Saturday 9 November 2013

Psychon Terrain Revisited


Psychon wierd science fantasy hex design contest for this month here http://elfmaidsandoctopi.blogspot.com.au/2013/11/psychadelic-planetary-romance.html 

Got bundle of holding for OSG. Liked Stonehell and adventures of the conqueror king. Vornhiem was main reason I got it but disappointingly not full of drooling sexual depravity as one reviewer promised. He must be better at reading between lines than me. One post on space gods coming soon then I better get some new inspiration. Lost world fantasy ytables would suit my next DnD game.

Ran some new players from school of dramatic arts which was funny. Character gen very fast and streamlined nowadays. I running players when other group too big which i like doing. Had an elf and a fighter which went well. Hunting evil squirrel (tree full of kids bones). Robbing cult tomb then into dungeon to kill wizard Niblix lord of the one eyed blue kobolds. Lots of fun follower flunkies.
 

Aeons & augauries doing hex maps based on my ideas and gone strange new places i approve of with them. The linked blog has a map in progress and I really wanna see the graphic map key for hexes.  This and previous post worth a look for Psychonian type weird science fantasy cosmos (is there a good plural for cosmos?). I really like this approach and I look fwd to see its development.

Revised Sacred Terrains of Psychon
When i first did this table i had only a d10 colours and added jet and ivory later but always demonstrate not like any modern human - i never added sacred terrains for these colours so Im thinking about two terrains more. Original version here: http://elfmaidsandoctopi.blogspot.com.au/2013/04/planet-psychons-glorious-geography.html


1 Desert
2 Tundra
3 Rock
4 Volcanic
5 Forest
6 Jungle
7 Swamp
8 Deathlands
9 Water
10 Manna
11 Roll 2d10 for two terrains types in conflict here or choose Developed
12 Roll 1d4+1 terrain types in conflict or take Hostile

Developed
1 Automated empty highrise sprawl a few humans fight the machines 
2 Sprawling farmland with villages and  farmhouses with some patches of cultivated woodland
3 Sprawling farmland maintained by machines and robots, monoculture crops and herds
4 Ruined ancient suburbia with inhabitants battling roaming gangs of looters
5 Citadel with extensive urban sprawl, surrounding villages, parklands and wilderness
6 Crisscrossed by roads, overpasses, train-lines, sub tunnels, pockets of ruins and wilderness
7 Multiple domes surrounded by ruins or villages, may contain ancients, isolated utopias
8 A large city surrounded by several towns with high population
9 Settler farmers, miners and colonists from elsewhere rapidly grabbing land and territory
10 Civilization living like some past era or humanity unaware of the rest of Psychon


Hostile
1 Crater covered wasteland where objects fall from space often including missiles
2 People living in collective hallucination from psychotronic warfare weapons
3 Severe weird hostile weather and strange clouds change hourly
4 Death fields, necrovirus and undead nano weapons pollute area crawling with monsters
5 Severe dark cold snaps that make life difficult to survive, may be more livable by day
6 Severe hot bright wastelands making survival hard may be more livable by night
7 Plague lands with coloured pools of slime, bacteria and medical waste, highly infectious
8 Always visible auroras affect technology, magic, psionics and even mental activity
9  Sprawling garbage of ancients including fields of burning tires, rusting scrap and crap
10 Rainbow coloured mounds of chemicals often toxic and dangerous with poison
fog clouds

Both of thee types considered rare compared to hexes with multiple terrain types

Developed is basically wilderness in decline versus civilization and settlement. A good location to try out some culture from some other game product. Magical 1920s sprawl with bugbear bootleggers, brave new world civilization or a typical fantasy DnD world or something else. Tend to be wary of outsiders. Good places for players to visit then launch an invasion or disaster on them.

Hostile resemble uninhabited planets rather than typical psychon. Populations are lower or mostly in subworlds. Some populations come out in occasional safe times or require survival equipment like masks, suit etc.Players could br forced into shelter or subworlds here.

2 comments:

  1. Good examples of having the terrain itself be a challenge and evocative.

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  2. i like table driven sandbox better than detailed carcosa hexes as i dont waste my life with hexes never entered. The sub hex maps have only interesting stuff. The new hex form meant to show only most interesting stuff and i added extra encounter table space from needing more specific area events - been very inspired by 70s sf art on tumbler

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