Taking a stab at Gygax 75: The Martian Setting, Part 2

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/village of about 500 people and at 16:11 there is a hamlet of about 250. With some quick estimations, I made sure that all of them had adequately cleared farmland before stopping myself from going more in-depth with them. 

    The marked area at 16:05-ish is actually a massive plateau, about 100 ft high and with no reasonable explanation for its existence. 20:08 is the entrance to the buried ruins that are the starter dungeon and 23:08 is a set of natural watering holes, formed by deep depressions in the flats.

Random Encounters

    As a bit of extra credit, I made some random encounters to use with this map. I don't think they are really complete, but they are functional. I rated each encounter as Common, Uncommon, or Rare and put in 3, 2, or 1 variations respectively into the table. Also, because I felt like I could do it quickly, I made two different tables for within the canyon and without.

1d12	Canyon	Flats
1	6 farmers with a raft, heading to market.	Surprise ambush by a White Lizard.
2	An old woman in a raft, heading home.	3 Green Lizards circling a corpse, snapping at each other.
3	5 merchants and 1 guard travelling on foot near the river.	2 Green Lizards sunning themselves.
4	3 bandit scouts begin tailing the party.	Someone steps on a viper.
5	8 bandits demand a toll, 10 sp per person.	4 vipers circle the party, looking for an easy meal.
6	A rockslide blocks the path behind the party.	A giant constrictor snake looks over the party from atop a boulder.
7	Rockslide right on the party! Everyone must save or take 2d6 damage.	A lone elven nomad, collapsed on the ground.
8	A giant centipede wanders out of the safety of its burrow.	A nomad caravan (17 elves) is passing nearby.
9	A large school of fish can be seen in the shallows of the river.	A Vulture swoops down, looking for a meal.
10	A woman working in the water "slips" and needs help. She actually a monster.	A Vulture pops up, carrying a corpse in its beak.
11	A spirit takes a fancy to a party member. It will secretly follow them and ward off would-be suitors, with varying discretion and restraint.	A spirit chooses someone in the party to secretly offer a magic item in return for a human sacrifice.
12	Roll a Flats encounter	A young blue dragon swoops down to scare the party.

Thoughts

    I haven't named anything, despite that really being part of this week's challenge, but that is because I haven't decided how I want things to sound on Mars. I want it to have a somewhat cohesive culture/feel, but I'm not sure what that is yet. Also, I ended up spending quite a bit more time on the encounters than the map because the setting does not lend itself to diverse terrain for the most part. 

    Still, everything is proceeding well enough, and I am happy I managed to get this week's challenge done despite other issues cropping up. I wouldn't say I am satisfied with how everything currently sits, but it is all perfectly gameable content, which I suppose is the point of this challenge. 

    Next week is Week 3: The Dungeon, and probably the portion of this challenge I think will be the most difficult. I have always struggled to make dungeons, but the challenge does provide guidance to make this process easier. I think one of the major sticking points is going to be theming different floors, since I don't want all of them to be "ancient technologically advanced ruins".

Continue to part Three