Generating a Strange Landscape

A lot of fantasy campaigns take place in rolling hills, verdant grasslands, and forests this is all well and good but what if a DM wants things to look a little different? The following is a simple system to randomly generate a strange landscape for a campaign area (or the entire campaign).


Step 1. Find major bodies of water:  This step is done by picking as many d6's as you'd like and dropping them on the map sheet. Where they fall the top right-hand corner of each die is a center hex of a body of water and there is one surroundign hex per # rolled on the d6 that is also water.

Step2. roll up the rest of the terrain: Pick a hex near the middle of you map that isn't water and rolla d20 and consult the terrain table this is your first base hex. Expand out into he hexes around this rolling 1d6 for each. If the same terrain is rolled 3 times in a row, roll 1d20 for a new base hex.  Repeat until your map is full.

d20	Base	1	2	3	4	5	6
1	Dolebog	Dolebog	Dolebog	Mudflats	Muck-meadow	Slimepots	Slime Jungle
2	Mudflats	Mudflats	Marsh	Marsh	Slimepots	Muck-Meadow	Muck-Meadow
3	Carr	Carr	Carr	Marsh	Muck Meadow	Thorn - Forest	Savanna
4	Muck-meadow	Muck-Meadow	Muck-Meadow	Prairie	Dolebog	Savanna	Mudflats
5	Marsh	Marsh	Marsh	Carr	Muck-meadow	Mudflat	Wispmarsh
6	Wispmarsh	Wispmarsh	Marsh	Marsh	Carr	Muck- Meadow	Slimepots
7	Slimepots	Slimepots	Slimepots	Slimejungle	Slimejungle	Alkaline Flats	Tanglebrack
8	Slime Jungle	Slime Jungle	Slime Jungle	Slimepots	Slimepots	Dolebog	Redheath
9	Thorn-forest	Thorn forest	Thorn forest	Savanna	Savanna	Tanglebrack	Carr
10	Floral Jungle	Floral Jungle	Floral Jungle	Floral Jungle	Savanna	Tanglebrack	Heatherland
11	Tanglebrack	Tanglebrack	Tanglebrack	Thornforest	Savnanna	Red Heath	Bolster Heath
12	Red Heath	Red Heath	Red Heath	Floral Jungle	Thorn Forest	Prairie	Alkaline Flats
13	Bolster Heath	Bolster Heath	Bolster Heath	Alkaline Flats	Alkaline Flats	Red Heath	Tanglebrack
14	Heatherland	Heatherland	Heatherland	Thornforest	Savanna	Red Heath	Bolster Heath
15	Savanna	Savanna	Savanna	Thornforest	Thornforest	Prairie	Ripshard
16	Prairie	Prairie	Prairie	Savanna	Muck-meadow	Muck-meadow	Karst
17	Alkaline Flats	Alkaline Flats	Alkaline Flats	Alkaline Flats	Mud Flats	Gravel Barrens	Karst
18	Ripshard	Ripshard	Ripshard	Gravel-barrens	Gravel-barrens	Karst	Karst
19	Gravel-barrens	Gravel-barrens	Gravel-barrens	ripshard	Karst	Alkaline Flats	Bolster Heath
20	Karst	Karst	Karst	Wispmarsh	Ripshard	Gravel Flats	Savanna

Terrain Descriptions:
Dolebog:sodden areas overgrown with food-yeasts.
Rip-shard: barren terrain covered in splintered and razor edged shards of rock.
Tanglebrack: Areas of very dense foliage often covered in prickers, burrs, and thorns.
Floral-Jungle: Jungles that are a riot of gigantic floral growth, when many species are pollenating the air is lethally thick with said pollen.
Slime-Jungle: Jungle terrain dominated by slime producing and symbiotic plant-life.
Slimepots: substandard wasteland broken up by flows, puddles, and bogs of slime.
Red Heath: shrubland overrun with carnivorous and omnivorous floral.
Bolster Heath: shrublands of thick tightly packed plants heavily populated by cushion plants that form smooth surfaced “cushions”, the soil in this areas is very poor quality and the plant life slow growing and fragile.
Alkaline Flats: wasteland of highly acidic soil overlying more basic alkaline/chalk. Scattered chalk heaths can be found in alkaline flats and are prime grazing ground for nomads and small villages.
Thorn Forest: a nightmare riot of thorn trees and low growing briars. Thick-padding or other special gear is required to for humanoids to travel in these areas safely, most local life has some protection against the constant threat of puncture and impalement.
Gravel-barrens: these rocky deserts can prove difficult for travelers because of the very spares vegetation and generally arid conditions punctuated by infrequent coursing flood waters and wind-storms.
Heatherland: areas dominated by low-growing perennial shrubs. These grow in substandard land that is still of higher quality than the heath lands,.
Savanna: grassland terrain punctuated by frequent but wide spaced tree growth that generally is far enough apart the canopy doesn’t close overhead resulting in open areas with extensive growth of grasses.
Prairie: plains of mixed vegetation generally dominated but not overwhelmingly by grasses.
Muck-meadow: sodden wetlands given to switching back and for from quagmire to a mixture of wet prairie and savanna depending on weather and local conditions.
Mudflats: wetlands with little to no vegetation that are sodden fields of mud.
Wispmarsh: wetlands that produce a wide variety of outgassing due to rotting vegetation or subterranean environment. A wide range of ghost lights can be encountered in Wispmarshes.
Carr: a waterlogged wooded swampland.
Marsh: a relatively open wetland dominated by herbaceous plants and grasses.
Karst: hilly landscape dominated by rocky  outcroppings and erosion of soluble rocks.


Step3. Rivers: connect wetlands within 6 hexes of a body of water with a hand drawn river.

Step 4. Civilization:
There is a 2 in 6 chance of each hex of river containing a settlement as do the hexes around a body of water, a dolebog hex, or Prairie. All other hexes have a 1 in 6 chance of a settlement. Pick one of these as a starting settlement and roll 1d20 to determine the size. Following that roll 1d6 to determine the size of each neighboring settlement.

		Neighboring Community
	Starting Settlement	1	2	3	4	5	6
1-3	Steading	Steading	Steading	Hamlet	Hamlet	Village	Village
4-6	Hamlet	Steading	Hamlet	Village	Village	Village	Town
7-15	Village	Hamlet	Hamlet	Village	Village	Village	Town
16-19	Town	Hamlet	Village	Village	Town	Town	City
20	City	Village	Village	Village	Town	Town	Town

Steading: 2-16 people dwelling in 1-3 buildings. No organized defense force. No market.
Hamlet: 20-50 people dwelling or working here. No organized defense depends on nearby lord. 20% chance of goods under 25 gp available.
Village:100-600 people dwelling here with surrounding fieldwork and meager industry. A minor levy of 5-30 may act to defend the village but real military force comes from nearby lord.  40% chance of goods under 50 gp available.
Town: 1,000-4,000 people with surrounding fieldwork and industry. A militia equal to 2-10% of town can be raised to defend the town. 80% chance of goods under 100 gp available.
City: 5,000-20,000 people with extensive fieldwork and industry. A standing force of 60-600 defends the town and an additional 5% of the city can be quickly drafted into service. 90% chance of goods under 200 gp available, other more expensive local goods possible.

Step 5. Ruins. Now for each settlement you generated check to see if it is a ruin. If the settlement is in a Karst, Gravel-Barren, Ripshard, Slime Jungle, Floral Jungle, Slimepot, Mudflat, or Red Heath there is a 3 in 6 chance it is currently a ruin, otherwise there is a 2 in 6 chance it is a ruin. Roll to determine age of ruin based on type of settlement.

Settlement	1	2	3	4	5	6
Steading	Old	Old	Old	Recent	Recent	Abandodned
Hamlet	Old	Old	Recent	Recent	Recent	Abandodned
Village	Ancient	Old	Old	Recent	Recent	Abandodned
Town	Forgotten	Ancient	Old	Old	Recent	Abandodned
City	Forgotten	Ancient	Ancient	Old	Recent	Abandodned

Abandoned: The settlement has been abandoned within the last year or two, maybe in just the past few days. Edible food stores and drink might still be found here alogn with household goods and treasures that were not quickly whisked away.
Recent: The settlement has been ruined with in the past 20 years (or so).  People nearby may have come from there and not take too kindly to looters rooting about. There could be old stores of liquor and durable goods with the stray bit of treasure still left behind.
Old: The settlement has been ruined for the past century or two, there will be popular local stories about the past and present state of the ruins. It is likely he place has been well picked over by the locals if looting hasn't been too dangerous.
Ancient: This settlement was lost in centuries past, there may be  local stories about the ancient people but much of it is distorted over the years; scholars and antiquarians will have more knowledge of the ruins that could still hold forgotten mysteries.
Forgotten: A forgotten ruin will have been long lost to the knowledge of the locals and only legend if anything is known, the location is likely to be entirely unknown. Forgotten ruins may hold ancient treasures and threats long since lost to the knowledge of man.


Step 6. Populate it with Men & Monsters.
Whip out your favorite encounter charts or just start placing encounters and folk that make sense.