I am back to do more sandbox stocking with the AD&D 1e DMG! I'm continuing from Part 1, here.
I start by filling in the terrain in the next ring of atlas hexes using Welsh Piper's Hex-Based Campaign Design:
I ended up with three more plains hexes, a forest hex, and two water hexes, which was unexpected (water is a "wildcard" terrain for plains). To keep things varied, I'll stock the hexes in this order: plains (SW) > water (NW) > plains (S) > forest (SE) > plains (NE) > water (N).
I start by rolling for inhabitation in the southwest plains hex:
I ended up with two hamlets, a thorp, and another totally deserted fortress complex.
I determined that the fortress is the former stronghold of a master thief, conquered by invaders. I'm thinking that the bandits to the northeast might have rolled through here, killed the fortress's defenders, and looted the place. Probably a bunch of them died to traps. But I think there are also secret areas the bandits did not find, which contain even greater treasures protected by even deadlier traps. I imagine this dungeon has very few if any monsters, and is primarily a deadly maze of traps and secrets.
I don't like the two hamlets right next to each other, so I'm going to combine them into a single settlement of 500 people. It's too big to be a hamlet, and too small to be a village, so it must be a secret third thing. A villet. A hamlage.
In any case, it has five character-type NPCs: a 2nd-level fighter, a 2nd-level halfling fighter/thief, a 3rd-level fighter, a 3rd-level magic-user, and a 6th-level magic-user. No doubt many of them are here to plunder the fortress to the north. The player characters can seek out lower mid-level spellcasting services here, which is nice.
The thorp is totally mundane, with no character-types. The people there are at risk of being eaten by the lions to the northeast. I'm also pretty sure that the peoples of the hamlage and thorp are within range of predation by the bandits to the northeast (who have something like 100 horses, mind you). The thorp is likely "ruled" by the bandit leader in all but name, with one of the bandit lieutenants stationed here to keep the thorpers under the bandits' heel and collect "taxes".
Next, I determine monster lairs:
I've got a troll hole north of the fortress and an orc den in the forested wetland southwest of the thorp.
There are five trolls in the troll hole. They're definitely capable of getting out to the fortress. If the bandits left any sort of garrison behind after invading the fort, there's a good chance the trolls showed up to carry them off to their lair, and might show up to investigate any adventurer activity in the area. The hamletfolk have probably encountered them as well.
The orc den contains 149 orcs, which includes four leaders, a subchief, a chief, and all their assistants and bodyguards. It probably seems strange that the orc den is right next to the tiny thorp, but keep in mind that it takes an entire day for a humanoid creature to travel from the edge of the forest wetland hex to its center and vice versa The orcs are actually fairly isolated, though they likely carry off the occasional fisherman intruding in their territory.
Overall, this hex gives me another big dungeon for early adventures, a larger settlement with higher-level henchmen/spellcasting NPCs, and two more interesting monster lairs for mid-to-high-level play. All welcome additions to the sandbox.
Moving on to the northwest water hex:
Again, I don't like two settlements right next to each other, so I'll have the village absorb the thorp, giving it a population of 950. It's too big to be a village but too small to be a town. It's a villown. A tillage.
The big village contains a 1st-level fighter, a 1st-level magic-user, a 1st-level illusionist, a 2nd-level ranger, a 3rd-level cleric, two 3rd-level fighters, a 3rd-level magic-user, a 5th-level ranger, and a 5th-level gnome thief. A nice mix of henchman options.
One complication that becomes apparent is that settlements can wind up in strange places, like in the middle of this large body of water. I try to see this as a feature, rather than a bug. Perhaps this village is a conglomerate of boats docked together, or it's situated on an island too small to be represented on the map. The village might be built around an important bridge which spans from one shore to the other.
Continuing along with the monster lairs:
This is a strange one! Two huge koalinth (marine hobgoblin) lairs right next to each other, and one within range of the village. One contains 117 koalinth, and the other contains 101. When I rolled the first one, I thought surely the village was doomed. But, I usually give settlements a militia of 10% their population. I figured a militia of 95 plus the settlement's myriad character-types would be sufficient to hold off 117 hobgoblins.
When I rolled the second koalinth lair, I considered combining them, the way I would two adjacent settlements. However, the Monster Manual description says that tribes of hobgoblins will fight each other unless some strong leader is able to bring them together. I decided the two tribes (the Rippers and the Breakers) are at war over who will reign supreme in the region (fortunately for the village). Perhaps some sort of mercenary third party outsider could unite the tribes or provoke them into all-out war with one another...
To the southeast is a nest for a single giant water spider. It's close enough to prey on villagers who stray too far from their home waters.
Moving on to the south plains hex:
I rolled a lonely single dwelling as well as my biggest settlement yet, a town of 4,500 people.
The single dwelling doesn't have any character-types, so there isn't much to do with it. Just some isolated homesteaders.
The town has 45 character-types, at which point it's worth asking if it's necessary to determine who all these people are. The town will have about 29 characters levels 1 to 3, nine characters levels 4 to 7, four from levels 7 to 12, and two from levels 9 to 20. I will only detail the ones the players are likely to interact with - the 1st-level ones that will be the first to become henchmen, and the highest-level ones that are most likely to have a great deal of influence in the settlement and that can provide high-level spellcasting services.
There would be around nine 1st-level character-types, which are: two clerics (one half-orc), four fighters (one dwarf), a half-elf fighter/magic-user, and two thieves. There's also an 8th-level cleric, a 9th-level thief, a 10th-level magic-user, a 12th-level fighter, a half-elf fighter 8/magic-user 8, and a 17th-level cleric. Wow!
Next, I roll for monster lairs:
Uh oh. There's a castle full of brigands in the forest. Brigands are just particularly nasty (Chaotic Evil) bandits who are more likely to live in cave complexes and castles rather than impromptu camps. In this case, they live in a castle.
One thing I find weird about this is that when you randomly generate a castle, there's already a chance that it's inhabited by non-character-type humans, one of which can be brigands. So there are multiple ways to end up with a castle full of brigands.
The castle contains 104 brigands. They have a 9th-level leader, an 8th-level magic-user, plus guards, lieutenants, and other 3rd- to 6th-level fighters.
Otherwise, they're not too different from the bandits in the first atlas hex I stocked. They're not in open terrain, so they don't have as many horses. They're more entrenched in their position and they're more aggressive.
They can't bully the town, which has a militia of 450 plus very high-level character-types, but they can easily destroy the single dwelling if they want to. I'm tempted to just turn it into a ruin, but it's probably more interesting if there's just a small group of brigands there forcing the inhabitants to feed and house them. The players could liberate the homesteaders from the small detachment of tyrannical brigands only to get themselves mixed up with the larger faction in the castle.
There's a also a den of fifteen wolves (with just two cubs) right outside of town, which is a bit odd. The den must be very new to be there at all, and they are likely just a nuisance to lone travelers. They are much more likely to prey on the isolated homesteaders than on the townsfolk.
Moving on to the southeast forest hex:
Two single dwellings, a village, and a thorp. I'll combine the single dwellings into one but leave the others, who are far enough apart for me.
Neither the single dwelling nor the thorp have a character-type. Like the last single dwelling, this one is in brigand range and has probably been taken over. They're also potentially lion food, so I guess they picked a bad place to settle.
The village has eight character-types: a 1st-level ranger, a 2nd-level fighter, a 2nd-level thief, a 3rd-level fighter, two 3rd-level magic-users, a half-orc fighter 3/thief 3, and a 6th-level cleric.
Now, I add the monster lairs:
This is great! I have a halfling shire, a leprechaun burrow, and a bugbear cave.
There are 169 male halflings, which includes eight 2nd-level fighters, three 3rd-level fighters, a 4th-level fighter, plus another 169 female halflings and 101 halfling children. They also have 1d4 dogs per halfling! It's unclear if this is referring to the 169 halflings I initially rolled (the halfling men) or if every halfling man, woman, and child has 1d4 dogs all to themselves. I went with just the initial roll and got a whopping 422 dogs! Safe to say that they are well protected from the nearby brigands.
Leprechauns are either solitary or found in groups of 1 to 20. I rolled d2 and got 1, so I decided that a solitary leprechaun lives here. Leprechauns love to play pranks and steal things, so I'm sure this one causes headaches for the nearby homesteaders. That should be a whimsical little adventure for a party of low-level characters.
Lastly, there's a bugbear lair near the thorp. There are 17 bugbears along with a chief and sub-chief, eight female bugbears and eight bugbear children. The bugbears could likely overwhelm the thorp if they wanted to. In this case I would say that the bugbears are snatching the occasional thorper wandering the forest but haven't launched an attack against the thorp just yet.
Next is my final plains hex:
This hex has a village, a hamlet, and a small, totally deserted "castle" (a friary, in this case).
The village has a 1st-level magic-user, a 2nd-level half-elf magic-user, a 3rd-level fighter, a 3rd-level magic-user, a 6th-level druid, and a 7th-level fighter. The hamlet has a 3rd-level cleric and a 3rd-level thief.
I assume the friary was used by an order of friars, because that's what a friary is. I rolled that it was shunned after being curse by the gods. That's interesting. The PHB has this to say about monks:
I roll to determine the monks' alignment and get Lawful Good. Perhaps these monks lost their Lawful alignment for some reason, and this is why their friary was cursed? Much to think about.
There's another den of wolves, which is nothing to write home about, but there's also a lair of three criosphinxes (a non-spellcasting, goat-headed species of sphinx) and a nest of nine griffons with three fledglings (which sell for 5,000 gold each).
The griffons, of course, fly all over the place looking for horses to eat. There's plenty of settlements in the area for them to prey upon. The criosphinx "lusts after gynosphinxes" and "extorts passersby" for treasure. There are no gynosphinxes nearby yet, so I suppose the criosphinxes are here to collect treasure from the region's inhabitants.
Finally, the north water hex:
Just a hamlet with 100 people. There's a single 2nd-level fighter there.
Onto monster lairs:
Hell yes. I have a lair for the infamous AD&D giant beavers as well as a kopoacinth (aquatic gargoyle) lair.
There are just 10 giant beavers living at the dam with a like amount of young beavers. No doubt the nearby hamlet has some nefarious trappers who hunt the beavers for their hides (500 to 2,000 gold each) and to sell their children into beaver slavery (100 to 200 gold per hit point, up to 700). The players could get in on the action or stand up for the beavers' rights.
The kopoacinth lair (I prefer 2e's term - margoyle) contains 14 of them. They attack anything they find 90% of the time and love to torture their prey. The poor beavers likely have to contend with them as well as the villagers.
Here is the map now that I've stocked another ring of hexes:
Honestly, this is probably all I would need to run a full campaign. There are four dungeons (all of which could be restored and turned into proper strongholds for the player characters) and a multitude of monster lairs (five of which could sustain proper late game mass combat scenarios - the two koalinth lairs, the orc lair, the bandit camp, and the brigands' castle).
A few things to note. I still do not have a city (every hex has a 1% chance of containing one, so it is statistically likely that I would have one by now). I have just two non-ruined strongholds (only one of which is a proper castle). All of my ruins are former strongholds (I did not roll any ruined villages, cities, or shrines). I have four humanoid lairs (two koalinth lairs, an orc lair, and a bugbear lair), but only one demihuman settlement (the shire). Perhaps most importantly, I don't have a dragon lair yet!
Perhaps I will simply have to continue some other time!
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