(Semi) Automated Hex Stocker

Here is an automated version of the hex stocker  from this post: https://lizardmandiaries.blogspot.com/2022/01/orb-monsters-gathering.html 

Although the stocker was designed for "Orb Monsters" specifically, you can use the random Magic the Gathering card hex stocking approach for other games! I've included some of the notes/instructions from the original post to make the stocker easier to use from this post! 

This method uses random Magic The Gathering cards profusely! When the rules below say “get/pull/use  a random card” it is referring to a random Magic the Gathering card. Use the following link to get a random magic card: https://scryfall.com/random (Then click the “random” button in the top left of the screen for another random card, ad infinitum! Note: You may like to use the advanced search option to lock in sets/types of cards and then - from there you could pick the card you like or roll a dice with the number of sides you have results for your search. Use https://dicelog.com/dice to quickly make a dX). When the rules below say something like “A random spell/artifact/monster/etc just keep pulling random cards until you get the thing you need! Sometimes this may need to be a specific colour (Such as certain colour monsters/sentients and spells only appearing in that coloured land). The magic cards pulled by the referee of the game may need some changing/warping/only act as inspiration for their purpose in this game. The referee has total power to do this! Further, said inspiration may simply be the picture on the card, or the text, or a part of the picture or part of the text! 

Hex Stocker Instructions: 

• Pull a random card! The hex is whatever color card you pulled! Roll a d12, the result is how many connected hexes are also that color! (Colours in magic are associated with specific lands: White = plain, Red = mountain, Green = forest, Black  = Swamp, Blue = Island- so whatever colour a hex is - it is that type of landscape). 
• A basic land card will give you a very nice visual description of the d12 coloured hexes you generated. It doesn't seem possible to get a random basic land card with scryfall (I think because it only recognised each type as one card with lots of different reprints). To overcome this, on the scryfall website get a totally random card, then click on its set description, then in the search bar for that set write the type of land you need, “Swamp, Island, etc”. You will then get a nice picture of that type of landscape and you can use that for all of the hexes you just generated! You could use different images per hex/or an image for a few hexes. Scrolling through the “Prints” list will give you different basic land cards of that type! 
• Roll on the following tables to determine what else is in a hex beyond its colour! 
• Note: Only NPCS, sentients, monsters and spells of the same colour, or of the colour left or right of that colour (see colour wheel) will appear in coloured hexes - bear this in mind when stocking the hexes!  You may need to pull several random cards to get a correctly coloured stocking item! 

Travel Hazards: Each hex has a 25% chance of having some some sort of contextual, environmental hazard that makes traveling through it a strain on resources or possibly deadly! It is up to the referee to determine what exactly that hazard is - using the contents of the hex as inspiration.   

Stocking instructions: Use the following guidelines for populating the map’s hexes. 

• A town, city or village: The population size is d100xd100. Pull a card until you get a building or structure, this is the base architecture of the settlement. Pull a card until you get a sentient (appropriately coloured) being, this is the people of the settlement. Pull a card until you get one mundane object or artifact and one magical object or artifact - these two things are the basis of the settlement's society. The referee can simplify or complicate this process as needed! See the colour relationship information to determine the relationship the population has with nearby monsters, spells and settlements. 
• An unusual structure: Pull a card until you get a building or structure - this is the structure! Pull three more cards of any colour, whatever they are - they are inhabiting the structure! Refer to the colour relationship information to determine what those things are doing in the unusual structure! 
• Monster/s: Pull an appropriate coloured monster card. d4 x d12 of that monster populate the hex! 
• Sentient/s: Pull an appropriate coloured sentient card. d8 x d20 of those sentient beings are in the hex! Use the desire and colour relationship information to determine what the sentients are doing! 
• A Spell: Pull an appropriate coloured spell card. That spell has warped/corrupted/changed the basic environment of the hex! It is now a weird and unusual place! A wizard can sense the spell magic here and mediate for a day to fill a spell orb with the spell (the spell stays in the environment though - the land still warped)!
• A Powerful NPC: A powerful NPC of the hexes colour is in the hex! Use the instructions for generating a Sentient but assume it is a single, particularly powerful, NPC.
• An artifact: Keep pulling cards until you get an actual "Artifact" card. That artifact is in the hex in a location of the referee's choosing!

Desires and Relationships: 

Desires:

Sentient beings generally have desires! If those desires aren’t obvious to the referee, roll on the table! Sentient’s desires may form the basis of quests for in exchange for said sentients skills, talents, resources, services, etc on completion of a quest.

Relationships :

All beings (sentients in town and the wilds , monsters, wizards) will have relationships with other nearby beings. The type of relationship is determined by the colour, the exact specifics of the relationships is determined by the referee:

• Beings of the same colour are generally close allies or symbiotes. 

• Beings of neighboring colours are generally co-operative, trading partners or otherwise tolerable of one another. 

• Beings of opposite colours generally hate each other and are in open conflict or war. 

Trade:

If a PC requires something from a sentient (in a town or in the wilds), beyond basic equipment, food, water and shelter - roll on the following table to see if they have it/can/will provide it (at the discretion of the referee)!

General Hex Stocking Guidelines:

The methods outlined above will give the referee a basic sketch of each hex - the referee is encouraged to run with that basic sketch and use it as an inspiration to fill in as much detail as needed! If a PC seeks to explore an area in more detail (perhaps wanting to spelunk an unusual structure, or the sewers beneath a settlement, or a cave in a mountain, etc) the referee can combine their knowledge of the hex they are exploring with the "Smaller Places Creation" (Place/Place Stocking tables).

Automated Hex Stocker:

d12 Wizards and Wyrdwood Estate

Wyrdwood Estate is a suburb I generated on the fly during my Guild Dog's Suburb Crawling campaign.  Here I will flesh it out using some recently created GM tools I've been working on, and muse on how I generated the place on the fly. 

The party has spent the last 4 or so sessions in "Salt Field", running afoul of the local guild "Judge's of Belona" and a mercenary crew "The Quagmire Arms".  A new player rolled "Unlicensed Shadow Broker" as their background, giving them a contact within a nearby group of professional thieves. This group "Ruinous Slobber" is a guild of monster stealers and sellers. "Ruinous Slobber" had a job for the Guild Dogs (generated using these tables): Go and poison a local wizard's guard monsters, as to regain said wizard as a customer.

Salt Field was getting a little busy so the target wizard "Gia Feng" would inhabit another nearby suburb. Rolling a d4 and allocating a result to each cardinal direction, I discover that "Gia Feng" lives to the west. To discover the layout of the suburb I use the following table: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B43TA_QRzeKqS2xhYXF5RWppVEU/view?usp=sharing. It looks like this:

I need some more details about this suburb so use the amazingly useful random magic card tool: https://magiccards.info/random.html. I've since lost the cards that I got, but the general vibe was eagles and a forest. I already know at least one wizard lives in the suburb, so a wooded and wizardly estate springs to mind (the wide open spaces of the generated map help encourage the "parkly" vibe). A gated parkland community of wizard's living in manses. Why would they live here over anywhere else? A band of eaglemen guard the estate thus allow the wizards to conduct their research and be left to their own devices for a price.

Wyrdwood estate is a suburb of  wooded parkland, guarded savagely by a band of eaglemen, the Wyrdwood Hawks. Twelve wizards make their home here, their oddity filled manse's protected by the hawks of Wyrdwood for a high monthly rent of gold. Charm and lantern hung trees fill the estate and odd colored lights illuminate the parkland from the warped manses of the wizards. 

All the above was generated/worked out at table during the session. There was some minor hijinx in the estate before the session finished. The rest of the post will muse on preparing Wyrdwood Estate for the next session.

Map of Wyrdwood Estate

To generate the 12 wizards I use a random name generator and combine a name  two random magic cards (again: https://magiccards.info/random.html) to get a general outline of a wizard:

d12 Wizards of Wyrdwood Estate: 

1) Gia Feng , Mind Wizard. 
2) Miko Kobo of the Rodents. 
3) Jabzan the Guide, Destiny Wizard.  
4) Rein Min, Maker of Missiles. 
5) Nameless Stone, Wizard of Protection. 
6) Deshi Core, Gnome Maker. 
7) Shaku the Slime Mage. 
8) Xu Zang, of the Silver Waters. 
9) Gan Sion, Trickster. 
10) Jobe the Time Eroder. 
11) Mamma Jallow, Goblin Breeder. 
12) Bai Sin, Charm Worker.

The names and titles of the above wizard should be enough to work out what is within the domain of each wizard's manse if required (ie, the party decided to break in). The weirdness of each wizard will also emanate from their home and infect what is encountered in the parklands of the estate. Oversized and mutated rats, devouring the corpse of a defeated Wyrdwood hawk have already been encountered nearby to Miko Kobo of the Rodent's manse.

To stock the parklands of the Wyrdwood Estate I use the following table: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WSeFaxgWDjuWOv4Hoo5H94yKK89w0MAwbONaRQFd264/edit?usp=sharing (which is a core component of this post: http://lizardmandiaries.blogspot.com.au/2017/09/random-dungeon-creation-kit.html). Stocking the suburb involves breaking the map into a grid and using the result of the stocking table to work out what is there. All "treasure" results are generated using this table: http://lizardmandiaries.blogspot.com.au/2017/09/random-treasure-table.html.

Wyrdwood Estate Gridmap

The Wyrdwood Estate is lush, overgrown parkland. The trees are hung with soft golden glowing lanterns. They are also hung with eye shaped sentry charms that will summon Wydwood hawks if interlopers set them off.

Wyrdwood Estate Grid Contents: 

(The result of the stocking table is provided in brackets to give an idea of how that table works).

1) d8 Wyrdwood hawks stealthily watching the parklands from the branches of lanternless tree. (Foe, hidden and watching).
2) Manse of Gan Sion, Trickster. 
3) A Wyrdwood hawk sentry charm workshop is built in to the branches of an enormous tree. 5 unused sentry charms are left untended on the benches of the workshop. (Treasure, focus of work or worship).
4) d6 HD: d4 wizardlings fire experimental magic missles at the targeting wall rear wall of Rein Min's manse (can each cast d4 rounds of magic missile). (Foe, conducting ritual or worship).
5) d6 Wyrwood hawks rifling through a tree insearch of some valuable and escaped mutated rat from Miko Kobo's manse [Rat is a magic item, generate here: http://lizardmandiaries.blogspot.com.au/2017/07/magic-item-generator.html (Foe, searching for known of treasure).
6) A crate the nigh ever burning Wyrwood lanterns is nestled and hidden in the boughs of a tree. (Treasure, hidden).
7) Puddles of quick silver infest the soggy ground here. They are escaped quick silver golems from the manse of Xu Zang. Golem tendrils will pull interlopers into the deadly puddles and form and fight those that attempt to escape. (Foe, using traps to their advantage against interlopers).
8) An empty treetop guard house of Wyrdwood hawks. Tangled with sentry charms that will summon Wyrdwood hawks (Empty, place of rest).  
9) Manse of Jabzan the Guide, Destiny Wizard.  
10) Manse of Rein Min, Maker of Missiles. 
11) Manse of Miko Kobo of the Rodents. 
12) Manse of Xu Zang, of the Silver Waters. 
13) Manse of Nameless Stone, Wizard of Protection. Also, gate entry to estate with d8 Wyrdwood hawks.
14) Manse of Gia Feng , Mind Wizard. 
15) Manse of Shaku the Slime Mage.
16) A lodging tree house of the Wyrdwood Hawks. Tangled with sentry charms that will summon Wyrdwood hawks. (Empty, place of sleep).
17) Rival Guild Dogs or street dwellers setting off tree hung sentry charms, d8 Wyrdwood hawks attack them. (Foe, trapped in natural hazard of environment).
18) The well guarded main entry gate. d8 Wyrdwood hawks gaurded the entrance, one with a magic item. (Treasure, focus of work or worship).
19) Manse of Deshi Core, Gnome Maker.  
20) Manse of Jobe the Time Eroder. 
21) An enormous tree holds a Wyrdwood hawk feasting hall.  (Empty, place of eating).
22) Small stone structure, locked stone door. d4 rooms. Holds records of  Wyrdwood hawks record of rent and gaurd contracts. Laced with sentry charms. (Empty, place of mental storage)
23) d10 HD1 goblins escaped from Mamma Jallow's manse will jump out of a darkened tree at the arrival of the first inerloper. (Foe, hidden and watching).
24) Manse of Mamma Jallow, Goblin Breeder. 
25) d10 Wyrdwood hawks gaurding a treetop vault containing 6000 gold pieces. (Foe, indulging in treasure).
26) An enourmous eye shaped charm hangs from tree. Balefully follows all interlopers and emits a beam causing d12 damage to a d6 targets each round. (Trap, obvious and menacing).
27) Manse of Bai Sin, Charm Worker.
28) d8 Wyrdwood hawks stealthily watching the parklands from the branches of lanternless tree. (Foe, hidden and watching).
29) A lodging tree house of the Wyrdwood Hawks. Tangled with sentry charms that will summon Wyrdwood hawks. (Empty, place of eating).

Stats: 

Wyrdwood Hawk: Eaglemen, can fly. HD: d6. AC: 15. Attack with spears (d8).
Quicksilver Golem: Shimmering and morphing, sometimes man shaped, golems. HD: 4. AC: 19 (form will disperse to avoid damage). Attack with appendages formed into thrusting spikes (d8)

Making a Dungeon, Part 1

The other day I chanced upon a discarded scrap of paper with the following, unfinished, diagram printed across it: 

Any half lucid dungeon master mind on seeing this no doubt jumps immediately to thought of completing what is obviously a dungeon map. Which is exactly what my mind did.

Turns out the diagram is of the "nephron", which are the little tunnel filtration systems that our kidneys are made up of. From wikipedia: 

"The nephron (from Greek νεφρός – nephros, meaning "kidney") is the basic structural and functional unit of the kidney.Its chief function is to regulate the concentration of water and soluble substances like sodium salts by filtering the blood, reabsorbing what is needed and excreting the rest as urine. A nephron eliminates wastes from the body, regulates blood volume and blood pressure, controls levels of electrolytes and metabolites, and regulates blood pH." 

The diagram and the description both seemed to me fertile fodder for making a dungeon. So that is what I am going to do. I also thought it may be interesting to document the process and I am going to do that too. I'm going to attempt to describe my thought/work process, hopefully leading to a completed dungeon (maybe eventually in the format of a PDF) that may serve as a fun little guide for making a dungeon of your own. 

Step 1: The Map.

Every dungeon I've ever created and run began as a map. I like to sketch out a place, getting vague ideas of what might inhabit the areas as I draw them. Sometimes these ideas start to influence the design of the map, sometimes not. I think the vast majority of my dungeons have been post apocalyptic in some manner, in that the dungeon was not currently inhabited by the original occupants. This may come out of the fact I draw the map first. Once the structure is there, whoever inhabits the dungeon will have to make do with what they've got, employing the rooms and corridors for their own purposes as best they can.

For "The Nephron", it was clear to me that the bulbous bit at the top of the map was important. Thus the dungeon would either lead/protect/be otherwise obsessed with that point. I imagined an altar of sorts, or some sort of liquid/magma coming in one end, being used in some manner then being shipped out the other side. 

I wanted to make sure there was a few routes to the altar, without diminishing the fact it was probably protected/important in some way. Additionally I wanted to ensure there was more than one way into/out of the dungeon, and give it enough size to allow for more than one major group inhabiting it. I toyed with the idea of much crisscrossing above/below the original diagram, but thought it might be too complicated to read and only did it twice. 

The Dungeon Map, showing my additions in blue.

As I drew the map the vague, broad strokes image of the place I was mapping were as follows:

• A caverny, cavey, cliffy section to the south. 
• Stone square dwellings mined into the southern natural rock section.
• Grander mined stone dwellings/palace section taking up the west side of the map. 
• A central gauntlet of grave danger leading to "The Altar of the Nephron". 
• Tunnels and secret entrances that linked up to this central gauntlet. 
• The altar itself is fed from somewhere deeper/external. 
• There is probably a throne room somewhere and some group is doing rituals and slipping in and out of the altar room. 

The completed map.

To Be Continued...

The Kingdom of the Pale Giants, 1 Page Dungeon 2015 Entry

The city’s sewage system always collects and funnels towards a great underground river. When the moulding stone and rotting iron of the sewers fade away, the river is housed within a looming whitestone caverns. Within these caverns the Pale Giants live. Here they have hewn the whitestone to construct a vast fortress, embedded in the earth.  In the darkness, the polluted river warping and maddening them, the abhorrence of their civilization grows. 

Rumours of naked, pale giants stalking the sewers, missing women throughout the city and panicked pygmies appearing from nowhere and gibbering of an evil kingdom beneath the ground may spark adventurer’s interest in venturing here.

PDF View/Download: 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B43TA_QRzeKqcXRia1dNdlhZUW8/view?usp=sharing

(Further descriptions/drawings/stats for the giants can be found here.)

Easy Mapping for G+ Hangout Gaming

In most games I run I will draw a basic map for my players. I can see the value in leaving the mapping to players, but in the campaign I'm currently I value speed of getting across basic ideas of space. Explaining relative distances between objects and people is much easier when I map things, rather than having to re-explain details as they change in importance to the player. One day I'll run a game where the mapping is left to the party and cackle with glee as they get hopelessly lost. Until that day, my current practice for mapping online G+ Hangout games is outlined below.


I take a blank Google Documents Spreadsheet with re-sized cells:

 

Then I share it with the Party and color in the Squares to make a map!

Adventure ensues.

The squares generally represent 10'x10' but my measurements get pretty liquid. Also I don't use my maps for tactical combats, just to give an idea of where everything is.

Here's the link to the blank map which you're welcome to copy and try my mapping system for yourself.

As a bonus, here's my folder of maps I've created over the course of my G+ campaign.

Tombin's DoomFort

One day I drew a side-on map of a fortress. Then I mapped the first level of that fortress. Then I had the crazy idea to map the rest of the fortress. And so I mapped the entirety of Tombin's DoomFortress.

The DoomFortress has more than 650 rooms and corridors (which of course I'm going to increase to 666). It has 10 levels spread over 11 maps. I plan to write out the contents of these rooms and levels.

The DoomFortress is attached to a mountain in some barren plains. It is not occupied by its original owners and is definitely no longer used as a official military post of any human force. There is lots of different factions in the DoomFortress, probably some are at war with each other. These factions are all relatively weird and deformed and I bet one of them is Albino Fishmen.

I have no idea who or what Tombin is or was, but I know Tombin not a particularly scary name for some one who owns a DoomFort.

From a distance the DoomFort probably looks like this: 

Here are the maps, with a general vibe of what I think will be happening in each level:

Fort Entry, Level 1: A giant gated entry, probably half destroyed. Lots of bars which bad things can shoot through. A wall with lookouts over the plains. A tower. Leads to the basement and the courtyard. Relatively "normal" fortress stuff.

The Courtyard, Ground Level: Dark gardens with purple plants. Small tunnels linking the gardens and the towers of the courtyard. Sheds. Weird plants. Gardeners. Ramparts looking over the courtyard and gardens. Grand passageways with portcullis's leading to higher levels. Tools.

The Sewers and Basement: A weird slum town of collectors. Water filled sewage tunnels that can be spelunked. An exhaust tunnel out to the plains. Secret, lost things in slimy acloves. A secret stairs case to near the top of the Fortress. Mutants.

Fort Level 2: A grand passageway leading through courtyards lined with metal bars. Lots of huge double doors. Entrances to caverns. Grand stairs going up. Servant quarters. Merchants dwell here. Carts. Horses. Cannons.

Fort Level 3a: Chapel areas. Many religions. A sorcerer has a workshop here. Views of the plains. Some walls have evidence of crystalline infestation. Priests. Symbols.

Fort Level 3b: Crystal infestation. Rooms have warped and changed, as has content. East half is fighting crystalline infestation. Fortress walls inside the fortress, overlooking crystals. Mirrors, crystals, dazzling.

Fort Level 4: Crystalline explosion in middle of a courtyard. Overhanging cliff. Towers. Rickety platforms linking towers. Compound in courtyard. View of plains. Crystalline overlord dwells in courtyard. Probably active fighting.  

Fort Level 5: Very high. Rickety structures built over hanging rest of fortress. Towers. Throne room. Lovely quarters. Opulence. 

Caverns Level 3, Mountain Top: Village built into cliff side. View of whole Fortress. Sky altars. Cliffs. Shacks built in the air. Ceremonies.

Caverns Level 2: Portals. Magic. Black rocks. Rock magic. Deep things.

 Caverns Level 1: Albino Fishmen villages. Giant maws in pools. Worshiping of things in underground water. Slime. Damp.













Who wants to go there? I bet its got some treasure.