Mapping Realms to Hexes

My wife asked me to run a campaign for some of her friends from work. In the interest of getting to the table quickly, I’ve decided to run Dwimmermount. I’ve purchased the ACKS version of the Dungeon, as well as the Dungeon Tracker, Map Book, and Illustration Book. I’d like to mark the borders of Adamas and Yethlyreom on the Wilderness map so I have a visual guide to the size of the realms. Is there a list of the specific hexes that belong to each realm available, or is that something that was left to the individual Judge to determine?

I am thinking a “political” map would be interesting, and including the civilization status of a hex would be good. But I haven’t gotten around to mapping it out completely*. I think that the page 57 spreadsheet is a good start. It tells you the breakdown of borderlands/civilized hexes around the smaller settlements. Adamas proper has approximately 600 people per hex so they are civilized.

  • Adamas, Muntburg and Gloris match terrain to civilization status nicely, but I’m having trouble with Passara and I’m at a loss as to where the great amount of civilized hexes ruled by Fort Aster could be placed.

“Adamas, Muntburg and Gloris match terrain to civilization status nicely, but I’m having trouble with Passara and I’m at a loss as to where the great amount of civilized hexes ruled by Fort Aster could be placed.”

I’m actually having the opposite problem. Even if I take into account terrain effects on movement to reduce the civilized area, I end up with Adamas civilizing around 75 hexes. According to Dwimmermount pg 57, I only need 47 civilized hexes. I keep having to leave lovely civilized grasslands hexes open so I can shove people into the mountainous borderlands. So, I was wondering how the Autarchs mapped things out to come up with their civilized to borderlands hex ratio.

I disregarded the civilizing rules on p 125 of ACKS. Reasoning that the area has been a lot more civilized before, but is now in decline. So I set anything not covered in a domain as wilderness.

The results will be drastically different depending on what assumptions are made. I agree it’s a bit odd stuffing people into mountainous borderlands around Muntburg when there are potentially civilized grasslands available around Adamas.

“The results will be drastically different depending on what assumptions are made.”

That makes sense. I ended up mapping out a realm and building a new spreadsheet of demographic data to fit the map. It was quicker than trying to get the map to fit the existing data. I ended up pretty close: 52615 families in 80 hexes instead of 51785 families in 88 hexes.

Would it be possible to put that online? :slight_smile:

I imagine it is technically possible. Ethically, however, it is too derivative of a project that the Autarchs nearly killed themselves trying to make happen to distribute it without their permission.

Please don’t hesitate to share your work. We’ve opened up the entirety of Dwimmermount as an Open Game License product. Just be sure to include the OGL and/or Product Compatibility License.

I’ve uploaded the map and spreadsheet here.

I’ll fully digest this later, but I wanted to say I really really like the way you’ve done those hexes with the offset terrain.

Is that something like Hexographer with a custom terrain?

It’s Campaign Cartographer with a custom tile set based on the Overland Hex style from Volume 4 of the Annual. It’s taken me many attempts at making ACKS hex maps to refine it to what you seen now, including coming up with the idea for reserving a section of the hex for a relief symbol. I’m glad you like it.

I hear that. I’ve frittered away time with so many different approaches the one thing I don’t have is a completed map.

:slight_smile:

It looks great! I assume the cross or crossed swords icon in each hex denotes civilized / borderlands status. I also see a couple more towns popped up, I’m undecided if that is a good thing or not :slight_smile:

Yes, I used the cruciform sword icon from the heraldry set to indicate a civilized domain hex, and a pair of them, crossed and red, to indicate a borderlands domain hex. Forgot to put that on my key.

I demoted Fort Aster to a Tribune and created the Legate of Duron in the strangely empty western part of Adamas. So, we have Muntburg defending the pass over the Wintertops, Gloris defending against threats from the Makrono Marsh, Pasara defending against threats from the Starfall, and Duros defending against threats from the Northern Forest of Ur.

It was annoying me that there were some urban settlements with larger markets than their population should allow, and an urban settlement smaller than the normal 75 family minimum in every domain. So, I redistributed the urban population so every Legate has a 250 family Class V market, every Tribune has a 75 family Class VI market, and the Patricians/Castellans have to make due with the Class VI market at their stronghold.

So, I’m beating through this myself (the children have new toys! I shall D&D myself today!), had a question about wording. And I answered that question for myself, I think, and thought I’d post it here for others to judge.

We’ll pick on Vidda.

Vidda is ruled by an elected syndic, Colin Landon, who is also owner of the largest mining company in the town. Landon controls a realm of 14 6-mile hexes with a population of 5,400 families (about 27,000 people). His personal domain includes the town itself (500 urban families) plus hex 2425 and 5 adjacent 6-mile hexes (2,200 peasant families).

Are the hexes of his personal domain inclusive (14 hexes) or exclusive (20 hexes) of the realm hexes?

Vidda is outside the 8-hex civilizing radius of Adamas or Yethlyreom, so it has a density of 250 families per hex - it’s borderlands.

At 4,900 rural families total in the realm (inclusive), that’s 19.6 hexes - or, 20 hexes.

So, the population seems inclusive, but the hexes are exclusive.

Yarm is the same way - just outside the civilizing radius of Yethlyreom. Does Yarm work out?

Yarm dominates a small realm of 13 6-mile hexes with 4,920 families (about 25,000 people). Its Lord Syndic, Guerin Lamy, has a personal domain that includes the city itself (400 urban families) plus hex 1425 and 4 adjacent 6-mile hexes (1,200 peasant families).

So this should be a 18 hex realm.

4,420 rural families at 250 fam/hex is 17.68 hexes - or 18 hexes.

For these two examples, at least, the theory holds.

Bah. 4,520 rural families at 250 fam/hex is 18.08 hexes - 18 hexes.

Dropping Fort Aster to a single hex (like Smerdlap’s Crossing) fixes a lot of problems with fitting things in.

If you simply eliminate the “From the fort, Quarre rules a realm of 22 6-mile hexes with 9,660 families” and let him have a single hex of 600 families, it does the following:

-) Lets Fort Aster fit as a civilized hex, which it should be as per ACKS it’s within 8 hexes of a civilizing settlement (Adamas)

-) Frees up 22 hexes and 9,660 families that can then either be placed as unnamed domains under Adamas or completely eliminated from the map.

-) Makes the expanded garrison more fit the fiction of being a defense against the Starfall monsters.

-) Helps Passara’s realm fit - actually, if you pretend that the 22 hexes given to Fort Aster were just a copy+paste error from Passara’s entry (thereby eliminating those hexes and that population) that slots in very well.

JCB: It was annoying me that there were some urban settlements with larger markets than their population should allow, and an urban settlement smaller than the normal 75 family minimum in every domain.

For at least Fort Aster (and maybe Fort Oro, though there’s no GP value given) one could pretend the trade routes between Fort Aster and Adamas/Yethlyreom are a result of them funding portion of the garrison - if one extrapolates that to being more than just gold, perhaps supplies and such as well.

The trade wouldn’t end up being just one way, even if it is lopsided.

I’m not sure off the top of my head if there’s any advantage to a larger market “forcing” a trade route to a stronghold-only market in the long or short term, however…perhaps one could make the argument that forcing the existence of a Class VI market lets you gain urban income under the 75-person minimum, but I’m not sure there’s a real financial benefit for enforcer of the market.

Perhaps if it’s the domain of a henchmen and it gets them above their XP threshold. That’s very gamey though.