Teething is uncomfortable for human children. Bits of bone slowly erupt through soft mouthflesh. Armored Boys endure their own “teething,” when plates of bone press their way out from beneath the skin all over their body. Eventually, they’ll be covered from neck to toe in a suit of natural armor, but that protection must first be earned by long, painful weeks. So you can imagine how insulting it is for them to see some soft-skinned human walking around steel plates they did not earn.
Armored Boys haven’t developed much of a language yet, communicating with one another mostly by hand gestures, and low throat-howling that is intensely unpleasant to human ears. They stand about 3’ tall.
Armor 19, Move 120’(40’), 1 Hit Die (4hp), Claws 1d6, Morale 9
Intelligence as Cave Men, 3d6 Appearing
Reaction to Armor: If Armored Boys see someone wearing any type of armor made from segmented plates, they will focus all of their aggresssion on that target without regard for other dangers. As a single mass, they will tackle the offending character(s), and assuming they succeed, will remove 1d4 points from the character’s armor rating, until that character is completely unarmored.
Jaw Strength: It would be trivial for an Armored Boy to split a spear or bone in half with a single snap of their jaws. It’s too awkward to properly bring to bear in combat most of the time, but they commonly use their bite to chop down small trees to make tools.
Armored Boys do not sleep. They draw energy from the darkness much the same way a tree can draw energy from the light. They are subterranean nomads, plodding through the endless caverns and passages that form the veins of the earth. They only venture to the surface if they’ve gone too long without meat. Prey is more plentiful there, but the harsh light of the moon and stars is exhausting to them, and the sun is absolutely unbearable.
The creatures reproduce asexually, budding tiny fetuses behind their armor plates. When the eye of the creature that lurks on Mars turns towards earth, these shake free. If the Armored Boy notices, it will wrap the fledgeling in a mash of meat and blood, hide it anywhere that is convenient, then move on. Within six weeks the little one will be grown enough to sniff out other fledgelings and form a new cast. The spawn are born with all their parent’s knowledge, and the new cast will begin to hunt immediately. Their plates will grow in over the course of the next three months.
Plates can be harvested from dead Armor Boys, melted down, and reforged like it were a metal. While it is no stronger than steel, its colorful, swirling “tie dyed” pattern makes it highly prized for its aesthetics.
I think our disagreement is largely semantic, in part because my original point is semantic. I dislike terms such as “spotlight” and “cinematic” (another word Red uses in his post) because of their obvious thespian roots. My perception is that most people regard thespians as “doing it right” when it comes to tabletop games This annoys, and I think it is harmful for reasons I’ve discussed at length elsewhere, so I push back against the intrusion of their language into my spaces. It is entirely possible that I am being silly and stubborn in doing so.
In particular, Red’s post is worth checking out because he played in my ORWA campaign for many years. He has a unique position from which to criticize me: that of having actually endured the application of my philosophies first hand. Moreover, he and I made a game together last year which may (Satan willing) someday finally get released. So, in addition to enduring me as a referee, he also had to battle his way through multiple arguments with me over what would be included in that book.
I have nothing more to say. Red is good people. Read his post.
People act as though making deals with devils is so damned dangerous. Devils are an embodiment of cosmic law. They’re constitutionally incapable of breaking their word. So long as you don’t agree to something stupid, you’re fine. Making deals with demons is a whole other thing. It takes a particularly self destructive kind of crazy to become a warlock.
Warlocks use the same experience track as the elf, with the saves and hit dice of a magic user.
Becoming a warlock requires the ritual breaking of a sacred oath: the dissolution of a marriage, stealing from one’s host, etcetera. Once this ritual is complete the supplicant may never again bind themselves by their word. If a warlock keeps an oath against their best interests they will not only lose their powers, but must make a saving throw or die. This does not mean a warlock can never make or keep agreements, merely that they can never consider those agreements binding. If a farmer offers 10 coins to rescue their child, the Warlock may do so. However, if the ogre makes a counter offer of 15 coins to let them eat the child in peace, the Warlock should take that deal.
In exchange for making themselves an embodiment of treachery warlocks receive three demonic boons: the Baleful Whisper the service of a Warlockin, and the ability to bestow Breefs & Feckets.
By giving voice to their many hatreds, warlocks can create a breeze of cursed air called a Baleful Whisper. This functions like a ranged attack with increments of 20’/50’/80′. Only unsuspecting targets, those which could be sneak attacked, are vulnerable. On a successful hit the target takes 1d6 damage. This increases to 2d6 at level 3, with an additional d6 on every third level thereafter.
Warlockin are minor demons that take the form of ugly, 18-inch tall humans. Against their will they are bound to obey the warlock in all things. They are hostile creatures who will attempt to subvert their master’s will whenever possible. Instructions must be phrased clearly, and even then the creature is liable to “forget” certain aspects of their orders if left unsupervised.
Warlockin share their master’s saving throws, and have 1 hit point for each level of the warlock they serve. Due to their size and agility their armor rating is equivalent to plate and shield. In most respects a warlockin has all the abilities and limitations you would imagine an 18 inch person would have, with a single exception the player rolls during character creation:
Wings, and the ability to fly with them.
At will, their touch can set fire to anything flammable.
Able to impersonate any voice they hear with perfect accuracy.
Can turn invisible at will.
Able to communicate telepathically, though they cannot pull any information from a person’s mind that is not intentionally directed towards them.
They have perfect dark vision.
Can create illusions at will. Images only, no sound or touch, and covering no more than a 10 foot square area. The illusion must be actively maintained and controlled while it exists.
Despite their diminutive size, they have the strength of an average adult human. Their size relative to the world should still be taken into account.
Able to poison any food by licking it.
Whenever their master wills it, the warlockin’s vitality can be sapped away. Hit points extracted from the warlockin may be used to heal the warlock themselves, or anyone they are touching when they use this power.
By burrowing into the body of an animal, the warlockin is able to control it. This only works on creatures large enough for the warlockin to fit inside of.
By blowing a kiss, the warlockin can inflict a sour disposition on a person, putting them in a foul mood for a few hours. A saving throw versus magic resists.
Warlockin cannot die. If they are reduced to 0 hit points, their body is completely destroyed in some suitably dramatic fashion. Perhaps they disintegrate and blow away in the wind, or burst into flames, or collapse into a puddle of slime. Whatever feels right to the referee in the moment. D6 hours after they are destroyed, the warlockin will emerge, fully restored, from their master’s body. The means by which they emerge is entirely up to the warlockin, and is often used as a means of getting back at their master for allowing them to die. They may emerge through vomit, painful excretions, or even by bursting through the skin in a bloody gory mess. The process requires 10 minutes, and cannot be delayed by the warlock. When it happens, it happens. Fortunately, any damage suffered during the warlockin’s rebirth will quickly heal itself within that same time.
Warlocks do not cast spells. Instead they bestow Feckets on themselves, and Breefs on their foes. Unlike spells these magics may be employed both stealthily and instantaneously. They require no preparation, no spoken words, and only the most subtle gestures. In combat using them is a free action, though only a single attempt may be made each round. The downside is that only one fecket or breef may be active at a time. Bestowing a new one causes any previously bestowed magic to unravel.
At character creation the player chooses whether to start off knowing a fecket or a breef, then rolls on the appropriate table. Each time they gain a level they learn a new magic by rolling on alternating tables. So: if the player opts to roll a breef at first level, they will roll a fecket at second level, and all even-numbered levels thereafter, while breefs will be learned at odd-numbered levels.
Breefs Bestowed upon foes to weaken and befuddle them. The warlock may target a number of foes equal to their level, so long as all their targets are within their field of view simultaneously. A successful saving throw versus Magic resists the effect.
Tanglefoot Targets become prone to tripping. Any time they move more than 5′ in a round, there is a 4-in-6 chance they fall prone. If they move more than half their movement speed, the chance is 5-in-6.
Noodlelimbs Targets’ strength is reduced to the equivalent of a 7 year old child. Anything which would be difficult to push or lift or carry becomes completely impossible for them. They also suffer a -3 on melee attacks.
Sloppymouth Causes words to be flubbed to the point of incomprehensibility. Makes spellcasting very difficult.
DitzyWitzy Targets forget their motivation for whatever their current goal is. If they are searching, they will forget what they’re looking for. If they’re attacking, they’ll forget what brought them to that point. It doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll stop, though.
Passionbound Emotions become difficult or impossible to suppress. If the target is angry, they will become violent; if they are frightened they will flee; if they are sad they will weep, and so forth.
Fumblehands There is a 1-in-6 chance that the target will drop anything they’re carrying each increment of the current timescale. (In combat, rounds; in exploration, turns; etc). This chance is modified up for any activity the target undertakes which is not standing still and focusing on holding the item. Walking with it shifts the chance up to 2-in-6, running to 3-in-6, climbing or acting to 4-in-6, etc.
Cowardheart The target becomes easily intimidated by anything that seems threatening. They may flee, or cower, or bargain, according to their disposition.
Blindwander The victim loses any sense of direction. If they walk into a dungeon room that only has a single other door, unless the doors look dramatically different, they will not be able to tell which of the two they came in through.
Recallnot Victims will not remember anything that happens while under this effect. They retain their ability to think and act normally, but later they’ll discover a gap in their recollections.
Obeisance It will seem impossible to disobey any authority which appears legitimate to the victim. If there is a sign which reads “keep off the grass,” then the grass cannot be walked on. A police badge doesn’t become a magic talisman that allows them to be mind controlled, however. They must really believe the person with the badge is an officer, and that the officer is acting within their legal authority.
Thundersubtle The affected thump around wherever they walk, muttering out loud about whatever is going through their mind. They’re bad at lying, sneaking, or generally doing anything without telegraphing it to everyone around them.
Friendfaced The victim is predisposed to like the warlock. They’ll generally interpret the warlock’s behavior positively, though only within reason. Treat it like running into a guy wearing a T-shirt of your favorite obscure band that nobody else likes.
Feckets
Farstride Each step the warlock takes covers a vast swath of ground. It takes about 10 minutes to walk 6 miles, which can be fairly disorienting. You never quite stop where you want to. Roll 1d6 – 1 to determine how many miles from your desired stopping point your are. Dangerous to attempt indoors.
Greatmight The warlock gains incredible physical strength, enabling them to lift castle gates or toss their foes about like fukkin’ Conan. For melee combat purposes, treat as max strength.
Airstroke Enables the warlock to swim through the air as though it were water. It is not a particularly fast process, but does allow the warlock to position themselves wherever they like in vertical space.
Blankspace The warlock becomes a magical void. Spells cannot affect them, and any magic items they touch cannot be activated.
Noticemenot The warlock becomes more difficult to notice. In addition to being simply better at stealth and sleight of hand checks (bonus of 3, up to max skill), people will just find their attention drifting away from the warlock. Other things will just seem more important.
Feelingfine While active the warlock will not get any hungrier, thirstier, or sleepier than they already are. Furthermore, they do not need to breathe, and will feel comfortable in both extreme heat and extreme cold, so long as the temperatures are within a range that some natural animal could live in. Tardigrades don’t count.
Falseface The warlock is able to modify their appearance however they like, so long as they still appear to be a human of roughly the same size.
Venomteeth The warlock gains a poisonous bite, causing sleep or death as they prefer. Note that biting people is generally not an easy thing to do.
Luckyloo While active, the warlock gains a +3 to all of their saving throws.
Locoscient While active, the warlock’s senses are heightened. Their mind is able to process visual information more rapidly, such that if they were looking for a particular person in a crowd, a single glance would be sufficient to pick them out. They can smell and hear with the acuity of a dog, detect vibrations like a blind guy in a bad kung fu movie, and taste the way wine snobs pretend to.
Bething The warlock merges with any inanimate object large enough to contain them (even if they would not typically fit into its shape). Stuff like trees, walls, statues, etc. While merged, they retain access to their senses.
Unphysicality The warlock becomes incorporeal. Their appearance does not change (they do not become transluscent), but they cannot interact with the physical world. Whenever an object passes through them, or they pass through an object, it makes a loud “b’zorp” sound.
This is a photograph of my old whiteboards. I’d guess it was taken between October 24th and October 26th of 2011. If you look at the to-do list on the upper board, one line reads: “Warlock upgrade for Pathfinder + WoW ‘Lock. They can be the same project.” So, in October of 2011 I’d already been thinking about writing a Warlock class long enough to decide I wanted to merge it with another project.
You may be thinking the class described above doesn’t justify 7 years of buildup. Which…yeah, duh. When you leave something on the back burner for too long, it burns. The right time to do this was in 2011, but sometimes projects fall the wayside. Unlike most of the stuff I never got around to in 2011, however, the desire to make a warlock class has stuck with me.
I was 17 in 2004 when WotC published “Complete Arcane.” Amidst all the typical splatbook junk was a new class that appealed to me: the Warlock. I named mine Zalekios, and he would eventually become my longest running D&D character. A record which stands to this day. The Zalekios campaign inspired many of my early D&D tinkerings.
In 2007 my friends tricked me into playing World of Warcraft. I rolled a human warlock named Sentaigresk. Playing this character would lead to me doing the first serious writing of my life, which in turn got me my first paid writing gig. It’s also while playing Sentai that I met the lady I’m getting married to later this year.
The choices were made trivially at the time: just a D&D character, just a video game class. Now I’m 30 and a ton of my personal history is tied up with warlocks of one flavor or another. In 2011 all I wanted was to update the 3.5 class so I could convince Zalekios’ referee to switch to Pathfinder. I did all sorts of research into folklore, which is where terms like “breef,” “fecket,” and “warlockin” come from.
Unfortunately, in 2011 I was writing 5 blog posts a week, and I was rushing to put them together in the hours between work and sleep. There wasn’t room for a project as large as creating a Pathfinder class. By the time I could handle that sort of project, the Zalekios campaign was long dead.
I recently set myself the task of clearing out some of the older stuff in my drafts folder, and the oldest post by far was this one. Almost nothing of my original work remains, but I’m glad to finally get my version of the Warlock out there. Or at least, some version of my version.
We’ve been experimenting with a rotating leader system in my Wednesday game. It’s a simple method for ensuring every player’s interests are addressed during play. The whole idea could be communicated in about a paragraph, but like any idea it exists in the shadow of other ideas which preceded it. Ergo, to make its utility clear, I’ll need to show how it differs from existing methods of dividing the spotlight. That will beg the question “why does Nick hate the concept of ‘spotlight’ so much?”, which begs the further question “what is ‘spotlight?'”
Let’s begin at the beginning.
In some TTRPG circles, a player is said to be “in the spotlight” when their character is the primary focus of attention. It doesn’t mean they’re the only one saying or doing anything, merely that they’re saying and doing the most interesting things right now. To use a very D&D-ish example: in a tavern brawl, the thief and magic user may participate, but the fighter will probably have the spotlight. Ostensibly, this is what everyone at the table wants. Being in the spotlight is fun, being out is less fun.
The term was created so that attention could be discussed as a commodity; with the goal of parceling it out fairly amongst all participants. This is both a mechanical concern (“Do this class’s abilities offer an equivalent number of spotlight opportunities to other classes?”) and a social concern for the group to adjudicate at the table. (“Sue has been in the spotlight a lot tonight. We should give Anne some time in the spotlight soon.”) The platonic ideal would be for everyone at the table to spend an equal amount of time describing themselves doing awesome stuff while the rest of the group plays supporting roles as they wait their turn.
At first glance, spotlight may seem to be a useful concept. A game of D&D is basically a conversation with 4+ participants. Like any conversation, only one person can have the whole group’s attention at a time. Everyone wants a chance to play, thus it makes sense to think of the group’s attention as a resource that needs to be managed. So…what’s my fuckin’ problem?
The Spotlight methodology harms the game in at least two ways. First, it discourages a comfortable atmosphere by seeking to control the social aspect of the game. Second, it alters the game’s focus to the point where I would say you’re not even playing the same game anymore.
To expound on my first point first: D&D is a party. It’s a bunch of people getting together to socialize and have a good time. Presumably, the people involved mostly like one another. As with any party, it’s a mess of socialization with an ebb and flow all its own. It’s flexible, responsive. The natural movements of the game are a beautiful thing.
Sometimes people will step on one another’s toes, but if you’re not playing with assholes, folks will generally try to be respectful of one another. If you are playing with assholes, you have deeper problems than any rule can fix. This attempt to use rules to protect oneself from the scary variable of “other people” is a consistent feature of some TTRPG circles, and I find it baffling. My parents kept my locked in the house for most of my primary education and intentionally sabotaged my childhood friendships. How is it I developed better social skills than…anyone?
Worse yet, the form chosen for this regulated socialization is one of the worst types of conversation that exist: the “waiting my turn” conversation. Everyone half-listening to each other, searching for their chance to interject. On the scale of enjoyable human contact, it ranks just barely above “listening to someone who appears to be willfully oblivious to all the hints you’re dropping that you need to leave.”
None of this is to say that groups concerned about sharing the spotlight will be awkward by necessity. People don’t forget how to be people because of badly written game advice, but that’s not an excuse for accepting bad advice uncritically. Nor is it the real issue. The far more substantive problem with spotlight thinking is the second one: altering the game’s focus.
D&D is a game about solving problems. The referee puts obstacles in the players’ path, and the players attempt to overcome those obstacles. Problem solving isn’t the only source of fun, but it is the primary source.
Attempting to ensure every character gets an equal share of the spotlight is incompatible with with that focus. If Maria is on a hot streak and does a great job coming up with solutions for every problem, she ought to be congratulated for her clever thinking, not chastised for hogging the spotlight. That’s what I mean when I say it shifts the focus of the game. It becomes about the characters, rather than the problems those characters tackle. It becomes a story game.
Which isn’t wrong. I have no beef with thespian games or the people who play them, BUT using the concepts of those games to understand D&D will produce bad results. Like trying to drive a nail with a screwdriver: it’s the wrong tool for the job.
I also don’t mean to say the referee shouldn’t be concerned if someone is being left out of the game. We should trust the group to be accommodating of one another, but the referee is the last line of defense to ensure everyone gets heard. I often tell my louder players to shut up so I can hear what my softer spoken players are trying to tell me.
Which brings us, finally, to the rotating leader thing that prompted this whole post. I’ve discussed before that as a campaign matures, it changes. At low levels, the referee can say “there’s adventure to the West of here,” and the players will all respond “Let’s go west!” Once the players have settled into the world the decision of where to go next stops being so simple. They’ve been around the block a few times and developed their own interests in the world along the way. Lindsey wants to rid the world of slavery, Red wants to steal a giant robot, and Cathy wants to add a pool to the party’s stronghold.
As a rule, players are good about deciding what to do amongst themselves, but over time there’s a regression to the mean. Nobody ever gets to pursue the weird niche quest hooks that only they are interested in. After awhile that can really bum a person out.
A group of five people is never going to order a pizza covered in anchovies. The one person in the group who loves anchovies probably won’t even advocate for them, because they know it’s a weird niche thing that other people won’t like. At some point, though, that one person is going to think “Fuck, I haven’t had anchovies in like…five fuckin’ years. I’m just going to order a pizza and eat it all myself.” Except this is an analogy and it’s actually about D&D and you can’t play D&D all by yourself.
To combat this issue, I suggested to my group that anytime the question of what to do next arises, one player be designated to have the final say. Everyone is free to discuss and argue the issue as they normally would, but in the end that one player gets to decide what problem the party tackles next. The group then spends however many sessions it takes to reach a satisfactory conclusion to that pursuit, after which a new player becomes leader and decides on the party’s next goal.
It’s worth noting that aside from picking the group’s goal, the leader has no other explicit authority. They’re the final word on what the party does, not how the party does it. That said, they often serve as a kind of de facto party leader for the duration of the pursuit they chose, which is a nice side benefit. Also, would you believe this post took two agonizing days to sort together? I feel kinda pathetic about that.
Hex F-1: Ser Chalres, a knight who served in the court of the Duke’s father. He’s only 4 years older than the duke himself. His serious minded devotion to duty endeared him to the old duke, who regarded him as a better son than the one he had been cursed with. For his part, Ser Chalres was devoted to the old duke, and has struggled to remain loyal to his mentor’s son. The current duke resents Ser Charles, and has sent him on endless mundane “Quests,” which has caused the knight to gradually fall into a deep malaise.
After completing his most recent task (to enumerate the ducks on all the ponds in the duchy), he just…didn’t return to the duke’s court. He carries a ledger on which his final count is completed, and he cares for it dutifully, but rides aimlessly. Afraid to return to the Duke, or to return to his home. Occasionally, when the Duke’s men run into him, they bully him with all the class of a guy wearing a letterman jacket in an ‘80s movie. He insists to them that he’s still working on the count.
Ser Charles is contemplating suicide, but does not want to go to hell. Nor does he want to betray his lord by seeking peace with the papacy.
Hex F-2: Some ruins sit between hills, nestled in a little valley and nearly overgrown with grass. Almost nothing here is left but the foundations. The only thing that is intact is a marble tiled floor, patterned with many colors.
Far beneath this floor is a creature. It would appear bestial to us, but it is an older and wiser creature than all of mankind. A creature in whose mind lives entire worlds of lesser consciousness, all serving the greater whole.
This creature does not hate or love us anymore than we love or hate a bumblebee or a parrot. Once, it amused itself by making itself our god, but we bored it.
One thing it does enjoy is a dance it taught us in times too old to be called ancient. A thing of cosmic humor beyond our understanding. To us it’s just an incredibly complex ritual. If performed properly on this dance floor, the creature will grant a wish. If performed improperly, it will brush us aside in annoyance. Those subject to this must make a save versus Magic. On failure, they are sent flying miles into the sky. When they land, half of their body will have been crushed flat. If they succeed, they fly just high enough and are crushed enough to reduce you to 1 hit point.
Hex F-3: On the hill is a fine manse of noble quality. This was the duke’s country home, but is now surrounded by tangled bushes of razorwire. The duke’s men, with spotlights shining from open mouths,m wander the grounds at night.
Here is where the duchess Maria Josehpine—the Duke’s wife—is held. She & Rodrigo were married X years ago, at the insistence of the previous duke. They never got along well, but as a devout catholic, she submitted to her husband…at least until devotion to her husband would have required her to deny her god. She would not, and so she is here. Kept in a gilded cage, away from her priest, her sacraments. Forced to attend a satanic mass each day.
She is never given the opportunity to be a martyr; she is merely forced into a life that makes her wish for death. Fed the poorest food, housed in the poorest accommodations, treated with nothing but cruelty. Yet always beside these tribulations is the offer of an easier, damning path. Sumptuously prepared human meat is offered alongside her barley gruel. The cold stone cell she sleeps in is within sight of the warm feather bed that could be hers if only she fornicate with the men and women who wait for her there. Always a child is present for her beatings, and all she need do is give the order to have her punishment taken out on the child instead.
Maria holds firm her faith, but no human’s strength is infinite.
Hex F-4: The party comes across a group of 23 men equipped with shovels. They’re standing around a hole & one has a map clutched tightly in his hand. In the hole they’ve uncovered an old Roman treasure cache, including:
A statue of Terminus
A statue of Antoninus
A statue of Hadrian
A chest with 5,000 danerii, worth 3,462 modern silver pieces.
10 Gladius
10 Sets of legionary armor.
A crate of bronzeworks. Nice cups, jewelry, etc.
Their eyes got a little bigger than their heads, and now that they’re standing around their treasure haul they realize they really don’t know what to do next. How to move it? How to defend it? How do they turn it into cash they can use? They’ve got no wagon, no weapons, nobody to sell it to. They’re amenable to sharing the loot with someone who can help them defend, transport, and fence their discovery. They’re good folk, and will prefer to split 30/70, but can be negotiated down to a 50/50 split.
However, they’re not going to let anyone cheat them. They’ve got daggers and shovels, and they probably have numbers over the party. They will fight to protect this treasure if any foreign vagabonds try to take their hard won loot. (They don’t want to kill people, though).
Hex F-5: A trading port town, currently under naval blockade by a small fleet of Papist ships. There are four boats on the docks which arrived some time ago to drop off their goods, and pick up new ones. Unfortunately they’re unable to leave due to the blockade, and unable to return to shore because by the laws of the devils their business is done.
The folks on the ships are close to death. They’re clinging to their religion, but angry that the papist fleet would leave them to die like this. Each evening the devils lay out large banquets on the docks to tempt the sailors into defecting. It would take only a nudge to make that happen.
Hex F-6: A young man is struggling in the water, and will clearly drown if he is not helped quickly. This is William the bastard, future duke of another Duchy on the coast. He says he passed out on a couch after a night of drinking with his men, and woke (still on the couch) in the middle of the sea, out of sight of the shore. He was planning to wait until sunrise, then try to spot shore and paddle that way with his arms. But his couch was capsized in the current, and he lost sight of it. He’s been trying to tread water and swim towards shore, but it is far, and he grows tired.
On being rescued, he will swear an oath unto god never to set foot in the water again, and will hold to that oath unless the PCs convince him otherwise. He is susceptible to sleights directed towards his honor.
Hex F-7: A man in a small boat, weighed down with a heavier load than it should be carrying. he’s anchored in a precise spot marked by a buoy. He throws buckets of dirt into the water. When his boat is empty, he will return to the land and load it up with more dirt. Each cartload must come from a different acre of the duchy.
The unfortunate man accepted a contract working a farm from a devil. He’s not as skilled at manipulating contracts as the duke, and now he’s got to make the farmland himself by dumping dirt directly into the water. He’s deeply depressed, but there’s not much he can do. It seems the devils are taking particular pleasure in what horrid contracts they can assert, as a sort of displaced vengeance against the Duke.
Closing Note: Thanks for reading this series of weird hex posts. I’m glad to finally have them out in the wild.
These were the first draft for a project that grew wildly out of control until it was a complete friggin’ book. The writing for the book is done, and we’re just waiting on art, editing, and layout before we figure out how to best get the thing into your hands. Look forward to it!
Hex E-1: This is the highest peak in the area, pretty cold. The players find a cave. The first chamber, shallow, holds a hibernating bear. Beyond the bear, however, is a steep passage covered in ice. It will require a climbing check to descend safely. About 70% of the way down the cavern opens up into a larger chamber. There is no safe place to stand in this chamber, and it is both dark and covered in ice, but if the players take the time to look around they will discover the most beautiful cave paintings on the wall. About 2/3rds of which describe the sort of hunter/gatherer life that we now associate with prehistoric man. The remainder of which show records of war, brutality, and fear of an unknown and unstoppable calamity from above.
As the shaft reaches its bottom, it suddenly opens out, with a final 30’ drop to the frozen ground below. There is no way to climb down this without a secured rope of some kind.
Within this chamber are the Ur-Men. 173 men, women, and children frozen solid. Huddled together for long lost warmth. They are huge, burly, hairy things. They are the men who came before men. Better, in many ways. No less clever than us, they are only less studied than we are. And a great deal more powerful. Even a child of 7 or 10 might have as much as 2 or 4 hit dice. The adults range from 7 to 12 each.
The frost here is deep, and will not melt without interference. If they are thawed, they will be revived fully within only a few days. Their recuperative abilities are well beyond those of humans. It is unlikely that any means of complex communication can be found, but the referee should know: they are the Peoples of the Red Hills. They retreated here to escape what they believe was “The God of Cold, consuming the heavens as he descended with ice and fire.” They are not unnecessarily violent, but they are territorial, and believe in the fundamental truth that might makes right. They will never subject themselves to the tiny, weak modern humans. No matter how impressive their science and magic have made them.
The Ur-Men are also prolific breeders. Their women bear young in litters of 4-8, and all take the work of creating and raising children as a grave duty that must be pursued with vigor. In as little as a generation, these unfrozen peoples could become a small nation, ready to sack the modern world and draw it back into an era of darkness.
Hex E-2: Vedast the mountain man. Roll 1d6: on a 1 the players stumble onto Vedast’s humble home, otherwise they meet him out about the mountain. Perhaps he is cooking a meal, fishing, hunting, wrestling with a bear, chopping down a tree, gathering clay to make some pots, weaving a basket, or whatever else a man of the mountain might do. Vedast is capable, and he does it all.
He’s a large man, nearly 7’, with shoulders broad enough to dwarf two smaller men. He wears the skins and furs of animals he hunted himself, and carries equipment for whatever task he’s currently pursuing—most of which he also made himself. Vedast has lived in the mountains most of his life, and until recently he only came down to make his biannual trips to the nearest church to receive the holy sacraments. Since the devils came, and the practice of the Christian faith was banned, he has remained on his mountain, spending a great deal of time in prayer for his soul, and the souls of his countreymen who have fallen beneath the wretched influence of the Duke.
Vedast is devout in his faith, with the complete sincerity of a saint. He stays away from the devil’s affairs, and suggests that you do as well. Nothing good can come from being among them.
Vedast is an expert in anything within this hex, and both of the contiguous mountain hexes (E1 & D3). He’s been everywhere, and seen everything, even if he won’t tell you all that he knows. He prefers to keep his distance from anything unnatural. He also has a 4-in-6 chance of being aware of anything in the hexes adjacent to his mountains.
Vedast and Jay the Blue are aware of one another, and Jay is quite fond of the gruff, simple, and kindhearted Vedast. Vedast, in turn, holds some affection for Jay in his heart of hearts, but also regards him as a simonist and a sinner. In times past, the two would occasionally share a quiet smoke, or a meal around the campfire. Jay respectfully chooses not to exercise magic of any kind within sight of the mountains, though he does have brief exchanges with birds. (A practice Vedast is not uncomfortable with, as he himself often speaks with the animals. Though for him, they do not speak back).
Unfortunately, since the devils came, Vedast has become hyper-vigilant about the purity of his soul, and has cut all contact with Jay. Something which makes both of them very sad.
Vedast has a trio of dogs named Alexander, Maximus, and Barrigan. He has names for every significant creature on the mountains, and a cordial relationship with each.
Hex E-3: An odd mound of tangled plants, with a glint of dull metal visible through it. If the overgrowth is cleared away, there is a front loading cannon beneath. 9’ long, with a 6” barrel. One of the wooden wheels broken, while the whole rest of the wooden structure has become rotted and brittle. It’ll fly apart dangerously if the weapon is fired in this condition. There are no gunpowder or balls nearby.
If loaded properly, the cannon will deal 3d6 SHP of damage on a successful hit. Attack rolls take a -10 penalty if attempting to target individual people. When attacking structures, each miss grants a cumulative +2 to hit to subsequent shots against the same target, as you’re able to narrow in your shot.
Hex E-4: A desk by the side of an idyllic little pond, where an obese man with a pimply face and unkempt hair juggles scraps of balled up paper next to a writing desk. If he notices someone approach he will drop the balls in embarrassment and busy himself with quill and ink. If the intruders speak to him, he will bluster about how rude they are for interrupting his very busy creative process. He insists he is a writer, but if asked to share his work, he will make excuses. He’s never been able to finish anything, he claims, because of his constant interruptions and the excessive demands on his time. The stacks of paper around him are filled with incomplete To Do lists.
Hex E-5: There is a field of deep, overgrown grass. When a path of movement cuts through the grass, the unusually long and complex roots pulse, and the movement is indicated on a map within the small hut at the center of the field.
The hut has two doors, one to the right, and one to the left. The door on the left is locked. The door on the right leads into the false hut, which appears just as it should. A small wooden space with windows, the map of the surrounding area on a table at the center, a few supplies, and a guard with a key to the left door.
When the left door is opened, it reveals the true interior. A hellchamber of red stone, much larger on the inside than the hut is on the outside. The multi-tiered chamber contains three regiments of devils, all drilling together in preparation for war. Near the back is a large summoning circle where diabolists summon ever more devils to join these ranks.
This place is not hell, nor is it earth. It is a place between the two, placed as closely to earth as can possibly be managed. It is a struggle, moving from one world to another. It takes time and energy. Here, the hard work of summoning an army of devils can be done in advance of any need to deploy them on earth. And when they are needed, all it will require is walking out the door. This is the staging area, the buffer of the diabolic invasion that will come at the earliest opportunity.
Hex E-6: A dank little swamp. Roughly 200’-300’ across at its widest points. Bit of a clearing, bushy plants growing next to murky pools of standing water. A haven for small buzzing things, and the slightly larger slimy things that eat them.
On hot days, when the swamp gas is thick in the air, a feathered beast appears. You and I would recognize it as a dinosaur. Specifically, a Hadrosaur. The creatures corpse rests deep beneath the swamp, and the heat in this region only recently rose high enough for its decomposing vapors to rise to the surface.
The creature is not intelligent as we think of it, but it is aware enough to be angry. Angry that it is alone, and that it is trapped in this swamp. Angry that it has not been able to mate.
If it can mate with a female of your group by merging with her, then 4 months later she will birth an egg, which will hatch into a child of the creature. She may then opt either to pass the spirit on to another, or immediately become pregnant again.
Hex E-7: A large barrel—a Hogshead size—floating in the water. Once fished out, players will notice a mark branded into the top of the barrel. Any well traveled player will at least be able to recognize that it’s a mark of Venetian origins, while players with greater familiarity with the seat trade may be able to track it to a particular merchant house. Regardless of where it came from, it’s here now, without anyone to claim it.
The barrel is full of black pepper. 470 pounds of it, to be exact. At a common rate of roughly 18 silver per pound, this is quite the find! A valuable sell at nearly any port the party may call in at.
A young man named Stiles received 15 lashes for knocking the barrel overboard in the night, and was dismissed from his post without pay at the nearest port. His anger over this injustice has been left to fester, and he’s become obsessed with finding the barrel. He figured it will show up in some port eventually, and so he picked one at random and spends his days watching the docks. Because Stiles is kinda stupid. But lady luck sometimes takes pity on the stupid and the determined, and so there is a fully 1 in 6 chance that Stiles just happens to be waiting in whatever port the players try to unload the pepper into.
Hex D-1: The party stumbles on a suspicious older gentlemen named Firmin, who is perhaps in his late 50s. He acts nervously, and will try to excuse himself from any social encounters quickly. He is covered in dirt, and carries a shovel. Players who examine him will notice blood mixed with the dirt.
The man lives in a nearby village, and is a serial murderer. Each new moon (when God’s eye is closed), he kills someone. Usually a child. If Firmin is caught, and believes any chance of escape is lost to him, he will reveal that he is proud of what he has done. He will offer to show the players the graves of 53 people. If the players examine the bodies there, they may find that each has a gold coin, worth 50 silver pieces, in their mouth.
Firmin assures you that there are more bodies, and he will tell you how to find 53 more of them, if you leave him unmolested for 2 years. The others (and there truly are many) are clustered in groups of 53 (which is the true number of the beast, Firmin will explain. 666 was a ruse to throw people off the scent.) (This is not true. He’s nuts.)
How he gets all of this gold is unclear, but he never seems to have any unless he’s burying somebody. In truth, he is wearing pants of human skin purchased from Hette the flesh cobbler. A gold coin appears in the scrotum each time he kills an innocent. Maximum of one coin per moon cycle.
Hex D -2: Jay the Blue wanders here. He’s an older man with blue robes, a black & white hat of soft down, large pauldrons of meticulously groomed feathers, and a hanging chestpiece of small black bird beaks, arranged like scale mail.
Jay is a very sane man, often taken for a complete nutter. He is a friend to brids, is always accompanied by some, and calls every bird he encounters by name. He often has extended, complex conversations with them.
In point of fact; any bird which comes within 100’ of him develops distinct, intelligent personalities. They speak a bird language that only Jay speaks. He is open about this reality, but there is no way for anyone to verify that.
Jay’s Pauldrons are magic items that grow out into wings, on which he can fly at will. His beak mail is magic armor which attracts all projectiles. He takes 1d3 damage from them regardless of their potency (assuming they hit him).
High in the air is a massive sparrow, on whose back is an expansive palatial estate on which Jay lives. He flies up and down using his magic pauldrons, but if they are taken from him he can just call his sparrow friend down.
Jay the Blue’s spells are all bird themed, and his spellbook is kept in a nest, protected by an eagle who flies it to him any time he calls for it.
Hex D-3: A tribe of mountain women who wear treated bark armor on their arms and legs resides here. Their large, muscular breasts are never covered. Most also carry a bow, a quiver of arrows, and a flint blade whose length rests somewhere between a long dagger and a short sword. By flexing their mighty tits, they can spray streams of acidic milk with pinpoint accuracy, dealing 2d4 damage. Their acid attack receives a +4 to hit.
The tribe is not very territorial, as they have only the vaguest sense of land being “owned.” They welcome outsiders, but expect outsiders to work. Few outsiders can keep up with their rigorous labors. Men may be invited to participate in “The Work of the Night,” which they refer to as “Searching for a Baby.” These women are always open to pregnancy, which is a shorter and much less painful process for them than for most women. However, even here, only the rarest outsiders will be able to keep up with their vigorous pace. They often expect to spend the whole of the night completing the act a dozen times or more. And no outsiders can really match the physical standards set by these women’s usual partners, the speardick men.
Contrary to what one might think, there is nothing peculiar about the genetics of these women. Their powerful physical characteristics and easy childbearing are the result of their lifestyles and their unique regional diet. Any women living with them for more than a few months would begin to develop these traits.
Hex D-4: A stone bridge of demonic origins, crossing the river. At both ends a person must pass through the gaping mouth of a demon in order to set foot on the bridge, and along both sides are stone railings made to look like licking flames. For every character who crosses the bridge, there is a 1 in 6 chance (repeated each time they cross) that the center of the bridge will open up and drop them into a shallow hellpit, filled with the red-boned arms of diabolic skeletons. The character must make a successful climb check to escape this hole, as the arms will fight against any attempt he makes to escape. Each round they tear away a chunk of the characters soul. Roll 1d6 to determine an ability score, and the character loses 1 point from that score. This continues until the character escapes. If the opening the character fell into is ever examined, the characters will note that it resembles a crude depiction of a vagina.
One week after the character falls in, the hole will open again, giving birth to a creature that looks a little bit like the character who fell in, and a whole lot like a devil. This devil has double the devoured character’s hit dice, and for each ability point that was devoured, the devil has a power that is appropriate to the type of point. For example, if a point of Intelligence was devoured, the devil might have some spells or psionic talents. For a point of Constitition, the devil’s hit dice might be a better die type.
In order to become a whole creature, the devil must find and devour its parent. It will attempt to do this with all cleverness, preferring to stalk its parent and attack while they are alone if possible. If the devil is slain, and if the parent eats their diabolic child, then they will regain their lost ability points. Further, for each ability point regained, there is a 20% chance that the character gets 2 points back instead of just 1.
Note that if a character in the middle of the party’s marching order triggers this trap, and the rest of the party does not want to risk themselves, then the party may find themselves separated by a river. The water here is particularly deep and swift. Carrying any amount of supplies across would be impossible without some cleverness on the player’s part. Finding an easier crossing would require the players to travel quite a ways, and risk a second encounter check.
Hex D-5: A village operating under a confluence of laws which makes gay marriage mandatory. Anyone over 16 entering the village must promptly be either married to someone of the same sex, or put to death. The only exception is if there is no one of the same gender available for them to marry, in which case they are free to remain unwed until such a person becomes available. There is currently one unmarried man and one unmarried womn in the village, they are very much in love with one another.
Hex D-6: Atop a hill are the blackened stones of an abandoned structure. It looks like the fire happened some years ago now, and the scattered arrows you can still find here and there suggest the burning was an intentional act of aggression. However, the weaponry shows none of the improvements made since the coming of the devils. It likely predates their appearance.
The grounds of this old cloister are not lavish. It was a small place for men of god to get away from the world. A chapel, a garden, a dormitory, a dining hall, and a small study. Anything of value has already been carted off. The place is desolate, and the players must explore its empty, burned out chambers one by one if they wish to find the one thing of value here.
It is in the study that the fires were the most intense. There is a pyre here, on which books are piled. Those books are black and charred. Most fall to pieces if you pick them up. There is nothing left here to burn.
Save one.
Deep in the pile is a book that is completely untouched. The binding is a brightly colorful depiction of dancing peoples during festival time.
This is a book of dance. It depicts a floor with multicolored tiles in a taemple. It shows a great beast sleeping beneath. It describes a complex dance. If performed correctly, the beast will grant one wish (and only ever one wish) to the dancer. If performed incorrectly, it will consume them. Learning the dance from this book creates the dance skill. It costs no money to train the dance skill, only time. (same amount of time required by the skill training.)
Hex D-7: In these woods is a clearing where the ground is soft, and the scent is sickly sweet. Pungent with fermentation. A rainbow of appetizing-colored mushrooms sprout all throughout the clearing, and 4’ beneath the surface are 16 children.
16 children. Each 16 seasons old. Each with 16 punctures in their bellies. Each left hanging to drain for 16 days, then buried 16 palms beneath the earth.
1. Sky blue with cloudy white speckles. Makes you so thirsty you could drink a pond dry in a single turn.
2. Violet with a gradient swirl. Grows you 2’ taller.
3. Dull yellow with red speckles. You piss fire. The stream deals 2d6 @ 10’ up to 3 times a day. More if you encumber yourself with enough water to drink constantly. Fire pee burns and is deeply unpleasant.
4. White with a pale blue latticework running through it. Makes your teeth wiggle themselves out of your gums, forming tiny tooth-sized men. They will never return to your mouth, but they will follow you. Each is bound to perform 1 task for you. Once it is complete, they are free, and will be on their way with a polite thank you for giving birth to them.
5. White with gold speckles. Save versus Paralyzation or turn into a statue of fool’s gold.
6. Turns your skin a verdent shade of magenta. You convulse and vomit chunks of iron from your body until you die.
7. Your eyes become a swirling vortex. You have tiny black holes instead of eyes. You see nothing, but once per day can attempt to compress one foe into a singularity. They get a save versus Magic. On a fail, they die, and you gain health equal to their HD.
8. The next time the player uses any profanity, the referee determines the object of their profanity. (“Fuck this!” begs the question, what is “this?”). Once the subject is determined, a fireball goes off centered on that location. 6D6 damage. The player doesn’t get to know about this, and will be in trouble if they make it a habit of saying “fuck me.”
If the children beneath the mushrooms are discovered and given propar burials, they will grant a wish to each of their rescuers who did not eat any mushrooms.
Hex C-1: The ducal hunting grounds. There are many small game trails, and if the party remain here for very long they may find the Duke’s hunting lodge, which is currently locked and unattended. The game in the Duke’s hunting grounds is unnaturally plentiful, plump, and easily killed even by clumsy attacks.
If any of said game is killed by a weapon which does not bear the unique mark of the Duke’s hunting party, then a moment after it falls dead, the animal will rise as an undead creature. With ability it never possessed in life it will begin running with all haste towards the nearest legal official in the Duke’s service, and all the way it will be screaming a physical description of the character who dealt a killing blow to it.
Hunting in the Duke’s forest is a serious crime, punishable by death. Arrest warrants and wanted posters will begin to circulate within a few days, and there will be a significant reward for the perpetrator’s capture. The testimony of undead game is irrefutable under the laws of the duchy, so long as it is able to identify its murderer in court.
Hex C-2: A large Gothic cathedral for which the Duchy was once famous. When the Duke first made contact with Hell, it was offered to the devils as a diabolic embassy, which has been its function for some years now. The Cathedral and its gardens are the sovereign ground of hell, unbound by any of the laws which govern the rest of the duchy. The small village and farmlands surrounding the cathedral have been abandoned. Even the Duke’s most loyal subjects would find it difficult to be within sight of the embassy. To hear the sounds that come from its grounds.
The Cathedral has of course been completely rebranded, with all of its Christian symbols either destroyed or desecrated. Notably in the deepest basements of the building is a massive stone vat—almost a pool. The cathedral’s relics made of precious metals have been embeded into the interior of the vat, and coated in years of diabolic excretions. Papists who fall under the devils powers are often brought here to be drowned. The presence of these precious objects has since been disguised by a foul sludge, but if they were recovered the church would be immensely grateful. (Of course, it would be a great indignity for you to expect payment for returning them. So you may want to find someone else to hand them over to.)
Throughout the interior of the cathedral grows a red, mossy fungus, peppered with black mushrooms. This fungus is alive, and is always listening and watching to everything that goes on within the Cathedral. Intruders are often allowed to think it is merely an inanimate thing, so that a trap can best be set for them wherever they plan to go. The old archbishop’s vestry holds the Fungus’ head, resembling a cow’s skull with crusty yellow eyeballs.
Hex C-3: The party comes upon a large riverboat, about 600 yards from the river. Two weeks ago, during a period of one hour and sixteen minutes when the devils had the legal authority to toll the river, they diverted this ship out of the water, and cursed the crew to experience a shared hallucination that they were all still traveling to their destination. The ship is fully manned by an able crew, and well protected by a number of deck mounted cannons, and a cohort of the Duke’s men. The people on the ship are literally incapable of believing that they are not on the river en route to the port city of Charluir, and they are starting to wonder why it’s taking so long to get there.
What the crew does understand is that for some reason, they are delayed. This is a huge problem, because they’re carrying the pay for the soldiers garrisoning Charluir. In their hold are chests containing 22,530 pieces of silver. The captain will gladly reward anyone who can get them back on course from his own personal funds, as he is worried any delay may cost him his life. However, due to their hallucination, neither he nor his men are willing to leave the ship.
Of course, piracy will be met with all due force.
Hex C-4: The Raison family are small hold subsistence farmers who grow a variety of vegetables on their plot. There are sweet potatoes, green beans, cabbage, carrots, broccoli, and even a pair of peach trees. They usually get on well enough, but the last few harvests have been poor for them. Last season they even needed to beg some alms from the duke’s ministers to make it. This year they were relieved to see their yield coming in strong.
But something isn’t right. Their sweet potatoes have literal eyes, which glare with absolute loathing at the family. The green beans taste like vomit, and if you manage to choke one down, your excretions will become animate and run off in the night. The cabbage leaves are razor sharp, and the carrots are too hot to touch. The peaches are the worst, sprouting toothy, oversiezd mouths. They shout insults and obscenities at anyone near them, and seem to know things that they cannot know.
The Broccoli is unchanged.
If left alone, the green bean poops will come to take the peaches around to all the other vegetables, which they will eat. Once all are eaten, the peach and poop become a monster.
Hex C-5: Goats are the lowest order of Devils. They live among us as informants, subtle temptors, and occasional saboteurs. They chafe under their restrictive existence of living as mere animals among mankind, but laws must be obeyed. At least until you find a loophole. And the rats nest of laws in the duchy has created nothing if not an endlessly exploitable number of loopholes.
So long as they act unanimously in groups of 10 or more, Goats in the duchy are free to speak and act of their own accord. (So, of course, this bunch has elected a leader, and all agree with her without any dissent, lest they lose this opportunity). Votes are frequent, but never is a dissenting voice heard. Their plan is to win as many souls for the minor devil Xulmaruk as they can. Xulmaruk is among the weakest of the demon lords, but if they can win enough souls for him for him to take notice, then perhaps he will regard them as useful servants and take them into his direct employ, serving in a greater capacity than goats are normally allowed. In this pursuit this herd will do whatever they have to, so long as it does not disrupt the many loopholes they are currently exploiting.
All goats speak with the voice of James Earl Jones.
Hex C-6: A crudely built castle, nestled near the base of a mountain. The residents built this in imitation of the castles they’d seen in the valleys, without any of the expertise that would normally be required. Behind the castle wall is the entrance to a deep cave complex, which served as the original home of the residents. A number of wattle and daub huts have begin to spread outside the castle walls as well, as this population expands.
The residents here are men who wear paint and furs. Their dicks swing down freely between their knees. This might seem unwieldly to some, but it doesn’t bother them any more than a tail bothers a fox. When these men become agitated, they become erect, and their erect phallus is a truly a thing to behold.
It’s an average of six feet long, with the toughness of a sturdy birch shaft. The head of the penis, already unusually angled, becomes dangerously sharp when fully engorged. The speardick men use their tallywhackers as thrusting spears, dealing 1d8 damage on a successful hit. Once battle is ended, they put away their weapons by vigorously fucking the last wound they put into their foe.
The speardick men are disdainful towards sex. They view it as “The joy of battle, without the honor.” But they do recognize it as a necessary evil. Something to be undertaken as a duty, with a proper amount of stoic lamentation before and after. The tribe has a treaty with the Acidtit women which goes back as long as anyone can remember. The speardick men travel to the acidtit women in small groups to mate, and when they leave they take any newborn Speardick boys with them.
The mating of these two groups used to be an annual affair, which frustrated the Acidtit women’s desire to bear ever more children. Through a bit of coordinated bedroom talk they’ve gradually convinced the Speardick men that more frequent meetings will only strengthen both tribes, as their numbers continue to swell.
Hex C-7: The Grove of Anti-Eden. A verdant paradise surrounded by a wrought iron fence that glows red with heat. Only the gate can be touched without harm, and anyone who wishes may pass through the gate freely in either direction.
While within the grove, people lose all concept of good, evil, morality, or good judgement of any kind. It is a den of decadence and sin: indiscriminate orgies, endless feasts, gambling, no work, no worship, no obligations. It is a hedonistic paradise. A devil standing near the gate (in the closet thing to friendly looking human form that a devil can manage) makes sure everyone is fully informed that those who enter will lose their sense of right and wrong in exchange for unfettered access to all the pleasures they can imagine. Most folks don’t care. They convince themselves they’ll leave before they die, but few people can muster the willpower to do so. Think of the grove as a sort of “sell your soul to the devil” area effect.
Players who enter do not control their characters. They must describe their objective, and upon entering they must make a saving throw versus Magic. On failure they will want to spend the rest of their days engaging in the pleasures here and won’t leave of their own volition. If they succeed on their saving throw, then they manage to muster the willpower to leave. However, what they accomplish is determined by rolling a d6.
1. You really just forget about your goal and engage with the sin for awhile. Pick one of the 7 deadly sins that fits, or randomly determine one. You spend 1d8 days doing that before you manage to wander your way back out. Something good comes of it. (You come out with something cool, you’ve got some new friends, etc)
2. You spend 1d4 days wallowing n sin, and you manage to half complete your goal. If you go in again, and manage to escape a second time, you get to roll on this table with a cumulative +1.
3. You spend 1d4 days wallowing in sin, but escape with your goal mostly completed. However, you did forget one little thing. It’s something that’s not really worth going back for, but damn it’s going to be annoying without it.
4. You spend 1d5 days wallowing in sin, but escape with your goal entirely completed. However, something bad happened to you in there. Maybe you lost an item, or took an injury, or just have a really nasty hangover. Determine a 7 deadly sin, and fiat some consequence based on that.
5. You spend 1d12 hours wallowing in sin, but you escape with your goal totally completed.
6. You zip in, zip out, goal complete. No fuss, no muss.
Regardless of the result, the referee is at full liberty to describe the manner in which the PC comported themselves within the grove.
Hex B-1: A palatial estate with impressive gardens, and a constant flow of people coming and going with deliveries and shipments. A sign over the path leading to the main house identifies the place as “Hugo’s Haberdashery.”
Hugo himself was, until a few years ago, just a shoemaker. To be sure, he was the finest shoemaker in all the land, convinced to reside in this Duchy at no small expense by the Duke. He had risen to the greatest heights a shoemaker might expect, but he was still a shoemaker. With the coming of the devils, however, the importance of the Duke’s shoes became more than a fashion statement. They became the tools with which legal and cosmic policy was forged. They became the weapons of war.
Being a shrewd man, Hugo maneuvered himself not only to supply the Duke’s footwear, but to oversee the small army of craftspeople required to keep the Duke looking fabulous at all times. His fine country estate functions like a cross between a factory and an artistic commune, where the most avant garde in both fashion and function are produced, and become passe before anyone outside the estate has even seen them.
Hex B-2: Borges Castle, where the Duke lives, was a dour, functional structure of stone. It was notably out of keeping with the Duke’s character, until he ordered that each stone of the castle’s wall be painted a different color than those adjacent to it. Now the castle is a riot of color. No less functional, but more ridiculous than dour.
Anyone who enters the castle must be attended by one of the Duke’s many friendly, diligent guides. Without one they will find it nearly impossible to get where they intend to go, no matter how many times they have visited the castle before. Even with a guide, visitors may notice that doors do not always lead to the same room each time they are opened.
Around Borges Castle is a respectably sized city of ~7,250 inhabitants. It has grown rapidly in recent years, its population swelled first by the bureaucrats needed to administer the duchy as an independent realm, then by dilettantish diabolists, and the wastrel youth of European nobility eager for a front row seat to whatever madness is happening here. And of course, there are the armies of merchants, servants, and craftspeople needed to serve the former two groups.
An outflow of the river cuts through the middle of town, then rejoins the main a few miles South.
Hex B-3: On a minor outflow of the river is a water mill and a small cottage. The miller is a 13 year old boy who lives here with his beleaguered wife and their infant son.
One of the first laws passed in the duchy made it illegal for boys who lived in mills, and who do not have the surname “Miller” to grow any older. In point of fact, the young man here is 22 years of age, but is trapped in this young body. His childhood sweetheart had boldly insisted they could make marriage work despite his condition, and they did for a time. But as young married couples are wont to do, they produced a child. A beautiful baby boy.
A boy who shared his father’s surname, and had nowhere to live but a mill. Nearly 3 years of caring for the same newborn child has just about driven the poor woman insane. She’s just one bad day away from snapping and murdering the both of them. Once she’s standing over their bodies she’ll probably do something like wrap her naked body in their skin and claim to be a little girl who couldn’t possibly have done any of the terrible things she’s being accused of.
Hex B-4: Eight years ago, an army of crusading papists camped here. They anticipated a difficult river crossing on their way to lay seige to the Duke’s castle in the coming days. What they didn’t expect was for a detachment of the Duke’s forces to cross the river in the night, storm the camp, and lay waste to the disorganized crusaders.
A great pillar of victory was commissioned for the site. An edifice of marble, 20′ high, depicting the battle and the events leading up to it. Aside from this, the Duke ordered that the camp be left untouched. The bodies still lie where they fell, picked clean to the bone by carrion. The tents have mostly been blown over or rotted away, and what few remain have become vermin nests.
The Duke himself carried off the cache of silver held for the soldier’s pay, and peasants bold enough to defy the duke’s command have robbed the place of many other of its valuables. Even to this day, however, none have found The Sword of Saint Ambros of Milan, a singular weapon that belongs to the Pope, and is sometimes lent to those who wage wars in the Pope’s name.
The sword grants the wielder the benefits of a Protection from Evil spell, but only if it was properly lent to them by the pontiff. The sword is not otherwise magical, but is richly appointed and easily recognized by many people. It would be difficult to sell, as it is a well known papal possession and anyone but the pope who claimed to own it would be considered a thief.
Hex B-5: A massively obese woman who is so large she serves as part of the landscape, with grass growing patchily on her hill-like body, and critters burrowing in her folds. Her many ailments make her a light sleeper, and she will awaken at the slightest provocation. She reacts to each intruder differently. Roll 1d4.
1. Who are you? Why are you at my home!? GET OUT! IT’S MY HOME!
2. Absolutely enraged by something specific about the character. The color of their clothing, the style of their hair, their attitude, whatever. It infuriates her. She doesn’t want you to leave, she just wants you to take the abuse she will heap upon you.
3. Demands you get / prepare food for her. Something horridly unhealthy, and probably very difficult.
4. Demands you get rid of someone / something she hates.
If you don’t appease this hateful, impatient child of a creature, she will howl and scream at the one who displeased her. Such obscenities will fly from her mouth. Stuff you feel scared to say. Race stuff.
The piercing sound deals 1 damage every 10 minutes to everyone within the hex. The party has a 5 in 6 chance to be accosted by the Duke’s men before they leave the hex. These will know exactly what is happening, and will have wax in their ears to protect themselves. They will attempt to force the party to go satisfy the monster, under pain of death.
Hex B-6: Plump, 2’ long slugs. Dull yellow, with bright glittering speckles to their skin. These are Gilded Slugs, and anyone with regional knowledge will recognize them as delicacies; once a popular export before the region was embargoed. They’re valuable within the duchy, and phenomenally valuable (and illegal) outside of it. They’re worth even more alive, though they cannot be bred outside of these mountains. They eat lichen & small insects, and spend most of the day sleeping in tight rock crevices.
Their mucen dries skin intensely, sucking the moisture out of a body. If touched, save versus Poison. On success, take 1d6 damage. On failure, hands become crumbly. Take 1d6 damage, and the surface of your hands becomes painful and unusable. You can’t use your hands for 1d4 weeks. Bandage them, or you might get an infection.
The group you find is 1d12 slugs, all within 2 rounds of movement from a narrow crevice of rock. They’re munchin’ on lichen. You’re quite lucky! Dedicated hunters have a number of elaborate crevice-fishing methods. To come across them in the open is a rare treat.
Hex B-7: A cavern leading to a mirrored maze. If a PC attempts an attack roll here, they have a 1-in-3 chance of attacking the mirror rather than their target.
This is the lair of Solkor the Yellow, and it holds all the treasures one might expect to find in a dragon’s lair. The area is protected by chitinous yellow goblins who grew out of Solkor’s shed scales. (These have no chance to strike the mirrors by accident.) Solkor does not spend much time in his lair of late, but if any of the mirrors here are broken, Solkor will hear it, no matter how far away he is.
Hex A-1: Undesirables are brought to these plains to be executed. Priests, papists, bad singers, and the unattractive are common, but there are plenty of folks who simply ran afoul of whoever has power over them in the increasingly complicated hierarchy of the duchy.
The condemned are paired with an innocent loved one, and taken far from anywhere they might find help. The location is known only by the executioner, and even the occasional spectators are brought to the execution grounds while blindfolded. Using steel that has been twisted into unbreakable cords by infernal techniques, the victims are bound together. Back-to-back, they are connected at the neck, wrists, ankles, and waist.
Restrained in this manner, they are dropped into a 15′ deep pit. The walls of the pit are lined with metal blades. Enough food and water is thrown into the pit each day to sustain one pair. When there’s more than one pair, they must awkwardly fight each other to survive. If any pair survives long enough, the predicament will wear away at any love that existed between them, until they die hating one another.
Rarely, someone manages to climb out of the pit by breaking all of their partner’s bones, giving them enough mobility to escape. Some half-dozen of these roam the plains, driven mad by the horror of their existence.
Hex A-2: A village of ~700 along the river’s edge, with a pair of small river boats moored at its dock. Until a few years ago, the people here would take goods from passing trading ships and move them inland. It was a small operation even during a busy year, but now the traders don’t even bother to stop anymore.
The townsfolk have all been infested with diabolic tumors in their brains. The cancer grows ever outward, causing bulging clusters of horns to grow from their heads. Large portions of their brains have been eaten up by this disease, and what remains is under immense and painful pressure. They exhibit a childlike intelligence, without any of a child’s charms. They suffer constant pain and anger, and are guided by the vile influence of the growths in their brains. They don’t understand anything but instant gratification. Their mood swings are violent, and can be triggered by the most innocuous things. They lack any impulse control, are unabashedly narcissistic, and have a cruel sense of humor.
Hex A-3: Auscezal, the traveling bureaucrat. She has blue skin, curling goats horns, and a short fat body that would be about 3′ tall if not for her 7′ long bird’s legs. She was assigned to the duchy both because of her incredible speed (up to 50 miles an hour), and because she knows a ritual that allows her to communicate with her superiors using only a single human sacrifice. This allows her to learn of new laws, and rush to wherever they need to be applied, before they end up rewritten the next day. The next time she needs to report to her superiors is in 1d6 -3 hours. (So she may be overdue, and in dire need of a human to sacrifice).
Auscezal: AC 15, HD 7, Movement 360′(120′), Kick 1d6, Morale 9 Immune to any weapon that could be reasonably classified as a sword.
If Auscezal’s kick rolls in the upper half of its range, the target must save versus Paralyzation or be grabbed by her. When grabbing a target Auscezal cannot attack other targets, but may move at half speed by hopping on one leg. The grabbed target takes 1d8 crushing damage per round.
Hex A-4: A small hut of a type which has not been common in centuries. Around it is a garden, a coop of chickens, and a well for water. An hermit lives here alone, peacefully meditating on her long life, and writing a book describing her philosophy. In exchange for a day’s worth of chores, she will offer any peaceful traveler two hot meals, a dry place to sleep, and the benefit of her wisdom.
Any group who takes her up on this offer may ask her three questions. Two of these she will answer to the best of her ability–and her abilities are great, aided by her wide travels and keen observational skills. However, one of the questions will be answered with an evil lie.
She will warn the travelers up front about this fact, and will apologize to them for the necessity. She is frail, and could never have resisted the devils. They agreed to let her live out the rest of her life in peace in exchange for this small concession from her. She will do her very best to fool the party, but when all three questions have been answered she will wish them luck in identifying which one was the lie.
If the players somehow trick her into revealing the truth, devils will instantly appear. They will effortlessly tear her to pieces and burn her hut to the ground, taking extra care to destroy her book. They will leave the party unharmed, and may even thank them for their help in getting this woman to breach her agreement.
Hex A-5: There is an angel here. suspended from the trees around him by a thousand tiny hooks in his skin and wings. Ten devils, no more than two feet tall, dance around him in glee, mocking him, spitting on him, and occasionally yanking at one of the strings to tear a hook from his body. As the players approach, he loses an eye.
If the players make their presence known, the devils will all turn into snakes and disappear into the underbrush. Their work was already done before the players got here. The angel has renounced God. Soon his wings will wither and fall from his body. He is doomed now to live out a mortal life knowing he is condemned by god. His existence will be miserable, and it will be made all the more so by the absolute certainty that it will be worse when his life ends.
When he does eventually die he will become a devil of the lowest order. A thing of slime and pain that will never know another moment of joy.
Hex A-6: This neck of the woods is filled with dogs. Even if these dogs are never encountered, anyone passing through will hear barking all around them while they travel here.
The dogs move in groups of exactly 6, and each group is chasing a naked person. These people wear heavy chains around their neck, which have been bolted to large stones that they carry in their arms. It’s only a matter of time before the dogs catch them, and they are devoured by the beasts. But even then the torture is not over. After a night spent in hell, these poor souls will awaken covered in the dog’s shit, and the chase will begin again.
Dogs: AC 13, HD 1, Movement 150 (50′), Bite 1d6, Morale 12
The only way to free these people is to slay all 6 of the dogs chasing them. If even one dog remains alive, the others will be revived the next morning. The people being chased probably do not know this.
Hex A-7: Hidden high in the mountains is an army of human soldiers, 600 strong. They’re encamped in a small valley amidst the mountains, impossible to see until you’re standing only a few hundred feet away from it. The encampment seems well established, with row after row of tents that appear dirty and weather worn. Yet no sound comes from the camp, no smoke from cooking fires, or even dust from marching. It appears to be abandoned.
If the players approach, they will find every tent filled with sleeping soldiers. They cannot be awakened, and their bodies are cold to the touch, but they are still breathing and their hearts still beat. The animals of the camp are found in a similar condition.
The players are free to loot the camp, though there are no items of particular value here, there’s certainly enough basic armament to outfit a similarly sized army.
There is no means here by which the players might learn this, but this army exists as a remnant of an earlier version of the diabolic contract. Three years ago there was a brief moment which allowed the devils to assume control of this army from the duke. That right was quickly revoked in a later version of the contract, but the devils made use of a loophole that allowed them to remain responsible for the army so long as it was incapacitated. So here the army waits, legally under the command of the devils so long as they are kept in stasis, waiting for an opportunity to prove useful.
