Progress Was Made

Today saw a lot of progress with the hex map. I've created a new map that is based on 5-mile hexes, places dots for each of the 25-mile hexes from the previous map, and have begun fleshing out the region on a 5-mi-hex scale.

So far, I have the terrain for the main starting kingdom done, but I still need to place rivers and start placing settlements. I also want to build out the area surrounding that kingdom a little, since that may impact where people choose to live.

I am also already getting some inspiration from how the map is shaping up. Using Welsh Piper's terrain assignment scheme, with a little randomization in number of hexes for a terrain time tossed in for good measure, I'm getting something pretty reasonable so far. Once I get a bit more done, I'll post a picture, but I'd rather not toss up something that, frankly, still looks half-assed. I whole-ass my work, dammit.

Some Hex Mapping

I've been tinkering with hex mapping lately, and thought I'd post what I did in the order I've done it. The scale is 25 mi = 1 hex, and the map spans roughly the 35th parallel to the 60th parallel.

The climate information was developed using the Climate Cookbook, and the software used is primarily Hexographer and GIMP, with Koppen climates added in Inkscape.

Now that I have big hex map made, I'm going to pick an area that looks interesting to me and make a 5-mile-hex map of it. Then it'll be time to start building details on that map. Rinse and repeat until the entire 2.25 million square mile area is done!

1. Landmass

2. Landforms

3. Climate - Precipitation

Summer

Winter

4. Climate - Temperature

Summer

Winter

5. Koppen Climates (WIP)

6. Landform Updates & Major Rivers

7. Vegetation

Guilds of Alnwich: The Brotherhood of the All-Seeing Star

The Brotherhood of the All-Seeing Star

Hermetic Cabal

Rank: Conspiracy Rank 0-8.

In Charge: Demonologists, scholars, and wizards.

In the Ranks: Agents, cultists, demonologists, necromancers, sages, scholars, and wizards.

On the Payroll: Assassins, brutes, burglars, cutpurses, guards, killers, knights, scouts, skirmishers, swashbucklers, and thieves.

Influencing the AR: Intimidation.

The Brotherhood of the All-Seeing Star is a secretive organization that is newly arrived in Alnwich. Little is known of their purpose or numbers, but they seem to have some magical inclinations, and the Collegium Arcana seems to be perturbed by their presence. They appear to admit both men and women, despite their name, and have a number of convoluted ways of recognizing each other. These include secret handshakes and code phrases, but probably extend far further than anyone realizes.

The Brotherhood’s most distinguishing feature are the hats they wear during ceremonies: a tall, purple conical affair topped with a pentacle inscribed with an eye. The edge of the hat is fringed with eight black strands as hair, and a pair of long sidelocks. These hats are not worn publically, and are only known only because a few individuals have been caught committing crimes with them on their person.

The Counsel of Aldermen is growing concerned with these newcomers, but the Earl hasn’t seen reason to do anything about them. The Town Guard remains vigilant, but the machinations of the Brotherhood are yet to be revealed.

What the Brotherhood of the All-Seeing Star Wants

At their core, the Brotherhood want power. Complete and ultimate power. This underlies all ostensible and even some clandestine motives. It drove their first members into the worship of demonic entities so horrific that most would be maddened at the mere speaking of their names. Some would suggest they, too, were driven from sanity by the path they chose to walk. After all, power corrupts . . . or maybe it just attracts the corruptible.

While their quest for power ultimately motivates everything the Brotherhood does, on a more practical level, they seek to bring Azathoth, the Blind Idiot God, and his court into the world in exchange for unfathomable ascendency. Knowing society will never accept this willingly, they work in utmost secrecy, use hired go-betweens, and worm their way into positions predisposed to influencing the levers of power.

What they want in Alnwich is of much more recent development. A confluence of dream-portents have suggested that a powerful artifact rests somewhere beneath Seidrborg, and the stars will soon align to make it accessible again. They have been preparing an expedition to the dungeon and nearby Thanras for the purposes of claiming the artifact for themselves. They are interesting in anyone who can aid them in their cause, preferably inadvertently.

What the Brotherhood of the All-Seeing Star Can Provide

The Brotherhood of the All-Seeing Star can provide training in Astronomy (IQ/H), Dreaming (IQ/A), Fortune-Telling (Astrology and Oneiromancy) (IQ/A), Hazardous Materials (Magical) (IQ/A), Hidden Lore (Elder Things, Magic Items, or Magic Writings) (IQ/A), History (Elder Things) (IQ/H), Occultism (IQ/A), Philosophy (All-Seeing Star) (IQ/H), Psychology (Demons (IQ/H), Ritual Magic (IQ/VH), and Theology (All-Seeing Star) (IQ/H) with a successful AR and also give professional discounts on tomes of quaint and curious forgotten lore.

They also provide:

• Artifacts. These are usually cursed, evil, demonic, or all three.
• Augury. The Brotherhood specializes in astrology and oneiromancy. +2 to ARs.
• Hideout. The Brotherhood has a number of safe houses, basements, and tunnels for getting in and out of town unnoticed. +3 to ARs.
• Immunity. The Brotherhood has already infiltrated the Town Guard and the earl’s court.
• Lore. The Brotherhood can provide information via Hidden Lore (Elder Things, Magic Items, or Magic Writings), History (Elder Things), Philosophy (All-Seeing Star), and Theology (All-Seeing Star). +4 to ARs.
• Translation. The Brotherhood can translate strange writings on a successful Linguistics roll. Treat this as Lore, but failure results in gibberish and critical failure gives an incorrect translation. +4 to ARs.
• Map. The Brotherhood has collected many maps of the ancient city on the southern shore they call Thanras, and claim to have maps of parts of the dungeons beneath Hogwarts, too.
• Special Orders. The Brotherhood can

Other ARs are at -3 or worse, and backup is at -10.

Guilds of Alnwich: The Town Guard

Town Guard/Military Company

Rank: Military Rank 0 to 4.

In Charge: Captain Lindqvist (Knight).

In the Ranks: Archers, barbarians, brutes, guards, holy warriors, killers, knights, scouts, skirmishers, and squires.

On the Payroll: Innkeepers, laborers, native guides, servants, and non-adventurers.

Influencing the AR: Leadership, Savoir-Faire (Military).

The Alnwich garrison initially consisted exclusively of soldiers from Usk, but over time, some locals have also seen the benefit of working for the Crown’s army – the pay and the privilege are notable. Unfortunately for them, the scorn heaped upon them by other locals for betraying their own is far from insignificant. In fact, most locals consider soldiers of the garrison as outsiders at best and as occupying invaders at worst.

The garrison itself is led by Captain Lindqvist, a knight landed in Usk but serving far from his estate on the shores of the southern Arafon.  He considers the post a punishment for offending Lord Lofgren, and rarely misses a chance to take it out on the locals. His philosophy is that a cowed populous is a peaceful populous. He lusts for power, but has a small mind and myopic view of the world.

Of course, the men of the garrison are not their captain. The typical guardsman is more interested in drinking, whoring, and not working too hard than actually policing the town. This leaves plenty of room for the Fellowship to operate, even if Captain Lindqvist sees stamping out those outlaws as his ticket home. Of course, no soldier wants to fall victim to the lash, so guardsmen need some coercing to turn a blind eye to broken laws.

In addition to enforcing the law, guardsmen are expected to protect Alnwich from threats without. This largely pertains to spirit and monster incursions from the Wilderlands, but the garrison does not patrol beyond the town’s borders. For this reason, the guard often offer bounties on various monsters and miscreants living in the baleful forests beyond the last farms. Rarely do they venture past that point, and when they do, it is only en masse. Ideally, local would-be heroes are sent on such suicide missions, however.

Rank in the town guard varies from Recruits at Rank 0 up to Captain at rank 4. Most are Soldiers with Rank 1, with veteran Sergeants achieving Rank 2. There are currently three companies stationed at Alnwich, each commanded by a Lieutenant of Rank 3 who answers directly to Captain Lindqvist.

What the Alnwich Garrison Wants

Ostensibly, the garrison at Alnwich want to impose and maintain order on the town. Their captain has few restrictions on how they accomplish this, which has led to a rather unfavorable view of the soldiery by the locals. Captain Lindqvist largely resents the locals and could not care less about their favor, so long as he does whatever he must to get back to his home.

Truly, however, almost every soldier just wants to go home. And they want to do it with as little threat to their own wellbeing as possible. That usually means ignoring anything that looks like it would be dangerous to intervene in, but also using brutal force when intervening. And hiring others to perform their most dangerous tasks for them.

Those few locals who have joined the garrison are already home, and consequently want one of two things – power or to truly protect Alnwich. Sadly, the former is far more prevalent than the latter. This only increases the brutal treatment doled out by guardsmen and their general resentment by the locals.

What the Alnwich Garrison Can Provide

The Garrison can provide training for any traits or skills found on the knight and scout templates. The professional items they can supply at discount are weapons, excluding disguised weapons and those with only reach C, any armor, and shields.

The Garrison can also respond to these types of ARs:

• Backup. When the garrison sends people to help, they’re trained fighters built on a mix of the full knight/holy warrior/scout templates and their closest Henchmen equivalents.
• Favor. The typical guardsman has little to offer aside from favors. These they may be willing to extend in advance for some return at a later time.
• Immunity. The Town Garrison chooses who they capture and prosecute, so they can always choose to look the other way when one of their own commits some transgression. +3 to ARs.
• Map. The Town Guard keeps good maps of civilized lands (+0 to ARs) and may have crude maps of the local Wilderlands (-2 to ARs).
• Mounts & Vehicles. This means horses and wagons more than anything else. The town guard does not have access to boats because the Fiskers refuse to sell them any.
• New Gear. The garrison is replete with low-quality weapons and armor and can come by reasonable quality fare with some effort. Most non-combat gear is beyond easy reach for them, however.
• Provisions. Soldiers need rations, and those rations can be extended to friends of the constabulary. No one said they’d taste good, however.
• Training. If the Town Guard can do anything, it is providing training in combat skills. These are limited to skills that deal directly with combat – not skills like Stealth or Running. ARs are at +3.

Other ARs are at -3 or worse.

3D Modeling and Mapping the Dungeon

As you probably know if you have followed this blog lately, I am mapping a dungeon again. Today, I'm going to talk about different approaches I've used to making 3-D maps and representations. But first, there are a few ways to produce these. I'll talk a little bit about them below.

CAD Software

Computer Aided Design Software is software used to create thee dimensional models of things in a computer. There are a great many of these, but the ones I am personally familiar with are SolidWorks and Pro-E. I have a passing acquaintance with SketchUp and access to YouTube, so I'll go out on a limb and claim to be able to use that, too.

The benefits of such software is that you can make a 3-D model of every room in your dungeon down to nails and brackets, if you want. The level of detail is up to you. And then you get move it around, hide walls, take screenshots, etc. SketchUp lets you do walk-throughs. Engineering software lets you do things you will never ever ever need to do like model the voticity of blood flowing through your dungeon. Well. Maybe that might be useful for some...

The drawback to using CAD software is twofold - there can be a rather steep learning curve to such software and it takes a while to produce a good model.

SketchUp

This probably falls under "CAD Software", but I'm going to break it out because it is cheaper, more popular, and doesn't seem to be nearly as sophisticated as the professional CAD programs I'm use to working with. Also, it was originally geared toward architectural applications, and not engineering ones.

SketchUp lets you build 3-D models of just about anything, but it was originally targeting architectural designs - buildings, landscaping, etc. This focus potentially makes for some excellent end products, complete with lighting, shadows, and everything. That can be really cool, if you go ham with it, but doing so takes time. I don't profess to be a SketchUp expert, so I doubt I'm any form of fast, but I can see where you can quickly bang out an important room or locale to get a nice visual for players. Just as with the CAD software mentioned above, I still think it's too cumbersome to use for an entire dungeon, at least unless you just love doing that sort of thing. Then good on ya!

Isometric Maps

These maps offer an isometric view (think Diablo and its clones) of the dungeon. They are fantastic for showing relative heights of rooms, but they require special graph paper - or more talent than I will ever have - to draw really well by hand. I haven't found a computer map-drawing tool that makes these, either, though I am probably just missing it.

The benefits of isometric maps is that they are simple to read if drawn well, display height differences well, and are far faster to make than using CAD software. Drawbacks are that you won't get the degree of detail and versatility as with CAD software, and it takes talent to make these look good. Moreover, some 3-D dungeon designs may not read well, no matter how good you are (try to imagine a 3D maze in isometric perspective).

Is It Worth It?

In my experience, isometric maps just look cool. They can also help give a sense of elevation, which for very vertical maps can be essential to understanding the flow. My only issue with using these is that I suck at drawing them. So I tend to gravitate to a computer-based approach.

I have used both SketchUp and SolidWorks to produce models of dungeon elements, rooms, etc. I am far more familiar with the likes of SolidWorks and Pro-E, so I tend to get faster and better results from those than SketchUp, but I can see where someone versed in the latter-most might be more productive than me.

What I find works well for me is breaking out CAD software to produce images like the one below. I created this to get a sense of scale between the towers, wall, and enclosed courtyard. I now have the dimensions of all of these elements in a way that makes visual sense to me and can begin drawing a map of the keep. I also have a spiffy visual for the players.

This took about 2 hours because I kept fiddling with dimensions to get the sizing just right.

Music as Inspiration

It has been a busy and chaotic month for me, but things are starting to quiet down. I am also beginning a new project that will find its way to the blog soon. All of that said, I have to say I really enjoy poking around the internet for inspirational art and music. I'm not sure what it is about the latter, but a good piece of music creates this mental image pregnant with ideas. I find writing easier, and everything just seems to flow.

Interestingly, I find that this is not genre-dependent, although I find certain types of music work better for certain fictional genres, and I tend to get more from classical music in general for any genre. Still, some prog rock (e.g., Bitches Crystal by ELP, Rainbow Demon by Uriah Heap), industrial, and some electronic music do wonders for science fiction for me, while other prog rock (e.g., South Side of the Sky by Yes, Jerusalem by ELP) and folk music works for fantasy. I also find Led Zeppelin good for science fiction, and I'm not sure if that's weird or not.

What music do you find inspiring and how? I'm always interested in expanding my listening!

Inspiring Images

With my move complete and unpacking as done as it will get until the last of my furniture arrives, I thought I'd post some pictures that are inspiring me today.

A Monster a Day Part II

I've been trying to keep up this pace, but I've slowed down. I honestly don't know how Enraged Eggplant does it over at Generic Universal Eggplant. Making a monsters, crosschecking rules, checking sources, and fitting them to the setting has proven more time consuming than originally anticipated, but still, I have produced about twenty new monsters since I started. I'm hoping to maintain that pace for another month or so, or at least until I have a few areas mapped out.

On the upside, I have statted up 14 mephits and a variety of demons and undead, so there is that. I need to work on some not-so-supernatural baddies, too. I have some ideas for the inhabitants of the local forests and their link to the Abbey, so I'm guessing they'll be next.

Automating Architect of Worlds Update

Lately I've been learning a lot about Python and how it handles objects through another side project, and I'm starting to see where I should go back and rework what I have so far for Architect of Worlds. This comes at a good time, since I've gotten up to generating everything but moons, and that step is looking like it will be a bit more intensive than the text suggests - in terms of programming, that is.

So I think my next step will be to go through the original code, clean it up as much as possible and implement a cleaner data management system. I also want to break out a couple of bits into their own functions so they can be reused whenever necessary...I'm looking at you, orbital placement! Once this is done, I'll proceed to do moon placement.

I also have a couple of questions about the model being presented, since it doesn't appear capable of producing the insane number of moonlets our gas giants have (79 for Jupiter and 62 for Saturn). Mind you, in terms of storytelling, most of those moons are inconsequential, but knowing their total number is helpful, and if I know that, I can place them automatically and develop them from there. So, because my application doesn't involve a human rolling dice and interpreting results, I don't see an issue with rolling up 120+ moons no one will ever care about visiting.

Also, When you roll things up randomly, sometimes you get interesting results that spark creativity. So I'd rather roll up a bazillion moons and risk getting a GM's creative juices flowing than say, "There are a lot of them, and they probably won't be interesting enough to justify the time you'll spend rolling dice to generate them." But that's because of the medium, not a fault in Jon's system by any means.

So that's my plan. I'll keep you updated on progress. Hopefully I"ll have enough put together to use soon!

Mapping around the Abbey

Today I worked on an overland map for the 60-mile area surrounding the abbey, largely to see how it connects to the outside world. Now I can definitively say that the abbey sits on a forested hill at the end of what would be generous to called a wooded road. Even trail might be generous. The nearest village is a day's hike away, and the trail ever got used to bring the monastics at the abbey food and supplies.

The Mephit to My Madness

I like mephits. I don't know why, but I just do. They're impish little elementals with a nasty disposition who, if used effectively, can either be a real nuisance or downright deadly in a mixed group. Also, they're elementals, and I like elementals. So it probably comes as little surprise that I am writing up and planning to include the little buggers in my dungeons.

Now, I could post my write-ups, and I may just do that at some point, but today, I'm going to take a different tack. Today, I'm going to explain how mephits fit into my vision of the world.

Mephits are small, weak-minded, dimwitted elementals that faun over their masters in an attempt to ingratiate themselves to the most powerful entity in the room. This is their form of social climbing, since a big, powerful master means a big, powerful protector - not that any mephit would admit to needing protection!

Of course, this also means that larger foes may well have these winged nuisances on hand when adventures encounter them. This does not bode well for adventurers. In combat, mephits are masters of the hit-and-run. They make good use of their flight to stay out of range and use their elemental powers to inconvenience, if not incapacitate, adventurers. On their own, this is annoying, but when a big honkin' demon is trying to make macrame place settings from your entrails, things can go south really quickly.

And speaking of demons, I'm starting to flesh out four of their lords. They don't have scary-sounding, difficult-to-pronounce names yet, just epithets as working names. But these guys don't just use other demons as pawns. They command undead, elementals, and some mortal abominations, too. So is it any surprise that they have mephits in their employ? It shouldn't be!

Now if there is one thing most people know about mephits, it's that their variety is staggering. Elementals came in four (maybe five, if you prefer Chinese- or Vedic-inspired fantasy) flavors - Air, Earth, Water, and Fire. There are around a dozen published mephit types. I am maintaining that tradition by including the following list of mephits: Air, Ash, Dust, Earth, Fire, Ice, Lightning, Magma, Mist, Salt, Slime, Steam, and Water. And since that picture was labeled "Shadow Mephit", I think I'll add that in, too. That's a lot of mephit variety, but it suits these guys. And with their association with demons, I think variety is completely appropriate.

What have you done with mephits in your games?

Requires Concentrate - A GURPS Blog

I recently discovered Requires Concentrate, a GURPS blog on GMing primarily science fiction (hell yeah!) and fantasy games. And while I am still poking through it as I type this, I have to say this post on what happens to stuff in vacuum already has me in love with it!

I've said it before and I'll say it again: These kind of little details are what breathe life into exotic settings, like living in space. The idea of the glues that hold door signs to walls outgassing and losing efficacy when a ship decompresses is just cool and weird. That eggs won't be bothered by what can suck a human through a far-too-small hole in a very gory way is amazing. These little things will draw your players in. Use them!

So that's it for now. Go check out Requires Concentrate and tell me what you think of it in the comments below.

More Progress on Architect of Worlds Automation

I'm happy to report that I'm ever so closer to being up to date with what Jon Zeigler has already published. I've not completed Step Eleven (yikes! that was a mess) and finished off Step Twelve, as well. That just leaves a little more basic planetary information from Step Thirteen, and I can dig into the moon stuff.

If I am able to get this done before Jon drops the next portion of the system, I'll go back and try to clean up the mess I've made everywhere I making this work. I think I can get it much cleaner than it currently is. Then I'll start working on using the data generated to create a database I can further manipulate in a program like Access.

That or I'll get back to fleshing out mechanics and making setting content. Either one will work. But being able to generate systems quickly is key to making this game work at all. I want players to have the agency to just shoot off in a random direction or ask, "What's over here?" and I'm just a couple mouse clicks from some sort of answer.

A Monster a Day...

Mapping this abbey has made me realize how few demons I have statted up at present. To that end, I have done a little work on developing a couple of demon lords and am working on the kinds of demons, spirits, and undead they command. So far, I've already beefed up my list a little and am trying to maintain a pace of one to two monsters a day until I feel comfortable stocking a dungeon thematically.

A nice side benefit is that I'm accruing some Hidden Lore (Demons) and Hidden Lore (Undead) information that players might discover depending on what they investigate. Of course, even if they don't look into such things, it will provide a structure that should provide that much-needed cohesion amidst gobs of otherwise desperate monsters. I know funhouse dungeons are a staple in the genre, but I prefer there to be more internal logic. It helps maintain an ambiance.

What sort of background do you use to help seat your monsters in the worlds you create? Do they just exist on a whim or do they have deeper origins?

Mapping an Abbey

[1]

While it may not look it from my posts as of late, I have been trying to split my time between making progress on a science fiction setting and doing some mapping and worldbuilding for dungeon crawls. To will be a post on the latter.

So lately, I've been mapping up a small abbey to serve as the first level of a larger dungeon. Naturally, it is dominated by its cathedral that has two towers and a central dome. Unlike traditional catholic cathedrals, I decided the bells would go in this dome, and the entry-way towers would be spires. This just felt good when I was making the map.

The outlying buildings are a two-story affair with the usual rooms associated with a monastery - refectories, calefactories, scriptoriums, and lots of other churchy-sounding names. And like any good dungeon entrance, this abbey has a cellars and an underground burial catacomb so the monks and nuns that live there never need leave the walls of their sanctum.

So that's a quick rundown on the abbey, but how does it sit within the region? Well, for starters, it is an ancient complex perched upon a forested hill about a day's ride from what remains of the village that once supported it. Both are now abandoned, but the abbey has fared far better than the village. Many legends and superstitions attribute the abbey's well-preserved condition to any number of supernatural causes - none of them particularly holy or good.

This is what I'm currently working off of. I'm sure it will grow deeper as time progresses, just as Alnwich did when I worked on it. For now, though, I can definitively say that there is an abbey - with a map! - that definitely qualifies as a Bad Place, and under it is some sort of dungeon. How mega it will be is up in the air.

Automating Architect of Worlds Update

I feel like I haven't made much progress on my automation of Architect of Worlds project. Step Eleven has proven far more troublesome than originally anticipated, largely owing to the fact that I didn't save enough information from Step Ten - specifically how far inward the dominant gas giant migrates. I had just stored the final position for later use. Oops.

Once this was rectified, I ended up reevaluating my approach to Step Eleven to put it more in line with what Jon wrote in the first place. See, originally, I was generating all of the orbits, stocking all of the orbits, and then deciding which orbits to delete, but I realized this was just taking extra time and wasting memory. So now the Step Eleven function will run through Step Eleven then decide whether or not to place another planet, and continue from there.

There is also the matter of how I will store all of the planets' data. I am still not 100% sure about how to set up the data structure for this project in the most efficient way possible. As it stands, I have a bunch of separate objects, but I'm starting to wonder if these should go in lists in a variable in the parent or not. So, frex, System has a variable called Stars that contains a list of Star objects, and each Star object has a variable called Planets that contains a list of planet objects, and so on.

I'm not sure I like this and haven't committed to it, yet. But it looks like I will need to pass a list of planets out of Step Eleven, and future steps will process this list, one planet-object at a time. I am really hoping someone leaves some suggestions in the comments, below, because this is definitely pushing my understanding of data handling.

Automating Architect of Worlds: Update

I recently reached Step 10 - Place Dominant Gas Giant in my quest to automate Jon Zeigler's Architect of Worlds star system generation system when I read his post on how reality is impinging on his development plans. While I agree with his approach, it got me thinking about how I want to deal with this particular issues and future updates to the program.

Mapping Update: Placing Locations - not Encounters

I have been working to place interesting locations on my hex map, and I've come to a conclusion. I am placing locations, not encounters. Why make that distinction? Because "encounters" has a specific connotation that revolves around conflict and implies a degree of railroading. If you enter this hex, the GM rolls and if the dice come up Encounter, the players have to deal with something predetermined by the GM. That isn't good GMing, in my view.

So instead of placing encounters that unfold a predetermined way, I place locations where something might be happening. I will roll to see if the players stumble on the location, and if so, give them information based on what they witness. What happens from there is 100% up to them. It might be a dungeon entrance. It might be a gnarled tree with a rope tied about its trunk. It might be a pile of rotting corpses. Whatever.

That doesn't mean there aren't random encounters rolled for hexes. These represent stumbling on an event that potentially provokes action. These could be combat-oriented like a dozen orcs charging a wagon with drawn swords, or they could just be creepiness like catching a glimpse of fish-men playing pipes in the distant fog. Again, these provide the opportunity for the players to make decisions. They don't exist to force players into a specific course of action...unless they really mess up a Perception check and get ambushed by a hostile encounter. But even then, there is a string of rolls that create that situation - Reaction rolls by the hostile party that indicate it will attack, opposed Stealth checks to see if they can sneak up and waylay the party, failed Perception rolls by the party, etc. The players get their chance to avoid it, dice gods willing.

So that's a whole lot of ranting about a concept, but how has it been implemented in the hex map? I have placed several locales in the uncivilized parts of the map so far. These are, for the most part, stationary (with one fun exception that might move once per week). I'm generally picking locations that scream out for something initially and then going back to fill in other ideas afterward. So far, Alnwich is pretty well covered, so I'm starting to expand the adventure bubble outward.  This method seems to be working well, so far.

Mapping Update: Alnwich

I have finished filling in terrain and towns for the entire northeast corner of my hex map. I started out going this direction because it provides natural barriers to PC exploration. To the north are the Skaldafjoll, which as subarctic to arctic mountains, present something few prepared high level PCs will easily cross, let alone starting PCs. Of course, the foothills and forests to their south are definitely good adventuring sites.

Mapping this corner first also gives me some ideas about how Alnwich relates back to Northmarch and Usk. It has already become apparent that there is a main road that leads back southeast toward civilization, and there is a full-blown town town around a week or two away.

I'm also starting to see what the edge of civilization looks like in Usk. There are a string of fortified villages that run along the wilderlands' edge in the north and the west. These are largely supported by market villages one to two day's ride away, depending on the sparsity of the local forest. Trails connect these village-forts to each other, and roads connect them to their supporting market villages. this suggests that they can shift resources to support each other as needed, but not very quickly.

We also see that where the forest has been cleared or grows thin, dirt roads tend to replace footpaths and trails and villages tend to be about five miles apart, instead of ten or more. Furthermore, the land tends to be cultivated with small patches of woodland still presenting physical barriers to travel.

I suspect that as one travels deeper into Usk, villages tend to reach their maximum packing density and the map becomes far less interesting from an adventuring standpoint. This also provides a barrier to PCs. If you move into Usk, there are fewer opportunities to get rich, achieve glory, etc. because there just aren't many monsters sitting on hordes of treasure left. So if players want a game of intrigue and cunning, head to Usk. If they want game of exploration, violence, and adventure, head to the wilderlands. And that's exactly the point!

Naming Conventions for Stars, Planets, and Moons

As you all know, I have been working on automating Jon Zeigler's Architect of Worlds system, and I've come to realize recently that I need a nice, coherent naming convention for stars, planets, and moons.

As far as I am aware, the current convention is that individual stars get names A, B, C, etc. in order of mass from most massive to least massive, and planets append a lower-case letter on that based on the size of their obit, from innermost to outermost. In this convention, Earth would be designated Sol c. The second planet around the second most massive star in a binary would be [StarName] B b. I am not aware of any standing convention for naming moons around exoplanets.

I have a couple of issues with this convention. Firstly, it lacks a means by which to address moons. I need that because I will be generating moons. Furthermore, I dislike that both the star and planet are designated by letters. This just sounds weird when said aloud. It will also invariably become the butt of jokes at some point - there are just too many combinations that will elicit a giggles (Planet B-j?). So let's take a look at some alternatives.

Immediately, alternating between letters and numbers for unnamed planets comes to mind. So the third planet around the second star would either be 2-C or B-3. I kind of like keeping the stars designated by letter, so I'm going to opt for the second in this case. Also, that number might be designated by Roman numeral or by Arabic numeral. Using the previous example, we get either B-3 or B-III. Again, I like the latter - mostly because it looks cool.

So now I have a way to deal with stars and planets, but what about moons? Again, we want to avoid repeating what just preceded it because that looks weird and sounds weirder. So the current form is <letter>-<number>. This suggests the next should be a letter. Let's consider that moons are small, so let's make this a lower case letter. Taking the first moon about B-III, we get B-III-a. This is easy to read but in text, it's a little aesthetically lacking. So let's drop that last hyphen. Now we have B-IIIa. That looks good to me.

That covers moons around planets around single stars, but what about planets that orbit entire binaries...or trinaries...or quaternaries? I suggest the letter grouping for the cluster being orbited be used in the first spot. So a planet orbiting a binary would start with 'AB', and one orbiting the second binary in a quaternary would be 'CD'. If a planet orbits an entire trinary, it'd start with 'ABC'.

With this, we can describe any planet, moon, or star in a star system, and at a glance, know the basic nature of its orbit. I think that's a good start for now.