The Surrounding Area - Gygax 75 Challenge Week 2

Art by: Logan Feliciano

Week 2 is here and this is one of those points in the challenge that I can honestly see taking a week. As I am doing things digitally, this also present some interesting extra steps such as finding a hex mapping program I like. But let's look at what Week 2 is supposed to be all about...

Map the land around the dungeon and town.

“sitting down with a large piece of hex ruled paper and drawing a large scale map. A map with a scale of 1 hex = 1 mile… will be about right for player operations such as exploring, camping, adventuring, and eventually building their strongholds. Even such small things as a witch's hut and side entrances to the dungeon can be shown on the map. The central features of the map must be the major town and the dungeon entrance.” – EGG

 

The Gygax 75 guidebook discusses some other options for scaling the map but cautions against going over 1 hex = 6 miles. For the purposes of Land of the Poison Wind, I feel that 1-mile hexes does not adequately communicate the wasteland setting and so will be going with 6-mile hexes. I'll also be using the 23 x 14 hex map size suggested by Ray Otus, giving me his calculated 12,432 mi² to work with.

This will give me plenty of room to work with. Lots of space to place things but also a lot of space to have a lot of nothing in between. This nothing, like any game world, will not be absolute nothing but will give that impression, isolating PCs from their resources while having to face the dangers of the toxic world. 

The core step of this mapping process is establishing a central base from which the PC will begin their adventures. This is described  in the challenge guide simply as...

A city seems too grand for this world and so this settlement of significant size will be a town. I will call it, Haven. This town, as I had hinted at in previous posts is an oasis among the dying world where ancient mysteries provide water and healing magic that keeps the people fed. Haven is a terraced fortress crawling up a natural rocky peak that juts from the center of a plateau created by the ancient devastation that came with The Fall. Steep cliffs create a circular canyon where water collects and green plants grow and spill out as far as they can before the toxic world around them halts their progress.

Covering a single 6-mile hex, Haven and it's surrounding area would be dominated by the terraced fortress town and as many farms as it can squeeze onto its limited, defensible space. A single defended bridge with numerous gatehouses connects Haven to the outside world, making it difficult for attackers to menace the city by land. 

There will be time to add further detail to Haven later in the settlement but this is where i will leave things for today. I have a week to work on the mapping of the game area and, while I could sit down in a single afternoon and crank out a detailed map, for the sake of the challenge and sharing the experience, I will pause here. 

Come back in the following days to see how Week 2 of my trip through the Gygax 75 Challenge progresses. I welcome any comments, questions, or feedback.

-Eli