2020/12/05

OSR: Massive Community Hexcrawl - New Updates

The first public round of this community project went well, but there are still a few hexes remaining! Let's make a hexcrawl!

V 1.6 PDF

The unnamed land in this hexcrawl is desolate, strange, and enticing. The high, star-blasted peaks of the Barren Fells, the slab-sided slopes of the Bluffs, the oozing Wastes, the desolate Badlands, and the contentious and turbulent Savannah. The mysterious Researchers, the aloof Rust Monks, the dead Pallid Knights, the mutated Protean Army, and the mysterious Kalawi Tribe. We still don't really know much about the factions or why they are present in this region. Perhaps that's for the best.

Wurms, golems, psychic elephants, and stranger things besides lurk around every corner. Like Arnold's Centerra, there might be weird stuff everywhere but the world is still a real place with real people experiencing real problems. The setting feels like it could be bolted on to the Ultraviolet Grasslands, Acid Death Fantasy, Dying Earth, or other similar settings without too much trouble. It's similar to Gus L.'s Dread Machine, but more factional and much larger. You could stick some of the Trilemma adventures or White Plume Mountain in here too. 

Please avoid direct pop culture references. I reserve the right to edit all submissions (or ignore them). All text will be licensed under CC-BY-NC.

There are just 17 hexes available:
  • 1.3 - [Faction] - Bluffs
  • 1.10 - [Faction] - Savannah
  • 2.7 - [Faction] - Savannah

  • 4.1 - [Faction] - Bluffs

  • 5.2 - [Faction] - Bluffs

  • 5.8 - [Faction] - Bluffs

  • 5.10 - [Faction] - Wastes

  • 6.1 - [Faction] - Wastes

  • 6.5 - [Faction] - Bluffs

  • 6.8 - [Faction] - Bluffs

  • 6.10 - [Faction] - Wastes

  • 7.1 - [Faction] - Badlands

  • 7.6 - [Faction] - Bluffs

  • 7.8 - [Faction] - Barren Fells

  • 8.6 - [Faction] - Bluffs

  • 8.7 - [Faction] - Bluffs

  • 8.9 - [Faction] - Badlands

Derek Jones

To Submit:

Post a comment with one hex and one encounter. You can submit multiple hexes and encounters in separate comments, but I'll try to give everyone a chance before looping back to the same authors. First come, first serve. 

Hexes

In the format:

#.## - [Faction] - [Landform]


Terrain: [max 66 char. including spaces. Describes the general features of the hex.]

Obvious Feature: [max 107 char. including spaces. Describes a specific feature: a village, a standing stone, a dungeon hint, etc. Something the PCs will find if they wander into the hex.]

Hidden Feature: [max 107 char. including spaces. Describes a hidden feature: a cache, a cave, a dark secret, etc. Something the PCs might find if they search or spend time in the hex.]


#.## refers to the row.column number from the hex map. If you don't have a specific hex in mind, leave this blank or use #.##.
[Faction] must be one of the following: 
Neutral, Kalawi Tribe, 
Researchers, 
Rust Monks, 
Protean Army, Pallid Knights.
[Landform] must be one of the following: Badlands, 
Barren Fells, Bluffs, Savannah, Wastes.

Factions and terrain types are briefly described in the PDF. Hexes take 6hrs to cross. They could be twenty miles of flat open ground or one mile of trackless wilderness. Don't worry about scale, worry about density of gameable content. Try as hard as you can to make every word or phrase capable of supporting an interesting session.
 

Encounters

In the format:
Omen:
[max 66 char. including spaces. The hint the PCs get if they move cautiously.]
Encounter: [max 124 char including spaces. The encounter itself with descriptors.

If possible, encounters should be related to the landform, not the specific hex.

Good luck!


16 comments:

  1. Hurrah, here we go again!

    5.8 - Neutral - Bluffs
    

Terrain: Trench-lined scorched hillsides, craters turned into strongpoints.
    Obvious Feature: Rust Monastery miraculously intact among stalemate Pallid vs. Protean battle. Diplomacy in the guesthouse.
    Hidden Feature: The maze of half-ruined fortifications follows leylines sacred to both Kalawi shamans and Wurm cults.

    Encounter: Badlands
    Omen: Small-size bare footprints. Kalawi war-songs. Agitated whispers.
    Encounter: 1d6 Kalawi teenagers, looking for a dangerous adventure as part of their initiation. One is about to develop a mutation.

    Also, 5.7 is marked as Barren Fells on the map, but listed as Badlands in the text.

    ReplyDelete
  2. 6.5 - Kalawi Tribe - Bluffs

    Terrain: Impossibly high cliffs of orange stone, sheer drops and treacherous footholds.
    Obvious features: The safe paths twine between vast pillars scored over centuries by the singing winds.
    Hidden Feature: One of the pillars does not touch the ground at the bottom, nor does it appear to be supported by buttresses.

    Omen: Scores in the stone as if from teeth or tusks, droppings like brittle gems that crumble when touched.
    Encounter: A bronze beast, hippo-like but horse sized, ancient. Territorial grazer. Intelligent enough to make a sturdy mount if it could somehow be persuaded.

    ReplyDelete
  3. lovelyzoo on Discord

    8.9 - Neutral - Badlands
    Terrain: Lilac coloured desert with oases of green crystal formations.
    Obvious Feature: Giant crimson crane flies flitting from crystal to crystal, feeding on them via a huge proboscis.
    Hidden feature: Team of hunters seeking fly larvae, which is considered a delicacy by the Kalawi Tribe.

    Omen: Translucent, iridescent, exoskeleton moults.
    Encounter: Giant psychedelic scorpion. Shoots pods from tail which disperse hallucinogenic spray, then attacks disoriented prey.

    ReplyDelete
  4. 7.6 - Protean Army - Bluffs
    Terrain: Soaring cliffs with high layers of soft tuff beneath the hard stone caprock
    Obvious features: High caves visible but no obvious path up to them, splinters of obsidian scattered around the base
    Hidden Feature: A chimney, climbable by someone tall, or with stilt-like climbing hooks, or two strong climbers bracing back to back

    Omen: Impossible footsteps leading up walls. Tick-tick-tick echoing down from above. The sound of laughter, of workers at ease when the wind is just right.
    Encounter: Obsidian workers of the protean army, long limbed, able to scuttle up the access ways with ease. Their winding dwelling, dug from the soft tuff, forms a vertical labyrinth beneath their caves. Many rich stones wait turning into fine blades. They have the best of their craftswork to hand, should someone trouble them

    ReplyDelete
  5. 1.3 - Rust Monks - Bluffs

    Terrain: Hoodoo-lined cliff walls of banded ochre and ebon sandstone
    Obvious Features: Cliff-dwellings with windows and eaves designed to 'sing' in the spring westerlies with a meditative drone.
    Hidden Feature: Collections of mica-leaf volumes etched in alien tongues, said to be decipherable only with certain refractive crystals.

    Omen: A reverse-flowing waterfall
    Encounter: Aranea initiates to the Rust Monks, creating web mandalas in a side-canyon.

    ReplyDelete
  6. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  7. 1.10 - Kalawi Tribe - Savannah

    Terrain: Waisthigh grasslands, scared animalfloks, 1d4 chance for purple wildfire, signs of corruption

    Obvious Features: Clear signs of battle, Protean dead, kalawi weapons, purple fire.
    Hiddden Features: Kalawi warcamp licking wounds, hidden by tribal magic, burying dead.

    Omen: the air vibrating like a membrane, with a high unhuman tune
    Encounter: elderly Kalawi Tribesmen, humming, drawing out souls of slaid enemies. More kalawi not far away

    Edit to 1.9. Insted of "Kalawi tribe labour, paid in alcohol, protean drugs, and iron." maybe do "Kalawi slaves, drugged up and slowly mutating"

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I wrote 1.9 and am opposed to this edit. 1.9 and 1.10 being apparently contradictory relationships between the factions offers more gameable options.

      Delete
    2. I also find paid workers who may not see the dangers in their end of the bargain more interesting and gameable and less straightforward and worn-out as compared to slaves.

      Delete
  8. 2.7 - Protean Army - Savannah

    Terrain: Dried grass, large bushes, dancing flowers

    Obvious Features: Some suspiciously large bushes, actually storage for kalawi. All abandonned.
    Hidden Features: A headquaters in a bush for passable Protean spies who are causing the crisis in 1.7.

    Omen: A trail of goo and corruption
    Encounter: A protean soldier, overtaken by mutation, disintegrates into goo and corruption that makes everything it touches... wierd

    1.7 on the map misses the colour.

    ReplyDelete
  9. 5.10 - Pallid Knights - Savannah
    Terrain: Chest-high silver grass. Burnt battle sites. Pools of psychic goo.
    Obvious Feature: Pallid reinforcements on their way to 5.8, burdened with spoils and prisoners from Proteans driven to 4.9.
    Hidden Feature: Knights weirdly afflicted by being away from their stronghold for too long. Need a swift messenger to 2.4.

    And a whole bunch of encounters, as these are evidently in higher demand than hexes:

    for Badlands
    Omen: Echoing shots, bright flashes, incoherent sobbing, weird ideas.
    Encounter: Lone Wurm cultist entrenched on a mesa top. Desperate and on drugs, fires his memetic musket at anything that moves.

    for Barren Fells
    Omen: Clang of metal, feverish whirring, curses, fountains of sparks.
    Encounter: 1d4 Geodesian wardens trying to repair their crash-landed flyer. What’s in the hold: tribute, weapons, prisoners, secrets?

    for Bluffs
    Omen: Discarded crystals, burnt smell, drill whirring, 8-bit martial hymn.
    Encounter: Glitchy spider-like mining robot believes itself to be a mounted Protean Knight. Looking for a commander to report to.

    for Savannah
    Omen: Laughter and singing, occasional shots. Broken twigs as marks.
    Encounter: 2d4 overconfident and haughty Researchers, led by 2 untrustworthy Kalawi guides. Faulty device to scare away Pallid Knights.

    Omen: Low trumpeting, passing headache, zigzagging elephant tracks.
    Encounter: A golem made to imitate a psychic elephant. Observed from a distance by 2 Researchers that created it.

    for Wastes
    Omen: Clang of metal, recently disassembled mechanisms, bare footprints.
    Encounter: 1d6+1 ever-silent Rust Monks scavenge for pieces of broken machinery and arrange them into a Zen garden inside a crater.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Also, 3.2 is marked as another 3.8 in the text, and 3.7 as 3.9.

    ReplyDelete
  11. 8.6 - Resarchers - Bluffs

    Terrain: Small pools of sour water, Crumbly shale overhangs, Narrow gullies
    Obvious feature: Metallic outcrops in the shape of fossil sea life, surrounded by small glowing lights and a smell of salt.
    Hidden feature: Researchers camped around a vast ammonite fossil they are studying. Their numbers seem diminished.

    for Wastes
    Omen: A smell of corrosion. Marching-songs in a dead language. Ticking.
    Encounter: 1d4 ancient clockwork soldiers, bearing faded flags. They may attempt to bargain for replacement parts, or attack the party.

    for Bluffs
    Omen: The sound of glass clinking, a smell of ozone. Hair stands on end.
    Encounter: 2d12+1 fulgurites, tiny clouds of glass shards animated by lightning. Will attack any player using an electric device first.

    Omen: Crude poles topped with skulls. Discarded, half-eaten, animal carcasses.
    Encounter: 2d6 yetisyn bandits, crass and lustful apemen cast out from the higher peaks, armed with crude clubs and their cruel teeth.

    ReplyDelete
  12. 4.1 - Protean Army - Bluffs

    Terrain: Oily rivulets bounded by yellow-streaked crumbling cliff faces

    Obvious feature: Metal-meat hybrid transport barracks halted for repairs. Wild animals fight nearby for cast-off scraps.
    Hidden feature: A wurm nest lies calcified in a rock formation. It’s petrified occupants will reawaken if the area floods.

    I'll post some encounters in a bit.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Some Encounters

    for Badlands
    Omen: Screech of rusted metal, sticky protein sinew webs
    Encounter: 13-legged metal rust spider, looking for protein dross to fuel its spinnerets and unusual objects for artistic projects.

    for Barren Fells
    Omen: Flickers in the upper atmosphere, alteration of weather spells
    Encounter: Meteorite storm. Causes spell mutations. Will cause physical mutations if exposed to the storm for too long.

    for Bluffs
    Omen: Freshly broken camp, offerings to nature gods
    Encounter: 2d6 members of the Kalawi tribe. To see what they are hunting or tracking roll another d20 on this list.

    for Wastes
    Omen: Fresh boot marks, discarded chemical testing equipment
    Encounter: 1d8 protean army soldiers searching for chemical resources. Willing to offer information or medical services.

    ReplyDelete
  14. 7.8 - Pallid Knights - Barren Fells
.
    Terrain: a tilted chalky moor, studded with skeletal projections.
    Obvious feature: painted limestone tors with low footbridges, rickety and switchbacked, over the bog.
    Hidden feature: a ramshackle quarry where Pallid Knights excavate boy mummies, some already awake.

    ReplyDelete