Spire Development Log 3 - Art and Layout

As mentioned in the blog on mapping, my first taste of writing for someone else came from participating in the NAP2 contest. Part of the expectation that I had was that we should include art of some sort with a submission. I figured, based on what I had seen before, at least cover art. But to be completely honest, I figured this would be a contest for the masses and that the competition would have been between mere mortals with little to no experience. The front cover (and back) was AI art. AI are was new, it was exciting, and I didn't see any harm in using it. 

This is going to be the thumbnail now and that bothers me.

There's a few minor images I digitally made based on real images, which honestly suck. But it was just to break up the text and make the google doc export of a pdf  come out clean. 

Yyyyikes.

Though, to be fair, my peers also had a similar output. Except for some which went that extra mile. That contest was like 2/3s normal dickholes like myself, and 1/3 people who already had things published in the past and had a much firmer grip on what they were doing. Prince didn't discriminate and why should he? The better the entries, the better the compilation. The better the compilation, the more successful the project. In that project, there was a number of people who had their layout and even artistic additions spot on. I don't feel like I did the worst in that category, but I felt that I could do better.

I was already a big fan of Castle Xyntillan and thought that the format, as well as the imagination that went into it, were unparalleled. The way I wrote rooms really reached towards emulating that fantastic balance of friendly access and thorough information with actual complete sentences. But my influence on how I wanted my stuff to look didn't stop there.

I had Gunderholfen and I thought it was a very well produced and massive dungeon. It was heads and shoulders better than a lot of produced stuff out there. More importantly, I had learned that Hawk had done his own art and layout.  It showed me that I could labor-of-love my stuff to present so much better. Without me pouring over Gunderholfen and Bottomless Pit of Zorth, I don't know if this would ever click with me, but allow me to reiterate:

You don't need a guy doing your layout. And you might not need a guy doing your art. And if you do, a lot of good OSR guys have shown pretty good success in those art packages that you can purchase the rights to. A small investment for some solid, real art.

When I was a teen, I drew all the time. I was okay at it, definitely not talented (which is par for me).  Once I had decided that I wanted to balloon the concepts of Spire out into a setting and write more, I picked up a pencil and started. I needed art, because it helps lengthy writing to have a place where your eyes can take a break. Also, I wanted to give visual context to some of the stuff in there. And if it didn't work out, I could buy some.

That was the first stab at it. Amateurish? Definitely. Charming? Yeah. It was good enough to keep at it. I got some gap-filler art done and I was feeling like I could really do it.

I was shopping around for how to do more with layouts than Google Docs could provide and I took stabs at a variety of things until I landed on Affinity Publisher. I set on putting Spire 1 together, identifying where I'd need more art and trying to get something that would be easy to run at the table. Like most things, the first attempt wasn't quite there. I rode that format for Spire 1 and 2, and even ordered a hard copy of Spire 1.

Poor edits aside, this original format was A5. For some reason, I thought it would be better presented in a smaller format. Page headers were more of me 'wow, this program can do this thing, I should try it.' which is never a good reason. The font is cool and all, but when you look at it from a distance, it didn't work for me. I got my proof of the book in the mail and I tried running games out of it. It didn't work for a whole bunch of reasons.

• The book dimensions with it's relative thickness would not stay open at the table.
• The font became a garbled mess when viewed as a page-flip.
• The I's look like 1's and the same in reverse. 
• The page headers made the whole book feel like a notebook. There was also a stark difference in the exploding skull-moon image in the middle and the corner things that I drew.
• There wasn't enough on each page that let me comfortably rest on one spread for a long enough time.
• This thing was not edited well at all.

I kept at it with the art in the meantime. If I could balance my wrist aches with doing it to relax while re-watching x-files, then I could keep cranking them out. Over the course of well over a year, I ended up with stacks of illustrations. Some better than others. I tried different methods and found what I felt worked and what didn't.

I would improve in some areas only to realize that I was still poor in others. I was both judgmental on myself, while also forgiving. This kind of art will never stand up to the likes of those who are professional, but I felt that they still worked for the stuff I was making.

I used the original proof book to circle typos with a pencil, but ultimately I could barely do that. I ended up reformatting the entire two Spire books into v2. A4 size in all it's 8.5x11 glory. I did away with the page headers and chose better fonts. I ordered two proofs, Spire 1 and Lich Valley, and was mostly satisfied with a lot of my choices, but ultimately I pushed myself further into a cleaner format.

I felt pretty good about it and only recently refined it for Lich Valley. The art still goes, when my wrist allows. And thankfully, there aren't that much more pieces needed. The more pressing need is to clean it up, rewrite a few areas that don't work, and figure all that out via at-the-table testing, which my friends have been great to do.

Queen Dinitra, who relied too much on the aid of Hell.

A word about burn out. This hobby, especially this corner of it, isn't meant for most of us to profit on, even with just exposure. There's a select few who can manage it, and that's another topic, but the point is that you don't have to write anything. You are likely not going to pay bills with this, but you are likely to burn yourself out on it. Take time for yourself. I've burnt out on these books, in the last 2 years, twice already. Do it right and as well as you can. Take a lot of pride in it because it feels good and see it through because it's fun.

It'll be ready when it's ready. And with that, I'll leave you with a pair of Dusk Bats running through the streets of Cabur within the Lich Valley.

 

Don't Read These Play Reports

Intro

Note that these are pretty short sessions mostly. The last session was just under 2 hours and the other sessions were 3 hours. The in person game tends to run longer, the IRL pickup games even run longer, but I don't want to write the results of that campaign out since others might be playing through the same content.

This takes place after a break from a previous campaign. The characters are all upper mid level and have survived the imprisonment of the Dream Cult, the stronghold of the brain entity (a very modified T1), the horrors of the Howling Exile, Melan's Smuggers Run (the gravewight is still out there!), fought through the Crystal Caves to the Undercrypts of the Imprisoned Vampires, rid themselves of the Thrice Cursed Sword from the Red Mound (also Melans), through to the proud stag-warriors of the Northern Needle, travelling through to multiple outer planes (a near endless staircase inside a ziggurat in a blasted hades, a icy wastes of the frost wurm, etc), the underdungeon of the elven shrine, and finally putting the Dream Cult to rest. 

The resumption of the campaign would bring them across continents. From the campaign world we've been using for decades, across the sea to north of the Spire Kingdom. Choosing not to travel the wastelands and then the oceans, the group opted for a remote elven shrine in the mountains where it was rumored that a teleporter was once in use to connect the continents. It was a rough idea I had two years ago and I had to get a bridging adventure set up since I knew that's where they'd head. 

I wrote the Elven Shrine that surrounds the top of a waterfall in a few nights and figured it would be a good back-in-the-saddle adventure to get our group back into the groove and transition us to the content of Lich Valley properly (which they didn't actually touch until the third session, so I was about right on target).

Part 1

On a rainy journey, the group traveled through the mountain pass north of their keep. Before a small valley, they encountered Lasher, the sometimes-helpful giant Mimic who exchanges information for meat. They learned about Ogres and Trolls in the small valley.

They came across a camp of ogres outside of a cave roasting and cannibalizing one of their own. The party quickly thins out the ogres as a pair of trolls bound out of the cave and get roasted by a wall of fire and a rain of arrows. The caves and corpses were looted and the party was on their way.

The party made their way through the rest of the valley to the wedge between two mountains that lead up to a roaring waterfall topped with a pair of statues of the Elf Sovereigns. A staircase fashioned out of the stone leads a long way toward the waterfall, where a small worn cave allows for some convenient resting before entering the Elf Kings Tomb in search of the way to Lich Valley.

Entering the complex, the group surmises three possible paths. One through the calcified dead, one past the marble cloaked statues with faces of swirling black smoke, and across the cavernous lake to a glowing winged statue. Daisy, flying above the lake, sees the heat form of something massive swimming counter-clockwise under the surface. 

The group decimated the calcified dead and entered the hall where they came across the chained door and a door bas-reliefed with an ornate elfin crown. They vanquished a pair of priestly wights before any level drains can occur then proceeded through the room to the north.

Advancing through the room, the statues moved to intercept the intruders. Combat is joined and the Undead Elf King awoke from the sarcophagus, paralyzing Jaque and Daisy in fear. Bastian and Kira fought in the room as the Elf King attempted to blast them with magic. Doran hurled some high tier magic missiles at it while Bastian rushed to melee it in. Finally, Daisy and Jaque freed themselves in fear after the King went down and finished the remaining statue.

Treasure total:

• Gems total value: 3560 gp.
• 900 gp
• elfin chain
• 8000 gp, Potion, Scroll, Potion, Magical Plate Armor , Magical Splint Mail, Wand

Monsters defeated:

• 5 Ogres
• 2 Trolls
• 9 Calcified Dead
• 2 Wights
• 2 Greater Stone Guardians
• 1 Elf King

Part 2

The party left the crypts to hear, through the sounds of rushing water to the west, an echoing screeching. A cacophony of hoots answered it. The chained door still sat to the south.

They investigated a locked and stuck door. Once they made enough noise trying to knock it open, after a failed lockpicking, the hooting started up again from the north west.

A voice from behind the chained door spoke. "It sounds like you need my help." The party considered it as they talked through the door at the thing.

They finally set their eyes on the door to the north and got through the lockpick with Bastians luck. Inside, two high back chairs sit on opposite sides of a round table, ashes and bone sit in a pile on each. Empty torch sconces along the east and west walls show an origin point to a massive flame.

The party found a fork.

The hooting got louder and the thing behind the door talked the party into freeing them, prompted by the appearance of a single orange-black demon orangutans, the Bar-lgura. Dorian stone shaped the door to free the thing.

One Bar-lgura charged and realizing Kiras protection from evil, deviated towards Bastion. Jaques and Bastian faced off against it as more appeared out of thin air. One telekinesis'd Kira, sliding her up and down the wall against her will.

The stoneshape spell of Dorians completed and out stepped a huge cloaked form, cords of muscle on his night-black skin. A stained blindfold covered his eyes but he steps forward with clawed feet confidently.

On the next round he lifted his blindfold and death-gazed a bar-lgura. The parties strength quickly overwhelmed the weaker demons readily and the proceeded to the next room to the north after the Bodak left on his own, advising of the direction to the portal they were after, and giving them a final warning:

"Whatever it is you're doing here, you might make haste. I can smell their sickening fur."

In room to the north, Wooden elven mannequins are posed as people having some sort of dinner party. Some are are frozen in mid-gesture as if caught mid-conversation. They saw dust patterns that led them to see that there was a secret door to the north where a crazed wizard dwelled.

They ended up knocking out the wizard, taking his wand and spellbook, and came back for him later as they further investigated. They also found he had a magical table that produced fresh food daily, but excremented gleefully in the halls of the elven tomb only for something to come along and take it.

They found a room of pine coffins, corpses smashed inside. They found a letter on a corpse that detailed the crazed wizards mistake on summoning the Bodak and has been in hiding ever since and how knight that accompanied him fell, but knew he was doomed.

They also found the room of pillars and quickly surmised the puzzle of spelling O P E N to find the way towards the main chamber foyer. This chamber was littered with dried wine casks where rats have nest in the corner, seemingly tunneled in from a break in the north.

In between, they discovered some rats hoarding a severed hand with a magic ring. Bastion used his animal speech to convince them to give it to him. And they warned them of the vengeful elf spirits in the main chamber beyond.

They retrieved the wizard and the fighter was able to pretend he was the fallen companion of his from long ago. It was not difficult, given the wizards crazed state. He agreed to accompany them, lamenting how long it's been since he's seen the sun.

They proceeded into the main chamber and the phantasmal elven dead rushed to attack, attempting to age them with their vile touch. They had a cloaked one among them, who positioned itself to cast spells.

But the party had spells of their own. Melee was met by some, as other phantasmal elves started melding through the walls of the carefully chosen chokepoint. Melee flurried as the halfling, Daisy, rained arrows from above. A fireball finished off the bulk of the vengeful dead, but the cowled figure had a perfectly lined up lightning bolt that singed the party badly. 

Some charges occurred in the next round and the caster lost it's spell and fell to the flurry of blows. Seeing that they could go back south to the water where a great beast dwelled, or north, they also noticed that a door to the east had an oily black pooling seeping out. Recognizing this as a black pudding, the party wasted no time to the north, through double-doors flanked by marble elven statues with the heads replaced by crude granite arachnid heads.

Heading through the north hall, they found two eastern branches. One roughly eroded that had the sound of rushing water, no doubt leading back to the central waterfall. The other leading to a room with an apparent barrier of white light, filled with motes of thick dust. A table and rectangular object floating within. Straight ahead was a blue translucent barrier, which behind held a horribly monstrous arachnid form with cleaver-like fore-legs. It seems that no magic could go through the barrier and the creature could not cross it, himself. The portal the party sought was right behind the monster, a wall of force in between them.

Treasure

• Wand of Wonder 16 charges
• Spellbook of Thrubora, The Magnificent
• 13 sapphire 100 gp ea
• 6 ceremonial dagger 150 ea
• Magical ring

Monsters defeated:

• 5 Barlgura
• 1 Very depressed Wizard
• 6 Phantasmal Vengeful Elves
• 1 Phantasmal Wizard

Part 3

Very short session...

The group was resource dried and in need of a round of healing. They decided to take their chances camping out in the secret living quarters. Able to avoid random occurrences through the night, the party directly confronted the Retriever, the massive spider-like beast that guarded the portal. While Jaques took a heavy heat ray directly, the action economy of 5 adventurers versus one thing did not let him get a second round.

The party stepped through the portal, blinded by the light, and finding themselves a few hours short of twilight on the mountain side overlooking a massive tortoise with buildings set on top of it in the distance.

Making their way through the forested trails down the mountain, the party encountered a clearing where moss-covered stones carpeted the ground. At the center sat a stone fire ring. Encircling the fire ring were three majestic elven statues, carved from shimmering marble. Each statue held a space where something once resided in their clasped hands. 

Eventually, Kira fashioned make-shift torches that were placed into the hands of the statues. This caused a flame to spring forth from the stone ring accompanied by the smell of pines and lilacs. It lasted for 10 hours, keeping some shadow mastiffs at bay later that night. Though a few did get fireballed to chase them off.

Finally, they arrived at Glenhaven. A lower town under the massive tortoise with a portal that transported to the upper town. Along the way, town crier walked down the street ringing a bell. He announced that the Glenhaven has placed a bounty of 3000 gold pieces for the capture of a thief named Derthag Alk. Derthag has stolen the symbolic scythe from The Jagged Scythe.

In the upper city, Bastion learned about the dwarven saying 'skin of the snake' as a way to remember how the snake-men and troglodytes took their homeland long ago in the north edge of the valley.

Kira, working with Priestess Isabelle of the Light learned of  farmers to the north, south of the Heribyr river bend, have banded together, giving offerings to the spirit of the tall grass to protect the healthy livestock and crops.

Hooks are in bold.

Treasure

• Magic Quiver
• Magic Short Sword
• Magic Dice

Monsters defeated:

• 5 Shadow Mastiffs... kinda
• 1 Retriever

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.

Spire Development Log 1 - Maps

Coming up with adventure sites and altering existing ones to fit better for actual play was a critical skill I'd been trying to perfect in the past few decades. I only concerned myself with with all that mattered was what happened at the table. Writing it all down in a digestible format, for others to read, has been an insanely valuable experience.

Thanks to No Artpunk II, and Prince of Nothings urgings and call to arms, I decided that I would attempt to formalize an adventure for someone else to read. I've been writing, to all degrees of experience, adventures for 34 years at this point. Other than one lame MS Word attempt in the 90s, I never tried to make campaigns full of adventure design something than anyone else would, or could, read. 

That experience let me do not just one pass at Carcass of Hope, but two. I started expanding the module a little more each iteration until I ended up with too much. There were contest limitations and I had to start trimming excess and converting some creatures and items to core book simulacrums. Just one week before submission, I ripped the entire adventure out of the world that was born of those efforts and condensed them down into something more modular. The result isn't very apparent, but some of the ways the parts fit together in the contest version seem off.

Please forgive me, for I have committed AI sins.

As a result the Carcass of Hope found in No Artpunk II is not the version I ran or use. The dungeons are mostly the same, the connective tissue is much different. I tried to get a runnable format down, which was playtested. And even after running it a few times and the contest being over, I still had things that I wanted to change. However, the original version would expand to a campaign setting that is mostly all written and has gone through about 40 sessions as of this writing.

Challenge 1: Maps

On top of that, my mapping has either been freehand scribbles or graph paper to help me DM games. Since I started DMing online, I had done an entire campaigns worth of increasingly better VTT maps. However, as a critical person, there are things I look for in maps in adventures that I read. 

I didn't want the maps to be too busy with labels, which is something I regrettably did for the submitted version of Carcass. I didn't want to use high-texture VTT maps, because they're hard to read zoomed out and actually distracting to use for players as their focus will emphasis what's shown on the map versus what isn't. Finally, I didn't want anything that looked so artificially sterile in a way that it was obvious to what mapping program was used. Subconsciously, at least with me, there's a visual exhaustion to seeing a lot of common usages of commonly used mapping methods. No sleight to people who make use of those tools available to you, but mapping is always something that I've viewed as a hobby within the hobby.

This is the progression I used for Carcass' maps, which absolutely hurts for me to look at:

Just draw something. Doodle it the fuck up and see where you land.

The first draft map. Experimenting with brush hashing, poorly.

The No Artpunk II submitted map. Settling on making my own hash brush. Cleaner but damn ugly.

10 months later, here is where I've landed for most dungeon maps.

Ultimately dissatisfied with it, I decided to take what I liked about it and create a new map with new content to better pace it. This was a mixture of my own insecurities with the dungeon, mixed in with the grain of salts from Prince, Melan, and Bryce reviews. Two floors, a smattering of new rooms, more conducive to faction play, and egress that puts the whole place more into a 3 dimension axis than before.

Hex maps were an entirely different thing. I had run previous campaigns doing a map on Wonderdraft and putting down hex lines at a large scale and then key things after. It wasn't long until expanding the hexcrawls that I wanted a more granular approach, which meant using Hexographer.

Thanks, I hate it.

Remember that exhaustion thing I spoke of before? Seeing hexmaps in a ton of modules in Hexographer/Worldographer, hextml, and hex kit gets old after the first few times of seeing them. Are they, like the dungeon design apps, functional? Absolutely. Does it help an adventure or setting stand out for the DM to be curious enough to look deeper? I don't think so. It could absolutely just be me, but looking at a big ass full page spread of Hexographer maps sort of kills my curiosity. 

You've seen this hex map 50 times before.

So the next experiment was to draw the entire hex map, hoping that there would be a charm to the imperfections. It worked to a degree, but zoomed way out, it looked terrible. The numbers being added wouldn't help the clarity, but instead hamper it. The implied hex lines also looked strange. 

Finally, I decided to draw the maps and put them on a Judges Guild replica and I knew I was on to something.

There was the hand drawn aspect, which caused a lot of wrist soreness. But the clear borders, numbering, and labeling really elevated the map to being a bit more interesting and very usable in play. There would still be more work to do, more plains to fill, roads to thicken, and with the help of the Surprise Segment discord, fonts chosen.

When I had been fleshing out the adventure around Carcass of Hope, I had to stop somewhere. The result was a Ziggurat, a bandit outpost, details on towns (including maps) that never made the No Artpunk version.

Those initial versions all got pushed off of the project scope and the hex map started taking form. As Carcass was a level 3-4 adventure, I wanted some lower level content to make it more complete. I created the melted keep, a few smaller hexes that would range in difficulty and interest, and a dungeon called the Tower of Exiles. But with those came more towns, which leads me to the last bit of the mapping blog.

The first map was made for my own use and shows a version of the town that wasn't fully realized. There was an issue in using this map outside of my own play in that in Carcass, it's possible that a fight is done here and while this could inform it, it was definitely an afterthought. Also, this uses DungeonDraft with the Forgotten Adventures asset pack which you can't just distribute. Finally, it's extremely unattractive to me. 

 

The next set of town maps were a bit more informed as to the highlights of the town and it was certainly enough to run games out of. I used WonderDraft then added notes later with Gimp. It was very low effort and the campaign setting would sit like this, for every town and city, for half a year before I changed it.

With roughly drawn pieces that were intended to break up the text of the adventures, I kept working on improving on my sketching to get back to being able to provide a bit more fitting images for the adventures. I was operating on the assumption that this would be something that more than just myself would use. I started drawing the towns based on how my evolved sense of the world had taken shape. Then I would scan the drawing and color and label them in GIMP.

This was far closed to what I was looking for. It's not the best town map I've ever seen, but it's mine.

With maps out of the way, I can happily never talk about them again until I figure out another preferred method. The next part will be the hexcrawl contents and world functionality itself.

Part of my AD&D House Rules, Part 3 - Wilderness Exploration

Wilderness Exploration

Most hexcrawl articles talk about generating a hexcrawl. That is not what this is about. My Spire campaign is an already made hexcrawl map with the adventure sites, lairs, and points of interest detailed. For a better, more general, and instructive guide, check out Melan's post here.

When I discuss these house rules, it's more for what I have found works for me. Having a codified system in my head makes the process of repetition breed efficiency, while at the same time allowing for an array of possible outcomes that reward or punish certain decisions. Seasoned DMs who already have their own favored systems that get the most out of will not find much use in another system. But those DMs who are looking into methods on running their own games might find some useful substance in these posts.

With wilderness exploration there are a few goals of any game and some of those will mirror those goals found in running dungeon exploration. For example: Time isn't free, this is why durations of torches, spells, and random encounters exist. This gives weight to spending time which is the counter balance to on-going play. Exploration in charting out the area in a dungeon is likewise carried forward into the greater world so that adventurers can uncover lost secrets, new adventure sites, and places of respite.

Like in the dungeon, wilderness time matters. Travel isn't free and rarely will be without event. There needs to be a cost in travelling the terrain as well as risks. Random encounters solve some of that. The obstacles such as harsher terrain types, fortresses, camps, and lairs offer more of that. Combine that with the chances of horrible weather and getting lost and the world begins to feel as it should.

In Spire, there are hundreds of detailed hexes. They may be villages, cities, and towns. Often they are lairs, forgotten shrines, and curiosities. Travelling in any direction through any given six hexes should usually result in a random encounter, a chance in terrain, one or two pre-determined hexes, and possibly a hex containing many sub-hexes (that is, more than one adventure site or point of interest with relative location to each other within the hex).

Absolutely quick and dirty for the low attention span:

1. HH points are travelling points to spend per day. Mounted = 12 HH points, Unmounted = 6 HH points.
2. Using the HH chart below, determine the terrain cost (plains cost 2, forests cost 4, etc). That tells you how many hexes to roll for being lost in.
3. Roll d4 and d6 daily for weather and vision, respectively.
4. Roll d10 for each hex travelled for being lost. If lost, then determine direction.
5. Check table for frequency of day/night random encounters.
6. Roll a d8 for each of those. Any encounters hit, roll on the table and adjudicate normally.

This takes me about 20 seconds to adjudicate an entire day of events, describe the day, and begin asking questions about the next steps. Random encounters aside, of course. 

Scale

I use 6 mile hexes. It's not uncommon, but everyone has their reasons. Mine is that I like to break up the hex into it's own adventure site. In Spire, I have a number of hexes that are suited better to 'drilling down'. The below example isn't the best one, but it serves to illustrate the point. Usually in these drilled down hexes, it's convenient to break them up into 1 mile sub-hexes. A 5 mile hex would be a little more awkward for me to manage.

With a 1-mile sub-hex, I can better illustrate vision, which helps to serve a similar function as a branching hallway within a dungeon. You may not know what's on the opposite end of the hex, but you can definitely see wisps of smoke over the plains a little over a mile away and a ruined tower on a hill further off in the distances to the north. By the time you get to the tower, then maybe atop that hill you can see the giant goat-shrine to the north west. Perhaps once you've gotten to the top of the tower you can see the field of petrified soldiers three miles off to the north east. This leads us into the first part of Spire wilderness exploration. 

Determining Vision (d3)

With vision, we're not given rules to adjudicate this and must instead rely on a little bit of science to make up something functional. Because we like to try to root world mechanics in the familiar, the planet that Spire is on is the same size as our Earth. The earth's surface curves out of sight within about 3.1 miles. You can see things like skyscrapers from further away only because there is no horizonal obstruction. Therefore, the maximum range of vision is 3 miles. 

Sort of. You have to common sense the exceptions.

Exceptions

A mountain range is going to be clearly visible from an extremely far distance unless there's obstructions. You don't need to give yourself further brain damage by trying to mechanize this.

A massive 300 foot tall obelisk could be visible from 12 miles away. But not if it was deep inside a canyon. 

You can figure out the exceptions with a brief moment of thought. I believe in you.

Step 1 - Roll for vision conditions for each day

However for standard practice we start with a D3 on most standard hexes. Maybe you only got a 1 and it just happens to be exceptionally heavy with peaks and valleys within the plains. Maybe you got a 3 and the forest is not only a bit sparse on the foliage, but the area is elevated a bit when the party stops to survey their surroundings. 

Step 2 - Factor in weather adjustments

Weather (see Determining Weather), but with a violent storm, visibility might be reduced by 66%. A rain storm might reduce it by 33%. A violent storm might bring the range to 0-1 miles. A rain storm might bring the range to 0-2 miles. This matters when determining getting lost (see Getting Lost).

Example:

Determining Weather (d4)

Weather is gradient for the most part in Spire. When a campaign starts, it'll cycle. Those cycles will change in effect depending on the season. Tracking time in Spire is important and it's already assumed that time will be clear on what season a current game is in. Because we like to try to root world mechanics in the familiar, the planet that Spire is on is the seasonal cycle as our Earth (notably North America).

Campaign starts can merely select a day, from there you may also choose starting weather (or roll d100) to find the weather of this chart:

Note that this is an early draft of Spire weather. The published version has used the 100 roll as a special weather event unique to Spire that I will not share here. 

Once you are in a weather cycle, track it using something like this:

The weather moves through the cycles dependent on what it lands on. The weather will have an effect on travelling speed (see Rate of Travel) and visibility.

On a clear spring day, weather is being tracked at a 73. The adventurers travel through a day and a d4 is rolled, resulting in a 3. The weather being tracked now moves to 76 and now there will be a loss of Hex Hours (see Rate of Travel) as well as visibility.

Step One - Roll the weather increment for each day
Step Two - Note where the current weather now is on the chart.

Getting Lost (d10)

Going through most hexes, unless the territory is charted, results in a check to see if the party gets lost. If they get lost, there is an at-the-table logistics issue to solve. Do you have them fill in a hex and then wait for them to get confused and spend however long trying to figure out where they could have gotten lost, then retrace their steps and remap it? I really don't want to do that. So you're left with two options:

Tax the hell out them for travel time or show them where they got lost to. I find that it's best for the flow of the game to just tell them where they ended up instead of the intended destination. My method for determining the lost chance is extrapolated right out of the 1e DMG. 

Lost Chance:

Plains:  1 in 10    Left or Right (1-2)

Hills:    2 in 10    Left or Right (1-2)

Forest:   7 in 10    Any (1-6)

Swamp:   6 in 10    Any (1-6)

Mountains: 5 in 10    Left or Right, or behind left or right (1-4)

Scrub: 3 in 10 Left or Right (1-2) 

Desert: 4 in 10 Left or Right (1-2)

Step One - Roll the chance of getting lost for each hex

Step Two - If lost, determine where the new direction leads.

Rate of Travel

The 1e DMG gives an extrapolated movement rate, which you can in turn apply math to dependent on the scale of your hexes. In Spire, I know the scale and I want something similar to Outdoor Survival in terms of determining movement. Some exceptions occur, purposefully.

Outdoor Survival, which is not a complete game with the same intentions, has a very handy chart that aids in travel through hexes.

I have adopted a similar system, where I break it up in to Hex Hours. I have a more robust system that factors into greater detail on specific mount speeds and encumbrance but I am not willing to share it in it's full detail at this point, though it relies on the 1e DMG guidelines stated on these topics. That aside, here is the Quick and dirty:

I refer to the points for Spire as Hex Hours (HH), so it illustrates how much is expected on a travel day. This will be carried forth into extending Hex Hours, which will lead to exhaustion effects that will be detailed later. 

On foot, 6 hours of pure travel is typical. Not factoring in packing up camp, stopping to rest and eat, navigating direction, finding a campsite and setting it up, there will be 6 hours of meaningful travel. 

Being mounted doubles the amount of Hex Hours allowed to be spent. In short, 12 Hex Hours (HH) can be spent in travel per day on horseback (riding), 6 HH can be spent while travelling on foot. This is easiest for an overall party average, though I would grant an additional 2 HH if the entire party was travelling light with fast horses. Likewise, heavy mounts with mules and such would be penalized 2.

Working HH rates, bold means mount bonus HH do not apply. Italics means it requires a proper mount to apply bonus HH.

Stopping a fraction of the way into the hex is fine in Spire. This differs from Outdoor Survival in that you must have the entire points required to enter the hex.

For every 2 points spent beyond the days allowance of Hex Hours, exhausted sets in that mirrors the effects of curse (-1 to hit, and morale) which is cumulative.

Examples:

Six plains hexes can be travelled by Horseback each day.

One plains hex and one forest hex can be travelled by foot each day.

Three hexes of open plains, then 1 hex of forest, stopping mid-hex on the second forest hex on horseback.

Random Encounters (d8)

The D8 Check Day refer to the number of checks done when spending 6 HH. 1 in 8 chance for an encounter, unless otherwise specified. A 2d6 table is made for each terrain or area. The D8 Night refer to the number of checks done during camping. 1 in 8 chance for an encounter.

Watches roll a number of d6 depending on terrain. This is detailed by a chart that will define certain terrains more conducive to monster encounters over others. Also, in more populated areas, I use a roll for certain events. Perhaps someone needs rescuing, a merchant carrying unique goods, or the like could occur.

All random encounters follow typical encounter protocols of surprise and distance, then described to the players.

Putting it all together in an example:

D4 (weather increment), D6 (divided by 2 for visibility), D8 (random encounter check), D10 (getting lost check), 2D6 (if a positive random encounter occurs, what is encountered). 

Example set 1: The party, mounted, is moving across the plains (costs 2 HH so they move 3 plains hexes), starting the day with a weather of 34.

Along the path, in the 4th hex, is the Barrowmound of Ultimate Evil. The party travels through 3 plains hexes (6 HH spent) and dice are rolled and the results, in order (d4, d6, d8, 3d10, [2d6]), are respectively 3, 4, 1, (2, 4, 6), [8].

The weather is incremented from 34 to 37 (still clear). The visibility is 2 miles, but a random encounter (1 on the d8) will need to be resolved. The d12 rolled d6+3 wolves for the random encounter. Finally, the party didn’t get lost (2, 4, 6 on a 3d10) during the trip.

The random encounter is resolved and the Barrowmound of Ultimate Evil is presented, but not explored. The next set of 6 HH to spend is three hexes of Hills (costs 3 HH so they move 2 hills hexes). No hex entries are in those hills to consider and dice are rolled and the results, in order (d4, d6, d8, 3d10, [2d6]), are 4, 6, 5, (2, 4, 7), [11].

The weather is incremented from 37 to 41 (still clear). The visibility improves to 3 miles (6 on the d6), there is no random encounter (5 on the d8), but the party has gotten lost on the first hex (2 on the first d10) and the direction is rolled (1-2) which has the party travel into the Hills hex to the right of where they intended. 

The 12 mounted HH are spent for the day and they decide to make camp. At night 1 random encounter check is made during their watches (hills have one d8 check at night) and the result is a 7, so the night is uneventful.

Example set 2: The party, unmounted, is moving east through the Mist Oak (forest, which cost 4 HH each hex), starting the day at weather of 47. Two hexes away is the Goddess Shrine of Blessings. The party travels 1.5 forest hexes for the day (6 HH spent). The dice are rolled and the results, in order (d4, d6, d8, 1d10, [2d6]), are 4, 2, 4, (6), [5].

The weather is incremented to 51 (cloudy). The visibility is pretty bad so even climbing a tall tree can only reveal a mile (2 on the d6). No random encounters were rolled (4 on a d8), but they got lost (6 on a d10) while moving from hex to hex since only one hex was crossed, that is the point of divergence, and the direction is rolled as a 4, which means they somehow took a 90 degree turn to the south and ended up halfway into the hex south, instead of east, by travels end. The unmounted HH is spent for the day and they decide to make camp.

At night, 1 random encounter check is made during their watches (forests have 1 d8 check at night) and the result is a 1. 2d6 is rolled on the random encounter table and Giant Spiders are rolled up (2-5 of them).5 of them are rolled up so during one of the characters watch (roll to see which), 5 of the things circle the camp to attack.