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.