Albyon Absey's Geographical Almanac

Albyon Absey's Geographical Almanac

      Looking to take your players into a new realm in your ttrpg game but have little to no time to prep? Reusing a map but want more locations to add to it? Players use teleportation and you want to control where they pop out? Good News! Albyon Absey’s Geographical Almanac is here to help. This website has what you need for “strange and fantastical locations.” They provide you with all the information you need to drop your players into a place of your choosing and incorporate it into your own ttrpg game. Every month they add another location to their A-Z geographical album. At the time of writing this the website has locations for letters A- V (with some letters missing in between). 

Each location has easy to find and easy to navigate tabs on information such as:

The settings vary from pirate cove, spooky swamps, ships and trading posts. Overall you will find detailed description pieces for each location within easy drop down menus to view each category. There are hooks, npcs and details that are cohesively put together making each location ready for your own table’s adventure. Unique creatures and characters make each place filled with personalities ready for your dm to bring to life with little prep work. There are multiple hours/sessions worth of explorable materials within the website and you can make each location last from one shot to longer campaign frequented locations. 

This website is friendly to new and honed Gms together as there are written in tips to help guide the use of the materials. This includes suggestions on things such as perhaps where the party rests will not be where they wake up, gravitational notes, opportunities to encourage players to seek new feats/abilities/proficiencies based on the location visited and much more. Whether some npcs featured in Albyon Absey’s Almanac are good or evil is up to the Gm running the game and there is still plenty of room to add your own GM flair if you so choose. 

The tables that are available vary. Make sure you have your standard ttrpg dice set with d6, d8, d20 etc. available as each location has their own unique tables. It’s nice to have a variety to pick from on the tables or roll the dice to leave it up to chance. 

The information that is here is geared more towards ttrpgs like D&D and Pathfinder (2E) but the locations are broad enough that you can add them to other systems as well. Some entries even have magical artifacts brought to us by Mowse Brews, giving an illustration and 5e Dnd item card for that specific place. 

Each location is truly unique and will provide a different ttrpg for your table. There are a variety of trading posts (both stationary and moving) but each has something different to offer and provides a solution to give your players a trading/selling/buying option out in the random wilderness. Use these places to create a map of your own or fill them into an existing map to bring more flavor. 

Quick Sentence(s) on the Locations:

A- Astral Pirate Cove, awesome clockwork ships and arcane tides surrounding illuminated islands. Crab Octopi.

B- “fantastical delirium” which translates into a fae-wild circus and a tavern on wheels where anything can be payment.

C- A living octopus within an iceberg with residents upon it. New and frozen take on the old turtle island concept.

D- Gasy swamp lands with a dark Cthulhu horror feel. Small islands and a forgotten god’s prison.

E- Haunted fae doll house within a closed down toy shop. A way to create pediophobia. 

F- Ruins upon a hill with secrets inside. 

H- Two villages with mist in between hiding themselves at the high and low points of the ravine. 

I- Classic tower of monsters with prizes the higher/lower you get. 

J- A wandering titan hosting a trading post within its eye socket.

L- A coastal village with unique sand and flora.

M- Magical mountain with some monstrous plants.

N- Gives Root Vibes. “A flying- log piloted by talking pirate-like squirrels.” An amazing and interesting encounter/place to give to your druid and ranger players.

O- A Giant dragonfly with a trading post attached. 

R- Post apocalyptic vibes of a future tech war from the past. Great way to throw tech at your artificer. 

S- Hamlet where Edgar Allan Poe meets Ravenloft vibe. Prepare for were-creatures.

T- Dry barren land where there is a salt mine filled with spirits and salty skeletons. 

U- Need more fire? Try this demonic volcanic hellscape

V- If your players like sand send them here. Trade post in a perpetual sand storm.

Thoughts from the fox:

I liked that there was simple, easy-to-read text for all the locations and it was understandable language. I like that there was Gm advice, and even how to figure out saving throws based on what edition you are playing and referenced both the 5e Dungeons and Dragons  and the pages for Pathfinder (2E). There were lots of pieces that I enjoyed from the variety of locations. I personally enjoyed the Carnival games for B and particularly liked the descriptive phrases for each location (I liked the one for D). I love the monstrous rare plant tables for location M and their unique take on the dandelion. Some locations, such as U, even bring an added “signs, sounds and smells” tab along with “aspects to consider” for Gms using this setting. The attention to details and the amount of created works make these places great for Gms in need of someplace new to give to their players. 

I do have a few wish list items for the Almanac. I would love to see maps of the areas as that is one prep piece that is difficult to quickly make to fit. I also like that there are stylized/contemporary images to give flavor to each of the NPCs, but character art is another piece that I would love to see for some of these uniquely designed individuals. As a ttrpg person I do completely understand that adding maps and character art can be quite expensive and as this is a free to the public Almanac I get the choice not to have specific maps and NPC portraits. Just note as a Gm you will need to make tokens/character art and maps to fit the locations you use if you are doing digital or non theater of the mind ttrpg.  There is hope for this to possibly happen in the future if there is a crowd-funding campaign if this were to turn into a physical book. The only other small criticism I have is that there are missing letters (G, K, P, Q) and I at first wasn't sure why. Looking back in their discord and Twitter I couldn’t really find out information about why the letters were skipped/missed but I would think it would be safe to assume they will get done at some point as May 2023’s location was the missing I. After talking with the creators behind Albyon Almanac it was simply they published the letter locations they had finished rather than wait to go in alphabetical order, giving them some "freedom to pursue inspiration where ever it landed," which I can fully respect and understand. 

I very much enjoyed Albyon Absey's Geographical Almanac. The variety of locations and  the amount of work that has gone into this website makes it a priceless tool. I love that more locations and more pieces are yet to be added. It is a great starting point for Gms who are looking to send their players to new places beyond the scopes of the officially published places. There are plenty of details to help those playing theatre of the mind to create a wonderful table top experience without requiring hours and hours of prep work. 

The Almanac Team is composed of 12 individuals in a variety of roles with artists, creators, composers and scribes as some of their listed roles. You can get the links to their socials for each of these creatures under the Team’s tab to support their individual content. 

You can also support the Albyon Absey’s Geographical Almanac on their discord (which has a copy of their notes for their A-Z almanac) and you can interact with their sleepy little community. AAGA is also on Twitter, Reddit, Instagram, Facebook, Patron and have a linked tree here and they even have a “Dnd Backgrounds & Beginnings” playlist on Spotify. You can also sign up on patreon for more content, early access and gain access to their special monthly stream.