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At this point, you have the basic geography and physical features of the area designed. Now, you can add monsters and other dangerous threats to menace the characters. Before you start adding monsters to an area, first look at the settlements you created for the region. Armed patrols, particularly in areas wracked with frequent border skirmishes, could be a continuing menace. An evil wizard who rules a small barony might have orcs and ogres in his employ. Those beasts watch over his roads and extract a steep toll from any travelers who use them. A band of elves might seek to expel any- one who enters their forests, while the moun- tains controlled by a dwarf clan might be heav- ily patrolled.

After deciding on the threats posed by civiliza- tion, read the chapter that corresponds to the terrain you are using. Each section has a dis- cussion on the monsters normally found within it, based on the environment entry for monsters from the core rules. Use those as inspiration for your campaign, though these descriptions are by no means canonical. This is a fantasy game.

If you want to use kobolds in the desert or orcs in a forest, don’t let the rules hold you back. Make a list of the monsters that you want to use.

Roles for Monsters

After deciding on your cast of threats, you should look at how they fit together. Sometimes, you can ignore any concerns about ecology and geography in favor of setting up encounters appropriate to the party’s level. If realism is not a big part of the campaign or if the wilderness area serves as the location for only one or two adventures, you do not need to spend much time giving every monster a sensi- ble role in the wilderness. The characters will spend too little time there for such details to play a role in the game. Otherwise, for areas that will host multiple adventures or a large portion of a campaign, putting some thought into how the monsters fit together can help cre- ate a believable environment.

The easiest way to organize monsters in the area is to assign them to different roles. Listed below are a few basic spots that a creature can occupy in an ecosystem.

Each of the roles has a relationship with the others listed here. Predators need prey to hunt and eat, while intelligent humanoids need space between their settlements to prevent overt conflicts.

Think of these roles as basic classes for mon- sters and animals. They may give you an idea of their relationship with the land and the other creatures that inhabit an area, but they do not tell the whole story. Use the descriptions given in the terrain chapters as examples and an inspiration for how monsters interact with the environment. Also remember that for intelli- gent creatures, personality and history can go a long way in determining how they act. If the gnomes and elves in a forest have a long rival- ry, they may compete for trade relationships with a nearby human city. In the face of a ris- ing threat, they are slow to form an alliance. An orc tribe led by a powerful cleric of a war god may be more aggressive than normal, while a band of goblins that recently lost a costly war with a dwarf nation might be withdrawn and passive.

Prey: Many of the dangerous monsters, such as

ankhegs or dragons, are meat eaters. They need sufficient numbers and types of animals to hunt and devour to survive. What animals fill this role in the area? Deer, buffalo, birds, and other herbivores usually fill this niche. The greater the variety of predators in a region, the more prey they need to support them. For each mon- strous species, match it up with the animal it hunts. If a single animal type supports multiple species, it probably exists in large numbers. Remember that such creatures need sufficient plants and water to survive, perhaps leading to seasonal hunting cycles and migrations. In an area controlled by a dragon, the wyrm might subsist on great herds of animals that move through the area on a seasonal basis. During the summer, the dragon takes to the sky to hunt. In the winter, it survives on the enormous amounts of food it consumed during the warmer months, it has minions that bring it food from elsewhere, or it spends much of its time in a deep slumber.

Predator: Predators might wander through the

region, attacking prey where they find it. Otherwise, they could claim an area as a per- sonal hunting ground. Any creatures that enter their domain risk an attack, especially if the predator sees them as a potential competitor.

Predators are wild beasts or monsters that rely on instinct and an animal-level intelligence to survive. They are unable to tend crops, keep herds, or plan for their food and water needs. These creatures are likely to attack adventurers because of hunger or to defend their hunting grounds. They rarely stockpile treasure, though valuables might be discovered amongst the remains of their past victims. These creatures become increasingly rare near settlements, as humanoids hunt them down to eliminate the threat they pose to hunters, farmers, and travel- ing merchants. Predators usually exist in much smaller numbers than the prey they hunt. If too many of them gather in one place, they can quickly over-hunt an area and leave it barren.

Settlers: All intelligent species, even savage

orcs and goblins, have a sizable impact on their environment. Intelligent creatures tend to drive away competitors, especially predatory crea- tures, while seeking to control herd beasts and other prey that can prove useful to them. Generally, the only competition they face is from other settlers and intelligent monsters. Communities can exist close together in peace only if they enjoy a political alliance or if they need each other for trade or mutual defense. Towns and villages controlled by different species, especially those that are on opposite sides of the good-evil alignment divide, inevitably clash. Two potential enemies can avoid conflict in areas with abundant supplies and plentiful resources, as they do not need to compete, but such situations are transitory at best. Usually, it makes sense to place one or two days’ travel between groups of humanoids unless you want them to exist in a state of active conflict. The actual physical distance depends on the terrain. In the mountains two settlements could sit close to each other but experience little or no contact, but in the open plains even 30 miles might not be enough dis- tance.

One thing to keep in mind is that some giants and evil humanoids function more like preda- tors than as settlers. They care only for stock- piling food, loot, and other spoils of war. Their settlement might be a crude den established in a cave. While vicious and warlike, they rarely stray far from their hunting grounds unless they run low on food or find an appealing target to strike at, such as a caravan or a newly estab- lished settlement.

CHAPTER TWO: Wilderness Campaigns

CHAPTER TWO: Wilderness Campaigns

Powerful Beings: Many creatures in fantasy

RPGs defy categorization in terms of real- world ecology. Dragons, liches, undead, and other creatures are powerful enough to alter a region’s character by the simple virtue of their might. A single, powerful being operates much like a settlement. It can easily cut down the predators in an area, allowing the population of prey to swell in numbers and support the being with ease. A dragon could burn out the orc vil- lages around its lair, either forcing the humanoids to work as its slaves or driving them away to leave the herds of caribou as its personal food source. These creatures only rarely exist in the same region without coming to blows, as invariably they must compete for resources. Only in the most verdant regions can multiple huge monsters survive within close proximity. Usually they are spaced apart in about the same proportion as humanoid settle- ments, with one or two days’ of travel separat- ing them. These creatures leave an undeniable mark on the land around them. Forests might be burned to ash in some regions by a hunting red dragon, while a gray render could topple trees or leave behind the torn, bloody corpses of its victims.

Regions

After you have determined the monsters that inhabit an area, you need to place them on your map. Note the location of each creature’s prima- ry lair, hunting grounds, or grazing areas. Draw borders around the creatures’ domains to serve as a reminder of where they usually wander. Unlike political boundaries, these borders are very likely to overlap. For example, a predator probably shares space with the creatures it preys upon. Settlers and powerful beings usually live in a town, fortress, tower, or cave. They control (or at least attempt to control) the region around this lair. Predators stake out hunting grounds, while prey usually wanders over a wide area to graze on brush, grass, and other plants. For crea- tures that have a predator-prey relationship, their regions should overlap. As noted above, settlers and powerful beings usually drive away most competitors in the area directly around their lairs. They may seek to control any prey animals that overlap their territory. Settlers might round them up and shepherd them, pro- tecting them from predators and harvesting them for meat, wool, or whatever resources they produce. A powerful being could patrol an extended area to sweep away the predators that threaten its food supply.

Settlers that are in close proximity might com- pete for resources, perhaps going so far as to wage war against one another. The nature of the creatures that settle an area also plays an important role in how they interact with neigh- bors. Chaotic evils raid and pillage to gather food, finished goods, and slaves. Lawful evil ones seek to conquer, forcing their defeated enemies to obey their dictates. Neutral outposts care only for their own needs, attacking neigh- bors if supplies are low or competition threat- ens their survival. Otherwise, they may seek to form an alliance during times of plenty or if a neighbor is clearly more powerful. Good crea- tures prefer to use treaties and trade agreements to keep the peace, though they fight if pro- voked.

Predators generally seek to meet their own food and shelter needs within their hunting grounds. Intruders can expect a fierce attack, but these creatures rarely wander from their chosen territory. During droughts or other times when food runs short, predators expand their territory or migrate to richer hunting grounds. During these times, nearby settle- ments may experience repeated attacks from wild animals. Wolves, orcs, and other monsters may stream from the wilderness in small hordes to throw themselves against the bul- warks of civilization, driven to invade by drought, attacks from even more powerful creatures that seized their hunting grounds, or some other force.

Prey tends to stay the course over time, simply following the seasonal patterns of the plants they eat. A herd may venture from one end of a mountain range to another, exhausting the tough, alpine grass in one spot before moving on to the next grazing land. Physical barriers tend to limit their wanderings, with thick forests, steep peaks, barren wastelands, and other features creating a natural fence. Prey animals are generally those that lack the cun- ning, foresight, or intelligence to make real plans for their development. They tend to react to changing situations, perhaps fleeing an area in response to a forest fire, aggressive hunting, or some other change. Such an alteration in their habits could have severe repercussions for a region, as the predators and settlers that rely on them for food could face rough times.

History

Once you have determined what a monster does in the wilderness and what areas it occu- pies, you can use that information to build a history for the region and to give yourself an idea of its future. Make a few notes on who leads humanoid tribes and the goals of any king- doms that control

parts of the region. A king may order his subjects to push the frontier back in search of new resources, while a frost giant king’s greed might be fired by the gold and ore the nearby dwarves mine from the peaks. Try to define the rela- tionships between settlements and intelligent creatures in terms of their pasts. Unless the area is rife

with barriers that prevent contact, most creatures should have a relationship that developed over

time. Enemies may have fought skirmishes or wars in the past. A town may have been

conquered a few decades ago, with the losers still harboring resentment towards their new overlords. The orc tribes may have spent the past decades licking their wounds since their last raids on civilization, building up a powerful force while the border armies lose their fighting edge. In the years since the last battles, the orcish threat has faded into the background. Even reports from adventurers of increased orc activity are met with disbelief at best, derision at worst.

There are a few basic rules that you can use to quickly create a historical relationship between a settlement and its surroundings. The most important point to keep in mind is that, as noted in the examples above, time tends to cause memories to fade. If a threat has not

menaced an area in a few years, those charged with defending against it might grow lax in their duties. On the other hand, a persistent or recurring danger can consume a lot of energy and resources. If bandits and raiders are com- mon, a town may allow only members of the guard or licensed mercenaries to bear weapons. Villages and settlements may work more like armed camps, with soldiers outnumbering farmers and settlers.

Scarcity breeds competi- tion, which in turn leads to feuds and conflict. Note the resources that a group needs to survive or the ones that it wants to gather. If anything on that list matches its neigh- bors’ goals, then they are likely rivals. Such a rela- tionship does not necessarily mean they engage in open warfare. The two groups could try to lure merchants to their towns to buy and sell goods, offering favorable taxes or trade terms to garner business. The more vital a resource is to survival, such as food or water, the more like- ly groups are to fight over them if they are scarce. For exam- ple, in the desert humanoid tribes might fight wars over an oasis.

History is most important for intelligent crea- tures, but it can prove useful for animals and monsters. Consider how recently a creature has moved into the area. The longer a creature has lived in a place, the more likely that other crea- tures and intelligent inhabitants have adapted to its presence. The locals might know how to best avoid it or they can advise the characters on how to avoid it. On the other hand, a rela- tively new arrival might pose a hidden threat to the area. A new monster can quickly cut into the prey available while using its strange new abilities to confound hunters and overwhelm

CHAPTER TWO: Wilderness Campaigns

CHAPTER TWO: Wilderness Campaigns

competing predators. In a short time, it can quickly change the nature of a region.

Wandering