How Much Time/Work a Sandbox Requires

Working on the north west region of the Lake Kalji is opening my mind to how much actual work a sandbox requires. I now know the reason I wasn't able to go ahead with Yaqqothl from this map: it's too damn big! I think Lake Kalji is somewhere around hex 1912 in the above-mentioned campaign map. Thus, I want to use this post to show you how I'm approaching this very small 10 by 15 hexes region.

1. I drew the map. I knew I wanted something relatively small, with a lot of terrain variety but somehow plausible. Then I rolled on my Random Sandbox Stocking Tables, and adjusted some results in order to have the whole thing make a little more sense. Thus, step one done.
2. I thought a little about house rules, and wrote down some notes. This way I have a much clearer idea of how the game is going to look like, and that's definitely a good point.
3. Then wilderness encounter tables. I'm growing more and more convinced that Zak is right: if you define the setting using only a few sentences and some encounter tables, this will not only tell your readers more than a thousand words on the topic, but also gives you the ability to avoid wasted work.
4. This is what I have to do now: take each hot spot and flesh it out. I mean, maps, tables and keys for dungeons, sketches and again encounter tables for cities, rumor tables and so on. Once this has been done, I'll have much material to show and use. Still, it's likely that I'll have to improvise often – but this is half the fun DMing a sandbox, right?

The first three points took me a day and a half, or about 5-6 hours of work I think. I guess the last point might take about 3-times that amount of time, for a total of 20 hours of work or so. Although I have a Megadungeon in it, so this may change things a bit if you plan not to have one. Now you get two amazing pictures from Moebius, for no reason except the fact that I was undecided about which one use for the new header (you can see the winning one above.)

Shot the dino!

Thousands of weird creatures!