Hello, everyone! I just wanted to give a quick update on where I am with the Middle Lands, and give some more information on where I’m going.
Where I Am Now
The biggest thing I have managed to get done is post the maps for the full Middle Lands and for the Kingdom of Yengzhi. I’m not going to say I am finished with them, because I have some more minor things to do, most importantly to redraw the Great Highway paths and the various realm borders. I will be adding more minor terrain features on the full map over time as I work on those areas, too. For now, though, they are done.
I also managed to finish posting the beasts that are in Blades & Black Magic in the Bestiary. They include the same stats as in the core rulebook, but with my tweaks for the creatures in the Middle Lands. That was a lingering task that I am glad I have finished out. That sets the stage for the random creature creator, as well as posting more monsters that fit in a Swords & Sorcery setting.
Finally, I created the shell pages for more of the Middle Lands setting content. I posted some initial information there, and as I write up more content I will post it there. Part of that process is fleshing out my general notes and scribbles that are good enough for me, but not near what I would consider good enough for others to read. Much more to come there, so stay tuned.
Where I Am Going Next
That being said, my next big push is to get my creature creator done. That will be a tool that generates semi-random modifications to creatures in the Bestiary, in order to provide Referees surprises for players.
When I say "semi-random" I mean that each beast will have a kind of template, where I select which random modifications it can have. The tool will then generate changes from there. That way I can somewhat control what the tool does, while still having random changes. In other words, this will prevent results that make absolutely no sense.
The next project I have after that is a Swords & Sorcery demon generator. I have been really unhappy with the generators for demons that I have seen on the web. They are great at what they do, but they are more geared towards a modern, Judeo-Christian demon. What I want is a real, no-kidding S&S demon, one with a lot of Cthulhu influences–something Conan would have seen.
I’ll write more later on how I pull the demon generator together, but I will say that the Silent Legions supplement has had a big impact on my thinking. Same with the Conan books. I’ve been gathering ideas for a while–now I just need to put them into code!
Future Plans
All of this goes back to the two main reasons why I am doing a lot of this: for my own gaming, and for others to use–and that means creating a big hexcrawl of the Middle Lands.
Starting with the hexcrawling rules in Frostcrawl, I will be putting together some rules/guidelines for hexcrawling in the Middle Lands. My goal is to have each 24 mile hex have a map down to the 6 and 1 mile level; a list set encounter features; a list of feature locations, along with a table to randomly assign features to them; a random encounter table; and links to other possible adventures within that 24 mile hex.
There are a lot of other features that will go into hexcrawling, and I will work on those as I do my solo gaming. These include overall rules for solo gaming; weather determination; and handling factions. I even have plans to make some megadungeons–those are a ways off, though!
Anyway, most of the fun here is thinking through the gaming ideas themselves… Gathering ideas from others, tweaking them and coming up with my own–and playing the game. No matter what, it’s going to be a lot of fun!
Marko ∞
(Originally published on middle-lands.com, on 3/6/2020. Since I originally posted this, I made a good deal of progress on the Middle Lands setting. Starting in December of 2020, though, I start working again on the Isle of Ealdun setting. The result is I have not made much more progress since on the Middle Lands since then.)
