Hexroll, an online random hexcrawl sandbox generator
Wyvern
🖼️ 226 images Mapmaker
A colleague on one of my Discords pointed me towards the Hexroll random hex-map generator this evening. It generates a VAST amount of information besides a nice little hexmap - including dungeon plans - along with contents, settlements, factions, nations, etc. The info is all essentially designed around the Basic/Experienced version of D&D from back in the late 70s-early 80s, but those will convert pretty easily to most Old School Rule role-playing game systems, and many may simply find it useful for the maps and ideas alone.
You can download a zip file of whatever the system generates, but that opens in the form of a couple of HTML files, and all the images in WEBP format, which would need converting to JPGs if you wanted to import them into CC3+ for trace-copying, say, though you can always copy the images from the HTML to an image processor of your choice and save them from there in your preferred format, of course.
I tried doing a print to PDF of one random hexcrawl it had created, but that threatened to run to 360+ A4 pages, so I decided against it!
The maps are greyscale, although there is an experimental option to add hints of colour, which is OK, but looks rather washed-out. That does highlight the sea/coasts a little better, however.
Much like the Watabou generators, there's a Patreon if you want to support the creator, and it looks as if development, which began in 2021, remains ongoing. You can find out more on the creator's Pen, Dice & Paper homepage.
Comments
Irvanview can convert Webp format to anything.
I used it recently.
Yeah, there are a few free online WEBP converters as well. I have one bookmarked for easy use!
A quick run through of the YouTube videos for this (they're all VERY short!) suggests the idea is to use whatever's generated with a tablet to actually run games. There are plans to make the dungeon maps SVG format too and to add fog-of-war options for showing/hiding areas.
Perhaps of greatest interest is that the hexmaps are in development for zooming-in to show features like maps of settlements (which are generated by - go on, guess - Watabou!). This should indeed enhance using such a system for online/computer use.
That is exeptionally cool! For the OSR style of game perfect.