How Domains work in AD&D 1E

 The DMG rules about Domains are frequently unclear.

    This is not surprising since Gygax loved his prose but is a major deficit for enabling the D&D endgoal. Indeed, since D&D started as an add-on to Chainmail and mass combat you can say Domains are the ultimete point. But losing that endgame to incomprehensibility was the first step towards the 3.0 Fighter and beyond where they are just people who hit things well and the Wizard, Clerics and friends were much more versatile and so popular to play.

So many years ago I asked several people over at an internet forum and this is what they determined from a close reading of the rules on DMG pp.93-94. The rules are replicated to the right on the image with a helpful set of images to make sense of them.

1) The player chooses a location in the wilderness to build their Domain. The player nominates what conditions they are looking for and the DM usually says yes. Very surprising the players words that determine the start unless its "totally foreign to the area".

The DM gives them a map of the local area. Here it's a little unclear what the scale is, but the player should be given a unique map. The central 1-mile hex which will contain the stronghold and the surround 6 others. But mapped out to 200 yards a hex, so 7 hexes each comprised of 9 sub-hexes (Top Map).

The DM can make random terrain rolls for each 200 yard hex, but clearly there shouldn't be any prexisting fortresses. Since it's Unihabited terrain, the 1d20 check can only produce fortress. But with 61 hexes per mile, you get three castles in each of them on average, 21 in total and that barely qualify as a wilderness at all. But there is nothing explicitly stopping the DM from doing so and having role-playing encounters about paying tax or independence.

The players will nee to give you a map of the proposed stonghold as well and that's mostly a fiddly look at wall types, buildings, furnishings and traps.

2) The DM makes random monster encounter rolls once for each 200 yard hex to flesh out what is already there prior to the player arriving and what needs to be dealt with. This could also lead to little clusters of independent and inteligence monsters which make for good roleplaying games. What table this check is amde on is not stated but later rolls involve the Unihabited/Wilderness table in Appendix C so we can consider that table to be used here as well.

3) Once the 61 x 7 = 427 hexes have been cleared of threats, construction can start, the players somehow having to organise the movement of men and material without any followers except what they pay for with their dungeon loot to guard. Every week a random monster check is made to see if a monster has wandered into one of the 7 central hexes but no word on whether they are seeking to reoccupy the area as with the larger 1 mile hexes (See Bottom Map for Scale). You can roll the hex or place to your whims.

While this is going on, the players should be going out and exploring the surrounding hexes, which they do on a 1 mile hex basis and are exactly the same as normal. It's not clear if these are allowed to roll for settlements but it's a little easier to imagine bandit strongholds 10 miles from each other away rather than 2000 yards apart. It would be very Wisconsin-scaling of Gygax to imagine a land where there's an inhabited settlement only every 30 miles. In this case, a random monster check is made daily to see what wanders into the hexes that border the yet unclaimed/uncleared hexes and settle down. Potentally reverting it back to wilderness.

This can be detered by "posting and placement of skulls, carcasses etc" to signal to intelligent monsters they aren't welcome. Regular strong patrols "who leave evidence of their passing" and agressivly destroy intruding monsters. And later organised communties with miltia. All very American frontier stuff where the hostile tribes are kept at pay and mixed with Ye Olde English pirates and highwayman strung up in gibbets.

4) Once the Stronghold is made and the 7 hexes cleared part-way through step 3, followers can be rolled and peasants of the player's area and alignment will start to move in. The players still need weekly patrols (or daily visits to different areas) to keep wandering monster rolls to 1 per week from the Uninhabited table. However, another weekly check is made on the Inhabibted table or 3 per week if there is a road going through the Domain. This is how the Domain grows, not by some formula but by ghetting luck on the random monster table becuase lucky rolls are here to settle. It's not clear how they want to settle or how many per hex, but they start from the castle and go out. This means tax and the Stonghold no longer becoems a drain on the party dungeon fund.

This also means the minimum size for a Domain is 3 mile across and you can fit a lot of petty 7 mile lords in a 30 mile campaign hex.

5) Once a Domain has expanded/patrolled to at least 30 miles in radius (See Middle Map), then you only make Inhabited Monster Table rolls and you ignore "all unfavourable ones" except 1 per month. This is a huge amount of territory, 30 mile radius is 2338.3 square miles or 3,407 hexes to clear indivdually not counting the 7 you would have to do on a 200 yard basis. Wizards can't even achieve this, being limited to 20 mile radius. Fighters can go out to a 50 mile radius which puts them in the big leagues with the Dukes of the Holy Roman Empire for territory. All very American frontier.

Hopefully this helps explain some of the tricker wording.