Dungeon Fantasy - Castle Defiant

[Carnifex]

Currently I am running a GURPS Cyberpunk campaign that is going to be wrapping up in the next month or two at which point I will be switching to Dungeon Fantasy. What I am looking to do is use Castle Defiant from Yrth as a sandbox area. The idea is the Caithness civil war is now over and a new age of prosperity is being ushered in under King Connall and Queen Bronwyn. A small army was sent to retake Castle Defiant from the rogue dwarf Bulgaren, who retreated back across the swamp to the protection of his crater fortress to plan his next steps.

Castle Defiant makes for a classic sandbox area, the human colony gives the adventurers a place to go to spend their money, the Lord of the castle gives them someone to assign them missions and or a foil, depending on your preferences. To the north is Caustigus's swamp and Bulgaren's orc's beyond that. To the east is the badlands where all manner of foul creatures live. To the west is a dark forest where the elves are battle hardened from centuries of conflict with orcs and lizard men. To the south lays a mana rich area stalked by wizards and demons. In other words, plenty of places for hapless adventures to get into trouble.

As my first step in this process I have laid out a map of the immediate area, roughly the 50 mile area around the castle, as is standard for hex crawls, each hex is 5 miles. This is version 1 of the map, so I have very few details. I did this map in about half an hour cribbing information from Orcslayer and the Orclands entry in Banestorm. I am looking for suggestions to improve the map and ideas for filling in details.

http://carnifex.org/blog/wp-content/...le-Defiant.png

[David Johnston2]

Shouldn't the desert be on the other side of the castle?

[Carnifex]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Shouldn't the desert be on the other side of the castle?

If you look at the Orclands map in Banestorm, to the east is a forest and beyond that the Great Desert. To the west it looks like desert to me, but I did consider that it might be mountainous terrain or some sort of badlands because the color is not quite the same as the Great Desert. This is one of the reasons I posted here, is for this discussion.

[Dragondog]

From the description of the Orclands in Banestorm: "The Orclands are a desolate country of cool, open steppes, scattered forests, and rocky hills," so I'd say that the western part isn't desert or mountains. I don't see any swamps on the 4e map either.

[Carnifex]

Originally Posted by Dragondog

From the description of the Orclands in Banestorm: "The Orclands are a desolate country of cool, open steppes, scattered forests, and rocky hills," so I'd say that the western part isn't desert or mountains.

Good point, I updated the map with what Hexographer refers to as a "Steppes" hex.

Originally Posted by Dragondog

I don't see any swamps on the 4e map either.

That actually comes from Orcslayer, Scenario 7, page 19. The swap is about 30 miles north of the castle and is about 20 miles across, although I would say is it much wider than that, otherwise PC's would just go around it.

[Phantasm]

Originally Posted by Carnifex

That actually comes from Orcslayer, Scenario 7, page 19. The swap is about 30 miles north of the castle and is about 20 miles across, although I would say is it much wider than that, otherwise PC's would just go around it.

Best thing to do, I've found, is occasionally increase the distances by a factor of 3 to 10, depending on how inconvenient you want the "going around" to be. An interesting take would be to keep the ratios but change "miles" to something longer; for example, 1 league is three miles, so changing it from 20 miles to 20 leagues would make it 60 miles.

[Dragondog]

Originally Posted by Carnifex

That actually comes from Orcslayer, Scenario 7, page 19. The swap is about 30 miles north of the castle and is about 20 miles across, although I would say is it much wider than that, otherwise PC's would just go around it.

I see. I don't have Orcslayer myself.

[Carnifex]

Originally Posted by Dragondog

I see. I don't have Orcslayer myself.

It is actually not a bad bare bones little adventure, it predated GURPS, but it laid out the ground work for the Yrth setting. The PDF is $3 at Warehouse 23.

http://www.warehouse23.com/products/...ssic-orcslayer

[dripton]

Are you keeping the low mana level from the original material? "Caithness: the land that Wizards hate." I imagine that a mostly outdoor adventure in low mana would skew toward Druids, Scouts, and Barbarians.

[Carnifex]

Originally Posted by dripton

Are you keeping the low mana level from the original material? "Caithness: the land that Wizards hate." I imagine that a mostly outdoor adventure in low mana would skew toward Druids, Scouts, and Barbarians.

I thought about that, I decided to let the Orclands be a normal mana area, especially heading south into the Djinn Lands. I made this choice simply because it is going to be DF game and what would a dungeon crawl crew be without a mage. There are going to be plenty of dungeons to explore, just because the place is over run with orcs now, does not mean it always has been.