Gygax 75 Challenge: Week 2

So, week 2 of the challenge involves making a map of the area for the players to investigate. Having recently picked up the Bundle of Racial Justice and Equality, I was reminded of Hex Kit, which had a very successful Kickstarter campaign. I gave it a try. It's pretty barebones, but that's the idea -- it's supposed to be a lightweight simple mapping program, and that's exactly what it does.

THE HAUNTED SHORE

The guidelines in the Gygax 75 Challenge booklet recommends the following features:
  • One settlement of significant size: this is Ramshackle (hex 0707), the starting town for the player characters. "A few hundred buildings built in a thousand different styles." It's hit or miss in Ramshackle, much like the name implies.
  • Two other settlements: I have placed Seldon Farm (hex 1006) a little way down the coast, and a hidden elven homestead (hex 0504) at the edge of the haunted forest, for the party to discover.
  • One major terrain feature: this is the Haunted Forest (hexes 0402, 0403, 0404, 0502, 0503, 0504, and 0603). The town of Ramshackle sits where a wizard's tower once sat thousands of years ago; the Haunted Forest is said to be where his creatures and minions fled when his tower was razed long ago.
  • One mysterious site to explore: I included three henges (hexes 0406, 0804, and 1008). As in classic tales, henges are part of this world, but also part of another.
  • One dungeon entrance: the party can eventually hear of a dungeon in hex 1201. Rumors will be of a vampire or something similar, but in actual fact it is the meeting-place of a covey of hags.
Optional entries are to pimp this out, but Hex Kit pimped it out in style already. The other optional bit is to create a random encounters table. I have to do that, but that will be a followup.

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