Pelts For XP - Hex Collection 3

HIDDEN TEMPLE

An exposed nunatak dominates this hex. The flat-topped mountain appears uninhabited, but careful observation discovers the remains of a trail leading up its side. The paving stones have been looted and it's overgrown with brush, but this old Serpentman road is still traversible.

Hidden behind a permanent Hallucinatory Terrain is the entrance to a mountainside temple; a pillared portico with a bronze gate and small iron bell. The doors depict Sweetsting, a regional subculture of Liberator cultists who exalt honeywine. The grinning bee man embraces Grain Goddess, who rests a sickle against the god's neck while his priapic stinger presses into her chubby belly.

Pelts For XP - Hex Collection 2

Gustave Moreau

DEMON RANCH

The fields in this hex are surrounded by fences of densely woven web. Scattered groves provide shade for ten Tarantellas (OSE), domesticated herding spiders that maintain the barriers and deter predators with their dancing venom.

Pelts For XP - The Bushrangers

Four horseman rode out from the heart of the range,
Four horseman with aspects forbidding and strange.
They were booted and spurred, they were armed to the teeth,
And they frowned as they looked at the valley beneath,
As forward they rode through the rocks and the fern -
Ned Kelly, Dan Kelly, Steve Hart and Joe Byrne.

Ned Kelly drew rein and he shaded his eyes -
'The town's at our mercy! See yonder it lies!
To hell with the troopers!' - he shook his clenched fist -
'We will shoot them like dogs if they dare to resist!'
And all of them nodded, grim-visaged and stern -
Ned Kelly, Dan Kelly, Steve Hart and Joe Byrne.

The Bush Rangers, by Edward Harrington

Sidney Nolan

Minidungeon - The Golani's Gaol

Renate Löbbecke

In a valley north of the Bloody Marches, a benevolent nature spirit has doled out free healing and resurrections for generations. But after magical plagues destablised the region, the medicine man was swarmed by hundreds of desperate pilgrims.

Sensing opportunity, the Druid Mafia militarised the shrine and imprisoned the Golani. They claim to be protecting the spirit and his patients, even as their violent excesses grow. Bribes, beatings and rape are commonplace. Their quarantine camps are overflowing with the sick, injured and mad. 

But who's gonna do anything about it?

Minidungeon - The Sacked Monastery

St Mary, East Somerton

A rural church is razed by a vengeful band of escaped convicts. When a squad of soldiers is sent to reopen the monastery for business, they find it overrun with maneating monsters, mutant plantlife and security constructs gone rogue.

Someone needs to clear the place out and get the agrimancy flowing again, lest there be famine.

Pelts For XP - Fort Southfur

Anglo-Saxon Burh

This forested hex has a large tract of cleared land either side of the Redriver. Straddling the bloodstained waterway is Fort Southfur, a dense collection of timber buildings enclosed by an earthwork palisade and surrounded by a collection of smaller homesteads.

The fortified burh and its surrounds have a population wavering around ~1,000, a mixture of sailors, trappers, sharecroppers, fishermen and convicts. The colony mostly exports furs, alchemical reagents, exotic plants and surplus food. The Bloody Marches are filled with old Serpentman ruins, so there's occasionally a shipment of pilfered silver or magic items as well. 

Pelts For XP - Hex Collection 1

BULL'S DEMENSE

This wetlands hex is filled with obstructive plant life. Gnarled roots ensnare oars, low-hanging branches are covered in poisonous lichen and mats of aquatic vegetation clog waterways.

The hostile aquaculture was cultivated by a tribe of sixteen Water Centaurs (stats as Cyprian Centaurs, CC1) to protect their herd of two dozen cattle and buffalo (stats as Herd Animals, OSE). The buffalo centaurs are much larger than their equine counterparts. Their height lets them fight with their upper halves above water, wielding polearms and bows. 

Water Centaurs keep livestock for food and sex. When they mate with a bovine, the resulting child is one of their own. They don't view this as being strange or immoral. When someone inevitably casts Speak With Animals, they find the buffalo enthusiastically agree.

Pelts For XP - Rules Post

In the desert
I saw a creature, naked, bestial,
Who, squatting upon the ground,
Held his heart in his hands,
And ate of it.

I said, “Is it good, friend?”

“It is bitter—bitter,” he answered;
“But I like it
“Because it is bitter,
“And because it is my heart.”

In the Desert, by Stephen Crane

Sharper Fangs, null.00

Minidungeon - The Sinking Tower

Sintra, Portugal 

With the help of a contracually-bound djinn, the wizard Ingmaind is building his dream retirement home in the Bloody Marches. Unfortunately, the tower's foundations are in a swamp. 

The wizard has already lost four levels to sinking. It doesn't bother him, he just adds a new floor each time. His genie however, tired of constant construction delays, is looking for adventurers to fix building's foundations.

Puer Delicatus - Agent TYSON's Notebook

Agent TYSON's player kindly reminded me of some details I missed during my session write up. 

Designing good play reports for investigatory games is much harder than doing the same for dungeoncrawlers. You have to balance recording all the clues so people know what's going on while avoiding an exhaustive blow-by-blow, because no one wants to read that. 

I'll find the balance one of these days.

Minidungeon - The Troll's Toll

Pont Valentré

It's well known that Trolls live under viaducts. No one really knows why (including Trolls). So when some Serpentmen found Lemuria the Green beneath their bridge, they didn't bother evicting him. Instead, they did a recruitment pass. After careful negotiation and a longpork signing bonus, the snakes had an immortal maneater to guard their river checkpoint.

Centuries later, Lemuria still dutifully mans his post. He really enjoys being a tollman, so he's not bothered that his employers have stopped paying him. Or that they're all dead. 

How's the saying go? Find a job you love and you'll never work a day in your life.

Puer Delicatus - Session 1

A half-empty section of a parking garage. JFK International Airport. Early January, 2025. 

The three members of T-Cell stood around a rental car. 

• Agent TESSA - ICE Homeland Security Investigations, K9 Handler.

• Agent TULLY - NSA Remote Device Activities Unit, Surveillance Specialist.

• Agent TYSON - CIA National Resources Division, Case Officer.

TULLY, being Cell Leader, relayed the briefing she'd received from A-Cell a day prior.

A team of American archaeologists dug up an old Roman estate in Tuscany, Italy. They shipped the artefacts to the Museum of Natural History for an exhibition. All their finds were digitally categorised prior to transport. Our people intercepted their communications and flagged several items as being potentially hazardous. 

Broken pottery with furry toad-gods on them, papyri making reference to hypergeometric formulas, old glassware covered in exotic chemicals, the list goes on.

Homeland Security already has a man on scene, Special Agent Hassam Abdullah, due to reports of artefacts going missing. Some of the papyri scrolls and a fancy glass cup. This whole situation reeks of trouble. Get yourselves involved. Get us answers.