Thinking Smaller(?)

While my last post (An Eggsellent Adventure) was longer than usual, I really enjoyed writing it, and not worrying so much about formatting and layout. I realized along the way that I don’t enjoy doing formatting and layout. So I may be writing more adventures as blog posts. I was also looking back at my worldbuilding exercise from last April, and I realized that the map and all those hexes and different ideas was overwhelming.

So I’m going to work on a few smaller things, and see how they feel. My plan is to create a map once a week (hopefully posting on Wednesdays) and a regular gaming blog post (hopefully continuing to post on Sundays). I’ve also got more journals to write for Darius ex Miscellanea based on the long-term Ars Magica campaign I’m in.

Part of my brainstorming this week has been based on Justin Alexander’s blog post series on hexcrawls, so for this week’s map, here’s what I drew. This is the players’ version of the map. I’ll follow up with some posts about how I’m organizing my work and populating all these (but under 200) hexes.

A hex map with hand-drawn icons to indicate terrain; columns are numbered 1 through 14, and rows A through M. A town, surrounded by farmland is marked with a purple diamond on a lake in the middle of the map. The lake is fed by two rivers, one from the northwest and another from the west; the lake drains to a river heading east. There is a swamp along the river coming from the north, with a forest just east of the swamp, and mountains and plains to the east of the forest. South of the lake there are forested hills, with mountains at the south end of the map. A third river flows from these mountains on the east side to join the main river at another town and farmland on the eastern edge of the map.

P.S. As I reread this post, I see that I may not be thinking smaller after all. I still have lots of ideas swirling around, but this feels more manageable. I like having a roadmap of my own to follow, and I hope to visit (and revisit) these ideas in the months to come. (And hope my work schedule doesn’t get in the way too much.)

RPG Wandering

musings and ideas for (mostly) D&D and Ars Magica