I have only good things to say about the ideas and designs of the wards and the new city map!! Watching both of you (DocClox and d31r3x) bouncing ideas off of each other makes me excited to see the end results. So i'll stay out of the creative magic you two have going on.
One thing i did want to comment on was in regards to the crossgate history, On the temple topic:
The Temple District
If so, what about temple prostitution?
There's two basic scenarios I can see. One of them is that whores are so rife in Crossgate that temple prostitution never caught on in the city. That's the simplest explanation.
The other one is that it exists, but that it's sufficiently stuffy and well ... religious, that its off putting to most of the city, and they tend to prefer the secular whores instead. I think this is the more interesting option. However, it raises the question: how does the temple fit in to the ongoing gang warfare in the city?
I'm tempted to have the Temple of Lurrve (better name needed) as an independant operator. Which is to say that they weren't involved in the death of the player's father and can be ignored. They'll act to keep prices down a little, but apart from that have no impact on the game. Alternatively the player can try and take control of the temple either by force (very hard) or by politics, and I need to think about that a bit more.
Just by looking at the current city diagram. In order for the player to move up into the "level 2/Nobelman" position, the player has only one option, through the temple. From the looks of the current diagram, the temple looks like both a pivotal and critical part of the game/story.
From your quote, you're saying that the temple will have little impact on the game. Maybe instead, play up it's importance. I think this would be a great opportunity to offer up a serious chunk of story or at least replay value.
A few thoughts:
When the player unlocks the temple. The player has to choose one of the available religions. The player doesn't have to like it, or even follow the rules. But this would be something of a "necessary evil" if the player wants to move up higher in nobility. Historically, religion has always been tied to politics. One religion fights another religion or alliances are made based on what religions two groups of people subscribe too.
When the player pics one of lets say 3-4 religions, this will "open doors" to some nobility and simultaneously "close doors" to other nobles. Which would give the game replay value.
The stipulation to being a part of a religion would mean having to give up some of your slaves from time to time. The trade off would of course be, that you have access to higher nobility. Meeting important people and such. The temple would be to powerful for the player to forcefully "take over" at first. But if the player is patient and "plays the political game, with pomp and circumstance" an opportunity to take over the temple could present itself. Once the player overthrows the temple, it would then become a new brothel for the player, with a few slaves already inside.
As for the religions:One of the religions could be the old pagan/norse religions where virgin sacrifice is common. If you subscribe to this, then periodically you would need to "donate" one of your virgin slaves in order to appease those in power of the temple.
Another religion could be the Ephors like from the movie "300" where "oracals" would need to be donated by the player. These slaves would need to be high in magic or intelligence.
Another option could be a "Temple of Cybele" a sort of, "goddess of love" where the player would need to donate experienced slaves (say a minimum of level 5).
different religions could fight each other sort of like gangs. An example would be the Cybele worshipers would despise the pagan worshipers for their sacrifices of virgins.
If you wanted to include a conspiracy theory element into the main story (if you're writing a main story) the player could find out that it was one of the temples that hired the gang that killed your father. Giving the player a justification to overthrow the temples. A little cliche albeit.
Feel free to shoot down all of my suggestions. The point i'm trying to make is that the temples offer up a lot of potential for story, game re-playability and shouldn't be so flippantly dismissed.