The High Forest as a sandbox campaign (Forgotten Realms)

[Yora]

After reading the Angry GM post on wilderness travel (http:// http://theangrygm.com/getting-there-is-half-the-fun/) this week and the start for my next campaign still being delayed for a few more months, I got really interested again into trying to run a wilderness sandbox campaign in a huge forest.
My questions are primarily to people with experience with sandbox campaigns or are familiar with The North in it's earliest incarnations, but of cause all replies and suggestions are welcome.

The High Forest from the Forgotten Realms setting has always been the primary influence on my own worldbuilding and some of my earliest and greatest campaigns were set in the surrounding areas, but I never actually got to run a game set inside its borders. A big part of it being that I never really knew how to run decent wilderness adventures. But I feel that I am now much better equipped to make such a campaign work.
To create the sandbox I want to use the High Forest material from the Savage Frontier sourcebook as the base. I find it to be the most evocative version and it's one of the very early setting books that is more written to inspire GMs to expand on it and make it their own than to provide deep backstory explanation and a comprehensive catalog of people and places.
My homebrew setting first started as such an expansion of the High Forest many years back and went on to become its own thing, but being the stylistic template I can now take the High Forest map with its sites and inhabitants and easily drop it into my setting. Only the gods and the appearance of some races will change in my campaign, but other than that I'll be sticking with all the information that is in Savage Frontier. But all the surrounding areas of the Dessarin, Delimbyr, and Silver Marches won't be in this campaign. Beyond the edges of the High Forest there will just be even more undescribed forest in all directions.


http://www.profantasy.com/library/files/highforest.jpg

Now the High Forest is really big. Not as big as space, but still really big. Going with the note from SF that it's 500 miles from North to South, it would be about the size of Germany or Finland. Being that Finland is mostly sparsely populated forest, Finland is probably the best comparison here for how vast an area this is. (Finland looks bigger on maps because most maps look weird towards the poles. Same thing with Alaska.)
I think going with a hexmap wouldn't be very useful at this scale. 30-mile hexes are too big to really help determine what you see and meet, and with 6-mile hexes there would be just way too many of them to fill a decent number of them with content. Which is why I like the Angry GM version of wilderness travel much more and I only now consider actually doing a high forest sandbox.


You start by planning a journey from a known point A to a known point B and the GM roughly eyeballs the number of days the journey would take on average.
Depending on how much the party wants to hurry, they make 2/3, 3/3, or 4/3 of a travel day progress during a day. Going faster increases the risk of getting lost and being surprised in a random encounter. (My own improvement on this is to take the number of days times three as "progress segments" and have the party make 2, 3, or 4 segments of progress per day to avoid dealing with fractions.)
When the party gets lost they don't make any progress towards their destination until they figure out where they are in relation to their destination and plan a new route to get there.
In addition to encountering people and creatures, there's a chance to spot an interesting site in the distance and the party can decide to make a detour and explore, but make less progress towards their destination while still consuming supplies.

I like this approach to wilderness travel since you don't need to track where exactly the party is in the wilderness and where they end up going when they are lost, and you also don't have to make a hexmap, which can be a really considerable amount of work when you want to spend a lot of time while wandering between places.
Another really nice feature is that you basically have random encounters with ruins, caves, and dungeons. On a static hex map there's a really good chance that the party will just miss a site by a hex or two and never see any signs of its existance, so you kind of hav to have a pretty high density of sites scattered around the map. If you want the party to travel long distances, the map gets really big and that quickly leads to preparing a lot of sites to keep the density high. With randomly discovered sites you can give players a very similar experience while preparing a much smaller number of sites. I think this is what makes using such huge area as sandbox possible.

Now to actual business: What can I do to make the chaptet from SF into a solid sandbox? There's already a good number of interesting hooks, particularly in the northeast:

Hellgate Keep: At this point it's still standing and home to several powerful demons who can't leave it to go out into the forests but their undead minions are not bound by that ward. It's practically a town with some evil living people among the inhabitants, so sneaking in and snooping around is possible even if an assault would be hopeless.*
Stone Stand: This is the holy site of the Blue Bear tribe who are lead by an evil shaman who is secretly a hag (who has some dealings with the demons I believe). She would make a great villain.*
Grandfather Tree: A giant tree sacred to the Blue Bear tribe, who got banished by its spirits (for having turned evil, I presume). Some of them got fed up with the shaman and founded the Tree Ghost tribe and the are trying to find the tree again that must be somewhere in the forest. As noble a quest as there can be.*
The Nameless Dungeon: An old elven ruin that is still guarded by elves who don't let anyone inside to explore. It actually was a prison for elven tieflings who broke the enchantments that bound them and recently escaped after thousands of years. It's very embarrassing to the elves and they are not sure what else is still down there. (Not sure if that was a much later added detail that was added to the mysterious place much later, but I like it.)
Stronghold of the Nine: A ruined castle that was taken over by adventurers,including a very powerful sorceress. Somehow they got their hands on an evil artifact and now started to fight each other in their madness. Whoever comes out on top could become a major threat with the artifact's power.*
Dire Woods: A small section of forest that is vastly larger on the inside than the outside. (You can easily go around it in a short time, but it takes a long time to go straight through it.) Somewhere near its center lies an ancient ruined city in which lies the undead giant heart of a dead demigod sorcerer.
Endless Caverns: A huge labyrinth of caves that leads to the Underdark, and if I recall correctly was the lair of a dragon who recently died. I also think there were ilithids in the area.
Citadel of the Mist: A magic castle that is home to a powerful sorcerer who's an enemy of Hellgate Keep and the Blue Bears.
Turlang's Wood: A part of the forest that is home to many treants led by the druid Turlang who hates the demons of Hellgate keep and is an ally of the Mistmaster of the Citadel of Mists.
Ruins of Decanter: An old huge mine full of magically created monsters. Many of which are led by an illithid called the Beast Lord.*
Great Worm Cavern: Not originally in the High Forest but I like it. A big cave town of barbarians whose shaman is an ancient giant lizard thing. Also with tunnels to the Underdark with connections to Gauntlgrym.*
Gauntlgrym: A lost ancient dwarf city that was famously rich but nobody knows where it is. I think also something with ilithids going on here. (I want to do something inspired by the Deep Trenches from Dragon Age and Dead Space.)
Lonely Tower: Also not originally in the High Forest. A single tower standing in the center of a huge perfectly circular clearing in which noting grows. Home to a sorcerer who's secretly a disguised alien.*


There's also many interesting major NPCs:
Turlang the Treant
The Mistmaster
Tanta Hagara, hag shaman of the Blue Bear tribe*
Elrem the Great Worm*
Laeral, currently insane archmage of the Nine
Sarya Dlardrageth, escaped ancient elven tiefling sorceress
Demon Masters of Hellgate Keep
Kaanyr Vhok and Aliiza, two cunning half-demons with big ambitions
Ssessibil, sorcerer of the Lonely Tower*
And illithids! Illithids everywhere!

*All these were no longer around in 2nd edition. Which is why the 1st edition version is so much cooler.

I think this looks like it'd be easily enough to provide enough fixed major dungeons for a sandbox. But to my knowledge all of these have to be made by the GMs themselves with only a few short paragraphs given for inspiration. Has anyone seen dungeon maps and encounter keys made for any of these?
Also, does anyone know what's up with the Star Mounts and Lonely Peaks? The discriptions on these two mountain ranges seem to have always been very vague. Was there ever any deeper details about the magic ponds and giant crystals?

One thing that is noticably lacking is towns. I believe the original intend was to have the PCs use the towns on the Dessarin and Delimbiyr rivers as home bases for expeditions into the forest, but I would like to have the campaign be fully inside the forest with no real outside world. I don't want any major cities or pastoral farming villages. I still want settlements to be part of the forest, even when they are somewhat point of light-ish. The Great Worm Cave and Stone Stand could be expanded into small barbarian towns that are still wilderness locations. Any ideas for elf and orc settlements?

[LibraryOgre]

The Nameless Dungeon: An old elven ruin that is still guarded by elves who don't let anyone inside to explore. It actually was a prison for elven tieflings who broke the enchantments that bound them and recently escaped after thousands of years. It's very embarrassing to the elves and they are not sure what else is still down there. (Not sure if that was a much later added detail that was added to the mysterious place much later, but I like it.)

Pretty sure this was a later detail.



One thing that is noticably lacking is towns. I believe the original intend was to have the PCs use the towns on the Dessarin and Delimbiyr rivers as home bases for expeditions into the forest, but I would like to have the campaign be fully inside the forest with no real outside world. I don't want any major cities or pastoral farming villages. I still want settlements to be part of the forest, even when they are somewhat point of light-ish. The Great Worm Cave and Stone Stand could be expanded into small barbarian towns that are still wilderness locations. Any ideas for elf and orc settlements?

On this, I would offer a different solution: Gnomes. Gnomes like wooded hills, and so would be right at home. They tend to be horticultural rather than agricultural, and can play the part of forest spirits... especially as the elves Retreat from their strongholds. Scattered gnomish communities would be nearly (if not actually) invisible, but still might be a place where you could get aid... and might happily disappear the next time you went looking for them.

Now, given the influence of Hellgate Keep, and your fondness for fey'ri, I would suggest another addition to the local orcs: Tanarukk. Hell-bred orcs, serving as something akin to black orcs in other systems... rather than being magically altered orcs, they're leader types who drive them to further violence.

[Eladrinblade]

Any ideas for elf and orc settlements?

Elf tree villages and nomadic tent camps, and orc cave settlements, is how I would do it. I've never seen an explanation for how orcs are supposed to find sustenance underground the whole time, but they apparently can. Regardless, if they live in caves in the high forest, they can come out and hunt at night, if nothing else.

[Darth Ultron]

Noanar's Hold is on the west border of the High Forest, but the same is true for a lot of towns like Loudwater. Karse has been a ''settlement'' from time to time. Also Sinning Falls has had several settlements called that too. There are tons of elf ruins that could have ''post apocalypse'' elves living in them.

To keep the ''spirit'' of the High Forest, you might want to stick to small ''barbarian'' settlements for everyone. Or even make them mostly nomadic.

The Star Mounts and Lonely Peaks have always been kept vague.

[Yora]

House Dlardrageth appears in the Book Hellgate Keep, which is still AD&D but was almost 10 years later. (Which is also where Kaanyr Vhok and Aliisza first appear.) I think they are quite cool and a good explanation why there's a dungeon with elven magic items but the elves only keep people from going inside without taking the stuff themselves.

I think I'll put the Great Worm Cave and Gauntlgrym into the Star Mounts and make the later also reachable through the Endless Caverns. There's already illithids in both of them. I want to do something with insane gnomes that were turned into derro by an evil monolith that somehow destroyed the city. Not sure how the illithids would fit into that yet.
The Stronghold of the Nine is nearby and inhabited by a big adventurer company that turned on each other under the influence of an artifact they found. Could easily be something that one of them took when he discovered Gauntlgrym.

Something I always wanted to use is The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun, which I think works best if the players don't expect it to be a big thing. It would make a great random site in the distance while travelling through a sandbox.

And since you can never go wrong with N1, converting it to Against The Cult of the Succubus could make a great introduction to the forces of Hellgate Keep.

And Escape from Meenlock Prison, because I had such a blast when I ran it last time. Dial up the fey angle a bit.

A different thing I've been considering is that the size of the High Forest is just way too big for the amount of content. I think it was intended to explore sites from towns outside, not go all the way through the center of the forest. It could be much smaller and still be huge. A whole campaign in just "forest" might also get a bit boring, so it could be a good idea to divide it all into several different zones with specific terrains and local creatures as with Mirkwood in The One Ring.

The Northeast has Hellgate Keep and the Nameless Dungeon, so it has a strong demons, sorcerers, and undead thing going on.
The Southwest has the Star Mounts with the Stronghold of the Nine and the Endless Caverns and can also make for a nice zone.
In the Northwest there is Turlang's Wood, Grandfather Tree, and the Lost Peaks, which all have a fey and mystery thing going on. Another good theme for a zone.
In the Southeast there's only the Dire Woods, which being much larger on the inside doesn't take up any significant amount of space. I am not even sure if I want to use it at all. It's another "high level area" like Hellgate Keep and Gauntlgrym and magic forest is already a good theme for the Northwest. I think I would rather have some kind of starting zone where players can learn what normal is for this forest before they discover the strange portions. I have rather little ideas what kind of content to use there.


Blue Bear Camp, Tree Ghost Camp, and Great Worm Cave would already be three towns to use as bases. Citadel of the Mists and Tall Trees (forgot about that one) are two more potential save places to stay. Stronghold of the Nine could become one. And Hellgate Keep exists as an evil city, which presumedly has occasional visitors. Getting disguised as Blue Bear warriors or fey'ri might work as a way inside that allows getting access to rooms and supplies. That's already not too shabby.

I like the idea of gnome villages. They would fit well in the normal zone and at the edge of the fey zone. A handful of elven villages as well and there should be a good selection of places to recover and resupply. A tree village and one tent camp that occasionally moves would add some diversity if there's two or three more generic elf villages.

The orcs seem to have been given very little background for the high forest. Making them minions of Hellgat Keep would be one option. But it would probably be more interesting if the orcs are at war with the tanarruk, which they see as twisted monstrosities created from captured tribesmen. Doesn't mean the orcs are good guys, but thi would make them potential allies against the demons. Or at least useful tools. Complex faction relationships are one of the major things that make sandboxes interesting.

[Herobizkit]

If you are running this in a 5e D&D campaign, the Ranger (especially the current UA Ranger), anyone with the Outlander background and anyone with the Keen Mind feat breaks the premise of "getting lost", because they don't get lost.

Otherwise, go with Mielikki. ^_^