Let’s Make a Hexcrawl Setting

[Sanglorian]

Two maps of the Shrouded Lands:



Also, I've further fleshed out an idea I had over a year ago for increasing participation in this project. I'm planning to post it on Story-Games. Let me know what you think:

TELL ME ABOUT: WHERE THE PAMPAS MEET THE SEA

WHAT’S ALL THIS ABOUT?

For almost three years, we’ve been developing a shared fantasy land about the size of the United Kingdom over on EN World. We’ve created hundreds of entries and described a rich world of ostrich-riding knights, Tarrasque-hunting vampirish lords, night-fearing elves and crayfish-worshipping humans.

However, we’ve found that we get very few contributions from new people. The sheer mass of detail has become intimidating, even though the original intent of the project was that people would only have to read one hex entry before making their own hex contribution!

I want to encourage hex entries from new people, to liven up the setting and help us fill some of the hundreds of still-empty hexes. I also hope once you get a taste for the setting, you go and explore some of the existing entries.

So what I’ve done is corral a 10-hex by 10-hex area of the map where most of the hexes are undescribed. This is Story-Games area! Do your worst. Don’t fret about continuity, or matching the rest of the setting. In fact, I’ve included all I expect you to know in this handy map:

[MAP]

HOW DO I CONTRIBUTE?

By detailing something that is found in a particular hex. This can be through a simple description, or a history, or a story, or an in-world artifact like a journal entry.

The distinct feature of the setting is that it’s a webwork hexcrawl:

• Webwork, because each hex has a relationship with at least one other hex
• Hexcrawl, because most of the setting description and development is through entries describing what’s in a particular six-mile hex

The entry format is:

Title of the Hex Feature (##.##)
[Text, one or more paragraphs, describing the feature]

Connections:
How the hex is related to existing hexes

Hooks:
One or more mysteries, unanswered questions, or areas for further development - responding to these hooks is typically how new hex entries will connect to yours

(Also, all contributions are under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 (Unported) licence.)

That’s it! So read one of these hexes, choose a hook that piques your curiosity, and write your own hex entry!

• 24.20: The Wrannows are a Witch Clan, which means all their members can cast the same spell. Theirs was rope trick, but they’re long gone and all that remains are their extradimensional rooms.
• 26.20: The August City of Blind Midshotgatepool. Five towns with separate lords and administrations, pedantic and legalistic. In practice, the Thieves’ Guild runs the show - especially now the city is under the thumb of the City of Shuttered Windows and no unauthorised ships can leave the port.
• 28.21: Terise of Steadfast is a poor cursed mermaid who reluctantly eats human flesh to survive.
• 32.22: The Drowning Place: The stronghold of the Whispering Sisters, a cult who hate the God of the City of Shuttered Windows for spurning their deity, She Who Waits.
• 23. 23: Caves of the Dust Walkers: The morally-upright desert gnomes live here. They have a brew that makes illusions have real effects on the drinker.
• 24.23: The Sandalwood Grove: The desert gnomes use the sandalwood trees for many purposes, but particularly to fashion sandals out of. You see, illusionists always struggle getting toes just right.
• 27.23: A camp of Death’s Lovelies - having contracted a fatal disease, these mercenaries live large while they still can.
• 29.24: Sun-fearing deep dwarves appear to have travelled forward in time to this place, where they’ve built a fortress.
• 24.26: Southern dwarves, mostly cut off from their fusty northern cousins, have their city Azurnay here. They herd cattle.
• 27.27: A southern dwarf fortress, the main feature of which are the fierce pigdogs that are fed on a mysterious regenerating green block.
• 31.27: The site of the battle that stopped the gnolls from hassling the southern dwarves.
• 29.29: The dwelling place of the Wyvern, who features heavily in the myth and legend of the peoples here.

The remaining 88 hexes are left for you to detail! So get to it.

If contradictions emerge, that’s part of the fun. Some of our most interesting setting elements are attempts to reconcile two seemingly contradictory hexes.

 

[Sanglorian]

Hey folks,

I've gone through every hex and added the picture from the old DOCX/PDF compilation. Thank you to Daztur for originally assembling all those illustrations!

I've also put the hex summaries in an Excel spreadsheet, for what it's worth.View attachment Hex summaries.xlsx

 

[Sanglorian]

I've done some digging to try to untangle the setting's timeline - read it here: http://shrouded-lands.wikia.com/wiki/History

Particularly useful, I think, is the "Alberon against Tiamat and Chimalia" section, which explains which happened first out of the Shuttering, the slaying of Tiamat, the Gnawbone Wars, the Chimeric Siege, the Time of Schisms, the Fall of Bergolast, etc.

--

The Slice in Time
Inspired by: Vapes, Ninth World Bestiary

One of the monstrosities that has crawled forth from the Breath of the Earth is a strange wolfen predator.

Called the fresco beast by gnolls because from one angle it looks like a long wolf painted on a wall, the alien is flat. Turned to face its prey, it disappears – except for its toothy jaws.

The Nekh are particularly distressed by its appearance in their territory, and will pay handsomely for it to be somehow disposed of. Their concern may be heightened by a “flattening” of the land around the beast's lair, as rocks thin and sharpen, the clouds turn blocky and the cactuses contract into mere sketches.

Hooks
Where is the fresco beast from? Are there others like it?
How do you slay somoething that only exists in two dimensions?
What does it think about this more substantial world?
How does it eat? What does it eat?

 

[Sanglorian]

Alien Marauder

Twice as tall as a horse, bright blue with a large triangular mouth and tiny forward-facing eyes, the alien marauder is a disconcerting thing to be confronted by in the ashy grey wastes.

The marauder winks in and out of existence, and only stabilises after gorging on flesh. When it is satiated, it will keen, and those who look into its eyes can see scenes from a distant planet, where it frolics with a much larger, even more blue, marauder.

Hooks
Are these memories, or moments currently playing out elsewhere?
Where does the marauder go when it blinks out of existence?
Is it the same marauder each time?

 

[Sanglorian]

Alien Filcher

The traveller through the Forest of Abominations must endure many indignities, but none as frustrating as being burgled by a filcher. These creatures have tuber-shaped bodies, a single baffled eye, one stumpy leg and spindly arms. Their long fingers will pickpocket or grab a small item, and then the creature blinks out of existence.

Having made one theft, they can rarely resist another, allowing their victims to prepare a way of capturing or subduing the filcher.

Where they store these items is unknown, with one exception. One filcher is accumulating a hoard in an egg-shaped dome of compressed ash. However, none of the stolen goods seem to be of this world. There are flat metal squares with mirrors of black glass, small golems that chirp and roll, and a crossbow-like weapon that – when pointed at something – flings it in a random direction.

Hooks
Are these alien technologies? Are the civilisations that created these extant?
Where did the dome come from and how was it manufactured?

 

[Sanglorian]

The Canals of Bergolast
When the Burning Lands were green and rivers flowed across their length and breadth, the good folk of Bergolast built canals for their trading barges. In parts, they cut around mountains. In others, they built bridges over valleys so the canals could run flat.

The Bergolasti even cut through the Devil's Spine, opening up caves and caverns turned wild since Bergolast's fall.

Untended since those days, most of the canals remain – though all but one are as dry as the rest of the Burning Lands. They serve now as roads for travellers and caravans, and where they are raised above the ground they offer a first defence against raiders and predatory animals (or serve as a trap if an aggressor is already upon the canal).

Through hexes X, Y and Z runs the canal that linked Alexandrine and Sosaria. In most parts, it is raised two metres off of the ground. Travellers that avoid the hyena packs by using the canal find they have only two directions to run when the rogue Nekh One-Wing swoops down from the sky.

Hooks
Where is the one canal where the water still flows?
Who wants the Nekh done away with?
Why are they called One-Wing if they can fly? What make them a rogue Nekh?
Who would want to travel between Sosaria and Alexandrine these days?

 

[Sanglorian]

The Annual Camel Race
This is the starting point of Jahur's annual across-desert camel race. A great tent city opens for the week over which the race runs. The event is so popular, and Jahur so populous, that the tent city is itself the Shrouded Lands' fourth most populuous city for that week.

In the race, competitors must lead a chain of any number of camels through the wastes, and end with at least one camel still alive. Gnolls and Nekh delight in the custom, and help weed out riders and camels.

The races have been won the last three years by a visored knight of Thring who competes in full plate. This or her identity as as yet unknown.

Other personalities of the race include Samwiss Ghanjees, the race's announcer and organiser. Almost too large to be of human stock, he is solemn and tense. Rather than instilling excitement in the audience, his voice is funereal as he gives updates to the crowd in the tent city of the competitors progress over the week. His art lies in bringing scenes to life. The crowd may not be chanting or buying drinks from the vendors as he describes a Nekh sorceress' pet mongoose eating the eyes of a camel that succumbed to exhaustion while its wracked chest still strugglingly rises and falls, but they are certainly engaged.

On the final day, the role of announcer is claimed by one of the Viceroys of the city. This post alternates from year to year, and this year it is Viceroy Orhan's turn. Whether they'll let him out of the dungeon, and what would happen to him in the public eye, is unclear.

The Ibraheen sponsor the race. Rather than a noble family, or even one of the rising merchant families, the Ibraheen is a trade guild of street vendors, publicans and newspaper printers. Their ambition is sneered at by the greats of the city, but none can deny that a camel race is precisely their bailiwick.

Hooks
Who is the knight? Why does he or she hide his or her identity?
What is the prize for winners of the race?
Why do people risk life and limb to compete?
What is the origin of the tradition?
What are the other three most populous cities of the Shrouded Lands?
Is Samwiss Ghanjees of human stock?
Was it just a coincidence that a month after an assassination attempt on the viceroy, he is due to announce a race?
So there's newspapers in Jahur? What sort of broadsheets and tabloids do they have? Does that use old Zhuriman technology, or is it a recent innovation?

 

[Sanglorian]

I've found myself writing some pieces that aren't hex-based, and so I thought I'd post this to remind myself why a webwork hexcrawl is such a good approach to gaming.

A big benefit of the hex format (particularly with the addition of hooks) is that it pushes people towards 'playable' content.

E.g. if I want to write about halfling machismo, I need to tie it to a hex - so I write about a halfling who claims to be the pinnacle of machismo who's planning to recapture the halfling ruin of Hurlstone Hill.

That's playable. That's a way to interact with halfling machismo.

Whereas if you read, say, 'Postponing Empire' on Goblin Punch (http://goblinpunch.blogspot.com.au/2013/11/postponing-empire.html), it's got some great stuff - ships passing over the city markets in a cast-iron aqueduct; bearded philosophers smoking in rainy red bamboo gardens; a tattooed people who wear blush and turn black in the rain; that keep jarred kittens as pets and have swan fighting rings; they consider it manly to cry and womanly to faint.

It's vivid and creative, but there's nothing to grab onto, nothing immediately playable.

A swan fighting ring, where someone's throwing matches? That both tells us about the city's entertainment, and immediately suggests an adventure. Who's throwing it? Maybe a retired Wing of Govindesa. They can't fly, but they can jump hella high - and on the way down, they spear people. St Govindesa was a pacifist - how do these peeople justify killing in her name? Is there a schism?

It's womanly to faint? Maybe the Empress Apathia failed to faint when news of her son's death was delivered. Does she not care about him? Did she already know? Is she tring to project masculinity should her husband die?

 

[Sanglorian]

SEVEN WONDERS OF THE WORLD
The scholar and rakish traveller Taran Prenderghast has seen recent success with a book proposing Seven Wonders of the Modern World.

Published in the Shuttered City under the patronage of the Doge, the "world" seems limited to the Shrouded Lands and the Twelve Nations, and particularly those parts that Taran happens to have visited.

His list is:

1. The White Road, and the great bindings of spirits that it represents.
2. The Gnome and the Giant. The draft list gave the Great Temple of Alberon instead, but rumour has it that Taran was offered free drinks till his dying day if he changed the entry.
3. The Waterworks of Shuttered, which drowned the City's enemies.
4. The gates of Hoth Achaar, whcih shift as the fortress' population does.
5. The stump of Ninbolm.
6. Melnir's Mount.
7. Teodo, originally the only wonder outside of the Shrouded Lands, although thanks to the Great Mother, this has changed since publication.

Taran's list is a revision of a list compiled over a thousand years ago by the fabled philosopher-knight Caprondes. Caprondes' list consisted of:

1. Melnir's Mount, the only ancient wonder that remains to this day. Taran considered dropping it from this list, but concedes that it remains evidence of an impressive feat.
2. The Tarrasque of Bergolast. The wonder survives but the city that it supported does not.
3. The Great Oak of Goblinkind. In a manner of speaking, this wonder also made it onto Taran's list.
4. The Spear-in-the-Stone of Adherion.
5. The Heliotrope of the Well-Lit Arch. The Well-Lit Arch was a city in the Golden Realm.
6. The Temple of Elemental Good in Othonoi (this may be what is now referred to in hushed voices as the "Terminus Temple").
7. The Mausoleum of Khaldi. Khaldi existed in both Zamorqy and Zhuriman.

HOOKS

• Are there other wonders worthy of mention?
• How did the Great Oak become the stump of Ninbolm?
• What is a temple of elemental good like?
• How could Khaldi exist in both Zamorqy and Zhuriman?
• What happened to the ancient wonders that no longer exist?
• What else has Taran done?
• What else did Caprodes do?
• Many of the ancient wonders are from lost or rarely mentioned nations. What happened to them?
• Have rival lists of wonders been made? What's on them?

 

[Sanglorian]

Confessions of the Smiling Men (21.00)

Professional to the last, the Smiling Men record a great deal about each assassination target. Preparing a detailed biogaphy is part of the preparation for each assignment.

After the kill, they also detail the nature of the murder. Upon the victim's burial, the record is bound along with some trinket from the victim, and sent to this cliffside tower in the Grey Mountains. The library is a room suspended from a beam that comes out of the tower's peak and projects over the cliff.

The plan was that if the tower were ever compromised, the beam could be cut and the records lost far below, rather than fall into enemy hands.

The Smiling Men do permit the occasional brave sage to consult the biographies. The researcher does have to fetch the record himself or herself - balancing on the beam and dropping into the library, a wooden cube suspended from a rusty chain.

At this moment, a band of Smiling Men are advancing on the tower. It has been locked from inside by a rogue Smiling Man - their best killer. The man, Adon, was consulting the library when he noticed his own name on the spine of a book. He realised that he had been killed and then returned from the dead to further some scheme of a lead Smiling Man.

Cursing them all, he slew every Man in the tower. He knows that the library is precious enough that the Smiling Men will keep advancing while there is hope of saving the records.

A mild sage is now holed up in the tower with Adon. She has not even had the courage to advance across the tower's beam to the library, so she is truly cursing her luck.

Connections

• The Sealed Library is another suspended library.

Hooks

• Who was the Smiling Man who arranged for Adon's death?
• Who was Adon before he died?
• who is the sage researching, and for what purpose?
• Why is the library precious to the Smiling Men? Do they simply care about the world's store of knowledge or does it serve some other purpose?