Progress Was Made

Today saw a lot of progress with the hex map. I've created a new map that is based on 5-mile hexes, places dots for each of the 25-mile hexes from the previous map, and have begun fleshing out the region on a 5-mi-hex scale.

So far, I have the terrain for the main starting kingdom done, but I still need to place rivers and start placing settlements. I also want to build out the area surrounding that kingdom a little, since that may impact where people choose to live.

I am also already getting some inspiration from how the map is shaping up. Using Welsh Piper's terrain assignment scheme, with a little randomization in number of hexes for a terrain time tossed in for good measure, I'm getting something pretty reasonable so far. Once I get a bit more done, I'll post a picture, but I'd rather not toss up something that, frankly, still looks half-assed. I whole-ass my work, dammit.

Some Hex Mapping

I've been tinkering with hex mapping lately, and thought I'd post what I did in the order I've done it. The scale is 25 mi = 1 hex, and the map spans roughly the 35th parallel to the 60th parallel.

The climate information was developed using the Climate Cookbook, and the software used is primarily Hexographer and GIMP, with Koppen climates added in Inkscape.

Now that I have big hex map made, I'm going to pick an area that looks interesting to me and make a 5-mile-hex map of it. Then it'll be time to start building details on that map. Rinse and repeat until the entire 2.25 million square mile area is done!

1. Landmass

2. Landforms

3. Climate - Precipitation

Summer

Winter

4. Climate - Temperature

Summer

Winter

5. Koppen Climates (WIP)

6. Landform Updates & Major Rivers

7. Vegetation

Guilds of Alnwich: The Brotherhood of the All-Seeing Star

The Brotherhood of the All-Seeing Star

Hermetic Cabal

Rank: Conspiracy Rank 0-8.

In Charge: Demonologists, scholars, and wizards.

In the Ranks: Agents, cultists, demonologists, necromancers, sages, scholars, and wizards.

On the Payroll: Assassins, brutes, burglars, cutpurses, guards, killers, knights, scouts, skirmishers, swashbucklers, and thieves.

Influencing the AR: Intimidation.

The Brotherhood of the All-Seeing Star is a secretive organization that is newly arrived in Alnwich. Little is known of their purpose or numbers, but they seem to have some magical inclinations, and the Collegium Arcana seems to be perturbed by their presence. They appear to admit both men and women, despite their name, and have a number of convoluted ways of recognizing each other. These include secret handshakes and code phrases, but probably extend far further than anyone realizes.

The Brotherhood’s most distinguishing feature are the hats they wear during ceremonies: a tall, purple conical affair topped with a pentacle inscribed with an eye. The edge of the hat is fringed with eight black strands as hair, and a pair of long sidelocks. These hats are not worn publically, and are only known only because a few individuals have been caught committing crimes with them on their person.

The Counsel of Aldermen is growing concerned with these newcomers, but the Earl hasn’t seen reason to do anything about them. The Town Guard remains vigilant, but the machinations of the Brotherhood are yet to be revealed.

What the Brotherhood of the All-Seeing Star Wants

At their core, the Brotherhood want power. Complete and ultimate power. This underlies all ostensible and even some clandestine motives. It drove their first members into the worship of demonic entities so horrific that most would be maddened at the mere speaking of their names. Some would suggest they, too, were driven from sanity by the path they chose to walk. After all, power corrupts . . . or maybe it just attracts the corruptible.

While their quest for power ultimately motivates everything the Brotherhood does, on a more practical level, they seek to bring Azathoth, the Blind Idiot God, and his court into the world in exchange for unfathomable ascendency. Knowing society will never accept this willingly, they work in utmost secrecy, use hired go-betweens, and worm their way into positions predisposed to influencing the levers of power.

What they want in Alnwich is of much more recent development. A confluence of dream-portents have suggested that a powerful artifact rests somewhere beneath Seidrborg, and the stars will soon align to make it accessible again. They have been preparing an expedition to the dungeon and nearby Thanras for the purposes of claiming the artifact for themselves. They are interesting in anyone who can aid them in their cause, preferably inadvertently.

What the Brotherhood of the All-Seeing Star Can Provide

The Brotherhood of the All-Seeing Star can provide training in Astronomy (IQ/H), Dreaming (IQ/A), Fortune-Telling (Astrology and Oneiromancy) (IQ/A), Hazardous Materials (Magical) (IQ/A), Hidden Lore (Elder Things, Magic Items, or Magic Writings) (IQ/A), History (Elder Things) (IQ/H), Occultism (IQ/A), Philosophy (All-Seeing Star) (IQ/H), Psychology (Demons (IQ/H), Ritual Magic (IQ/VH), and Theology (All-Seeing Star) (IQ/H) with a successful AR and also give professional discounts on tomes of quaint and curious forgotten lore.

They also provide:

• Artifacts. These are usually cursed, evil, demonic, or all three.
• Augury. The Brotherhood specializes in astrology and oneiromancy. +2 to ARs.
• Hideout. The Brotherhood has a number of safe houses, basements, and tunnels for getting in and out of town unnoticed. +3 to ARs.
• Immunity. The Brotherhood has already infiltrated the Town Guard and the earl’s court.
• Lore. The Brotherhood can provide information via Hidden Lore (Elder Things, Magic Items, or Magic Writings), History (Elder Things), Philosophy (All-Seeing Star), and Theology (All-Seeing Star). +4 to ARs.
• Translation. The Brotherhood can translate strange writings on a successful Linguistics roll. Treat this as Lore, but failure results in gibberish and critical failure gives an incorrect translation. +4 to ARs.
• Map. The Brotherhood has collected many maps of the ancient city on the southern shore they call Thanras, and claim to have maps of parts of the dungeons beneath Hogwarts, too.
• Special Orders. The Brotherhood can

Other ARs are at -3 or worse, and backup is at -10.

Guilds of Alnwich: The Town Guard

Town Guard/Military Company

Rank: Military Rank 0 to 4.

In Charge: Captain Lindqvist (Knight).

In the Ranks: Archers, barbarians, brutes, guards, holy warriors, killers, knights, scouts, skirmishers, and squires.

On the Payroll: Innkeepers, laborers, native guides, servants, and non-adventurers.

Influencing the AR: Leadership, Savoir-Faire (Military).

The Alnwich garrison initially consisted exclusively of soldiers from Usk, but over time, some locals have also seen the benefit of working for the Crown’s army – the pay and the privilege are notable. Unfortunately for them, the scorn heaped upon them by other locals for betraying their own is far from insignificant. In fact, most locals consider soldiers of the garrison as outsiders at best and as occupying invaders at worst.

The garrison itself is led by Captain Lindqvist, a knight landed in Usk but serving far from his estate on the shores of the southern Arafon.  He considers the post a punishment for offending Lord Lofgren, and rarely misses a chance to take it out on the locals. His philosophy is that a cowed populous is a peaceful populous. He lusts for power, but has a small mind and myopic view of the world.

Of course, the men of the garrison are not their captain. The typical guardsman is more interested in drinking, whoring, and not working too hard than actually policing the town. This leaves plenty of room for the Fellowship to operate, even if Captain Lindqvist sees stamping out those outlaws as his ticket home. Of course, no soldier wants to fall victim to the lash, so guardsmen need some coercing to turn a blind eye to broken laws.

In addition to enforcing the law, guardsmen are expected to protect Alnwich from threats without. This largely pertains to spirit and monster incursions from the Wilderlands, but the garrison does not patrol beyond the town’s borders. For this reason, the guard often offer bounties on various monsters and miscreants living in the baleful forests beyond the last farms. Rarely do they venture past that point, and when they do, it is only en masse. Ideally, local would-be heroes are sent on such suicide missions, however.

Rank in the town guard varies from Recruits at Rank 0 up to Captain at rank 4. Most are Soldiers with Rank 1, with veteran Sergeants achieving Rank 2. There are currently three companies stationed at Alnwich, each commanded by a Lieutenant of Rank 3 who answers directly to Captain Lindqvist.

What the Alnwich Garrison Wants

Ostensibly, the garrison at Alnwich want to impose and maintain order on the town. Their captain has few restrictions on how they accomplish this, which has led to a rather unfavorable view of the soldiery by the locals. Captain Lindqvist largely resents the locals and could not care less about their favor, so long as he does whatever he must to get back to his home.

Truly, however, almost every soldier just wants to go home. And they want to do it with as little threat to their own wellbeing as possible. That usually means ignoring anything that looks like it would be dangerous to intervene in, but also using brutal force when intervening. And hiring others to perform their most dangerous tasks for them.

Those few locals who have joined the garrison are already home, and consequently want one of two things – power or to truly protect Alnwich. Sadly, the former is far more prevalent than the latter. This only increases the brutal treatment doled out by guardsmen and their general resentment by the locals.

What the Alnwich Garrison Can Provide

The Garrison can provide training for any traits or skills found on the knight and scout templates. The professional items they can supply at discount are weapons, excluding disguised weapons and those with only reach C, any armor, and shields.

The Garrison can also respond to these types of ARs:

• Backup. When the garrison sends people to help, they’re trained fighters built on a mix of the full knight/holy warrior/scout templates and their closest Henchmen equivalents.
• Favor. The typical guardsman has little to offer aside from favors. These they may be willing to extend in advance for some return at a later time.
• Immunity. The Town Garrison chooses who they capture and prosecute, so they can always choose to look the other way when one of their own commits some transgression. +3 to ARs.
• Map. The Town Guard keeps good maps of civilized lands (+0 to ARs) and may have crude maps of the local Wilderlands (-2 to ARs).
• Mounts & Vehicles. This means horses and wagons more than anything else. The town guard does not have access to boats because the Fiskers refuse to sell them any.
• New Gear. The garrison is replete with low-quality weapons and armor and can come by reasonable quality fare with some effort. Most non-combat gear is beyond easy reach for them, however.
• Provisions. Soldiers need rations, and those rations can be extended to friends of the constabulary. No one said they’d taste good, however.
• Training. If the Town Guard can do anything, it is providing training in combat skills. These are limited to skills that deal directly with combat – not skills like Stealth or Running. ARs are at +3.

Other ARs are at -3 or worse.

Automating Architect of Worlds Update

Lately I've been learning a lot about Python and how it handles objects through another side project, and I'm starting to see where I should go back and rework what I have so far for Architect of Worlds. This comes at a good time, since I've gotten up to generating everything but moons, and that step is looking like it will be a bit more intensive than the text suggests - in terms of programming, that is.

So I think my next step will be to go through the original code, clean it up as much as possible and implement a cleaner data management system. I also want to break out a couple of bits into their own functions so they can be reused whenever necessary...I'm looking at you, orbital placement! Once this is done, I'll proceed to do moon placement.

I also have a couple of questions about the model being presented, since it doesn't appear capable of producing the insane number of moonlets our gas giants have (79 for Jupiter and 62 for Saturn). Mind you, in terms of storytelling, most of those moons are inconsequential, but knowing their total number is helpful, and if I know that, I can place them automatically and develop them from there. So, because my application doesn't involve a human rolling dice and interpreting results, I don't see an issue with rolling up 120+ moons no one will ever care about visiting.

Also, When you roll things up randomly, sometimes you get interesting results that spark creativity. So I'd rather roll up a bazillion moons and risk getting a GM's creative juices flowing than say, "There are a lot of them, and they probably won't be interesting enough to justify the time you'll spend rolling dice to generate them." But that's because of the medium, not a fault in Jon's system by any means.

So that's my plan. I'll keep you updated on progress. Hopefully I"ll have enough put together to use soon!

Mapping around the Abbey

Today I worked on an overland map for the 60-mile area surrounding the abbey, largely to see how it connects to the outside world. Now I can definitively say that the abbey sits on a forested hill at the end of what would be generous to called a wooded road. Even trail might be generous. The nearest village is a day's hike away, and the trail ever got used to bring the monastics at the abbey food and supplies.

Mapping Update: Placing Locations - not Encounters

I have been working to place interesting locations on my hex map, and I've come to a conclusion. I am placing locations, not encounters. Why make that distinction? Because "encounters" has a specific connotation that revolves around conflict and implies a degree of railroading. If you enter this hex, the GM rolls and if the dice come up Encounter, the players have to deal with something predetermined by the GM. That isn't good GMing, in my view.

So instead of placing encounters that unfold a predetermined way, I place locations where something might be happening. I will roll to see if the players stumble on the location, and if so, give them information based on what they witness. What happens from there is 100% up to them. It might be a dungeon entrance. It might be a gnarled tree with a rope tied about its trunk. It might be a pile of rotting corpses. Whatever.

That doesn't mean there aren't random encounters rolled for hexes. These represent stumbling on an event that potentially provokes action. These could be combat-oriented like a dozen orcs charging a wagon with drawn swords, or they could just be creepiness like catching a glimpse of fish-men playing pipes in the distant fog. Again, these provide the opportunity for the players to make decisions. They don't exist to force players into a specific course of action...unless they really mess up a Perception check and get ambushed by a hostile encounter. But even then, there is a string of rolls that create that situation - Reaction rolls by the hostile party that indicate it will attack, opposed Stealth checks to see if they can sneak up and waylay the party, failed Perception rolls by the party, etc. The players get their chance to avoid it, dice gods willing.

So that's a whole lot of ranting about a concept, but how has it been implemented in the hex map? I have placed several locales in the uncivilized parts of the map so far. These are, for the most part, stationary (with one fun exception that might move once per week). I'm generally picking locations that scream out for something initially and then going back to fill in other ideas afterward. So far, Alnwich is pretty well covered, so I'm starting to expand the adventure bubble outward.  This method seems to be working well, so far.

Mapping Update: Alnwich

I have finished filling in terrain and towns for the entire northeast corner of my hex map. I started out going this direction because it provides natural barriers to PC exploration. To the north are the Skaldafjoll, which as subarctic to arctic mountains, present something few prepared high level PCs will easily cross, let alone starting PCs. Of course, the foothills and forests to their south are definitely good adventuring sites.

Mapping this corner first also gives me some ideas about how Alnwich relates back to Northmarch and Usk. It has already become apparent that there is a main road that leads back southeast toward civilization, and there is a full-blown town town around a week or two away.

I'm also starting to see what the edge of civilization looks like in Usk. There are a string of fortified villages that run along the wilderlands' edge in the north and the west. These are largely supported by market villages one to two day's ride away, depending on the sparsity of the local forest. Trails connect these village-forts to each other, and roads connect them to their supporting market villages. this suggests that they can shift resources to support each other as needed, but not very quickly.

We also see that where the forest has been cleared or grows thin, dirt roads tend to replace footpaths and trails and villages tend to be about five miles apart, instead of ten or more. Furthermore, the land tends to be cultivated with small patches of woodland still presenting physical barriers to travel.

I suspect that as one travels deeper into Usk, villages tend to reach their maximum packing density and the map becomes far less interesting from an adventuring standpoint. This also provides a barrier to PCs. If you move into Usk, there are fewer opportunities to get rich, achieve glory, etc. because there just aren't many monsters sitting on hordes of treasure left. So if players want a game of intrigue and cunning, head to Usk. If they want game of exploration, violence, and adventure, head to the wilderlands. And that's exactly the point!

Architect of Worlds PDFs

Today I have a quick update on Architect of Worlds, Jon Zeigler's update to the star and planet generation system from GURPS Space. He has been posting individual steps for some time now and has covered how to create star systems and planets, thus far. He also has announced plans to post the remainder of the core system this year. But this isn't new stuff.

What's new is he has created a dedicated page with PDFs of the entire process that he plans on keeping up to date. This will make using the system much easier to use. So without further ado, here is a link to the new Architect of Worlds page.

Map of the Region around Alnwich

As promised here is a hex map of the area around Alnwich. It uses 5-mile hexes and has all of the major geographic features and points of interest mentioned so far. I'll start dropping interesting locations, next, and cataloging those in a database. After that, it will be time to start rolling randomly.

It's worth noting that I will likely steal profusely from my favorite published material for "interesting locations". So expect Caverns of Thracia and the Dark Tower to make an appearance somewhere., and I'll probably do my own spin on the Demonweb Pits and Tomb of Horrors, too. That said, this map will likely be lair-heavy, owning to the extensive wilderness areas.

And on one last side note, I haven't really placed any rivers yet because the Trollenmere specifically lacks any inflows or outflows. As I map out more of the Skaldafoll or other elevated regions, I'll start drawing them. After all, rivers flow downhill, and until I know where that is, there's no point in starting!

Hex Mapping and Resources

I have begun creating a hex map of Alnwich and the surrounding land. I am largely following the advice of The Welsh Piper and The Alexandrian for my process, not to mention all of the work Rob Conley has done over at Bat in the Attic. I am also going through a lot of the resources Charles has already posted on his blog, Nature Kills: A Hexcrawl for GURPS.

What do I know so far? Well, I am using 5-mile hexes because they mesh well with the average Joe's Basic Move in GURPS. I have also mapped out the bits of around Alnwich I have already described or mentioned. I figure that is the first place to start - putting down what I already know. Once I have that looking good, I'll start expanding outward. That way, I can keep an appropriate level of detail without getting too bogged down in stuff.

I will need a few things for this, though. First, and probably second, third, fourth, fifth, etc., are a good set of tables. These will be extremely helpful in generating hex contents and placing features and encounters. Next, I will need a database to serve as my key. If this grows to a large size, having that information neatly organized will be critical. Better to start now than to have to do data entry later. Lastly, I need more free time. But I think every hobbyist needs that.

I'll try to post the fruits of my labor in the coming days.

Sandboxes and Broadening the Scope of Alnwich

I've been speaking a lot with a couple of friends - one a fantasy sandbox addict who loves hexcrawls and the other a big science fiction fan - about the types of games they like to run and play in, and that has gotten me thinking about the sorts of games I really enjoy running and playing in.

I started roleplaying with Alternity, an old TSR game from the early 90s for science fiction gaming, and from there moved to d6 Space - specifically Star Wars RPG 1e from West End Games. See, I had grown up reading science fiction from the Big Three and loved every minute of it. The chance to be a part of the story instead of merely a spectator was too much to resist.

As it seems often happens in the gaming community, I eventually discovered the current edition of Dungeons & Dragons (AD&D in my case). Now I got to play in one of my other favorite genres, and that was downright magical. I was exploring a world, interacting with it, and helping create it through play. It was a blast.

Fast forward to now, I find myself mostly running games, and those tend to be either science fiction or fantasy. Who would have guessed? But beyond that, I have always been about providing enough of a world for players to run amok in. I love it when players mess with the setting through their PCs' actions. It's great when the party topples a major government or kills a god or whatever. That drives the world to new growth and develops the setting even further. This love for worldbuilding and setting the pieces up for the players to knock down has been a driving factor behind developing the town of Alnwich these past months.

So where am I going with all of this? Well, mostly that I think I'm going to shift away from the development of a megadungeon and more toward an open sandbox. That isn't to say megadungeons aren't sandboxes or that there isn't a megadungeon under Siedrborg. Instead, I'm going to veer away from standard Dungeon Fantasy tropes. Town won't be a collection of dice rolls unless that is what the game calls for that session. Players can go into Alnwich and machinate to their hearts' content. Players can do things in town that will make it an unsafe place to be for them; they will also have to live with the consequences of that. They can explore the countryside or the wilderlands, if they want. Basically, I'm opening up the entire world.

So where does that leave this blog? Well, I'll continue to develop the setting details, but I'll also start working on a regional hex map and placing other points of interest. It will no longer be just about getting in the dungeon to kill things and take their stuff. It will also be about exploration, establishing settlements (if desired), fighting invading hordes (always fun), overthrowing despots, etc. It will be oldschool gaming with a focus on going from zero to hero and seeing how many paper bodies pile up along the way.