Sunday, January 17, 2021

GYGAX 75 Challenge; REDUX: Week 2


Find Week 1 here.

Week 2: Surrounding Area (Campaign Map)

The Campaign Map


The Tasks:

  • Get a sheet of Hex paper: The above map took 2 hours to draw using a packet of hex paper I bought just for this challenge. When I was satisfied with the map I scanned it to my computer and spent an additional 2 hours fumbling around with GIMP for the first time to write the names.

  • One Settlement of a significant size: In red is The Port City of Dis, a coastal city ruled by a once grand magic-user turned sea devil.

  • Two other settlements: We have the Grand Empire of Birdosa (in red), home to the monstrous avian Praetorians (rip off of the Dark Crystal's Skeksis). And I have the starting town of Mun, a small logging town that forages into the perilous Devilwoods for lumber.

  • One major feature: I made two large forests (Devilwoods & The Whalehead Forest), a small one (Whitewood Grove), the coast (The Sea of Haverna), some hills (Nilbog?!), and two main rivers (The Galmere and Savdosa). I think that's a good start.

  • One mysterious site to explore: The Lumenloth Lake has strange happenings going on there.

  • One main Dungeon entrance: Not listed since I want to hand the map to my future players for them to find. I have it located a few hexes into the Devilwoods above Mun. Found after some loggers cut too deep into the forest.

Map Notes:

The map isn't complete. You'll notice its missing the hex numbers and the direction marker (north, south, etc.).  The map just looks so damn good I didn't want to mess it up yet. I'll probably just print it out and draw the rest when I use it to run a game. Oh yeah and 1 hex = 6 miles.

Extra Credit: Create a Random Encounter Table [2d6]



I tried to show how the Devilwoods currently has a small skirmish between a Green Dragon and the Forest's Swine God. Of course the forest is huge so there's some other more vanilla d&d stuff I sprinkled in.

I included a dragon in the table after reading Papers and Pencil's Your Dragon's Suck blogpost. I shared a similar view that Dragons were supposed to be these godlike beings and thus unusable for most games but after reading that post I've come around on them. I think most of my wilderness encounters will include a dragon. 

Onward to Week 3!

2 comments:

  1. I'm excited to see Week 3. That one is the "Make it or break it"-week I find with its many dungeon floors. I look forward to reading about your methods.

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    1. Ha, I know. I failed at Week 3 last time I tried this. I am proud to report that I have the outline of Level 1 and am working on level 2. Might not have the extra credit done (actually graph it out) but I will have the level outlines done for Week 3.
      Thanks for reading!

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