Settling a Magical Valley

[Wasp]

I am thinking about a campaign where the setting is an uninhabited but for some reason very desirable valley that has recently been (re)discovered when some magic stuff happened and now people from all kinds of backgrounds flock to settle there. The feeling is supposed to be D&D Fantasy through a Wild West lens with gearpunk elements.

I have several questions on how I should go on about developing this world:

a) As a player would you want to be there from the start, setting up camp (maybe even contribute where to establish the first settlement etc) or come in a bit later when some structures have already been established? Or would you want to start even earlier and gather people and resources for a trek there?

b) Would you prefer there to be a continuing connection to the outside world or should the valley be magically sealed off at some point after your arrival?

c) Any other ideas? I have not really developed the idea much further yet

[Balyano]

Maybe you are traveling with a group of settlers that intend to start from scratch. BUT there are ruins of various ages where the valley was populated before. Some may be rotted out homes and barns, others are stone walls without roofs or floors, and some are old stone construction, cracked and fallen due to being left for untold generations.

Perhaps the group gets cut off from the outside by a land slide that seems TOO coincidental and the crews of men that are sent to clear it disappear or come back 'changed'.

[khadgar567]

my pic is also similar to balyono I want to be in the first patch of adventures in the new land. i know its gonna be hard to survive but there is lot of treasure to grab and you are gonna be the first person to discover the the major toys in the land its kinda founding eldorado or wakanda.

[Wasp]

Maybe you are traveling with a group of settlers that intend to start from scratch. BUT there are ruins of various ages where the valley was populated before. Some may be rotted out homes and barns, others are stone walls without roofs or floors, and some are old stone construction, cracked and fallen due to being left for untold generations.

Yeah, I think you two are right - the PCs should be amongst the first to enter the valley. And I like the idea of there being ruins that can be explored or used to establish settlements. I just down't want to have any (larger number of) intelligent beings there as I don't really want to deal with the question if the players are stealing the land from the original inhabitants...


Perhaps the group gets cut off from the outside by a land slide that seems TOO coincidental and the crews of men that are sent to clear it disappear or come back 'changed'.
I am wondering if it should be magically sealed off instead (to make it really impossible to escape). Maybe the valley blinks in an out of the world. Or the entrance is in fact a gateway to some place else...

[Lvl 2 Expert]

I am thinking about a campaign where the setting is an uninhabited but for some reason very desirable valley that has recently been (re)discovered when some magic stuff happened and now people from all kinds of backgrounds flock to settle there. The feeling is supposed to be D&D Fantasy through a Wild West lens with gearpunk elements.

I have several questions on how I should go on about developing this world:

a) As a player would you want to be there from the start, setting up camp (maybe even contribute where to establish the first settlement etc) or come in a bit later when some structures have already been established? Or would you want to start even earlier and gather people and resources for a trek there?

b) Would you prefer there to be a continuing connection to the outside world or should the valley be magically sealed off at some point after your arrival?

c) Any other ideas? I have not really developed the idea much further yet

As someone who has seen too many horror movies: I'd prefer no or hard/troublesome communication to the outside. I'd also prefer coming in just after the first base camp has been settled. Maybe recruited by some shady figure on a bar, one of those jobs I knew you shouldn't have taken, but they promised twice my wealth by level guideline. The base camp already being established serves to introduce me to magical stuff without giving me a proper chance to find out how it works. It's just part of the tour. "And this is where we get the healing liquid you saw earlier. Just bubbles straight out of these rocks. Let's move on shall we?" It also serves to have some bodies to drop together with the other shoe. This in turn hinders my ability to find out more about this place after stuff started happening. I never got a good look at things, it's currently risky to go out there, and everyone who did get a good look is dead or missing. On top of all that it lets the DM establish NPCs my character might find worth saving. Carrot is better than stick after all. Even if the valley is sealed off completely I'd rather have a good reason to journey to the center of it rather than a vague suspicion that that's where they keep the barrier's off-switch.

[brian 333]

A demigod or primal entity is trapped in a mountain beneath a glacier. Its anger is great but its bonds are strong. It wakes and rages against them until it grows weary, (seldom longer than a week,) at which time it returns to slumber for a year or a lifetime.

Encased in ice, it wakens with great heat, melting a huge volume of ice which flows down one or more of the three valleys which radiate away from the mountain in a massive flood of mud and boulders. (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lahar) Everything in the path of such flows is obliterated, but anything even one centimeter above the flow survives untouched.

After the lahar event, time and water begin to work on the very flat concrete-like floor of the valley, scouring riverbeds into it which turns the sterile stone and mud matrix into lush meadows in a single year. These meadows attract herbivores and their hunters in great numbers.

Within the lifetime of fast-growing pine trees the edges of the meadows are encroached upon by forest, and the rivers and streams carve gullies and valleys into the slurry. Landslides dam the water flow creating strings of lakes which fill the carved out vallies, allowing fish and other aquatic from unharmed streams above and below the lahar zones to colonize the new lakes, which eventually, and occasionally catastrophically, break the dams, allowing deepening of the valley until the next slide creates a new dam.

More mature valleys are deep, and the flat land created by the original event remains as a rim wall and occasional mesas, the tops of which are either forested, grass-covered, or bare depending on the average rainfall it receives. The valley is now steeply sloped and its river is permanently channelized, with frequent slides damming, then catastrophically releasing floods which hasten the erosion of the valley walls.

The next lahar event fills these valleys and the massive volume of material forms massive fertile deltas once it escapes the confines of the valley. And, of course, the process begins again.

Any society built in such a valley is, in time, as doomed as Pompei. There may be clues, such as hilltop temples with ruined towns with everything upslope of the lahar zone intact, but everything on the flat valley floor simply gone. Another clue would be massive tree-fall zones with the trunks laid down as if cut like grain, all pointing downstream or forming massive log jams. These would form when a dam catastrophically fails or when a landslide displaces the contents of a lake, causing a wall of water to surge down the valley.

Because such valleys are incredibly fertile, people colonize them. Most of the city of Seattle is built on the deltas formed by many such events, and Mt. Ranier is covered by a glacier, setting the stage for another event which, while globally local, is much more severe than tidal waves. But distant rumblings send wild animals running for high ground while humans look on with wonder, until it's too late to run.

[Nifft]

How big a valley are we talking?


https://i.imgur.com/mRKNLkn.jpg


Some are rather... significant in size.

[Mechalich]

Why is the valley 'very desirable?' Traditionally in pre-industrial society a desirable region was one that had abundant water and high quality soil so that crops could be produced effectively without the need for irrigation. Lack of rocks - which require labor intensive removal - and a mild climate - which allows continuous cropping throughout the year would be bonuses. A region with some specific high-value extractive resource such as gold or sable would trigger an exploitation rush but not a settlement rush.

Additionally, even with a high-value property suddenly available nearby a settlement rush requires external pressure to happen. People are unlikely to move en masse to a new region unless their current one is overcrowded or they have been driven from home by disaster, persecution, or some other factor. For this scenario it probably makes sense to link the mystic event that suddenly makes the valley accessible with the event that causes the subsequent settlement rush. The destruction of one religion by another, which breaches some kind of magical seal or results in the death of some sort of territorial guardian (dragons are good here, so are powerful druids) seems like a strong option.

A secondary, but highly important, consideration is what type of primary vegetation covers your valley? If grassland, it is relatively easy to establish farming (assuming moderately developed plow technologies and effective draft animals) but there will be a lack of building materials and fuel. If forest, construction material and fuel is abundant but extensive clearing is required to establish cropland. If jungle, extensive clearing is required to walk most places, but natural food sources will be significant and the need to rush crop production is therefore reduced.

Also worth considering: is the valley coastal or does it have significant lakes? What are the seafood resources? If there are major rivers do they flood seasonally? These things would have vast impact on development patterns.

Perhaps most importantly of all, from a campaign perspective, is how long do you want the valley to have been open before you dump the players into it. Are they initial scouts? If so they this is basically a campaign into uncharted wilderness. On the other hand, if you want some measure of development and a 'wild west' feel you're probably looking at settlement being some years in the works. You probably also want some sort of relict native population that considers this 'new' land their home. In the first case you can cut off communication back and go with a straightforward wilderness adventure where the goal is to survive and get home. In the second there has to be some regular movement of news and goods back to the homeland, however limited.

[TheStranger]

I think that the PCs shouldn't be among the first people to enter the valley if you want to capture any kind of wild west feel. When I think wild west, I imagine train robberies, vigilantes, shootouts at high noon, lynchings, etc. All of that needs established communities for the PCs to play off. If they're among the first people into the valley, that's a different genre - more like the westward expansion that preceded the wild west. That era had its own drama - Lewis and Clark, the Oregon Trail, the Donner Party, etc., but it was primarily a Man vs. Nature conflict, not the Man vs. Man conflicts that defined the wild west. That's doubly true if you want to avoid any Native American analogues. I'm not saying you can't run a good game in that context, but it's a different game. IMO the really good wild "west stuff" comes after the first setters.

Something you might try as a source for ideas is looking up the history of a specific valley in the western U.S. - understand its geography, why and how it was settled, and how that played out, then map that into a fantasy scenario.

Also, rather than seal the valley off entirely, what about an "unstable wormhole" type of access? Maybe there's a wild magic zone at the pass into the valley that usually makes passage unsafe and teleportation unreliable. Every year or two it opens up enough for a caravan to come through. I'd have that happen at irregular intervals with a couple weeks' notice, but it can also work on a regular schedule. Either way, that lets you set up plot hooks - trade and news with the cities back home, waves of settlers, train robberies, etc. Sufficiently brave, foolish, or desperate individuals might attempt the passage during times when it's unsafe, as well.

[Wasp]

Okay. Thank you very much for the feedback. Good point were raised, especially that it may be a good idea to have some established settlements to fit the Wild West idea. I can see that.

Maybe have like three settlements more at the entrance of the valley and then territory to explore deeper into the valley. On the other hand if it's a gigantic valley we probably could have more settlements and still enough envoronment to map and explore.

Regarding why it's desirable: I was thinking originally about Gold Rush like reasons - maybe there's a lot of some magical metal? But it seems a "gold" rush would lead to settlements that are very dependent on trade with the outside as there would be pots of prospectors with no stable food supply.

The other idea was that a war has ravaged the lands and there's natural desasters and then there are rumors of this fertile valley where it's summer year round.

Regarding vegetation: If it's been without human population for hundreds of years and it's temperate climate with lots of water - it would be difficult to not have a massive forrest in there wouldn't it?

[Lvl 2 Expert]

Regarding vegetation: If it's been without human population for hundreds of years and it's temperate climate with lots of water - it would be difficult to not have a massive forrest in there wouldn't it?

Under ordinary circumstances, true.

Of course, if there is a mammoth herd pushing down all the trees to clear the grassland, or a really bad storm season, or an underground fungus colony that eats large root systems, the absence of a forest would be a good first hint.

[PopeLinus1]

Okay. Thank you very much for the feedback. Good point were raised, especially that it may be a good idea to have some established settlements to fit the Wild West idea. I can see that.

Maybe have like three settlements more at the entrance of the valley and then territory to explore deeper into the valley. On the other hand if it's a gigantic valley we probably could have more settlements and still enough envoronment to map and explore.

Regarding why it's desirable: I was thinking originally about Gold Rush like reasons - maybe there's a lot of some magical metal? But it seems a "gold" rush would lead to settlements that are very dependent on trade with the outside as there would be pots of prospectors with no stable food supply.

The other idea was that a war has ravaged the lands and there's natural desasters and then there are rumors of this fertile valley where it's summer year round.

Regarding vegetation: If it's been without human population for hundreds of years and it's temperate climate with lots of water - it would be difficult to not have a massive forrest in there wouldn't it?


I think there was a movie about a world ravenged by war finding a unspoiled spot... hmm let me do some research.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

I think there was a movie about a world ravenged by war finding a unspoiled spot... hmm let me do some research.

I'm thinking of The Last Valley now, probably not the one you meant.

The Land Before Time? ;p

[TheStranger]

Okay. Thank you very much for the feedback. Good point were raised, especially that it may be a good idea to have some established settlements to fit the Wild West idea. I can see that.

Maybe have like three settlements more at the entrance of the valley and then territory to explore deeper into the valley. On the other hand if it's a gigantic valley we probably could have more settlements and still enough envoronment to map and explore.

Regarding why it's desirable: I was thinking originally about Gold Rush like reasons - maybe there's a lot of some magical metal? But it seems a "gold" rush would lead to settlements that are very dependent on trade with the outside as there would be pots of prospectors with no stable food supply.

The other idea was that a war has ravaged the lands and there's natural desasters and then there are rumors of this fertile valley where it's summer year round.

Regarding vegetation: If it's been without human population for hundreds of years and it's temperate climate with lots of water - it would be difficult to not have a massive forrest in there wouldn't it?

For settlements, I would expect a larger city (relative to other settlements in the valley, at least) near the entrance. People would naturally want to congregate there to trade with anybody who enters the valley. Think 1850s San Francisco - it's a place where new arrivals get separated from whatever money they brought with them, and also the place where anybody with money goes to spend it. Even if access is cut off later, that's still going to be the first large city, and it'll take a while for some other settlement to catch up. From there, you'll have a network of smaller settlements at reasonable intervals, with larger towns anywhere that has something worthwhile - mines, particularly fertile soil, whatever.

I'd say that what makes the valley desirable depends on what type of game you want to run. There's nothing wrong with a gold rush - you're right that trade is part of that, but trade is a major factor in a lot of real and fictional places and provides good plot hooks. And if access is cut off or unreliable, there's a built-in source of tension. Whereas if the valley is completely self-sufficient, it almost doesn't matter if it's cut off because everything you need is there. On the other hand, if you have a "refuge" scenario, that's likely to be more about preventing whatever you're fleeing from catching up to you - the settlers might even be the ones to cut off access in that case.

Yes, almost anywhere with deep soil and adequate rainfall will be forested, with the exception of wet meadows. However, there are also many fertile valleys in the western U.S. that were (probably) never forested, because precipitation in the West is very elevation-dependent and seasonal. Many valleys actually get little rain, but have rivers that are fed by snowmelt from the mountains. In that case, you would have a valley that was sparsely forested but still had plenty of water for farming and was very attractive for settlers. The San Joaquin Valley is a good example of that. By contrast, the Willamette Valley is an example of a valley that would be densely forested as the result of higher rainfall.