The Hidden Ways

"At first glance, the wilds may seem impenetrable.  A wicked labyrinth of dead end trails, washed out bridges, sucking fens, and hidden lairs.  But spend a little time outside the comforts of civilization, friend, and you'll learn to see the way I do.  You see, there's a network of hidden ways crossing these lands- a language of peak and gully and old menhir and game trail.  There are roads that cross each other such that you'd never notice the path.  The trail heads are hard to find, but once you find them... well.  The whole world opens to you.  And then you'll see-

There's so much waiting to find you."


The wilderness is a confusing place.  It's twisted and turns back on itself.  Ways you thought were straight double back; ways you thought were tangled have unexpected shortcuts.  Forests are dark as night, even at midday.  Hillsides slough off in rain, blocking a passage.  Rivers shift their course.

Travelling the wilderness is by no means an easy task.  You can try it, and if you're smart about what you're doing you might just get where you're going- but there are better ways.

Just as dungeons have rooms and corridors- traps, tricks, and treasures- so do the wilds.  Features, pathways, points of interest, landmarks- a lattice web of reliable paths to follow.  "Head north for five hours" may be nearly impossible- do the players have a compass?  Is it accurate?  Are there lodestones or ley lines that might disrupt their pathfinding?  However, "Find the old stone oak tree north of town.  From there runs a game trail that will take you to the old mill creek.  From atop the mill you can see an old wood cross on a distant hill... walk to it and an hour past it and you will be overlooking the Valley of Carrowmere"- now that, you can achieve.

Skeins and Tapestries

So the hex map of the wilderness is a huge tapestry.  A 6 mile hex is ~36 square miles, or 1,003,622,400 square feet.  Let's imagine a truly huge adventure site, like a Keep.  The site itself (including the building and grounds) is probably 1,000 feet on a side (200 squares)- or 1,000,000 square feet- MAYBE 0.1% of the total space in a hex.  And a dungeon of that scope could easily occupy 10 sessions of play!

What are the odds of players accidentally stumbling across this adventure site as they explore the wilderness?  Is there a more interesting way to let players find it than spending a day to roll a search check within this hex?

The solution I'll be tooling up for my sandbox game is to run skeins of hidden paths across the tapestry of the wilderness.  These "overland dungeons" will feature landmarks that obviously link to each other.  Any dungeon crawler can see that the Altar Chamber has two exits on the west wall, and a sharp eyed elf can spot the draft blowing on the tapestry at the back.  

Just so, any wilderness adventurer can see that, from the old hanging tree, there's a shepherd's trail that winds across the plains to the east; a split peak a half day's walk northwest, and a clever ranger might know that the berry bushes at the bottom of the gully might reveal an animal trail to follow to the north.

Players can strike out across the wilderness undirected, using their survival instincts to hold to a direction, uncovering the general lay of the land.  They can spend hours executing searches to see if they discover any interesting landmarks in that area!  But they can also gather information from locals and find their ways onto these hidden paths, these overland dungeons.  Once they're there, it becomes much easier to navigate from point to point.

Rooms and Corridors

Rooms are large spaces that can contain interesting features to interact with- combat challenges, puzzles, tricks, traps, and more.  Corridors are the connecting glue tying rooms together; they can often contain the same, but rooms are dwelling spaces and corridors are traveling spaces.

What might these look like in the wilderness?

Rooms

1. The half-ruined tower atop an old hill.
2. The fetid lake.
3. The witch's hut.
4. The old hanging tree.
5. The old stone menhir, with six skeletons skewered on pikes surrounding.
6. The black bear's foraging grounds.
7. The ruins of Old Weston.
8. The resting spot of Ningauble's Hut, next to the swampy lake.
9. The blasted spot of plains, where nothing will ever grow again.
10. The old well, and its ever expanding tendrils of fungal growth.
11. The signpost at the intersection of the old King's Road and Coastal Way.
12. The druid circle.
13. The bright glade.
14. The rocky spire, split in two.
15. The ancient and crumbled statue of a long forgotten queen.
16. The negative-psychic afterimage of an ancient wizard's tower, long ruined.
17. The crawling whisper of something under the surface.
18. The mountain peak, topped with an ancient ruin, still lit at night.
19. The old stone foundations of the gate in the pass.
20. The emerald blue-green lake, source of the pure stream.
21. Etc.

Corridors

1. A game trail.
2. An old ranger trail, marked with faded strips of colored cloth.
3. A gully between two dried hills.
4. Line of sight.  (It's easy to get to that ruined tower- you can see it from miles off!)
5. A broken and ruined road, hundreds of years old.
6. An overgrown holloway, nearly a tunnel in the growth of the surrounding lands.
7. A string of witch-lights through the forest, following some ancient and arcane track.
8. A powerful ley-line, plucking at the hairs on the back of your neck.
9. A stream, spilling from a tight cavern in the rock.
10. The only walkable descent down the mountain side.
11. A knife-sharp ridge line between two peaks.
12. The echoing grinding sound that repeats out of the hills to the east.
13. Old rope bridges strung up between ancient trees.
14. A line of new growth through the old woods, sprung up in the wake of a forest fire years ago.
15. A series of lightly magnetic dolmens across the plains.
16. A line of mossy earth, tilled with sparkling mica from old mining.
17. A short cavern that exits into a new glade.
18. The line of dead earth, relic of some ancient sorcerous battle.
19. A miles long branch of mycelium, deadening the surrounding landscape.
20. Old bonfire sites atop hills, marking an ancient line of signaling.
21. Etc.

Tricks, Traps, Treasures

What's a good dungeon without tricks, traps, and treasures?

Tricks

Things to pique the players' interest, that aren't obviously good or bad until messed with...

1. Touching the standing stone causes it to flare with a brilliant light, visible from miles around.
2. A brilliant white stag leaping away through the forests... always one step ahead...
3. An elf-feast, lantern lights and music- all vanishing on drawing near.
4. An old consecrated site, where the undead fear to walk.
5. A humming ley-intersection, conveying unpredictable effects on spellcasting.
6. The brilliant campsite at the edge of a star-filled lake, comforting and restful.
7. An old stone door set into the ground, graven with runes and imagery, impossible to open.
8. An explosion of tufts of feathers and fur, plus a visible trail of blood.
9. Etc.

Traps

Surprising problems that can afflict the unwary traveler.

1. A shale patch, the entire hillside ready to shift and slide.
2. An old bridge above swift waters, ropes nearly rotted through.
3. A sucking quicksand fen.
4. A lurking presence just beneath the surface, who awakens at night to steal spells from the minds of sleeping magic users.
5. The roosting grounds for carrion crows- gone during the day, but returned after nightfall.
6. A wolf den.
7. The dry cavern, so convenient for camping in, with a false wall at the back that disgorges thieving orcs and goblins.
8. A mirror lake, which shows all reflections in a dark half-light.  If you see them, they'll come for you...
9. Etc.

Treasures

Delightful surprises, easing the burdens of travel.

1. A wandering bard.
2. A patch of fresh berries.
3. A pure, cool spring.
4. An old ranger cache, freshly replenished.
5. A traveling merchant's forgotten pack.
6. An elf-feast, warm and welcoming.
7. An unexpected inn.
8. An ancient portal to a sumptuous and restful pocket plane.
9. Etc.

Putting it all together

With these tools, we can build interlocking megadungeon spaces in the overland, open world sandbox- complete with factions, powerful threats to avoid, lairs, enemies, easy treasures, and devious traps.  Suddenly, exploring the open world is no longer a matter of moving one hex and rolling for encounters, but a continuous, descriptive, fiction-rich play experience.  And if players want to strike off into the unknown, there's even more for them to stumble across and discover.

You can even layer these megadungeons over top of each other within hexes- the space that runs out to the Keep on the Borderlands and the space that leads players to lost Carrowmere might have hidden ways that cross each other, but which are only visible from within each of their respective megadungeons.  This layered, hidden information creates a dense tapestry of discovery for exploration.

I hope you've found these ideas interesting!  What other rooms, corridors, traps, tricks, and treasures could exist in an overland dungeon?  How would you put this into your game?

Until next time!