VDonnut Valley

Giving Weight to Paths and some random Points

In general I have divided the important paths into three categories - obvious, hidden and secret. Obvious are the official paths - like from the city to the mines, the stables or the Wardens. These are trodden roads with stone poles marking where to go. In random encounter tables they usually have merchants, clerks, supply caravans and workers.

IMG_20240926_001104

Two hidden paths are from Warden's Fortress to Sanctuary and from farms to the Tree Oasis (the arrows on the map). These are paths that are marked in a specific way like rocks set in a specific pattern. I guess all the ranger-type characters could find them and decode them with a little bit of effort. They won't have many human encounters - only for those who know the secrets - but probably more of the surrounding wilderness.

There are a lot of secret paths though. These are marked by these little arches with horizontal lines sticking from the sides? I didn't think them through. Well these are landmark based paths, you need to know what to look for and where in order to find them which is what makes them so secret.

Yellow Mages sneaking to Sanctuary without checking with the Wardens? Necromancers finding their secret cave lair by navigating from Tree Oasis? Anyone trying to get to and from Rebels or Wizard Tower? It is also fun that you can still get lost on such path. Also meeting people there is more likely a problem as they'd know you are aware of this path - should you be?

This map would really use some more points though. In hexcrawl terms we have at least three "hexes" empty to the south of the river and six empty "hexes" to the north of it! These shouldn't be significant or very impactful things not to clutter the map but some small rewards for the exploration or even just situations provoking the adventure.

Altar to forgotten god which grants minor blessing if you fix it or leave a sacrifice and curses if you defile or disrespect the place? Giant whale skeleton so far from the sea and in such high altitude? A hermit hut with no one near but still fresh bonfire? Family of ogres who herd their sheep nearby and don't cause problems as long as they have something to eat (who probably have magic items)? I think these are not really the points to pin but more likely the points to roll randomly based on where you're exploring.

I'm not sure if people are interested and if I should even bother so I think the post about random encounters won't be published but maybe I will release this whole region as a free help once its polished.

#pointcrawl