Cephalon Dusp's Archives

     Another week, another portion of the Gygax 75. This week ended up being much more difficult than I expected, because of the two thorny problems of mapping the town and how to name things. I spent a large amount of time fiddling with Vulgar , a piece of software that helps automate language creation. I still keep finding issues, but I also need to be done with this week at some point so it will stand. Back to part three Week 4: Town Features      For your viewing pleasure, I present the City of Soorzel Somfawt (the nobles). It was made very quickly in Watabou's City Generator , though I am not particularly happy with it. The estimate on this map is that it would contain 800 buildings and be about a mile across after generously doubling the size of everything. Thus, I have decided this is the main portion of the city where the clans live and things generally happen. Outside of the walls are smaller compounds for smaller clans and the clan-less, explaining why my other map shows

     Wow, slightly over a week later and I can say this was the biggest week so far. Didn't help that I was apartment hunting and travelling while doing it, but I do have the first three levels of the starter dungeon to present! I haven't completed the dungeon as much as I would like, particularly levels 2 and 3, but it is once again enough that I could probably run a session or two with it.     For the curious, all mapping was done in  dungeon scrawl , which is a nice free dungeon mapping software that runs online! Back to part two Week 3: The Dungeon The entrance to this dungeon is a sunken hole in the ground, leaking cool air from below. Level 1      This level is themed as a buried temple, though it ended up being pretty small. Still, it should provide some interesting adventures, particularly on repeat visits. The Statue in 05 can very easily become a recurring problem/feature of the level depending on how it is handled. The entrance to the dungeon is a hole, above a loose

Week 2: Surrounding Area Back to part one Hex Map     Mapping this setting has been an interesting challenge. I tend to get a little in-depth with worldbuilding, but did my best to hold off on the details. So, without further work I present, The Map:     I did this in Worldographer , after doing most of the work on paper first. Now, the most important detail of this map is that the hexes are 1.5 miles across. The larger, grey, hexes are 6 mile hexes. While 1.5 miles might be a weird number, but works well with my travel system, which makes use of Leagues (how far someone can walk in an hour). Another interesting thing about this map is that inside of the canyon is entirely filled with hills, because the interior of a canyon is basically only flat if someone comes along and manually flattens it.     For the sites on the map, you can see the main city located around 07:07. It has a population of about 5,000 people, making it small but still notable. At 03:11, you can see a private manor/

Some Background      For those who are not aware, Gygax 75 is a sort of challenge (available  for free here ) based on creating a new campaign. It is based on an article written by Gary Gygax in 1975, less than a year after the original editions of D&D were released. The challenge itself is broken up over a series of weeks, with each one focused on a different concrete task.      I have been interested in trying the challenge ever since I first encountered it, and now that I have some inklings of an idea for a Mars inspired setting, I decided that now is the time. Week 1: The Concept Pitch Points Everyone lives in enormous canyons . This red planet is inhospitable outside of enormous canyons which snake across the surface of the planet. Every canyon has a river snaking through it, providing life-giving water and supporting the agriculture necessary for large, organized society. The soil is iron . The planet is red, because nearly all of the soil is incredibly iron-rich clay. Iron i