For Hexcrawl25, taking the challenge on I settled on the whole super-hex = 40-mile, hexes are 10-mile, sub-hexes 2.5 mile as my working scale. 10-mile was my restriction as that is what all my existing campaign stuff was done in. I cookie-cut a chunk out of an existing block of the world that exists from Azgaars Fantasy Map Generator and initially dropped a 40-mile grid on it.
This turned out to be *way* too large so the rest of the effort was done using just 'super-hex' A for the challenge - and indeed the campaign I ran.
I used the existing culture, religion, nation and biome maps and then zoomed down on those to generate the many sub-hexes within super-hex A.
Last Mile
At start of the last stretch there were six hexes needing completion - A5, A6, A12, A13, AE, AF - two of which I knew were affiliated with a faction (the harpy coven), two had been hastily adventured through during an escape, leaving just two a little fuzzy. 40 hexes needed to be done to close things out.
I went over these hex by hex, first populating A13 (the Troad court) with various fey themed ideas. The Troad came from Knock #1 - the toad king of the local fey and so around them were a hungry rock, seelie ruins, a planar thin spot - then bolstered those with ideas from their now-known faction group - a harpy nest, some talking bird flocks.
Next was a return to A5 (foothills) which turned out to be a backwater - but a dinosaur-occupied one, so nests for various dinosaurs encountered blocked that out. I also did a 'terrain pass' along an identified high escarpment, putting rainforest themed sites along open sub-hexes at the cliff top to recognise these would be prime locations for thriving forests.
Next was A12 (shadowed swamps) which was known as a necromancer lair but play had identified a grippli community too along with an ignored central terrain piece of a cliff-top terrace formation. Given the natural imposing position, this became an ancient temple to a forgotten god and then the rest of the sub-hexes snapped into place - oath markers out in the swamp, undead dinosaurs from the necromancer, aquatic predators that thrived from the sacrifices flung off the cliff.
Next A6 (jaguar tabaxi) known to be allies of the harpies, for them I had a look at various cat-folk wargame minis for ideas and that combined with their harpy-allyship got me a bunch of sub-hexes with big cat brethern, awakened tigers, spirit-listening shrines and prep-camps for cliff-climbing rituals.
Then the last two, AE and AF, were both approached by comparing to their neighbours in the next super-hex since both were 'border' hexes. For AF, remembering that there was a taverna in the tiny goblin hamlet within that hex, evidently a dreadful backwater dive bar, got me a few more ideas - the snake infested channels that smugglers must traverse to get there, trap-laden toxic trees and the carcasses and claw-mark spoor of the wyvern-witches riding wyvern. For AE, proximity to a 'jungle wilds' hex got me a fern-filled forest, brachiosaurs and some towering trees.
And with that; complete.
Long list of progress posts
I tested out some methods throughout the year and would happily recommend Yaksha's Hexfill Method and Murkmail Mixed Hexes Technique - both worked well. Yaksha's is better where you have got a relatively blank space and then you use the table and note what happens onto your map as it is revealed. Murkmails is best for last-mile detail finalisation when you have a good idea of the general ideas within a hex already.
I tried out a few techniques of my own and got good use out of Hex-stocking by bleed-over - great for connecting up hexes and getting hooks to the next hex.
For the big picture full-hex-map work I tried out Broadbrush Hex-filling to get started and then Accordion Method Hex-filling to get from 'big idea' down to actual populated sub-hexes. These may or may not work for you and your workflow but I found them very helpful, especially when confronted with the blank map, at getting from nothing to something to table-ready.
I also used the Deck of Worlds and d4 Caltrops Wilderness Expanded tables (write-up tbd) for super-hexes outside the focus super-hex; the east and south-east will probably come into play in the new year and I will document that then.
Other useful resources I used:
Maatlock's Tavern GitHub with overlays (where I got the hex/subhex frame above)
Azgaars Fantasy Map Generator
Hex Kit
Wrap up thoughts
This was a ton of fun to do and gave me feedstock for a fun campaign through the year. My focus was on getting a game-ready map together which required much more rapid-shallow populating of sub-hexes as the players skimmed about the map and ran distractedly off in random directions.
I did this in surges much more than 'hex-a-day' but I do not feel that detracted from the project. It was cool to have something big to be gnawing on throughout the year and delving into one of the traditional styles of the OSR was a good vehicle for testing the wisdom of others at table.
In the picture above you have the master map - the template from Maatlock - a stack of the 'hex-specific' templates I made for myself with the local hex/sub-hexes and the Landmark/Hidden/Secret framework as a box. The session reports for the campaign to date (27 sessions) at left and under the mastermap are the player-facing maps worked up with HexKit and annotated by them at the table.
I feel the framework of the maps provided by Maatlock make this a more structured challenge than Lore2x or Dungeon2x which may or may not be helpful for you - I found it so. With thanks to Maatlock for creating this fun challenge, I can heartily recommend giving it a go.
I myself am going to try the #City26 challenge from Sofinho - details here in the megapost on Alone in the Labyrinth. Trying to act on the lessons learned from this, I have created a template for the weekly work to try and overcome the 'tyranny of the blank page.'
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