The iron is hot

So my West Marches game is going really well these days with the influx of some new players (especially Justin, who ran the old Vaults of Ur game I used to play in and post about a few years back). And that's been giving me the impetus to get more areas of the map keyed.

Just this week, I've keyed about 25 new hexes. Not all of them have encounters, of course, and some are fairly simple encounters. But those hexes are two different regions, and each has a small dungeon in it. One of the dungeons is finished and ready to go. The other is a bit bigger and more complex, and I drew the map myself rather than repurposing someone else's map (which I often do, including for the smaller dungeon I did this week).

I finished up drawing the map for the larger dungeon today, and I've got ideas for most of the rooms in which I plan to place encounters. There are 33 rooms, so by the old BX/BECMI stocking table, there should be around 11 monster encounters, 11 empty rooms, and the other rooms split between traps/hazards and specials (5 and 6, we'll see how it goes). I know at least one special will be a monster encounter with WAY overpowered opponents who are not hostile (at least at first...if the PCs press their buttons, it's another matter).

Anyway, it has been a while since I'd keyed new areas on the map. I'm up to about 1/3 of the 520 or so hexes keyed, with about 1/6 explored by the party. They've been sticking fairly close to town recently, so it's not like it's pressing to get more areas keyed at the moment, but since I've got the inspiration to do it now, might as well!