Let’s Make a Hexcrawl Setting

[chutup]

Daztur, I'm not sure why, but the latter part of the compilation (everything from page 101 onwards) doesn't seem to register as text, which means it isn't searchable. Do you think you could fix this? It makes it pretty difficult to navigate the Freeholds entries.

Sanglorian: I'm a little confused by your entry - are the rituals taking place on the edge of the Kingswood, or in Aggoth (which is around 10 miles from the Kingswood)? Let's look into that...

The Sowing Path (19.05)

When the people of Aggoth (18.06) perform their fortnightly rituals, they must do so in the sight of the Kingswood to appease the fey. But to ensure the efficacy of the ritual, they must not leave the borders of the town's fields. This was not a problem a hundred years ago, when Aggoth was situated within spitting distance of the forest, but since then the entire town has been moved twelve miles to the west. Still the ancient traditions must be upheld, so the Aggothians developed a workaround.

At noon on the day of the ritual, the local priest leads a procession from the eastern fields of Aggoth to the Kingswood, and as he goes he scatters seeds along the path, intoning ancient law-words as he does so to ensure that for this night, the path is technically a part of Aggoth's fields. Behind him comes the town's chief, who carries a blue ribbon. Next there are a procession of others, carrying the blue ribbon and gradually spacing themselves out along the path until, at nightfall, the entire town is spread out from the edge of the Kingswood to the town centre. The only exceptions are the people chosen to participate in the night's ritual (who are at the far end of the ribbon) and the watchman, who holds the near end of the ribbon attached to a pulley in his tower, and if any danger threatens Aggoth he will pull on the ribbon to recall the entire population to his aid.

The seeds sown by the priest are not cared for, and they mostly fail to grow in the hard stony soil. Over the years, however, a few have taken root. Strangely, none of the crops that grow along the path resemble anything that the Aggothians usually plant in their fields.

Hooks:
- Why did the entire town of Aggoth relocate itself?
- These rituals sound extremely complex. Who instituted them and what will happen if they're not performed correctly?
- Has anyone ever tried to attack the town during the ribbon ritual?
- What are the properties of the mysterious seeds sown along the path?

 

[chutup]

I can't go past this Megadungeon Origins Table from Rolang. I think the Shattered Citadel of the Verlimes has the potential to be something more than just a small ruined castle, so let's add something beneath it - perhaps the real reason why the elves attacked it in the first place?

I rolled: a fetus that is now a nursery for elementals.

The Body of the Child
Additional information about hex 18.07

In primordial times, before the war of the gods tore the earth asunder, there was a pure love between the earth and the moon. The seed of the lunar deity fell to the earth as stars, fertilizing the warm earth, the lakes, the winds and the fires. From this union the first elementals were born - crude creatures, with bodies of base matter and a star inside each one to give them the spark of life.

Then came a time when the moon loved too much. A huge fragment of his body broke off and fell into the earth, forming the crater whose outline can still be traced around the old Verlime citadel. Never again after that would the moon and the earth hold congress as they had done, but the earth bore her lover's last child faithfully. It would be enormous, a mountain with a star for a heart. But alas - the age of men was already fast approaching. The humans and their new gods beat back the elementals, cut down the trees of the great northern forest, and carved up the earth to build their City of Many Windows.

Fearing the might of humanity, the earth-child chose to remain slumbering in the womb. Within its body, passages formed, and the essences of earth and moon mingled to create lesser elementals. These grandchildren of the moon make their way through a secret tunnel that connects them to the Sunless Sea, and from there they spread out across the Shrouded Lands. They have no intelligence as humans can understand it, yet they seem to have purposes beyond mortal reckoning. Perhaps the elves, who have mastered the art of summoning such creatures, know more, but they will not tell.

As for the Body of the Child, it remained safe for thousands, perhaps millions of years (the records, such as exist, are unclear). The Verlimes built a citadel on top of it, but that was of no consequence, for citadels come and go while the earth endures. It was only when the Verlimes began to dig deep into the earth that the elves saw they needed to act; and on the very night that the excavators broke through into the veins of the Child, the elves rode out from the Kingswood and cleaved the citadel in two.

Hooks:
- Who is this lunar god? Is he still around?
- Why did a part of the moon break off? Is this really a story of deities in love, or a garbled record of an astronomical cataclysm?
- Could the Earth-Child ever be awoken and brought to the surface?
- What's inside this long tunnel that leads from the Child to the Sunless Sea?
- Where else have elementals spread to, and what are their mysterious goals?
- What's the relationship between the elves and the elementals? Are elves a more refined form of the same nature spirit? Where does the Green Lady fit into all this?
- The Verlimes provoked the elves to attack them by chopping down the Kingswood and delving into the earth. This is starting to sound like Isengard. What were the Verlimes trying to accomplish?

 

[Sanglorian]

Sanglorian: I'm a little confused by your entry - are the rituals taking place on the edge of the Kingswood, or in Aggoth (which is around 10 miles from the Kingswood)? Let's look into that...

Woops, I'm not sure how I got so mixed up! But it's a great fix.

I've been reading a bit about Sigil, so expect some more Shuttered entries coming up.

The Old City (29.14)

Oh, there’s more than Shuttered in Shuttered, I’ll tell you that much for free. It’s monstrous and insatiable, creeping year after year across the countryside. Already towns and villages have been engulfed, crowded first by shantytowns and then townhouses, churches and acropoli. But according to the locals, one part of the city was here before the first window ever opened.

Nothing remains of this ur-city on the surface. But occasionally, if a family decides to expand their wine cellar or a man needs a shallow grave, they will break through to the original city.

The city sprawls in miles and miles of tunnels, dead ends, storerooms, crypts, mithraeums and stranger rooms besides. The frescoes that decorate the walls are geometric and abstract; there seems to be no depiction of the original inhabitants. Of course, the fact that the tunnels are ten feet wide and 15 feet tall should give a hint to any adventurer who cannot figure out why the door handles are level with her face.

Hooks:
Was it giants who lived here? What happened to them?
What other settlements has Shuttered engulfed?

 

[Sanglorian]

The Mind Chambers of the Infidel (27.12)

Before Shuttered was Shuttered, the Lord of Pain would mark his displeasure of a man or woman by flinging them from the city into an extradimensional prison. These prisons were mazes constructed from the victims’ nightmares and fantasies. Each maze had just one exit, hidden so well that most could not find it even after a lifetime of searching.

When the windows of Shuttered were shuttered, all of these extradimensional mazes were dragged into this dimension. Scattered throughout the Shrouded Lands are the mazes, some still populated with the figments and delusions of their (usually former) occupants.

The Mind Chambers of the Infidel are a set of lavishly decorated rooms. A network of secret passages runs parallel to the rooms, but no object of any kind casts light while in the passages. Many of the portraits hung on the walls have their eyes cut out so that people in the passages can glance out. Pulling on library books or torch brackets often causes walls to rotate, trapdoors to open, and other mischievous devices to activate.

The chambers are populated with smartly-dressed kobolds who delight in adding their own crude traps to the existing sophisticated mechanisms. The kobolds test their traps and play tricks upon several surprisingly life-like mannikins. Unbeknownst to the kobolds, the mannikins are wax golems—infinitely patient and able to rebuild themselves after almost any indignity. They represent different facets of the Infidel’s personality, and it seems that they are all that remain of him.

The race of kobolds is not documented before the Shuttering. It is possible that they originally only existed in the Infidel’s imagination.

Hooks:
What other creatures of the Shrouded Lands were originally figments of the imagination?
Who was the Infidel and how did he offend the Lord of Pain?
Is the Infidel truly only survived by the wax golems?
What other mazes are out there?

 

[Electric Wizard]

Umberstone
Additional information about Hex 18.26 and Hex 26.17
Connected to and (18.07)

The exterior of the Black Ziggurat (18.26) and half of the chequers in the Chequered Room are made of umberstone. It is the pitch-black substance believed to comprise most of the moon's mass. Although the moon gleams bright, astrologists know that only its outer layer produces light. Umberstone, which lies beneath the surface, absorbs all light. On earth, it also disrupts the flow of time. It is believed that the quantity of the substance found on the moon makes the moon exist outside of time as mortals understand it.

When the moon god loved the earth, umberstone pierced the Shrouded Lands in many places. Most of it became inert and lost its potency, only able to affect time's flow when tapped by advanced magic users. This type exists in the Chequered Room. It allows for unnatural beings to exist in the material world for short periods of time. They appear in the Chequered Room at irregular intervals and move the game pieces to solve disputes that might otherwise disrupt reality on a larger scale.

The more potent variety, mostly derived from ore extracted from the cocoon of the Moon Child (18.07), covers the Black Ziggurat. The strange moon elementals spent ages collecting and refining the stuff, and now the fruit of their long labor may be realized. Elf scholars believe that they built the Ziggurat in order to expand the moon's influence on earth. Based on the place's short history and its bizarre, dangerous nature, this has not been proven.

Hooks:
-What would the moon's expanded influence mean for the Shrouded Lands?
-Which mortals have interacted with the beings that appear in the Chequered Room? Are they partially responsible for its creation?
-How is umberstone refined?
-Do the Ziggurat's windows open to other times? Which ones?
-Are the weird creatures around the Ziggurat in league with the moon elementals, or did they arrive by other means?
-Where else can we find umberstone?

 

[Sanglorian]

Umberstone

Great contribution! I was going to have the chessboard made of ivory and ebony squares, but I knew if I didn't specify what the squares were, someone would come along and take it in a creative direction!

 

[Daztur]

chutup: here's a google doc of all of the backlog material that hasn't been incorporated into the organized compilation yet. I've saved it as a google doc so it should be fully searchable. The last few weeks I've gotten distressingly-little work done on the compilation due to the triple whammy of bronchitis, DMing and DM-prep and an online class that I'm taking (half over now, thank god). Ugh. I want to get this monkey off my back but it'll take a while as the backlog has ballooned up back up over 50K words...

Doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1lq-lioy_FrEfEDR68w9_U_SE8T8ibTGuJ7UUrttyRbE/edit

An awesome book that I have no time to read You should read it:
http://img406.imageshack.us/img406/9902/scan009m.jpg

 

[Daztur]

Yup, that's the Shrouded Lands

Also I've just finished adding the Freeholds (except for the most recent post or two) to the compilation. Ooof, my brain hurts. I have a few ideas for hexes flitting around my brain and they'll be up within the next few days.

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B6z-iUIH4P8aM0xBUk92UmhnMFE

Total word count: just barely short of Sense and Sensibility, we'll hit Return of the King level in another month or so.

 

[Sanglorian]

Also I've just finished adding the Freeholds (except for the most recent post or two) to the compilation. Ooof, my brain hurts. I have a few ideas for hexes flitting around my brain and they'll be up within the next few days.

Thanks Daztur!

The Eyrie (08.16)
‘Do-gooders and ne’er-do-wells’, said the bishop of the Scarecrows. These men and women, dressed raggedly in greatcoats and capotains, wander across the Shrouded Lands causing mischief for the authorities and helping the poor and downtrodden. Famously skeptical of faith and sorcery alike, they rely on wit and wisdom to carry them through the wilderness. Each carries a crude iron knife that they use for almost any purpose—skinning prey, fighting off bandits and as a sundial.

Although the arrival of a Scarecrow is a welcome event in beleaguered villages, the parents of impressionable young men and women have cause for concern. Many’s the lass that’s listened starry-eyed to a grizzled Scarecrow, followed him into the woods, and returned nine months later with an iron knife, wearing a wolf pelt and swearing to defend humankind against the forces of chaos.

Throughout the Lands, the Scarecrows have built nests: hidden rooms with emergency supplies, maps and notes, beds and weapons. These nests take all forms, from tree houses to abandoned bears’ dens and huts. The paths to each are marked with the travellers’ marks known to the Scarecrows and several other groups.

There are Scarecrows’ nests even in the Kingswood. Each has a single entrance marked with a rod of hawthorn, past which the elves will not pass. However, if the elves realise that the nest is inhabited they will do what they can to cause strife to those inside—perhaps leaving a beehive poised above the threshold or leading a bear to the cave.

The Eyrie is the only nest that is publicly known. It is a watchtower, abandoned after the collapse of the Kingdom of Gore. At any time, some two dozen or more Scarecrows and twice as many guests, diplomats, lovers, children and other civilians are present.

Hooks
What other groups recognise travellers’ marks?
What are travellers’ marks like?
Why does the hawthorn rod repulse the elves?
Who are some famous Scarecrows?

 

[chutup]

I've started writing up some notes for my Google+ game set in the Shrouded Lands. It's going to start off very simple to begin with because I'm not used to running Basic. The first session will just focus on a dungeoncrawl into the Sundered Citadel of the Verlimes*, which is maybe not the best way to display the breadth and vibrancy of the Shrouded Lands, but what the hell, dungeoncrawls are fun anyway.

If anyone from this thread wants to play, you should add me on G+: https://plus.google.com/u/0/102152291304066479470/posts

*I changed it to 'Sundered Citadel' because 'Shattered Citadel' sounds confusingly similar to 'Shuttered City'.