Hexmancer Procedural Hex Generation System
It's hexcrawl time! Roll d30, d24, and d20 simultaneously whenever the party enters an unexplored hex. If the d24 roll indicates a
feature, make it up or use one of the suggested resources. (If it doesn't, just ignore the result of the d20 roll.)
d30: Hex terrain type
Reference the column for the terrain type of the hex the party is leaving.
d30 Roll Plains Woods Hills Barren Swamp Mountains Water Odds
1-15 Plains Woods Hills Barren Swamp Mountains Water 50%
16-23 Woods Plains Mountains Hills Water Hills Swamp 26%
23-26 Hills Swamp Plains Plains Plains Woods Plains 13%
27 Barren Barren Barren Woods Barren Barren Barren 3%
28 Swamp Hills Swamp Swamp Hills Swamp Hills 3%
29 Mountains Mountains Woods Mountains Mountains Plains Mountains 3%
30 Water Water Water Water Woods Water Woods 3%
d24: Presence of a feature
Determine what type of region the party is in and whether or not they're following a byway or waterway (trail, road, or river), and
select the appropriate row. The first column indicates whether or not there's a feature in the hex. Water hexes never have features.
d24 roll Region Feature type modifier Odds
1-2 Wilderness -2 8%
1-3 ...on byway or waterway -1 13%
1-3 Borderlands 0 13%
1-4 ...on byway or waterway 0 17%
1-4 Settled +1 17%
1-5 ...on byway or waterway +2 21%
d20: Feature type
Apply the feature type modifier from the d24 roll (minimum roll 1, maximum roll 20). If the party is following a trail, road, or river,
then other results indicate a second feature in the hex (and see "Byways and Waterways" to place the trail/road/river).
d20 roll Feature type Odds Suggested resource for feature creation
1-3 Ruins 15% Ready Ref Sheets, p. 43, "Ravaged Ruins" (Judges Guild)
4-6 Trail 15% See "Byways and Waterways" in this document
7-8 River 10% See "Byways and Waterways" in this document
9-10 Road 10% See "Byways and Waterways" in this document
11-12 Wizard's tower 10% Abulafia: Wizard Tower generator
13-14 Temple 10% Temple Book I, p. 5 (Judges Guild)
15-17 Castle 15% Castle Book II, p. 5, then Castle Book I, p. 7 (Judges Guild)
18-20 Village 15% Village Book I, p. 4 (Judges Guild)
Hexmancer
Byways and Waterways
Because they're not confined to one hex, trails, roads, and rivers work a bit differently than other features. Choose one option based
on the current situation:
1. Feature is new (not present in the hex they're leaving): Roll d6 and d5. Starting from the top/north side of the new hex,
count d6 sides clockwise; that's the feature's point of origin. (If it happens to be where the party came from, no worries: It's
easy to miss stuff while wandering around in the wilderness.) Next, count d5 sides clockwise from that point; that's the side
where the trail/road/river exits the hex.
2. Party is following the feature: If the party is following the trail/road/river, roll a d5 and count clockwise from the point of
origin (the hex side they're leaving). That's the side where feature exits the new hex.
3. Party isn't following the feature: If they're deliberately not following the trail, road, or river, only place the feature in the new
hex (using option 1) if its point of origin is the hex side the party is entering.
You may need to apply a bit of logic, or tweak the results, in order to make byways and waterways fit the map.
Design notes
Hexmancer is designed to procedurally generate a fantasy borderlands/wilderness region in "fantasy Western Europe," with
occasional wasteland and weirdness, on the fly during play. It assumes that you're placing dungeons/modules and perhaps a feature
or two, but otherwise starting out with the PCs in a village surrounded by a blank hex map.
Terrain types that I don't want to come up randomly, like desert and ocean, are excluded. There are also all sorts of other features
that could be on the d20 table, from monster lairs to cave systems to islands, but they're things I didn't want to handle procedurally
(or didn't want in a dungeon-focused hexcrawl).
Hexmancer uses funky dice because funky dice are awesome, and because they suit its probability needs. If you don't own a d5, d24,
or d30, Purple Sorcerer's online dice roller includes them.
Acknowledgements
This system is based on the one found in Wilderness Hexplore Revised, which was created by Jedo of the New York Red Box forums.
The core "Terrain > Feature? > Feature" mechanic and the broad relationships between terrain types in Hexmancer owe the most to
Jedo's system.
Hexmancer can be downloaded for free from Yore. You can also read an extended example of using it to generate hexes. I hope
Hexmancer is useful to you, and happy gaming! Martin Ralya
Copyright 2016 by Martin Ralya. All rights reserved.
Hexmancer, the Hexmancer logo, and the Yore logo are trademarks of Martin Ralya.
Version 1.1, published February 10, 2016
