Actual Test: Wilderness Generator from Izirions Enchirdion of the West Marches

This is a review of the wilderness generator that came as part of Izirions Enchiridion of the West Marches that I backed on Kickstarter. I reviewed the DM's Screen and wilderness generator before and noted the wilderness generator in particular it was a lot of fun to play with.

I used it to map out a region around a city that had suddenly sprung into focus in my home campaign and it was remarkable how the cards managed to fall in line with the sketch of the region I had and then generated many more hooks and possibilities from their combinations.

Each of the large cards describes the local environment and then there are smaller features cards that fit with the environment card as hazards, creatures, structures and other elements. First I dealt out 18 environment cards to be a 3 x 6 grid along the valley leading to the main city of the region, Irongate.

For each of these major cards I rolled d6 to see how many features I would draw and fitted them to their place on each environment card.

Opening with the top right, in the mountains above the city: 1a Dream Realm – searing geyser, steepled tower, faction D base. This one writes itself - you have a faction based in a steepled tower, possibly on the edge of a realm like the fey-wild possibly in some incongruous realm you can stumble into as you traipse through the mountains. Who faction D are, we shall see once the rest of the locations are dealt out.

2a Mountains – faction D, mighty world bearer, endless cliff, violent storms, freestanding gate, bottomless pit. Well this is very interesting - here we have a bunch of scale signifiers - a mighty cliff, a bottomless pit, the mighty world bearer. Faction D appears again - possibly this place with its gate is the access to the dream realm in the next hex? Perhaps from here you can perceive that the mighty world bearer is present, down in the void of the bottomless pit and the dream realm hex is atop its great back? Lots of potential hear. Faction D are looking to be some outfit with ties to realms beyond - possibly residents like githyanki raiders or guardians trying to keep people out.

3a Underground – fae circles, undulating sky, unnatural aging - festering mire, fractal delta, lonely mountain. Here we find a way underground - this part of the mountains is hollow. The lonely mountain, festering mire and fractal delta speak to me of a wet-lands or high-standing marsh of some sort with a lone peak within it. Maybe a flooded caldera? I would put the access to the underground in that lonely peak in the middle of these wetlands. The fae circles beneath the unulating sky says the wetlands are going to be unnerving to cross or enter with potential to lose years off your life due to fae tricks.

4a Dungeon Complex – flitting portals, sentient animals - unbroken road – enigmatic spy, cultists, faction B. This dungeon complex fits nicely with the hex before - here we have the natural underground becoming worked and occupied; apparently by sentient animals, cultists and Faction B. The unbroken road tells me this is a dwarf-hold, on their great underground routes beneath the mountains. The flitting portals suggests extra-planar access - combined with sentient animals this suggests the Feywild or the Beastlands. Flitting portals also suggest no stable access suggesting that the animals that have ended up here are going to be lost, confused and unhappy to be stuck in an underground hold. Open question whether the enigmatic spy is in the cultists or Faction B, or whether Faction B is a cult. All told we have appear to have an old dwarf-hold with cultists and awakened animals in contention. Lots to work with here.

5a Astral Sea – collapsed portal. Keeping with our theme of 'the mountains up north are strange' - we have an access to the Astral Sea through an collapsed and I will say leaky portal, allowing odd astral things out into the surroundings.

1b – Mountains – Buried blades, explosive gases, Faction presence B + monstrous encampments. Next row down we get the mountains directly above and west of the city of Irongate. Here we find explosive gases which must be leaking from fissures and buried blades implying an old battleground. We find Faction B and monstrous encampments, implying a force gathered here in the mountains, one who has participated in battles here - as victors or losers is not clear. Certainly Faction B are gathering darker signifiers to them - cultists, spies and monsters. I would read these as fortified monster camps, ones where they have repulsed attempts to drive them off and left the hex strewn with the wreckage of those battles.

2b – Irongate – Faction A, risk of flash floods, quicksand, Petrified trees, psychedelic spores, abundant game. I drew an Urban card in just the right place, the cards are kind. The city of Irongate turns out to be a very strange place - with dangerous terrain around it. Faction A becomes the lords of Irongate, who evidently have a monster problem (Faction B) right in their back yard. The immediate terrain around the city is prone to flooding and riddled with quick-sand but provides abundant game for the inhabitants. Perhaps the petrified trees are the resource people have settled here to work, or perhaps harvesting the psychadelic spores. In either case, I see a place wary of the mountains and possibly with an appetite for escaping through spore-dreaming.

The next two card I treat together 3b – grasslands (Faction A base, territorial beasts, sleepless undead) and 4b – grasslands (wandering nomads) as the one large grassland region below Irongate. This wealth of terrain explains why Irongate exists - for it makes a fertile valley in the mountains - and the Lords of Irongate (faction A) keep an outpost at one end of it to control the fierce beasts and sleepless undead. Further away from the city the grasslands are mostly used and inhabited by nomadic folk, more loosely affiliated with the city, trading livestock from their wandering herds and avoiding hazards through their mobility.

5b – Volcanic Crater - Afflicted sleep, animated plants, anomalous magnetism, 2 x faction C presence, Unknowable monolith. At the far end of the grasslands is a volcanic crater - the rich volcanic ash-laden earth must be why the grasslands exist. Some strange Unknowable Monolith can be found here - caused or unearthed by the volcano? The effects of this thing are varied - compasses go wild in its anomalous magnetism, plants animate and wander and the sleep of passers by is afflicted. Another group, Faction C, maintains a strong presence here. Sages or guardians or seeking to exploit its powers?

1c Mountain – dampened magic, foreign cosmos, Faction D presence, misleading way-signs. Now in the mountains below Irongate we find Faction D once more sitting on a strange cosmic location. Here magic is dampened around a place where the stars visible at night are wrong. The faction has doctored all the waysigns here to direct people away from this place for reasons known only to themselves.

2c Forest – underground lair, roving spirits, glittering lagoon, ephemeral runes. Here, south of Irongate, we find a forest with a continuation of the wetlands that started in the 'Underground' hex, continued through the 'Urban' hex and now come here to end in a glittering lagoon. Spirits roam here and something lairs beneath the woods. Ephemeral runes can be found scattered throughout the forest - given the proximity of the strange cosmos next door, the only surprise is that Faction D is not present looking at them.

3c Fungal Forest – drifting stones, raining ashes, sundering chasm, alluring fairies. Here the forest is overgrown by fungus - possibly because of the heat and out-gassing from the sundering chasm and the ashes raining down from that. Some of the rocks spewed from the chasm never come down and continue to roam as drifting stones. The place has also become home to alluring fairies. All told, a place not to be entered lightly and avoided by most of the locals.

4c Forest – yawning cavern, boiling heat, otherworldly beings, unleashed demons. Drawing closer to the volcanic crater to the north we find a forest around yawning cavern emitting boiling heat. Rumoured to be a gateway directly to the hottest of hells, the demons and otherworldly beings that can be found here speak to the horrors beyong the cavern. More evidence that the veil between worlds is worn thin up here on the mountains.

5c Sea of Dunes – faction B base, ancient battleground, ancient mech traps. Finally we come to the stronghold of Faction B - in the heart of an ancient battlefield, surrounded by equally ancient mechanical traps, a place so terribly damaged by the conflict that marked this place that it is a sea of dunes within an otherwise lush region.

So we have a bunch of interesting features, with a couple of factions in play:
Faction A - the Lords of Irongate, nominally the local powers in charge; conventional 'knights of the kingdom' types.
Faction B - found only in dungeons and camps surrounded by the ruin of ancient battle, this says to me Faction B is the old power of the realm, driven off by the new-comers. Dangerous in their own realms, plotting the downfall of those who usurped them.
Faction C - present in strength at the volcanic crater - a cult or college tied to the Unknowable Monolith. Possibly something dangerous like mindflayers or just elves.
Faction D - the guardians of the thin-places in the mountains. Possibly old dwarven wardens, hanging on after their local stronghold fell to keep the lost from falling through into other worlds.

As you can see, great inspiration sparks, a quick way to build up a region with all of its hooks and factions in fairly short order. For the purpose for which it was designed - supporting a West Marches style exploration campaign - this is a great resource. As mentioned in my previous review the art is gorgeous, the prompt questions are good and the heart that went into this really shines through. If you can get your hands on one for general world-building, I would heartily recommend it.