I started a hex crawl. Once I decided to actually do a hex crawl, I realized it wasn’t really a hex crawl, its just me fleshing out an area, breathing life into it, sort of like summoning something from another plane of existence. I have to say, the best thing about creating this hex crawl, is that ideas start to pop off in my head and go to all manner of strange places – like the omniverse and whether or not by me making this hex crawl I am bringing something into existence somewhere. I mean, in a universe of all possibilities, why not?
Because and because. That aside because I don’t believe in
anything like math and physics and popsicles its not happening.
Again, I literally have no idea what I am talking about. Oh yeah, the hex crawl. See, while writing these I stop and any little neural network that lights up impels me to begin researching something other than what I am talking about. So back to the hex crawl. I really enjoy doing this hex crawl and would strongly suggest anyone building their own world to begin one right away. So, several things have come to light that probably need mentioning.
The first thing that happened is that putting this together has forced me to think in the here and now of the campaign. I am not worried or thinking about the past, but am thinking about the current moment for players. What are the players going to be interacting with on a day-to-day basis.? What are the possible adventures? What is going on at the moment in that spot? All this so that interesting conflicts can be presented to the players. This perforce drags me away from elaborate histories and long intertwining plot lines to get an adventure underway (this is something that bedevils any writing effort I undertake). I immediately framed the whole structure in game sessions.
Now, I will say that I have some context to work from. The map below is from Airdhe and there is plenty of history to draw from. I think I have one or two pages for this whole area. That is enough to build from, now I just fill in the details and move forward. As an example, all I know is that orcs reside on that island in the northwest corner. From there I get to orc pirates, shipwrecks, river pirates, raiding parties, small camps, etc. Then I think, well, the orcs have not conquered the whole area. Why is that? I have to come up with a countervailing force. More creatures and internal strife. Essentially the region is building itself.
Then on to dungeons!!! The first dungeon just popped into my mind. The cool thing, it is not a randomly placed adventure local. It’s a place that exists for a reason and for a thing and has things in it for a reason. It exists outside the players milieu meaning that when (if) they arrive, they arrive in the middle of the action. Now, it will of course have to managed so that the dungeon can be explored but that’s a detail. What I have is a reason, a design, what is in it, and why. Now all I have to do is throw out some threads to drag the players and their characters to the local.
Then, in a random comment on the upcoming Planes book, I created another adventuring local. And that got me thinking about the multiverse and all possible worlds. Because I can never make up my mind about anything and went directly to “well, in all possible worlds, all possible planar configurations exist.” So really, got nowhere. Then Steve chimed in, “how about all planes existing in the same place and same time, layered on top of each other.” I am thinking a cake. Sounds good. And, he added, some things can exist in more than one place and one time at the same time.
Start your hex crawl today. FYI, this hex crawl is being developed for Patron backers. It may see print someday. It may not! Because, I went waaaaay of reservation and just sort of did this outside of company discussions and plans. So yeah, it has no place in our schedule. At all.
Oh, i may need playtesters for a game soon ;)
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