Spire Development Log 2 - The Campaign Seed

As mentioned in the first log, I had started by generating extra content out of what was being written for Carcass of Hope. I had a home campaign world that I had been using with a ill-defined continent over the west sea. I decided at one point that this would start fleshing out that western continent.

With the content in Carcass, here are some of the rough maps I was operating with that I ended up using in playtesting with a hexes added:

A very rough start, but you can see what area I was honed in on at first.

As I started fleshing out other content that would fit in the world, the draft of the central area would take place.

Still ugly, scale unsure. I needed a better solution to generate hexes, which was when I switched to Worldographer.

Deviating from the Carcass of Hope derived content, I would start putting together ideas for the region when my eyes could no longer look at drafts. I ended up making an entirely new ziggurat, related to it was a church with a depraved basement that had hallucinogenic moss that eventually turned people feral as well as the sealed off two levels of dungeon below. Together, that was done as one connected adventure. At the same time, I had the Tower of Exiles done, a place where the ancient clergy of the sun-god would use the mirrored tower to concentrated sunlight to bake sinners. 

The Tower of Exiles

I had done some smaller hex entries to build around the few cornerstone dungeons as well as out of the way. Things that adventurers would at least be interested in. Some of those were tiny adventure sites. A small beach cave, barrowmounds, a destroyed outpost, graves with magical runes that beckon you to read them outloud, a ghostly bride that you can reunite with her husband, a cult of farm-folk attempting to commune with a dead god (which they just might), etc. With more ideas, came enough room to let them breath. 

I had already fleshed out the towns of Mirfield and Felnarr. I had a solid grasp on what I wanted Salt Keep to be, which led to Glimton, the Gnomish Junk town build out of shipwrecks and shipping containers. I knew Spire as the capital to have in terms of the three spires (one each to royalty, the magi, abd the sun-god). The rest, I would have to circle back to.

Then finally, the Megadungeon. That concept took shape fast, then took on different shapes after each time I did a new floor. The first floor being the actual prison floor of the Orc armies of Castle Harland, the Duergar and Derro working the mines to the south, the zealot cultists to the north east, and some other fun things to various directions. It went down to the sacred foundry, a place where the firebrand dwarves lost their homes, but kept the forges burning. A place of fire surrounded completely by death. Which meant a lot of crypts and sub-levels of crypts.

This map was on track for about a week before it started being something very different.

The third level took more of a mixed theme that I felt provided a good transition. Very distinct areas, but a channel running through all of what was once a settlement to the elves and their strange teleportation magic (to above levels, below levels, our outside). Originally, it was meant to be a menagerie but, as with a lot of floors, they kept changing. Which is what I think Megadungeons should do.

At this point, I had a baseline. I could run a campaign for the most part. But I wanted to expand adventure site ideas away from the cornerstone factions and undead in holes. You need some of those, but I wanted to make things a bit more interesting. I started with an adventure I called The Tide, a seaside mini-hex that has three adventure sites. The centerpiece of the hex being a subservient race of Molemen under the control and occupation of evil Goatmen. The molemen crave that, though. They want to be oppressed and controlled. If they are oppressed, then they don't have to defend themselves which is something they aren't great at.

The moose antler wearing oppressors.

The first, a oceanic cliffside mausoleum that went down into a dungeon where the tides would fill the floors during high tide. The lower levels are partially submerged in spots, but there is plenty down there to navigate the water, or escape a flood if the players are engaged well enough. The second resides under the city of molemen, which has been sealed off for centuries. And the third is off on a lighthouse island off the coast, an old fishing town, long since lost.

There was a dungeon underneath a ruined tower, where drunken skeletons drink their gaseous booze, that has a cult-like mongrel-men served Asmodeus in tending to the disgusting subterraining pool of oil these tiny exploding devil's spawned from. 

I wrote a green dragons forest lair, not meant to simply walk into. The area around it toxic and riddled with plant-creatures that serve at the great Thirth. The three hags had their own miniature adventures, the Witch of Libby, The Swamp Witch, and The Mother. Towns got purpose, locations became important to those purposes, and mechanics for moving the world on their own started to take form for the games.

I wrote the island chains of the north west, populated sea-beasts and ghost ships. And had fun with some of the islands, some of which had a small resemblance to the Isle of Dread. One very south island, dominated by a volcano, still had prehistoric life on it.

I even wrote a number of outer plane locations, blasted fields and angelic weirdness. I really let myself have fun with it.

Spooky gally

The desert stretched on to the south, where armies of Hobgoblins came from and buried Pyramids could still be uncovered. That is, if the desert doesn't literally swallow adventurers first.

Then the campaigns started. Notes and maps, I ran two groups through some of the content which took very different directions. 

But that's not what I want to finish first, even though Spire 1 is fully operable in it's print form along with Lich Valley. I can make them better, so I will. And these copies have already become very outdated. But I'll have to stop sometime.

The first three books will be more adventure hexes that can be dropped in any campaign. As much work, testing, and love that has gone into Spire as a campaign setting, almost nobody uses these wholly. And if people want settings, there's already some amazing ones out there. So Lich Valley, The Tide, and Sylfthalore will be the first books I finish up. Each will be an expanded hex (or in the case of Lich Valley, a set of hexes) that are in the Spire campaign, but can be independently moved to peoples home campaign without much fuss.

The main spire maps are arranged thusly, each map being 26x16 hexes at 6 miles each:

After I am done with those three books, I am still on the fence about how I want to release them, which depends on where I land on a number of things. I could release Spire 1 and Spire 2 separately, then Spire 3 (with the centerpiece Welcome to Stratford), then Spire 4 with the Megadungeon eventually. Or I might just combine Spire 1 and Spire 2. 

With that out of the way, the next Spire Development Log will be about art. How I went from not drawing for over 25 years, to creating work that I hope will bring Spire alive.