Hexplore24 Week 1 Summary and Reflection
My First Week of Hexplore24
Read my full hexplore24 posts here
Summary of Days 1-7
Background: Set in a mystical world where the "old lands" vanished and reappeared after a century, creating a rift in history and culture, my "Hexplore24" follows the adventures of Belus, a cleric, and Satis, a witch. They began their journey from the town of Beacon, established to explore these New-Old Lands and unravel their mysteries, particularly the baffling absence of people.
Day 1-2: Belus and Satis ventured out into the grasslands, facing the challenges of nature and encountering wildlife like a wild boar and a herd of Yegril. They struggled with basic necessities like gathering firewood and failed repeatedly in their attempts to bond over campfire stories.
Day 3: Continuing their exploration, they encountered adder snakes and navigated through fern-filled woods and grasslands. They found a river and stumbled upon trivial treasures, revealing signs of past inhabitants. Their interactions were marked by caution and a growing understanding of each other's abilities and personalities.
Day 4: The duo met a group of witches, leading to a tense but intriguing exchange. The witches shared that they had seen lights in the distant mountains at night. Despite an attempt to join forces, the witches preferred to continue alone. Belus and Satis, undeterred, pressed on, camping by the river and successfully connecting over a shared story for the first time.
Day 5-6: The adventurers faced a blizzard, forcing them to focus on survival as they found shelter and gathered firewood. A surprising encounter with a giant toad tested their combat skills and quick thinking. The following day, after a calm night, they met a group of peddlers. Suddenly, a horrific attack by giant beetles ensued, resulting in casualties and leaving only one peddler, Goster, and Satis and Belus alive. The trauma of the event forged a somber bond among the survivors.
Day 7: Goster, traumatized and grief-stricken, joined Belus and Satis. Together, they honored the fallen peddlers with a burial mound. That night, Satis shared a heartfelt story about her grandmother, allowing the group to connect emotionally and process the day's events.
Meta Overview
My first week of hexplore24 is completed, and I’ve enjoyed it a lot.
While the exact set of tools and procedures I’m using continues to evolve, I feel like the major choices I’ve made of using the Dolmenwood travel and camping rules, Knave 2e Weather tables, and the Whitehack 4e ruleset have led to a solid game so far.
I really enjoy the pace of Hexplore24 — I feel like I’ve been getting a good amount of gameplay every day. It helps that I’m writing my game out by hand, as I’m not the fastest writer.
The use of Mythic Bastionland’s spark tables to give descriptions to the sky every day has added a lot of atmosphere. I do wonder if it will grow old — the spark tables are only d12 entries long — but for now, I really enjoy the epicness they provide to the setting.
Finally, I hope the format I’m typing my logs up into is helpful. I know I’ve long wished solo actual plays had more detailed mechanics in them, and I want to provide that in a way that is easy to read or easy to ignore depending on what people are looking for. Hopefully, the block quote mechanics along with heavy use of footnotes keeps things legible and clear.
Thoughts on the story so far
I’m still processing Day 6. That was a slaughter. I am okay with a TPK, but still, the sudden arrival of the peddlers, only to moments later have them be killed by pursuing beetles was one of the more dramatic moments I’ve ever had in an OSR style game.
I’m interested in the story and where things will go. I genuinely have no idea what’s going on in the world of this story — I don’t know what the lights on the hills are. I just know that I want our heroes to find out those secrets and, hopefully, some other cool things out there.
I have not yet typed up my short backstories for Belus and Satis — but they each have their own reasons to be searching these lands. I hope we can get to know them, and some new adventurers they pick up in Beacon, much better over the coming weeks.
That is, if they can get home safe. They’re not back in Beacon yet...
Here’s to them surviving week two!