Let’s Make a Hexcrawl Setting

[Electric Wizard]

Last of the Willow People (10.19)

The Osseries (24.18) believe that they wiped out the Mirdenlows, the witch clan who could transform into willow trees, when they took their land. The truth is that the clan realized their power was worse than useless against the fire-slinging Osseries and decided not to fight. Most simply intermarried with their neighbors. Some, however, fled far from the Barrier Range and settled in the strange land of Gore. A few linger in the hills near the Castle of the Sack Man (9.19).

The Mirdenlows lie low now, but some offer their services as spies for various Lords Sanguine. A Mirdenlow named Sheemie has been spying on Sulgrim and his troll knights (8.21) for Lady Mataran for several years. She has concealed herself in the overgrown castle garden and monitors military capabilities and movements. Mataran sends snickersnees or outsiders to communicate with her. Maratan hopes to drive the troll from the keep and return it to the hands of a worthy Lord Sanguine.

Hooks
-Does the power to become a willow tree ever surface in any other witch clans?
-What is their relationship, if any, with their frightening neighbor?
-Where do other Mirdenlow spies operate? Are any posted in Thring and beyond?

 

[Daztur]

EL: what do you think I/we should do next a gazetteer or a compilation re-edit along the lines of the Thring one Sanglorian posted a while back?

Hmmm the most recent Clark Ashton Smith story I'm reading has three veteran soldiers being forced by the government to get treasure out of a large dungeon-like tomb complex and it describes their system of taking watches and worry about running into random critters on the march there and back. I don't think it could be more D&D if it tried and it was written before Gygax was born. It reads, by far, more like a D&D session than anything I've ever read that wasn't obviously influenced by D&D. The more Smith I've read the more it seems like he's the go-to author for wrapping your head around D&D's literary influences (not that he's necessarily the one that influenced Gygax the most, just that his stuff is probably the most representative out of all of the Appendix N of what D&D became, at least as far as what I've read goes...).

 

[Electric Wizard]

I think making another gazetteer is solid. That's probably the format we will probably use for its publication so it will be good to get it down to a science.

Haven't been able to contribute as much as I've wanted in the past few days because my laptop's down and out. I have an idea about the source of that river in the Cornfields. Hope to post it soon.

 

[Sanglorian]

Hmmm the most recent Clark Ashton Smith story I'm reading has three veteran soldiers being forced by the government to get treasure out of a large dungeon-like tomb complex and it describes their system of taking watches and worry about running into random critters on the march there and back. I don't think it could be more D&D if it tried and it was written before Gygax was born. It reads, by far, more like a D&D session than anything I've ever read that wasn't obviously influenced by D&D. The more Smith I've read the more it seems like he's the go-to author for wrapping your head around D&D's literary influences (not that he's necessarily the one that influenced Gygax the most, just that his stuff is probably the most representative out of all of the Appendix N of what D&D became, at least as far as what I've read goes...).

What's the name of the story?

 

[Electric Wizard]

The Forbidden Glacier (1.32)

Those who follow the Growling River upstream through punishing hills and parched scrubland will be surprised to find that its source is an immense glacier that fills a valley between two barren peaks. The glacier is unlike ice elsewhere because it melts in moonlight instead of sunlight. During the full moon, the glacier releases a steady stream of pure water. During the new moon, the stream is a mere drip. It is only as cold as the air around it. Fire, magical, or nonmagical, does not affect it. The ice can be cut, but it is as heavy and troublesome to chisel and shape as granite. Regardless, the local half-elves have used it to build a part of their holt (3.31).

The folk in the Cornfields never venture into the water channels within the glaciers. A city inhabited by monstrosities lies suspended in the glacier, and over the years, the glacier's melting has released more and more of them. The most common monsters are manscorpions, huge red scorpions with the torsos of powerful men where their heads should be. They rarely venture into the Cornfields, but when they do, they come as ravenous hunters.

Hooks
-Why is the river known as the Growling River?
-Does the glacier's ice exist anywhere else? What is its origin?
-Can any power in the Shrouded Lands melt the ice?
-Why did the half-elves build part of their fortress from a material that slowly melts?
-Tell me more about the city.
-What other monstrosities lie entombed in ice?
-Where do the freed manscorpions dwell?

 

[Daztur]

Sanglorian: The Weaver in the Vault, not one of Smith’s best but very D&D-ish. The reason that I’m moving Smith pretty high in my rankings of most D&D-like fantasy is that he gets the life is cheap “don’t bother naming your PCs before he hits third level” feel on top of the very D&D-ish setting. Also you can trace a lot of D&D-ish elements from Vance back to Smith’s influence (not Vancian casting though). I’m also starting to see why Smith didn’t become as popular as Lovecraft and Howard. He wrote over a hundred short stories from 1925-36 (was supporting his ailing parents who died at about the same times as Lovecraft and Howard did which made Clark stop writing) and a lot of them seem really rushed. When he takes the time he can do creepy vocab-heavy Lovecraftian prose with a lot more technical skill than Lovecraft could (he has a background in more mainstream poetry and it shows) but a lot of the stories just read like he’s not really writing up to his full potential and the narration is pretty flat. Also perhaps a few too many necrophiliac necromancers

Electric Wizard: meant to get the first gazetteer done this month but it looks like that won’t happen . Will write up at least a skeleton of one vaguely soonish but have too many hex ideas in my head for right now and then I have to add in the new hexes into the compilation (which is time consuming since for each new hex I have to add it to the table of contents, add it to the information at the start of the chapter, add it to the spreadsheet and Appendix A, change the format around a bit to fit, edit it for grammar etc. and then go and chase down all of the connection notations in other hexes and add information to those as word continues to groan under the size of the file). So looks like next month…

These two are stolen from my students. The second one is dark in the way that only something written by a smart shy 6^th grade girl can be.

With Not a Soul to Hear
Additional information about Hex 02.05

The ruins of Hoth Akbir are soaked by a constant downpour that helps feed rivers that run both west and east. But the water that falls from the cloud is not rain but rather a decanter of endless water that was left behind in the shattered ruins of the castle of one of the pirate kings that lies on a cloud that stays forever unmoving above Hoth Akbir.

Hooks:
-A decanter of endless water seems like a useful thing to have, why hasn’t anyone taken it?

The Font of Chimalia
Hex 31.19

Those who sail the Keening Sea stay as far from the White Isle as possible, which can be difficult as it moves. It is holy to Chimalia, the goddess of all chimerical beings, and the very foundations of the island are the bones of ten thousand ten thousand aberrations and monsters, some ground to pure white sand and others still protruding obscenely from the thin soil that clings precariously to the isle.

But a few fools still come here and beyond the giant crab-infested beaches, the monster haunted forest, the dragon-warded doorway and the crumbling tower of shining obsidian lies a small hilltop pool: the font of Chimalia. Bones that are cast in it arise clothed in flesh, but not the same flesh that they once wore, and those who drink of it never die or grow a day older.

Connection:
-This is how Anselm Brucoloc (14.27.02) got eternal life. Of course drinking from the pool does not give one any immunity from injury.

Hooks:
-How does the island move?
-Where does the doorway lead? Is it the other end of one of the closed Windows of the City?
-What kind of flesh do bones that are cast into the Font receive?
-Has anyone else drunk form the pool except for Lord Brucoloc?

Interestingly if you look at the alignment of our major deities the male ones (Alberon and the King in Splendor) are clearly lawful, the ones with no clear gender (the dwarven ones) seem to be neutral and the female ones seem to be chaotic (She Who Waits and Chimalia). The only exception would seem to be the Green Lady who at least seems to be more neutral than chaotic but having two seemingly-contradictory aspects might be chaotic.

As for the good/evil axis, Alberon and the King in Splendor are LN at best, the dwarven ones don’t seem very morally active (true neutral?), She Who Waits is pretty clearly CE, Chimalia is more CN and the Green Lady is a bit vague. I guess you could make a case of NG for her but she seems more true neutral. Overall it seems that alignment doesn’t play an especially large role in this setting, but then a lot of large scale conflicts seem to be a bit muted. There isn’t much real warfare (aside from Gore/Thring border skirmishes) and even racial conflict is a bit of a weaker force than in most D&D settings. The elves are dicks but it’s easy to avoid them and the people of Shuttered get along just fine with gnolls and orcs for the most part. Most of the conflict seems to stem for individual bastards being bastards which gives things a more personal focus which I like about this setting.

 

[Sanglorian]

Interestingly if you look at the alignment of our major deities the male ones (Alberon and the King in Splendor) are clearly lawful, the ones with no clear gender (the dwarven ones) seem to be neutral and the female ones seem to be chaotic (She Who Waits and Chimalia). The only exception would seem to be the Green Lady who at least seems to be more neutral than chaotic but having two seemingly-contradictory aspects might be chaotic.

As for the good/evil axis, Alberon and the King in Splendor are LN at best, the dwarven ones don’t seem very morally active (true neutral?), She Who Waits is pretty clearly CE, Chimalia is more CN and the Green Lady is a bit vague. I guess you could make a case of NG for her but she seems more true neutral. Overall it seems that alignment doesn’t play an especially large role in this setting, but then a lot of large scale conflicts seem to be a bit muted. There isn’t much real warfare (aside from Gore/Thring border skirmishes) and even racial conflict is a bit of a weaker force than in most D&D settings. The elves are dicks but it’s easy to avoid them and the people of Shuttered get along just fine with gnolls and orcs for the most part. Most of the conflict seems to stem for individual bastards being bastards which gives things a more personal focus which I like about this setting.

I'm a big fan of the 4E alignment system, and actually have half a hex entry about a philosopher who describes the cosmos in those terms. Tiamat is a force of entropy (Chaotic Evil) whereas Chimalia is a creative force (Evil). Alberon is invested in Creation (Lawful Good), while I'm not sure that the King in Splendor is (Unaligned).

I'll have to check out The Weaver in the Vault. Have you found it online, or are you reading it in hardcopy?

 

[Daztur]

I was thinking more in turns of three point alignment than nine point or the 4ed system, seems to fit the setting the best overall.

Smith short stories here: http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/short-stories/

Weaver in the Vault isn't especially good but is very D&D-ish. The first first one listed alphabetically (The Abominations of Yondo) is pretty cool in my opinion but goes in pretty heavily for heavy description. Some of the ones he wrote later have much more straightforward narration but I like Yondo.

Comparing to Howard and Lovecraft, Lovecraft is pretty damn racist (got better towards the end of his life though), Howard is pretty average for a person of his time and Clark seems to be surprisingly free of racism for a person of his time, just a twinges of it here and there. Pretty damn sexist and big heaping piles of Orientalism though.

 

[Daztur]

Been a bit distracted recently but here's a map drawn by one of my students for an assignment I gave them. Any ideas?

 

[Electric Wizard]

There can't be just one tiefling in all of the Shrouded Lands! Inspired by Octavia Butler's novel Wild Seed.

Baelton (42.11)

A man named Tief jumped in the Font of Chimalia (31.19) in the prime of his life and has not aged for many mortal lifetimes. As one of the first outsiders to be trained by the Dustmen (40.20), he managed to evade the island's dangers by taking advantage of the place's plentiful shadows. Tief never gained the patience possessed by many immortals. He grew bored studying magic, presiding over a castle in Gore and even with throwing himself into hedonism that has become the subject of epic comedies. During a reclusive period of his life, he raised and traded livestock. He became obsessed with the possibilities of breeding fantastic animals. But like every other endeavor, he abandoned it. But this time, he felt inspired to do something no man had done before.

Tief's current distraction is breeding humans. Rather, he breeds humans with unusual features or talents until they can barely be called human. He travels the Shrouded Lands and forms bands of outcasts scorned by society for their bizarre deformities and dangerous witch talents. These misfits are taken to villages he owns, provided protection from prejudice they would face elsewhere and given the means to build their own lives. The only thing he asks in return is that they mate with whomever he chooses in order to produce offspring with. This could include their own kin. Those who refuse and attempt to escape are always killed or become repentant. Tief has lost his left arm pursuing a dangerous runaway named, Scalitha the Mauler. But he has since replaced it with an invisible appendage capable of delivering an agonizing shock.

Tief's largest holding is Baelton, a sprawling, walled village home to several hundred "tieflings". Their appearances and talents are as varied as the types of birds in the trees. But many second and third generation tieflings have horns, vestigal tails and unusual body odor that many suspect to be signs of demonic heritage. Baelton's gates are open to outsiders, but few wish to go here.

Connections
-Abdul (5.04) has no genetic traits that interest Tief at the moment, so he is allowed to live with little interference.
-The folk of the Cornfields (03.30) are tieflings with scizophrenic tendencies. He keeps them far from the rest of the population, keeping them intact for when he wants to produce sorcerers.

Hooks
-How does Tief get around?
-Over which castle in Gore did he rule? Does he still have influence in that land?
-He was an epic hedonist. Tell me about his escapades!
-Did he breed any new creatures before giving up on it?
-Where did Tief get his terrifying invisible arm?
-Are there any mutation "hotspots" in the Shouded Lands?
-What abilities do tieflings possess? What do the Witch Clans think of them?
-Where are Tief's other villages?
-What does Baelton offer outsiders?