Wrapping Up Worldbuilding For “The Rotten”

In one final session that took three hours (which is two more than I hoped it would take and one more than I expected it to take), we wrapped up our game of The Quiet Year with a much more detailed map than we started with and an idea of what the world looked like after that year of relative peace. We’ve got a fully underground society, a mysterious Labyrinth that defies mapping and contains seemingly limitless treasure, and a yearly pass of horrific monsters that will kill or infect any being unfortunate enough to be caught outside by their organized sweep with The Rot. It was a lot of cool stuff that has left the group in a situation where they’re well-off as adventurers but maybe not super well-off as a society. Sure, they’ve got a decent amount of food and livestock, not to mention more water than they could need, but their population isn’t super big and they only have enough food because their population is small. There’ll be a lot of problems facing this community thirty years down the road, when we start up the Dungeons and Dragons campaign side of things, but I think it’s well-within the group’s ability to handle them or die trying. Not sure which is more likely at this point, given that I’m starting them at level one and this world’s rough on characters of all levels, but I’m interested to find out!

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