy. We saw dice in "Zuko Alone," and another game in "The Runaway" where a series of sticks are tossed on the ground in a similar concept. In my research, I found that Sic Bo is a ancient Chinese dice game that is played even in Western casinos today, and likewise Pai Gow is a tile game with a long history, and in casinos today they play something called Pai Gow Poker. Likewise, the four-player variant of Mahjong is a good substitute for card-game tables. In the very first episode of Avatar, we saw Iroh playing a solitaire-like game with tiles, so that's an established root, and in one of my short stories I created a fantasy Fire Nation version of blackjack that readers seemed to like.
In addition to that kind of thing, I'm thinking that we need some games that are brand-new stuff invented at the Northern Air Temple. Slot machines, for instance? Teo is on Sokka's team to help subvert security, but I think it would be neat if the team has to fix some games at some point and more than Toph's bending abilities were needed. I mean, people in the Fire Nation picked up on her cheating, so perhaps a subtler touch would be needed, and Teo provides the cheating devices. The only trouble is that breaking a machine without really saying how it works doesn't have a lot of payoff, but detailing how a pair of dice are filled with metal and moved with magnets, or a device is crafted to alter a carved tile is more interesting.
So, that's the beginning thoughts on the casino floor. I need to come up with some more specifics about the games, what the servants look like (girls in fur bikinis, boys in Agni Kai pants?), and how the security is maintained. (Obscure telescopes and observers, I'm thinking for a start, but Bending has to be guarded against as well.)
Let's come up with other sites in and around the main casino complex. Remember, this isn't just a casino, it's a resort.
The casino itself needs to be tall. I'm still thinking an Ice Palace motif for the outside, but made out of materials from the other nations. The upper floors are the hotel and conference rooms, and my original plans for the Ice Palace called for a special Northern Water Tribe museum at one of the top floors. Not sure if I'm still including that, as it depends strongly on the exact story beats I give to Sokka's little growing-up quest. The casino and main entertainment facilities are the ground floor and the floors right above them, with security centers nestled in there to watch the casino below. Some of the entertainment facilities are in a few unconnected buildings on the overall grounds, as well. The basement is where the BIG VAULT is kept, and has been specially constructed and set into the sand to be impregnable. Details on that are being withheld, as I haven't fully created Sokka's The Plot yet, and both the security and the means of subverting it need to be created in unison.
This is a tall building, but the owners don't expect guests to ascend stairs to the highest floors. Being an island, there's lots of water to spare, so while the Northern Air Temple seemed to use smoggy air to launch elevators, I think real steam can be used here. In fact, this whole facility might take "steampunk" to a new level. It could have special glass tubes running up along the outside, through which steam is pressure-piped all throughout the building, to power elevators and other mechanical features. The numerous saunas would, of course, be a natural sell with something like that, as would purified water. The trick here is going to be avoiding using this as an excuse to just stick modern amenities into the Avatar world. We need fantastical stuff, mechanical stuff that we don't have in our world, like a moving room with rotating and sinking platforms upon which champion martial artists battle for audiences. Although, you don't even need steam for something like that, you could use plain water, especially with plenty of Waterbenders on staff.
On that note, I'm thinking the general gambling will extend to fighting arenas. Both martial artists and animals. Perhaps some gladiatorial-like venues, with a bunch of warriors teaming up against a giant feral animal. Depends on how dark and "evil" I decide to take things.
Back to the main casino, we have a moving fighting room, something to make Pro-Bending look lame. Flying arena, of course, that uses heated air currents to propel gliders so that patrons can pretend that they're Airbenders. Steam-powered environment-friendly watercraft can be rented to patrons to cruise the seas. (After all, the Fire Nation had jet skis in the cartoon that sounded like they used internal combustion engines.) Exercise facilities could make use of steam-powered machinery. Of course, steam bars could offer all kinds of crazy hybrid shellfish to gourmets. Heck, we could even have "natural" concert halls where all of the steam pipes hum and moan for an audience, or crazy new woodwind instruments could be powered indefinitely for any audience that wants to wander in.
Some of the mechanical gambling machines would have to be steam-powered, of course. Perhaps cutting off the flow of steam pressure can be used to cheat at some of the games. But then a Waterbender would be able to really wreck things... unless the steam workings of the machines are hidden, and they would need precise knowledge of the paths and pressure requirements to influence things? And thus acquiring that specific knowledge can be a subplot, especially if Teo's own knowledge is limited to the prototypes and not the later, more efficient iterations of the tech. I've really got to start considering what some of these games would look like.
There has to be at least one entertainment showroom, like stages and concert halls and such. I think the decor in these should be changeable, to match the nation or signature of where ever the main act is from. One of the permanent features is a big budget Magic Show, featuring white Tigerdillos, of course. Some of these showrooms are going to be real auditoriums, but others are cafes arranged around a stage. Perhaps our Firebender magician Malu, who was considered for Sokka's team in our last blog post, might be working one of these lesser stages.
There should be spas, perhaps one in each national style. Swimming pools for the hotel, with a really fancy one on the roof. (Depending on how fancy, I might want Sokka's plan to somehow wind up wrecking the place and draining the pool.) A neat idea is a set of luxury conference rooms that wealthy Fire Nation nobles use to meet with Earth Kingdom business men, thus providing comfortable neutral territory for the two formerly warring nations to begin talks of trade. Vegas itself is also a convention capital, so perhaps there's a big convention center? Free-standing, or part of our target casino/hotel/resort? I'm not sure what kind of conventions there could be in the ATLA world, unless the Northern Air Temple wanted to meet with the military tech people from the Fire Nation. But that's more of a one-on-one type of thing. Perhaps one or both do expos where the new technology is shown off to merchants and wealthy nobles for investment? That's an interesting idea.
The entire coastline of the island would, of course, be a beach. In keeping with the corrupt nature of the island, I think that the beaches in front of each hotel/casino should be owned by that hotel, and you can't hang there without a "beach badge" declaring you a paying patron of the hotel. This, of course, really hurts the hotels that don't have seaside property, which could be the basis of our Northern/Southern conflict. That brings up the point of who actually owns all of these establishments. I want it to be private ownership, so that Sokka's rival is the one really being hurt by the big theft, but each Tribe would of course help and back its own members, in exchange for tax percentages. The island itself is run by a council of the property owners, with one or more representatives directly from each Tribe's leadership to make sure everything is on the up and up, and measures are passed by voting. So, if more Northern people own property on the island, they have a voting block that is difficult to beat. There wouldn’t be any laws like, "Southern Water Tribe people can't own property large than yadda yadda," but someone from the Northern Tribe is going to back a buddy over someone from the Southern Tribe, when it comes to disputes.
So the island would also boast lesser hotels and casinos, perhaps some offering more authentic cultural experiences, or just doing away with the glitz and offering plain ol' gambling. That brings up the idea of different neighborhoods on the island, with a "strip" of the biggest and the brightest, and then buildings of lesser theater as you move away from it. But that doesn't fit with our coastal property deal. So perhaps it's the edges of the island with the biggest and the best, and as you move inland, things get poorer. Perhaps the core of the island is a bunch of low-rent neighborhoods where the casino workers live. Alternatively, if we don't want something that neat, we can play with the coastline, make some parts of it real beach and others giant cliffs far above the water. Some can be made into tourist attractions, or perhaps the casino workers live in vertical cities up along several of the cliffs, using rope elevators and sulfur vents to move up and down in a Northern Air Temple-style residence.
The lesser buildings on the island should be made of plain old wood, but the more expensive buildings brought in Earthbender craftsmen to make something fantastic. One hotel could be a Sand Castle, made from solidified sand. Another could be made from heavy volcanic stones drawn out of the depths of the island's land. Of course, various materials can be imported from the nearby Fire Nation. The most expensive buildings could use rare imported materials from the deep Earth Kingdom.
Incidentally, if you're wondering how all of this is being paid for, I think the Northern Water Tribe could be quite rich. Rufftoon's "Water Tribe" comic showed them with their own mining industry, albeit with lesser metals, but what if they were sitting on a gold mine for a hundred years and no one to trade with until the war ended? Or perhaps there are some Ba Sing Se investors who are ultimately seeing the profits from the island. I'm not sure these details will come into the story, but it's worth keeping them in mind.
If anyone wants to do art based on any of this, feel free, I'll happily credit you when I steal your ideas. ;) Likewise, feel free to speculate based on any of the stuff I've listed here, or toss in your own ideas.
Next time, we'll flehs out some more details of the casino, including more of the security and the vault, and get into the characters who work and own the place, starting with Sokka's rival.
Ideally, the setting of a story is a good reflection of its themes while also providing lots of elements that can be used and abused by the plot. I've written stories that basically just inherited a setting from some element of canon, and also stories where I had to create my own setting but basically did just a new take on a something known like "Earth Kingdom city." For this story, though, I'm going to be diving into something completely new. That is, of course, the steampunk casino.
My original idea was to have the casino be right next to Ba Sing Se. There would be a contrast between the hedonistic environment of the casino, and the regimented culture in Ba Sing Se. The casino would have been on an island in Full Moon Bay, and the island itself would have been an artificial structure of ice maintained by Waterbenders. For, you see, the casino and the island were to be owned by the Northern Water Tribe. This came from my vision for the casino's owner, someone who would contrast against Sokka while also sharing many similarities, and Sokka's old relationship with Yue would be part of the mental journey he takes in the story. Thus, I decided that the casino would be part of a new trend in the world for the Nations to have stronger ties with each other, culminating in the Northern Water Tribe buying the rights to open a floating casino next to the Earth Kingdom's capital, where they could glorify their own culture and sell a "theme park" version of their lifestyle to wealthy patrons. This would play into what I see as an essential element of a major casino- the fantasy facade that allows people to separate their actions from consequences. Casinos make money by getting people to indulge in luxuries they can't afford, and play games that are mathematically designed to profit the house in the long run. Thus, this casino would be the same thing, trading in the image of the Water Tribes- with furs on display and guards carrying bone clubs and blubber-based delicacies in the dining rooms- except altered to fit foreign tastes and used to cover a modern and emotionally dead business.
The island itself, as I mentioned, would be made of ice. There would be a staff of Waterbenders who work in shifts to keep the ice from melting, and naturally that had me wondering if part of Sokka's robbery plot should be to either sink the casino or simply make it seem like it would sink. I wavered on whether the casino building itself should be an ice-palace, or just certain parts of it. I think, if you're not from one of the Water Tribes, living in an icebox would get old quickly. However, even if other materials were involved, I still planned it to like like an Ice Palace in style. Then I began to wonder if the whole idea of an ice-island in a temperate zone would be too unrealistic. Besides, Ba Sing Se itself wasn't going to factor too heavily into things.
So, since taking this whole concept back off the shelf, another concept occurred to me. What if, in the same way that the United States government granted land to the Native Americans where they could run their own mini-nations, the Fire Nation gave an island to the Water Tribes? It could be recompense for their losses during the war from Zuko, one of the outer-most islands in the Fire Nation without any great amount of natural resources. And then the two Tribes worked together to, like the Native Americans, use the advantage of the lack of gambling laws and taxes to make casino resorts where the rest of the world could spend their money. The island would be jointly owned by the two Tribes, but the casino in question that Sokka is targeting would belong to the Northern Tribe, and be run by that rival I was planning for him. Perhaps his public justification is some business deal that went sour for the Southern Tribe, and so he's merely taking back what his people are due? That could work.
This also invokes the feel of Las Vegas itself, the setting of all but one of the "Ocean's Eleven" movies. Vegas was nothing but a strip of desert that was developed to be a paradise of vice, and has seen its fortunes rise and fall based on how much of that vice is available elsewhere.
This would change the nature of the casino itself, in my mind, because now the island has a Fire Nation legacy, and since it's not made of ice it no longer screams "Water Tribe" to its very foundation. I began to think more that the island could boast several destinations, with some aspect of all Four Nations referenced. There could be one casino that is faux-Fire Nation, one that's a mini-version of Ba Sing Se's Upper Ring, and of course more than a few that try to sell the "authentic Water Tribe experience." Perhaps the casino Sokka means to rob has a full Four Nations thing going, but in as untactful a way as possible. The Water Tribe wing would play up the spectacle of Barbarian life, there would be a Fire Nation wing that uses the exotic feel while stripping away the color red and any actual references to the Fire Nation itself, an Air Nomad wing where "Historic Airbender Meat Sticks" are served in cafes made to look like Temples, and an Earth Kingdom wing that mashes together the Upper Ring with Gaoling and Omashu and treats that like the full spectrum of the nation's culture.
Pretty unsympathetic, huh?
So, now it's time to envision some of the specific settings for the story. The casino we see the most of is the one Sokka is going to rob, so that's the one we need to nail the details down on. I'm thinking, given the "Four Nations" theme, that the rooms would offer a similar variety and divide. Each floor, or group of floors, of the hotel would be a different Nation. I'm thinking that Sokka's crew is going to make a suite in that hotel into their main base of operations, but which nation should I give them? I can see any of the choices working, from the "wrongness" of the Water Tribe style to the discomfort that would come from staying in a Fire Nation room in a Water Tribe casino.
Speaking of the casino, I'm thinking that the main casino floor would be the one area where the different national styles would be mixed, because that's where the owner wants everyone to congregate. The games themselves would need to have a strong Avatar flavor in order to keep this from getting too real-worldy. We saw dice in "Zuko Alone," and another game in "The Runaway" where a series of sticks are tossed on the ground in a similar concept. In my research, I found that Sic Bo is a ancient Chinese dice game that is played even in Western casinos today, and likewise Pai Gow is a tile game with a long history, and in casinos today they play something called Pai Gow Poker. Likewise, the four-player variant of Mahjong is a good substitute for card-game tables. In the very first episode of Avatar, we saw Iroh playing a solitaire-like game with tiles, so that's an established root, and in one of my short stories I created a fantasy Fire Nation version of blackjack that readers seemed to like.
In addition to that kind of thing, I'm thinking that we need some games that are brand-new stuff invented at the Northern Air Temple. Slot machines, for instance? Teo is on Sokka's team to help subvert security, but I think it would be neat if the team has to fix some games at some point and more than Toph's bending abilities were needed. I mean, people in the Fire Nation picked up on her cheating, so perhaps a subtler touch would be needed, and Teo provides the cheating devices. The only trouble is that breaking a machine without really saying how it works doesn't have a lot of payoff, but detailing how a pair of dice are filled with metal and moved with magnets, or a device is crafted to alter a carved tile is more interesting.
So, that's the beginning thoughts on the casino floor. I need to come up with some more specifics about the games, what the servants look like (girls in fur bikinis, boys in Agni Kai pants?), and how the security is maintained. (Obscure telescopes and observers, I'm thinking for a start, but Bending has to be guarded against as well.)
Let's come up with other sites in and around the main casino complex. Remember, this isn't just a casino, it's a resort.
The casino itself needs to be tall. I'm still thinking an Ice Palace motif for the outside, but made out of materials from the other nations. The upper floors are the hotel and conference rooms, and my original plans for the Ice Palace called for a special Northern Water Tribe museum at one of the top floors. Not sure if I'm still including that, as it depends strongly on the exact story beats I give to Sokka's little growing-up quest. The casino and main entertainment facilities are the ground floor and the floors right above them, with security centers nestled in there to watch the casino below. Some of the entertainment facilities are in a few unconnected buildings on the overall grounds, as well. The basement is where the BIG VAULT is kept, and has been specially constructed and set into the sand to be impregnable. Details on that are being withheld, as I haven't fully created Sokka's The Plot yet, and both the security and the means of subverting it need to be created in unison.
This is a tall building, but the owners don't expect guests to ascend stairs to the highest floors. Being an island, there's lots of water to spare, so while the Northern Air Temple seemed to use smoggy air to launch elevators, I think real steam can be used here. In fact, this whole facility might take "steampunk" to a new level. It could have special glass tubes running up along the outside, through which steam is pressure-piped all throughout the building, to power elevators and other mechanical features. The numerous saunas would, of course, be a natural sell with something like that, as would purified water. The trick here is going to be avoiding using this as an excuse to just stick modern amenities into the Avatar world. We need fantastical stuff, mechanical stuff that we don't have in our world, like a moving room with rotating and sinking platforms upon which champion martial artists battle for audiences. Although, you don't even need steam for something like that, you could use plain water, especially with plenty of Waterbenders on staff.
On that note, I'm thinking the general gambling will extend to fighting arenas. Both martial artists and animals. Perhaps some gladiatorial-like venues, with a bunch of warriors teaming up against a giant feral animal. Depends on how dark and "evil" I decide to take things.
Back to the main casino, we have a moving fighting room, something to make Pro-Bending look lame. Flying arena, of course, that uses heated air currents to propel gliders so that patrons can pretend that they're Airbenders. Steam-powered environment-friendly watercraft can be rented to patrons to cruise the seas. (After all, the Fire Nation had jet skis in the cartoon that sounded like they used internal combustion engines.) Exercise facilities could make use of steam-powered machinery. Of course, steam bars could offer all kinds of crazy hybrid shellfish to gourmets. Heck, we could even have "natural" concert halls where all of the steam pipes hum and moan for an audience, or crazy new woodwind instruments could be powered indefinitely for any audience that wants to wander in.
Some of the mechanical gambling machines would have to be steam-powered, of course. Perhaps cutting off the flow of steam pressure can be used to cheat at some of the games. But then a Waterbender would be able to really wreck things... unless the steam workings of the machines are hidden, and they would need precise knowledge of the paths and pressure requirements to influence things? And thus acquiring that specific knowledge can be a subplot, especially if Teo's own knowledge is limited to the prototypes and not the later, more efficient iterations of the tech. I've really got to start considering what some of these games would look like.
There has to be at least one entertainment showroom, like stages and concert halls and such. I think the decor in these should be changeable, to match the nation or signature of where ever the main act is from. One of the permanent features is a big budget Magic Show, featuring white Tigerdillos, of course. Some of these showrooms are going to be real auditoriums, but others are cafes arranged around a stage. Perhaps our Firebender magician Malu, who was considered for Sokka's team in our last blog post, might be working one of these lesser stages.
There should be spas, perhaps one in each national style. Swimming pools for the hotel, with a really fancy one on the roof. (Depending on how fancy, I might want Sokka's plan to somehow wind up wrecking the place and draining the pool.) A neat idea is a set of luxury conference rooms that wealthy Fire Nation nobles use to meet with Earth Kingdom business men, thus providing comfortable neutral territory for the two formerly warring nations to begin talks of trade. Vegas itself is also a convention capital, so perhaps there's a big convention center? Free-standing, or part of our target casino/hotel/resort? I'm not sure what kind of conventions there could be in the ATLA world, unless the Northern Air Temple wanted to meet with the military tech people from the Fire Nation. But that's more of a one-on-one type of thing. Perhaps one or both do expos where the new technology is shown off to merchants and wealthy nobles for investment? That's an interesting idea.
The entire coastline of the island would, of course, be a beach. In keeping with the corrupt nature of the island, I think that the beaches in front of each hotel/casino should be owned by that hotel, and you can't hang there without a "beach badge" declaring you a paying patron of the hotel. This, of course, really hurts the hotels that don't have seaside property, which could be the basis of our Northern/Southern conflict. That brings up the point of who actually owns all of these establishments. I want it to be private ownership, so that Sokka's rival is the one really being hurt by the big theft, but each Tribe would of course help and back its own members, in exchange for tax percentages. The island itself is run by a council of the property owners, with one or more representatives directly from each Tribe's leadership to make sure everything is on the up and up, and measures are passed by voting. So, if more Northern people own property on the island, they have a voting block that is difficult to beat. There wouldn’t be any laws like, "Southern Water Tribe people can't own property large than yadda yadda," but someone from the Northern Tribe is going to back a buddy over someone from the Southern Tribe, when it comes to disputes.
So the island would also boast lesser hotels and casinos, perhaps some offering more authentic cultural experiences, or just doing away with the glitz and offering plain ol' gambling. That brings up the idea of different neighborhoods on the island, with a "strip" of the biggest and the brightest, and then buildings of lesser theater as you move away from it. But that doesn't fit with our coastal property deal. So perhaps it's the edges of the island with the biggest and the best, and as you move inland, things get poorer. Perhaps the core of the island is a bunch of low-rent neighborhoods where the casino workers live. Alternatively, if we don't want something that neat, we can play with the coastline, make some parts of it real beach and others giant cliffs far above the water. Some can be made into tourist attractions, or perhaps the casino workers live in vertical cities up along several of the cliffs, using rope elevators and sulfur vents to move up and down in a Northern Air Temple-style residence.
The lesser buildings on the island should be made of plain old wood, but the more expensive buildings brought in Earthbender craftsmen to make something fantastic. One hotel could be a Sand Castle, made from solidified sand. Another could be made from heavy volcanic stones drawn out of the depths of the island's land. Of course, various materials can be imported from the nearby Fire Nation. The most expensive buildings could use rare imported materials from the deep Earth Kingdom.
Incidentally, if you're wondering how all of this is being paid for, I think the Northern Water Tribe could be quite rich. Rufftoon's "Water Tribe" comic showed them with their own mining industry, albeit with lesser metals, but what if they were sitting on a gold mine for a hundred years and no one to trade with until the war ended? Or perhaps there are some Ba Sing Se investors who are ultimately seeing the profits from the island. I'm not sure these details will come into the story, but it's worth keeping them in mind.
If anyone wants to do art based on any of this, feel free, I'll happily credit you when I steal your ideas. ;) Likewise, feel free to speculate based on any of the stuff I've listed here, or toss in your own ideas.
Next time, we'll flehs out some more details of the casino, including more of the security and the vault, and get into the characters who work and own the place, starting with Sokka's rival.