The Hexcrawl Is the Clock

The Rotwillow at the heart of the Rose Forest

In my most recent ongoing campaign, I've been diving deep into using the Hexcrawl rules provided by Mythic Bastionland whenever the player characters venture beyond the safety of town. The whole campaign is running on my personal hack of the system, but that's another post for another time. Maybe.

Unlike the haunting primeval wilds of the source material, the world my players are exploring is right in the middle of a thoroughly settled land, where roads are assumed to be safe from MOST monsters (I have my own version of Bastionland's Myths, called Blights, which are monsters that bury themselves in dungeons and leak strangeness into the world, but again, another post, another time). With that in mind, I adapted the format a bit to fit a world where people are common and things are always happening.

First, a brief overview of the mechanics which this is based off of. Again, I'm ripping this mostly from Mythic Bastionland, which is a fantastic game. Each time the players end a phase of the day (morning, afternoon, or night) in the wilderness, they roll a d6. On a 1-3, they encounter something. On a 4-6, they either discover whatever point of interest the hex hides, or, if there is no point of interest, they just move on peacefully. 

Where I've modified the rules is in what comes after that d6 Wilderness Roll. When my players roll a 1-3, I prompt them to then roll a d12, consulting a table that looks something like this:

1-4: An Omen of the nearest Blight
5: An Omen of a random Blight
6-7: A change in the Weather
8-11: A Movement of the nearest Faction
12: A Movement of a random Faction

The country my players are currently exploring is quite large - around 500 hexes in total - but is broken down into Seven distinct Regions. Six of these are duchies, and one of them encompasses the swathe of ocean that the nation borders. Each of these regions has at least 2 Factions (and at least 2 Blights), alongside a handful of towns and cities that have their own location-based adventures within and around them. 

With that in mind, let's focus on the second half of that table. 

Lots of people have lots of different ways of building Factions, and I'm not here to tell you what's right and what's wrong in that regard. Do whatever works for you, obviously. I just like to make sure all of my factions have a Leader with a name and some personality traits, a Base where they run their operations from, and a Goal towards which they are always working. That last one is the most important.  

Example: 

The Jao'Anor Clan: A band of Elves that reside in the Rose Forest. They are new to these woods, having only come here in the last few generations of men, but have made it their duty to protect the forest from the woodsmen from the nearby town of Scrier.
Leader: Jara Jao'Anor, An elf in the spring of his life. Though still a child, his devotion to his people and their cause is true. He carries a heavy burden after his Mother was slain and the mantle was thrust onto him. Above all, he is Passionate and Stern.
Base: The Spirit Den, a great hollow burrowed by the Twin-headed Fox spirit along the banks of the Rose River.
Goal: The Lord of Scrier wishes to build new battlements to better defend themselves from the attacks of bandits and beasts that live in the Rose Forest. In the process, they have flattened wide swathes of the forest, inching ever closer to the Den. In retaliation, The Jao'anor seek to ally themselves with the beasts of the forest and ultimately put an end to the deforestation of their home.

This basic outline is all you need to get to building out the Movements of the Faction. Movements really are the point of this entire post, and they are my replacement for typical random overland encounters.

Movements can be boiled down to The steps taken by the Faction to achieve their Goal, but they are also more than that. They are specifically how the Players see those steps being taken. Each time the Players roll to encounter a Movement of a specific Faction, they encounter the next Movement in the series. Movements are always chronological, happening in a set order.

I like to have at least Four Movements for each faction, with a Fifth movement that is not player-facing, but rather represents the Faction officially achieving their goal and permanently altering the state of the world. This is what I mean when I say The Hexcrawl is the Clock. The simple act of traversing the world sets things into motion, and in a campaign where players spent lots of time traversing, this means that things are always in motion.

Your Faction's first Movement should introduce their central themes, hint towards their Goal, and let the players understand who and what the Faction ultimately is. Each subsequent Movement should reveal how the Faction is growing in power, be that through larger numbers, more dangerous scenarios, revealing more powerful members of the faction (like the Leader!), and ultimately culminating in the aforementioned Fifth Movement. Let's continue with the example from earlier:

Movements: 

1- An elven warrior strides atop a powerful elk. He warns any who pass by to stay away from Scrier, and tells of their trespass against the Spirits
2- 1d4+2 Elves of the Jao'Anor Clan stand at the mouth of a cave, preparing themselves to treat with the grizzled bear and her cubs that sleep within.
3- A group of Woodsmen flee, pursued by 1d4 wild beasts and 1d6 Elves, led by Jara Jao'anor. The Elves say the Woodsmen attempted to slay the Twin-Headed Fox.
4- A horde of massive vultures flies towards Scrier. Beneath them, two dozen Jao'anor warriors are led by Jara. They ride wolves, elk, bears, and other beasts, recruiting any they pass to join them in their assault on the town.
5- The Town of Scrier is ransacked, the woodsmen driven off. The Lord of Scrier sends out a call to all nearby holdings to muster an army. 

 

Notice that none of these encounters are super fleshed out. This serves two main purposes in my mind, both of which carry across basically every aspect of my session prep: It allows me to flesh things out within the context of the moment, and I don't feel bad about destroying it all on a moment's notice. 

Movements are meant to be flexible, and I will screw with them where and when I please. Sometimes factions collide, and the Movements of one faction will cross over with and interrupt the movements of another. Factions will often feature prominently in the location-based adventures, and the outcome of those adventures could entirely change a Faction's Goals and Movements. The Players may leave a region entirely or decide to rest for a few weeks or months in one town, in which case I'll just let the movements advance in the background. 

Not only does this method liven up the world during exploration, it provides a well to draw from while improvising. That, in my mind, is the only kind of prep you really need.

- Kilian