Hex Map Encounters in Yane (part 3)

As always, you can follow along with the map here.

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10|16. Mountains. Swarms of undead hands assemble into the forms of bears and maul travelers. They can be detected by the drone of swarming flies.

10|17. Mountains. The road from the dwarf capital to Lahaz runs north-south. A gnome merchant, unaware of her selkie ancestry, managed to reach her bathtub amidst her transformation and now gives uncertain orders to her automata, since her servants all fled. She has heard of the seal rookery in Hex 04|22 and believes that some magic there can help her.

10|18. Mountains. This region remains warm due to volcanic activity. It’s considered holy by the dwarves, who pop up out of holes to imbibe the sweet air through copper trumpets. In one grotto lie a half-dozen dead gnome servants from Hex 10|17 who fell off a cliff.

10|19. Hills. Boiling mud and tar pits. A fire devil lurks here, trapped in an ancient circle of holy oil that will not burn away. It has slowly called an army of goblins and elementals to its service and has corrupted the cultists in Hex 10|18, but still cannot escape.

10|20. Hills. A hidden domed village (a dozen buildings inside), covered by almost a foot of dust, scree, and verdure. Filled with carrion crawlers; the illithids who lived there are long dead, though some of their jade scrolls remain legible. Damage within resembles Old Realm magic.

10|21. Mountain. TOWN OF ZYFEN. 9,400 people. Keidian capital. Increasingly full of charlatan-clerics and sorcerers come to prey on the gullible. Ruled by Bishop Pholtan (middle-aged male human cleric 7, ng), a kindly but hapless miracle-worker surrounded by feckless swindlers.

10|22. Hills. Mossy hills lead to halfling burrows guarded by nature spirits.

10|23. Muro Forest. A huge automaton created by Old Realm magic to combat the undead. Apparently it failed. It still stands. Its marine payload died of starvation and haunts the automaton, but they lack the strength to animate it without the Forest Heart in Hex 16|21 or Zirkah’s Heart in Hex 13|14. Death cultists in a village nearby know about both of these and plot to steal one or the other.

11|13. Coastal/Plains. A savant (middle-aged human male cleric 5, n) lives here with his attendants. Trepanation opened his entire skull and now bees from Hex 12|22 have built their hive in his brain and granted him strange enlightenment and the power of prophecy.

11|14. Plains. A maimed warrior in a tent waits for death. He sought the immortality-granting heart in Hex 11|22 but was fatally gored. His wife knows that the warrior’s sons will kill her for letting him die, but no natural medicine will save him and the savant in Hex 11|13 refuses to intervene.

11|15. Badlands. Three pyramids formerly sacred to the Necrotic Empire were inhabited by orcs for decades until last year Lahaz and the dwarves burned them out and collapsed most of the tunnels.

11|16. Hills. Goblins riding giant floating jellyfish have begun to terrorize the region. They stole the technology from the domed village in Hex 10|20, but don’t understand that if the jellyfish ever meet the ones in Hex 9|13, the result will be a terrible hybridization.

11|17. Mountain. “The Five Wounds.” Created by the energy discharge of Nemiatron’s Spear, a lost Old Realm artifact, when an Old realm Wizard used it to annihilate the Elder Brain that once ruled beneath the dome of Hex 10|20. The geomancer Vulpery (old human male earth-wizard 6, n) has a hanging citadel near one of the holes and uses it to fuel his magic. He wants to learn more about the “roc” in Hex 12|17 and will pay for someone to investigate the nest.

11|18. Mountain. MOUNT KADATH, the remnants of a volcano. Below, craft-dwarves of clan Navuro  work. Above, a cult of degenerate humans regularly sacrifices people to the volcano spirit. The craft-dwarves feel evil creeping into their creations but do not know why.

11|19. Hills. MURO CASMIDE’S TOMB. Hidden except by the magic of the Three Statues. Contains Muro’s weapons and other treasures, including a +2 lance of dragonstorms, +3 full plate of the Iconess, spurs of glass and gossamer, and the droning shield of Ish-Marault.

11|20. Plains. The druid Aillas (middle-aged male elf druid 9, n) prepares to sacrifice himself with an ivory dagger in order to become a mammoth god. His preparations are not complete and his acolytes are increasingly afraid.

11|21. Badlands. Something has exhausted the soil here. Unfamiliar metal pipes thrust up out of the ground to receive perpetual lightning-strikes. Despite the rain, nothing will grow.

11|22. Mountain. The highest peak of the Shrouded Mountain. The astral plane is accessible via a shimmering cloud guarded by the memories of Muro Casmide’s dragon, Thundering.

11|23. Coastal/Hills. Inaccessible by ship, though formerly a small port village. A labyrinth accidentally re-activated by Vulpery, now full of strange, hunting bull-like monsters that guard a mechanical heart that can grant immortality.

12|13. Coastal/Plains. A colossal bear has been spotted off the coast, large enough to crush a ship with one paw.

12|14. Plains. A circle of quartz stones can, at the right time of year, produce a reflection so clear that it clones a person. This clone is loyal to its creator, but vanishes after 1d6 months.

12|15. Badlands. The so-called Veiled Sage is in fact a headless victim of the ettin wizard in Hex 10|15. The orcs of the Broken Lands listen to its “wisdom,” but it only functions well enough to get the ettin more heads. It will claim that a “greater sage” in Hex 10|15 can heal, raise the dead, or almost anything else.

12|16. Hills. The dwarf-road travels north-south. A commune of grasshopper-people charges a toll to negotiate the jagged cliffs (with full approval of Queen Sarica of the dwarves). Dwarves who interact with the grasshopper people are convinced they’re talking to other dwarves. The grasshopper people offer troublemakers on a bloodstained stone as sacrifice to the “roc” in Hex 12|17.

12|17. Mountains. Freezing, beautiful source of the Modra River. A “roc” sighted in the area is actually a moonbird sacred to the druids of Yane.

12|18. Hills. Lahazi aristocrat-soldiers seek the fire devil in Hex 10|19. Their scheming cleric of Coth has told them to seek out and slay Scatha Sithu (Hex 10|18)—a bad idea. They know about the “roc” in Hex 12|17.

12|19. Plains. Giant-sized chariots have rusted over. Graffiti adorns their lower reaches.

12|20. White Owl Woods. The huge arm (and thyrsus) of the statue in Hex 07|13. The huge arm is inhabited by vicious wood-goblins who will fight to defend their home.

12|21. Hills. The road winds northwest-southeast. Obelisks once intended to enhance the flow of arcane power have been damaged by underground demons and now produce unhealthy magical reactions, spreading chaos magic and opening rifts.

12|22. Coastal/Hill/Owl Forest. The land is unapproachable from the sea due to cliffs and roots. Huge trees are full of equally huge bees. Several dwarf wizards led by Cabella the Geometer (middle-aged female dwarf universalist 6, ln) have organized themselves as the Cult of the Hexagon. Their experimental mind-expanding bees recently vanished (to Hex 11|13).

12|23. Coastal/Owl Forest. THE TREE OF RINGS. The massive tree here—visible from several nearby hexes—has its own gravity which points toward its trunk or one of its seven main branches. A few elves live here along with fey, were-creatures, and goblins.

13|14. Plains. An exile from the werewolves in Hex 03|18 has discovered a fanged heart. She does not know that it is the heart of the vampiress in Hex 08|23, or that it created the werewolves. She has gained strange powers from it.

13|15. Plains. The INN OF THE SHARP QUEEN. Part inn, part fort, frequently attacked, never taken, the farthest extent of Lahaz power. Run by Lady Coral (middle-aged female human ranger 7, cg), who is known to despise the Church of Coth.

13|16. Badlands. Orcmoot. Here orc summoners conjure the monstrous champions of different infernal gods to decide on policy. A clever goblin named Smarp has discovered how to influence the match through the use of the blade of the sword of Coth (which has earth and slow powers), which he took from Hex 08|14. Smarp has become wealthy and influential, and has begun looking around for assassins to kill his former partner, Braffi, who has the crown of Coth in Hex 13|19.

13|17. Plains. Ogres have taken to waylaying travelers on the north-south road. Their leader has a hand of glory that lets him walk through walls and that he renews with the blood and fat of humans.

13|18. Istarion Agriculture. The Modra River ends in a massive Old Realm aqueduct that heads east to hexes 13|19 and 13|20. Another river (the Istarion River), caused by damage to the aqueduct, winds south. Istaric guards patrol to prevent peasants from stealing building material from the aqueduct.

13|19. Istarion Agriculture. Bats cluster in the millions in the shadow of a massive east-west aqueduct. The goblin Braffi won the crown of Coth from Smarp (Hex 13|16) in a dice game. He now lives inside the underneath of the aqueduct, avoiding the water-wraiths that inhabit the aqueduct. He uses the crown of Coth to control the bats. He makes them steal from travelers, as the locals are superstitious of the shadow of the aqueduct.

13|20. Istarion Agriculture. GRAVARE CASTLE. The aqueduct that stretches from Hex 13|18 starts to break apart here, creating the Raining River below it, until eventually it falters completely beside the remnants of an Old Realm fort converted into a small castle. Lord Veyar (middle-aged male human fighter 7, n) commands 30 legionaries. The dwarves recently sent him an iron war-mask that they do not know is tainted with evil; it has begun to corrupt the men from its position above Veyar’s throne (he has yet to wear it for long).

13|21. Owl Forest. A cruel and ancient drake dwells here. Called Lyconis, it was once an Old Realm sorcerer whose experiments in immortality reduced him to this form. Lyconis can only die if stabbed with the fang of his mate, the sorceress Trovia, who died when she tried to cure Lyconis and instead took on his form. Trovia’s manse is in Hex 14|15, which contains the broken and inert remains of one fang. Her other fang was laid to rest with the hero Eshi, friend of Muro, in Hex 16|14.

13|22. Owl Forest. The road winds north-south.  Statues and animated golems guard and teach the White Owl Elves’ few children. The (living) teacher there will tell characters about the lost elf girl (who is at Hex 18|18).

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It looks like I should have one or two more entries. The bad news is that it looks like my D&D game fell through, as people can't seem to get their schedules together. But I'm happy to finish these entries and then, perhaps, continue my work on Yane in the hopes of eventually getting another group together.