Let’s Make a Hexcrawl Setting

[Daztur]

Good to see a bit more cultural variety in our non-dwarven demi-humans do like. Also note that our orcs have just a touch in Inca in them (as well as bit of Korea and other stuff as well).

Am getting hammered at work at the moment since I quit my job last week (one month notice) so they seem to have decided to dump as much work on me as possible before I go. Is annoying but at least I'm making overtime money. Next month I'll have my own (very small) business and everyone knows that the owners of mom & pop business have lots and lots of free time so I'll certainly be able to put a lot of time into the Shrouded Lands Or maybe now. In any case, I'm here and I'll keep on chugging away at it slow and steady...

The Statue of the Azru
Hex 30.14

Here, not far from the tombs that escort the White Road out of the City of Shuttered Windows is a small statue of the demigod of disease, mutilation and torment known as the Azru. Its gender and even species are difficult to determine since all images of it include numerous deformities and disfiguring illnesses.

Despite being marked by weeping sores, missing body parts and worse priests of the Azru are welcome nearly everywhere in these lands except in the City itself where jealous priests of Alberon hold sway. These kind souls pray that children might be spared the ravages of illness, perform amputations with a bare minimum of agony, and preach about the imperfection of the body and the true pure love of the Azru. In some cases these priests, who hold that it is blasphemy to cure illness, take an illness or injury of a worthy sufferer onto themselves and bear it with a satisfied smile.

They do, however, sometimes come in conflict with civil authorities for protesting quarantines and the like and one of their more controversial practices is to bless children with the yellow flux while claiming that those who suffer from it are forever after immune to the ravages of the far more dangerous flux of Jarmond (see 30.16 above).

As far as this particular statue of Jarmond it is under constant guard by order of the Doge himself in order to prevent local beggars from drinking its tears and thereby contracting a remarkably hideous (but not particularly painful) skin ailment.

Hooks:
-Where are some of the itinerant priests of the Azru at this moment? One would think that they would be fairly rare?
-Is there any other kindness that can be bestowed by a demi-god of disease, mutilation and torment?
-Which beggars are trying particularly hard to drink the tears of the statue of the Azru? Do they have enough money to pay adventurers to gather some disease-causing tears?
-Does anyone else want those tears?

Your challenge, if you choose to accept it, is to create an evil god of rainbows and cute puppies or something equally nice. The Azru is basically what you'd get if Nurgle were good-aligned (the Azru is far and away the nicest god worshiped in the Shrouded Lands). I think a similar invention of an evil god with a "good" portfolio would be interesting as well.

 

[Sanglorian]

Phew, it took about an hour but the appendices are back up to date again. It had been 10 pages since they were last updated! https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RSDxh6tf8NPIVKxggHx0jYgHLJsV94sECIhs76R1Ovg/edit

 

[Daztur]

Yay, happy to see you still here. I just finished crawling through a month from hell as I tied up loose ends at my old job and dug myself out from under a mountain of paperwork. Am self-employed at the moment and the work load is fairly light until business picks up (please please let business pick up...) so I should be able to devote quite a bit of time to this in the coming months.

 

[Sanglorian]

Inspired by the Jesuits, and the conspiracy theories surrounding them.

The Temple School and The Extreme Oath of the Temple Invisible (29.14)

The priests of the Temple Invisible go about the Shrouded City and abroad, teaching the virtue of Alberon and spreading the faith. None disclose - some do not even know - that their dark mission is the destruction of a god and their true allegiance lies with the King in Splendour.

The core of assassins inherited from the Brotherhood of the Spear are but a fraction of the order. Most are simple priests, scholars and teachers. They spend their lives with Alberon in their hearts.

Those who show great devotion - not all of them potential assassins - are inducted into the order proper and say the Extreme Oath:

If the temple says that day is night, it is night. I am a corpse walking, devoted to the flickering out of a being which should not exist.

To that end, I serve the Temple, I serve the Lion in Splendour, I serve the King in Splendour.

Let night be day.

This Temple School is for orphans and poor children, as well as converts from the theocratic city-states that the Temple Invisible runs on other continents. The students are taught the basics, including theology. An unusual focus on athletics, stealth, poisons and warfare is explained away as a nostalgic holdover from the order's martial past.

In fact, the most talented and dogmatic children are picked out to rise through the order with the eventual hope of recruiting them with the Extreme Oath.

Hooks:

Who has graduated from the Temple School?

Is anyone wise to the Temple's ulterior motives?

 

[Sanglorian]

The Knocking Fate of Dugglet Bolger

The drums of the dwarves penetrated so deep that they still have not left the head of Dugglet Bolger, and occasionally they echo through his fingers and throat in the form of compositions.

An organist by trade, Dugglet ventured too close to Titan's Skull and ended up seized by the drums. His halfling stealth allowed him to creep into the fortress, where he became lsot.

At the same time, the dwarves were calling their kin to war against the orcs. The drums played night and day, and Dugglet slowly starved as he listened to them.

A slave, taking advantage of the confusion to escape, stumbled across Dugglet and carried him from Titan's Skull.

Dugglet lives now in the Shuttered City, in the desperate hope that its hustle and bustle will drown out the relentless beating of the drums. They rhythms echo across one another, creating new compositions that he jots down feverishly. The escaped slave cares for Dugglet and - unbeknownst to him - has been performing the pieces to great acclaim in the city.

Hooks:
If he was an organist, why was Dugglet rummaging around in the tunnels of Titan's Skull?
Do these pieces have the same power as the original dwarven beats?
Who is the escaped slave?
Does the escaped slave have a patron?
What will Dugglet do if he finds out that his pieces are performed?

 

[Daztur]

On September 28th, I'll be kicking off the dwarf fortress campaign at the World's Edge using Labyrinth Lord rules. Should be fun. If the campaign has legs, that corner of the world should get more developed.

These two draw inspiration from my students and from the plant article in the 2011 Secret Santicore.

The Fish of Angzen
Hex 32.21

Here in the Keening Sea floats the great rotting corpse of the Fish of Angzen. It has been dead for at least a century, when it nearly washed ashore at the City of Shuttered Windows and its great stench kept most of the City indoors for a whole week until it was towed out to sea.

The smell of the great fish is as foul as ever and its putrefaction has gone far enough that enough of its flesh has decomposed into soil to allow a small stand of trees to sprout from its back. On these trees grow a parasitical vine known as the Hair of Angzen, that if brewed into a tea allows the imbiber to see the true nature of things: invisibility falls away, illusions are made clear and some say that the faces of gods are made plain. But perhaps it is better for us to keep our illusions for drinking this brew often results in convulsions, panic attacks and even catatonia.

Generally the fish of the Keening Sea stay far away but various parasites feast on its decaying flesh and a small band of degenerate octoids cling to its underside.

But the great wonder of the fish is its great emerald eye, a great gem the size of a cart wheel. Strangely enough, no one has ever removed it, even though a jewel that side would surely fetch a princely price.

Connection:
-The Princess of Seers relies heavily the Hair of Angzen to be able to communicate with the ghosts of the White Road (23.11).

Hooks:
-Who or what was (is?) Angzen?
-How did this enormous fish get here? How did it die?
-Why is it so dangerous to see the true nature of things?
-What can you tell me about the octoids who live here?
-Why has the emerald eye never been removed and sold? The people of these lands are hardly known for their lack of greed.

The Spears of the Dawn
Hex 50.22

In these lands it rains but once a year but the plants do not go without water. Here in the Burning Lands, great icicles known as the spears of the dawn often fall, generally in the early morning. The gnolls that live here know the warning signs and are careful to avoid the spears, but many unwary travelers have been impaled by them.

The spears also play an important role in the life cycle of the moon nut, bursting open its seedpods and watering its young shoots. These shoots can be boiled down and used as the base for surprisingly effective perfumes but actually eating the flesh of the moon nuts is exceptionally foolish as the scent of those who eat it is subtly changed so that they come to smell incredibly delicious to all lycanthropes.

Connection:
-One of the factions in Ettin Castle (13.06) has gotten their hands on a tub of moon nut perfume, thinking that with the ettins having so many noses they would be especially vulnerable to the effectiveness of the perfume. But which faction? And just what is being plotted?

Hooks:
-What other strange forms of precipitation are there in these lands?
-What’s so effective about the perfume?
-What lycanthrope are about to attack those who eat the moon nuts? Just the were-jackals?

In order for plants to survive despite it raining once a year I’m imagining lots of snow-fled streams, heavy morning dew, fog so thick that plants wave their roots in it and drink it down and stranger things... But generally being mist-shrouded is a look that I like.

 

[Sanglorian]

Inspired by Terry Pratchett’s Thief of Time

I love that mountain giants in our campaign setting are martial artists who taught the smaller races their way. Instead of The Hobbit’s rock throwing, we’d have a Jackie Chan-style sparring match.

The Mountain Shepherds (23.01)

One of the lessons of the Stern Way concerns the husbandry and nurture of mountains. Though the art is open to all adherents, only mountain giants have the longevity, size and patience to work on ranges, hills and cliffs.

Nestled in the Grey Mountains is a school where the craft is taught – one reason that those mountains are so formidable. Apprentices coax hills from the earth, while masters plan over many decades the rise and fall of mountains. Smaller and shorter lived races satisfy themselves with bonsai mountains, where the craft is to control their size while developing interesting feature.

The school has produced at least one rogue student, a reckless halfling who – frustrated with his short lifespan – shapes the land hurriedly. A hill takes no more than a day, and he can cause valleys and gorges to open up in an hour. However, these dramatic growths and collapses strain the earth, increasing earthquakes and vulcanism.

Hooks
Where is the rogue halfling now?
Who else has studied at the school?
What is the long-term plan of the priests of the monastery?
How do you convince a mountain to grow?

 

[Sanglorian]

Lufwood of the World’s Edge (48.02)
The wood for skyships grows in the deep woods beyond the World’s Edge.

Lufwood trees and seeds are lighter than air. They sometimes stay rooted in the ground, but if freed float and either get tangled in the foliage of other trees or shoot off into the sky. A burial practice is to tie the corpse to a lufwood tree and shake it loose, so the body can explore the cosmos.

Because lufwood seeds also float, their lifecycle depends on shalebats, large scaly animals that glide through the forest. They eat lufwood fruit, and excrete the seeds as part of their dense droppings. In this way, the seeds take root without simply floating away.

Hooks
Who has made skyships of lufwood?
Does eating the fruit of the lufwood have any effects?
Are shalebats dangerous?
What else has been built of lufwood?
Who practices lufwood burials?

---

I was wondering if anyone knew of a way to procedurally generate a hexmap. It would be a lot easier for you to update if you just had a spreadsheet that said 48.02: Forest tile, 48.03: Desert tile, and could just press a button to spit something out

 

[Electric Wizard]

Werewolf Nuns of St. Birgit (10.17)

The Abbey of St. Birgit appears to be a haven of security on the perilous Gore-Thring border. Ivy covers its high walls, and golden lamps shine in its windows. But like everything in these strange hills, it is a place that the wise avoid.

Years ago, the Sisters of St. Birgit took in a haggard, wounded Gorean retainer of some minor house. Since their healing arts were among the best in all the Shrouded Lands, he soon recovered. He insisting on leaving immediately, but one of the younger nuns was infatuated with him, and poured a love potion into his stew. Before the young nun and the bewitched knight could consummate their love, he transformed into a ravenous werewolf and attacked the nuns.

On full moons, a pack of habit-clad werewolves stalk these hills, seeking blood. The werewolf nuns are a bane to both Thring and Gore, but neither side has successfully assailed the fortified abbey. The ivy on the walls are enchanted to strangle any men who attempt to scale the walls, and its doors withstand fire and battering rams. Often, questing knights from either kingdom meet in the hills and clash before they can reach the abbey.

Hooks
-Who is St. Birgit?
-Why was an abbey built on this dangerous frontier?
-What became of the werewolf knight and his lover?
-Are the nuns still world-class healers, or have they descended completely into savagery?
-What treasures lie in the dungeons beneath the abbey?

 

[Daztur]

Four more days until my dwarf fortress campaign kicks off so I'm focusing on the World's Edge where it will take place.

The Demon of Many Colors

based on the song Rainbow Demon by Uriah Heep

All along the World's Edge, from misty morning and on through night and day, rides a demon on his horse of crimson fire. His body is difficult to make out, all twisted angles and a shifting miasma of colors and behind him stretches a great shadow that is so dark that is blinds those who fall under it.

He rides along the entire Edge every day on a perfectly predictable schedule, cutting down any who stand in his way with his prism sword, but does not harass anyone who stays well clear of him.

Hooks:
-Why is the demon doing this?
-Where does the demon come from? Why does he look like that?