Overland Travel with Quasi-Hexes
Note 20250115: This was published on 23 December 2024 as a 'page' rather than a 'post'. It has been republished, unedited, here.
Notes 20250119: Embedded images broken: See album here.
The mechanics of overland travel should require as little mental effort as traversing a score of dungeon gridsquares. Overland travel should also require hard questions of route, risk, and opportunity. These goals are not so disparate - we'll square them with 'quasi-hexes' (qhex). Qhexes vary in size and traversing each requires the same exertion. You can traverse 2/day, and push for a third at the cost of fatigue. Ancillary goals:
- Can be drawn quickly and with hand tools
- Integrate with domain play and encounters
Drawing Your Province
The Province
This works for a points of light setting, the conceit being that largely independent city-states are surrounded by their ever-encroached upon band of farmland, and these polis are seperated from one another by gulfs of ungoverned wilderness. I add one or two cities per province, so they can be travelled between and played off one another, plus at least one river and a bit of coast.
First-level Qhex
If you can draw squiggly blobs of approximately equal size then you have the artistic wherewithall for this. For medium, I use ut up paper grocery bags and sharpies or Excalidraw in Obsidian. Draw a few dozen blobs like so. The trick is to avoid four way intersections. It may be helpful to imagine laying brick (though going too regularly with this leads to aesthetically displeasing regularity). Zealously avoid making the overall shape a rectangle.
Fig 1. First level qhex.
Second and Third Level Qhex
We will now trisect and bisect qhex: This indicates ground more difficult and time consuming to traverse. This means the ground is either mountainous, swampy, rugged, densely vegetated, or otherwise difficult. You can either conjure up a vague impression of what obstacles should exist in this province and subdivide to realize it, or subdivide arbitrarily and find an explanation after. As before, avoid creating four-way intersections.
This needn't be final, you can easily add further subdivision later.
Fig2. Second and third level qhex
Terrain & Landcover
My legend for terrain is functional more than it is handsome. Colours vary for ease of acquisition vs clarity between physical and digital. Start by defining why difficult terrain is difficult, then add features to taste. Recall that
| Colour (Physical / Digital) | Feature |
|---|---|
| Black Sharpie / Black | Qhex boundaries, slopes and cliffs |
| Red | Topography |
| Blue Pen / Green | Landcover |
| Pencil / Orange | Built structures |
| Blue Marker |
Fig3. Terrain Legend
Fig4. Terrain and natural features
Cities and Infrastructure
My rules for cities are not yet fully realized. In the interim, cities have their population annotated in thousands. Rural resources generate 1d2 units of foodstuffs at the end of their harvest season, and are associated with a variable rural population (6000 for each 'square' of wheat fields, 250 for each 'f' of fisheries, 500 for each letter of transhumance). Resources that have been disrupted generated 1d2-1 foodstuffs; Razed farmland generates zero, and the surviving portion of their population is displaced to the city. Grain can be harvested twice a year at mid latitudes, fisheries every season except winter.
Population is then compared to food supply, and the economy score for that season is recorded as follows:
| Food:Pop Ratio | Surplus | Economy Score |
|---|---|---|
| 3.0 | Good Surplus | 4 |
| 2.0 | Surplus | 3 |
| 1 | Adequate supply | 2 |
| 0.5 | Shortfall | 1 |
| 0.33 | Famine | 0 |
At the end of the year the economy score for each of the four seasons is added, and the tax revenue for the city is [EconScore]*10% of its theoretical maximum.
Locations
Cities ought always to be placed with reference to water supply and transportation. Rivers are preferred - as far up them as is navigable, generally, away from often fetid deltas. In every era water transportation has been many times more efficient than overland.
Fig5. Built Feature Legend
Fig6. Province with built features
Dungeons and Random Encounters
Dungeons may well have been added earlier, so as to influence the placement of existing cities (on the rationale that hideously dangerous onsters or incessant hordes of fiends may discourage habitation and/or vast quantities of accessible loot may draw habitation). I've elected to fill them into the gaps after, like so. I advocate making these visible to players off the bat, their magnitude and general structure (open pit, subterranean) known through rumour.
Assume that little dungeons are everywhere.
Wrt encounters, roll a d12, stepped up for moving slowly (1qhex/day) and along evasive routes, having small (<10 people) parties, and lacking pack animals. Step down for moving quickly, having large (>40 people) parties, or having one or more wagons. An encounter with a person takes place on odd results <= the humanoid density of that qhex. An encounter with a beast takes place on an even result <= the beast density of that qhex.
Roll on entering each qhex. The encounter takes place 1d4 hours after entry.
| Qhex Contents | Person Density | Beast Density |
|---|---|---|
| City | 13 | 2 |
| 2-4 Agriculture | 11 | 4 |
| 1 Ag / Transhumance | 9 | 6 |
| Road / Outpost | 7 | 8 |
| Adjacent to inhabited qhex | 5 | 10 |
| Deep wilderness | 3 | 12 |
Overland Travel Principles
It is assumed that a person has 9 regular slots in their inventory, +3 overloaded slots, +3 critically overloaded slots, that Fatigue may occupy slots, and that 1 Fatigue may be removed by travelling slowly for a day, 1d4 Fatigue may be removed by resting for a day in wilderness, and 1d6 may be removed by resting for a day in civilization.
- Travelling 1qhex/day allows 1 Fatigue to be removed and decreases the chance of a random encounter
- Travelling 2qhex/day is considered usual
- Travelling 3qhex/day adds 1 Fatigue and increases the chance of random encounter. It does not leave time for additional tasks end of day.
Riding a horse allows 1 Fatigue to be removed even if 2 qhex are traversed and 2 FAT to be regained if 1 qhex is traversed. It does not make travel faster. A wagon is limited to roads or packed surfaces.
Unbridged rivers count as qhex boundaries if no ferry is present or boat is possessed. Parties may roll a 1d8 and search for a ford, stepped up for high water or stepped down for low water. 1 indicates a ford suitable for a wagon has been found, 2 indicates a ford suitable for pedestrians has been found, failure indicates hours have been spent in fruitless search. High water, or the presence of rapids, indicates that a STR Test may be necessary to complete the ford without incident. Ship-navigable rivers are not fordable, streams have a base of 1d4. Having found a ford previously means you can use it in future.
Bridging rivers requires carpentry skill, and is considerably easier when trees are on hand.
Final
As will be seen in a future post, similar principles can be applied to a city, being called district hexes (dhex).