Hello you beautiful people!

I’m Donny M, also known as Mike, and have worked on some homebrew stuff for Mythic Bastionland in the past published on my itch.io page. Today I have the honor of participating in the collaborative Realm project “Woland” for Mythic Bastionland. A big thanks to William for letting me take part. The following post shows my results and some of the process.

Some people have found very inspired ways to create their hexes, but I like to keep it simple (sometimes), so I'll mostly create this area with tools from the book.

Without further ado, introducing my hex ‘flower’ (that looks more like an axe, more on that later):

The Quiet Greens

The Terrain
Starting with standard Realm generation from the books, I rolled 2d12 on the spark tables for terrain. To see how many of those hexes each I get, I rolled a d4 instead of another d12 because I want some diversity but only have seven hexes, not a whole Realm to fill:

• 3 hexes of “Vivid Bog”
• 2 hexes of “Sharp Heath”
• 1 hex of “Sodden Bog”
• the remaining hex is “Still Forest”

I'm ‘building on the shoulders of giants’ here since my region is bordering no less than three other regions that are already established. The Crimson Swamp to the south, Peter's Lowlands to the east and Landfall to the north. Let's connect the bogs I rolled to the south, “Sodden Bog” on the very bottom leading into the Crimson Swamp, “Vivid Bog” above that. The “Still Forest” will be the northernmost hex of my region, bordering Landfall. “Sharp Heaths” go in between those. These will also house the Seer…

The Sanctum
I have a Sanctum in my region, but instead of rolling for it, I'll create my own Seer since everyone else is also trying their best to make Woland unique. I've been talking about my “hex axe” since the hexes don’t exactly form a flower. But since there's a Myth called “The Axe” already, let's give our Seer a different name:

The Hatchet Seer
VIG 9, CLA 12, SPI 15, 5GD
Heavy Hatchets (2d6 hefty, good for throwing)

• A once tall person, whole body wrapped in bandages, missing their limbs save for one arm.
• Sees by throwing hatchets in a dead tree full of marks. The positions they land in are interpreted.
• Wants Knights to make a pilgrimage through the Realm and travel as far and wide as possible.

The Seer's wants fit nicely with Woland since Knights wanting to get a good rep with the Hatchet Seer would have to travel all over the Realm, seeing all the cool stuff others came up with! The inspiration for this Seer came from the “hex axe” thing mentioned earlier.

The rolled spark for the Sanctum is 1-8, a “Blossom Pond”. This pond is in “Sharp Heaths”. Heaths are somewhat dry and acidic regions that still have lots of vegetation and flowers and they can be a bit hilly (according to wikipedia, anyways). So the heaths will be a source of not-so-drinkable but nonetheless running water, of course! 

Right on top of a rugged hill (that we will make a Site below) is a little campsite where the Hatchet Seer dwells, sometimes visited by acolytes, pilgrims, Knights or simple folk that make the arduous journey here to ask the Seer about important events. What looks like a crooked, wooden statue from the distance is actually a large dead tree next to the camp, whittled down and marked by countless clefts left by hatchets that have been thrown into it. The campsite is next to a beautiful pond, filled with all sorts of colorful flowers, frogs, dragonflies, mosquitos and the like that are a little dangerous. It is not completely still however, as it is actually the origin of a stream that sinks into the earth way down south without ever meeting the ocean. 

If the Company has made the climb once before, the Hatchet Seer will let down a rope the Knights can use to reach them more easily via a short climb - at least if the Company was nice. If the Seer is wary or expecting violence, they will throw hatchets from above.

Site - Blossom Pond on Sharp Heaths
I like to keep my Sites very short and concise (unlike my other writing, sorry, haha). Short phrases instead of long prose, similar to spark tables. Ready to be adopted on the fly during play. It’s mostly described above, but let’s formalize it and touch up on details:

The Players will usually enter from the wide heaths (Main Entrance), following along the stream and seeing the hill in the distance. But they may decide to circle around (Secret Entrance), although the old trail there is defunct. The most direct way up the hill would be the waterfall, but most Knights won’t easily traverse it, I presume. So they have to climb up the jagged cliff somewhere next to it, entering on the pond’s edge. If they wade through or circle around the pond uncomfortably close, they can go to the campsite or dead tree. The Hatchet Seer will be at one of the two.

I wanted to place some more landmarks in the Quiet Greens, so I also added a Curse and a Monument:

The Curse
This will be in the “Still Forest”, the northernmost hex. These words alone inspire ideas, so no spark rolls needed. 

Only the furthest reaches of the Silent Woods poke into the Realm of Woland, but it actually stretches far beyond the Realm's western edge. In it, no sound can be heard or made, all noise is swallowed. Communication has to rely on motions and gestures. If a dangerous creature draws near, one hopes to see it before suffering its wrath. The sun and weather can barely be seen through thick treetops, only heavy rain and powerful storms can breach the leaves. 

Feel free to adjust encounters on this hex by using the uncanny silence, but otherwise treat it as a normal Curse (p. 14 of Mythic Bastionland) when travelling through.

The Monument
Somewhere in the “Vivid Bog” sounds good for a Monument. I rolled for it and got 5-6, “Seer Bone Reliquary”. But which Seer? Another roll says 6-9, The Purged Seer. Huh. The Seer that doesn't exist and only has a strange void where it once was. How interesting to confirm that it did in fact exist. Maybe, at least? It wasn't purged completely, at least not from memory. 

Let's say that somewhere in this bog full of life is a tiny chapel, tucked away and forgotten to time. The Purged Seer isn't here, since it is nowhere. But some of its bones, if they even exist, are here as a reliquary, securely locked inside the stone walls of the shrine. Or maybe the walls are empty since no bones exist, who knows. 

It is a very small chapel, seemingly not dedicated to anyone and not big enough to camp in. The chapel is also filled with an eerie silence. But it invites praying on an old bench inside. Doing so in this forgotten former Sanctum will fill Knights not with visions, but with confidence and the will to carry on (restoring their SPI). The Hatchet Seer might remember this place fondly as somewhere a good friend once lived, but not anymore. They will direct Knights down on their luck to visit the place and keep it clean. This Monument is also a silent place, so there seems to be a motif here for this part of Woland!

Closing Words
The region is rich in vegetation, but as it is on the Realm's edges, it is very quiet and isolated, often weirdly so. There is a reason no Holding or known Dwelling is built in this area. So it is often called the Quiet Greens.

Open questions:

• Are there actual bone reliquaries of the Purged Seer? And if so, are those few little bones in the Monument the only remains of the Purged Seer? Maybe there are others. What could one use these for, foul magics perhaps?