Sandplot by the way is an excellent turn of phrase. Don’t know if it’s yours or not but I like it! It’s the Other Impossible Thing Before Breakfast, right?

For the record, here’s what that prep looked like last night:

* Reread Stay on the Path in Tales from Wilderland. Rewrite it as a one page outline, including the key conflicts but stripping out all the bullshit special-case rules. Underline NPCs for future reference.

* Reread year 2947 in Darkening of Mirkwood. Add that to my outline. Underline other NPCs. 

* In sidebar, note possible new Sanctuaries (there are tons of them, between Darkening and Tales). Pass back through Heart of the Wild for each region through which the PCs will pass. Add more NPCs to my list of maybes.

(At this point it’s feeling like the more interesting “sandplot” isn’t the map features they may run into, it’s the NPCs they may run into.)

* Oh hey, Path ends at Forest Gate, which is the correct side of Mirkwood to continue south with the NPCs to Woodland Hall, where all the important 2947 action takes place. Not sure if this is brilliant design by Hanrahan but whatever, I’ll take it. Make a note and read ahead to 2948 for possible implications.

* Look back at Heart one last time, but now at the second journey the PCs might take if they head south to Woodsmen territory after crossing Mirkwood. That is my only real possibly-wasted research time, if they give no shits about heading south. But if that happens, that means the first few years of Darkening won’t matter at all to them since it’s all in the southern half of the map.

And that’s kind of it for now. 

I feel like if I can keep ahead by a year or two, at most, that’s all I really need to do. I’ve already read through Darkening so I get the general shape of the action. I’ve read Tales so I get the general shape of that action. Really, keeping ahead of their journeys and brushing up on Heart content is the only hard part.

I fear this is probably too much prep work for the long term. Ara Kooser, you said you tore down the TOR campaign content for your own purposes, too, right? What are you doing different? Where can I be saving or maximizing effort?