Generating some ghost towns

This post on Elfmaids & Octopi was perfect for an upcoming Gothic game. I was able to quickly generate a couple of abandoned villages to add to the hex map. There was one bit of method that I added which might be useful, though.

After rolling up the number of buildings and any extra features, I grabbed that many d6s plus some other shapes for the features. Dropping them all onto a piece of paper, I then traced them, but didn't hold them down. As the pencil moved them a bit some nice organic/ruined shapes appeared, plus a door naturally suggested itself wherever the lines didn't match back up properly.

Recording the number on the die also notes the building's condition based on the second table.

I took some photos of the process the second time around. It made a perfectly serviceable creepy little hamlet with a single, well-telegraphed encounter (a screaming wight).

Five buildings and a graveyard (d12).

Traced and numbered.

Noting the other effects of the tables, and generated a name. 

The two houses flanking the graveyard were "Hidden crumbling ruins are overgrown with trees and creepers", so added some trees.

The cursed item is going to be a weirdly heavy and still-warm dead owl that drags down encounter table results.

Here's one more larger village that was generated the same way, but I didn't take photos. The generated name, Kilocthwaite, lined up really well with the existing features. Added the water, docks, and well afterwards just based on the position of the buildings.

This has a cannibal, Lucy Gaur, living in the distant southern house, probably aware of the dangers in the village proper. Some wild dogs have moved into the open smithy but are only there to sleep during the day, and hunt the woods around at night.

At night the toad-creature in the well emerges and creeps about town - this is the vengeance sent by the gods of the murdered woodwoses displaced by the village. What appears as draped spider webs everywhere is really its dried slime. (I'll probably just use a red slaad for stats.)

Anyway each of these took less than 10 minutes!