Gygax 75 Challenge: Week 5

Part 5 of the challenge was sort of a buffet in which you choose three out of a multitude of options. Of those options I decided to:

1. Sketch out the surrounding geography
2. Develop encounter tables for each of the hex terrains
3. Develop a list of system tweaks

Sketch out the Surrounding Geography

It just so happens that I already had a map of the area drawn. In fact, when I was making the hex map. I grabbed a small frame of this map and zoomed in on it. In retrospect, I should've chosen a different option since I already had done this one, but I was just excited to have already had part of the week out of the way.

Develop encounter tables for each of the hex terrains

I don't have any stat blocks for these creatures yet, but I assure you they will all appear on this blog at some point in the near future, be they all in one post or spread out between a few.

Rainforest (2d8)

• 2. Songòmby
• 3. Rhox
• 4. Vukilpikon
• 5. Suuri Snail
• 6. Quetzalcoatl
• 7. Famocantratra
• 8. Tool
• 9. POI
• 10. Tool
• 11. Famocantratra Omen
• 12. Quetzalcoatl Omen
• 13. Suuri Snail
• 14. Vukilpikon Omen
• 15, Rhox Omen
• 16. Songòmby Omen

Sub-Montane (2d8)

• 2. Devouring Gourd
• 3. Ccoa
• 4. Wako
• 5. Väärehmä
• 6. Quetzalcoatl
• 7. Dragon
• 8. Tool
• 9. POI
• 10. Tool
• 11. Dragon Omen
• 12. Quetzalcoatl Omen
• 13 Väärehmä Omen
• 14. Wako Omen
• 15. Ccoa Omen
• 16. Devouring Gourd Omen

River (2d8)

• 2. Boiùna 
• 3. Jokaihdin
• 4. Piranha
• 5. Vukilpikon
• 6. Cuero
• 7. Alligator
• 8. Tool
• 9. POI
• 10. Tool
• 11. Alligator Omen
• 12. Cuero Omen
• 13. Vukilpikon Omen
• 14. Piranha Omen
• 15. Jokaihdin Omen
• 16. Boiùna Omen

List of System Tweaks

• An equipment and crafting system
• Stat blocks for most the above creatures
• Random Tool Encounters table

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I guess that's the end of the Gygax 75 challenge. It was a nice structure, and it kept me more than busy these past 5 weeks. I definitely plan on doing more to polish this setting. Obviously I need to do all the hex entries, but I have a suspicion it's gonna be quite a bit harder without having a defined structure anymore.

Gygax 75 Challenge: Week 4

The week 4 portion of the challenge was to make a city and 5 NPCs within it. Additionally there was determining where the players could purchase equipment.

Equipment is a bit of a weird one for this particular setting though, because I plan on just developing a system where the players craft the tools they need, out of materials that can be found pretty much anywhere. So I basically took a copout and said you can basically ask anyone.

Above is a picture of qhat I have developed of the town map. Apologies for the awful quality but its not much to look at right now anyways, just a general outline of where things are.

The town sits next to a waterfall in a river. If you walk out to a large island in the river, there is a shrine dedicated to the local river spirit, which has recently gone missing. Meanwhile the Great Gourd has sleepers in the town looking for it.

NPCs

A story teller with a missing left eye. She is the oldest person in the town abd is trying to fight back against the Gourd, though the ties she has are far too small to do much of anything against it. She currwntly posesses the river spirit, who has been trapped as a magic item, for its own safety.

A farmer who has a spastic arm. He was the sole survivor of the origibal expedition to Kirratoupunki. He knows some of the secrets of the place, but if his memories are triggered, he'll fly into a murderous rage and begin to cut himself open. Anybody in the town will be able to tell you not to mention the place around him.

A small boy who has a birthmark on his pectoral. He is trying to save his sick mother, who has become ill with a disease nobody in the town knows the cure to. He suspects his father of not only being a sleeper agent, but also of trying to kill his mother.

An explorer who is missing her right hand. She ran put of supplies and found herself here. The people have kept her fed, but are largely untrusting, suspecting her to have been sent by the Gourd. She knows a secret about (a currently undecided) hex.

A man who has a scar on his left cheek. The father of the boy from earlier, he is in fact a sleeper. His goal is to locate and kill the river spirit. He poisoned his wife because she figured out, he's not sure if she told anyone, but he's made sure she wont be telling anyone else. She can be saved from the content in a (currently undecided) hex.

Thats basically it for this week. The NPCs gave me a lot of trouble because developing characters is probably my weakest point as a DM. I think I might've done alright though, even if I haven't named them yet.

Gygax 75 Challenge: Week 3

I chose to use Kirrataupunki as the dungeon because lava tubes are long, straight, and boring. So I came up with the following concept.

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Kirrataupunki is a ruins of an age long gone, crumbling ruins surrounding walls too tall to see over.

Within its walls, dried out husks are all that remain of it's original inhabitants, all reaching away from the great city's center, where a defunct temple seems to draw all shapes toward itself.

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I went over the word count on the entrance, but I really couldnt help myself.

My notes for this week's project. They're barely legible in this image though.

The first floor is a temple containing damned souls and ways to contact them.

The second level contains the temple's targeting system. Which doubles as a star chart. After all, it is intended to take out angels.

The bottom floor contains the rest of the pieces to the superweapon, as well as the reason this once great city fell. Their blood was used as a final sacrifice to get the weapon operational, which requires massive amounts of blood to power it.

The completed map. With all the room numbers.

Id put all the monsters here too but I didnt have enough time to actually write out stat blocks for them, so there's not really much more I think I can put in this post.

Gygax 75 Challenge: Week 2

Week 2 was rough. I spent the first three days drawing my own hex grid because Im an idiot, which certainly didn't help. But in the end I have a (somewhat intentionally) unfinished result I'm happy with.

Picture is upside down lol.

I decided to save the inking and trees until later eventually, as this challenge doesn't include keying up every single hex, making that something I'd rather save until later.

Regardless, I still have all the required parts penciled in, even if the map itself isnt quite finished yet.

Cities:

Virtääves äärellä - A large river village which subsists itself on trades from the villages upstream.

Tulemiset - A small tribe north of Virtääves äärellä, They work to appease the fiery spirit in the nearby volcanoe.

kurpitsamaa - Home of the Great Gourd and his followers. Situated at the peak of one of the nearby mountains.

Terrain Features

Tulivuori - A fiery volcanoe housing a powerful spirit inside of it. It is currently the only spirit standing in the way of the Great Gourd's control of the entire region. The Great Gourd is therefore seeking to ammend this by ending the spirit's life as it sleeps.

Tuivauh Pyläät - Some say they are the graves of spirits long passed on, others say they are the bodies of those spirits who were forgotten, still more believe it is impossible for spirits to die. Though none know the true nature of these pillars of rock, stretching to the heavens, all know of its signifigance.

Kirrotaupunki

The ruins of an ancient city to the south of Virtääves äärellä, it has only been viewed from afar. A group of explorers once tried to establish their own settlement there, but never returned. It was this occurrence that began to build a mystique around the place, and it has since become taboo to even mention the name of the place.

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Im not certain yet whether Im going to use Kirrotaupunki as the dungeon or try and figure something out with lava tubes and the volcanoe. But that's for a later week.

Also, I'm going to be really tempted to do random encounter tables, but it's already the next week as Im writing this post so I really shouldn't work on week 2 anymore.

Gygax 75 Challenge - Week 1

A number of individuals have decided now is a good time to partake in the ritual many of us turn to in times of boredom, that being the development of a setting.

We are, however, doing it with the Gygax 75 challenge compiled by Ray Otus and Developed by Gary Gygax.

Week 1 asks you to create a series of no more than 7 pitches and sources to draw from when developing your setting.

Pitches

- “Post-apocalyptic” takes place after the fall of a great nation ruled by a true god-emperor. Cities are built on top of ruins of the once great cities that came before.

- There are no gods. Instead there are spirits of varying levels of power. They are just as likely to control you as you are them.

- Heavily Travel Focused Hex-Crawl. Rules light system. Inventories will be tracked.

- There are no currencies. Instead people trade and barter. Fantastical wonders recovered from the ancient civilization are worth their weight in gold (sometimes literally).

- Ancient secrets lie buried deep in the ruins. Far more who enter return mad or not at all than those who grow rich off their spoils.

- Trading posts instead of keeps to replace domain-level play.

Inspiration Sources

The Waterborn by J. Gregory Keyes

This is where the magic item and spirits system is pretty much wholesale taken from, though I guess it’s slightly unique. Basically, spirits act as guardians of their locations and magic items are just trapped spirits. It is possible for a spirit to subdue or eliminate all of the other nearby spirits thus becoming either a ruler or a deity.

Tsingy A National Park in Madagascar, not sure who made it.

I want lots of neat terrain features like this example. A bunch of rock pillars in the sky, In a similar location in Asia, each pillar had its own name and story of being either a person or a spirit. Definitely something else to include.

Some article about people growing giant pumpkins I read years ago.

Oddly enough, what spawned the entire idea of this setting. Giant pumpkins will be an essential part of life somewhere. Of course the Great Gourd will be involved.

The Mesoamericans.

Not any specific sources, but I plan on drawing heavily from that architecture style for dungeons and stuff.

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If you haven't hopped aboard the bandwagon yet, there's never been a better time given the extra free time many of us have. So no excuses!