Decad(enc)e

 

The above remains my favorite hex type, though I do need to spend some more quality time around the Rockies to make sure. As I write this, I find myself once again in the great North American rainforest; this time in the western reaches of North Carolina, just on the far side of the Smoky Mountains where the Blue Ridge and Piedmont blend. 

I'm sitting on a deck a good 25 feet above the forest floor, and the trees within arm's reach stretch another 30 feet or more still. It's raining but that rain has yet to filter through the canopy. It's cool and green and good.

--

It is, as surprising to me as anyone else, the tenth anniversary of the blog, the illustrious Aluminum Anniversary. There's likely a time when I would have spun that into Something Relatable, maybe pulling out that merchant route calculator or what-have-you, but today is not that day. It hasn't been that day for quite a while - you may note that my plan to get through the backlog of unpublished posts here did not get out of it's own way, and we managed to miss the entirety of 2021. I was close to missing this minor milestone, in fact, but while packing for the trip I suddenly realized it was time for a Useless Summer Post - so let's go for whatever place on the podium the aluminum medal stands:

This was more than anything else a way for me to talk to myself with another voice, a luxury and a decadence, which has evidently lost its luster. I considered fading away, but will instead flicker out; spitting out the the grit of unpublished thoughts as it's become clear I'm not interested in enpearling them. Their irritation is more impediment than inspiration now.

Thanks to those that read, thanks to those that commented, and thanks to those that linked. I really did and do appreciate it.

ACKS Blackmarsh (4) - Viz

Good day to you, my most loyal of subscribers who have yet to delete their ties to this humble blog in a huff due to a severe shortage of content! While I cannot call this a comeback, I can call it at least a rolling over in one's sleep. My archive of unfinished, unpublished content is a wide field of weeds I have yet to pluck, place in the first cup I can reach in the counter and present to you as a doe-eyed child presents the first dandelion of spring to his or her mother. 

Behold, the first, tallest weed:


In the Smoking Bay lives a wizard, on a mountain that once fell from the sky.

It's rich in 'viz' - the Blackmarsh setting's version of "magic in physical form". Viz is vaguely defined, to whit it "could be a flask of pure spring water, a newly bloomed flower, or an iridescent rock". It's a thing that is another thing - 'viz' is a substance that takes on the characteristics of another object.

Much like other things, you know it when you see it. From my reading of Blackmarsh, 'viz' is something that's constantly renewing in the environment - there's ash trees in the Greywoods whose seeds contain viz.

It's like if "abiotic oil" was a real thing - here's this source of power just leaching into the world that just needs to be collected.

The Value of Viz

The two things that viz gives you is the ability to cast spells without wiping it from memory, one "viz" used per spell level, and it's worth 100GP towards magical item creation.

I'd mentioned earlier that one could probably treat viz and Dwimmermount's azoth as the same thing.

Turns out that's pretty darn easy.

Dwimmermount (ACKS), pg 360 - refined azoth is valued at 100 GP per ounce. Note the descriptors of what viz could be above - poetic, yes, but, also very much possibly things that could weigh an ounce.

So it could be deduced that some process in Blackmarsh is exuding refined azoth into or as everyday objects, including plant life and vermin. That's...kinda worrisome, really.

The expanded capabilities of refined azoth from various sources:

• The GP value of refined azoth (100GP/ounce) can substitute for equivalent value for:
• Some or all of the base cost of magical research
• Some or all the special components required to create a magic item or perform a ritual spell
• Some or all of the precious materials used to create a magic item, perform a ritual spell, create a construct, or grant undeath
• If consumed (literally) the  spellcaster regains the ability to cast a spell of a level previously expended - one spell level per ounce.
• Substitute the full base cost of alchemical transformation ( crossbreeding, creation of brand new lifeforms, or gaining immortality as detailed in Dwimmermount pg 399)

From Dwimmermount, it has a number of side effects; it's combustible for one, acting as double-strength flaming oil.

Touching or consuming refined azoth causes a save; if failed, a set of tables determines effects that are a mix of helpful and baleful.

But, as things go, just because it's potentially harmful doesn't mean people won't seek it out - we don't need a fantasy world to prove that. There's a bit of a 'gold rush' theme tied to viz, but nothing terribly defined, as far as amounts or ease of finding. 

We can make a guess about the relative value of viz.

A load of semiprecious stones weighs a stone, and averages 1,000GP in value. Precious gems are the same weight, and 3000GP in value.

A stone is about 10 pounds. There's 16 ounces in a pound, so there's ~160 ounces in a stone, and therefore a "load" of viz weighs a stone and is worth ~16,000GP at face value.

Sources of Viz

Let's assay the landscape:

The Greywoods: Several hexes - "grey ash" trees drop seeds that are a "potent source" of viz.

Hex 0105: the ruins of Daur Anthar, there was a vein of metal rich in viz.

Hex 0217: Oldan Hold; established as a base for dwarves from Bolzak seeking viz; the lord of the keep, Mazardan, heads an adventuring company seeking viz. In fact, the dwarven Lord Mazardan will pay 200 GP per viz brought to him; that's "over value" for it's use.

If we take the face value of 100GP, that's a 200% markup. We can have a maximum demand modifier of +4, I believe, modifying a 4d4 roll for market price - that's a maximum roll of 20 on 4d4+4, to get to 200%.

Clearly, Oldan Hold wants viz, enough that they're willing to pay maximum adjusted market price for it.

Hex 0616: Mages of the Bright Empire once harvested viz from a half-mile long, 50' deep gorge.

Hex 0804: Stardell Falls, a 40 foot waterfall, is a "rich source" of viz.

Hex 0913: Castle Blackmarsh, survived for a time on the traffic of folks seeking viz. Has an elite association of adventurers called "the Viz Club".

Hex 1112: Bright Empire's last treasure ships from Blackmarsh; contains crates of viz.

Hex 1309: The Mountain That Fell; "incredibly rich" in viz; guarded by a high level mage.

Hex 2114: Mermaids collect shells for a pool in the center of the island; they turn into viz during the full moon (4d6 of them).

Hex 2401: A giant ant lair; 1 in 20 eggs are viz.

Hex 2410: Large pillars with compartments "where viz can be inserted".


That's a lot of different things. I'm interested in what I can pull out of this and define. (and yes, I realize I'm missing the point of not defining it, much like the robot who knows the chemical composition of the rose but will never know love, but this is my fun-time, let me go)

The Mountain that Fell

...is a good place to start. 

Presume the Wizard of the Isle is a 14th level mage. (Dwimmermount includes a progression table for ACKS up to 18th, but we'll stick with 14 for now) His actual HD may be higher, he's probably transmogrified himself, since he's been around for centuries. It may be construed he's unlocked some form of immortality  as per Dwimmermount, pg 408.

He has no domain or realm.

The realm he presumably could be running, however, is an empire of millions. 

The minimum assumed income for an empire; ACKS pg 230, is somewhere in the neighborhood of 385,000GP per month. For completeness, that number jives with a 14th level character's Monthly Henchmen Wages (350K).

His expenses may technically be lower, as he's not providing for a population, but that could be easily subsumed into whatever measures he's taken and must maintain to guard the island itself. That golem probably doesn't come cheap.

Since the mountain is "incredibly rich" in viz, the Wizard is presumably actively doing wizardly things, one could posit that his "income" is gained via the procurement of viz. Since he's an immortal wizard on an island that exudes magic, I'm going to take a wild leap and say he probably doesn't spend money on mundane things like...food, maybe, or fancy clothes, or anything that isn't furthering his research or protecting his research from others. I honestly don't think this guy would have apprentices, he probably has a small company of artificial creatures doing the extraneous work.

I'll continue, then, computing this base 385K of income as if it's all coming to him in viz.

Base division means, then, he's pulling 3,850 ounces, or 240 pounds (24 stone) of viz out of the mountain each month.

He can't spend that much in a month, though - not on the things that viz can be spent on.

The most expensive things our Wizard can do, on a day-to-day basis, is creating constructs, crossbreeds, or doing necromancies. For per-month output, nothing beats max-value construct creation, at something like 27.5K per month in created value. We can take the Abstract Magical Research rules and figure that this wizard only fails on a roll of 2+ (some special HFH class ability, can't recall which), invert the 1.05x multipler for cost, and easily state that:

The Wizard of the Isle takes in 27.5Kgp of Azoth per month, and converts that to abstract magical research value totalling 26.2Kgp per month, in items, constructs, or just plain library value, as needed.

Mining for Viz

We know how much viz is worth -  - how much viz do we pull out of that space?

Let's take the Axioms mining rules as an example, and think of it like a gem mine.

We know 140 carats is about an ounce, and by density a diamond of that size is about three-quarters a cubic inch in volume. That's not a bad size for what we see above in the descriptions for viz sources - seeds, shells. Giant Ant eggs might be up to 8 lbs, but maybe it's just a portion of the egg.

Value-wise, it's way off though; a 140ct diamond is probably damn near invaluable - in the real world a 163 carat diamond went for about $34 million at auction. So, we'll table that for now, and we'll look instead at results.

Each bit of viz is 100gp, and we need 275 bits per month to fuel research. That's about 17 pounds of viz at an ounce (140 carats) per bit, and as such we need to dig out 38,080 carats per month.

That's a very big gem mine. Like, wizard-did-it big. Fortunately for us a wizard has indeed done it.

We need to net 16 times the yearly profit of an ornamental gem mine per month. If 200 work gangs produce 2,400 carats in a year, that's 12 carats per gang per year - or, 1 carat per gang per month.

That's 38,080 work gangs, or 190,400 people, digging out 11.4 million cubic feet of material per month - a cube of material 225 foot on a side, or a small mound about 80 ft tall and 160 ft in width.

Clearly inexplicable, cause as the Dungeon Master says,

OR DOES HE?

Well, so, the Wizard did it, and if we've got a wizard with a teleporting construct that guards the surface of the mountain, what the heck you think he's been up to underneath? That's right - horrible spiky bladed relentless digging machines.

From D@W:C we know that monstrous workers multiply their labor rate by their normal load divided by 5. 

Giant Crabs seem diggy, have a load of 210; divided by 5 that's 42, that's 4,533 giant crab constructs.  (190,400 lazy humans divided by 42)

That's ridiculous and terrible, but is it the best we can do? Of course not.

Purple Worms, the very essence of "dig", clock in at a load of 320; that's a divisor of 64 or 2,975 purple worm looking constructs roiling up to the lab to barf out little bits of viz every couple days.

That's pretty ridiculous and quite terrible, but I'mma stop you right there, and tell you who has the greatest normal load of ALL TIME.

SPERM WHALE.

(greatest load...sperm whale... just, you know. Enjoy that.)

Boasting a 2400st normal load, that's a divisor of 480, and so 397 sperm whale constructs constantly churning the nethers of the mountain, surfacing in some infinite dance loop of choreographed terror to spit collected viz out of their blowholes and into some sort of collection apparatus.

That gold construct's not there for defense. He's there to warn you that you're hilariously out of your league.

Wizards cheat though...

The best way to run a high level wizard is to assume that the wizard has a copy of the rulebooks of the game she lives in.

The best CCF in the L&E monster creation rules is 0.430, for the Coleopteran/Beetle body form, with a set BME of 1.62. Weight is (HD*10)^BME, and so CCF*(HD*10)^BME)/5 is the formula for figuring out the divisor - or, 0.430*((HD*10)^1.62)/5.

That simplifies to 16*HD, assuming I remember how to math. If we want 397 beetles with a 480 divisor, that's a 30 HD beetle. At 30HD the beetle form is 10,300 lbs, merely gigantic instead of colossal, costing with at least one "*" ability 65,000 gp.

Technically it's a bigger construct in HD than a 14th level mage can make, but, only by 2HD, I feel like there was maybe a proficiency in a later book to give a bit of a level bump, and if not, there should be. Or, again, the referenced Wizard already exceeded mortal limitations.

400ish gigantic beetle-looking constructs. roiling around in that mountain. My guess is that they don't even remove the material, they just fill it in behind themselves, and there's just something that makes little tiny bits of 'viz' spontaneously generate that they store in their giant midguts until they emerge engorged and ready to vomit it out.

Alternatively, assume there's some time period between the digging and the filling, and at any given point there's 11.4 million cubic feet of tunnel - let's say these guys make 20x20 tunnels, so that's...28,560 linear feet of random tunnels PCs could blunder into and explore for a little bit before they are summarily chewed up or crushed by the next gigantic beetle construct to cross their path.

Anyway, it took the Wizard about 78 years to make all those beetles, assuming he did it by himself, using the abstract rules. It's left as an exercise for the reader to figure out how to shorten that. I'd suggest a construct-making construct. Or, actually, a construct-making construct-making construct?

A Number of Irelands

In looking at various ways to abstract the game down to its fundamentals, one starts looking at things outside the rules a bit - or, things that start to intrude on the fiction of a game world.

In a system where building strongholds and ruling lands is a thing, one might step back and ask how best to enable it - what ought one do to provide the opportunity?

The guidelines say something like this, when talking about the status of a hex as being civilized, borderlands, or wilderness:

• Within 50 miles of a large town, it is civilized.
• Within 25 miles of the civilized border, it is borderlands.
• Else, it's wilderness.

Now - some of the above relies a bit on the assumptions that settlement patterns and the general traffic of "civilization" tend to tamp down on the occurrence of wandering monsters - the bellwether of hex status, and makes no nods towards the realities of terrain, etc. We will assume for the moment this works as stated.

Assume a spherical cow domain.

and there's the map. Blue is our little center large town. The green bits then are the 50 mile radius around that town that is civilized by default; then the yellow is our borderlands, and the red our wilderness, as we have to end it somewhere, and another 25 miles out is fine.

Our landmass is the platonic ideal of such things for campaign purposes - a disc 200 miles wide. If we look at that through a lens of high occupancy, if not maximum:

	Area (sq mi)	6m Hexes	Fam/Hex	Possible Families
Civilized Green	7854	252	500	126000
Borderland Yellow	9818	315	200	63000
Wild Red	13744	441	100	44100
TOTAL	31416	1008		233100

You can see that the consecutive areas of C/B/W embiggen, because geometry, and there's about twice as much wilderness as there is civilized area. 

233K families is a principality. We're looking at a Class II city there in the middle, 4 or 5 Class IV large towns (which would kinda bulge out the civilized area, but we'll deal with that later), then maybe 12-15 Class V's scattered at the edge of the borderlands.

More realistically, the totals may be more like one half or three quarters those levels; perhaps a Class III city as the centermark, with the outlying cities barely reaching IV status.

The demographics of either of those aren't horrific - you're looking at a 10th to 12th level NPC at the top. A party that's focused on their goals can knock that over and take control - or at least gain enough for a credible shot at independence. Or, if we're setup already with a set of independent smaller domains, perhaps conquering one and uniting the island from there is on the menu.

Out in the interwebs there's the idea of measuring things in the number of Libraries of Congress, as far as data goes, or the number of Rhode Islands, in terms of area.

For this, however, we might state that for a campaign maybe all you need is the minimum of one Ireland...

...in order to  have a compelling space for a set of would-be conquerors to operate in.

As I recall, Jack Vance's Lyonesse was near the size of Ireland - so - I find myself in proper company.

ACKS Blackmarsh (3), Map of Civilization

In a continuing series!

Last map, I think, and I subject you to another futzing around with a "style", something I do not have a lot of.

Previously, we'd settled out...the settled lands in Blackmarsh. Rather than huddle everyone up in the same highly concentrated hexes, I took a stab at spreading folk out a bit. And I didn't really check to see if there were any highly dangerous lairs where I put folk, so those people may be dead already.

So, Hex 1212, for example, following Dwimmermount's example, would have somewhere around (2d3*10)+590 families - the hexes with three people icons.

Two icons would represent (2d6*10)+205, and one icon is a borderlands hex at (2d4*10)+95 families. I chose poorly ending my average population numbers in "5"s.

Split hexes would have ~325 families of one vassalage, and ~325 families of the other.

If you ask about that in the halfling hex of 0510, split betwixt the Greenton and Strangeholm halflings,  you will waste 2d3 turns as whichever halfling you've asked the question of gives you a very very long story about his genealogy and exactly which great-great-great third cousin's on the paternal side once did someone a solid and that's why his family is part of the Greenton rather than those Strangeholms, not that they are not perfectly upstanding members of the community but they put a bit too much spice in their porridge if you know what I mean and I don't think you do, so let's talk about proper spice application in porridge, pies, and other very exciting foods and oh look a the time, it's elevensies, and you must come stop by as we've just harvested the pumpkins and there are quite a bit of pies to eat and travelers such as you must be famished having missed second breakfast as you folk tend to do, these are properly spiced with just a touch of cinnamon, not like the Strangeholms do it - have I ever told you about my great-great-great third cousin, on the paternal side?

ACKS Blackmarsh (2)

So, continuing from before, from what was unexpectedly a popular post:


I ended up utilizing 896 of an available 500 hexes on the Blackmarsh map just tossing the "default" ACKS demographics at it, so let's adjust.

First off, when many folk imagine a D&D world, it's much more a medieval world than ACKS initially assumes; and populations are a lot denser as a result. Let's shoot high, for Medieval France,  and go with an average 650 families per hex:

Realm	Settlement	Hex	Population (Families)	Type	Whole Realm Size	Subrealm Size	Remaining Population	Realm Hexes @650/hex
Blackmarsh	Castle Blackmarsh	913	1294	Small City	64700		33150	100
	Jorvik	1316	481	Small Town		24050
	Blackmarsh Isle	912	100	Village		5000
	Inuacus Keep	1113	50	Hamlet		2500
Ostrobards	Muncaester	1305	895	Large Town	44750		11550	69
	Wedmor	1002	255	Large Village		12750
	Camden	1302	214	Village 2		10700
	Ethanfeld	1506	145	Village		7250
	Wessex Keep	1602	50	Hamlet		2500
Blackmarsh Rangers	Blackoak Castle	407	170	Village	8500		2450	14
	Ashdown	608	121	Village		6050
Vasan	Castle Taldene	2505	200	Village	10000		-35000	85
	Daretop	2704	415	Large Village		20750
	Gamla	2508	405	Large Village		20250
	Ysby	2411	80	Small Village		4000
Grand Kingdom	Norbury Castle	1518	120	Village	6000			10
Bolzak (D)	Oldan Hold	217	342	Large Village	17100			27
Greywood (E)	Stardell Falls	804	503	Small Town	25150			39
Newcombe (H)	Greenton	610	642	Large Town	32100			50
Strangeholms (H)	Strangeholms	409	292	Large Village	14600			23
							Total Hexes	417

So that's a bit better, but still a lot of people living on floats in the Smoking Bay.

Rob Conley himself posted on the humble blog here in the last installment, noting that dividing those populations by 4 would get one "family" numbers for ACKS purposes, which is more-or-less (less) the same as what ACKS does with 5 folks per family.

That multiplier drops Castle Blackmarsh down to a Large Village, Class V; in a realm of 12.5K-22.5K families, which certainly gets me some breathing room. I'd like to see what I can do to get there in a way that preserves Blackmarsh, at least, as a Class IV proper.

First, I'll divide populations by 2 (or 2.5 in the case of the non-seat settlements), dropping my hex size @650/hex to 202 hexes. Blackmarsh settles in as a Large Town, with Muncaester two families away from becoming a Small Town - it, Stardell Falls and Greenton are Large Villages.

That's better still, but almost half the map still.

Another great way to reduce populations is to modify settlement patterns. ACKS, pg 231 lists various column shifts one can do on the Villages, Towns, and Cities Placement table.

The one I want is "Centralized Settlement Pattern". Take your realm, and go down two lines to find a (larger) Largest Settlement. We're going to reverse that - we're taking our Largest Settlements, above, and going up two lines on the table to get our resultant realm size.

After running the settlement populations through Koewn's Frambunchious Population Remogrifier, I get realms that look like so:

Realm	Settlement	Hex	Population (Families)	Type	Whole Realm Size	Subrealm Size	Remaining Population	Realm Hexes @650/hex
Blackmarsh	Castle Blackmarsh	913	647	Large Town	11700		6003	17
	Jorvik	1316	193	Village 2		4107
	Blackmarsh Isle	912	40	Hamlet		460
	Inuacus Keep	1113	20	Hamlet		230
Ostrobards	Muncaester	1305	448	Large Village	7226		2092	11
	Wedmor	1002	102	Village		2448
	Camden	1302	86	Small Village		1714
	Ethanfeld	1506	58	Hamlet		742
	Wessex Keep	1602	20	Hamlet		230
Blackmarsh Rangers	Blackoak Castle	407	85	Small Village	1588		1037	3
	Ashdown	608	49	Hamlet		551
Vasan	Castle Taldene	2505	80	Small Village	1060		-5991	12
	Daretop	2704	166	Village 2		3684
	Gamla	2508	162	Village 2		3638
	Ysby	2411	32	Hamlet		318
Grand Kingdom	Norbury Castle	1518	60	Hamlet	771			2
Bolzak (D)	Oldan Hold	217	171	Village 2	3527			6
Greywood (E)	Stardell Falls	804	252	Large Village	4570			7
Newcombe (H)	Greenton	610	321	Large Village	5522			9
Strangeholms (H)	Strangeholms	409	146	Village	3119			5
							Total Hexes	72

72 hexes seems manageable at a glance.

Note I got Blackmarsh down to a realm of 11.7K - very close to the range I wanted from dividing the initial population by 4.

Here's the "artsy" map I've been puttering with. I'm still trying to figure out hills, so there's 4+ styles there...and ...well, everything else, really. I like some of the mountains more than others. I need to differentiate the swamps a bit more, and the texture on the water is too large, and any number of other things...

Still deciding how to present the markup for the settled lands, next installment. Got to pace yourself when you don't have a lot of time to work on this stuff.

ACKS Blackmarsh (1)

Did I mention I moved? My office is just now mostly back together, and I've turned on my computer for the first time since May. So I've ensconced myself in the warm glow of LCDs and I've done some fiddling with ACKS, which I haven't done for quite some time.


For various reasons I found myself looking back again at Rob Conley's Blackmarsh, a free and open little sandbox document.

Since I'm in a PbP game on Autarch's forums that's using it, I started to wonder what it would look like if the tenets of ACKS were applied to it.

I've had a Dwimmermount map project languishing unposted for quite some time - it may behoove me to jump back in with something a touch smaller to get myself restarted on that. Plus, Blackmarsh can merge with the Dwimmermount map on Blackmarsh's southern edge.

And, as the PbP game made me realize, DM's azoth and BM's viz may as well be the same thing, though I think you'd want to have DM's version be more 'pure' given the central themes of the place.


You know, before I get started, I should probably say something about the product itself.

Released in 2011, Blackmarsh is a small sandbox, 19 by 27 hexes, containing the titular swamp and a list of settlements, lairs, and ruins (about ~80). The town of "Castle Blackmarsh" is mapped and detailed. Ostensibly written for Delving Deeper, an excellent rework of the original game, it's compatible with anything marginally like D&D.

There's a wide variety of monster lairs, including must-have dragons, and the ever-present threat of an old evil 'probably' destroyed. The civilized races are presented from many different factions, 7 on the board in all.

Just enough detail is given for a Judge to springboard their own ideas - reading through this for the first time in several years, I'm finding myself wanting to grab a group and run it.

Actually - let me wind that back a bit. I came across Rob Conley's blog and Blackmarsh very early on when I was coming back to D&D, and I downloaded and read through it. At the time, I accepted it at essentially face value - a hexcrawl - and set it aside.

3 or so years later, having some hundreds of OSR and other blogs on my reading list, having read a wide range of thoughts, practices, and products, I come back to it today with a new appreciation for what Blackmarsh provides.

For what it's worth, this set of posts will be very much like a record of steps taken to reconcile a non-ACKS setting with ACKS rules.

So: let's list the settlements in Blackmarsh, their rulers, and likely allegiances:

Hex	Settlement	Population	Blackmarsh - Ruler	Blackmarsh, Alliance
217	Oldan Hold	342	DF6	Dwarf, Bolzak
407	Blackoak Castle	170	EF4M6	Blackmarsh Rangers
409	Strangeholms	292	H0	Halfling, Blackmarsh Rangers
608	Ashdown	121	F6	Blackmarsh Rangers
610	Greenton	642	H0	Newcombe Halflings
804	Stardell Falls	503	EF4M8	Elf, Seat
912	Blackmarsh Isle	100	-	Blackmarsh
913	Castle Blackmarsh	1294	EF4/M2	Blackmarsh, Seat
1002	Wedmor	255	F5	Ostrobard
1113	Inuacus Keep	50	F10	Blackmarsh
1302	Camden	214	F8	Ostrobard
1305	Muncaester	895	F4	Ostrobard, Seat
1307	Naomi, Sorceress	-	M9	-
1309	Wizard of the Isle	-	M18	-
1316	Jorvik	481	F11	Blackmarsh
1506	Ethanfeld	145	F6	Ostrobard
1518	Norbury Castle	120	F9	Grand Kingdom
1602	Wessex Keep	50	F6	Ostrobard/Muncaester
2411	Ysby	80	F5	Vasan
2505	Castle Taldene	200	F9	Vasan, Seat
2508	Gamla	405	F12	Vasan
2704	Daretop	415	F8	Vasan

A range of settlement sizes and alliances - by my reckoning, there's ~7 factions on the board - Dwarf, Blackmarsh Rangers, Halflings, Elves, Blackmarsh itself, Ostrobards, the Grand Kingdom, and the Vasan.

Hex 0912 is an unnamed island; settled by 100 men. I've deemed it Blackmarsh Isle, so I can use it as a settlement. I've listed the two named mages to keep track of them. I'm not yet sure how they're going to pan out - they obviously have some tower analogue, but no attached settlement or domain.

There's some argument to be made about the various relationships of Blackmarsh, the Rangers, and the Elves.  I expect the Rangers and Blackmarsh to be allied, if not quite vassaled. I also expect the Stardell elves aren't as nonplussed as they would seem with the whole Ranger/Blackmarsh idea.

Blackmarsh is extremely well set for 'overland' faction play, without it necessarily being lumbering empires clashing. That's great for ACKS - it's easy to see a group of players making their own mark on the map (or taking someone else's mark)

In converting this to ACKS, I'm making two assumptions for this first attempt:

1. The population numbers given convert straight to families
2. The hexes magically transmogrify to 6 mile hexes, rather than 5.

Let's see what that looks like, given the advice starting in ACKS pg229:

Realm	Settlement	Hex	Population (Families)	Type	Whole Realm Size	Subrealm Size	Remaining Population	Realm Hexes @300/hex
Blackmarsh	Castle Blackmarsh	913	1294	Small City	64700		33150	216
	Jorvik	1316	481	Small Town		24050
	Blackmarsh Isle	912	100	Village		5000
	Inuacus Keep	1113	50	Hamlet		2500
Muncaester	Muncaester	1305	895	Large Town	44750		11550	150
	Wedmor	1002	255	Large Village		12750
	Camden	1302	214	Village 2		10700
	Ethanfeld	1506	145	Village		7250
	Wessex Keep	1602	50	Hamlet		2500
Blackmarsh Rangers	Blackoak Castle	407	170	Village	8500		2450	29
	Ashdown	608	121	Village		6050
Vasan	Castle Taldene	2505	200	Village	10000		-35000	184
	Daretop	2704	415	Large Village		20750
	Gamla	2508	405	Large Village		20250
	Ysby	2411	80	Small Village		4000
Grand Kingdom	Norbury Castle	1518	120	Village	6000			20
Bolzak (D)	Oldan Hold	217	342	Large Village	17100			57
Greywood (E)	Stardell Falls	804	503	Small Town	25150			84
Newcombe (H)	Greenton	610	642	Large Town	32100			107
Strangeholms (H)	Strangeholms	409	292	Large Village	14600			49
							Total Hexes	896

So - first problem is we have used up 896 hexes...of 500 available. (Note Vasan looks weird - because it's 'seat' isn't the largest settlement in that realm - as supported by the text. We'll get to that later)

I've done a few conversions of materials over the past couple  years, (none of which I've bothered to finish up and post so far...) and this is a pretty common problem. There's never enough space on the map to support the realms attached to the urban populations listed, so it becomes a game of adjustments and refactoring to get into something that fits.

The "default world" of non-ACKS'd D&D, I've noticed, whether this Blackmarsh or Dwimmermount or any number of small publisher or WoTC products is one of folks packed up into urban settlements, who leave during the day to run the farms that apparently feed all those people. It feels like an odd reverse-suburbia sometimes when you're trying to backtrack from the settlement populations.

It's (hopefully) likely we'll be able to pop up the population density and do some adjustments to our urban demographics to shrink down the realms to a manageable size for the map.

Next post, probably, though don't hold your breath. Taking longer than I would have thought to fully get settled here, due in no small part to the fact the old house is still up for sale, and that puts a bite in the budget.