When I started my game nearly 2 years ago now (yikes, how time flies!) I set up a quick 'test dungeon' as a splash page, complete with TEST DUNGEON written in dripping blood on the floor... spooky right?! The aim was to allow my group of entirely new players to play around with their tokens, learn how to move and interact with the map. I set up some basic macros to allow them to get the feel for how they would attack and respond to my every whim and occasionally logged in to throw down a huge token of a dragon... just to scare them. It was a lot of fun. Sadly I no longer have that image, cleared it out long ago... looked nice though (I used the wiki tutorial on creating maps in GIMP to produce it and was very happy with the result for one of my first ever custom maps). Once the main story got underway I quickly evolved to a more traditional splash page which helped keep track of pertinent information: The players had tokens available for any rolls or testing they wanted to do. There was a place to record the plot based information the party had uncovered so far. A world region map to track where they were in the realms (this could be easily replaced with other regions as needed). A larger 'local' map which tracked where they were in the immediate area (again, easily changed depending on their location). To the right was an area that began to map out the hierarchy of the foes they were facing, leading up to the elusive and mysterious 'Master' who remains to this day an unknown quantity. Finally the 'valorous deeds' of the party was recorded here, effectively this tracked their reputation in the immediate area, and potentially the wider world and was used for various things such as bonuses to rolls and discount in shops. But eventually the story became too rich and complex to be summarised in a single page, or at least one that could be made sense of with any normal level of zoom. As the players had become stewards of an island by that point I decided to make the splash page a large overview of their island, complete with the various building projects they were undertaking to populate and defend the island, this is backed up by a formula heavy island management google sheet which determines the monthly profit derived from the island which they can then reinvest in development via regular sending spells thanks to a very trustworthy series of NPC's they drafted in while they were off adventuring and saving the world: Giant's Tear is a large island that sits in the mouth of a huge river that effectively feeds the rest of the kingdom's trade routes and the wider world beyond their borders. Having been seized by Pirates a few years back and the current owner of the only keep on the island, a lazy and embarrassed Baron, failing to recover it the party eventually freed it from the pirates and were awarded stewardship of the island by the King. Given a small boon with which to trigger some development of the island they have now begun building a number of civil and military projects which have swelled the islands populated to nearly 400 at present with many more to come. This map allows them to log in and see how things are going as well as plan for the next phase of the development. As the bard has been going out of his way to goad the goddess of storms and sea travel the island recently came under attack by crabs from the depths as well as some particularly nasty aquatic outsiders... what a shame the very powerful party was off in the Feywild at the time and were unable to come and help defend the various ports... lives were lost, lessons were learned. My overall hope is that this island will eventually become developed enough that the party will wonder why they need to be under the control of a lesser King and strike out on their own, probably with a large, well trained, army at their backs ;) Of course no summary of my game would be complete with the money shot of an action scene, I make HEAVY use of the marketplace maps available which I then scene dress however I need to for the situation they find themselves in, after assisting in leading an army of goodly folk against a marauding horde of savage mountain orcs the party found themselves confronting the orc boss and his entourage who had courageously fled into the woods: They won... Sorry, I don't get to talk about my game to outsiders often!
