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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Daztur" data-source="post: 6096797" data-attributes="member: 55680">For a long time now I’ve been spending more time hacking away at the compilation than on writing new hexes. So it feels nice to get back to writing up some new stuff. Here’s a pretty big dump of new content.  With a Mouth Full of MudAdditional information about Hex 29.14 It shouldn’t come as a surprise that the Master Mason of the Honorable Society of Engineers (Hex 29.14.49) is Baron Harenghast (briefly mentioned in Hex 30.12), after all the leader of most every Shuttered institution is a member of the high nobility.  However, the Baron’s subordinates are not displaying the awe and respect that his lineage deserves but are instead rather annoyed at his plans to cut funding for the Crack-Finders, divert work crew to shoring up the foundations of his own tower and selling the sacred steel band of the Society to “honorary engineers.” Luckily for the chiefs of the Society’s sub-departments, Baron Harenghast is incapable of speaking the Mud Tongue of the common people of the City and instead only speaks the High Tongue of the nobility. The same is true for many of the very richest and youngest of the nobility. This has allowed the chiefs to creatively “translate” his orders to make sure that the day when the City of Shuttered Windows finally sinks into the mud is not today. Meanwhile, Baron Harenghast is pleased that most of his subordinates cannot speak the High Tongue. All legal instruction in sorcery in the Shuttered City is carried out in the High Tongue and while most every noble is capable of producing at least a few cantrips, the common people cannot even understand the names of the Thousand Spells and One. Also, while anyone with enough money can buy their way into the nobility, it is impossible to participate in the councils of state without being fluent in the High Tongue which can take years of constant study. But the Mud Tongue is not without its own merits. Outside of the City it has another name: the Common Tongue. Connections:-Deep in the Gnomish Quarter (29.14.14) there is an illegal academy where High Tongue verb declensions are spoken of in whispers lest unkind ears hear them.-Occasionally the mockingbird (25.07) can be heard calling out spell formulae in the High Tongue.Hooks:-What other institutions run Shuttered?-What are the Thousand Spells and One?-Why does Count Seutorian’s balloon look like Baron Harenghast’s mother (30.12)?-Why is the language school illegal? Who is allowed the learn the High Tongue? How can you enforce that? The Beauty of Olga PignoseAdditional information about Hex 17.07 Inspired by the mad complexity of the Spanish colonial casta system, the movie Dark Crystal and the weird bit in Genesis 6 about the “sons of god.” The child of the local half-orc Hilda Pignose and a travelling half-elven bard, Olga Pignose is the most beautiful child in all of these Shrouded Lands. Her eyes can melt even the heard of a Hoard dwarf (33.00) and her hair is flowing midnight with such a sheen as to make even the elves of the Kingswood gasp with envy. She is already taller than her mother, but still more graceful than many of the finest Shadowed Ballet dancers (briefly mentioned in 50.11 and 40.20.01) of Shuttered. Unbeknownst to Olga’s proud mother, an ancient scroll (of which every copy was burned long ago) entitled the Breath of Alberon seems to speak of the girl. The only known information about this work is a summary in the Record of Past Heresies (see the Sealed Library, Hex 29.14.XX) which talks of claims that Alberon will one day be born of elf and orc, and not of man, and that after he is born he will slip between the streams of time to rule the City in its gloried past (29.14.26). Few people take this seriously as everyone knows that elves and orcs cannot have children. There are also references to theories that there was once an ancient race of god-men that was sundered into the elven and orcish races, each of which contain only fragments of their ancestors’ glory. But whatever else she is, Olga isn’t Alberon or a god-man. She’s a she who is still half-human. But the child isn’t too concerned with that. She’s busy exercising her wings and hopes that she’ll be able to fly soon. Connection:-Olga dreams of Mt. Scorshia (02.03). Hooks:-Who’s Olga’s father?-What is Shadowed Ballet like anyway?-Why does Olga have wings? How tall is she going to get?-Is what is written in the Breath of Alberon actually true? Who were the ancient god-men? How did they become elves and orcs? Is Alberon going to be Olga’s son or what?-The Record of Past Heresies has just a brief summary of the Breath of Alberon. Is there any way to get to the original? Maybe from a kobold (45.09)? A snake (41.24)? Did the Weeper read it (43.08)? -Are there any other children of half-elves and half-orcs around? Both of those half-breeds are rare so their children must be even rarer, perhaps Olga is the first one. The Tasty Tomb of the ThaumaturgeHex 13.09  Inspired by: <a href="http://ofdiceandmenrpg.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/the-mellified-men-osr-monster.html" target="_blank">http://ofdiceandmenrpg.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/the-mellified-men-osr-monster.html</a> as the suggestion of the blog’s author. Many people have found it hard to believe that the great Severard of the Seven Chins could’ve been killed by a simple spider bite (13.08). They are right. Severard is only mostly dead. After being bitten by the giant spider he was in something of a bind: after all he had specifically created this spider so that its venom was proof against any magical cure. But a mage always has a few tricks up their sleeve and Severard transported himself to this cave complex where he had been conducting experiments on subterranean bees and their magic-absorbing honey. He poured all of his magic into a great honey comb and then dove right in. Honey is a wonderful preservative and the substance has preserved and slowly mummified Severard’s large body. The magic that the master cast on the comb is slowly leeching the poison out of his body, year by patient year, and one day Severard will emerge from his tomb. But for now only his mellified brain is still active and it is full of strange moods and stranger thoughts. He has some influence over the hive of bees that grows ever larger around his tomb as they feed on the lilies that grow on the light of phosphorescent fungus in the dank caves that lead to the Sunless Sea (18.10.01). At his command the bees have begun flying out of caves at night to drag down the bloodless corpses of the victims of the spiders that now rule Severard’s Town (13.08) and bury them in honey. If they are fresh enough, these corpses find their lost blood and organs replaced with potent honey and rise as undead with only the barest glimmerings of the memories and intelligence that they possessed in their past lives. However, this process takes some time so many clumsy arms grope out of the walls of the hive, seeking to grasp any passersby and drag them into the honey. The hive zombies themselves are clumsy and stupid, but Severard hopes to gather enough of them so that their numbers can make up for these deficiencies. Their numbers are already large enough to make it difficult for any adventurer to brave these caves and gather the honey, but if they are able to do so it will fetch a good price due to its magic absorbing properties and yummy taste. However, if someone eats nothing but this honey they will find themselves slowly wasting away as the honey slowly suffuses and eventually mummifies their body.Connection:-If Barnabus Bludenoss (18.10) were to learn of the current state of Severard of the Seven Circles he’d gather up as many of his were-men as he could to try to destroy him and all of his bees. Hooks:-Who knows that Severard is still alive (if you can call his current state life…)?-What is Severard planning to do with his horde of hive zombies?-Are there any other mellified mummies out there? How do they differ from the normal sort? Can they be turned like normal undead?-What is magic-absorbing honey good for?-Why does Barnabus Bludenoss want to destroy his old master? Triskaideka: so Simone the Fowl is was a cuckoo who interbred with a chicken so a lot of his kids have a rooster-like appearance? After reading this last post I looked up some Wikipedia pages on cuckoos and brood parasitism (birds laying their eggs in other birds’ nests, as some cuckoos do). Apparently some cuckoo’s engage in “mafia” behavior which explains why the hosts don’t just kick the planted egg out of their nest. What happens is that they lay their egg in another bird’s nest and then keep on checking to make sure that the egg (or the chick) is still there and if it isn’t they trash the nest and destroy all of the hosts eggs and chicks and do the same thing if the nest gets rebuilt. Since the host is smaller they generally stand a better chance of at least a few of their kids living to adulthood by knuckling under and accepting the parasite’s egg. This made me think of changelings of course which are usually described as elves but the behavior of these “mafia” birds didn’t’ seem to suit elves (they’re not thuggish, they don’t grow faster than humans and they don’t have much reason to give their precious kids to humans) so I thought that orcs would be a better fit instead. I also used some Abulafia generators to help me fill in the details. They’re really really useful. The Changlings of Northburn HoldingHex 22.03 Northburn Holding is located here at the extreme edge of the Freeholds, wedged between orcish territory and the Kingswood. But despite this the holding looks like a prosperous and contented place with fat cows munching at the grass as goats gambol around them.  Despite the close proximity of the orcs there are no defenses that can be seen around the town, only the burnt out ruins of the Puce Keep. Instead the largest building in town is the Hundred Cheeses which is famous for its wide variety of grilled cheese platters, especially burnt cheese a local specialty that is made out of a mix of goat and cow milk in which the curd is caramelized. But a closer look reveals that each and every family has a child that seems just a bit larger, just a bit greener and just a bit rougher than the rest that constantly demands attention and food from its parents. These are the orcish changelings that orcish mothers, who are annoyed by the unfairness of the Double Duty (26.01.04), drop in local cribs every so often. Parents have to be quick to remove their own child from the crib before its new foster sibling throttles it but they never kill or abandon these orcish children as doing so would bring down the wrath of the mothers that sneak by every so often to peer in windows and make sure that their abandoned children are growing fast and strong. Raising the changelings is a heavy burden to the families of Northburn but many think it is better than having to deal with orcish raiding parties, like the ones who burned the old lord out of the Puce Keep.  But still a large faction of the town chafes at the bargain that the town has made with the orcs. For example people here refrain from sex in the spring as orc children are usually dropped off at the end of the year and it is dangerous to have a baby in the house when an orc arrives (local superstition also says that sex delays the coming of spring). Also whenever an orc child dies a large and nervous feast is held for its family to convince them it was an accident. An especially large number of problems have cropped up recently. Messen Benatr, a local wealthy farmer, was been brutally murdered and people are squabbling over who will have to care of his changeling. Similarly, Simon the Scribe is soon to be executed in an especially brutal fashion for the crime of killing his wife as she has an especially vicious brood of three changelings that someone else will have to take care of now. This has all come to a dead with a recent raid by the major and his boys on the Shining Swordsman tavern under the pretext of “illegal badger baiting” as the tavern’s proprietor and several of the regulars have sought to bring in Grimkjel Koldranson (see 20.03 for information on Koldran’s many children) and his band of mercenary gnolls to butcher the changelings and fight off any orcish retaliation. A third faction of humans just does their best to avoid the whole issue and hide their homes, shave their heads to feign illness or live only with members of the same sex. As for the changelings themselves, what is there to tell? Usually blood calls out to blood and the changelings leave their battered by relieved “parents” to head up into the Grey Mountains. But still, many of these orcs harbor fond memories for their foster home (so many cows to tip, so many weak human children to bully, truly a paradise) and would be most upset at anyone who harmed their childhood home. But a handful of changelings become fully assimilated into human society and either stay in Northburn and try to make a life for themselves or set off for the Shuttered City, where orcs are viewed with far less suspicion than the raid-scarred lands of the Freeholds. Hooks:-Have any other villages cut similar deals with the orcs? -What is it like to raise a changeling? Do orcs and their “parents” ever develop close bonds?-How do these changelings fare when they return to orcish lands? Do they know how to speak orcish?-Can sex really delay the coming of spring?-What can you tell me of Grimkjel Koldranson and his gnolls?-Why does living with members of the same sex prevent orcs from giving you a changeling? Why would an orc care?-Any notable changelings?-Do the orcs ever steal human babies when they leave their changelings?</blockquote>

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