Not just the Dungeon is Gameable
Making a world
1) Melan's Beyond Fomalhaut zines - Ready to go, ready to expand! Alternatively, Khosura is an excellent starting point, adventurable city, with surrounding hex area.
2) G. Hawkin's Gunderholfen setting. Including Twice Crowned King, Zorth, Nekemte, and Halith Vorn.
3) Nod Magazine or Hex Crawl Chronicles by John Stater.
There are others, to varying degrees that might fill your needs. These all can be liberally stolen from, as well, for your own world. Making your own map is a matter of generation and tweaking.
Two programs I can recommend are Hextml and Worldographer. Generate something intentional or at random, smooth out the areas until it make sense to you and get yourself a base map with many biomes.
What are the biomes?
Forests, Crypts, Caves, Temples, Ocean, Lakes, Plains, Hills, Swamps, Mountains. You may not deeply adventure in all of these, but you have a feel for most of them. Biomes also serve a sub-purpose (which can be applied to your dungeon design too) to where a change of scenery is nice. For example, if you're playing Barrowmaze only: you're going to get tired of undead crypts with bugs and swamps with undead crypts and bugs. Imagine the breath of fresh air of fighting through a dungeon full of lava, an underwater temple, a mountain in the clouds, or a cool forest. Campaign fatigue can set in if it's always the same.
The world map should have hundreds of hexes ready for exploring in all these biomes, from snowy mountain trails to humid swamp gases. I made a sample map on hextml, I took the default and doodled with no thought or consideration. You'll want, ideally, a 26x17 map to start and probably 2 quadrants to get going, plan on at least 2 more to expand. Give yourself some avenues to add on to the world later.
This map has biomes to work with to start. Hills, plains, mountains, forests, swamps, shoreline, there's the edge of an island. Do one for yourself and number it via both axis's.
Starting to Take Shape
Add some towns, villages, and cities. Looking here, we'd have a coastal city (City A) right near the bend, a town (Town A) inland along that path, and a village (Village A) to the north for starters. If you have no ideas, maybe my blog post about towns will help.
As an example, we have an ongoing space for people to write lairs and hex entries. So lets just take some of those and add them to the map.
A1 Were-Tiger Lair by SandboxSorceror - in that swampy area in the north eastish area.
A2 Bandit Camp by the_howell just at the foothills to the north west, just in range of easy pickings from travel/trade between Town A to Village A
A3 Mongrelmen by Scott A in the southern most swampy area, just north of City A.
A4 Goblin Lair by the_howell, along the coast south from City A in the forest (add a river going inland)
A5 Ogre Lair by the_howell, right in the middle of the forest where the north edge of the mountains meet.
A6 Night Hag's Farm by Henchman 52, down river (see Goblin Lair) far into the forest.
A7 Tomb of the Storm Giant by Zoranu, right at the whirlpool icon in the ocean.
A8 Lonely Homesteader by Scott A in the middle of the grasslands, opposite from the foothills of the Bandit Camp
A9 Dragonfly, Giant by Zoranu, a hazardous hex in the same swamp as Mongrelmen.
A10 The Whale's Grave by Zoranu, along the northern coast.
A11 The Bleeding Marsh by Zherbus, a hex in the same swamp as the Were-tiger lair.
A12 The Shrine of Sound by Zherbus, in the hills just north of the south west forest.
A13 Boring Beetle Lair by VinoAzulMan, in the base of the mountains generally south-west of Town A.
A14 Snake, Poisonous by Anung Un Rama, which is actually a shipwreck, along the southern coastline.
A15 Ankheg, Anhkeg, Anhkheg by Zherbus, set in the very north west hills.
A16 Cyclops Lair by Scott A, a cave set on the island across the channel from City A.
A17 Basilisk by Scott A, in the mountains near an abandoned dwarven hold.
A18 Giant Eagle by Grutzi, on the mountain ridge overlooking the forest in the south west section.
A19 Gargoyle by Grutzi, a ruined keep on the north center area of the plains.
A20 Gloomwing by Zoranu, a good hex to help fill out the south west forest.
Plan a desert region to the north:
Thimrithi - Fire Dancer by Zoranu and Crater of the Cavemen by mgtlake.
Add about 3 main dungeons (some of those hex entries are smaller dungeons). We already can use an ex-Dwarven Hold (Dungeon A) in the mountains that runs several levels deep, we could use a main dungeon to rest on the island (perhaps greekish? Thracia?) (Dungeon B), and a good old fashion crypt somewhere in the center of the mainland (Dungeon C).
What are bands of difficulty?
In general, the further away from civilization, the harder the content to find is. It's not a hard and fast rule, a terrible dragons lair can loom over a town causing strange relations, sacrifices, offerings, etc but also may result in a town being left alone by marauders. These exceptions are among the spice of the world. In general, you want the Cave of the White Troll Clan and the Displacer Beasts of Murkfen to be between Civicsville and the Dark Citadel of the Thorn Magi. Keep this in mind when adding more hex entries and determining how your submaps connect.
Considerations should be made for Weather, travel, and campaign timeline (that is, how the world moves on with or without the players). A lot of that I have already addressed in this blog post.
Where are we now?
What we end up with isn't perfect, but it's a start. Depending on the scale, you might want to double your hex entries. You definitely want to put it on a more complete map with standard dimensions, but it's a start. Rip apart some more books on your shelf, flip through your monster books, write some more entries. Double it, expanding it, let the world take shape. Then let your players change it.
This is great
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