I took some Judges Guild books with me on vacation for light evening reading. I had hoped to crank out an article on beggars of the City State for the next issue of Fight On!, but I ended up mostly working on Encounter Critical stuff. Sometimes I just get that way. I did dash out some rough notes for 6 beggars, so I may still get that article done.Despite freaking out over some EC ideas I did manage to do some reading in Ready Ref Sheets, still one of the best products ever made for the hobby. The passage below, from page 38 (under the heading 'Population Density') leapt out at me. It was something I had obviously read before, but only this time did its importance sink in.
The wilderness map assumes all hexes are lightly wooded excluding mountains. The woods shown are especially dense, requiring horsemen to walk mounts. The only true clear terrain hexes are those within and adjacent to the names of plateaus and plains. ... When entering a hex containing a village, tower or castle, a 6 on a six-sided die indicates that the feature in question has actually been found, a 5 indicating that a small farm or hamlet (10-60 population) has been found instead. Players following a road, coastline or river that intersects a village, negates the necessity of 'encountering' same.By "the wilderness map" I assume that we're talking about Wilderlands campaign maps. If so, these sentences go a long way towards making the Wilderlands a lot more wild. A crapload of apparently empty hexes on the maps become Light Woods for purposes of movement and sighting. That should work to isolate more communities from each other, especially when you add in the search rules at the end. "Holy crap we've spent how many days in this one little hex and still haven't found the wizard's tower?"
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That sounds about right for any fantasy setting, really. I've read again and again in various sources how Europe and eastern North America were basically one big forest up til relatively recently.
ReplyDeleteA few years back I was in northern New Mexico and passed through this little town that was just tucked in amongst the woods of the Rio Grande Valley. It really struck me how organically the buildings were arranged around the trees. Those search rules make a lot of sense--it would be pretty easy to miss settlements and man-made features in such an environment.
I have a PDF of the Ready Reference Sheets, but I should really print it out so I can sit down with it. I just can't browse through PDFs the same way I can with a dead tree version.
The reference is definitely to the the Judges Guild Wilderlands campaign maps. The material in the Ready Ref Sheets (except for tables reprinted from the OD&D books) were all reprints of material published in early JG products.
ReplyDeleteRemembering the majority of hexes that look like clear terrain are really light woods gives the campaign setting a much different, less civilized feel. The Wilderlands were my first campaign setting and they were a lot of fun to play in.
This may help for your beggars stuff
ReplyDeletehttp://home.earthlink.net/~wilderlands/beggarsguild.html
Also here is worked example of a wilderland hex using the rules in the ready ref guide.
You should definitely consider clear hexes to be woodland with less than 50% cover. Only the hexes touching Plains, fields entries on the Maps are areas of grass. Plus there are a few hexes with a grass symbol like in the Elephand Lands.
http://www.ibiblio.org/mscorbit/beta/woe_area.jpg
Finally the demographics stuff put into useful form
I was doing some work on Woe which included the 5 mile area map. I wanted to see how much farming it would take to support Woe and figure I would share the data with the rest of you.
This info is taken from Triumphant Grand Tactical and Demographics found in Wilderlands of High Fantasy (old) and the Ready Ref Sheets
some definitions
1 able bodied men = 4 to 5 people or 1 household.
1 sq mile will feed 320 able bodied men
1 sq mile needs 30 able bodied men to utilize at 100%
1 5 mile hex has 13,856 acres
1 5 mile hex has 21.65 sq miles
1 5 mile hex has 625 .2 mile hexes
1 .2 mile hex has 22.17 acres
1 .2 mile hex has .035 sq miles
1 5 mile hex, with 100% utilization, can feed up to 6928 people.
1 5 mile hex will require 650 able bodied men to utilize at 100%
Note the book give 6400. This looks like a math error unless they are making note you are never going really get 100% utilization. If you want to do this then the max utilization is 80%.
1 .2 mile hex will feed 11.085 able bodied men
1 .2 mile hex will require 1.039 able bodied men
1 historical manor has 1500 acres
(includes a hamlet or village)
1 historical manor will 70 able bodied men for labor
1 historical manor will feed 750 able bodied men.
Finally
640 acres to feed 1 able bodied nomad/hunter gatherer.
1 5 mile hex will feed 20 able bodied nomads (rounded it)
30 .2 mile hexes will feed 1 able bodied nomad.