Map of the world

In my lunchbreak and idle moments I've been expanding and growing my campaign world map. I thought I'd post a web friendly version here for reference of my players.

 

That large  island roughly in the middle of the ocean on the left hand side is where I started mapping, creating it in Hexographer.

The direction I went in regarding campaign setting necessitated adding more places to the world so it's grown. Quite a bit, as that island is supposed to be the approximate size of Britain. But I'm not planning on mapping it all in Hexographer so MS Paint will do for an outline of the world.

The island itself is Thyle, once the seat of empires now laid low by a plague of dreadful lethality. It is the focus for my campaign and I'm hoping where most of the action will take place.

The large mass at the top is a polar cap, home to the Giants and various ice beasties (spot the Norse riff..). The more southerly reaches are more hospitable to man, with the inevitable barbarian tribes. Skyrim, Joe Abercrombies 'The Heroes', and basically any Vikings ever are some of my inspirations here.

In the south there's a distinct landmass that shall be largely Stygia, a desertlike empire ruled by the immortal Tomb Lords and their Jackalmen legions. A combination of internal politics, natural barriers and military force backed by dwarven automata prevents them from pushing north east into other areas of the world.

I've got some ideas about the western areas, but none that I'm sharing for now, and the East will be the now fractured remains of the empire that was ruled from Thyle - reminiscent of the British Empire. The former vassal kingdoms of the Emperor of Thyle now seek to shore up their own Imperial ambitions by declaring a 'crusade' to recover and recolonise the island. For which, of course, you should read plunder any treasures they can find, acquire and control the natural resources, force out any monsters and drive off anyone else trying to do the same.

I'm hoping that this backdrop, along with a few other thoughts, will provide enough of a sandbox that the PCs can explore and do what they want whilst the ambitions and schemes of Kingdoms unfold in the background. Running it under ACKs also gives the PCs the opportunity to use the domain mechanics to become Kings in their own right. Perhaps they'll conquer Thyle themselves and set up as a new, independent nation. Perhaps they'll bend the knee to one of the old vassal states, or some other interested country. Or maybe they'll gather enough power and go conquer some of the places I've already mentioned... who knows!

Your NPC Hireling is ugly. How ugly?

I made a G+ post a few days ago about random tables for determining defining characteristics of characters based on their Attributes. +Jeff Rients suggested it would be a good series of blog posts. Since then I've not been able to shake it, but equally, not been able to spent much time on it. I have however, been chipping away at it here and there.

So, here is a 2d8 table of negative Charisma traits. It's really intended for Henchmen and Hirelings, to give them a defining feature, but you could use it for anything. If you've rolled attributes for them, and they have a negative Charisma modifier use the table below. If they have a positive modifier, I'm working on another table. Additions, revisions, comments all welcome!

2 Fish Lips or Bulging Eyes. Is there a shade of Innsmouth here?
3 The poor unfortunate has a hare lip.
4 MOLE! MOLEY MOLEY MOLEY MOLE! What a whopper!
5 Their eyes are disconcertingly close together. A psychologist from the 1920s might ascribe a criminal demeanour, but stereotyping aside there's definitely something untrustworthy about them
6 They don't got it, but they flaunt it anyway. Very irritating after a while.
7 They have the cold, dead, shark-like eyes of a killer.
8 They have a feral, predatory, look about them. It makes people nervous.
9 A black hole of misery. Are they secretly some sort of psychic vampire? Time spent in their company leaves people feeling drained and miserable.
10 Humourless, dour, withdrawn. There's almost nothing in this world that could get them to crack a smile.
11 Sleazy and lecherous. You can see them undressing members of the opposite sex with their eyes, and the comments they make are hugely inappropriate.
12 Their face is covered in scars from some past disease.
13 Foul, rotting stumps of teeth and a noxious miasma every time you're downwind of their breath makes them tough to be around, no matter how otherwise pleasant or competent they may be
14 They snort like a pig when they laugh.
15 There's something crazy about their eyes, a madness lurking just beneath the surface. It's very unsettling.
16 Roll on the 'Positive' Traits table, but whatever the result, it's a negative version.


Also - I plan on grading the final table so that there are several number tracks, one that runs through the whole table (as above), and 3 others that will cover the three negative modifiers, -1, -2 and -3. That way your hireling with a Charisma of 4 won't have the same defining feature as the one with a Charisma of 7. Obviously each trait will need to be 'graded' somehow, and I expect some overlap (so the table above might have 3 separate 1d6 tracks covering 2-7, 6-11, 11-16, for example)