Let’s Make a Hexcrawl Setting

[Electric Wizard]

Antar (22.29)

This town towers above the desert. Its mudbrick edifices - some of which stand ten stories high - contain residences, shops, warehouses and civic offices, often on different floors of the same structure. Vegetable gardens survive on the sunbaked rooftops. Bridges connect the tightly-packed buildings at various levels. Its unusual arcitecture deters brigands and gnoll raiders, but each annual rainstorm saturates the bricks so much that every building's facade must be rebuilt.

Jahuris (19.31) founded Antar when Bergolast still stood, and it thrived as a wealthy border town. The empire's fall reduced it to a dusty trading post vulnerable to gnoll attacks. However, because the town lies beyond the Scent Barrier (21.29), it is not subject to most of Jahur's duties and tariffs. This draws many merchants and customers. Few stay permanently, preferring to retreat behind the safety of the Scent Barrier when their business is finished. It is a diverse town, home to nearly as many dwarves as Jahuris.

Connections
-The Supreme Mother (51.29) wishes to establish a consulate here despite fervent resistance.
-The Bronze Ass, an ancient inn lying in the center of town, has a staff of doppelgangers employed by Viceroy Orhan (19.31). They believe his attempted assassin is a Smiling Man who fled towards Azurney (24.26) days after the attack. The doppelganger who followed him has not returned. Unfortunately, Viceroy Orhan has forgotten the existence of these agents and they are reluctant to act without his orders.
-Antari bucket kelp chewers (26.33) enjoy getting high and watching lizard races in slow motion. Those who host these rooftop events will pay well for brightly-colored or unusual-looking lizards.

Hooks
-What exotic or illicit goods can be obtained here?
-Many towers stand vacant. Thieves, smugglers and heretics use these crumbling buildings as bases of operation.
-What less obvious defenses does Antar possess?
-What happened during the last gnoll raid?
-Why do so many dwarves live here?

 

[Electric Wizard]

Inspired by Arabian Nights.

Glittering Gorge (36.02)

Anyone with a decent looking-glass can gaze into the this treacherous gorge and see that many of its the stones are studded with jewels. The local orcs think little of gems, but understand that outsiders will kill for them. Instead of risking life and limb to climb into the gorge and retrieve the gems from the jagged rocks, they have invented an ingenious and perhaps equally dangerous solution that involves the great and terrible roc.

Orcs wishing to collect the gems hurl flayed cattle carcasses over the cliff. When they hit the bottom, gems puncture and become imbedded in the raw flesh. When the roc swoops down to grab the carcasses, it carries the gems along with the meat. The orcs sneak into the roc's roost when it is away and collect the precious stones it digested or spat out.

Hooks
-Where is this great and terrible roc's nest anyway?
-What other scavengers do the carcasses attract?
-Who has gotten rich off of this scheme? Who has been killed over it?
-What kind of jewels lie in the gorge?
-Explain the abundance of gems. Is it simply a very rich vein, or did something put them all there?

 

[Quickleaf]

It's been a while since I contributed to this project. Glad to see it going strong!

Canopy of the Azimyth Bats (12.09)

Connects to: 02.05, 11.08, 13.08, 13.09, 15.18, 46.06.01 and the Kingswood

The broad-leaf forest grows dense here, the ancient branches intertwining so that scarcely a ray of light shines through. Out of the corner of the eye, shapes seem to move in the dark canopy above, and only the keenest of eyes finds the giant bats hanging upside on perches. These are no ordinary bats, however. These are the “azimyth.” Like many giant animals of the Shrouded Lands, these giant bats were gifted with intelligence and limited spellcasting ability thru the experimentation of Severard of the Seven Circles.

While the azimyth are inquisitive and friendly creatures by nature, they will not hesitate to protect the secret of their home. They prefer to do this by dealing with visitors in good faith, and then politely requesting that the visitors submit to a geas to wipe the memory of how to find the Canopy. The leader of the azimyth is a venerable matron called True Ear who is fascinated with studying the lore of the Shrouded Lands and has amassaed quite a collection of books. True Ear is reluctant to let any azimyth stray too far for too long, as she believes that the magic imbuing them with intelligence fades the farther and longer they are away from the Canopy.

However, a fringe group among the bats are not so friendly. Led by Torn Wing, a powerful enchanter of his kind, these azimyth believe they were originally human spellcasters apprenticed to Severard who submitted to his experiments in good faith and were betrayed. Torn Wing and his followers intend to take back the village at The Tangled Web (13.08) from the spiders and unearth Severard’s secrets.

Connections:

Occasionally the azimyth will fly as far afield as the Kingswood to pollinate the wildflowers it is famous for, or even the Castle of Dances (15.18) to pollinate the dancer’s blooms.

At least one azimyth bat, affectionately nicknamed “Hiccup”, sometimes sneaks into the honey meadery of the Bolger halflings (11.08) and is found piss-faced by halfling mead-guards. Some of the mead-guards report “Hiccup” going on about aspiring to be a wizard’s familiar, though the halflings just laughed it off.

Hooks:

If a PC wizard comes to the canopy, they might be approached by Hiccup. Are they interested in taking on drunken giant bat as a familiar?

Is it possible the giant bat mount of the goblin warlord Najir Dum of Hoth Akhbir (2.05) was actually an azimyth bat? Was it enslaved or turned to evil? Or are the beliefs of the azimyth true, that if they are away from their home for too long they lose their intelligence?

Recently Torn Wing has discovered the Tasty Tomb of the Thaumaturge (13.09), and under the pretense of securing honey for the azimyth, plans to finance adventurers to explore the honey-soaked catacombs. What is Torn Wing hoping to find in the tomb?

The azimyth and the couriers bats (46.06.01) sometimes mingle in the Kingswood. What is the nature of these meetings? Are the azimyth giving packages to the courier bats or receiving packages from them? Might the courier bats and azymith be distant relatives?

 

[Daztur]

Haven't posted in too long but I'm still here. Was a bit burned out but I think my brain is ready to jump back in now. I just have to copy edit a long paper on organic light-emitting diodes (actually not as bad as it sounds...) and I'll jump back into this.

 

[Daztur]

Except from one of my students' stories (grammar mistakes and all..):

Long time ago, when I was 6 years old, my grandma told me one story.

"His eyes are yellow as sun ans his hair are white as moon. Do not say anything to him, and do not fall in love with him. People will call you a 'witch'."

It was more like a song, than a story. Now, my grandma dead, but I still remember that. I hoped that I can see him once.

Let me think about what to do with this one. I think there's a hex lurking in there...

 

[Sanglorian]

Let me think about what to do with this one. I think there's a hex lurking in there...

A witch's hex? [/joke]

 

[Daztur]

A witch's hex? [/joke]

For the rest of the story the woman meets a (rare male) nine-tailed fox, breaks its magical marble, then helps lure 100 people to their foxy deaths so that the fox can make another marble (the how of this is pretty unclear) and then the fox gets so many livers that it becomes human and they marry and live happily ever after but for some reason the local people start distrusting the girl... Sixth grade goths are fun to teach, she's also the only Korean I've known to dye their hair black.

For her class I'm going to run some D&D next week (Holmes Basic). Any recommendation for a good one page dungeon? I've only got an hour or so to play but I'm not teaching them any rules so that'll be all play no teaching aside from a few minutes vocab lesson on "constitution" and whatnot.

 

[Sanglorian]

View attachment Witch Clan Table.docxHey folks, I polished up the Random Witch Clan Table a little and have attached it.

Daztur, what was your plan with incorporating the restructured regions into the main hex document? I was thinking of an incremental approach, replacing one region at a time, but it looks like you're holding off till they're all done? I'm happy with either approach, although if we do the former I think we should also have a document where we keep all the restructured regions.

 

[Daztur]

Sanglorian: yes, I think you're right on that one region at a time would work best.

Sorry for all the excuses but I'm getting sucked into some Martin stuff ATM thanks to the TV show, (re)-reading through a bunch of his non-ASoIaF stuff (am in the middle of Armageddon Rag at the moment). I keep trying to make my brain do Shrouded Land stuff but it keeps whispering at me "just one more chapter, then do some hexes, just one more chapter..."

 

[Sanglorian]

(Inspired by the Peel St Caves on BLDG Blog) and Real Dungeon Hazards: Snotties and Slime.

The Sandmines Neath Jahur

As houses and temples crumbled in Jahur, they were built on top of, slowly compressing the sand, brick and stone together into what masons call ‘city brick’. It carries some memory of the buildings that it once was - city brick will always stay in place, even if its supports collapse. Only the scrubbing out of the mason’s mark placed on each block causes gravity to reassert itself.

The masons that know this trick carefully guard it. Careful are they as well to keep the location of each mark a secret. In the Basilica, the ceiling is totally unsupported. Every inch of its surface is covered with symbols - the mason’s mark is hidden in plain sight.

The forum is ringed by citybricks that neatly fit together, and the mason’s mark of each block covered by the block that proceeds it.

The mining - both authorised and illicit - of this distinctive stone has left vast tunnels and passages beneath the city. The basements of some homes open onto the cave system. During times of war, the citizens of Jahur have also sheltered here: in fact, the alchemists discovered the main component of the Scent barrier here in these tunnels, and used it to fight their way out.

From the ceilings of some of the caves hang archaes, which look like stalactites but feel like mucus to the touch and are powerfully acidic. Giant red worms ooze through these tunnels, suckling on the archaes as if they were teats.

Hooks

What is the component of the Scent Barrier?
What other tricks have people used citybrick for?
What power do the masons wield in the city?