Grützi
Another thing I think might help a bit is to get a rough outline of the geography of the Region together. It always helps me immensly if I have a halfway clear picture in my head.
We want a small regional hexcrawl with lots of exploration, an ancient civilization, some ancient menance, the conglomerate, the exiles, mountains ... and a lot more
Depending on where we place the different factions and part of the geography, the playstyle and rate of exploration might significantly change.
Brown - mountain ranges.
Blue - Exile culture, bandits, outcasts
Red - Conglomerate
Green - Frogmen and other natives
Orange - Ancient civilization, ruins, emerging alien menance
The arrows indicate which way the factions are expanding, the 3 black stars are our starting locations.
In the circle plateau contact between Exiles and conglomerate will be later, after each of them has met the natives and the ancient ruins.
with the barrier contact with the conglomerate might be much earlier and both sides might encounter the alien ruins together (forcing an enemy mine situation)
Tremble before my awesome paint mapping skills
Edit:
The layout also significantly changes the history between the conglomerate and the Exile culture (and the cutures they come from).
Cirlce Plateau: The conglomerate and the exiles likely never had any contact prior to the plot. So neither side has direct knowledge of each other.
Barrier: As they come from roughly the same side on the same continent the conglomerate and the exiles culture likely know of each other and have informations pertaining to the other.
Peninsula: Everything is open here. While the exiles come from the land to the north behind the mountains, the conglomerate could be from another continent or just from another land near the exiles parent culture. The ocean allows for more freedom here
The1True-
The Barrier's cool, because it allows for expansion. I like that there are exits for some of the Exiles to harass more civilized lands from their hidden mountain fastnesses. Maybe place one of the Exile starting points a little deeper into the wastes? Ancient ruins, I thought were overlapping everything in the area? Or is that the currently known extent of ruined/blighted lands? I like the placement of NPC's cultures on the Barrier map as well.
Are you doing all three starting points Grutzi?
Grützi-
I also like the Barrier for the implied lands that are just outside of the maps border. This way we have an easy in/out for new factions or tired parties.
With the circled plateau everything that happens has to happen inside the circle.
The orange area is the "active" ancient civilization when it's awakening ... or the emerging evil.
So while the whole area is dotted with ancient ruins, the old owners (or their enemies or whatever) expand from the orange area.
I would only do one starting location. I think our adventure/setting would benefit more if different people do the starting locations. mixes up the preferences and styles a bit (which is one of the big positive points of working like this, thats why I still would love to collaborate with others on my or other locations)
If I alone did all the starting points I fear that my "style" would bleed through too much and make them to similar in a certain sense.
Would seem like a waste of much good potential here to me.
I will post a thread for Task A this evening when I'm home. Write up my current status and open a little brainstorm session. Nothing big, just enough to get people involved and collect some ideas
CommodoreA-
The plateau setting is indeed less expansion-prone, but I actually like that for a sandbox; we're looking at making a limited-scope old school playground, right? There's a reason why that's often an island or mountain-rimmed valley.
DangerousPuhson-
Thoughts thus far:
What I'm seeing is great! Feels like we are making some progress here.
My vote for the geography of the place - I like the plateau idea best. I mean, I hear what True is saying too about having an exit or two (especially in case the players/DM want to take the campaign elsewhere), but a place of exile doesn't seem especially potent if the exiles can just go back, no? So my thought for balancing the concepts would be a place that is easy to dump people onto, but hard to get out of (not impossible, mind you, just hard). A really tall plateau accomplishes that, we just need to think of how everyone got up there (guarded stairs? or what if instead of a plateau, we invert it so it's a massive pit? Just thoughts)