One day when I was five years old and living on a farm, my mom made a treasure map for me. She used colored pencils and drew fantastical versions of the buildings and small landmarks that made up the farm. She used tea to stain the paper and burned the edges to give it an old worn look and even hid a silver dollar under a rock where the X was.
This was my first ‘adventure’, there were no monsters (unless you really didn’t like guineafowl or horses). It was just exploring and looking at the world with new eyes and a map. I have forever and always since then been incredibly fond of maps. I loved the maps in the beginning of fantasy novels so I could follow along with the protaganists as they traveled. Being able to fill in the maps inside a video game by discovering the region and it’s secrets is consistently entertaining.
Because of this I often make maps for the games I run for my friends. Sometimes using online tools and sometimes sketching them out on paper. The Jaws of the King was one of the latter.
This was my first sketch of the islands that make up the region of Rajjuruvange. I planned all sorts of adventures, items and people for my group to meet. I even applied a hexgrid to the map and had something in every hex, so exploration wasn’t hand waived and made the area feel alive and lived in. During the course of making this content, my mom’s health deteriorated. One thing she was always urging me to do was to write things down and publish them.
In the summer of 2019 she passed away and this is hopefully the first of many books I publish, though perhaps not in the way she was thinking. She always called my miniatures ‘little people’ and didn’t quite grasp the concept of role-playing games. But she always encouraged and inspired me to do things I never thought I could do.
To put it quite simply this book was inspired by my Mom and the power of found family. I hope it brings you joy.
What Inspired “Hexpedition: Jaws of the King”
One day when I was five years old and living on a farm, my mom made a treasure map for me. She used colored pencils and drew fantastical versions of the buildings and small landmarks that made up the farm. She used tea to stain the paper and burned the edges to give it an old worn look and even hid a silver dollar under a rock where the X was.

This was my first ‘adventure’, there were no monsters (unless you really didn’t like guineafowl or horses). It was just exploring and looking at the world with new eyes and a map. I have forever and always since then been incredibly fond of maps. I loved the maps in the beginning of fantasy novels so I could follow along with the protaganists as they traveled. Being able to fill in the maps inside a video game by discovering the region and it’s secrets is consistently entertaining.
Because of this I often make maps for the games I run for my friends. Sometimes using online tools and sometimes sketching them out on paper. The Jaws of the King was one of the latter.
This was my first sketch of the islands that make up the region of Rajjuruvange. I planned all sorts of adventures, items and people for my group to meet. I even applied a hexgrid to the map and had something in every hex, so exploration wasn’t hand waived and made the area feel alive and lived in. During the course of making this content, my mom’s health deteriorated. One thing she was always urging me to do was to write things down and publish them.
In the summer of 2019 she passed away and this is hopefully the first of many books I publish, though perhaps not in the way she was thinking. She always called my miniatures ‘little people’ and didn’t quite grasp the concept of role-playing games. But she always encouraged and inspired me to do things I never thought I could do.
To put it quite simply this book was inspired by my Mom and the power of found family. I hope it brings you joy.
Kindest Regards,
Buckstar