This page gives some general guidelines, suggestions and considerations or the building of your island for the use in a game such as I did in my "Island Game".

A second consideration will have to be the climate of your island. The climate and relative latitude will be a determining factor of a great many things. It will determine the types of animals and plants which will be present. It will greatly effect the amount and type of precipitation. It will effect the mobility and survival of the islands inhabitants. It will effect the types of structures and shelters that will be appropriate to be build. If the island is too far from the equator, it will have harsh winters. Characters will die and be crippled by cold. For three moths of the year you can expect that everybody will lock themselves up around a fire and do nothing. Even worse, races which live in or are dependent upon swamps will find them frozen solid. Placing your island too near the equator may take some of the fun out of it. In tropical climates, real shelters and even clothing become practically unnecessary most of the time. Too much heat can be a problem, but nothing a nice swim won't fix. Basically you should choose the climate of your island based upon how much of your game you want to be "man vs nature". Large enough islands can have slightly differing climates at the northern and southern halves. The island I made was subtropical with a somewhat warmer southern half as you might find north of the Tropic of Cancer

One very important factor for adventures and campaigns which take place in the wilderness is the weather. In a situation like the Island Game, it's even more so. Taking the care to well represent weather conditions can make quite an impact. Like all things in the island game I recommend using random rolls to determine this. I also recommend rolling up each day a week in advance so that you have an idea what's to come and such that characters who might have insight into weather may have fair warning of conditions which are likley. Presented here is a simple table I have made to do weather. Note that it assumes a particular type of climate.

The next thing you'll have to decide upon are topographical elements. I suggest as diverse a selection as possible. This is particularly so if your groups are very racially diverse. No dwarf wants to be stuck on an island without mountains, nor would a bullywug like to be on one without swamps. You might even be better off my making several small to medium sized areas of each typography. What follows is a list of major features to include.

Beach- This one is easy, your on an island, most of the shore will be sandy beach.

Bays- These are formed naturally based upon the curves, dips, sways of the coast.

Peninsulas- These too are formed naturally by coastline that juts out farther than normal into the sea.

Standing water- These are generally lakes, ponds, etc. that form from precipitation falling and collecting in relatively permanent resting places. I recommend that you make large lakes permanent map features that you put in yourself, and leave small bodies of water to random encounters.

Flowing water- Running water flows down from high topography to low topography. Thus practically all rivers and streams are fresh water from precipitation that flows down till it eventually drains into a lake, pond, fisher in the earth or the sea. In large land masses, precipitation soaks into the earth and forms "the water table" which occasionally is the source of flowing water which can literally just seem to flow from the earth itself. Lastly it is possible for salt water to flow into land where that land is lower than sea level. This however tends to fill up quickly and become part of the sea itself. Keep in mind that upon an island, the water table above sea level will not be to great, nor will there be consistent thaw that feeds large rivers that flow with great quantities of water. I suggest that you have a few smaller rivers that flow relatively shallow and slowly that are on your map, and leave small streams to random encounter tables.

Plains- This is your land which is grass land, being somewhat wooded, but for the most part flat and not nearly as over grown as woods, jungle and forest.

Woods/Forest/Jungle- These are simply different terms for the same thing (based much on climate). These are areas where wild plant growth has claimed the land. Wild growth such as this tends to be one of the more common types of typography.

Swamp- Swamps tend to form in lowlands where water from precipitation tends to collect, yet there is much more wild growrth than a simple lake. Swamps tend to be a gloomy mix of wood and wetland.

Mountains- Mountains are formed by two processes. The first of which is collision of tectonic plates which thrust the end of one or both plates high up. The second is through volcanism where by magma from the earths mantle breaches the crust, pours through and solidifies into land mass. Due to the very nature of an island, the mountain is the focal point which has raised the island, and will likely be it's center as well. Volcanism is likely to produce a single volcanic cone. The collision of tectonic plates is likely to create a mountain range. Odds are if you have an island, it's center is the mountain.

Hills- Hills are elevated plots of land not nearly as high as mountains. They tend to be far less composed of rock, and have more plant life upon them. Hills are often found "leading up to" mountains. They tend to surround them, created by the same geological event.

Something you might want to consider at this point is geological activity. If you have a mountain range upon your island formed by colliding tectonic plates, those mountains are a fault line. They will occasionally grind and slip causing earthquakes. Because the crust of one or more plates have collided to push up more highly than normal, it is possible that there be some seeping of materials from the mantle to the surface. This can be anything from hot gas vents to magma actually spewing out in places. Islands which are the result of volcanoes will be in one of 2 stages, and are likely not directly on fault lines. Active volcanoes are those that are still "open", and occasionally vent, spew or erupt. An erupting volcano is a truly awful thing for anybody on the island. Dormant volcanoes are those which are "closed" and "dead". They are little more than hulks of dried magma/lava. From these you can expect no activity at all.

Now it is time to decide on the medium upon which your map will appear. I see really only two options. The first is the traditional paper and pencil method. This requites far less technical competence, yet also lacks many of the frills that come with the other method. This second method is a computer image. I personally used BPM format because it was easily opened and altered in any graphics program I cared to use. The disadvantage to a computer image as a map is that if your not going to play where a computer is, you have to print it out, and then it's no more than a "paper and pencil" type map. What I really liked about using the computer image was the ease of altering and editing the map. I also liked being able to make notations and color things differently to denote zones and such, and then to simply save it as a new file, keeping the original map in original condition. Another neat thing I did was set the scale of my map such that 1 square mile was represented by a single pixel. I simply made a red pixel where my groups were. If the groups moved however many miles in a particular direction, I just counted it off with the pixels and changed which one was red. In this way the measuring of distance is far more accurate than with traditional paper and pencil. Lastly, when groups had explored large sections of the island, I simply pulled up the image and erased all the map that they had not seen, printed out their explored area, and there they had it, their map. There are two general ways of making a computer image map. First you can simply open up most graphics programs and simply start drawing away, or you can draw and color a map with colored pencils and pen and scan it in as a computer image with a scanner. If you don't have a scanner, most copy centers and other such places that cater to business people will do it for a buck or so.

Now we move on to things a bit more difficult and demanding. This is where we start to put "things" onto the island beyond large scale typography. The most obvious will be smaller scale typography such as ponds, streams, brooks, and any other sort of natural features you might like such as small volcanic vents, sink holes, quick sand or other such things. Write these down on a list and keep it for later reference. Put a lot of time thinking about all the things you might like. Doing some researching like watching television, reading books or surfing the web for material like this could be a good source for inspiration for you. Once that is done, the method of "placing" these "things" on the map will not be a matter of editing your map, but their inclusion on random encounter tables when we make them later.

Next were going to consider inhabiting your island with basic "filler" plants. This you can do by considering your climate, and doing some research about basic and common types of trees, grasses, bushes, flowers and other plants which can be assumed to be nearly everywhere upon your island. These won't be on your tables because there literally everywhere. Because there so common you might want to get some information on them, and perhaps even pictures to make things more descriptive. You'll need to know some things about them, because they will most likely be your groups most logical starting natural resources. Players will, burn, build from, wear, and sleep on them. Depending on when you are reading this, the "reference material" section of my page might well contain some.

Now we go back to making our encounter lists. Let's start with plants. The most obvious "encounter table type" of plants we will want to make list of are food plants. Making as comprehensive a list as is possible of fruit, vegetable and grain plants that are consistent with your climate is a good start and will provide for a variety which will make your game interesting. Next start thinking about plants with medicinal value and add those as well. Now, what about plants like cotton used in making of textiles. Other plants like hemp are also invaluable due to products like rope which are made from them. Tallow trees provide a wax which is used for candles. Take time thinking of all the things that may have to be made by your groups, then consider their natural sources. Now you can see how demanding of a task it will be to compile a list of any plant that will be useful to your groups. My "reference material" section and later table examples may prove a great starting point for you, but even I am human and have most likely missed obvious things you will think of. Also there is no better substitute for understanding the process of what this game is all about than asking yourself and researching, "where the hell does _____ come from".

Now comes time to put animals onto your island. This too will be done at this point by making a list of them. First you might think of the obvious food type of animals like cows, pigs, deer, chickens and the like. Also the other less friendly animals like wolves, bears, and other such challenging animals. There are of course riding animals and beasts of burden. Don't forget to consider fish and crustaceans in both surrounding salty sea water and fresh lake and river water. Consider all types of birds. Get rodents, reptiles and amphibians too. I can't recommend highly enough that you spend real time researching all sorts of animals to include on this list. Look through all sorts of books that talk about wildlife to find obvious varieties you may have over looked, and new ones you think would be neat.

Now we get to some other decisions you will have to make. The first one is "Are there other intelligent beings on the island?". If there are, are they simply intelligent monsters, or do they have their own civilizations. I personally had semi intelligent monsters and a blue dragon in the mountains that didn't get involved in anything but was said to guard some important place. If there are other groups of intelligent monsters, you will want to consider what their civilization is like and where it is. If there is no civilization currently, you will want to consider if there ever has been any, and what they might have left behind for current groups to find.. With that said, we can start the making of a list of monsters you want to inhabit your island. Also if there was a past civilization, a list of things that might randomly be found from them.

Lastly I strongly suggest you either adopt an existing, or create your own calendar. The island game tends to be a long term game where the passage of time is important. Having this framework will better enable the record keeping of seasons and projects the groups undertake.

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