Over the last six months or so I’ve been toying with the idea of mapping an old-school fantasy setting. I went another way in the end, that of Irongrave, but while I was dithering I came across some really good ideas for campaign building. Here they are, for your edification and delight.
- Ars Ludi’s West Marches campaign. A different take on the classic sandbox, where you have a large troupe of players who combine into ad-hoc parties, and whose characters are the only adventurers in the region. Pure gold.
- S John Ross’ essay on Mediaeval demographics. Want to know how many taverns your base town has? How many cities your kingdom has? What percentage of the population live in towns? It’s all here.
- Signal GK’s Classic Traveller subsector generators and other tools. (This is here because I had a mad idea about using CT subsectors as a basis for a fantasy map, now discarded.)
- Swords of Minaria’s reavers from the wastelands. An essay on the unexpected importance of nomads in the OD&D wilderness.
- Welsh Piper’s approach to hex-based campaign design and thoughts on how big a monster’s turf ought to be.
Halfway Station 
Hey – just saw this post. Thanks for the linkage.
Just wondering – what’s Irongrave, and will you be sharing the results. I’m always looking for new ways to create settings.
You’re welcome – thanks for the ideas and map templates!
Irongrave is an old school fantasy setting run under the Savage Worlds rules, but aims to recapture the feel of Original D&D. I will be sharing the results (check out the Irongrave category on the blog), but it is also an exercise in a limited palette – just how little background information can I get away with? So far, pretty much all of it, it turns out. 🙂