Let’s Make a Hexcrawl Setting

[Daztur]

In my original conception of this entry Lady Alevari was an evil gold digger. I like this version a lot better...

Lady Alevari’s Lament
Additional information about hex 29.14
Connects to various places in 29.14 and 16.18

Lord Alevari is not as he once was. His grizzled hair has turn midnight black and his paunch and chins have fallen away. His sons are not pleased with this and they hoped to gain their inheritance before their debts come due. But even those who wish the lord well are unnerved by his glassy eyes, distant manner and the way in which the once strong-willed lord now defers to his young wife in all things. They whisper about how she must have placed him under and evil enchantment and about the furtive-eyed men that can now be seen slipping into the Alevari manse.

They are wrong. Lady Alevari loves her husband so she turned him into a zombie. After the good lord came down with the Courting Death (the one that makes you cough a bit and then suddenly a while later BAM brain fever and death umpteen pages back) she despaired. Every night she could not sleep, not knowing when death would return to claim her beloved husband. Finally she decided to claim her husband for herself to keep him beyond death’s clutches and slew him with foul magic and then revived him as a zombie from within a bag of his own skin (16.18).

But Lord Alevari is not as he once was. Although his form is more pleasing the passion and humor that earned his wife’s love has left his eyes and Lady Alevari cries each night in bitter lament.

But she has not given up. In order to raise funds she has procured a few strange worms from the cultists of the Swarm that eat the bodies of the dead and produce the finest silk after sated from their feasting. Those who wear clothes fashioned from such clothes are visited by dreams of the dead, but this is of little importance to the desperate lady. She hopes that with enough money she can hire a wizard skilled enough in the magical arts to restore her husband to her. However this has drawn the attention of the Necromantic Office and it is doubtful that this affair will end well for the fair lady.

Hooks:
-Tell me more about the Alevari family.
-Who supplied the magic that slew Lord Alevari? Is the lady a sorceress herself?
-Who had been eaten to produce the silk? Who has dreamed their dreams?
-Who does Lady Alevari hope to pay to provide magic to restore her husband? Is such a thing even possible?

 

[Electric Wizard]

Ninbolm (5.24)

This gnome city is carved into the petrified stump of a colossal tree. Most visitors only have the privilege of seeing the tunnels and windows that dot the small upper city. Most of Ninbolm's secrets, including the Heirophant's Heart and the Indigo Academy, lie within the enormous maze that is the root system.

Ninbolm's citizens proudly assert that they have inhabited the great tree forever. But many human scholars believe that before it was turned to stone, the tree was the fabled goblin tree of Nilbog. According to the legend of Nilbog, the tree was the source of all goblins, and like a good mother, it provided everything they needed. The Bloodied King, however, envied them and turned the mighty tree to stone. The surviving goblins scattered across the Shrouded Lands, nursing their bitterness and outrage until they became the scorned race that they are today.

For as long as any gnome can remember, the city has been ruled by the Heirophant, a druid who long ago merged with the tree's petrified heartwood. He can know anything that happens within the city. His omniscience is limited by the fact that he can only experience a few things at any given time. Druids, who serve all official functions within the city, commune with him through giant snail familiars that cling to the heartwood.

The Indigo Academy, a subversive illusionist school, has managed to flout the Heirophant's authority with great aplomb and typical gnomish cheek. While the rest of Ninbolm abides the Heirophant's humorless thumb, the Academy devotes its time and energy towards clever and creative pranks. The frustrated Heirophant believes the academy must exist in a pocket plane because he cannot find it. The truth is that the school does not exist physically. It is a collective of wizards who pose as ordinary citizens. Their meetings are informal, and conducted entirely through disguises, codes and innuendo.

The Academy is beloved by Ninbolm's common folk for brightening their lives. But there is more to the Academy than good-natured rebellion. Working around the city's rigid, all-seeing theocracy is a means of honing their skills. Outsiders who can contact them often attempt to employ them in various schemes. The Indigo Academy knows they the best at what they do, and charge accordingly.

Hooks
-How much of the legend of Nilbog is true?
-Where is the rest of the petrified tree?
-What are some of the Heirophant's decrees?
-Does the Indigo Academy have a ringleader? Who are its prominent members?
-What have been some of the Indigo Academy's most epic pranks?
-Who in the Shrouded Lands is employing members of the Indigo Academy?
-In addition to the giant snails, what other strange creatures dwell in the city?
-Most important - Where can a traveler get a drink in this crazy place?

 

[Daztur]

I've just stumbled across this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Trost_Richards guy and various people associated with him. Very nice out of copyright landscapes for illustrations of stuff in which the hexes would be impossible to find free illustrations of. Also he painted a bunch of pictures around my hometown, it's fun to actually recognize what the stuff in some of the pictures for some of the hexes actually is

Edit: also wow Harry Clarke is pretty damn cool, if there isn't a hex for this image there damn well should be:

 

[Electric Wizard]

Unwerth the Immense (3.26)
Connected to 5.24

The goat herders who traverse the rugged lands between Gore and the Cornfields revere a strange patrician known as Unwerth the Immense. He is a wizard bachelor who keeps a cozy home inside a cliff side cave. His rotundness, fine dress and booming, jolly voice would put visitors at ease in almost any situation. But those who go straight from the scrub lands into Unwerth's richly-furnished abode and treated as though they were expected for tea-time feel disoriented and unnerved.

Unwerth takes it upon himself to diffuse conflicts between the feuding bands of goat herders before they can turn to murder or worse. The goat herders always come to him. He has never been seen outside his comfortable quarters. Unwerth is a first-class mediator. His warm humor, hospitality and unimpeachable taste soothe even the hottest-headed petitioners. By the end of negotiations, which may consist of a weekend of halfling brandy, eclectic pipeweed blends, nut cakes and boar sausage, all parties tend to be more or less satisfied.

Unwerth the Immense is in fact an elaborate prank perpetrated by the Indigo Academy. The gregarious wizard patrician is really a huge, docile desert toad beneath countless layers of illusion. The trick serves to pacify local human tribes, who envy Ninbolm's prosperity.

Hooks
-Tell me more about these goat herding tribes.
-Who, among the tribes, suspects something is seriously awry with this lovable bachelor?
-What do the tribes fight over?
-Has Ninbolm ever gone to war with local humans or anyone else?
-What other defensive measures does Ninbolm use against outsiders?

 

[Daztur]

Hex 43.22
The Breeding Grounds of the Daggerfeet

Idea stolen from the (exceptionally disturbing) Green Australia Alternate History Timeline.

The gnolls of the Burning Lands steer well clear of this region during the fall daggerfoot breeding season which disrupts much of the river trade along the River Hyad. Of course the daggerfeet do gather elsewhere to breed, it is simply that the plentiful nearby hippopotami (44.22) provide them with a great deal of food to sustain their frolicking and bounding.

It comes as a surprise to some that these relatively small animals can bring down a hippopotamus. After all, their long-eared doglike heads do not include especially large teeth, their forelimbs are weak and short and even their fur is a boring shade of brown. But seeing the daggerfeet in action (preferably at a great distance) is usually enough to dispel these doubts. The great hind legs of the daggerfeet, which give them their strange hopping gait, allow them to leap onto the backs of their prey and slash at them with their pair of enormous claws that give them their name. These fierce beasts have been known to drive full lion prides away from their kills and only the greatest gnollish hunters sport necklaces strung with their claws.

However, unless driven by hunger or the madness of mating season, daggerfeet generally avoid healthy humanoids. But if they notice wounded or weakened humanoids they will follow them, often for days, waiting for their chance to strike.

Daggerfeet hunt in small packs, much like wolves. This has led some gnolls to try to tame them, often with disastrous results. It is theorized that daggerfeet display dominance by bounding higher than their rivals. It seems that would be daggerfeet tamers were able to control the young joeys but as soon as the creatures reached adulthood the pathetic (by daggerfeet standards) jumps that gnolls are capable of caused them to view their tamers as crippled or aged and thus only worthy of death.

Hooks:
-Except for hippos what do daggerfeet eat?
-Is it possible to tame daggerfeet? How? Stilts? Constantly casting jump? Perhaps if one of the which clans were able to cast jump at will they could do it…
-Do daggerfeet claws have any use?

Yup, they’re basically deinonychus kangaroos o’ doom.

 

[Daztur]

Did a quick count (so might be off by a few in either direction) but it seems we have 257 hexes now (not including many many hex sub-entries). That means we're just a bit shy of having 15% of the hexes filled in. This might take a while...

Updated map here: http://img819.imageshack.us/img819/9136/nov25map.png

 

[Daztur]

The biggest humanoid race we haven't touched on yet is lizardmen so I want to hit those guys next. I'm thinking over them and I'll have a lizardman post up later but still thinking them over. Basically I want to make them plenty alien but still a PC race that's easy to roleplay. The basic idea is take the amygdala (the "lizard brain" and supercharge it make it smart but don't give them a lot of the functions that mammal brains have (aside from being smart). This is pseudo-scientific as all hell but leads to some interesting places (making them sort of neurotic Vulcans, kind of sort of):

-Lacking a lot of the emotions that mammals have.
-Very strong sex and violence drives, very obsessed with dominance behavior.
-High levels of anxiety, tend to be paranoid and twitchy. This anxiety often leads to obsessive and/or violent behavior.
-Quite intelligent, especially good at formal logic, not especially creative and horrible as understanding the thinking of other races. Very good memories, especially for smells.
-Very ritualized and hierarchy/dominance-focused behavior among their own kind.
-Their dominant philosophy denies the existence of free will, seeing creatures behavior as determined by its nature and its environment, which can be shaped to make them do what you want. This philosophy says that things like revenge and gratitude are stupid and a waste of time. It understands the value of a reputation but thinks that dying "for a cause" is very very deeply idiotic.
-Excellent at ambush combat, tend to run away when meeting heavy resistance.
-Travel around in massive caravans with massive scary critters out of the Permian. Not usually seen as far north as the Shrouded Lands, show up every once in a while as enormous caravans traveling across the shrouded lands veeeery slooooowly.

Also their books are snakes (see old Dnd with porn stars blog entry).

 

[Electric Wizard]

The Dune Walker (9.29)

In this stretch of the Singing Waste, ghouls, snakes, and even scorpions are scarce. The only singing a traveler is likely to hear is the whistle of wind against the sand dunes.

Anyone who sleeps here finds their rest interrupted by a tall, lanky figure in a white cloak known as the Dune Walker. The Dune Walker seizes its victims and kisses them forcibly on the mouth. During the kiss, the victim will have a traumatic revelation of how either their most beloved friend or most despised enemy will die. All of its victims visibly age after the kiss.

The Dune Walker seems impervious to weapons and magic, and cannot be negotiated with. Those who return from the dunes remember only its weathered, toothless mouth beneath a white hood. When its business is finished, the Dune Walker shuffles away until it vanishes in the dark.

Hooks
-What is the Dune Walker? A demon, angel, fey? Some restless spirit?
-Some people seek the Dune Walker. Who are they?
-Who has the Dune Walker kissed? How has it changed their lives?

 

[Electric Wizard]

Scent Barrier (21.29)
Connected to Hex 19.31

Jahur's first line of defense against the gnolls of the Burning Land is not the Janissary army. The city's alchemists created a pungent deterant known as the Scent Barrier. It is a network of geysers that blast strong smells - everything from sweet aromas to noxious fumes. Gnolls that attempt to cross become disoriented, and eventually half-blind and insane, thanks to their reliance on their powerful noses. Many animals also keep their distance from the barrier.

Humans can cross the border with few problems. Jahur's caravans rely on great dodo birds, creatures with a very poor sense of smell, to haul their wagons. Gnolls wishing to travel to Jahur usually take ships. Since no gnoll has ever built or sailed a ship, they rely on invitations from Viceroys or passage from merchant vessels.

Hooks
-How does the Scent Barrier produce smells?
-Tell me more about Jahur's giant dodo birds. Have any knights of Thring adopted them as mounts?
-Gnawer of Flame is one of Jahur's most infamous gnoll visitors. Who are some others?

 

[Daztur]

Update: moved into a new place on Monday and no home internet til Saturday. I've been using the no-internet/EN World time to get some work done on the compilation. All hexes are in and am nearly half done with Shuttered sub-hexes.