How to Add Entries to the Hex Describe Bible (With Pictures!)

Want to get involved in the world's most comprehensive hexcrawl generator, but don't know where to start? Why, you've come to the right place! I am not a coder - not by a long shot - but I figured Hex Describe out, and you can too. Here's the easiest way to help this project out.

1. Find that blog post, Word doc, notebook, or crumpled up napkin with the hex descriptions, encounters, NPCs, or items you like. Maybe you only have one or two. That's ok. No contribution is too small. We're like fuckin' NPR that way. Let's say all you have is this:

• A clear pool hidden in a rocky ravine where moss hulks and lichen dryads can often be found playing. At the bottom lies the golden hand mirror of a lady of the Seelie Fey court.
• 2d6 hungry wolves

That's cool, baby. We ain't gonna turn you away.

2. First, let's put it in the right format. You need to start each entry with a number and a comma. The number essentially represents the number of times the entry appears on the table. The pool sounds pretty rare, but maybe you want the wolves to be more common. Put [brackets] around dice rolls, and the program will roll it for you. Also, put the most important parts of the entry in bold by surrounding them with *asterisks*. Maybe you could add a few simple stats while you're at it, for convenience, and flesh out the behavior of those wolves:

• 1,A *clear pool* hidden in a rocky ravine where *moss hulks* (HD 7 AC 17 crush d10) and *lichen dryads* (HD 3 AC 15 whip d6 + charm) can often be found playing. At the bottom lies the *golden hand mirror* of a lady of the Seelie Fae court.
• 3,*[2d6] hungry wolves* (HD 3 AC 14 bite 2d4) begin to stalk the party. They will wait for a moment of vulnerability to strike.

3. Now we're set to add them. Go to the Hex Describe Bible.

4. Make sure the outline is visible by checking View -> Show document outline.

5. Scroll down on the outline to Wilderness Tables and decide which terrain type (or types) your entries are most appropriate for. I'd say "fir-forest" sounds pretty good for these. Click on the terrain type to go there in the doc.

6. There are four tables for each terrain type: landmarks, encounters, NPCs, and items. Decide where each of your entries fits best. I'd say my first entry is a landmark and the second is an encounter.

7. Copy and paste under the table heading, which always begins with a semicolon. So I'd paste the first entry under ";fir-forest landmarks," and the second under ";fir-forest encounters."

That's it! When you paste it into Hex Describe, you might now get a hex description like this:

0101: Boreal forest.
Landmark: A clear pool hidden in a rocky ravine where moss hulks (HD 7 AC 17 crush d10) and lichen dryads (HD 3 AC 15 whip d6 + charm) can often be found playing. At the bottom lies the golden hand mirror of a lady of the Seelie Fae court.
Encounter: 2 hungry wolves (HD 3 AC 14 bite 2d4) begin to stalk the party. They will wait for a moment of vulnerability to strike.
NPC: none
Item: none

You can get fancier by using subtables and reading +Alex Schroeder's tutorial here, but you don't have to! Give yourself the gift of knowing you've contributed to something that may someday make countless DMs' lives that much easier.

Help Make Hex Describe the Best Thing Ever

A little while ago, +Zak Sabbath posted this on G+:

"Here's what I want:

A program that writes an entire setting book using a variety of the existing random OSR tables online.

(Like Last Gasp and Abuafia's automated crowdsourced random generators)

It generates a random map using an existing random map program, then for each area it generates random contents using an existing random hex contents widget, for each village it generates a random village using existing random village generators, for each dungeon it generates random rooms, for each room it generates random contents, for each creature it generates a personality and stats and a history, etc etc fractally all the way down."

The last comment in the thread was +Alex Schroeder casually dropping a link to his web app Hex Describe. It fucking rules.

It generates the contents of a list of hexes by pulling from tables for each hex type using Abulafia formatting. So if your hex list was:

0101 forest

You could have a table like this:

;forest
1,A stone bridge crosses a valley stream, under which a troll lurks.
1,A pack of wolves makes its den here, which is strewn about with coins from previous victims.
2,A merchant has broken a cart wheel and offers reward either to fix the cart or otherwise transport her and her goods to the nearest town.

The numbers before each entry are weights, so the merchant entry has a 2/4 chance of being selected, while the other two only have a 1/4 chance. You can also have sub-tables, so you could alter the table in this way:

;forest
1,A stone bridge crosses a valley stream, under which a troll named [troll name] lurks.
1,[group of beasts] makes its den here, which is strewn about with coins from previous victims.
2,A [goods] merchant has broken a cart wheel and offers reward either to fix the cart or otherwise transport her and her goods to the nearest town.

;troll name
1,Harnfling
1,Firbin
1,Dogrunt
1,Wrungle

;group of beasts
1,A pack of wolves
1,A pride of lions
1,An ambush of tigers
1,A bear

;goods
1,salt
1,clothes
1,medicine
1,shoes

Things can get pretty complex just by typing out a long list of tables. And, in fact, Alex already has a damn impressive example here.

The more I play with and read about it, the more I'm convinced this is the program that can do what Zak was asking. OSR folks just need to get together and build the library to support it.

So in that spirit, I'm creating The Hex Describe Bible, a library for Alex's Hex Describe set up to be built by Gygaxian Democracy. My ambition is for it to grow into nothing less than the definitive source for random hex contents generation. I want this thing to be over 500 pages long and inspire awe in those who use it. I want people to talk about hexcrawls in terms of "before Hex Describe" and "after Hex Describe".

But for that to happen, I need you. All of you. I'm sure you have at least a few hex descriptions lying around. Add them to the Hex Describe Bible under the most appropriate hex type. It's set up to spit out hex descriptions like this:

0101: Bush.
Landmark: Several ant mounds at least 20 feet tall dot the horizon. Food, even in large quantities, tends to go missing here.
Encounter: Scrub brush hides an opening to a deep pit. At the bottom lie the skeletal remains of an unlucky traveler holding scissors.
NPC: a human fighter (lvl 2) named Nayara who can inspire another character to perform an extra non-attack, non-spellcasting action once per fight and can disarm an opponent on a successful hit if they fail a strength check. Is generous and motivated by family. Wields a longbow. Carries 10 days’ rations, a taxidermied animal, priest's robes, and priest's robes.
Item: A thorny shrub oozes sap that can be used as a powerful adhesive. Can only be removed with goblin urine.

Right now there are only a few examples up there for the bush hex type, but there are also things like character traits, a system for generating NPC fighters, clerics, thieves, and magic users, equipment, the LotFP spell list, and lots and lots of names.

Over the next week I'll be filling out more and more of the tables and highlighting some of the things this can do on my blog. But I can't do this alone. Even if you don't want to contribute, please share with people who might.

I need you. Your hexmap needs you. Let's do this.

EDIT: If everyone who read this post added just one hex description to the doc, we'd have 1600+ by now. Just sayin'. If you found this blog, chances are you've written at least ONE hex you're proud of in your whole life. Go add it right now. I've written a tutorial for exactly how to get started here. If you have a big table to format, check this out.

The Great Goblin Wood

On the eastern border of the Elf Empire, past the River Sleep, the woods grow knotted and strange. This is goblin country. There is little agreement what "goblin" truly means: does it refer to the creatures who infest this land? The process that changes them? The land itself? Some external force leaking into the land?

Whatever the truth, it is acceptable shorthand to refer to the diminutive, warped, spacetime-damaged beings native to the wood as goblins. Goblins are not born - they are changed. They have no children themselves and so are forced to kidnap the infants of other races. They heavily favor elves. This is the reason for the eternal elf-goblin war: for goblins, it is a matter of reproduction. Raids fill them with orgiastic zeal.

At the wood's heart lies a labyrinth. At the labyrinth's heart, a tower. This is the Tower of Change. Goblins, for whom navigating a maze is as natural as taking a breath, lay their captured children at the tower's door and return in a year and a day to find new goblins.

Every time you look at a goblin anew, something is a little off. Weren't its ears bigger? Its nose sharper? Goblins are never truly done changing. This impermanence of form means that goblins have a tendency to dematerialize, pass through walls, or rearrange their molecules to flow like liquid or float like gas. It also places them close to dreams. Goblin oneirists explore dreams - sometimes their own, sometimes others'.

The things goblins make often come off as parodies of the things other cultures might make. They love to buy and sell, but they place little stock in money. The Goblin Market has things for sale not found anywhere else, but expect to pay a heavy price. The greatest goblin export is spidersilk, a gift of the spider goddess Anansi and the spiders of the wood. Goblins fashion the silk into the sails of airships from which they launch their raids.

These are the tables I use to run the Great Goblin Wood, finished not a moment too soon because my players now find themselves deep in the wood. I know I sort of promised more regular posts of these region tables, but that's not going to happen. They take a long time to write. I kind of have to sit and daydream with each region for a while until I start to get a feel for what makes it tick. So, ten more regions are coming, but who knows when. Probably when my players get to them.

This also turned out to be my response to this Kotaku article about boring goblin fights, even though I was already working on it when the article was published. I'm not as down on Cecelia D'Anastasio as others have been - she does identify a real problem. My response is threefold: I give goblins Cheshire Cat powers, weirdass motivations and culture, and I make the environment of the wood itself part of the danger. Monsters without goals more defined than just "kill the PCs" will always be boring monsters. Also, the problems she has with D&D combat can be fixed with group initiative re-rolled every round.

To the tables:

Encounters by Terrain Type (d100)

Roll once per day of travel, more if you want. Re-roll after rolling weather events. Rolling over the highest number listed means no encounter.

Encounter	Knotty woods	Thorny bramble	Bog
spatial distortion (see following chart)	1-8	1-8	1-8
swamp gas	-	9-12	9-16
hallucinogenic spores	9-12	-	17-18
thick fog	13-20	13-20	19-26
rain	21-26	21-26	27-34
goblin war party	28-32	28-32	35-38
pig cavalry	33-34	-	39
scribble shaman	35-36	33-34	40
goblin merchants	37-38	-	-
changeling	39-40	35-36	41
displacer beast	41-42	37-38	42
balloon pig	43	-	-
creeping vine	-	39-41	43
fungoid	-	42-43	44
chiron crawler	-	-	-
spider goddess	44	44	-
spider emissaries	45-46	45-46	-
manticore	47-48	47-48	-
switch pig	49	49	-
id pig	50	50	-
nilbogs	51-54	51-54	45-46
rat alchemist	-	55	47
consuming fog	-	-	48-50
suicide pig	55	56	-
tsetse fly swarm	-	-	51-54
idiot birds	56-57	57-58	-
goblins in dragon costume	58	-	-

Encounter	Labyrinth	Geode cave	Goblin city
spatial distortion (see following chart)	1-8	-	-
swamp gas	-	1-8	-
hallucinogenic spores	-	9-10	-
thick fog	-	-	-
rain	-	-	1-8
goblin war party	9-16	11-12	9-20
pig cavalry	-	-	21-28
scribble shaman	17-20	13	29-32
goblin merchants	21-24	14	33-40
changeling	25	15	-
displacer beast	26	16	-
balloon pig	-	-	41-44
creeping vine	-	-	-
fungoid	-	17-20	-
chiron crawler	27-30	21	-
spider goddess	-	22	-
spider emissaries	-	23-24	45-48
manticore	-	-	49
switch pig	31	-	50
id pig	32	-	51
nilbogs	33-36	25-26	52-60
rat alchemist	-	27-28	61-64
consuming fog	-	-	-
suicide pig	37	-	-
tsetse fly swarm	-	-	-
idiot birds	38-40	-	65-68
goblins in dragon costume	-	29	69

Spatial Distortions (d8 or use the d100 encounter die number)

1. No matter how far the party travels today, it will end up exactly where it started.
2. The party will arrive at its destination tomorrow, no matter how far away it actually is.
3. The party can only get closer to its destination by moving away from it.
4. The party wakes up in an entirely random part of the wood.
5. The party wakes up outside the wood on the border nearest where it slept.
6. The party wakes up in the Goblin Market.
7. The party moves at half its normal speed today.
8. The party moves at ten times its normal speed today.

Treasure/Search the Body (d100)

d100	Treasure
1	Night Wood black candle, darkens room when lit
2	d4 orcish nuclear beast eggs, explode when thrown
3	Primeval Forest moss baby
4	icon of the Twilight Grail, ends one curse or affliction
5	northern whale lamp oil, burns underwater
6	Southern Isles lizard man rum
7	Lotus Straits bathyscope
8	goblin key, can lock any door
9	jeweled marionette from the Reach
10	account of a doomed expedition to the Land of Shadow and Flame
11	Rusted Land clockwork lamp, rubbing grants one very minor wish
12	Voivodjan mince pie
13	elven opium (Yoon-Suin p. 283)
14-63	gold equal to half dice roll
64	mask, fools any goblin (but only goblins) into thinking you're a goblin
65	fine spidersilk robes
66	imitation spidersilk robes, will make goblins mock you
67	spidersilk glider
68	vial of tsetse flies, carry sleeping sickness
69	scribble shaman chalk
70	nilbog blood, drinking makes you healed by damage for the next round
71	Spool of spider thread from Anansi herself - leaving a trail prevents distortions
72	airship bomb
73	vial of spider venom
74	very nice pocket lint
75	goblin liquor, Con save or lose 1 HP per drink
76	book of vulgar nursery rhymes
77	map of geode cave tunnels criss-crossing the wood, not subject to distortions
78	letter from one goblin noble to another, detailing plans to backstab a third
79	necklace of elf ears
80	crown of the Goblin King, return carries a reward
81	black iron manacles, prevents goblins from changing form
82	blowgun with tsetse fly darts
83	poem detailing where a goblin's treaure horde is hidden
84	invoice from Reach merchant, instructions to find the One Market
85	goblin map, looks like accurate map of region but gets all non-goblins lost
86	elfsear mushroom, CON save - pass: +2 WIS, fail: -2 WIS
87	purple amanita mushroom, causes lucid dreaming
88	bat wing mushroom, leaves eater open to dream invasion
89	green ghost mushroom, makes eater ethereal for several minutes
90	magic tattoo needle, creates living tattoos
91	random animal scribbled in chalk on slate, acts as that animal
92	spell-stealing egg, absorbs one spell that can be cast when cracked open
93	scroll of walk on wall/ceiling
94	delicious pastry, totally normal
95	papers of ownership for an airship in drydock for repairs
96	spidersilk sail, allows small boat to become an airship
97	clutch of spider eggs, will hatch into sons and daughters of Anansi
98	elven infant
99	spider, has important information to return to Anansi
100	goblin bone scribed with ash and chalk, consuming prolongs life but causes mutations

NPCs (d20)

1. goblin raider
2. goblin merchant
3. goblin shaman
4. pig knight
5. airship bombardier
6. spy
7. hermit wizard
8. fungus farmer
9. oneirist
10. lizardman separatists from Southern Isles
11. traveling merchant
12. orc scout
13. rat man
14. elf crusader
15. snail rider
16. idiot bird, goblin court attendant
17. goblin noble
18. spidersilk weaver
19. emissary of the spider goddess
20. Anansi, the spider goddess

Wilderness Locations (d10)

1. bog
2. labyrinth
3. geode cave
4. moving city on chicken legs
5. hedge maze
6. mushroom field (hallucinogenic)
7. misshaping pool
8. deep cave
9. spiderwebs
10. beanstalk

Settlement Locations (d10)

1. airship yards
2. drinking hole (think Star Wars cantina)
3. rat laboratory
4. menagerie of intelligent creatures
5. palace
6. pig stables
7. oneirist chamber
8. shaman's hut
9. spidersilk works
10. fortress

Dungeons (d4)

1. Goblin Market
2. web of Anansi, the spider goddess
3. Tower of Change
4. spire of Sarpedon the Shaper

Events (d8)

1. Four goblin nobles, three goblin merchants, two goblin children and a handsome shrew all claim to be Goblin King. Each develops a violent following, especially the shrew.
2. An assembly of mushroom-worshipping oneirists gather in a large mushroom field for the harvest festival.
3. A goblin merchant plots to kidnap one of the player characters to sell to an eccentric collector.
4. A giant in a floating castle recruits goblins for a campaign of terror across the world.
5. A procession of goblins carrying babies from the latest raid makes its way to the Labyrinth.
6. A ragtag flotilla of airships passes overhead on its way to raid the elf borderlands.
7. A great migration of the forest leaves the place unfamiliar even to seasoned inhabitants.
8. A hermit wizard claims to have unlocked the secret to eternal life by studying goblin anatomy.

Customs (d6)

1. Goblins of means compete to see who can be the worst host for travelers.
2. The upper classes get around via a network of underground geode cave tunnels.
3. You cannot truly trust someone until you have been inside each others’ dreams and lived to tell about it.
4. Offering to pay for something with money is an unforgivable offense.
5. It is customary to leave an offering of flies to the spiders before undertaking any great venture.
6. Goblins often claim the support of the Goblin King in disputes, but it is rude to ask who or where the Goblin King is.