Take a Hexcrawl and set it free
Lately I have been creating a region for my DIYelfgame solo playtest. I have had a little problem with filling it out and so I thought of this experiment – why not fill it as a hexcrawl and then let go of the unnecessary bonds?
Starting with the hexcrawl – my region is a small kingdom in basically a wide valley. The city is in the center and I designated around it some biomes – hills, farmlands and shrublands. The climate of this place is rather arid with hot summers and chilly winters. Farmlands are kept thanks to the river and irrigation efforts. River flows directly through the city.
For my pointcrawl reference I emphasized separation of the biomes/regions – we have large chunk of hills (challenging wilderness), city+farmlands (civilisation) and two separated shrublands (mix of wilderness and civilisation). As you can see I made a mistake and tried to cut through southern shrubland because I mistaken my own „shrub” and „grass” markings XD
Time to put some points of interest here. We have abandoned wizard tower on the edge of map, as a potential crazy dungeon with crazy treasure. There is one working mine and one abandoned – maybe as a sign that world was better in older times. In the north there is a fortress, probably some guarding outpost, because times are rough and hostile neighbour might strike from this direction? I have also drawn houses in farmlands, I don’t know why. I guess to mark them as settled?
Okay and here we are, freeing the map. It basically made the map visually better – shrublands take more place, everything seems more organic. Knowing basic things about the region I added another points – rebel tents next to mines, in the hills to make it easier to hide. I guess their presence has something to do with mines, maybe the abandoned mines. There are caves to the south for use of indetermined evil faction. Also a horse in shrublands marks stables and horse breeding, another resource for the king.
And next thing, the inn on the river for boats to visit, as the river is main transport artery. The trees in the south are some oddity – oasis of shadow in ocean of grass and shrub. And to the north something, maybe a magic circle or sanctuary or old kurhan. I feel like that’s enough points, river flows in more organic way, it also emphasizes placement of the river – when it’s placed among hex borders it can seem hidden but here you can quickly find it and understand where you cannot go – one does not simply crosses a river. Each bridge is a crucial travel element.
And here we go with paths. Remeber, known paths are also very important part of pointcrawl. In hexcrawl the hex and it’s borders are somewhat indicator of possible path, in pointcrawls path is important, can have it’s own attributes, signifies random encounters (way better chance for encountering people on a road than not), may have some special rules. You can also separate them through their availability – Obvious, Hidden and Secret (links). Here I’ve drawn known road from the city to northern fortress and from there to sanctuary – but you can take a hidden shortcut. There is known road to the stables, hidden from farmlands to the trees, secret from abandoned mines to wizard tower. Well, the image is too small for me to differentiate between hidden and secret paths XD
Okay, I think that is okay for today. Next time I will provide some more info on factions, conditions and larger worldview.