The Shrouded Lands: an Open Source Hexcrawl Setting

[Daztur]

Here's a hexcrawl setting I've helped develop for a bit over a year now. The hexes are connected up in a lot of ways and contain more detail than you get from the hexcrawl settings I've seen before so they might be useful for people here who want some locations to steal for their own settings.

Compilation: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B6z-iUI ... sp=sharing (it’s gotten too big for Google Drive to let you preview it, if you want to preview it without downloading the PDF you can look at an older version here: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B6z-iUI ... hxalU/edit)

Map: http://img829.imageshack.us/img829/4141/march3map.png

Appendixes (a bit out of date at the moment): https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RSD ... R1Ovg/edit

The overall feel of the setting is melancholic and a bit dark, but still containing a lot of beauty and without being gritty. Some of the main sources of inspiration have included noodling around with D&D canon, the weirder corners of Sword & Sorcery fiction, fairy tales and Arthuriana.

It's all open source so feel free to steal any bits you want, most of them should be pretty easy to slot into your average D&D setting somewhere. If you like it you can add more bits and I'll edit your ideas into the next version of the compilation.

In order to make the size of the setting a bit less daunting, it’s been broken up into regions with the shorter ones coming first so you can read everything there is to know about some of the small regions pretty quickly. Just keep in mind that the more interesting stuff results in other people writing stuff to piggyback off of it so most of the best posts are in the middle of the most content-heavy regions. A good example of this is Hex 29.14, which sparked enough interest that there are now 49 entries about different things in the hex, let me give you a taste:

The City of Shuttered Windows
South of the Kingswood and the Freeholds there lies the City of Shuttered Windows, thick with the dust of ages and the grime of hidden violence. Traders from across the land pass through this city, which is often known by its shortened name of simply 'the Shuttered City'.

The Shuttered City is home to the Temple Indivisible, which worships Alberon, patron deity of the City. The very structure of the city, its stones, walls and peoples, are sacred to their faith. Conversely, the City is a work of blasphemy to the cultists of Dead Tiamat. Legend tells of how the Broken Spear (40.06) was used by Alberon to strike down Tiamat before he tore off each of her five heads. Understandably, the Tiamat cultists of the modern era would give anything to see the City of Shuttered Windows razed to the ground.

It is well known among scholars that the Shuttered City is built on sinking ground. Every year, the foundations of the city slide a few inches deeper into the soft soil. Whether this is a natural phenomenon or a curse that drags it into the jaws of the underworld is a matter of some contention. However, the plain fact is that in order to continue existence, the people of the City must continue to build upwards. At a very rough estimate, it takes around 100 years for a single story of a building to become completely submerged beneath the ground. Thus, the oldest building still above ground today is the Old Council Tower, but only the top floor of the Tower remains visible.

In the City, height is an indicator of social status. The towers and other tall buildings are reserved for citizens, and the highest of them are the domain of the Electors, the Great Families and the Doge. Between these towers are built bridges and causeways, always built in the anticipation that they will one day become roads, and later, tunnels. The lower classes must live in the shadow of the high towers, in the byzantine labyrinth of streets and passages which make up the majority of the City's space. For, despite the long history of sinking, there is no ordered plan for the new construction. People build higher when their lower structures are no longer usable. Roads are built according to a system of petitions and bribes, whose haphazardness is exacerbated by the frequent changes in administration. The upshot of this is that there is no 'ground level' in the City, only a vague continuum from the airiest towers down to the labyrinthine tunnels of the Undercity.

The Undercity is inhabited by the lowliest commoners, the most wretched of whom may spend months or years without seeing sunlight. It is also home to a branch of the Hoard (33.00) of the dwarves, and to the dreaded cult of the Whispering Sisters (29.14.07). The further down one goes, the older the buildings, and the fewer the inhabitants. Many of the very deep streets and buildings have caved in, but others remain. It is said that a pompous beggar named the Squatter King has set himself up in the remains of an ancient iteration of the Doge's Palace. And of course, rumours abound regarding monsters that inhabit the deepest caverns; but certainly none of these monsters have ever been seen up inhabited parts of the Undercity.

[Ikeren]

Looked over it briefly. Nothing was terrible, but I sort of thought it would thoroughly flesh out 20-30 areas and 20-30 dungeons. Instead I got a brief overview of 1000 areas with some plot hooks. The writing of NPC's, Dungeons, and everything is still required by me, so it's unclear why I'd ever use this, unless I considered the being creative part the time consuming/challenging part to write out...but I'm sort of under the impression pretty much all DM's, even rules experts, find the creative material easier to put out quickly than the mechanics and treasure. Though maybe that's just me?

[Daztur]

Looked over it briefly. Nothing was terrible, but I sort of thought it would thoroughly flesh out 20-30 areas and 20-30 dungeons. Instead I got a brief overview of 1000 areas with some plot hooks. The writing of NPC's, Dungeons, and everything is still required by me, so it's unclear why I'd ever use this, unless I considered the being creative part the time consuming/challenging part to write out...but I'm sort of under the impression pretty much all DM's, even rules experts, find the creative material easier to put out quickly than the mechanics and treasure. Though maybe that's just me?

Ya, probably not too useful for you then, but different people want different things. AFAIK, fluff-heavy setting books sell as least as well as crunch-heavy modules.

Most hexcrawls are set up to be pretty spare and utilitarian. The PCs go into some place, and the book tells you what's there in a quick way with some stats so you can keep on rolling. This thing is set up more as an idea mine, but if you don't need an idea mine to come up with ideas then it won't be too useful. But at least for me all of my favorite D&D blogs are ones that throw random setting ideas at me that make me think "damn, I want to use that in a game one day." This is kind of that writ large and tied together into one setting.

Also this might be more useful for people running hexcrawls/sandboxes than other kind of games. It's easy to come up with some creative stuff if you have a general idea what the PCs will do but if you have a big damn map and want to stock the whole thing you can run out of ideas fairly quickly.

[Red_Rob]

After downloading this it looks like a good source of ideas to steal from. I'm putting together a sandboxy game at the moment, and while the setting is different there were still a bunch of things I could steal from the 10-20 pages I skimmed through. I'm sure the whole 300 page document will have plenty of food for thought.

[Daztur]

After downloading this it looks like a good source of ideas to steal from. I'm putting together a sandboxy game at the moment, and while the setting is different there were still a bunch of things I could steal from the 10-20 pages I skimmed through. I'm sure the whole 300 page document will have plenty of food for thought.

Thanks. If I hope you find something useful. If you play off the ideas there tell me what you've done and I can write that into the setting.

Also new version the Shrouded Lands hexcrawl setting done. We'll be working on changing the format of the compilation to make it more user friendly and to have hyperlinks but for now I shrunk the art resolution down so you can view it without downloading it or logging in. We'll also work on some small bite sized 36-page gazettes in the coming months with stuff like treasure information and random encounter tables.

Hex index with concise descriptions (spreadsheet version):
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B6z-iUI ... tBSjA/edit
Hex index with concise descriptions (word version):https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Pv_ ... g=h.gjdgxs
Appendixes: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RSD ... R1Ovg/edit
Map: http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/1543/april11map.png
Compilation in all of it's 419-page glory with hundred of public domain art images: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B6z-iUI ... R2aWc/edit

And a poem from one of our contributors:

The Rhyme of the Sanguine Lords

From the blood of the Tarrasque,
Antic and old,
Sipped twelve humble butchers,
Clever and cold.

These butchers adopted,
Though from afar,
Superstitions of Bergolast,
Rich and bizarre.

“Kiss the feet of beggars,”
The Bergo crones shrieked.
“When you live by the sword,
“You die by the meek.”

If it steals from your treasure,
A magpie is luck;
If a cuckoo crows by you,
Your wife shall not ----.

You must count every penny,
And pebble, and grain;
Cross not running water,
But court in the rain.

Make your home in ruins,
The stone and the clay.
Read the runestones for guidance:
Recast them each day.

The Lords flaunt these rules:
Pennies are missed;
Runestones forgotten;
Beggars unkissed.

They build castles all new;
Or bathe in a flood.
But one law goes unbroken:
Speak nothing of blood.