I won't hit you with a wall of text; details will be provided if any interest is generated.
Homebrew - Karnoss
Ancient kingdom made alliance with evil fey for power and nobles became lycanthropes. They then hunted and raged on their own people while conquering neighbors. They were eventually overthrown.
Recent history saw a resurgence in fey energies which caused the Wilding about 150 years ago; all the forests of these lands grew rapidly and very wild for a little over a century. The area is like northeastern US so imagine maine and such covered in dense, boreal woods.
The game kicks in where the Wilding ended about 1 generation (25 years) ago and the lands of Karnoss are finally beginning to re-civilize.
I'd originally envisioned a sandbox style wilderness exploration. Since my players voiced their feelings on style it's become a linear story following the exploits of a band of adventurer/archaeologists working for the Archivist Guild to explore ancient sites and recover historical relics or info.
Also since my players are boardgamers it has had one more evolution: a hex map. The party starts in Erdanstadt (small town) and explores a nearby ruin (megadungeon). If they get bored with this and don't like any of the side plot hooks they have roughly about 40 hexes, 30 miles each, of wilderness they can explore. I've only noted one other site of interest (The Dismal Hills) a few days travel but they may find other sites scattered throughout the land.
What do you think? Is this something that sounds like fun? If anyone's played a similar style game please send me suggestions, critiques or whatever since this is my first foray into a map-based game like this.
Edit: a link to the map .
Anyone?
Again, trying to avoid wall o' text...
when you say hex based, what do you mean?
I like it, kinda reminds me of the old basic D&D maps. It should work for a while. And you can hide quite a bit even in such a small map.
You setting sounds interesting. But with out much more info that's all I can say on the matter.
when you say hex based, what do you mean?
Sort of a blend of Kingmaker and Carrion Crown. There will be set adventures, steeped in a dark, haunted kind of theme, but "hex based" meaning that there are side quests that may lead to discoveries in other hexes. Each hex is roughly 30 miles (a days travel give or take) so each has the potential for its own random adventure.
The land of Karnoss is one of fey-haunted woods and witches posing as apple vendors. Lycanthropes of all kinds still stalk the wilderness. And of course there are gypsies, ancient castles and curses galore.
Rather than focus on horror and the undead though, I wanted a game focused on old fashioned fairy tales and folklore. In Karnoss there are goblins, yes; but they are just as likely to steal a baby and replace it with one of their own as they are to burn down the barn to watch the flames dance.
The first adventure arc sees the party come to town to explore some old ruins for relics of ancient Karnoss. There are 3 potential side quests:
Lady's Lament - the party spots a middle-aged woman begging for coins at the fair; she turns out to be a landless noble at the end of her rope. Wicked fey set her family on a course of ruin and now they have nothing. However clues she's assembled suggest that an ornamental honor-sword passed through town and may have ended up in the ruins. The party needs to first get the records from the magistrate's office, then follow the clues into the ruins to find the sword.
Marionnette Mayhem - the PC's find a strange lad in a hood crying. His marionnettes got up and ran away without explanation. A mischevious gnome is using the puppets for a crime spree. The party must recover them without destroying the toys. Once they return to the lad he explains the reason for his mysterious garb; he's cursed and uses his puppets to tell his story. Since he was born without the ability to be afraid he tried to go into the world and learn, only to be cursed to bring fear to all who see him. In order to end the curse the party needs to find an evil bugbear named the Nightmare King and take back a hand axe the boy lost in his lands.
Woodcutter's Woes - an old woodcutter plies his trade at the faire selling very fine wood carvings. The party is asked to run back to his cottage to get more wood where they discover the house has been broken into and they fight some monsters. Returning to the old man he explains that a month ago his daughter went missing down the very trail the party saw and he's working at the faire to make enough money to hire an adventurer to go after her. If the party takes the job they follow the clues and make their way to a bog with a pool perpetually lit in moonlight. There they have to find the girl (who is now an adept and a wererat) and also a pair of silver lockets; one at the bottom of the pool and the other on the neck of Faebelina, a forlarren sorceress who steals beauty to keep herself hot.
Frog god games has excellent supplements called hex crawl chronicles. Check these out and get one if you can. I used two of them in my kingmaker custom AP. They at great for filling in the blank hexes with really well written non-combat encounters and unique locales.