Let’s Make a Hexcrawl Setting

[Electric Wizard]

Any post with a bear cavalry picture is a tough act to follow, but I'll try...

Hill of Fist and Fang (Hex 17.21)
Connected to Hex 16.16

This shrub-covered hill nominally marks the Duchy's extreme southern frontier. It is the site of an ancient and spectacular ritual that proves the greatest Thringish knights' courage and mettle.

Every time the Duke must replace a member the Brothers of the Lion, his elite entourage, he arranges a highly-exclusive tournament. He selects no more than five knights deemed worthiest in the land and brings them to this desolate hilltop. He invokes a long-held pact between Thring and the lion prides of the Devil's Fingers, which summons the land's mightiest lions to the hill in a fortnight. The candidates must muzzle and mount the beast whom they challenge. According to the terms of the pact, they may be armored, but wield no weapons.

The knight with the most prowess receives the lion he subdued as well as the coveted Brother of the Lion title. The lion remains loyal to its death. On the other hand, if any lion manages to defeat a candidate, the losing knight must spend the rest of his life among the prides of the Devil's Fingers. The latter happens less often than would be expected. Still, any decent Thringish bard can sing at least a dozen laments over knights doomed to wander with lions.

Hooks
-How did the Dukes of Thring make a pact with the lion prides?
-What are some effective lion-wrestling techniques? Who teaches them?
-Who are some current Brothers of the Lion? Are there, or have there been, Sisters of the Lion?
-What famous knights were condemned to a life among the lions? What adventures did they have with the beasts?
-How do the lions get along with other mounts?
-When did the last death in this long tradition occur? What happened?

 

[Daztur]

Here's the new compilation. It includes Shuttered and the area around Shuttered as well as an edited version of chutup's glossary. However, it doesn't include all of the gazillion sub-entries for Shuttered. So what's left to do for the compilation is all of the recent entries from the last few weeks and all of the sub-entries for stuff in Shuttered. Still, that means we're on the home stretch with this beast (about 77% done, with the current compilation being a good bit longer than the old one ever was, it's just that people keep on adding stuff ). However, my compilation work will slow down over the next few weeks since I'll be reading the ACKS core book and prepping my Into the Kingswood adventure.

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B6z-iUIH4P8adGtQNTRuQUNDb3M

 

[Daztur]

Of Lions and Lambs
Hex 18.19

Although now retired, Sister Nadela is surely the most famous of the handful of those Sisters of the Lion who have caught and tamed a lion as their mount. If the tales are true, Nadela was able to easily tame her beast by ducking under it and grasping its testicles as it leapt at her, even pausing to laugh and comment about the weakness of males as she brought her lion down whimpering to the ground.

Her lion yet lives, thought it is old and toothless. The pair enjoy a quiet life looking after a herd of sheep that Nadela keeps penned not far from the Forked Castle (17.18). However, the lion (who, to the great annoyance of the Duke, Nadela named Cuddles) is very protective of the lambs that it allows to gambol around it and will leap arthritically at any who harass them. Nadela herself keeps herself spry by driving off overly persistent suitors from Lady Tyhon's halls.

Hooks:
-Is Nadela related to any Thringish Ladies or was her mother a commoner?
-What adventures have she and Cuddles had?

Note: for female Thringish warriors I'm imagining that most of them would be the younger sisters of the Thringish aristocracy. Some people in Thring don't approve of female warriors but Thringish Ladies approve of younger sisters hanging around and potentially plotting coups far less. Overall though Thringish women enjoy a lot less social mobility than males since they can't marry themselves into a noble position the way males can (all noble titles go through the female line and even the son of the Duke isn't a real noble unless/until he marries a Lady, hence knights questing all over the place).

 

[Daztur]

The Sandalwood Grove
Hex 24.23

Inspired by a blog post on chutup’s blog and a business English class role-play that took a strange turn.

This land is some of the most fertile of the Devil’s Fingers. That isn’t saying much for this is a dry and desolate region, but a number of sandalwood trees grow here. They are highly valued by the local gnomes (23.23) for their nuts, the medicines that can be brewed from their wood, their twigs which the gnomes use to cook their famous hallucinogenic brew and, of course, to make sandals out of.

Gnomes place great value in a good pair of sandals, carved out of proper sandalwood. In fact, it is a traditional display of generosity for a rich gnome to exchange sandals with a poor one, especially after they have enjoyed a string of good luck. Also, it is a traditional gnomish belief that any creature that hides its toes is hiding its true intensions. This is not as strange as it seems, for illusionists often have a terrible time getting the toes just right.

When you see a gnome staring at your toes trying to puzzle our their shape, they may be a pointer. These gnomes are renowned for their skills at detecting illusions and often do this by checking the toes of any suspicious creature and by taking part in the traditional gnomish cheek-patting greeting. These pointers are often hired on by parties venturing into the towers and tombs of magicians and have proven their worth time and time again.

However, all of this may also explain a lot of the distrust that gnomes have for those who hide their toes, have feet too big to exchange sandals with and who don’t like gnomes grabbing at their faces whenever they meet.

Hooks:
-Who have some famous gnomish pointers been?
-Halflings don’t wear any shoes at all. What do gnomes feel about that? What about gnolls? Do they wear shoes?
-Do all gnomes care about sandals or just these desert ones?

 

[Daztur]

Converting over some more of rolang's stuff, using some ideas, changing around others:

Additional information about Hex 16.15: The Haunted Isle

There is one island in the midst of the River of Crystal waters that both the local fishermen and the bargemen that carry the trade of Thring up and down the river avoid and name it haunted. It is no such thing, although the locals have seen strange shifting shapes, they are merely those of displacer beasts (on the north end of the island) and blink dogs (to the south) acting out their ancient rivalry.

Hooks:
-Is this where Bolgarus Bolger (30.15) got his blink dogs?
-Why are these beasts here?

Additional information about Hex 16.15: Small Waters

Note: putting dried fishtails in a cup of hot sake is surprisingly tasty.

This is a tiny fishing village of a mere dozen families that lies near the northern borders of this hex. There is not much of note in this small village except for one family known as the Villards who make a foul rotgut from spoiled potatoes flavored with dried fishtails. Despite its unpleasant taste, it is quite popular with the bargemen who ply the river who have a low opinion of anyone who can't quaff it by the cup.

Unbeknownst to the rest of the village, the Villards have recently been replaced by a circle of doppelgangers who are still carrying out the last orders of their long-dead creator, for they are incapable of doing anything else.

As part of this they have been depositing doppleganger young in their booze. These young are small colorless blobs that, when drunk, attach themselves to the stomach of their drinkers and slowly grow, hollowing out their host from within.

Hooks:
-Where are the bodies of the real Villards?
-Is there any way to safely remove a young doppleganger that is growing within its victim?
-Who created the doppleganger and what was the last order that he/she/it gave them? What are they doing to carry it out?
-Who has a doppleganger growing inside of them?

The Shrine of the First God
Hex 15.16

Heading west from Castle Tarengael (16.16) on the ill-maintained road into Gore, the farmland quickly peters out and little remains beside the road but a collection of dilapidated shrines, which are used by those travelers who make the dangerous journey towards Thring's western border and beyond.

Most of these small shrines have no permanent occupant, but the Shrine of the First God is an exception and is well maintained with its impressive collection of broken holy symbols always spotlessly clean.

This is the home of Brother Humphries a cleric of the First God. If you are willing to sit through his long and pedantic lectures, you can learn that humans are the first and only true gods and that their souls are the source of all divine magic. According to him, all of the so-called gods are nothing but bloated parasites who feed on the souls of man.

He is generally thought to be a harmless crank and is ignored by the local men of Thring, but if what he says holds no truth then what of the divine magic that is quite capable of casting.

Hooks:
-Is anything that Brother Humphries says is true? If it's not then why can he use divine magic?
-If only human souls contain the spark of the divine, then what of the other races and their gods?

 

[Daztur]

Map with this random village generator:

Monsters and Manuals: Random Village Generator

Veerhaven and Hostwick
Hex 39.14

Connects to: 29.14.XX and the City of Shuttered Windows

Here, along the waters of the Keening Sea and subject to the laws of the City of Shuttered Windows, lie two small villages.

The smaller of the two is the fishing village of Veerhaven, if it can be called that for it is little more than a string of cabins and drying racks strung out along the coast. However, it is richer than any small village in the City’s shadow has any right to be for just off the coast lie the rotting ruins of a score of gilded war barges and, although most of the gold has long since been stripped away, the men of Veerhaven still find bits of gold in the mud. However, each year brings in a smaller haul and the giant snapping turtles are voracious so many of the people of Veerhaven have turned to fishing or even farming.

One of these farmers is actually a Smiling Man (29.14.XX) and is hiding here from his brethren. The locals take little note of him and think him simple. They, especially the young women, pay far more attention to a young fisherman named Bren. He is a good fisherman and an ever better storyteller who tells many tales of the rocky island that lies several miles off the coast that all Veerhaveners (except Bren, if you believe his tales) avoid out of fear of having their brains collected. Bren has not yet married out of fear of the fate that a wandering seer gave him: that he would die before ever lying with a woman. However, he believes that he has found a way to avoid his fate for he has recently pledged his love to a Hostwick girl and promises that they will marry after his next fishing trip.

The girl in question is Alena, the daughter of the headman of Hostwick, a farming village a few miles north of Veerhaven. She accompanies her father on the flute when he does his duty and beats his elfskin drum to inspire the farmers to greater efforts in the fields. But ever since Alena began making the walk to Veerhaven to see Bren, her songs have grown stranger, with strange lilting melodies that the villagers have never heard before.

The farms of Hostwick lie scattered around a central knot of buildings with no defenses to be seen, for fear of the Doge of the Shuttered keeps reavers and dark beasts at bay, even this far from the City’s walls. Luckily for them, the soil here is rich and there is plenty of food left over even after taxes are collected. The main food crop here is a variety of radish that grows large, white and bloated. It not only fills the soup pot, but its leaves satisfy some of the hungers of the caterpillars of a certain species of moth.

This moth is considered a delicacy by the locals and is fed in great quantities to the boys of Hostwick. If the boys develop the proper signs, they are castrated and sold to the Necromantic Office (which keeps the White Road quiet and provides other services to the Shuttered City). This trade keeps coppers in the pockets of the villagers, but it makes it difficult for many village girls to find suitable husbands. Some of them marry the folk of Veerhaven or even travel to the City itself in hopes of finding their brothers.

Hooks:
-Whose gilded war barges were sunk here?
-What’s the story with the renegade Smiling Man?
-Are brains really collected in the rocky island off the coast? Is there any connection between that island and Sladdeer (44.17)?
-Will Bren die before his marriage? How will Alena react is he does?
-Where is Alena’s strange music coming from? Any connection between that and the rocky island?
-Why an elfskin drum? Where do you get one of those?
-Why do the radishes grow so large, white and bloated?
-What other hungers do the caterpillars have? What sorts of signs do they develop, why are they castrated and why does the Necromantic Office buy such eunuchs?
-What is the Necromantic Office exactly? The only other thing we know about it is that it keeps White Road under control (usually) (26.13).
-Do the village girls ever get to see their brothers again?

 

[Daztur]

Adapting more stuff over from rolang's post: Suburban Adventures | Rolang's Creeping Doom

Additional information about 16.16

A great deal of trade is carried out in Eastbridge and many small traders find it more congenial to carry out trade with the townsfolk than doing business with the court of the Duke. However, like just about anywhere else in the Shrouded Lands, there exists danger that can snare the unwary.

Some time ago a young baker named Chelind had dreams about being held in the passionate embrace of a being of dew and vapor. These dreams lead her to a large boulder embedded in the bank of the River of Crystal Waters. She hired a Skullcrusher orc (13.01) to pry loose the boulder and as it came free, the orc was pitched into the river along with the stone and never surfaced.

Under the stone, Chelind found a strange silvery skull in perfect condition and carried it back to her bakery. Ever since, her buns have been laced wtih strange enchantments and, if eaten fresh (for the magic lies in the vapor) can have curious effects on those who eat them. One of the first such victims was Chelind's husband, who she misses not at all.

Recently she has begun stewing mule meat to serve over her buns at a very reasonable price so that her customers eat them hot so that the vapor within them does not dissipate before they are eaten. However, the chance of Chelind's secret getting out is growing. Only a few days ago a local urchin peered through her window at night and saw the baker lying stark naked on a table atop a vast mound of dough crying out and writhing in her sleep. Such a sight he has never seen since he snooped on Tarent the ironmonger.

Hooks:
-What do the Skullcrusher orcs know about what happened to their dead tribesman?
-What exactly is the being of dew and vapor and how is it connected to the silvery skull?
-What effect does eating Chelind's buns have? What happened to her husband?
-What's the deal with Tarent the ironmonger?

 

[Daztur]

Additional information about 31.04

Note: this one was made with the random merchant generator from Secret Santicore (awesome free supplement). I'm making Olmsted Keep the base of operations for my first adventure so I'll be fleshing it out over the next two weeks.

Results: a Falstaffian drunkard, a caravan that includes 'gypsy-style' enclosed carts, boldly decorated and strung with bells and a merchant who will gladly play (chess, mahjong, cards) to negotiate price. They are trading in mummified body parts, salted or dried meat and fairyland trade goods (vest woven of spider silk; wine distilled from a child's tears), respectively.

Have to go to bed soon but some rough ideas for the three to be written up tomorrow:
1. Has a large cask of beer brewed by the Brothers of the Sainted Foot and claims to have some of the rest of the body...
2. Deep Dwarves trading in the body parts of slaves whose flesh is laced with metals more exotic than mere silver. They refuse to use the doors of their wagons (they have hired drivers) but open hatches in the floor of their wagons so that they can dig pits and sleep each night under the ground.
3. A troll with an obsession with the massive chess board, who claims to be a survivor of Bergolast itself, he has a number of strange goods that he is tryiing to sell to the Olmsteds and claims that the elves will pay dearly for them.

Wait, screw it, this is fun, let's do just one more before turning in... It's an old acquaintance of a PC's father trading in camphor. The PCs haven't been rolled up yet so I need more to go on, so he's also part of a family of merchants who compete against each other ruthlessly for profit. I'll make them a bunch of orcs who got their hands on some spices looted from the Freeholds after a raid and are trying to make more money off of them by selling them to the Olmsteds rather than back home. They're rough and tough and do their best to be ruthless merchants but they don't really know how it's done. Freeholders and dwarves hate them, but the Night People and the Olmsteds don't have anything against orcs so they're still alive.

Edit: as for how they knew the PC's father, one of them killed him. They'll probably be dumb enough to let that slip...

 

[Daztur]

The Spawn
Hex 39.08

Inspired by a very strange cartoon my son was watching.

Most of the frogs of the Witchwater have lost the intelligence that their ancestor possessed (40.09), but there is one set of exceptions known as the Spawn. It is a loose collective consciousness made up a large number of stunted tadpoles that live in the distended throat sac of a dog-sized frog.

When all of the tadpoles of the swarm speak together they are capable of being understood in Common, although their strange gurgling voice does not carry well and is just barely intelligible. They are able to exercise some degree of control over normal frogs and possess a surprising degree of magical ability. This can take the form of a single powerful spell that is cast by all of the tadpoles of the Spawn collectively, but coordinating their voices is difficult for them and carries a chance of failure. Alternatively, they can cast a vast swarm of cantrips at their enemies.

These enemies are humans, especially Thringmen, for the Spawn remembers what the men of Thring did to frogkind (40.09). The Spawn will not generally attack non-humans however, and they can even be consulted with about some magical matters that they have mastered.

Hooks:
-What caused the Spawn to form and how did it learn magic?

 

[Sanglorian]

Phew, I've been travelling for a bit and unable to contribute, but I had some down time yesterday and this morning.

Inspired by a monument I visited a couple of days ago:

THE ARCH OF DEFEAT (Hex 29.14.xx)
The Doge in the time before there was a Doge ordered the construction of an enormous monument to Shuttered’s military failures. ‘Why,’ he asked, ‘celebrate victory when victory is its own reward?’

Upon the arch is etched the location of every military defeat Shuttered has suffered. Around the arch stand statues of the many foreign leaders and heroes who have handed Shuttered defeat. Under the keystone of the arch is the tomb of the sleepy soldier, commemorating all the guards who slept at their posts, armourers who skimped on steel and generals who relaxed in their chateaus far from the battle.

The arch also serves as Shuttered’s iron nail storage, so that a battle will never be lost for want of a nail.

Once a year, the citizens of Shuttered gather in the streets leading to the arch to confess their failures and celebrate error. Mistakes are not just condoned, but celebrated - one of the greatest achievements is to wake up and not remember that it is a special day.

The day ends with bonfires on which citizens burn effigies of all those who defeated or stymied them or Shuttered itself.

Hooks
What is a Doge in the time before there was a Doge?
Whose effigies do the people of Shuttered burn?
What terrible mistakes have been made during this festival?
When has Shuttered lost a battle for want of an iron nail?

---

My take on people with the summon monster line of spells in their blood. I chose more interesting creatures than the typical fiendish monkey or celestial badger because they didn’t seem to fit with the Shrouded Lands.

It also occurred to me that we have an explanation as to why there are few outsiders in the Shrouded Lands: there are no (or few) portals left open after the Shuttering of Shuttered.

THE DAEMONS OF THE FAUSTYS (26.16)
Members of the Fausty family are accompanied by a monster that comes from beyond this world. In the other witch clans, strength of blood determines whether a person manifests the family power. In the Fausty family, strength of blood determines the power of the companion beast.

The monsters are clearly alien. One boy is followed by a clockwork eye with wings of glass and mithril. It speaks only in mathematical formulae. A scion of the family is followed about by a colourful and bounding great Galloon, rabbit-eared and poodle-tailed. A girl born last year has already summoned a great black mastiff that the matrons say once collected the dead with the Wild Hunt.

Hooks
Do the Wild Hunts really collect the dead, or is that Clanswoman gossip?
This is the second witch clan with a connection to other dimensions. Do the witch clans have a connection to the planes?
What other companion beasts do Faustys have?
Do any of these extraplanar beings exist in the Shrouded Lands other than as Fausty companions?