Pelts For XP - Hex Collection 5

Andrew Knez, Jr.

Penultimate hex collection post. I start the playtest tomorrow, so I'll be relying on crib notes if my players reach any unkeyed hexes. I doubt they'll get that far, but it's fine if they do. 

Full credit to Primeumaton for coming up with Uave Twice-Burnt and Izaak Compleat.

HANGTOOTH BLUFF

This hex of riverside cliffs is home to the Hangtooth, a tribe of ten Weretigers (OSE) and four Sabretooths (OSE) they've tamed. The beastmen act like stereotypical barbarians, fighting naked with chert spears, but they're really just pissant dirt farmers mutated by Serpentman bioweapons. 

These posers hunt for their food, including humans. They eat plenty of animals who think and speak, so it's really only fair. The tigers accept surrender, but only if you volunteer something (or someone) for the larder. This doesn't include rations, only fresh corpses (they dislike cooked meat and violently gag at the sight of vegetables).

If appeased or captured, the Hangtooth give their new friends an offer. They want to ride their Sabretooths as warmounts, get them some custom saddles and you can have their entire treasure horde. It's not like they were using the stuff anyway.

Their lair, an old Phantom Limb hunting lodge, contains 9,400 GP in jewellery and scrolls of (knock, wizard lock, detect magic (mu), sleep, wizard lock).

Of note, the Hangtooth always kill anyone they infect with lycanthropy. They don't want their ancestral curse to spread further. They're honourable like that.

LOCAL ENCOUNTER: D4 Weretigers and a Sabretooth, unafraid to board vessels. Or four Weretigers mounted on motherfucking Sabretooths if you were dumb enough to get them saddles.

Dingaling Productions

UAVE'S HOUSEBOAT

A houseboat is anchored in this river hex, so high-sided and heavy-laden it's almost scraping the bottom. Seven Ogre culveriners (OSE) are busy tossing furniture overboard. Led by Sergeant Gregor, the mercenaries wield oversized handgonnes (3D6 DMG, 100' line, Save vs Breath negates) that they swing as clubs after firing.

The boat belongs to Uave Twice-Burnt (Magic User 10). The wizard, due to an unfortunate pair of curses, will burst into flames should his feet ever touch land or water. Uave's hunting a coven of swamp hags on the off-chance of prying information on a cure out of them. Between you and me, he's almost certain to get cursed again in the process.

The wizard tried to get his houseboat past the WEIRDWATERS and nearly died in the attempt. He's told his goons to lighten the vessel's load so they can detour through LAKE PISCOMANCY. After the players first meet him, the wizard joins the random encounter tables.

Uave carries a Wand of Hold Monster (11 charges) and a Potion of Flying for emergencies. His houseboat has 4,370 GP in arcane reagents and a mountain of scrolls he can't be bothered to identify (roll Treasure Type O x 2). The wizard offers random scrolls for information on hags he can torture. 

The Ogres are bored of babysitting a wizard. They've heard of cyclopes to the southwest and red-skinned maneaters in the forests below Southfur. Go find out if they're strong leaders worth serving. Gregor offers one of his squad's spare swivel guns as a reward.

LOCAL ENCOUNTER: Uave soaring overhead with a Fly spell, getting some fresh air.

CROC FARM

This hex of small lakes is lousy with Buru (CC1) and Plated Gator-Rats (CC2). There's always 3D6 reptiles waiting to climb onto passing boats. The semi-domesticated dinosaurs are expecting to be fed; failing to fork over food means they bite down on an errant limb instead.

The homestead belongs to Izaak Compleat (Magic User 7 / Druid 4), a convict imprisoned for pirating druid magic. She helped the Fatharvest Gang's prison break, but left after they started feeding people to giants. Izaak runs the farm with her adopted daughters, Blackeye and Firebelly (Carcass 5, as Weretoads with bows and swords), Wartman defectors she rescued from being cannibalised.

Izaak carries a Wand of Magic Missile (7 charges) and a Ring of Control Animals. Her homestead has little else of value beyond 192 GP in loose change.

The ex-con knows all the comings and goings of the swamp - the fish and birds are her spies. If she sees a fight coming she casts Growth of Plants to slow attackers down, Invisibility on her daughters and then Haste on them, herself and her croc horde.

Izaak only reveals THE BUSHRANGER's hideout if the players agree to smuggle a letter to Tallskull. It's a treatise on Tree Giant reproduction, enough to convince the cleric she has no obligation to the monster or its spawn. If the players deliver it, Izaak rewards them with Gator-Rat warmounts.

Blackeye and Firebelly know the location of the WARTMEN'S WARSHIP, having no qualms selling out their tribe. The toads practice slavery and supply human sacrifices to a coven of hags. Anyone worth saving was killed or driven off years ago, like they were.

LOCAL ENCOUNTER: Blackeye and Firebelly mounted on a Gator-Rat, hunting game.

LEGLESS MOUNT

The river running through this farm hex is guarded by an aging castle of native bluestone. It belongs to the Marcher Lords of House Attis, who carved out a chunk of the decaying Serpentman Empire a century back. It was this conquest that birthed the region's moniker, "Bloody Marches".

The garrison of 26 Fighters is commanded by the depressive Baron Argos (Fighter 6), a career soldier who's lived long enough to witness his House's decay. Once a bastion against the hated ophidians, Legless Mount is now a backwater overshadowed by its own subjects.

Old man Argos has jobs for adventuring types.

• He suspects the "barn cat" Arratay is a polymorphed spy feeding intel to the Druid Mafia. Kill him in a way that can't be tied to the Baron.

• A trio of cataphracts came through and "requisitioned" his household priestess (reference People You Meet). The Baron respects their quest to rescue Prince Aeson, but the demesne needs clerical magic. Find the virgin knights and convince them to return the holywoman.

• A mercenary band of Hobgoblins stole the Baron's old unit standard on a drunken night raid (ibid). Find the thieving landsknechts and steal the enchanted banner back.

Complete one job and he provides a map of old Phantom Limb outposts (CABALGADA GROTTO, HANGTOOTH BLUFF, HORSE ON THE HILL). Two and he grants a deed to the "Hoofless Horse", a derelict inn within the hex. All three and he knights a PC, granting a Level.

Rheinstein Castle

BRANCH AND BONE

This hex's snowmelt reservoir contains a floating city of sticks and mud - like if Tenochtitlan was built by beavers. It's home to a civilisation of awakened mammals, banded together in a mutual defence pact against the region's longhunters. 

• 28 Giant Beavers (Carcass 5).
• 9 Giant Otters (OSE as Giant Weasel, D3 random spell scrolls).
• 13 Giant Platypuses (OSE as Giant Weasel, Ghoul claw attacks, detects invisible).

The city is patrolled by squads of D4 Platypuses on the outskirts, and 2D4 Beavers in the interior. Those approaching must make a Reaction Roll, penalised if they've been flaying the nation's citizens. If the party isn't chased off, some of the animals are surprisingly willing to trade - they want to build up strategic reserves of foreign currency. 

THE BEAVERS
The rodent lumberjacks focus on defence - fortifying their borders, gunrunning golems to the EVERGREEN GLADE and keeping the peace between their fellow mammals. 

For 3,000 GP, the Beavers can create fogwood plate armour. It's buoyant in water and encumbers as leather - a godsend in the wetlands of the Bloody Marches. If given schematics and iron nails, the rodents could even start a shipyard and begin producing quality boats at scale.

THE OTTERS

These mammalian magi have a strange affinity for magic, seeking out special rocks and carving sigils into them to create random scrolls. They cost 1,000 GP and cast when smashed. 

The Otters want to reach a diplomatic solution with Fort Southfur. They'll pay in coins or rock-scrolls for legal textbooks and writing materials. The mustelids want to prove their sentience to wider civilisation and put a stop to the slaughter. Naturally, this doesn't go down well with the Druids.

THE PLATYPUSES
Tend towards violent extremism, launching raids from the CABALGADA GROTTO and plotting to burn Fort Southfur to the ground with the EVERGREEN GLADE.

The Platypuses will work with those promising to slaughter the Druids and sack Southfur. They and their Dryad allies are a potent force, bringing paralysing venom and golem warmachines to bear.

Stuart Friedman