This is going great!

It’s been a super first week of Hex-A-Day 2025 so far. My map has an ideal start, especially given the random rolls all landed pretty much in my favor for what I’m trying to accomplish. I haven’t done a ton of solo play exploring yet, but I want to build out a few hexes first.

One of the best parts of this so far is that I’m getting to integrate some tropes I’ve been wanting to use in worldbuilding for quite some time now. There are plenty of Deadites/zombies/walking dead/ghouls around. That explains what happened to the previous inhabitants to some extent and why there aren’t cities and villages everywhere. There are plenty of forest and marsh hexes which is great given my theme of “Nature reclaims everything.” Lastly, I set out with the notion that this is a Jovian size world, so no worrying about those pesky oceans just yet.

I’m using Atelier Clandestin’s Sandbox Generator. I’ve been kitbashing other rulebooks and some plain Game Master fiat into this project, too. The dice rolls are a guide, but much like solo gaming, the rolls are a guide, not the final product. I gotta give lots of love and respect to whoever said “prep is play” or vice versa, This has been fun!

I’ll show the map when I have a couple of areas completed and maybe add some color. Right now I’m more focused on the mechanical details and building areas to explore than I am the mapmaking process. Defining what came before the characters ever landed on the other side of the portal seems more important than any map.

Explaining why the usual medieval Western fantasy tropes are gone but it’s still Dragonbane is another story. There was a prior civilization on this world, now buried under tons of foliage. Then there’s the matter of what caused the prior civilizations to die, flee, or evolve. At least there are tons of buried and above-ground ruins to explore.

I know there will still be scattered remnants of humans and dwarves on this planet. Elves will be extremely rare and maybe not what people are expecting. The group could stumble upon records of Mallards and Wolfkin in their travels as well. I haven’t made a decision on some of the Dragonbane Bestiary creatures and Kin yet. Other than there will be no Orcs nor Goblins. Anything Tolkienesque is going to be right out. There will definitely be dragons and the group has already seen undead. Demons won’t be hard to find, either.

Overall I think this whole exercise is a lot of fun. Of course there are 51 more weeks ahead of us. Let’s hope the good ones keep coming. I think every Game Master should do this kind of thing at least once.