Let’s Make a Hexcrawl Setting

[SnowleopardVK]

[MENTION=55680]Daztur[/MENTION]: Just noticed that on the map itself you seem to have put the warbling coast and saltwood (hexes 01.06 and 01.07) on the spaces for hexes 00.06 and 00.07. Just letting you know.

Anyways...

Hex 04.08: The Plains of Dogtur (And the settlement Dogtur)
(Plains, Settlement)

The long yellow grass of this wide expanse of plains moves lazily in the wind and hides the presence of the multitude of wild dogs that live in the area. The dogs make these plains a dangerous place for most common people, but there are some who have adapted. The nomadic people of the plains live in a mobile village called Dogtur, and capture and train the wild dogs of the plains to serve as hunters, guardians, and faithful companions.

The people of Dogtur only ever remain in one place for a few weeks at a time, picking up their village and moving according to some unknown pattern understood only by the local shamans, though always staying in the same general location, known as the Plains of Dogtur. The do this partly out of a mistrust of outsiders, and anyone not of their home is likely to be met by a ring of posts surrounding their village, each with a guard dog tied to it and warriors standing ready. Those few outsiders who have been allowed in to the town don't often understand why, but describe it as a surprisingly peaceful place for a town with such strong warriors that move about in such dangerous terrain. Most are not granted access a second time however, and some have met their end from this unexpected hostility.

Hooks:
- How do the people of the town decide when to move, and where to go?
- Why are there so many wild dogs here? How do they manage to thrive in a territory that can't possibly be large enough to support their number?
- The people of Dogtur are welcoming you with open arms! This is a rare occasion... What could they possibly want?

 

[Wiseblood]

The Mocking Hills
Hex 04.07

Type: Location

The foothills running through this hex are short but steep, with many areas of scree and sparse vegetation. Because of their steepness, there are a number of areas within it that could be described almost as chasms, intersecting to form a shallow but hard-to-climb maze. More than one traveler has lost his or her way amongst the Mocking Hills, nearly (or actually!) starving to death before escaping.

Some claim that the area is haunted by some sort of malicious beasts that can speak, but others claim this to be mere superstition. Nonetheless, some nearby tribes use a trek through a portion of the Mocking Hills as a test of adulthood, and most of the locals return safely. Despite this, some insist that they heard mocking laughter and/or saw some sort of terrifically ugly quadruped stalking the forlorn hills.

Hooks:

Are the rumored ugly quadrupeds real, and what are they? (Note: The first poster who can identify my answer from the description above gets xps!)
Who are the nearby locals that send their youths into the canyons and gullies of the Mocking Hills, and why do the rumored monsters not molest them?
Might there be lost treasures amongst the hills, lost by travelers or adventurers who did not escape? MIght there be an organization dedicated to seeking such treasures?

I'm not going to peek but I would guess a leucrotta. I wonder if I even spelled that right.

 

[Daztur]

Note: map will be corrected shortly and updated. I’m moving the Giant’s Lake to 7.01 to keep it deep in the mountains and adding some new areas. I’ll update the compilation in a while, it should be up to date except for the last few posts.

Hex 00.06 and Monster Description

Hex:
With Hex 00.06 begins the Ocean of Bitter Regrets which stretches far away to the west. One of the many dangers of this ocean is the great wereshark that swims in it, attacking all shipping that it comes across.

Monster:
In days long past one of the greatest of the Pirate Kings was a storm giant whose pride was only exceeded by his greed. He raided far and wide, adorning his cloud palace with treasure from a dozen nations. On one of his raids he managed to capture a queen of fairy and demanded, as the price of her release, that she grant him a boon. He asked that he be given the strength to smash any ship, even those that sail from the moon and that he become king of all the ocean.

The queen of fairy complied and the Pirate King felt his flesh twist and warp itself into that of a great shark with jaws strong enough to crush any ship. He is now a king indeed, the King of Salt and Brine, but it brings him no pleasure for he can now never return to his lost palace in the clouds and he can keep none of the wealth of any of the ships that he destroys. The King of Salt and Brine can return to his true form but one night a year, the night when he struck his bargain with the queen of fairy, but this but serves to remind him of all that he has lost.

Now he lives only to share his wrath with all he meets, tearing out the hulls of countless ships and tainting the blood of those few who survive his bite with his curse and they become lesser (and non-infectious) weresharks as well. One such unfortunate is Zuc the ogre who now picks through many of the King’s wrecks on the coast of the Ocean of Bitter Regrets.

Hooks:
-How did Zuc the ogre come to be bitten?
-Any other interesting victims (either new weresharks of sunken ships) of the King of Salt and Brine?
-Would killing the King cure his victims of lycanthropy? Is there any way to cure the King himself?
-After the King became a wereshark what happened to his floating cloud palace (the one with all the treasure in it)?
-What does the King do for his one night a year in storm giant form?

Hex 11.01
The Goblins of the Mountain Woods

Wherever there is an oak tree there is sure to be a goblin, but the most well-known of the goblin tribes of these lands is the Zoar Rajak of the Grey Mountains. They live in a wooded valley high in the mountains and seldom venture into the lands below, except of course to plant acorns in the surrounding areas, but instead live in hollows among the roots of their beloved oak trees. The goblins greatly pity those among them who become separated from their valley, such as poor Shep the goblin who lives at Uncle Bertie's Trading Post.

Although goblins are thin and stunted and do not seem to be dangerous opponents, enemies who venture into their home valley will find the forest itself ranged against them, branches will whip at their faces, roots will trip them and their feet will always find unexpected holes.

The Zoar Rajak do not allow outsiders within their valley, but have been known to deal fairly with humans beyond it, rumors of maidens having their throats slit so that their blood may nourish growing oak trees notwithstanding.

The goblins are not used to taking orders from anyone but all of them will listen to a powerful (or mad or mad and powerful) shaman whose mistletoe-shrouded oak grows far above the rest and has somehow survived multiple lightning strikes. But these days the goblins, even their shaman, are at their wits end. A great oak blight has entered the valley, causing great suffering among the goblins and they are willing to do anything to rid their trees of it.

Hooks:
-What is the cause of the oak blight? How can it be cured? What ideas for curing it do the goblins have?
-What exactly is the nature of the connection between goblins and oak trees?
-What kind of magic can the goblins call down while dancing and howling about their trees on moonless nights?
-Tell me more about the shaman!

 

[the Jester]

The Trench and the Battle Hills
Hexes 05.07, 06.07 and 07.06

Type: Location.

This series of rocky ridges extends north by northeast from the Mocking Hills. However, this area is much better mapped and easier to traverse, having been worked by dwarven engineers several centuries ago. However, those dwarves eventually fell victim to internecine conflicts, and just as the engineers had created roads and bridges, so too they began to destroy them. Eventually the conflict consumed the majority of the dwarves in the area, leaving the few surviving clans depleted in numbers past the point of long-term viability. Now only a very few aged individuals yet remain, bitter at their own kind more than they are at traditional dwarven foes such as orcs.

While most of the earthworks were destroyed over the course of the war, the grandest still remains, albeit as a shadow of its former self: a great trench stretching for about three miles*, backed by a berm of loose scree. In most places, the trench has been largely filled by the gradual tumbling of the scree and rocks into it, but in some places its original depth of nearly 40' is still apparent.

Worse yet, some dwarven tricks and traps yet remain here and there in the Trench- deadfalls, cleverly-concealed spike traps, missile launchers and the like. Within the Trench, supposedly, lie a number of secret entrances into dwarf-built tunnels, some of which are death traps and some of which once functioned as sally points for one side of the dwarven civil war and might still lead to underground dwarf-halls replete with treasure, or even to small, degenerate groups of derro descended from the original dwarves that lived here, surviving by a mixture of cannibalism and occasional forays into the surrounding areas to capture other creatures for use as slaves, food and breeding stock.

Some speculate that Father Dorek,the vagrant dwarf usually found in hex 03.04 or 03.07, is a descendant of the dwarves that once dwelt here, and point to a few ruined shrines to the Drinker of Iron as the scant evidence backing this theory.

Hooks:
-How far do the dwarf-tunnels stretch?
-How many derro are there?
-Is Father Dorek really connected to the dwarf ruins? If so, are the derro his kinfolk? Do the others at the monastery know about this?
-What hidden treasures might remain in the ruins?


*Have I missed a scale for the map? I'm kind of assuming a mile or so per hex at this point; if the scale is significantly larger, the Trench should only be in one hex.

 

[Daztur]

The map scale is six miles per hex because I liked this blog post: The Hydra's Grotto: In Praise of the 6 Mile Hex

The map scale is mentioned in the OP, but it's easy to miss. With six mile hexes (unless my calculations are off) the entire map is almost exactly the same size as the UK minus Scotland (but including Wales and NI), so big enough to have a number of distinct regions but not so big as to make the hexes seem empty.

Here's my vague ideas (subject to change depending on what people post, this isn't canon at all) about how to divide up the map:
-The NE plains are very sparsely populated and are a frontier area with the eastern edge of the plains (in between KFE! and the Kingswood) having more holdings, keeps and villages.
-The Kingswood has elves.
-The Northern mountains have some dwarves.
-East of the Kingswood is howling wilderness with virtually no humans.
-Somewhere south of the Kingswood is slightly more civilized.
-The coast is pretty desolate until you get farther south.

Basically this same size of land was big enough to fit the Dark Age Heptarchy + Welsh Princes + whatever was in NI then, so it should have plenty of space for some interesting things while still having it be something that the PCs can actually travel around.

 

[Quickleaf]

Mount Scorshia
Hex 02.03
Environment (Mountain), Dungeon

Rising above the Draugmere Peaks which loom over the Dwarven Monastery (#03.04) kiss the coastline, and extend to the Giant's Lake (#07.01), Mount Scorshia is the highest mountain in the realm, just shy of 14,000 feet (4,265 meters). Twisted basalt spires surround the mount, and the giants claim these are their slumbering brothers; when viewed under the long light of sunset one might see sharply carved eyes staring at them from the stone or seem to imagine a giant shifting posture. None of the local people, semi-nomadic shepherds, come near the mountain, believing it is cursed. Only Dwarven monastics, garbed in flowing orange robes and their faces smeared in ash, bear fat, and dyes, come here on pilgrimage in some sort of a test. However, the last group of dwarves to ascend Scorshia never returned.

In the dead of winter no living souls come here, though mountaineers of the past claim to have been saved from an unusually early winter storm by a giant shepherd with a frozen beard, burning white eyes, and a golden cudgel. No one is sure if the mountaineers were delusional, but "The Shepherd" has become a popular story and many believe he hides a treasure under the mountain.

Strangely, no one remembers where the mountain got it's name. And all of the people dwelling in or near the mountain range radiate enchantment magic.

Hooks:
* What befell the Dwarven monks lost on the mountain?
* If there really are slumbering giants what do they wait for?
* Is "The Shepherd" a kindly frost giant, a hill giant pariah, an angel, or a figment of the imagination?
* Who or what was Scorshia? Was some sort of massive epic memory-altering spell cast?

 

[Daztur]

Compilation and map (see the OP) have both been brought up to date.


Eyes That Shine Burning Red
A monster, an NPC and two hexes.

Hex 05.07
The Watering Hole
Connects to hexes: 04.07, 04.08 and 05.05
This is a favorite hunting ground of the Dogtar people and none of them hunts here more often than a young warrior named Naik. The plains below the mountains are dry, so the wild aurochs often gather at the watering hole that can be found here.
Although it has only been a scant few years since Naik passed his initiation in the Mocking Hills (he has a sharp memory and paid no heed to the screams of women in distress that he seemed to hear, for what did he care for the plight of outsiders?) he has already become well known for his hunting prowess as well as for darker things. It is rumored that on one dark night he went to the glass rapids and struck a bargain with the black dogs that roams the dead rocks that surround those fell waters. What the truth is nobody knows, but soon after the disappearance of his sister, Naik’s favorite dog died giving birth to a litter of fierce black pups with bright red eyes that grow even now with astounding speed.
Connections: the watering hole is a favorite hunting ground for the Dogtar (04.08), the Mocking Hills (04.07) are where Naik was tested and the black dog that Naik struck a bargain with seems to lurk around the Glass Rapids (05.05).
Hooks:
-What is Naik plotting now?
-Is the source of the singing at the Glass Rapids (05.05) Naik’s lost sister? What has happened to her?

Hex 04.02
The Drinker’s Mouth
Connects to hexes: 03.04, 03.07 and 05.05.
Rising behind the dwarven monastery is an ancient volcano. Even the elves of the Kingswood do not remember the last time it erupted but the dwarves say that it will vomit forth pure molten iron on the appointed day. For the first time in centuries, however, smoke has started to leak out of the ancient peak. Only the dwarves have noticed thus far, as it only happens at night and only on those nights when the black dog prowls the Glass Rapids (05.05).
Connections: Smoke only comes from the Drinker’s Mouth on the nights when the black dog prowls the Glass Rapids (05.05). The Drinker’s Mouth is holy to the worshippers of the dwarven forge god, the Drinker of Iron, both the monks (03.04) and the ousted Father Dorek (03.07). They do not take kindly non-dwarves intruding on its holy slopes.
Hooks:
-When will the volcano erupt?
-What is the connection between the old volcano and the black dog?

 

[Daztur]

Note: a while back I did posted a similar hexcrawl making thread at rpg.net. That thread only ever had 48 contributions, but there was a lot of great stuff in those write-ups, so I’ve been taking some stuff from that thread (basically everything about the Kingswood comes from that thread, everything else I’ve written is new) and will continue to do so and adapt it to this thread to make it fit what people have written.

Mirror Lake
Hex 37.01

In the foothills northeast of the Kingswood lies the Mirror Lake within the caldera of a dormant volcano. It is said that in ancient days, the Prince of Men was cast into the lake and lies there dreaming still. When beings with souls cast their gaze upon the lake's surface, which is never ruffled by wind, they find their features reflected clearly, but at the proper times they see what was and what may be rather than what is and strange half-seen images flitter about their reflected heads.

Around the Mirror Lake, within the valley of the old volcano, wild flowers bloom gloriously in the spring and, on all sides but one, luxuriant vegetation grows to the water's edge. On that remaining side lie several crumbling temples, each built in a different style, and a great tree. Around the tree stalks a priest, bloodied iron in hand. As was the case for every Priest of the Lake before him, he claimed his position by killing his predecessor.

Hooks:
-Why was the Prince of Men cast into the water? Who was he? Why was he forgotten? Does he have any good treasure on him? When will he wake up?
-Whose life was changed by visions from the Mirror Lake?
-What's the deal with the Priests of the Lake?
-Who built the temples? What's in them now?
-Is there anything special about the great tree? What kind of tree is it?

Crossbow Henry
NPC (lives at Hex 41.02)

Note: this post has been adapted from a post by “chutup” on rpg.net.

In the Withered Moors, atop a stony ridge, there is a hut built on stilts. The man who lives there is known as Crossbow Henry, a violent and paranoid man who believes beyond all reason that anyone he meets is conspiring to kill him. The area around the hut is strung with fine wires, some attached to bells that sound the alarm, others to crude but vicious traps. More traps are built into the ladder that leads up to the door and into the hut itself. Inside the hut crouches Crossbow Henry, clutching his poison-tipped crossbow and staring out across the plain, watching for enemies who many never come.

It is said that Crossbow Henry was once a prosperous trader on the Welt Road, a jovial sort whose caravan was welcomed by all who knew him. But then, it is whispered, Henry made the mistake of gazing into Mirror Lake. There he saw himself reflected with blood dribbling from his mouth, and dark lacerations all across his face. Knowing this to be a vision of the future, Henry was driven half-mad with fear, and has since devoted his every waking moment to a desperate attempt at cheating fate.

Hooks:
- What happened to Henry's fortune?
- What is Henry's destiny really?

 

[Daztur]

This posts fleshes out the Glass River Winery (05.04) a bit more and adds one more hex.

Abdul does indeed treat his customers fairly, from his own point of view. Humans require two things from their food and drink: pleasure and nutrition and Abdul provides both of them. It just so happens that the pleasure comes from subtle illusion magic and the nutrition comes from a wide range of food sources that, for reasons Abdul fails to understand, humans have some reservations about. The larvae of many insects are incredibly high in protein and long term storage of meat in vats of yogurt is an excellent way to preserve it. As for what the "wine" is actually made of, it is best not to know.

Despite Abdul's honest intentions, some of his customers sense that something is amiss, but lack the means of piercing his enchantments in order to discern what it is. Some of Abdul's night-time regulars are able to tell what the other customers are actually eating, which is a great source of humor among them.

Although there are no vineyards in the area, Abdul is able to purchase supplies from a nearby source, the Castle of the Poor Brothers (07.04). This castle was built by an order of monks on a rocky tor that towers over the surrounding countryside but it has since fallen into the hands of the Delasar family. Travelers who pass by the castle note its extensive and fertile gardens, which produce far more large coarse vegetables than are needed to feed Lord Delasar's small retinue of servants and men-at-arms, even when his sales to Abdul are taken into account.

Hooks:
-Where is the rest of the produce of Lord Delasar's gardens going? Is he feeding some thing(s) hidden away in his castle?
-What happened to the monks who built the castle (the Poor Brothers)?
-How many of the horrible rumors about Lady Delasar are actually true?

 

[Daztur]

Additional information about Mount Scorshia (hex 02.03).

A certain dragon claims that "Scorshia" is a mispronunciation of a draconic terms that means "mother of mountains" or perhaps "the first stone," draconic is difficult to translate. According to this dragon, when the world was created it began with Mount Scorshia. Although the mountain now stands older than anything else in the world, it still radiates the magic of creation itself. In midwinter, at the heart of the Long Night, if there is a new moon, then Mount Scorshia is as it was at the dawn of days, with neither sun nor moon to rival it. At that time, then a spell cast from the summit of the mountain will have its effects and range amplified in difficult to predict ways, for Mount Scorshia is the keystone of the world and to master it is to be as a god.

Hooks:
-Dragons are famous liars, how much of the above is a lie? Who is that dragon anywhere and where does it live?
-Has anyone ever tried to cast spells atop Mount Scorshia on a Midwinter new moon? What happened?
-Who or what created the world?