Hex Basics V: Completing Your Region

by lorekeeper0

*image used without permission from elfworld.com

Connecting your region is the exciting final part of the process, and after we’re done here we’ll have a completely playable regional hex for a one-off table game, or to expand into a much larger world territory.

Ah, rumors. The gasoline of social discord. Or…a wonderful best-selling album by Fleetwood Mac. Rumors are the grease that will connect your Outposts with your Adventure Sites and ultimately create the storyline for your narrative. Here’s the process: we take every Outpost on our regional hex map and then create a rumor attached to an Adventure Site in the region or in a neighboring one.

Generate Rumors

Once we’ve got an idea of the amount of rumors in any given outpost, it’s time to connect them to a neighboring adventure site. This doesn’t have to be a challenge; we can take a look at any Adventure Site and create a reason for someone to have an interest in its exploration, conquering, eradication, or salvation. When my creativity runs dry (re: strange lights have been seen in Adventure Site XYZ!), I turn to the following table for inspiration:

Now that we’ve got a method for inspiring a little creativity, it’s time to generate those rumors and file them under their appropriate Outposts. This is your opportunity to create interesting NPCs and other methods of getting these rumors across to PC’s. Things like reward notices, found books or notes, and local legends can all be wonderful tools, but usually a creative NPC is more fun for the players. Also, he can double as a henchman for the party, and as a useful tool for in-game DM communication, hints, and lore background. I won’t go into the details about creating NPC’s now (save that for a rainy day), but you can get some inspiration from the example rumors at the end of the post.

The Last Few Elements

Once your rumors are complete, there are a few more things you’ll need to create a believable region:

1. Some Random Encounter Charts: I’m a firm believer in having a good 10-12 random encounters available for each “terrain type” available in your region. We’ll examine creating Encounter Charts another day, but make sure you keep a good mix between wandering monsters, interesting situations, potential allies, traveling merchants, and strange sites or features for a touch of exploration. Just to get you thinking, less “1D4 ogres” and more “1D4 ogres are busy skewering and roasting a pig around a campfire”.

2. Some Dungeon Geomorphs: Creating maps for random caves, encounter spots, and a couple dungeons is a great idea and an invaluable tool to have lying around. When your players finally make it to The Necromancer’s Manse, just having a rough floorplan will make stocking encounters, traps and treasure on-the-fly far easier.

3. A list of NPCs: A great thing to have in your quiver is a list of 20 NPC’s. Having 20 NPC’s ready to go with stats, personalities, and NAMES at the start of each playing session will introduce more “Darunus the Clever Dwarven Explorer, Captain of the League of Rock-Hewers” and less “Dave the Dwarf” into your PC’s world.

4. Some Interesting Magic Items: Sometimes creating really interesting magic items on-the-fly is a bit more difficult (though not impossible). Having 5 neat magical items to sprinkle into the odd treasure horde will go a long way towards creating exciting moments during your play sessions.

5. A Solid Dungeon-Generation Method: While this certainly deserves a complete post, you need to have a complete method for generating dungeons as you play. There are some options in the DMs guides for OD&D & AD&D, but in general I’m speaking about:

Used in conjunction with a random monster table for the dungeon, a random treasure generator, and a couple of pre-generated traps, this can be a great way to generate a dungeon on-the-fly. Personally, if I have a bit of time I’ll create an interesting monster fight or two and a special/feature pre-planned for a location… but its definitely not necessary.

Get Er’ Done

Go Forth, Young DM

Armed with the hexmap we’ve created through this series, you can have a long and fruitful night (or nights) of gaming with very little effort or planning beforehand. From here, you can begin to craft some maps for the key dungeons that you’re most interested in, and you can also begin to speculate on the deeper truths behind some of the rumors. Perhaps The Cockroach King is really an old king of the region, cursed by some evil in a neighboring regional hex. Perhaps you really like the Cradle of the Frost Horror and want to map it out fully, with multiple levels and rooms and interesting encounters. Maybe there’s more to the Necromancer in the Necromancer’s Manse, and he’s planning on raising an army to raze Falnfield to the ground. Perhaps the Baron of Falnfield is really the son of Valrath, intent on preserving the false stories of his father at any cost.

All of these inferences will begin to surface as your PC’s traverse the realm, uncovering outposts and clearing Adventure Sites. You can begin to create more regional hexes surrounding this one based on some of the plot threads that end up resounding the most with your players, keeping around NPCs that your PC’s like and creating more adventure sites, rumors and areas based on their relationship.

At the end of the day, your newly minted regional hex-map is a jumping off point for infinite layers of depth, including backstory and history. The important point is that the bare-minimum has been done, and the joy you’ll get out of creating the minute details as your players experience the region is the DMs equivalent of playing on the PCs side of the table.

I hope you’ve enjoyed the series, and I hope hex-maps will have the same joyful impact on your playing sessions as they’ve had on mine.

Cheers,

-LK0

1. Hex Basics Part I: Why Hex Maps?
2. Hex Basics Part II: Getting Started
3. Hex Basics Part III: Generating Outposts and Sites
4. Hex Basics Part IV: Detailing Outposts and Adventure Sites
5. Hex Basics Part V: Completing Your Region