Long-time readers of the blog will know that I am a sucker for worldbuilding, environment, and in particular those juicy little bits of worldbuilding we call hexes.

Recently, when I was over-preparing my simple little speedcrawl (for which eventually I used only a postcard), I wrote a whole crawl of my own, and also in addition throughly read the whole of the Djurum crawl in Shadowdark’s Cursed Scroll 2, which got me thinking about how to prepare a published crawl to run at the table.

I’ve already written before on related subjects, in running outdoor exploration with the 8 steps and in prepping a published adventure for play, with the major steps of:

• figuring out what’s in the adventure,
• organising what’s in the adventure, and finally
• making sure everything is there.

In this post, I apply those same steps to the Djurum hexcrawl, and specifically talk about how to add “scenes” to an open location or sandbox, enabling you to get a handle on your open world prep without railroading your players. Although this is a Shadowdark crawl, the principles here work for whatever system you are using.

Figuring out what’s happening in the Djurum

I went through the six A5 pages of the Djurum hex descriptions, highlighting as I went. As usual, yellow for secrets, purple for locations, blue for NPCs, green for treasure, orange for monsters.

Structural aside: The Djurum is 16×10.5 rows or 165 hexes, of which there are 20 with landmarks or other content. This 1/8 ratio is somewhat less populated tham the 1/6 recommendation that is often seen, perhaps a design decision to emphasise the grandeur and emptiness of the desert.

Organising what’s happening in the Djurum

Sometimes just highlighting is going to give you a good idea of what’s happening. But it helps me to list out things, essentially making a long list of things of the same color highlighting. These lists can be more or less comprehensive, it depends on what you need. In a huge hexcrawl like Tomb of Annihilation it is impossible to write down everything, but it is still helpful to have a note of the major groups and major secrets.

TIP: You should include the random encounter tables in a hexcrawl in your highlights and lists, since often they contain a lot of information.

Even in a smaller hexcrawl like the Djurum, the point is not necessarily to rewrite everything, but to make sure you’re clear on things like where the major cities are, who the major NPCs and factions are, where the big monster lairs are, and other major plot threads.

For example: In the Djurum there is a hidden monastery of assassins, a mad mage, two sets of thieves, nomadic sand elves riding silver camels, a phoenix, a dragon, a purple worm nest, and so on. You want to note that pit-fighting and gladiatorial contests are popular, and that assassins lurk everywhere.

Adding what’s missing from the Djurum

From my lists, I can see that I might want to pre-prep the NPC personalities more.

There are also several potential adventure sites. The Howling Caves adventure is included but I might also want an adventure under the mage’s tower or through the Doors or in the buried pyramid or in Alkesh. But I won’t add those now, since the PCs might never hit those areas, I just flag them in the back of my mind.

Finally, in my highlighter pass-through I also usually highlight using pink for potential scenes. Guess what, in the Djurum? No scenes. This is typical for hexcrawls and also for the location-based adventures common in the OSR.

Adding Scenes

I have written before about how opaque the OSR style can be to someone used to running 5e, and I think the lack of called-out scenes plays a big part in this.

To be clear, I use the word “scenes” to refer loosely a) hooks; b) things the characters might do; c) choices the characters might needs to make; d) people/monsters the characters might meet; e) places the characters might visit. I don’t mean that OSR games are devoid of these things but they are presented in a different way.

5e DMs are used to entering the story through narrative scenes (“e.g., “Confronting the Wizard” could be a written section in a 5e adventure, but unlikely in an OSR game, where the confrontation may be implicit in a location or the description of the wizard).

For DMs used to the 5e style, without a narrative scene it can be difficult to conceptualise play, or to get the ball rolling. Many OSR GMs, on the other hand, set a great deal of value on emergent play, and may not wish to plan scenes for fear of railroading your players. For me, though, scenes are a middle ground: not a requirement of play, but a way to think through what might happen so you can feel more prepared.

Here are three things I would do to “play” the Djurum:

• first, set the hook to the players with a starting scene, using an inciting incident and rumours;
• second, imagine the questions and challenges they might face along the way;
• and third, if you are unfamiliar with using random encounters as part of play, pre-roll them.

Creating a Starting Scene

Create a reason for the party to adventure and build a hook out of it – this functions as your Strong Start. You can do this in advance in collaboration with the players, as you talk about the kind of game you want to play, or you can decide and pitch the hook to the players. An inciting incident is really helpful here. I usually pre-write my strong starts so I might do something like the following:

“A huge sandstorm, bigger than any in living memory, swept the Djurum Desert last month. In its wake, many desert secrets were revealed and now treasure-hunters swarm the desert, you among them. You have provisioned yourself for the journey in Alkesh, the City of Red Sands, and you now stand at its gates, ready to begin. Which direction do you turn?”

or

“Three days ago, the Ras-Godai raided the Saltstone Tower and stole a lamp from the evil magician known only as the Wolf of Yarim. You, the magician’s thralls, have been given a choice: find his enchanted necklace and return it to him by the time the moon rises on the tenth day, or be thrown to his pet purple worm as so many others before you. The door to the Saltstone Tower behind you. Before you lies the desert and somewhere, the hidden monastery of the fearsome Ras-Godai, the Black Lotus Eaters, assassins of the Djurum. Which way will you go?”

Seeding Rumours and Using them to Predict Scenes

Remember that the players need information to make choices. A great way to do this is to seed rumours. In the first scenario above, I would either already have given the players some rumours, or I would mention them in the starting scene. By rumours, I mean things such such as:

• “The top of a buried pyramid rises from the sands to the east”.
• “The Ras-Godai are said to know everything in the Djurum, and their hidden monastery lies to the north”
• “A lost city lies beyond the great doors in the Vale of the Moon but some say the key lies with a cursed adventuring party who were spotted after the sandstorm.”

Your initial scenes after the start will be based on these alternatives and rumours. Let’s say the group decides to head to the pyramids. Your likely scenes (looking at the map) are travelling through the desert, where depending if they go north or south they may be hunted by manticores or set on by thieves before reaching the pyramids.

I also add dramatic questions, which summarise the choices the characters face in these scenes.

• Desert travel: Will the party survive the harsh conditions of the desert? How will they handle food, water, navigation and encumbrances?
• Set on by Wadim’s Thieves (1208): Will the party fight or make a deal?
• Hunted by manticores (1205): Will they evade, fight, or track the predators to their nest?
• The buried pyramid (1506): Will they enter the pyramid? How? You’ll need a dungeon map for the pyramid but probably they won’t get there the first session given all the other things going on!

I don’t add much more than those bullets to my scenes, they are enough to help me think through what I might want to improvise. In particular, the dramatic questions give me a signal. For example, in order to make the Wadim’s Thieves encounter interesting beyond combat, I have to give the possibility of bargaining.

Adding Random Encounters to Scenes

To these scenes you can add your pre-rolled encounters. I love my “better encounters” system, but the adventure encounters in Cursed Scroll 2 should work, just remember to roll or pre-roll their reactions! There are about 8 hexes between the city and the pyramid, so you’ll probably only need one or two encounters. The terrain is all desert there, so by rolling on the encounters table we find:

• (4,4) Bone naga — described as a mindless, skeletal husk of a magic-using cobra. Pre-rolled reaction: hostile.
• (2,8) Mirage — sinister illusion monster that summons the players fears. Pre-rolled reaction: curious.

OK, so it turns out I don’t like these encounters, there is not enough in them to help the characters get a feel for the country except “danger,” and our scenes are already pretty dangerous. I don’t see much opportunity to drop secrets or clues and I don’t feel they will give the characters meaningful choices.

I roll 10 and 3 on my better encounters table and get a horror and a hazard.

• Horror: a party of dead treasure seekers. (What killed them? Probably manticores, Wadim’s thieves, thirst or the bone naga – I can improvise this at the table depending on where they are. I like this because it warns the party and also gives me the opportunity to drop a secret or clue as a note and/or a tiny bit of supplies or a camel. It also gives the party a moment to reflect how this could be them. Finally they could be someone from a character’s backstory.)
• Hazard: A vast field of poisonous cacti sprouts in the sands. (This is a desert encounter from the Shadowdark core book. I like this because I can tell them it takes a watch to go around it, or they can find some clever way across it. Some players might take poison spines to use against enemies, turning the hazard into a resource.)

Hmm, maybe I can combine the bone naga and the treasure seekers and the mirage and the cactus field…

So my final scene list for a first session is:

• Strong start – Read sandstorm hook text. Which direction will they go?
• Desert travel (hexcrawl rules) – Will the party survive the harsh conditions of the desert? How will they handle food, water, navigation and encumbrances?
• Set on by Wadim’s Thieves (1208) – Will the party fight or make a deal?
• Hunted by manticores (1205) – Will they evade, fight, or track the predators to their nest?
• The buried pyramid (1506) – Will they enter the pyramid? How?
• Encounter (1:6)
  • dead treasure-seekers with bone naga – How will these dead people motivate the party?
  • field of poisonous cacti with mirage – Will they go through or around?

Maybe the party will change their mind or head in a different direction, but at least I have some handle on the game; I only need to glance at the map and read the two or three likely hexes on the way. The random encounters and desert travel will stay the same.

Note: as usual I’m using the Eight Steps from the Lazy DM to structure my prep.

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