Creating Random Adventure Location(s)

First, we need a planet to adventure in.... that is, unless you have already spent $$$ on a pre-packaged campaign world like the Forgotten Realms. If you have, then skip this.

If you have not, then we need a realm. I have the bare outline of a world already, called the Savage Realms. It is just enough to get started with. Download it and see if you like it. It is a few years old, but still works well. Notice the map is from Irony Games. Nothing like instant maps to get the creative juices flowing.

I will place our party in area B, the Frontier Lands. Perfect setting for a new party of adventurers.

First, lets generate some terrain. I will generate terrain for are B on the continent map for Savage Realms. Open up Terrain Mage, set it to 1024x768, then, generate a map.  Hit Alt-PrtScrn, and paste the picture into Gimp (open Gimp, and use the File - AcQuire - From Clipboard Menus). You can edit the map in Gimp, then save it as any format you want, or print it.

Here is what I got from Terrain Mage.  I used Gimp to edit out the extra crap & save the map as a .png format image.  Click on the image to see the full size version.

Notice the volcano, the tower, ruins, castle, and other little features. That is PLENTY to keep people occupied for weeks and months without any problems. Not bad for 5 minutes of time.

Now, we need to grab some extra terrain. I want to grab some smaller terrain, for outdoor encounters in our adventure. A quick trip to Irony Games gets me several terrain maps, like this one:

I used the same technique above to make a map using Citymage.  Here is the .png file I saved from Gimp.  I called the city Terlune.  CityMage created 2 maps (a color map and a 'key' map with numbers for each building).  It also created a text file for Terlune that told me what is in each building.

Now that we have a map for an area and a town, we need to populate the area and town.  We will use the TableSmith Town Generator to generate a text file that tells us more about Terlune.  Open Tablesmith, go to the Dominions Catagory, and choose the Town Generator table.  Edit the 5 parameters for your town (I am using Small City), and let er rip!  Here is the output I got for Terlune.

Finally, you can use Gimp to change these maps into .BMP files. The bitmaps can then be edited in dungeon crafter, a tile-based mapping program. You can add all kinds of stuff to the maps using DungeonCrafter, or a similar mapping program like Autorealm.