Ezora Chronicles

This entry delves into a corner of Ezora, a fragment of my world’s lore that you can adapt to your game if you find it inspiring. Use this adaptable lore to enrich the story, characters, or themes of your own game world. As the goddess of geysers and underground springs, Sulayra reigns over hot springs, steam, and sulfurous rivers. Her domain also encompasses the steam-powered machines and constructs that bridge the natural world with the technological progress of her followers. Her influence is vital to the Blazing Pact, which relies on sulfurous and geothermal waters for trade and daily life. Her power manifests through the volcanic underground waters that flow beneath the mountains and the warm air that escapes through the earth's fissures. She is seen as a protective and pragmatic figure, watching over merchants who brave the perilous sulfur rivers. Though rarely seen, Sulayra is described as a slender, vaporous figure with flowing hair resembling streams of hot water and eyes ...

In this series of articles, I will guide you through the process of designing a sandbox hexcrawl, illustrating each step with Chardauka, one of the continents of my world. Throughout these articles, I will cover both adventure content creation to populate the hexes and the worldbuilding elements that bring the setting to life. The Challenge of the Frog Idol is an adventure for Labyrinth Lord , written and illustrated by the talented Dyson Logos . It was published in 2011, is completely free, and you can download it here .This is a well-designed module, full of intriguing ideas, and described in a concise yet evocative style. Its modular design offers great flexibility, allowing DMs to incorporate all or parts of the material into their campaigns with ease. Furthermore, the action takes place in a swamp, which fits perfectly with this initial phase of developing the Chardaukan Hexcrawl, where I am creating content for a swamp. In this series, I will use this adventure as a practical ex...

I know I’m late to the party, but I’ve finally decided to seriously dive into Baldur’s Gate III. This game has been gathering digital dust in my Steam library for quite some time. I played through the prologue when it was gifted to me but abandoned it shortly after—not due to any lack of interest but simply because I got busy and defaulted back to my comfort game: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. However, the recent and disappointing reception of the latest entry in another of my favorite franchises, Dragon Age: The Veilguard, made me reconsider. The critiques from many players in the gaming community I follow and respect, including CohhCarnage , have been overwhelmingly positive toward Baldur’s Gate III compared to the new DA title, and their praise finally convinced me. Now, I’ve started dedicating the time I used to spend DMing to exploring this title, alongside Assassin's Creed Odyssey and a modded version of the abandonware game Magic: The Gathering - Shandalar . I’m about ten hou...

In this series of articles, I will guide you through the process of designing a sandbox hexcrawl, using Chardauka, one of the continents in my world, as a case study. Throughout these articles, we’ll tackle both adventure content creation to fill the hexes and the worldbuilding elements that bring the setting to life.   As I mentioned in another article, the first step in designing your hexcrawl is to have a hex map. If you’re looking for tips on how to create one, you can check out my advice in the article Drawing a Hexmap . Once we have the initial draft of our hex map, the next step is to decide on your players’ base of operations. For my Chardaukan hexcrawl, I’ve chosen the city of Garampur for this purpose. This decision aligns with my interest in deepening the lore of its culture and its strategic location near the center of the hex map, granting players greater freedom to decide which region to explore. I chose a scale of 1 hex = 12 miles, imagining that traveling on foot ...

Maps are an interesting tool in any campaign, but in a sandbox, they take on a special significance. While they are a traditional resource in pure exploration hexcrawls, creating a map gives players the chance to venture into the unknown and discover what lies in each hexagon, inviting them to take risks and explore the world thoroughly. Additionally, the map-making process not only defines the region geographically but also helps shape and unify key elements of the setting, becoming a valuable part of worldbuilding. Drawing the map should be one of the first tasks when preparing a sandbox, as it provides both a framework for the game and a visual reference for players that will guide their sense of discovery. If you're using a published campaign setting, you already have a map ready to go and just need to overlay a hex grid, allowing you to focus on filling the hexes with unique content. However, since Chronicles of Ezora also delves into worldbuilding, we’ll start from scratch, a...

This entry delves into a corner of Ezora, a fragment of my world’s lore that you can adapt to your game if you find it inspiring. Use this adaptable lore to enrich the story, characters, or themes of your own game world.   Known by many names across Ezora—Baloniuz among the Utumi or Beron no Kenja to the Drache—Belonius is the god of practical wisdom, the knowledge gained through experience and travel. He embodies personal discovery and the pursuit of understanding through life and adventure. He is revered by travelers, adventurers, and those seeking answers beyond conventional means, often preferred by those who value oral traditions and lived lessons over written knowledge. A masterful storyteller, his tales captivate and inspire listeners to embark on their own journeys. However, beneath his friendly and enlightened demeanor, Belonius harbors a darker side. His thirst for knowledge drives him to seek forbidden and dangerous secrets. Despite understanding the risks, he is unafrai...

In this article, you’ll find a random encounter idea and an adventure location designed for easy integration into your game. This entry is system-agnostic, so you’ll need to adapt the stats and loot according to the system you’re using at your table. Near an old bridge lie the shattered remains of a small barge. Among the broken planks and scattered debris, shreds of valuable fabrics and silks can still be seen; however, it’s clear that most of the goods have already been taken. Disturbing this wreck awakens the wrath of the merchant who perished with his cargo—now an enraged poltergeist hurling shards of wood and debris at any intruders (treat as one or more animated objects, or as a haunt in Pathfinder). The thief responsible for these stolen goods is a cunning aquatic troll, a scrag known to the locals as the River Queen, who has made the bridge her lair. She wields an improvised tower shield—a massive wooden door covered in damp hides and reinforced with large, garish blue metal p...

This is a question I occasionally see on the OSR subreddit. Before answering it, a clarification: in my opinion, a megadungeon is not simply a large dungeon like Caverns of Thracia . It is a dungeon so vast and rich in content that it can sustain an entire campaign on its own. Examples of such dungeons include Rappan Athuk , Stonehell Dungeon or Barrowmaze . These modules are designed so that the exploration of their many rooms becomes the central focus of game sessions, encouraging players to spend most of their time delving into its depths, interacting with the factions and secrets it contains. In this dynamic, the base town plays a secondary role as a point of resupply for resources, mercenaries, and occasional allies, while the megadungeon dominates the action. As the characters gain experience and resources, they seek to minimize trips back and forth to the surface to avoid the megadungeon, in all its complexity, “repopulating” its previously explored areas—a common technique to ...

When designing a sandbox (or any project, really), one of the first key decisions is defining its size and scale: how large will it be, and how much detail will it contain? This point can range from a single city with its surroundings, a frontier barony, a chain of islands, to two kingdoms on the brink of war. Having a clear idea of the conceptual size allows us to organize our work, and one of the most useful tools for this is the hexagonal map (hereafter referred to as a hexmap), which helps us size the game world according to the number of hexes and their scale (conceptually defined, as I will explain later). The size and scale of a sandbox are deliberate decisions that determine its nature and are generally inversely proportional. A good example of a small but highly detailed sandbox is Evils of Illmire , which consists of only 19 hexes detailing the surroundings of a village. In this case, each hex features its own dungeon and presents a high level of interconnection, allowing...

Welcome to the blog. I am Taliesin, also known as Arparrabiosa, and for the past 20 years, I have devoted a great deal of time and effort to playing and running Dungeons & Dragons. Over these two decades, I have gained experience in campaign design, game mastering, and creating homebrew worlds that might be useful to you. In addition to my direct experience, I have also studied numerous sources and resources, such as The Alexandrian , Sly Flourish , or Matt Colville’s YouTube channel , among many others, which have shaped and enriched my understanding of the game. The purpose of this blog is to share that experience with you in an organized way, providing ideas, tools, and useful advice, whether you’re a player or a game master, and no matter if you play D&D or another system. What will you find in this blog? Game Master Tips : I’ll explain how to plan everything from short adventures to long campaigns. Published Content Analysis : I’ll examine commercial modules and offer reco...