Actual Test: Murkmail Mixed Hexes Technique

Murkmail had a cool idea for hex/sub-hex encounter tables - Mixing hexcrawl encounter tables and I gave it a spin as part of Hexcrawl25.

I used it in a case where I had three influences in play - a chaos cult of shaven-headed snatchers who had been kidnapping locals and travellers, the local raccoon population and the beasts of the forest.

There was some adjustment required because the Hexcrawl25 set-up I am using is pointy side up and Murkmail uses flat side up but I was able to muscle through that and fit the cultists (yellow), raccoons (blue) and forest beasts (pink) into the format.

Splitting down the 19 sub-hexes into 7/7/5 was helpful as a concentrator - I was able to use my 'five things a faction is doing' for both the raccoons and the cult - then throw in a few points of mutual interference. After that the forest beasts and provided opportunity to showcase terrain hazards and then throw in some monsters too. I had an existing general monsters encounters list that was usually getting superseded by hex-specific encounters, this provided a good opportunity to refocus on that.

Re-written into Murkmails format Local #1 - Raccoons
1. Raccoons plundering some corpses
2. Raccoons pelt you with things from the trees
3. Raccoons rummaging through stolen food stores

Local #2 - Cultists
1. Cultist snatch squad on the prowl
2. Watchtower with prisoner pens
3. Ambush with net and pit traps

Local #3 - Forest Beasts
1. Terrorbird fledglings (d3) (stat as Axebeak)
2. Troll
3. Hydra

Compared to Murkmails original version, I am using a more zoomed in version - the sub-hexes are 2.5 mile - and so the terrain is going to be common for all of these, yielding less 'why is are these creatures here' questions and more probably immediate hostilities between some neighbours that do not get along very well.

A first test gives me 'Region #1 + Region #3' and a pair of 3's gets me Raccoons rummaging through stolen food stores + Hydra - so we potentially have adventurers stumbling upon a raucous looting scene with raccoons who are in turn being staked by a hydra with the noise of the raccoons distracting from the far greater threat until likely too late.

A second test gets me 'Region #1 + Region #2' plus 1 and 2 for some Raccoons plundering corpses and a Cultists Watchtower with Prisoner pens - again with the raccoons likely providing distraction for the adventurers to choose their own approach to the cultists - either avoiding or engaging.

Both of these will happen on whatever the terrain is at the hex where they occur - default to swamp forest except where there are some clearly identified other terrain like the lava lake or the terrace with the ruin on it.

All told it is a neat little system, adds a lot of replayability to the same terrain and sits well on top of whatever terrain exists.