Designing a Wilderness🔗
1. Choose the Setting🔗
Basic geography: Decide on the basic geography and climate of the region to be described, whether it primarily consists of mountains, forest, desert, etc. The size of the region should also be determined.
Milieu: At this stage, the nature of the milieu being detailed should also be considered: the general level of technology, availability of magic, presence of different monsters and intelligent races, and so on.
New campaigns: When starting a new campaign, it is recommended to begin by detailing a small, self-contained area that can be expanded upon over time.
2. Map the Region🔗
Major terrain features: Using graph or hex paper, create a map of the wilderness area, marking the major terrain features such as mountain ranges, rivers, seas, lakes, islands, forests, swamps, etc. Real-world maps may serve as inspiration for the natural structure and relationship of terrain features.
Scale: Typically, a large-scale map (24 miles per hex) is drawn first, followed by smaller-scale maps (6 miles per hex) of certain areas, adding more detail.
3. Locate Human Realms🔗
Mark the areas controlled by humans, bearing in mind the needs of human civilization (rivers, farmland, etc.).
Government: Also note the ruler of each human-controlled area: a petty lord, a mighty king, a league of merchants, etc.
Base town (see step 5): This is typically placed in one of these regions.
4. Locate Non-Human Realms🔗
Mark regions controlled by other intelligent species in the setting (e.g., demihumans, monstrous races, and so on), taking their preferred environment and way of life into account.
Nomads: Some intelligent species may keep domains with well-defined boundaries while others may move around—hunting or raiding—within a more vaguely defined area.
Monsters: The territories of significant, non-intelligent monsters may also be marked on the map at this stage.
5. Place the Base Town🔗
Locate a base town for player characters on the map, typically close to a river or road near the center of the map. This is where the play will begin. The guidelines in Designing a Base Town may flesh out the base town.
6. Place Dungeons🔗
Place one or more dungeons on the map somewhere near the base town.
Distance: Dungeons are generally located around a day’s journey from the base town—close enough that travel between the town and the dungeon is convenient but not so close that the town is plagued by monsters from the dungeon.
7. Create Regional Encounter Tables🔗
Standard tables: The standard encounter tables (see ***Wilderness Encounters may be suited to some areas of the campaign map.
Custom tables: For other areas, the referee may prefer to create new tables with a selection of monsters customized to the area. Special encounter tables should take account of the intelligent and monstrous species marked on the map.