Let’s Make a Hexcrawl Setting

[Electric Wizard]

Isane the Beauty's Slithering Garden
Additional information about Hex 19.31

Isane the Beauty, concubine of Viceroy Baltas, lives in a vast apartment attached to the harem shared by the other concubines. She is an enigmatic figure in Jahur who is becoming renowned as much for her intelligence as her looks. Many believe her to be the mortal daughter of a nymph and a Night Cattle herder. Others believe she is a wayward elf from Vivisophal (49.32) based on certain quirks of her accent.

Most of the snake books in Isane's Slithering Garden are invaluable sources related to divination and the Undying Cycles of Creation (19.31.03). These lizard man accounts avoided the rot and fire that claimed the originals. Isane interprets the snakes for motley clients including diviners, Sons of Dagon (20.32), historians and cultists. Viceroy Baltas overlooks her shadier clients because of her countless charms. Other Viceroys are less forgiving because they believe she is supporting the Holy Fools, the heretical sect of Iano that stirs dissent among the lower classes. Loyal Janissaries keep her well-guarded.

Most of Isane's clients are women. Since she is a Viceroy's concubine, Jahur law prohibits men from speaking with her on pain of death or castration. Men who insist on meeting her in person arrange with one of her Janissaries to deliver a potion that temporarily changes the drinker's gender.

Hooks
-Who is Isane the Beauty, really?
-Why were so many of the old books burned? Who burned them?
-Are the snake books entirely accurate? They have been filtered through and reinterpreted by lizard brains.
-What do the lower classes like about the Holy Fools?
-Who else uses potions that can change the drinker's gender?

 

[Daztur]

Inspired by more Jack Vance and our distressing lack of oozes, slimes and jellies.

The Grey Ooze
Additional information about Hex 29.14

If you go down deep enough in the Undercity one of the most common hazards is grey ooze. These gelatinous perils paralyze with a touch and then envelop their prey carrying them, still alive, down deeper into the tunnels and abandoned buildings that riddle the underbelly of the City of Shuttered Windows. The only reason more of them aren't around is that the troglodyte brothers of the Temple of Alberon (29.14.10) go out of their way to destroy them.

If you follow the oozes down into deep into the Undercity you will find their source: the mucus that drips from a great leering face as grey and dull as old steel. This is Ghar Zaghoan, a great presence from another plane of existence who was trying to enter the City when its many windows slammed shut (29.14.13). Here he has remained ever since.

Ghar Zaghoan has grown increasingly bored over the centuries and he hopes that his grey oozes will bring him people who were more entertaining than the last batch.

Hooks:
-Why do the troglodytes go after the grey oozes with special fervor?
-Who has been paralyzed by grey ooze and taken down to entertain Ghar Zaghoan?
-What does such a presence from another plane consider entertaining?
-Is there any way for him to get unstuck?

 

[Electric Wizard]

Paionian Glade (4.17)
Connected to Hex 3.19, 5.18

This rugged pine forest belongs to the centaurs of the Paion tribe. In the fractured land of Gore, they thrive as bandits. They waylay travelers with thundering hooves, steel tridents and nets of spider silk (3.19). Their favorite loot includes wine, smoked meat and astrology tomes. The tribal shaman, Knoss, uses the latter to conduct moonlit ceremonies at the Fools' Court (5.18). The ceremonies change from solemn to raucous as soon as the first flagon wine is poured. Their hoots and stomps echo through the hills until well after daybreak.

Despite their ferocity, the centaurs seldom prey on the Sanguine Lords' downtrodden serfs because their cruel masters leave them with little to steal. Many peasants admire the centaurs, and try to assist them whenever possible. Sometimes this includes providing human sacrifices for the centaurs' equinox festivals. The serfs usually choose suspected criminals or other unpopular figures from their village, but sometimes they must resort to trials of skill or luck. These trials vary from village to village, and could involve anything from ritual combat to pie eating contests.

Hooks
-How did the centaurs get their hands on spider silk nets?
-What powers do the centaurs derive from their monthly rites?
-What villages or towns still exist in Gore?
-What treasures have the centaurs looted from travelers?

 

[Daztur]

Connection for the Grey Ooze entry: The Necromantic Office (29.14.35) is willing to pay handsomely for living grey ooze samples due to their wonderful preservative properties.

The Hierophant of Constant Sorrow
Additional information about Hex 36.04

It is not the passing of years that age a man but the worries and cares that accumulate with each passing day. Perhaps it is elven frivolity and their famous lack of empathy or others that explains why elves may live a thousand years and never age.

Or at least most elves. Amelar the Immaculate, the Hierophant of of the Kingswood, is skeletal with age and as wizened as any crone. This is because she takes on those memories that other elves find distressing into her own mind and keeps them there. She remembers the betrayal is Ilsenaire and the thousand crime of Alvadr while their victims dance freely.

While the Hierophant still takes on the tragedies of the elven race, they press as heavily on her mind as on her stooped body and she no longer finds pleasure in anything in this world, not even her garden.

So, while all elves respect the wisdom of the Hierophant, they find being in her presence rather distressing and generally try to avoid it, unless necessity prods them into seeking out her wisdom.

Connection:
It is rumored that the Ferryman (35.06) once took on tragic memories much like the Hierophant currently does. So many that he has aged into a creature more wraith than elf but still lives, for no elf ever dies of old age. That this has to do with fingers specifically nobody knows.

Hooks:
-Is this theory abut sad memories aging you really true?
-What sort of memories has the Hierophant taken on?
-Who were Ilsenaire and Alvadr?
-Are there any other elves who take on memories in this way?
-Why doesn't the Weeper (13.08) give up the memory of his daughter's disappearance and live happily?

 

[Electric Wizard]

Archet (15.13)
Connected to Hex 14.14

This village has envied and feared its neighbors in Shotwick (14.14) for generations. The living idol that protects Shotwick from the ravages of rats often drives packs of foul rodents into Archet's fields and granaries. The problem is so persistent that the local sheriff is known as the chief ratter, and the village militia calls themselves the Cats. The village has pooled together enough gold to hire Varna Moon, a moderately talented diviner who spends most of her waking life drunk on Thringish brandy. She has detected an unusual divine presence from the direction of Shotwick, but she must get closer to learn more of it. Which proves to be a problem. She fears traveling there alone, and refuses help from locals due to their constant quarrels. The exasperated villagers await outside help.

Rat problems aside, a small hatchet engraved with elvish runes lies buried between the roots of a crabapple tree near the inn. It can be used to fork the tongue of anyone who can speak. Those with forked tongues are able to lie flawlessly, their deceit undetectable by magical or mundane means. But those who know the hatchet's secret will immediately suspect any forked-tongue speaker of being a filthy, shameless liar.

Hooks
-Why is Varna Moon a sloppy drunkard? Does it help with her divinations, or simply take the edge off?
-It seems Shotwick's blood-drinking idol is genuinely divine. Are there idols like it elsewhere? How do the major religions react to them?
-How did the elvish hatchet come to be buried here? Who in the Shrouded Lands has a forked tongue?

 

[Daztur]

The Vampiric Stratum
Hex 02.02

Idea yoinked from the False Machine: http://falsemachine.blogspot.com For me one of the main things I'm using this setting for is a vault for all of the setting ideas I come across. I used to read all sorts of things and think, "wow, that's cool, I'll have to put that in a campaign someday." And then after a month I'd forget about them. These days, they all go right here...

Here, just north of Mt. Scorshia, and perhaps in a few other places in these lands, uplift and erosion have exposed a great mass of fossilized vampires to the unkind rays of the sun.

Long ago, before the first tree of the Kingswood was planted, a great vampiric plague swept over the land. It spread so far and so fast that the living could not stand before it and every creature either fled or was turned. With no victims remaining, the vampires learned many things about the nature of hunger before finally falling into slumber.

Ages passed and then still more ages and now all that is left of the great vampire hordes that once consumed these lands is a chalky layer of sediment that usually lies deep below the earth. But vampires never die and though their bones have been fossilized they live and every so often one of them stumbles out of the mountainside very old, very hungry, and very very insane.

Hooks:
-Where else are the vampire fossils exposed to the elements?
-Vampires never die? What about sunlight and stakes to the heart?
-What sort of capabilities does a vampire have if it's been reduced to a handful of fossilized bones (i.e. basically chalk)?
-Just how crazy are these vampires? What sort of races did they come from? Elves? Something older?

 

[Daztur]

Helged Bolger
Additional information about Hex 29.14

Helged Bolger is the smallest vampire in these lands. Her small form consists of nothing more than a halfling head and some trailing acid-dripping viscera. Unlike many of her kind, she cannot fly and can only move slowly without the help of her troop of enthralled monkeys.

She attacks foreigners (she scrupulously avoids preying on citizens of Shuttered) by either squirming her way into her bed chambers through any small opening she can be found or by dropping down from above. After biting her prey, or lashing at them with her guts, her monkeys will toss her head in order to get it safely out of line of sight as quickly as possible. Would-be vampire hunters will find cornering Helged exceptionally frustrating as no matter what they do her monkeys will toss her out of range, only to have her make hit and run attacks as soon as their backs are turned.

Connections:
-Bogarus Bolger (30.15) does not care for the activities of his cousin but has not yet raised a hand against her.
-Helged is behind the theft of one of the Lamplighters' posts (17.06). She believes that the enchantment that has been laid upon it can be reversed and produce darkness if properly fueled with ice. She has not been able to accomplish this yet, largely because she finds the light painful (not having hands doesn't help either).

Hooks:
-Why is Helged only a head? What happened?
-Where did she get her troop of monkeys.

What I'm basically thinking here is that Helged and her monkeys have very high initiative. After winning initiative Helged will attack (by being tossed by monkeys or swung in the direction of her foes at them) and then have a monkey toss her to another monkey and then that monkey dive out of line of sight. This means that unless the PCs can beat her on initiative or be smart about readied actions (depending on edition) they'll have a hard to making attack rolls against her when its their turn. They can kill a few monkeys and drive her off, but she'll always be back if she wants to.

 

[Electric Wizard]

The Bones' Jangle
Additional information about Hex 48.18

Sosaria's artisans and entrepreneurs make extensive use of the bones of slaughtered beasts. Attu Sharku, proprietor of the Bones' Jangle, purchases entire skeletons and transforms them into musical puppets. The skeletons are rebuilt into whimsical forms and attached to wires that gnome puppeteers move with pedal mechanisms. The lurid shadows cast by the skeletons and the soft jangling of their bones provide unique ambiance.

The clientele varies from night to night, and includes all walks of Sosarian life. The weekday brings throngs of butchers and plague doctors. Weekend performances by bands of gnolls or steppes people attract the scions of cattle barons, adventurers and exiles hoping to forget the city's squalor. Everyone drinks local eggnog infused with pungent liquors. Those who can afford the house's pipeweed smoke it through brass hookahs shaped like fantastic beings.

Attu Sharku has been unnerved by the occasional corpse left behind after nightly revels. Most have dramatically twisted necks along with extensive bruises and shattered bones. Both cattle baron factions denounce the violence, and insist that there is no obvious pattern in the murders that can damn them. Attu suspects that his cabaret is haunted, and spends most of his profits paying various temples to perform exorcisms. The Bones' Jangle is in fact haunted, but not by any restless spirits. An invisible stalker controlled by Imorcar the Many resides in one of the cabaret's brass hookahs. He releases it when he needs to eliminate a perceived threat. His perception is rarely clear, however, and many of the victims have nothing to do with the city's politics.

Hooks
-Attu Sharku is believed to a barbarian prince from the eastern steppes. How did he end up here?
-Does the Bones' Jangle feature any exotic skeletons?
-What kind of performances do the gnolls and steppes people give?
-Who have been some of the invisible stalker's victims?
-What temples in Sosaria provide the exorcisms?

 

[Daztur]

I love the bit about sex change potions used to rules lawyer. One of my favorite bits of his setting are all of crazy things that people do only to squirm through loopholes of various kinds.

Sorry about not posting in a bit have been busy with work and spent too much free time reading a "what if Kaiser Wilheim II died young.

This entry is based on a PC I made up for an upcoming Burning Wheel campaign

Goat Onna Stick
Additional information about 23.11

Many travelers make a point to stop by at Goat Onna Stick after the tiring and dusty journey up the White Road (26.13). The proprietor, a large Jahuri (19.31) by the name of Bad Deza serves up grilled goat skewers and goat milk mead to thirsty travelers.

Bad Deza is friendly and talkative and is a generally reliable source of information but has little patience with those who cause trouble in his dive and the muscle to back that up. However, enough mercenaries, bandits and adventurers get drunk here that he has his hands too full breaking up fights to pay attention to all of the pick pockets, especially his numerous cousins who hang out here and are famous for rolling drunks.

Connections:
-Bad Deza still maintains some connections with his homeland which means that he's one of the few sources of 100 gp pearls that isn't a front for Lady Seline (29.14.38).
-Bad Deza is Flea's local informant (20.10). But he has actually recently sold Flea out and is feeding him false information.

Hooks:
-Why is he "Bad" Deza?
-Goat milk mead? Who'd want to drink that?
-What sort of information does Bad Deza know?
-Tell me about his numerous cousins and any other people who hang out at Goat Onna Stick.
-Who did Bad Deza sell Flea out to?

 

[Daztur]

Dragon Lake
Hex 25.16

This dragon-shaped lake is where men and women of the surrounding Witch Clans dive for peacockatrice eggs. They are generally found in the coldest and deepest reaches of the lake, which makes them hard to retrieve, what with all of the electric eels and carnivorous fish.

However, the high prices these eggs can fetch in Shuttered can make the diving worth it. After all, the prices are high enough to spark scuffles, murders and even a small war. Legend says that one day a dragon egg will be discovered here which makes the lake all the more intriguing

The peacockatrices themselves may not look like much when they are first hatched and are easily confused with especially ugly chickens. However as they grow the males tail feathers grow long and brilliant, so much so that they can easy dazzle the mind of any who look upon them. They are also often the last thing that people see as the peacockatrice then approaches its dazzled victims and pecks at them, which turns them to stone.

Count Seutorian (30.12) keeps a large flock of these birds in his gardens and often meditates while staring into their feathers (while on the other side of a stout wrought iron fence, as he is not an idiot).

Hairy Jack (37.21) also keeps one, but it is a female that lacks the dazzling feathers and petrifying peck of the males of this species. However, he has glued some bright feathers to its tail and hopes that it will serve as a useful decoy.

Hooks:
-Why are there peacockatrice eggs at the bottom of a lake?
-What kind of fish?
-A small war? Tell me about it!
-Is there really a connection between this lake and dragons?
-How do Count Seutorian’s gardeners maintain a garden full of peacockatrices?
-Who’s been turned to stone by them?
-Who else owns one?