Off to the Races

Land

0 Dominant races.
3 Major races.

• 56: Human, 57 Temperate. One...
• 59: Human, 50 Sub-Tropical. Two...
• 54: Human, 36 Hills. Three...

13 Minor races.

• 8: Centaur, 82 Southwest
• 3: Arcane, 33 Hills. Cool I like these guys.
• 17: Elf, sylvan, 69 Northeast
• 100: Yuan-ti, 62 Northeast
• 86: Orc, 67 Northeast
• 14: Dwarf, 13 Riverine
• 51: Human, 27 Jungles. Four...
• 19: Gargoyle, 66 Northeast
• 29: Gnome, 72 Southeast
• 61: Human, 91 Northwest. Five...
• 36: Goblin, 14 Grasslands
• 40: Halfling, 64 Northeast
• 50: Human, 62 Northeast. Six different varieties of humans.

Sea

0 Dominant races.

3 Major races.

• 57: Merman
• 89: Sahuagin.
• 84: Sahuagin. FUCK.

4 Minor races.

• 87: Sahuagin. YOU.
• 33: Ixitxachitl
• 1: Crabman
• 48: Locathah

Underground

1 Dominant race.

• 7: Aboleth

3 Major races.

• 60: Gremlin, jermlaine
• 35: Dwarf, duergar
• 58: Gremlin, jermlaine. Seriously?

6 Minor races.

• 57: Gnome, Svirfneblin
• 94: Myconid
• 69: ...no entries between 66-76 wtf. Wait its a typo again. Hook Horror
• 64: Grimlock
• 86: Mind Flayer
• 82: Manscorpion. YES these rule.

Religion

As we found out before we have one pantheon per major culture with overlap, which I am taking to mean one per Dominant race in a region. So the Aboleths here have brought their religion, which I'm hoping is weird as hell. Any overlap in domains I will assume is the crossover with the previous region.

Size: 9 - Small. 1 Great power, 2 Intermediate powers, 2 Lesser powers, and 1 Demi power. Small bunch.

Organization: 46 - Celestial. Overlap!

Involvement: 11 - Oblivious. 87,26,13,75,29

Great:

• 27 - Seasons. Ah shit I just noticed the big guys are supposed to get more than one domain. I'll go back and edit the other region. This guy only gets one anyway. 87 - Chaotic Neutral. 

Intermediate:

• 38 - Sun, 92 - Justice, 11 - Earth. Small overlap with the Locathah Earth god, but this guy is into a lot more than that. 26 - Lawful Neutral.
• 57 - Fortune, 84 - Arts, 65 - Magic. Overlap with a Great power in Magic and Intermediate in Fortune. I think this qualifies. 13 - Lawful Good. 

Lesser:

• 17 - Nature, 21 - Oceans. Demigod overlap, it counts. 75 - Chaotic Good. 
• 15 - Good, 7 - Animals. 29 - Lawful Evil. 

Demi:

• 85 - Children. 47 - Neutral Evil.

There are some results there that are interesting to say the least. We'll have to figure out how these aboleth are set up before we can draw any conclusions though. 

Next time! We put these people in their place!

The Second Region

Moving on to the east, to our next region:

Going back to our original world map, a fault line runs east-west, and makes a little zigzag up between the eastern island cluster. The west island has some High mountains, with active volcanoes, as does the southwest island of the three-island cluster. A strong southerly current separates the cluster from the west island, and the prevailing winds circle across all of the islands clockwise.

Our mountain range is 17 hexes long, so I eyeball in about that many. Since we have room this time, a belt of foothills 2 hexes wide is on the north side of the west island range, and 0 hexes on the south, where it abruptly becomes mountainous. Same situation on the other islands, 2 hexes on the north and 0 on the south. Our plate situation is the northern plate moving southward and the south plate moving east, so maybe there's some buckling going on from that.

The remaining space is mostly small enough to be contained into areas that can have one predominant terrain by our climate bands. Southern end of the west island is Super-tropical and Humid (thanks to the wind coming across the sea from the east), and is a 3 - Medium Jungle. North of the mountains is regular Tropical and dry, 4 - Scrub. Northwest West Tri-Island is Tropical Arid, 3 - Desert. South West Tri-Island (looking forward to giving these places names) is Super-Tropical Humid, 2 - Medium Jungle. North North Tri-Island is Sub-Tropical Humid, 6 - Medium Jungle, while the south is Tropical Arid, 4 - Scrub. Southeast island is Super-Tropical Humid, 1 - Swamp.

So, a little more variation this time. Next time, zoomed in hexmaps and we start on kingdoms.

Locathah Lowdown

I mostly forgot about these guys until that previous post. Back in https://macroscopicapproach.blogspot.com/2018/09/rivers-and-humans.html we rolled that there was one dominant aquatic race, the Locathah, who I decided were in the middle of our ocean in region 1.


Culture: 71 - European, Dark Ages. 

I have been rolling as "Small kingdoms" for the others, because it is a small world and they were only "Major" race. The Locathah will get the "Moderate" treatment. 1 primary and 3 secondary races. Doesn't mean much after all, but really, they were different dice.

• Sahuagin: 34 - Common communities, separate districts. Guess we're cool with these assholes.
• Merfolk: 99 - Enslaved. But not our chill mer-bros?
• Tako: 75 - Separate communities.

Technology: 72 - 100 Years' War. We fancy but still got swords and shit.

Government: 77 - Monarchy. All Hail King Fish.

Alignment: 85 - Chaotic Neutral. "Countries in the process of disintegration through invasion, civil war, or catastrophe could be called chaotic neutral." I actually like this, it throws a good twist into these guys being the dominant race, way out in the middle of the ocean.

Subsistence: 10 - Trade. We can make this fit too, especially with other Locathah communities in other parts of the region. Home sucks and everything is falling apart, so the many traders just decide to not come back. This of course screws things up at home even more.

Population level: 0 trade, +1 trade? Low.

Settlement pattern: 82 - Best Climate. 

Next time, Region 2! A little more land, and a little more variation. Or so we think, only the tables will tell.

History and Mythology

Now we are back to the global (polyhedral) view, looking at gods and history of our world.

Religion

64 - One Pantheon per major culture, overlapping deities. Works well with what we have so far, with there being only one dominant race in our first region.

Region 1 Religion

Pantheon Size: 97 - Huge.
Pantheon Organization: 41 - Celestial.
Pantheon Involvement: 19 - Aloof.

• Great Powers: 4
• 64 - Magic, 78 - Thunder. 62 - Neutral Good
• 29 - Sky, 13 - Everything, 87 - Crafts. 61 - Neutral Good
• 70 - Moon, 81 - Wind. 63 - Neutral Good
• 47 - Death, 14 - Evil. 11 - Lawful Good
• Intermediate Powers: 1
• 57 - Fortune, 17 - Nature, 97 - Peace. 53 - Neutral Evil
• Lesser Powers: 3
• 99 - Strength, 24 - Lawful Neutral
• 68 - Mischief, 80 - Chaotic Good
• 80 - Trade, 32 - Lawful Evil
• Demi-Powers: 4
• 23 - Oceans, 17 - Lawful Neutral
• 76 - Weather, 68 - Neutral Good
• 7 - Earth, 57 - Neutral
• 54 - Fire, 58 - Neutral

Cosmology

5 - Wildspace, with spheres. Spelljammer-compatible.

8 - Non-solar World. Not flat, not ptolemaic - I think these planets are just drifting through the void.

9 Planets: 

• 2 - Air, 8 - Enormous
• 4 - Earth, 1 - Tiny
• 5 - Earth, 4 - Terrestrial
• 7 - Water, 4 - Terrestrial. This is our home planet.
• 5 - Earth, 7 - Huge
• 5 - Earth, 6 - Terrestrial
• 1 - Air, 5 - Terrestrial
• 7 - Water, 7 - Huge
• 6 - Fire, 6 - Terrestrial

4 Moons:

• 2 - Air, 3 - Tiny
• 2 - Air, 6 - Terrestrial
• 8 - Other, 4 - Terrestrial
• 2 - Air, 1 - Tiny

History

We'll come back around to this at the end, because this is for the entire world and we don't know who some of these players are.

11 Ancient Ages

• 700 - 4: Discovery, Technological 
• 800 - 7: Expansion/Exploration
• 500 - 10: Supremacy/Golden Age
• 600 - 7: Expansion/Exploration
• 1000 - 11: War, epic
• 500 - 2: Cataclysm, natural
• 700 - 12: War, racial
• 500 - 10: Supremacy/Golden Age
• 700 - 3: Discovery, Magical
• 500 - 11: War, epic
• 500 - 3: Discovery, Magical

7  Middle Peroids

• 50-100 - 1: Decadence
• 50-100 - 11: Plague
• 50-100 - 19: War, Crusade
• 50-100 - 6: Intrigue/Scandal
• 50-100 - 1: Decadence
• 50-100 - 16: Strong/Weak Ruler
• 50-100 - 6: Intrigue/Scandal

10  Recent Events

• 5 - 10: War, Internal
• 3 - 7: Rebellion
• 6 - 4: Monster Incursion
• 5 - 9: War, Foreign
• 2 - 10: War, Internal
• 6 - 4: Monster Incursion
• 4 - 1: Feud/Rivalry
• 2 - 6: Raids/Brigandage
• 1 - 4: Monster Incursion
• 1 - 1: Feud/Rivalry

Current Day

Twofer

Only two major settlements here, so I'll knock both out in one post.

Hsing-Sing

Culture: 29 - Central Asian.

1 primary (Hsing-Sing) and 4 secondary races.

• Humans: 91 - Enslaved. Some Planet of the Apes shit.
• Grippli: 84 - Separate, dominated. 
• Yuan-ti: 41 - Common, equals. Strange. 
• Svirfneblin: 62 - Separate, dominated.

Technology: 25 - Bronze Age.

Government: 63 - Matriarchy.

Alignment: 60 - Neutral.

Subsistence: 2 - Forestry. 

Population level: 0 from forestry, and no other modifiers is 0 -  Sparse.

Settlement pattern: 28 - Riverine.

City distribution: 164 miles between Towns. 

Locathah

Culture: 62 - European, Dark Ages.

2 primary (Locathah and Tako, see below) races and 3 secondary races. 

• Tako: 69 - Separate, dominated.
• Kuo-Toa: 2 - Intermixed. 
• Grippli: 90 - Enslaved. 
• Yuan-ti: 17 - Common, dominant. 

Technology: 77 - 100 Years' War.

Government:  99 - Theocracy.

Alignment: 21 - Lawful Neutral.

Subsistence: 4 - Hunting/Gathering. 

Population level: 0 from hunting, and no other modifiers is 0 -  Sparse. 

Settlement pattern: 34 - Riverine.

City distribution: 127 miles between Towns.

Shark Week

The Sea of Blood

Now for the last major resident of the southeast chain, the Sahuagin. These guys are usually dicks, so I'm curious what they actually end up as.

Culture: 46 - European Middle Ages. No surprise, this is one of the more common entries in the table.

1 primary race again, but 5 secondary races. We don't have that many aquatic races, so I'll just grab a few of the land based people of the area as well. The Sahuagin claim one island, so they can be crammed in there.

• Locathah: 95 - Enslaved. Nabbed some neighbors in a far off raid.
• Dwarves: 40 - Common communities. Dwarves don't give a shit about what goes on underwater.
• Humans: 36 - Common communities. I'm thinking these guys are like pirates, but with a nasty submarine surprise ally.
• Halflings: 96 - Enslaved. Raids into the Hobgoblin lands got theme some little dudes.
• Centaur: 79 - Separate but equal. Natives to the island maybe, doing their own thing.

Technology: 95 - Renaissance. Who gave the crazy sharkmen guns? I don't see a whole lot of other industry or science here. Maybe they have some stuff for venturing onto land.

Government: 24 - Dictatorship. Makes sense.

Alignment: 56 - Neutral Evil. Confirmation that Sahuagin are assholes.

Subsistence: Again, we don't really have tables for this climate or terrain, so we'll use swamp. 5 - Fishing. OK, easy enough.

Population level: 1 fishing, +1 Renaissance, gives 2 which is still Low population. 

Settlement pattern: 98 - Southwest. They are already placed in the south, so their main area of activity is there, with regular raids and patrols into to the north and west.

City distribution: One every 95 miles. Their territory is big enough for 3 cities, but the one in the southwest is the capital.

Thats all for the southeast island chain. Next time, we start in on the jungle island of the southwest.

In the Trenches with the Kuo-Toa

Imperium Pisces

Underdark race, fish people, lots of ocean. I had to put these guys in one of my big volcanic trenches.

Culture: 93 - Roman. That sounds cool.

There is again, just the 1 primary race, and 2 secondary races.
Cloakers: 27 - Common communities, equals. Maybe a special water adapted one, like a jellyfish or ray that looks like a carpet.
Sahuagin: 94 - Enslaved. Prison labor? POWs from the asshole fish people neighbors.

Technology: 63 - Crusades. Yeah they are totally at war with the Sahuagin.

Government: 76 - Monarchy.

Alignment: 71 - Chaotic Good.

Subsistence: Don't know what to call underdark ocean, gonna go with a tropical swamp. 4 - Fishing. Only makes sense.

Population level: 1 fishing, and no other modifiers. Huh. Low population.

Settlement pattern: 48 - Grasslands/Arable Land. Guessing they stick to deep sea volcanic vents and eat the fish that eat the weirdo shrimp and tubeworms down there.

City distribution: One every 110 miles.

Arctic Non-Arctic Hobgoblins

Cold Stone Clans

New island, going to start off with the only guys actually on the island. 

64 - European Dark Ages. Nothing too strange for Hobgoblins I guess.

They are the only primary race and there are 3 secondary races. Taking a look back at our race list:

• Dwarves: 57 - Separate, lessers. 
• Halflings: 82 - Separate, equals. 
• Centaurs: 50 - Separate, lessers. 

Technology Level: 49 - Dark Ages. Yay it lines up!

Government: 85 - Plutocracy. Oooh, that's interesting. Hobgobs got money.

Alignment: 33 - Lawful Evil. Again, normal for Hobgoblins. I was waiting for this before commenting on the race relationships. Why are dwarves and halflings and centaurs hanging out with these asshole Hobgoblins?

Subsistence: No entry for Super-Tropical Mountain Grasslands, so I'm going to roll on the Desert table. 7 - Mining. OK, that explains the dwarves at least. 

Population Level: 0 from mining, -1 from medium mountains, +1 from plains I guess, -1 from Dark Ages. Grand Total -1, Sparse population, villages 20 to 40 miles apart.

Settlement Pattern: 53 - Grasslands/Arable Land. 

City Distribution: Towns are 77 miles apart, so I'll put one at each end of their territory.

Summary: Hobgoblins, being the most populous in the area and aggressively jerks, coerce Dwarves to do their mining and Halflings and Centaurs to do their farming, while they hoard all the wealth in the hands of their leaders.

Cities

Seahorse Kingdom - 26-40 Riverine. Well shit, they only sort of have one river. 1 City every 141 miles, so one in their territory. Lets mark it on the map with a boat, since its probably some floating thing.

The Holy Sea - 1-25 Coastal. OK, even though they live in rivers. At the mouth of the river I guess. One city ever 121 miles, so I can probably fit two. Each get marked with cities.

Confederacy of Flayers - 26-40 Riverine. Guess that applies to the surface dwelling members, but their population is so low there is no entry on the distribution table, so, nothing!

The next chapter is all about starting on an even smaller scale, so most of the things we've already made. One thing that might be interesting is detailing what resource and services are available in each city, but on second thought no thats not interesting at all.

After that comes stuff on building encounter tables, which I'm not interested in either. And after that is Mythology, which is cool but needs to be zoomed out more.

So, next time, we'll look at the Settlements of the Southeast Island.

Confederacy of Flayers

Culture: 2 - Aboriginal. That's awkward. Hunter-gatherers, oral traditions. These Mind Flayers have been here a long long time.

Other Races: 1 Primary, 5 Secondary

• Cloaker: 34 - Common Communities, equals. Sure, these guys hang out together.
• Duergar: 15 - Intermixed. These too.
• Svirfneblin: 24 - Common Communities, lessers. Second class citizens, not dedicated enough to eating brains.
• Humans: 62 - Separate Communities. Surface dwellers and food supply.
• Ogres: 40 - Common Communities, equals. Having established Ogres are really dumb with the Centaur slaves, maybe the Mind Flayers see them as better allies. They are too stupid for food, but their strength comes in handy. A nice little irony that the evil assholes are better than the good slavers.

Tech Level: 33 - Dark Ages. Well, it is underground...

Government: 14 - Confederacy. These guys are rare, so I'm gonna say its less of a kingdom and more just these powerful monsters and their followers, but they respect each others' territory.

Alignment: 37 - Lawful Evil. Yup.

Subsistence: 7 - Nothing. They eat brains.

Population Level: 0 Aboriginal, -1 Dark Age, -1 Barren, -1 Rare. Non-Inhabited. That is fine. The underdark is mostly empty, and the surface of this part of the island just has a few little communities of brainwashed humans. No real center of population, just monster lairs at best.

The Holy Sea

Riverine Merfolk

47 - European, Middle Ages. Normal D&D stuff again, and contemporary with their neighbors to the north.

1 Primary (Merfolk) and 2 Secondary races.

• Humans, 55 - Separate Communities. As with the Centaurs before, these live on the land while the Merfolk live in the rivers.
• Centaurs, 39 - Common Community. Expatriates from the other centaurs, still living on rafts.

Technology level: 95 - Renaissance. Big gap there. If these guys were in the sea, I'd be thinking big spires and crazy underwater cities, but rivers. Possibly more Venice-like. Multi-story buildings with "roads" between them.

Government: 99 - Theocracy. Churches was another major setting theme. So Crazy undersea cathedrals and a fish-pope.

Alignment: 82 - Chaotic Good. Liberation Theology? 

Subsistence: No entry for rivers or water here, so I'll roll on the tropical swamp - 5 - Fishing. Makes sense.

Population Level: 1 for Fishing, +1 for Renaissance, gives us 2 - Low. I don't have a whole lot of rivers drawn in there, so I think that works out fine. The Merfolk are only in these major rivers that have room for them.

A couple of rivers with underwater Venices, each with their own Cardinal reporting up to the Pope at their capital. Big into art and architecture, and a church that actually does some good. Humans on the shores of the river, and those damn centaurs floating above. I think these are the good guys of this region, or at least this area so far.

Seahorse Kingdom

Posting from work, so no maps or anything, but that's OK because its time to figure out what the culture and society and whatnot of these people is like.

Northern Seafaring Centaurs

52 - European, Middle Ages. Classic D&D setting type stuff.

Small kingdoms have 1d2 Primary Races and 1d4+1 Secondary Races. I can use our previous minor races to detail this. Also, we find out how these other races get along.

European Northern Seafaring Centaurs: 1 Primary - Centaurs, and 3 Secondary:

• Humans, in 45 - Separate Communities. If the Centaurs are seafaring, maybe the humans are more inland and tend to farms.
• Ogres, who are 99 - Slaves. Uh oh, not everything is nice in the Seahorse kingdom. 
• Other Centaurs, that are 4 - Completely Intermixed. Well that's nice at least. Horses all get along.

Technology Level: 12 - Savage. Uh, ok. Middle Ages culturally, but Stone Age technically. So they have Knights, Nobility, Chivalry, and Serfs, but only the most basic agriculture and no real metalwork or anything. Maybe they are too tied to the sea and just don't get that whole settling down and building a castle thing.

Government: 29 - Feudalism. Well that matches up with the culture at least.

Alignment: 7 - Lawful Good. Good boat cavehorses. Except for that whole ogre slavery thing, we'll have to justify that somehow.

Subsistence: We know they are seafaring, but do horses eat fish? Do they trade it? They are in a Mountainous Forest region, so 3 - Agriculture, Light is their subsistence system, with a 50% (yes) chance of having some mining.

Population Level: Light Agriculture starts us at a 2, Temperate gives +1, Medium Mountains -1, and Savages -1, for a grand total of 1 - Low. Small villages and towns, no big cities, and large patches of less-favorable terrain.


So, I think it works like this. The mountains of the northern island aren't favorable to the Centaurs, who adapt by building floating raft villages. Humans of the area are part of the kingdom, but remain on the land for the most part, where they farm. As beasts of burden are frowned upon, the Humans tend to farms to feed the kingdom using nearly brainless (so they claim) mountain Ogres to drag stone plows, clear fields, mine shiny rocks that are traded to other lands, and so on. Each floating village is ruled by a Colt/Filly, who is in turned ruled by, and pays taxes in the form of feed and wood, to the king, known as a Stallion.

Settlement Patterns

We know roughly (which island) our races are on, but we can get more detailed than that.

North

Centaurs: 3 - Coastal/Seafaring. Really, back on this bullshit right from the beginning.
Merfolk: 11 - Riverine. 

Mind Flayers: 74 - Southeast. 

Southeast

Hobgoblins: 60 - Arctic. Gonna say some mountains are the highest place and they hang out up there to beat the heat.
Sahuagin: 79 - Southeast. 

Kuo-toa: 100 - Northwest. In the trench.

Southwest

Hsing-sing: 42 - Tropical. Middle of the jungle.
Locathah (group 2): 4 - Coastal/Seafaring. South coast, away from the others.

Of course there is still Locathah group 1, which is in the middle of the regional hex.

Next Time! Kingdoms and Society! Can't want for my Boat-Centaurs to turn out to be Aztec or something!

Rivers and Humans

Rivers, Lakes, and Seas

Again, this part of the book has a lot of information for people jumping in at the region level, but since we already have the shape of our coastline and all that sort of stuff, I just need to add some rivers. There are supposed to be 4d6 major rivers per region, but this region is just three tiny islands, so I just freehand in a few. Oh, and I moved things to Hexographer. Remember, these are 60 mile hexes at this scale.

Forested Mountains, Grassy Mountains, and Heavy Jungle. Deep Ocean trench subsidence zone thing running along two islands. Good enough.

Human Geography

OK here the fuck we go. What lives here? The region includes d3-1 Dominant races, 1d4+2 Major races, and 4d4 Minor races.

0 Dominant Races.
3 Major Races:

• 6: Centaurs. It says they like temperate forests, and that fits the north island perfectly. Mountain Centaurs I guess.
• 50: Hobgoblins. Any non-arctic. I've got plenty of that. These guys will be in the grasslands and mountains of the southeast island.
• 69: Mammal, hsing-sing. Ape guys, southwest jungle is a good fit.

10 Minor Races:

• 12: Dwarves. I've got plenty of mountains, so let's put them in the southeast.
• 77: Ogres. They can fight with the centaurs in the north.
• 49: Humans. Maybe some nomadic boat types.
• 59: More Humans. From two different places I guess.
• 100: Yuan-ti. Southwest for sure.
• 45: Humans again. These guys can be slaves of the Yuan-ti.
• 39: Grippli. Jungle frogs yup. Southwest.
• 58: More Humans. Escaped slaves doing their own thing. Southwest.
• 41: Halflings. Southeast in the grasslands.
• 8: Centaur. A different breed in the north?
• 7: More Centaur. OK too many horses. These ones migrated to the southeast.

Oh. I get to do it all again because I have a shitload of water? And again for subterranean races because Caves was my theme and that would make sense. Well no fancy dice images.

1 Dominant Marine Races

• 22: Locathah. What the fucks a Locathah again, since these guys are in charge apparently.
  

Right, one of a million fish people in AD&D. They are going right in the damn middle of the region since they have their shit together.

3 Major Marine Races

• 47: Locathah. God damn they are everywhere. These will be a coastal variety, in the southwest.
• 87: Sahuagin. Fish people, but evil. Southeast.
• 60: Merman. Fish people, but hot. They like temperate water at least, so north you go.

1 Minor Marine Race

• 91: Tako. Let's see, that means octopus so I'll bet... yep, Octopus with spears and shit. Southwest.

0 Dominant Subterranean races
2 Major Subterranean Races

• 82: Kuo-toa. See, I thought I was going to get away from fish people going underground, but no.
• 90: Mind Flayer. They have tentacles, so I'm still counting this as fish.

4 Minor Subterranean Races

• 17: Cloaker.
• 29: Duergar.
• 51: Svirfneblin.
• 23: Other Duergar.

Alright, thats it right? Oh, a Dominant race includes 1d4+1 separate cultures or sub-races. Major race, 1d3. Nope. All sorts of fish in this sea and they are all color blind.

Next time! Racial Settlement Patterns are you fucking kidding me I'm only doing this for the Major ones.

Zooming In

It is time to zoom in on a particular region of our big blue d12. The chapter starts with some information for those that are starting from this point (i.e. not the Macroscopic Approach), so that is safe to skip. Reminder for next time, start off higher resolution. I'll start with the leftmost maybe-interesting area:

First up is mountain ranges, which has some stuff on length and width, which we can use. Looking back at our tectonic information, there's a rift zone running northwest to southeast through those islands that are in a line, with medium mountains on the left, and an undersea rift with a good number of dormant volcanoes on the right. I roll, and this mountain range is 25 hexes long and 4 hexes wide, so, way bigger than the islands. Usually these would be surrounded by lower mountains, then hills, but there is just no room for that here. 

Now for terrain. The northern island is sub-tropical, while the southern ones are super-tropical. All three islands are humid. These islands are so small, there won't be much variation. I roll again, and north island is a medium, mixed forest, south island is a heavy jungle, and southeast island is grassland.

I've badly color coded these areas. I'm thinking for the regional stuff I'll do them in hexographer or something else, and drop the pentagons. Anyway, next time, more water~!

Climatology

The last step of world design that affects the entire planet is the creation of a world climate. For purposes of an AD&D campaign, a region's climate falls into one of five different categories: arctic, sub-arctic, temperate, sub-tropical, and tropical.
Remember, you don't have to justify everything with a scientific explanation; for example, if your world has two suns, one above each pole, it could be that the poles are the tropics while the equator is the coldest region of planet.

Mean Planetary Temperature

16-30 - Hot. 

All climate bands are one step warmer than normal; the tropical zone is super-tropical.

Super-tropical regions are warmer than humans can comfortably tolerate, but an unprotected human can survive in such areas, at least temporarily. The average temperature is well over 100 Fahrenheit, usually in the 110 to 140 range. Human societies in such conditions may become nocturnal or do their best to avoid the heat of the middle of the day.

This works out pretty well. The seas are hot, unbearably so towards the equator, but we end up with a chunk of polar landmass that is tolerable. The centers of the two polar pentagons should get to sub-arctic, but if they are kind of flat faces of the polyhedron, they kind of wouldn't so I'm ok with that.

Seasonal Variations

11-30 - Mild.

The planet has only a slight axial tilt, and seasons are present but reduced in effect. The Tropics and sub-tropics experience no seasonal variation, and the temperate and sub-arctic regions tend to have warmer winters and colder summers than normal (for Earth).

Prevailing Winds and Ocean Currents

Take your world display and examine each ocean or major sea. If the body of water is north of the equator, draw a current circling the ocean clockwise. If the body is south of the equator, draw a current circling the ocean counter-clockwise. If the sea is on the equator, pretend that the equator forms a boundary dividing the sea into two parts, and draw north-hemisphere and south hemisphere currents on either side of the line.

Then do the same thing with land and wind. I always knew this clockwise stuff was a thing, but it wasn't until college that I was formally taught it.

So, it looks like we have some favorable currents from the continent westward to the islands, and between wind and currents the southeast islands are pretty well connected. Weather-wise, it is probably hot and humid all the damn time. With one of our themes being Caves, maybe that was a thing early people did in the super-tropical southern top of the continent and equatorial islands to beat the heat.

What's Next? Zoom in on an area!

Volcanic and Seismic Activity

So for each of those plate interactions that indicated some kind of hot rumbling, we roll.

Volcanic Activity: 

• Plate 2 side of 1-2 boundary. 58: Extinct Volcanoes, numerous.
• Plate 3 side of 1-3. 96: Active Volcanoes, numerous.
• Plate 2 side of 2-3. 83: Dormant Volcanoes, numerous.
• Plate 2 side of 2-4. 88: Active Volcanoes, sparse.
• Plate 1 side of 4-1. 73: Dormant Volcanoes, sparse.
• Plate 1 side of 3-1. 95: Active Volcanoes, sparse.

The dice were hot and so is the magma.

Earthquakes:

• Plate 3 side of 1-3 boundary. 43: Mild, Common
• Plate 3 side of 2-3. 12: Mild, Rare
• Plate 2 side of 2-4. 33: Mild, Uncommon
• Plate 4 side of 3-4. 80: Moderate, Common
• Plate 1 side of 4-1. 51: Moderate, Rare
• Plate 2 side of 4-2. 07: Mild, Rare
• Plate 4 side of 4-1. 33: Mild, Uncommon
• Plate 1 side of 4-1. 05: Mild, Rare
• Plate 3 side of 3-1. 76: Moderate, Common

Not as dramatic as the volcanoes, but still, theres a few places around here where you don't want to live. Let's update the map. I've used three tiny triangles for dormant volcanoes, a solid triangle for active volcanoes, a titled hashmark for mild earthquakes, and a triple hashmark for moderate earthquakes, with number indicating frequency.

Thats it! The rest of the section has a little bit of stuff on meteoric impacts, but no fun tables, just pick 1d6 spots and smash up 1d6 hexes. Kind of boring. And a thing on regional placement of mountains for worlds that don't have plate tectonics.

Plate Tectonics

Mountain Chains and Rifts

We are told a typical Earth-sized world consists of 4d4 plates, each spanning 1d6 regions on the world display map. Since we are about half of the size, I'm going to go with my gut and halve the number of plates, so 2d4 plates of 1d6 regions each.
Oh yeah, I colorized the map too:

4 Plates. Book says each continent and basin are usually one to three plates, and islands are usually part of their ocean plate, so I'll make that one landmass one plate and divide up the huge ocean into three plates.

Next, we roll on a table for anywhere a plate touches another plate, to see where they are moving and if they are making mountains or trenches. I've numbered the plates 1 through 4, with 1 being the westernmost (and easternmost now that I look at it), 2 the northern, 3 the southern, and 4 the continental. We only roll for the plates "surrounding the continent you're primarily interested in" so I'm going to skip rolling for stretches of open ocean. Lots of rolling...

Plate 1-2, western islands
06-21 - Away from bordering plate, low mountains
22-33 - Away from bordering plate, rift system 1

Plate 1-3, southern island
67-79 - Towards bordering plate, trench system
57-66 - Alongside bordering plate, medium mountains 12

Plate 2-3, northwest medium islands
80-94 - Towards bordering plate, medium mountains 1
40-56 - Alongside bordering plate, low mountains 2

Plate 2-4, western continent
57-66 - Alongside bordering plate, medium mountains 12
06-21 - Away from bordering plate, low mountains

Plate 3-4, southern continent
67-79 - Towards bordering plate, trench system
40-56 - Alongside bordering plate, low mountains 2

Plate 4-1, eastern continent
01-05 - Away from bordering plate, no mountains
57-66 - Alongside bordering plate, medium mountains 12

Plate 4-2, northern continent
06-21 - Away from bordering plate, low mountains
40-56 - Alongside bordering plate, low mountains 2

Plate 4-1, northern continent
34-49 - Alongside bordering plate, no mountains 2
40-56 - Alongside bordering plate, low mountains 2

Plate 3-1, eastern islands
34-49 - Alongside bordering plate, no mountains 2

80-94 - Towards bordering plate, medium mountains 1

The little 1s and 2s are for volcanic and seismic activity

Optionally, which for this blog will usually mean mandatory, as a 4800mi. diameter planet, we can have some effects of gravity on our mountains, bumping them up a size grade (meaning I add another crudely drawn line).

Next time: Things get hot and we shake it up.

Placing Continents and Seas

Now it wants me to actually draw. I'm going to use an old technique in Photoshop for making maps, because I'm shit at drawing by hand, even more so on the computer.
New image, same size as my map with the hexagons, blank white layer, filter>render>difference clouds, then play with the image>adjustments>threshold slider until I get islands and stuff I want.

Select those individually and drop them in my map where I like them and they match up with my land/water distribution, and voila.

Next time: Plate Tectonics!

Hydrography

Hydrography

Hydrography refers to the distribution and mapping of bodies of water. In this step, you'll determine how much of your world is covered with water.

66-90 - 80%

A tall polygon of water. Shit, I need to actually map things now.

So, I break out Photoshop, and lucky me, I still have a hexagon pattern fill. A quick googling for a unfolded dodecahedron gets me a blank template, and I fill it in. Pattern is too big, scale it back some, and shit, how do you do the area of a pentagon? 1/2*perimeter*apothem. Good thing theres a calculator. Target number is 58, fuck me this is too hard. 20% scale gets me something that looks about right:

Now we look at some chart, which tells us on the (20-sided) polyhedral map, our 80% water world should have 8 water, 6 water/minor island, 4 water/major islands, and 2 water/land regions. So more bad math ((x/20)*12), 12 sides means we get 5 water, 4 water/minor, 2 water/major, and 1 water/land regions. Adds up to 12 holy shit. Lets throw those on the map arbitrarily.

W being water with no appreciable islands, an ocean. W/Mi being minor islands, examples being the Central Pacific or Caribbean. W/Mj being major islands, like Indonesia. W/L being half and half land, like Europe and the Mediterranean.

World Size

World Size

After you decide what the shape of your world will be, you should determine an appropriate size. Don't worry about issues such as mass, gravity, or density (wasn't planning on it) - it's a fairly safe assumption that the natives of your world are perfectly accustomed to the gravity, and they have no adjustments to their movement rates or ability scores due to unusually heavy or light gravity. A more important issue from a world-builder's standpoint is the amount of surface area provided by a world of a given size.

29-52 - 4800 mi. Planetary Diameter, world map uses 300 mi. hexes, and regional maps use 60 mi. hexes.

We are helpfully reminded that the Earth is around 8000 miles in diameter, and that our world, being a dodecahedron, probably doesn't work out too well measuring diameter, and that we should use the world map hex sizes and figure it out.

There are 700 hexes total on the 20-sided World Map, so we get 58 hexes per face of our D12, at 300 miles each. Fuck this is already going to be a pain when its map time.

World Shape and Form

World Shape and Form

In a fantastic setting, a world can be any shape or size you please. So fuck what you want we are going to randomly roll with a good chance of it being a sphere.

Don't screw up my *looks at notes* churches and caves.

 91-97 - Polyhedron (roll d6)
Oh hell yeah something not a sphere.

The world has a polyhedral shape. If it happens to be shaped like a d20, Map Blank 1 represents it perfectly (we'll get into this later); otherwise, you must create your own world mapsheets, with an arrangement that reflects the number of sides you choose. You should decide how the world's "edges" work. Does gravity suddenly alter direction at the juncture of the world's flat faces, or is each region bordered by a mountainous ridge of colossal proportions?

5 - twelve-sided

Yeah this will do just nicely.

World Hooks

World Hooks

Choosing a hook for your campaign world is the most important blah blah blah roll some dice.

 

61-85 - Situation (d161)

I'm going to assume d161 is d16 here, since there are 16 entries in the sub-table. But this dice roller thing I was going to use only has normal dice.

Oh, is that what that 1 is supposed to be? Good superscript there. Off to a great start.

13 - Religious

No, not 6+7=13, d6>4 so 7+8=13.

An unusual religious situation exists. Perhaps priests venerate the elements instead of anthropomorphic deities (Athas, the world of the DARK SUN setting, is a good example of this), or there may be a faith or religion that is so powerful it dominates a region or the entire world.

To me, that's not enough to base an entire world around, so I'm going to do it again. The text mentions doing this two or three times and looking for an interesting mix.

25-34 - Sites of Interest (d8)

1 - Caverns

The principal adventure sites for the campaign are natural caverns. Mineral wealth or monster lairs may be the chief interest of the heroes.

Well, OK then. Cave Churches. I'll see what we come up with for the rest, next time.

The Macroscopic Approach

The Macroscopic Approach

This approach begins with only the broadest generalizations, since you will begin by creating the gross physical features of the planet and zoom in step by step to greater levels of detail. To use this approach, simply follow World Builder's Guidebook chapter by chapter.




...Don't mind if I do.