The progression of Parn pt. 3 - New World Map & Gygax 75 thoughts

 I've been reading through the Gygax 75 project and thought maybe it's best if some of the Parn information is presented here via that format. You'll notice that the "the concept" is mostly kept to the DM, so we'll start off with the week two plans -- "the surrounding area."

As discussed in the first blog post, we've been able to clean up this map and turn it into one that we can use. And with the locations all wiped off, we can then keep the original markers as new locations for adventure. The stars are locations of note -- and the dots are all mostly towns. The triangles mark mountain summits.

Originally, non-native adventurers were pushed into the area through the northwest and ended up in the town of Parn, right in the center of the map, which gave them the most room for wilderness exploration in all directions. In the current incarnation of the map, Parn is still in the center -- Hex 1109 -- but there's no way the adventurers came from the northwest. No, this version of the world has quite a few villages and towns, and roads; they could come from anywhere, as Parn is the gateway to the crater area. This is our "settlement of significant size" that G75 calls for. 

Hexes all around have towns, and G75 only calls for two more settlements. As we detail more individual hexes, they'll all become named. The names of settlements in the immediate area are imports from past adventurers.

Hex 1008: Tigersoul (Barbarian settlement, named for the barbarian Ariana Tigersoul)
Hex 1208: Sunny (Felaness settlement, named for the wizard Sunny)
Hex 1110: Camelia (City, named for Camelia the Bard) and Jade Mountain (with a temple/shrine on top)

G75 calls for a major terrain feature that features in 3 or more hexes. Well, there is a large lake surrounding the place, with a tiny lake in the caldera. It must certainly be the lifeblood of the region. It also calls for one mysterious site to explore, and one main dungeon entrance.

Mysterious sites are all over the place! An ancient temple still resides on the peak of Jade Mountain (Hex 1110.) A few main dungeons exist -- but the mega dungeons Marble Tower (Hex 1009) and Stone Palace (Hex 1210) have entrances nearby as well.

Lastly, G75 recommends we make a random encounter table at this point, and recommends 2d6. I'm not a fan of weighted tables (this one will gravitate towards 6-8 more often than the ends) and I'd like more than 12 table options. Additionally, I like my encounter tables to have night and day variants, and maybe even change up a little bit with other conditions. I'll save that for a future blog post