Conceptualizing the 'Gods & Monsters' Sandbox, Part 2

The next logical step is taking a look at the world of Gods & Monsters and determining what's in it and what could be in it and how this could create a Sandbox game. Godbound works a bit differently from the usual D&D-derived sandbox so a new approach is needed. Fortunately for me, I've never actually ran a 'proper' D&D sandbox so I wouldn't even know what a successful one is like, so I have little pre-conceived notions beyond what I've read on the matter.

Now, a hexmap is pretty much pointless for this because a Godbound with the Word of Journeying renders usual exploration and its dangers meaningless, in so much as the mundane dangers are concerned. Rather, its better for me to focus on the key elements of the map and what they represent.

A crude MS Paint map for concept.

The key regions of the world of Gods & Monsters are:

• The Sweeping Plains: Seemingly-endless expanses of open wilderness under the sky, home to countless nomadic tribes and early river civilizations. They can be steppes, savanna or simple plains, among other things.
• The Forest Primeval: Ancient, shadow-covered and dangerous to human life.
• The Rugged Peaks: Vast, impossibly tall and unforgiving mountains. Possibly at the literal edges of the world.
• The Ocean: Beautiful, mysterious, endless, capricious and terrifying.
• The Trackless Desert: The archetypal harsh environment, where things get lost.
• The Cold North: Much like the desert, it is harsh and unforgiving. The northernmost barrier to the world, the end of exploration, the impossible wall with only mystery beyond it.
• The First City: Yes, it's really that. The first city, the birth of civilization. Possibly center of the world. Think (much) more Babylon than Waterdeep.
• The Underworld: Where dead things go. It is a physical place you can visit.

Each location is (and should be) as archetypal as possible. The Cold North wasn't in the original material, but it seemed fitting enough: to me, it represent many things. It represent cold, the enemy of civilization and agriculture. It represent the last frontier, the unapproachable. It is nothing but snow, ice and eventually gigantic pillars and walls of ice which block any and all attempts of at going beyond them. Mammoth can be found in the are spanning the north of the plains to the valleys between mountains going north. Its an area meant to be the late ice age, akin to what Europe was when we still had great snowstorms covering the land and giant mammoths being hunted by early humans.

These ideas are simplistic and archetypal...but that's exactly the point. As for the actual scope and size of the world, that is a good question. Perhaps this ancient, primordial world is not shaped as other worlds are and does not have a truly solidified concept of 'scale', 'size' or 'distance': that way the world is always big enough for whatever I'd need to place in a region. Could mortal minds even wrap themselves around such an idea? Probably not, but this is not a world where logic or reason dominate: only concepts and archetypes.

What each region will need:

• Plot hooks and NPC
• Suitably mythical monsters.
• Ideas on how to make everything fit the theme of the region.
• Tables to generate the tribes living in those locales, such as their culture and organization as well as some oddities and supernatural elements to them, reflecting the strange and allegorical setting.

There is still much work to be done, but the concept is evolving quite well.