Mapping Coins

I've written about this before, so I won't dwell, but I wanted to comment on the ground work the Kleivaland post provides for game play. The space is defined; the characters arrive looking for something, or on the way to their quest. The farmer offers vittles, the hunters can serve as guides; they tell some frightening urban-legend type stories about whatever the party might be interested in. It sets the scene for a tense encounter once the hex is crossed or more thoroughly explored. It gives the players a tactile place to return, perhaps so that they don't need to make their way fully back to town.

Intricate design allows an improvement in the game's texture; that is the reason to go gritty. It is the reason why there are not just two or three hex types, but many ~ which in turn are modified by the presence of hills, water, climate, proximity to civilization and so on.

Following up on yesterday's post, we have to talk about rivers and the presence of coins ... which I must admit has been the most elusive part of this design. For this, we'll need a hex that borders on a river ~ I'd like to pick a type-6 hex, simply to talk about an expansion beyond our concept of the type-7 already discussed.

This is a forest hex in Agder, on the Lygne river as shown. The hex receives 1F and 1H from the temperate forest, with 2F from being a type-6 hex. It also receives 1 coin symbol (1C) from being located on the Lygne river.

Should we expand the hex out into two mile hexes and build hexes, most likely we would produce a growing settlement producing a considerable amount of food, running along the river (not everything has to be random!), with some hunting as the forest will support one or two camps. In all, the hex produces enough for 21 single farms, 7x the previous type-7 hex. We can easily imagine there would be some small hamlet of 15-20 buildings here.

Continued on the blog, the Higher Path, available through my Patreon. Please support me with a $3 donation and gain the complete series of estate posts related to the post above, as these have all been written.