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.