Random Encounters - Extra Credit

With week 2 wrapped up, all that is left to do is the extra credit. For Week 2 this means "pimping you map", which I already accomplished by using a nice mapping program like Wonderdraft, and making a random encounter table. 

Creating a random encounter table for a strange world such as The Land of the Poison Wind should prove challenging and may require a fair bit of proxying standard monsters for those more suitable to this magitech, wasteland setting. For the sake of producing the most usable table I can, this early in the creation process, this will be a generic table for the general wasteland environment.

As you can see the encounter table presents a combination of monster and NPC encounters with some falling someplace in between. With a setting like this, I wanted to stick to lesser known, more oddball monsters and so made good use of the old B/X and BECMI "Creature Catalog". When creating this encounter table, I also tried not to get caught up in making sure I had stats for some of them like the Steel Death or the Silver Scourge, even though having something of a general nature in mind helps both with eventually finding or making stats and setting up the hooks. I also included an environmental hazard in the form of the Poison Wind which also synergizes well with the Vapor Ghouls as a party who has encountered one or the other might mistake their current encounter of either as a repeat of the other. Later in the challenge there are opportunities to flesh out the world and create more encounter tables and it is at this point where I will get a little more creative with the encounters as they will need to be more specific.

So, that is it for Week 2. Week 3 is the doozy - The Dungeon. For me, this will be the single most time-consuming part of the challenge and will require a bit more thought and work to make it something worth while. The world I have created presents several good options for dungeons and I will also have a tough time choosing, though I think I have a good idea for the one I will start with (no, I'm not going to tell you.).

Stay tuned and check back next week.

-Eli