Let’s Make a Hexcrawl Setting

[Daztur]

New map: http://img805.imageshack.us/img805/3021/feb16map.png

Edit, I just went through the thread and counted up how many contributions each person made and I came up with:

Daztur 207
Sanglorian 82
chutup 76
Electric Wizard 55
drek 11
SnowleopardVK 7
Pillsy 5
Quickleaf 4
Jacob Marley 4
the Jester 3
Stormonu 3
LostSoul 2
MichaelSomething 1

A total of 460, wow.

Note that Electric Wizard has made more of a contribution than the entire original rgp.net thread

 

[Electric Wizard]

Goddang textual tyrannosaurus

 

[Electric Wizard]

Wyvern of the Waste (29.29)

A great blood-red wyvern makes her lair in these tablelands. She has grown indolent with age, and spends most of her days lying on rocks. But her cunning and predator instincts remain as sharp as her stinger. When she takes to the sky to hunt, gnolls and dwarves run for cover. She prefers to prey on cattle and livestock. Her favorite tactic is to snatch prey in her talons and dash them against rocks. Unlike other predators of the waste, the wyvern is never satisfied after a single kill. She relishes in annihilating herds, and has attacked cattle with her stinger after gorging herself until she cannot fly.

Despite the havoc she wreaks, both gnolls and dwarves honor the wyvern in their mythologies. Gnoll bards sing of ancient battles when warriors rode the wyvern into battle, and sightings on the eve of conflict are considered auspicious. A popular dwarf chant tells of how in a dark hour, the wyvern will save them. She will turn her fury against the gnoll armies and scatter them across the desert.

A broken Janissary named Jonah lies among her horde. He lost his legs when she ambushed their caravan, and his remaining limbs have not been oiled in years. His mind and soul, however, remain intact. He will be very grateful for any assistance in returning to his beloved Jahur.

Hooks
-Has the wyvern ever laid eggs? Where is her mate?
-Why have all of these hardened dwarves and gnolls been unable to slay her after all these years?
-Did gnolls, or anyone else, ever ride her?
-Is she really the destined savior of the dwarves?
-What can Jonah offer his rescuers?
-What else lies in her hoard?

 

[Electric Wizard]

Alleys of the Woman in Red
Additional information about Hex 19.31

Viceroy Duygu was vexed by a recurring dream about a beautiful, long-haired woman in a red gown. She would always spurn his advances and flee down lanes and alleyways. Duygu always awoke, exasperated, before catching up to her. Despite having two wives and a harem of concubines, the viceroy felt he should have his way in his own dreams. Isane the Beauty recommended that he present himself as a commoner and try to win the heart of a lowborn woman. So in his idle time, Duygu donned a disguise and began exploring the alleyways of Jahur. He realized that the alleys around the central bazaar were the same as the ones the woman used to escape him in his dreams.

Duygu began buying up the buildings along the alleys. He erected walls and iron gates in hope of cornering the woman in his dreams. But when he finished changing the alleys, the dreams stopped. To this day, he is frustrated that his quarry eluded him.

Thieves and the heretical cult known as the Holy Fools take advantage of the alleys' dead ends and irrational turns. Cutpurses and cutthroats often elude watchmen by fleeing into the labyrinth. The Holy Fools use isolated courtyards as open-air meeting places.

Connections
-These alleys are rife with bucket kelp (26.33) chewers. Viceroy Harun, captain of the watch, has deployed undercover agents in the neighborhood in an attempt to identify major dealers.
-Hypno (8.28) tries to prevent mortals from having recurring dreams.

Hooks
-Were Duygu's dreams sent to him by someone with an agenda?-How much influence does Isane the Beauty have over the Viceroys who seek her counsel?
-Do Viceroys often pose as commoners? What shenanigans do they get into while trying to pass as porters, beggars or wallahs?
-Who are the major players in Jahur's thieves' guild?

 

[Electric Wizard]

Azurnay (24.26)

The dwarves of the Burning Land have many septs, but Azurnay is the only settlement that humans would call a city. Azurnay is carved into a mesa, and exists to serve those bound for Jahur, Blind Midshotgatepool or Hyfalls. It is built over a subterranean lake, but the lake lies so far below the surface that the city relies on complex machinery to bring it to the surface. The machinery already existed, rusted and decrepit, when Azurnay's founders settled here. The dwarves managed to refurbish many of the parts and began harvesting the water.

A cabal of machinists known as the Chain Gang pull the city's strings. They jealously guard their monopoly on maintaining the wells. They work hand in glove with the city guard, who punish anyone outside of the Chain Gang who attempts to repair wells on suspicion of sabotage. The Chain Gang demands high prices for their services. Those who cannot pay find themselves owing favors.

The Ring of Fire, a tavern owned by Hairy Jack's (37.21) nephew Bloody Vincent, is popular for its nightly insect fights. Vermin wranglers, mostly adventurers who have fallen on hard times, are paid good money to capture the Burning Land's most vicious giant bugs. The captured wasteland horrors duel to the death within a burning circle. Tamilda Kondransdotter, another scion of Koldran (20.03), is Azurnay's best vermin wrangler thanks to a ring that charms unpleasant creatures. When Bloody Vincent's vermin stocks become low, he persuades desperate adventurers to fight the beasts. The dwarves call these bouts imoku. They attend the Ring of Fire, which they normally shun, in large numbers to watch them.

Connections
-The city watch trains blunt-toothed pigdogs (27.27) to catch troublemakers they can't keep up with.

Hooks
-Who built Azurney's waterworks?
-Who or what is the Chain Gang's biggest rival?
-What kind of favors do the Chain Gang demand?
-How did Bloody Vincent come to own the most popular drinking establishment in a dwarf city?
-Which bug gladiators are crowd favorites?
-Has anyone made a living fighting bugs in the Ring of Fire?
-Why do the dwarves flock to see man v. bug bouts? Why do they call them imoku?

 

[Daztur]

The Silk Wars
Additional information about Hex 29.14.

Alvise Ettienne took over the family silk business when his uncle, also Alvise Ettienne, was exiled from the City following his transformation into the first ettin and related scandals (13.06). The gold that he could make in this profitable business did a great deal to restore his house’s reputation and wash away all of the annoying whispers about head theft.

That is, of course, until Weng Lo came to town. The easterner was able to produce his own silk and savagely undercut the prices that Alvise sold his imported silks for (29.14.XX). Finally he found a solution: he would market the silks produced by Lady Alevari produced with the help of flesh-eating insects (29.14.37). He suspects, but cannot prove, that Weng Xiao produces her silk through the same means.

Thanks to his prodding Lady Alevari has stepped up her silk production and the competition between the two of them and the easterners has stepped up. Many think that Alvise is behind Weng Lo's death and his daughter has become increasingly paranoid and has gone to extreme lengths to safeguard her tower.

Also the competition has led to agents of Xiao and Ettienne squabbling over dead bodies that they come across in the street and even occasional blows. If matters escalate any more, Alvise is considering bringing in some of his ettin cousins to smash heads. The Necromantic Office takes a dim view of this and is debating what course to take (29.14.35).

Hooks:
-So now we have people fighting over who will get to cart off dead bodies and feed them to bugs, there has to be some good stories there. Does everyone who gets carted off want to get in the cart?

 

[Daztur]

The Dust Men
Additional information about Hex 40.20

Much to the annoyance of the city fathers, Hyfalls is currently host to a large band of Dust Men. They have already covered the petrified centaurs in blasphemous images and forced several merchants to swallow the contents of their purses and it is feared that there is worse to come. However, it is proving hard to drive them out as they are able to step from shadow to shadow and are very popular with the rough sailors and caravan hands that gather in Hyfalls.

The Dust Men are a sect of the monastic brothers and sisters of Pilgrim’s Spire (25.31). They teach that this world is an illusion and that only dreams are real and that if you master their arts you will one day wake up from this shrouded land, leave the prison of your body and live eternally in pleasant dream.

Until that time, the Dust Men feel that it is their duty to teach the world the good news that everything that exists is nothing but dust. The Dust Men’s favorite way of doing this by stealing large sums of money. They then do things like dump bags of coins into shark-infested waters or hire an entire troupe of Shadowed Ballet dancers (briefly mentioned at 50.11) to dance naked through the streets of Shuttered for a week. They feel that this provides the unenlightened with a useful lesson in the worthlessness of material things and airily dismiss those who call them nothing but a pack of high living thieves.

The Dust Men also take assassination commissions (as long as they are judged to be “interesting”) but rarely kill anyone. For example they forced Wortimer the Scrivener (26.20.01) to make amends for some of his misdeeds after he found chocolate cookies appearing at his bedside each and every morning despite all of his security measures.

Of course, every so often Dust Men return to Pilgrim’s Spire, where their less colorful brothers and sisters tolerate them, if just barely. There are some concerns that the Dust Men freely teach the order’s martial arts to every thief and blackguard they come across, but as the Dust Men feel it is their duty to teach the whole world they are difficult to dissuade from doing so.

A number of burglars have certainly made good use of the Pilgrim’s Way. It is very useful to be able to jump at will from one shadow to another. The Dust Men explain this art by saying that distance is but an illusion and all places are proximate in dream, so that a man or woman who can dream with their eyes open can take very long strides indeed. Dust Men are a bit vague about why this only works with shadows and tend to spout jargon about “liminality” if questioned closely.

One weakness the Dust Men have is that they cannot jump from shadow to shadow if a gnoll is howling nearby. They say that they are able to dream with their eyes wide open but that gnollish singing is enough to shake a man out of any dream, no matter how deep. This may explain the fact that gnolls have been able to sack Pilgrim’s Spire several times.

Hooks:
-Tell me about some interesting stunts that Dust Men have pulled?
-How many Dust Men actually take the sect’s ideology seriously?
-Tell me more about the Shadowed Ballet dancers.
-What did Wortimer make amends for? How?
-Why can they only step from shadow to shadow?
-So, gnollish singing can break a Dust Man’s concentration. Can they do the same to a wizard or cleric?

 

[Daztur]

I've got the compilation most of the way up to date now. What I'd like to hit next is expand the region descriptions so that more of them are a bit longer than just the stubs we have now. The following probably need to be expanded a bit:

-The Lost Colony
-The Withered Moors
-The Cornfields
-The Devil’s Fingers
-The Barrier Range
-The Bitter Coast
-The Hills of Gore
-The Singing Wastes
-The Grey Mountains
-The Westmarches
-The Kingswood
-The City of Shuttered Windows

If you could write a bit for a few of them that'd be great, especially the Singing Wastes as that one's your baby and you could probably do it better justice than I can.

 

[Electric Wizard]

Cool, I'll work on that and send em to you as I finish.

 

[Daztur]

Thanks. I think after I do that and add just a bit more artwork (I've been lazy on that front for a while) I'll go and spam the setting around some forums and google plus, I think the setting's ready for that. Last night I finished all of the compilation work wrt entering the new hexes in so the next step is talking about how to reorganize stuff to make the setting a bit more organized and user friendly.

Oh if you have google plus I'm dboshko at gmail dot com on that.