Insect Crawl | Procedural Method for Insect Colony Point Crawl

Update: When this blog was young, the below was posted as a blog ‘page’ and not as a blog ‘post’. I’ve deleted the ‘page’ and prefer to keep it on my blog as a blog post.

A template can be downloaded from here

This template is designed as a ‘point crawl’. The chambers and passages can be any shape or size, may go up, down or undulate.  The map can be imagined as seen from above (e.g. Example 1) or from the side, in profile (e.g. Example 2).

Method:

It should be fairly self explanatory from the template alone, but just for completeness:

(i) Template
Start with the template below (i.e. the colony has an entrance level + 4 Zones)

(ii) No. Chambers
Roll number of chambers in each Zone. The idea being that the monsters get tougher in the later zones.

(iii) No. Passages
Roll number of passages connecting the chambers, i.e. = No. of chambers + D5

(iv) No. Concealed Entrances
Roll number passageway entrances which are concealed (D12-10, i.e. uncommon)

(v) Join up the Dots
Join up the chambers using the number of passages

Colony Template

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Example 1 – Riverbank Giant Ant Colony (above view):

The ‘faded’ circles are chamber not used from the template (e.g. Zone 2 only has 3 out the possible 5 chambers). These could be Tippexed out, or ignored.  Please also ignore the L and N, these are artefacts left over from another project! If you must know, these are where the colony connected to other systems.

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Example 2 – Mound Giant Ant Colony (side view)
Note – This is the same as Example 1, but showing a different arranging of passages

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Example 3 – Giant clay wasp nest clinging high up on a cave wall (side view)
Note – This example generated fewer chambers and one concealed entrance (shown in green)

Suggestions

:: Don’t get too hung up on the procedural ‘rules’, nothing will get broken
:: Start by making a path from the entrance to the Queen
:: Don’t make a path to the Queen that is a straight line (… boring!)
:: Don’t make it necessary to pass through every room to get to the Queen (… a drag)
:: Ensure there is more than one path that leads to the Queen (… more interesting)
:: Ensure the shortest path to the queen is not too long or too short – aim for 5 to 7 chambers

Random Encounters

The above is an off-shoot from a more complicated (probably a too complicated) project. If people are interested, then I’ll add some random tables!

Edit: For now you could use this Excel sheet to generate random encounters: Link
Preview: