Dungeon: Castle of the Gribblies

 I've been reading some of Jennell Jaquays' old stuff, like Night of the Walking Wet.  

It's very good, but it's also horribly formatted, as if layout was performed with scissors and glue.  (Because it was.  It was written for a zine in the 70's.)  

It's actually very inspiring, because I too often avoid posting adventures that are kinda choppy or ugly.  I've probably written about 3 that have never seen the light of day.  So thanks, Jennell, for multiple reasons.

Anyway, I wrote a dungeon and now I'm going to post it without any playtesting and only minimal editing.  Hope you like it!

>>> CASTLE OF THE GRIBBLIES <<<

I also updated the hexcrawling rules from last time.  It's mostly just re-organizing, although I did add a 3 new hexes for the Gribblywood.

>>> HEXCRAWLING v3 <<<

If I ever do a hexcrawl, I'll probably want it to be 48 hexes at least.  By that metric, I'm already 15% done.

Okay I Fixed Hexcrawls Now

After attacking a beloved institution last week, the only acceptable follow-up is to describe how it could be improved.  It's a graceful and useful transition.

I'm sure that's what your mom said when you told her that her chicken was dry.

So anyway, here are my hexcrawl rules, along with 4 sample hexes.

Option 1: PDF

Option 2: Editable (make a copy, don't ask me for editing rights)

My design goals were 

1. Simplicity.  No bookkeeping unless it leads to #2 or #3.
2. Interesting, Meaningful Decisions.  
3. Interconnectedness.  (The hexcrawl should connect to itself.  "Random" encounters should still feel connection to the location and events that are happening.)

It's possible that I've missed the point.  Maybe I'm focusing too much on treating hexcrawls like dungeoncrawls.  Maybe I'm spending too much time on the mechanics and not enough on what makes hexcrawls special, which is the joy of discovery and the journey itself.

Maybe.

Please give me feedback in the comments, especially if you end up using any part of this.

Hexcrawls Kinda Suck

 Hexcrawls kinda suck, don't they? 

Or at least, the best hexcrawls are never as good as the best dungeons. You can probably name your favorite dungeons, but can you name your favorite hexcrawls? 

What makes hexcrawls different from dungeoncrawls?

• In dungeons, exploration is typically my goal. Exploration and gold. It's fun to clear out dungeon rooms because those rooms have interesting rewards and interesting risks (and interesting choices). In hexcrawling, I'm usually going from one point to the other. Hexes often don't have interesting risks that are as concrete as dungeon rooms.

• Specificity. Dungeon rooms are frequently customized. Many hexcrawls use random generation as an exclusive method of stocking, which tends to create less cohesive stories between the hexes. Because of this, there's little intrinsic incentive to explore the hex map.

• Surprise. Dungeon rooms connect to each other in surprising ways. Hexes rarely surprise (except in the sense that there's more swamp tiles in this direction than I was expecting). True, there might be something on the random encounter table, but when you're walking overland you can typically see things coming from a lot further off.

• Size. The root cause with a lot of these issues is size, with dungeons commonly having less than 20 rooms and hexcrawls commonly having more than 100. It makes it hard to have a specific challenge. I might think of a way to make a vertical ascent challenging in a dungeon (ghost spiders!) but if I think of an interesting way to make a mountain hex challenging (living waterfall) then I either have to put it on one hex (where the players might miss it), make it a random encounter (where the player might miss it) or make it a quantum encounter (where I put it in front of the players no matter which hex they go into. . . but of course they are usually free to go pick a new hex to cross the mountains).

• Meaningless choices. In a well-written dungeon, all (or nearly all) choices should be meaningful. If you come to a T-intersection, there should be some difference between both directions. Maybe a smell. Maybe the players know the approximate direction to the treasury. Maybe they can listen at the doors before they pick which one to open. But when hexcrawling, you usually just pick blindly, oftentimes between two

• Engagement. Most of the stuff in a hex is skippable. You notice a dragon on a hill in the distance--you better go way around it so it doesn't see you. Spooky tower? Skip it if you don't think you can take it. Hexes are skippable in a way that dungeon rooms aren't. Dragon in a room? Sneaking past it is a much trickier proposition. Dungeon rooms force you to engage.

• Resource management. The primary resources in dungeons are HP, rations/healing, and torches. When one of these runs low, it's time to leave the dungeon. They run low often, so I'm always paying attention to them. When I'm hexcrawling, the resources are similar: food, money, HP--but they rarely feel limiting. Lost HP is recovered quickly, and I can usually stash enough food that it never feels critical, just like empty bookkeeping.

• Homogeneity. Every dungeon room is unique, and my players can often remember their favorites. Hexes are often similar (and often identical) and blend together.

• Challenge from the location. If a hex is too difficult, I can almost always go around it. If a dungeon room is too difficult, I usually need to find a way through (although there may be alternate routes, its not as likely).

Remember: good gameplay comes from interesting and meaningful choices. If your hexcrawling is just empty bookkeeping, then it's not good gameplay.

I stopped tracking ammunition a few years back for the same reason. It just felt like bookkeeping. I never had a situation where someone was running low on arrows and had to make interesting decisions about when you use them. Resource management is only fun if there are interesting limitations and scarcity risks--arrows didn't have either, in my experiences.

"You cannot have a meaningful campaign unless strict time records are kept" is only true if there is some benefit to keeping time records--it leads to interesting limitations and scarcities.

Luckily, all of these things can be fixed. Here are some guiding principles:

Gameplay > "Realism"

Yes, we've both watched a lot of videos about how much food Roman soldiers could carry and researched how far a horse can travel in a day.  That doesn't mean that we have to base a game around it, or that those metrics will be fun.  (Yes, our game has to follow real world rules to a point, in order to let the players make informed decisions, but it doesn't need to be our first priority.)

Smaller Hex Maps

This is a root cause for a lot of these issues.  It makes the next few items easier to accomplish.  This might mean that there are more miles in your hex, but that's okay.

Directional Constraints

Let's consider the three basic types of movement that your players will make when they're hexcrawling:

1. Fixed Route.  Well, that's just a pointcrawl, isn't it?  A collection of scenes that the DM throws at you.  Random or not, you either go forward, rest, or go back.  Not a hexcrawl.

2. Fixed Destination.  Now the players need to make choices.  Which route do I take?  There usually isn't a meaningful choice here.  Either they have a path that they know and trust, or they have to choose between two similar options.  The constraints (HP, money, time) usually aren't limiting.  You might have the players choose between a fast route or a safe route, but those are rare.

3. Searching / Exploring.  Now this is where it feels like dungeoncrawling.  You want to make sure that they have meaningful choices to choose from.  It's easier to have two choices feel meaningful than to have six.  In this case, having fewer directions to choose from feels better.

So give them limits in which directions they can go.  The average hex map shouldn't just be a hive of rooms with six doors in them.  Create interesting connections between hexes, e.g. the only way up to the plateau is through the Stairs of Leng. 

Think about how much the "Obvious Door, Hidden Lever" type of secret doors drive player ingenuity.  They know there's a way up to the Plateau of Leng, but they've walked around the whole thing and haven't seen any path up.  So now they have to search.

Your two big forms of barriers here are water and verticals.  (Elden Ring uses this to great effect, turning an open map into a huge dungeon where you're often asking yourself "how do I get there?").  Other forms of barriers include hostile people (who can chase you off from horseback), giant prehistoric walls, forcefields, poison swamps (DO IT), and cold places (like mountaintops).

Give your players fences to push against (and peer over).

More Information

Tell players more about what's in the hexes ahead.  It shouldn't be blind guesses.  They've been in taverns a lot--I'm sure they've heard about what sort of thing is beyond the hill that looks like a lobster.

More Unique Hexes

Give each hex more details.  Not just "Grasslands.  Wild horses."  but "Ratwind Plains.  Wild horses."  Give them more connecting details.  Bespoke.

Meaningful Resource Depletion

I've come to believe that the resources that are typically depleted during hex crawls (time, money, food) aren't very good constraints--they don't affect people's plans often enough to be worth the time tracking them.

You'll have to come up with your own solution.  (I'll attempt my own below.)

Strong Hooks

Strong hooks force players to interact with them.  A random encounter is a strong hook.  So is the king announcing that you are the people he's been seeing in this nightmares.

Soft hooks are things you can walk away from.  A beggar in the street.  A dire slug noticing you from a mile away.

You obviously don't want to only have strong hooks.  You want your players to have some freedom engage/disengage, but hexcrawls tend to have only soft hooks scattered on the map.  (The only strong hooks tend to exist as random encounters, and even those tend to be easier to run away.)

---

You'll notice that the stuff above is really a mix of "hex map design" + "hexcrawling mechanic".  I jumbled them up because they overlap in some places, but really you need a good hex map alongside your mechanics.  

Anyway, let's try to make some hexcrawl rules that don't suck.

Design Goals

1. Simplicity.  Too many people are driven away by the complexity of hexcrawling.  What's the minimum amount of complexity I need to hit my goals?

2. Resource constraints.  Money, food, HP, and time are rarely limiting factors.  Food can stay--food can be limiting.  I'm also going to add morale as the second limiting factor.  Hopefully those two are sufficient motivators on their own.

3. Integration with Hirelings.  It seems strange to have your characters be loners (or nearly-so) until they suddenly start building a stronghold and attracting followers.  Shouldn't it be a more gradual process?  Before you're king, you are managing smaller groups of people.  Porters, hostlers, mercenaries, etc.

Hexcrawling Rules for GLOG v19

(This is actually my first time writing this section.  The first two attempts were too complicated.  I'd wager that 80% of system designers have a first draft that is more complicated than their second draft.)

Hexes take a number of days to pass through.  You only count the days when you enter a hex, not when you leave.  A forest hex takes 3 days to enter.  A road hex takes 1 day to enter.  So if you leave a road hex and enter a forest hex, that takes 3 days.  Returning takes 1.  The whole trip takes 4 days.

You can feed yourself for 1 day for every 2 rations you are carrying.

Once you hire porters, you can explore for 6 days.  It doesn't matter how many rations you are carrying.  You have to hire a porter for each PC and mercenary.  A porter costs 10s per trip.

If you swap the porters for donkeys, this turns into a maximum of 9 days.  Donkeys cost 50s up front and cost 10s per trip.  However, you can pasture them in grassy/forest places and they'll forage happily.  Hire a hostler (10s per trip) and you'll automatically succeed at checks made to control them.

Horses are identical except that they cost 200s.  You can also take the bags off them and ride them, plus they can be trained for combat (another +100s).  Untrained horses shun combat.  Like with donkeys, you don't ride these horses when they're covered in packs.  You walk beside them.

Carts costs 100s for the whole party and requires donkeys/horses.  It increases your range to 12 days, but it can only move on roads, paths, and plains.  Outside of those environments, it moves it half speed.  It's pulled by 2 animals.  If you have a wagon, you still need the regular 1 mount per PC.  So you'll have two horses pulling your cart and the rest walking alongside, with packs on their backs.

A wagon costs 800s.  It increases your range to 20 days, but can only travel on roads.  It's pulled by 4 animals (minimum 2 to move).

How big is this wagon?  How many carts does the party need?  

It's handwaved.  Everyone needs their own horse and donkey.  When you pay 100s for a cart, it's appropriately sized for the party.  When you pay 800s for the wagon, it is similarly appropriately sized.  

Hunters can also be hired.  1 hunter per PC is typical.  When stationary, they can feed themselves and also generate enough food for 2 other people per day.  So if you park yourself in a forest and just hunt for a while, the hunters can feed themselves, the PCs, and allow you to replenish your rations.  Lasts for 3 days in a single location--after that you'll have to move around a bit, even if its just inside your hex.  Hunters can only hunt on certain types of terrain.

Lastly, because I like the idea of the party traveling with a group of hirelings, you can also hire camp followers.  The party can decide if these are cooks, bards, prostitutes, servants, or whatever.  Point is, these are people who make your life in the wilderness more comfortable.  If you travel with camp followers, the PCs wake up each morning with +1 temporary HP (from good cheer and good food).

Streamlined.  This is roughly based on 5 PCs going on a 10-day journey.
You may want to double all of the "Per Trip" costs once they get a wagon,
or if they have a 10-person party.

Morale -- You leave town with a group morale of 8-12, depending on how happy everyone is.  If everyone went carousing and got massages: 12.  If you only at the cheapest food and stayed at the cheapest flophouse: 8.

Every time something bad/spooky happens, the party loses 1 morale and then the DM rolls a d12.  The first time you roll above the hirelings' morale score, they get skittish and there will be some sort of small delay / inconvenience / argument.  The second time you roll above the hirelings' morale score, the hirelings insist that they return ASAP.  They'll leave without you if necessary.  (You can grab your share of the food, but without porters/wagons, how will you carry it?)

Morale applies to horses and donkeys, too. 

Fights don't count as spooky if they go smoothly.  If someone drops to 0 HP it counts as spooky.  Really awful shit (a demon bursting out of someone's chest) causes the loss of up to 3 points of morale.

You can raise morale by paying them money (100s spread across all the hirelings = +1 morale, price increases by 50s each time you use it) or by resting somewhere safe(ish) for a day and eating double rations (this also causes +1 morale).

Discussion

I like the look of it.  I think I got it down to the level of simplicity that I like.

It's kind of gated like a metroidvania.  The Getting a wagon can be a big deal--you could even make it a gated purchase.  Maybe wagons are scarce, and you'll have to befriend the right person before they'll even consider selling you a wagon.  (These are pre-industrial times after all.  No one has a big stock of wagons sitting in a warehouse.)

Hunters also function as a type of metroidvania gate.  Once you get some hunters on your team, you can penetrate into the further reaches of the map, existing there for longer (and maybe indefinitely).

As you gear up, you become able to penetrate further into the hexes.  By yourselves, you can search 1 forest hex at a time.  With a wagon and a full complement of donkeys, you can search 7 forest hexes before needing to return to town.

However, the wagon can't come into the forest with you, so you'll have to park it on the plains, making a temporary camp by the roadside.  Your hunters will stay there and stockpile food for when you come back.  This is good, because you'll eventually have favorite campsites and NPCs.

In a dungeon, HP essentially functions as your risk budget.  If you have 10 HP when you walk in a dungeon, you know that you can take twice as many risky actions as the guy who walked in with 5 HP.  You're allowed to venture 2x as far, really.

HP can't serve this purpose when hexcrawling, since it gets replenished every day, so instead we have morale.  Not sure how well it'll work, but I'll playtest it soon.

Hex Map

Of course, good rules are nothing without a hex map that embodies the same principles.

I chose to rely on rivers and lakes as the primary type of "walls", but you can also see where I have some cliffs (thick red lines) to make certain hexes impenetrable from certain directions.

The roads are accessible for even a new party, but you'll need more people and equipment to penetrate the further reaches of the forest.  I wish the rivers were on the boundaries between hexes, instead of in the middle of them.  They're meant to be boundaries.

You'll need cold-weather gear for the mountains.  (Not readily available in town.)  You'll have to ask around to find someone who will sell it to you.

And some places will require water transport to reach, which is its own separate thing.

And each location needs a strong description and key features.  Bottlenecks between hexes (like bridges) need to have a strong sense of location on their own.  And you'll probably need to have some NPC events on the random encounter chart, and/or risk of your wagon breaking.

Anyway, feel free to disagree with me.  I'm sure lots of you guys love hexcrawls.

Gamjee and the Kludger

First, I've got a goblin for you.  He lives in the Bospero hexcrawl I'm tinkering with.

Then, I've got a new class.

HEX 0614 - THE SALT MARSH

Gamjee's Redoubt [obvious]

The ship is clearly visible on the fringes of the salt marsh, where the ground is a little bit drier.

The swamp is an ancient galleon with a broken back and a busted belly.  It must have been carried inland by some ancient wave.  It is soggy with green moss, and the bowsprit is lifted into the air like a pleading hand.

For 200' in all directions, the ground is covered with traps, in a hundred sundry variations.

The danger is communicated through crudely painted signs and stacks of dire chameleon skulls.  "DANGER: TRAPS" and "FUCKOFF" and "YOU PROBLY GONNA DIE".  A more astute observer will also notice all the tensioned wires, submerged chains, and carefully assembled foilage.

A person running across the 200' killzone will set off about 1 trap every 20 feet.  A person walking very carefully through the killzone will set off about 1 trap every 40 feet.  A person probing with a pole and heaving rocks around will set off about 1 trap every 10 feet, but will avoid the effects of 90% of those traps.

Traps [d6]
1. Snare -- Hard Dex or be hoisted in the air.
2. Bear Trap -- Hard Dex or take 1d3 dmg + grabbed.  50% of these also pull you 10' underwater.
3. Swinging Log, Swinging Hammer -- Hard Dex or 1d8 damage.
4. Spear, Swinging Stakes -- Hard Dex or 1d8 damage.
5. Poison Dart -- Con or Poison (1d6).
6. Noisemaker -- Gamjee is alerted + roll for random encounter.

The ship has no obvious entrances except on the deck, which is 15' above the ground.  Anyone attempting to use a grappling hook to climb onto the deck will probably be thwarted.  The railings break away when any weight is put on them, and then trigger explosive plates on the side of the ship, dealing 1d6 acid damage to anyone standing nearby.

Gamjee has a crossbow with 20 bolts, and a ballista that can be wheeled out onto the deck in 1 round, should the need ever arise.

In a worst case scenario, Gamjee will retreat to his bathroom/saferoom, lock himself in there, and pull a lever that floods the ship with poisonous gas (poison 1d6).  The door is triple-thick wood.  Anyone trying to chop down the door will be deep enough in the bilge that they are 2 rounds away from fresh air, should the poison be triggered.

Aside from all that, Gamjee is a regular level 0 goblin with 1 HP.  He has a 4-in-6 chance of being naked (except for his machete), and a separate 4-in-6 chance of being drunk (bogshine).

If you drink his bogshine you must make a Con save or go blind for 1d20 hours.  Goblins and dwarves are immune to this effect.

Yoshitaka Amano's original goblin art for Final Fantasy I

Gamjee is a paranoic, but that doesn't mean that the smugglers aren't trying to kill him.  (They are.)  Outside of the paranoia, he is friendly, rational, and enjoys making friends and helping people.

The smugglers have tried many different ways of killing this pain-in-the-ass goblin, but all have failed.  Gamjee is meticulous and his ship is stocked with enough salted fish, boiled scum, and gosca.  He also drinks the water that seeps into his basement, although it gives him diarrhea.  He usually has diarrhea.  ("You get used to it.")

He responds to friendly hails, and is quick to talk, but slow to trust.  Trades are conducted by Gamgee raising a pole on his ship, which pulls a submerged loop of rope out of the water where it was hidden.  Two pulleys on each side allow items to be clipped to the rope and shuttled back and forth.  You can even have two items move past each other, so as to arrive at the same time.  The rope is strong enough to hold one person, but not two.

Gamjee wants:
- Fresh food
- A higher grade of intoxicants
- Something to help with the diarrhea (except real talk: he just needs to stop drinking the bog water)
- The head and the hat of Captain Bogbeard (he swore revenge after Bogbeard skinned his dog alive)

Gamjee has:
- four goblin bombados (light fuse, 3d6, Dex for half)
- two dozen spare traps (see above)
- 10 barrels of bogshine
- 1 vial of mutagen (random, permanent mutation)
- 2 vials of rage gas (fumes of hell)
- 3 fireworks
- a new litter of puppies (free to a good home)

Perhaps more importantly, anyone who befriends Gamjee can start apprenticing under him, allowing them to take ranks in the Kludger class.

Goblin from Final Fantasy 14

The Kludger

First off, go read this post by B44L.  I'm stealing an ability from him.

Now then.

Kludgers are the scrappers and the scroungers of the goblin world.  In goblin society, they are held in high esteem (i.e. passers-by are careful to avoid the windows when they relieve themselves against the side of a kludger's house.)

Note: the other respected professions are the filth wizard, the cleric of Shadoom, and the squirmisher.

They are among the most intelligent goblins, and the most likely to journey far from home. They tend to have short, eventful lives.

Template A - Improvise, Scrounge
Template B - Sabotage, Trapper
Template C - Overclock
Template D - Biohacker

Note: even though most of these abilities only require a "round of work", your DM may require you to spend more time on larger or more complex tools.  You cannot combine any of these abilities with each other.

Improvise

With a round of work, you can fix a broken tool or mechanism.  At the end of each round of use, it has 2-in-6 chance of breaking irrevocably.

Scrounge

Whenever travelling causes the DM to roll for a random encounter (roughly 2x a day for overland travel, or every 3 rooms in a dungeon), you may also roll a d6.  On a 1, you find a random broken item from the starting equipment table.

Sabotage

With a round of work, you can rig a functioning tool or mechanism to break under conditions that you specify.  The conditions must be simple, physical, and feasible.

Trapper

With 10 minutes of work, you can trap a battlefield in a specific place, or trap a battlefield in general.  If a battlefield is trapped in a specific place, the first creature to walk over that area triggers the trap with a 4-in-6 chance.  If a battlefield is trapped in general, every time an enemy moves into a new area, there is a 2-in-6 chance that they trigger the trap.  If you don't have an opportunity to tell your allies where the traps is, they are also susceptible to this chance.  Potential traps are limited to the 6 listed above, but you can probably research more if you bring your DM some Taco Bell.

Overclock

With a round of work, you rig a functioning tool or mechanism to operate at a higher level.  Weapons deal double damage, pulleys require half as much force to use.  At the end of each round of use, it has a 4-in-6 chance of breaking.  Single use items require two consecutive turns: one for overclocking, and another for use.

Biohacker

All of the previous class abilities can now be applied to living tissue, including magical properties of that tissue.  Basilisk eyes can petrify, dragon glands can still breath fire.  Corpse parts must be fresh or at least well-preserved.

If a corpse has been dead for more than 1 minute, you cannot use Improvise on it.  PCs "resurrected" in this way cannot be raised above 0 HP.  If a creature has multiple attacks, only one can be Overclocked at a time.

Monoclass Party Bonus

If there are multiple Scroungers in a party, every time a pair of 2s is rolled, an intact item from the complete Alchemy Items + Adventuring Gear list is found.  If a trio of 3s is ever rolled, you find some major magic item (Stormbringer, a genie's lamp, the Hand of Dominion).

Kobold from Final Fantasy 14!

Hexcrawl: Abasinia

Well, my Tuesday group and I have finally played enough sessions in Abasinia that it has started to feel like I need to do a proper hex map for it.

This will be my third hex map (after Revanwall and the Frogstar Peninsula).

The Eastern 2/3 of Abasinia

It's also my biggest.  41 x 27 hexes.  Fortunately, I don't have to fill all of that in.  About 2/3 of the map is water (the Sea of Camels) and I have no intention of starting to work on the Brimstone Waste (in the NW corner).

I also want to write up unique stuff for about half of the land hexes.  For the other half, I'll just rely on a random encounter generator or something.  ("You see . . . 2d6 genies and they are here . . . robbing . . . a master thief.")

So that's still going to be about 200 entries, which sounds brutal, but pretty doable.  Especially since I have become more comfortable with putting things on the map that are just interesting scenery--nothing more.  (When I first started DMing, that kind of mechanically empty space was anathema.)

I thought about doing this one as a point-crawl, but ultimately decided against it.  I'm still obsessing (perhaps foolishly) over the idea that I can make travel just as interesting and meaningful as a Point of Interest.  I still think I can pack a map with a million small, interesting things, so that a player knows that there is adventure in every direction and they can never, ever run out.

I'm looking forward to writing up all the little islands on the edge of the Sea of Fish.  That'll be fun.  (Is one of the islands a zaratan-lich that breaths shark zombies?  Maybe.)

I like the idea of hugging the coastline on a boat when you want to sail conservatively, and striking out across open water when you're feeling plucky.  Coast-hugging should give bonuses some sailing checks, make navigation automatic, and allow easier survival from a shipwreck.

It feels like madness, trying to apply six-mile hexes to a continent the size of Mexico.  What's more, I want each area to be a complete adventure setting.  There should be enough cool things in each zone that each group of players would be satisfied playing 50 sessions there.  How many zones do I have?  Like 30?  That's 1500 sessions worth of content, or 3000 sessions if we want to create twice as much content as players will ever explore.  (And can andyone really write that much unique shit?)  Which is crazy, really.

And I want to have all of my hex maps connect, so you could hex crawl all 1000 miles across Centerra if you were so inclined.  Is there a word for that?  Mega-hexcrawl?

I want this map to have at least half a dozen dungeons of various sizes.  I have 8 settlements on the map now, but I'll probably trim that down to 6 as I start consolidated concepts and hooks.  Fewer settlements = bigger, more interesting settlements.  It also means more wilderness, which I like.

And the strangest thing is that it doesn't feel daunting.  I have a pile of loose ideas and themes for Abasinia.  All I have to do is weave all of that stuff around my current adventuring party.  Just prep one week at a time.  Sketch the distant things while detailing next sessions.

Taken in this way, it helps me write a hexcrawl organically and naturally.  I'm doing the same thing with Revanwall, in my Sunday game, and it doesn't feel like work.  It doesn't feel overwhelming.  Between two active D&D groups forcing me to develop an area, and my blog where I can post whatever I feel like, I feel like I'm detailing Centerra at a satisfactory pace.

Hopefully, the players won't decide to sail for Charcorra or the Land of Flowers in the east.  Or, god forbid, Valdina in the west.  (I haven't written anything down about Valdina yet except that it's a land-based sahuagin city.)

But, give me a week, and I bet I could.

Abasinia is all that yellow shit near the top.

0910 OSHEEF

Slave-trading hub.  Muddy coliseum.

1307 The Burning City

Former capitol of Abasinia.  Was smote by clerics of the Church prior to Abasinia's conversion.  Now it burns eternally, fire sputtering up through the flagstones, etc.  Full of trapped genies.

1310 KESHEK

Town is a major tea producer.  Contains the sacred tea house.  Currently under attack by 2d4 ankheg, Tremors-style.

1605 West Ascent to White Plateau

Rumors about the White Plateau: The people there are wizards who deal in spiders and rubies.  They hate outsiders.  They will shred your dreams and poison your gold, but they do have the ability to regrow missing limbs.  (This place is sort of based on the Plateau of Leng, but it's safe to say that because I know next to nothing about the Platea of Leng.)

1607 Tiny Pyramid

This pyramid sticks out of the sand about 3'.  If the sand is excavated, the pyramid extends down several feet, revealing a much larger, buried pyramid.

1608 Abandoned Wagon

Area around wagon is studded with sand sculptures in rough humanoid forms.  Prone, fetal position, etc.  A bit like Pompeii.  They are being eroded by wind, and will soon be undifferentiated piles of sand.

1609 Monkey Oasis

Hiding in the water of the oasis is a wolf-in-sheep's-clothing.  It puppets corpses by sticking tentacles up their asses.  Currently has 4 monkeys and a merchant.

Monsters of the Great Rot

Yesterday I wrote about the Great Rot.  I've already written about the ubiquity of oozes there, so this is where I'll detail some of the other unique fauna.

The Smell

The Great Rot stinks more than you can believe.  This is because it's literally 24,000 square miles of constantly decaying biomass.

First time visitors usually spend their first couple of days throwing up.  Use Con checks to see how fast the PCs acclimate, and how fast their penalties recede.  Eventually they'll get used to it, but if they've got two weeks to cross the Great Rot, how many days do they really want to spend in the fort, nursing their stomachs?

Yeasts and other fungi cause a lot of respiratory and skin diseases, but they'll be fine as long as they don't remove their mouth protectors, expose any skin, or submerge themselves in water.

hahaha I could have posted much grosser pictures

Catapult Slime

Instead of dividing when hit by a slashing weapon, this slime is instead capable of throwing half of itself up to 50'.  Since it's aiming by scent and vibrations, it gets -4 to this attack roll.  On a miss, it lands near its target.  On a hit, the target is engulfed.

Faffernacky Pudding

This sedentary slime preys on animals.  It smells supernaturally delicious.  It tastes supernaturally delicious.  And eating it is invariably fatal, much like swallowing green slime.  It looks like molten caramel, and anyone who smells it must make a save to avoid walking over to it and eating it (with some hesitation).  Anyone who is hungry (hasn't eaten today) automatically fails this save.  This is why Rotsmen never skip meals.

It's also an intermittent-but-significant source of income for the Rotsmen, since it is also a delicacy that often graces the tables of the rich.  The trick is to gently boil it, which gently disintegrates the slime but preserves the aroma and flavor.  It tastes fucking delicious.  Anyone who has eaten faffernacky pudding and survived must make a save or become obsessed with tasting it again.  They'll do whatever it takes to get more faffernacky pudding in their lives, and only get another save after a week has passed or they've eaten more faffernacky.

And of course, people have died by eating what they thought was boiled faffernacky pudding, either through incompetence or assassination.  But that's only served to make the stuff more popular.

It is rumored that the mischief people, the babarukhs, are immune to acid and slimes, and so serve live faffernacky pudding at their clandestine parties to ensure that everyone present is one of them.  (As a race of shapeshifters, they are understandably paranoid at times.)

this is slime mold
it can solve mazes
sorta

Fyrinxes

Everyone hates a fyrinx.

They look like small lobsters, except that they have long legs that allow them to scuttle and jump and climb and latch onto faces.  They have scorpion tails that contain a poison (save vs. paralysis for 2d6 rounds).  Both genders are bone white.  They are omnivores, but prefer rotted meat.  They usually avoid hunting live game unless they are starving, or they stumble across easy prey.

They're about as intelligent as nine-year-old children, except without any of the playfulness.  They can speak to each other in a language of chitters, but cannot make themselves understood to humans.  Combined with a penchant for eavesdropping, their linguistic abilities allow them to understand--but not speak--the common human tongue.  No mere vermin, this one!

Fyrinxes are always found in mated pairs.  They form these pairs even before they are sexually mature, so the lovebirds usually grow up together.  They are loyal, and would each sacrifice itself for the sake of the other.  Poets would compare their love to the love of fyrinxes, if the latter weren't abominable little spider-lobster-scorpion monsters.

So unless adventurers mess with their cozy, mailbox-sized lairs, fyrinxes are content to avoid adventurers altogether.  This changes when the loving couple decides to have babies.

The male fyrinx will sting a large animal (halfling-sized or larger), and while it is paralyzed, the female will crawl down its throat.  The pregnant mother will settle down in the stomach, and begin the feng shui required to turn it into a nursery.  She will birth one baby a day for the next 2d20 days.  Each live-born baby will exit via the anus and scuttle to safety, all while making "safety peeps" to let mama know that everything is alright.

Because here is the trick of the fyrinx mother: she puts her ear right up to the bellybutton, so that she can hear everything that is going on outside (and remember that she can understand words just fine).  Then she wraps her barbed tail around a tender organ (liver, heart).  Whenever something happens that she doesn't like, she stabs the offender's organ.  Organ stabbing deals between 1 and 3d6 Con damage (the lady picks) and she is fast enough to do it as a reaction (since she is just sitting there with her hand on the trigger).  The pain is enough to incapacitate a grown barbarian, although they can do simple things (pull a lever, drink a potion) if they make a Cha check.

Things mother fyrinxes hate:

• Sounds of her mate or children being killed.
• Attempts to remove her from her stomach nursury.
• Insufficient flow of food into the stomach nursury.
• Other stuff, like off-key singing and bad puns.

Food is an important one.  The babies that the mother births are huge, ideally about 1/3 of the mother's full length.  This requires a constant and intense flow of food.  She usually lets her displeasure be known after a meal.  A person eats a dinner (which she then eats) and afterwards she throttles their liver to let them know HEY that wasn't enough.  Keep feeding me.  She's only satisfied once the person has eaten 5x the normal amount of rations.  (In case you haven't noticed, the proper food management and preparation is one of themes of this place.)  In the middle of this shared pregnancy, the landlord can have a distended belly, which looks almost exactly like a normal pregnancy.  

She can express her displeasure via pain, which can range anywhere from a -1 penalty to all actions, to a -4 penalty, to a -whatever because she can just squeeze as hard as she wants, even enough to shred a grown man's heart.

At the end of the pregnancy, she'll paralyze her host with a sting, crawl out of the mouth, and rejoin her husband, who has missed her very much. 

The male usually follows his wife around, just to make sure that she's okay.  He'll stay out of sight for the most part, trying to be stealthy (and they are quite stealthy).  His job is to collect the babies and keep them somewhere safe.  

Could a resourceful party capture the father and use him to hostage his wife out of her cozy home?  Yeah, probably.  Can a baby survive on its own if the father isn't there to gather them?  Yeah, probably.  Could fyrinxes form a society where they enslave humans?  Not normally, since mated pairs don't get along very well with other mated pairs.  Could the PCs befriend a mated pair and have some sweet monster hirelings?  Yeah, probably.

Fyrinxes are 2 HD monsters with a very good AC (tough shell + small size+ agility).  They have 4 special abilities.  Leap!  Paralyzing Sting!  Acid immunity!  And the whole crawl-down-the-throat-business!

Sludge Vampires

Here.

Fungal Giants and Moss Men

Here.

Tubular Peacocks

Here.

Fungal Demons (Fungal Angels)

These are weird motherfuckers that are, blessedly rare.  No one is sure which part of the ecology they fit into, since they don't behave like either wild animals or civilized ones.  Most people assume that they're demons or angels or nature spirits, or at least servants of those things.  

Digression about the setting: Demons, angels, and spirits only differ in their role, not in their essence.  Like a murderer, a policeman, and a baker, respectively.  Once you strip away their costume and motivations, they're all the same underneath.

Fungal angels tend to be humanoid-sized and humanoid-shaped, but it's a pretty broad bell curve.  Roll 2d6-3 to see how many limbs they have, and roll something similar to figure out their size.  They fly magically, without wings.  They are mottled, bulbous, suppurating masses, topped with a fungal bloom that doesn't even approximate a head.

They despise symmetry, and seek to destroy it whenever they find it.  They leave vast swathes of destruction through the Rot, where they have been "sculpting" giant mushrooms into more pleasing examples of asymmetry.  This appears to be their only motivation.  

They attack with 20' whip tendrils that can disembowel a man with a single stroke, but have a hell of a time getting through armor.  (Two attacks per round for 1d8 damage each.  They get +4 to hit with each because they are like ninjas trained by a ninjas trained by a cat.  However, the damage is reduced by an amount equal to the armor bonus, so if a paladin is wearing plate that gives +6 AC, the lash damage is 1d8-6.)

They can also breathe out clouds of decay that rot any flesh that they come into contact with.  (Treat this as cloudkill, but only if it is inhaled.  People who hold their breath will do fine.  Rotsmen helmets give a bonus to this.  It also does some passive rot damage each turn, as the PC's skin will turn wet, black, and begin to slough off.)

They can cast a few druid spells, too, but really they prefer lashing the limbs off unarmored foes, and rotting their face into something less symmetric.

The Dweller-in-Soil

This is an enormous network of mushrooms, connected by a vast network of underground mycelium.  It covers the entire central area of the Great Rot.  Ten thousand miles of creeping tendrils below and above ground (where they look like black shoestrings, rooted to the mulch).  He hear out of little clusters of pale mushrooms, which look quite innocent at first glance.  If he wants a better look, he'll grow an eyeball on a stalk, and use that to get a better look.

While the Rotsmen act in the interest of civilization and the October King acts against them, the Dweller-in-Soil is a third, more neutral party.  The Dweller-in-Soil is intelligent and has goals of his own.  The Rotsmen suspect this, but so far the Dwell-in-Soil has been content to let them remain ignorant of his presence.

It takes a full day for a thought to get from one side of the Dweller to the other.  He doesn't have myelinated neurons, after all.  His thoughts are conducted along chemical gradients.  And so his "mind" is a slurred, fractured thing.  Memories come slow and irregularly.  Motivations are sometimes obscure, even to the Dweller.  The larger he gets, the stronger the tides of dementia are.  But it is a peaceful and slow madness.  The dweller hesitates when he recognizes irregularities; he doesn't act on them.

The myconoids serve him, although he did not create them.  They came to him from underground.  With their spore-based method of communication, the Dweller struggles to understand his servants.  He has come to the conclusion that they are a divine being, and suspects that they are a hive mind like himself.  He has begun to worship the myconoids, and sees secret intentions in all that they do.  For their part, his myconoid benefactors work in his interests.

The Dweller believes that humans are a hive mind, too.  (And in a way, he's right.)  So, he doesn't feel bad when a single human dies.  Extinction is the only real death, and death is his only real fear.

And it is a logical fear.  Each year the Great Rot shrinks.  The frothy pulse of loam slows, and each generation of spores finds live more difficult than their ancestors.  In decades or in centuries, the Great Rot will have rotted away.

I'm not even going to give stats for the Dweller-in-Soil, because fighting him would be more like fighting a kudzu infection.

Goals

The Rotsmen want to do their job.  This means keeping the roads open and the Great Rot contained.  Although, in their own way, they'd be sad if the Great Rot disappeared, since this is the first place where most of them have found noble careers, recognition, and a institution where they felt they belonged.  However, there are elements within the Rotsmen that hate the Rot, and want to see the whole damn thing burned to the ground.  This is certainly the opinion of their patron state, Asria, who has to pay for all this shit.

The Dweller-in-Soil wants life.  It wants to continue living.  It wants to see the Great Rot continue, or expend, or at least not wither away to nothing.  It wants its god, the Myconoids, to be pleased with its service, and thinks that this is what is desired.  It is afraid of death, even though it feeds on it.

The October King and the Druids of Decay are the last remnants of Roa Junyo, the gang of druids (and dragons) who tried to destroy all civilization.  And although most of these druids aren't even human any more (reincarnation gets messy, sometimes), they haven't given up on their original goal.  Their intermediate plan is to reincarnate Aglabendis, probably as a giant mushroom this time.  (See also, +Matt Finch's excellent Demonspore).  This would have the effect of sucking the magic back out of the surrounding countryside, and destroying the wilderness of the Great Rot.

these are polypores

The October King and the Druids of Decay

Y'know, there's already enough stuff swirling around in my head for these guys that I should probably give them their own post.  If this ever becomes a hex crawl, they'll be the obvious probably-bad-guys faction.

Notes:

Scarecrows.  Scythes.

Every druid is different.

What would a human spore do?

+Scrap Princess's symbiotic, fungal armor.

Crown of Rot.

Swarms of dead leaves, hungry and grasping.

Rib cages filled with rot and dead leaves.

Weevils.  Borers.  Fattened on divinity.

A vast black ocean of ooze, transport.

Sludge dragon.

Wet bark, teeming with insect life, like a subway station.

They live inside the Stump, which is all that remains of the great tree.  It's about a quarter mile in height (400 M) and the same in diameter.  Water constantly flows from cracks in its wet, black bark, and the surface is studded with gargantuan polypores.  Clouds of flies surround it, and you'll hear it before you see it.

these are also polypores

HEX 0312 The Fragrant Mother

HEX 0312 The Fragrant Mother

This is another part of my Frogstar Peninsula Hexcrawl, typed up all pretty.

I'm trying to fill it with bunches of minidungeons (see also: Blowhole Caverns) so that's what this is, pretty much.

A History Lesson

Once there was a big, semi-intelligent plant called the Fragrant Mother.  It looked like a toothy rose plant 40' high.  It was inhabited by bog mermaids, who lived inside it and took care of it.  Together, they did some pretty great things, including making immorality elixir (see Room 7) and keeping this part of the swamp safe from the Ape King.

But then all of the bog mermaids died, were driven off, or started hibernating.  So now pixies have moved into the Fragrant Mother.

The Pixies

They're capricious, flighty, and a bit naïve, but they're not malicious.  They aren't as good at taking care of the Fragrant Mother, but it's their home and they aren't leaving.  They'll defend their home against thieves and murderhobos tenaciously, but they don't like bloodshed and will try to avoid killing people when there are other options.

They know that the Fragrant Mother is a little bit sick, and they suspect that there's something wrong down in the root cellar (Rooms 8-13).  They're too afraid to look, though.  If an adventurer wants to get on their good side, cleaning out the basement might be a good place to start.

The Fragrant Mother

She's an old plant, and she's halfways sentient.  Or at least, she's sentient in her dreams.  When she's awake she's just a big, carnivorous plant that has a vague sense of who her friends are (or at least, these tiny creatures that scrape the parasites off.  She used to be a political power in the swamp, complete with mystic  powers and miracle cures, but now she's just a big dungeon fill of happy-go-lucky pixies.

Unless she has a reason not to, she'll spend most days spreading charm pollen into the air.  PCs who enter her hex have a chance to smell the potent, heady perfume of her scent.  Unless they leave the hex immediately, they'll walk right up her, dazed, a sleepwalker.  Then she'll pick up the person (gently), raise them to her mouth (a toothy rose 14' across) and give them a sniff.  If they smell like violence, fear, hate, or greed, she'll eat them.  Otherwise she'll let them go (but there's a 20% chance that she's hungry and will try to eat the person anyway).

The pixies are here often enough to be desensitized to the pollen.  Slapping someone who's under the effects of the charm pollen will snap them out of it.

FRAGRANT MOTHER: HD 14, AC 13, tendrils +9/+9 (1d8 or grab, 30' reach, arms have 2 HD independent or body and 17 Str), grabbed opponents may be squeezed automatically for 1d8 damage each turn if she wants to hurt you, after spending 1 turn lifting you, she can swallow you for 2d6 acid damage (stomach has 3 HD, if you want to try cutting your way out), MV 0, ML 9; Sniff—can vaguely read minds, emotions, and especially intentions by getting a good whiff; Charm pollen—sort of like the charm spell, except makes people walk up to her and stand there like dopes, 3 mile radius; Sleep pollen—as sleep spell, 100' radius

The Dungeon

Both doors to the Fragrant Mother are hidden, but the pixies come and go often enough that any observer who watching the Fragrant Mother for any length of time will figure out that there is some sort of entrance hidden behind the thick leaves.  (The doors are obvious from the inside.)  The second story entrance is 10' up in the air, so some climbing may be required.

Each room will have 1d3-1 pixies in it (min 0).  Pixie stats are listed in Room 2.

a Squeeze
There are two places in the basement where the passage is too narrow for a full grown human to move easily.

1 Table
15' long mahogany table, with white oak inlays, covered in squiggles, actually a very accurate map of the swamp.  A red bead marks the current location.  Pixies pushed table here to seal hole to Room 8 [Flood].  Scrape marks on floor from moved table.

2 Houses
5 pixie houses.  Look like elaborate bird houses made from flower stems and braided honey suckle.  Glowing flowers on wall.  Pet fire beetle (4' long) snuffles in his sleeping bowl. Sixteen fairies live here.

At any given time, 1d8 fairies are in this room and another 1d8 fairies are in the other rooms.  The rest are out foraging in the woods.

SMALL FIRE BEETLE: HD 2, AC 14, bite +2 (1d4), MV slow, ML 7; Spew Fire—15' cone, usable 1/day, does 2d4 damage (save for half) and outlines the target in boiling, phosphorescent liquid.

PIXIE: HD 1d6, AC 14, tiny sword -1 (1d4) or tiny iron arrow +3 (1d4), MV fast, ML 7; Each pixie knows a random level 1 spell that they can cast 1/day.  Their chieftain has HD 2d6 and is named Strongwillow.

3 Plants
Wall-mounted turtleshell planters hold a dozen different types of swamp flowers.  Irrigated by rainwater funneled in from outside.  Smells like dirt.  Pixies here will be singing to flowers, easily surprised.  Each flower is a “book”, and imparts its knowledge if smelled.  One flower is a spell book containing a single spell called guiding light (see appendix).  The stairs in this room resemble a stack of crocodiles.  Oddly enough it looks like someone has taken an axe to these carved crocodiles, and hacked them halfway to pieces.  Stairs up to Room 4 [Armor].

4 Armor
Slightly overgrown treasure room.  2 rusty spears and 1 rusty harpoon.  Opalescent pixie breastplate (let's a pixie read thoughts).  Armored sleeve (+1 AC piecemeal, masterwork) with cuniform on the shoulder.  3 Chicken Feather Arrows (see appendix).  The Saddle of Horses (see appendix).  3 crates containing rotted silk (worthless).  1 crate containing 16 sealed jars of spices, each one worth 30s and stamped with bogfolk cuniform.  Stairs down to Room 3 [Plants].

5 Fountain of Dreams
Fountain is the most prized possession of the pixies.  If drank, it will remove exhaustion and give a player opalescent skin.  The next time they sleep, they will be incorporeal until the morning, and able to fly at their full walking speed.  If the dreamer flies into the center of the Fragrant Mother's primary blossom, they'll be able to talk to her directly.  (She is bestial when awake, but Int 14, Wis 14, Cha 14 when asleep.)  There is a 3% chance that the character remains incorporeal and never wakes up.  Can be used to scout out adjacent hexes, but flight is slow.

A family of mice lives under the fountain.  It's magic has made them weird, and they will approach pixies, sing a rude song about mermaids, and run away.  The pixies think they're adorable, and tolerate them very well.

6 Wood
Beautiful tapestry (worth 100s) of different colored fish scales sewn onto human leather.  Depicts bog merfolk cavorting around a giant flower, drinking from yellow horns.  One plays on a glowing flute.  Also in room is a wooden carafe and what looks like a totem pole that is sticking out the backs of it's forearms horizontally so as to make a ladder up to Room 7 [Seed].  Totem pole-ladder will attack anyone who touches it without first washing themselves with water from the carafe.  It wants to keep Room 7 clean.

TOTEM POLE-LADDER: HD 3, AC 13, Punch +1 (1d8), MV slow, ML 12; Fall Over—can fall on someone for double damage on a hit, but then spends the next turn standing up; half damage from bludgeoning.

7 Seed
This is where the bog merfolk wizards once cultivated the immortality berries, which could be made into immortality elixir.

This room is softly lit by a pale red glow from the Fragrant Mother's primary bloom, above.  6 flower pots full of ancient, withered vines are covered in yellow-brown inlaid murals.  (If a flower pot is investigated, it is revealed to be covered in gold wire, and worth 100s each as art.)  Small bag of what smells like dried manure (actually magical neverending bag of manure, good for fires).  Small work table holds gardening tools and an unlocked chest.  Unlocked chest contains the remains of a giant tadpole skeleton, a packet of still-viable strangle vine seeds, and three vials that once held immortality elixir.

The first vial has long since dried up, and contains only dust and an immortal mushroom.  The second vial is filled with a murky brown sludge.  If imbibed, it kills the drinker (no save) and raises them as a mindless plant ghoul one round later.  The third vial still retains its potency.

If the third vial is poured in the mouth of a corpse, a small tree will instantly grow from the corpse, which will bear one cluster of berries after only a minute.  The person who eats all of these berries will gradually transform into the dead person over the course of two weeks.  At first personality traits will be adopted, then memories, then physical changes, and then finally the new creature will forget all of its former memories, and will completely resemble the deceased in every way, except that the new person will be the prime of their youth.  If the elixir is drank by a living creature, they will die (no save) and a plant will grow out of them in exactly the same fashion.  The elixir is nearly priceless.

8 Flood
3' of stagnant, black water on the ground, filled with scum and insect larvae.  This is where the pixies threw all of the bogfolk furniture that they didn't want.  Scoop-like couches.  Spiral beds centered around a thick pole (for bogfolk to curl up around).   Root-wooden walls have carvings of bogfolk daily life, but are badly defaced by deep gouges and scratches.  If examined, the gouges are also mirrored on the bottom of the table that blocks the hole above.  (These are scratches made by Gurdelgur trying to escape.)

Gurdelgur usually hides in the water here, watching the only entrance.  She is a bog mermaid ghoul, and she is very patient.  The most observant person in the party has a small chance to see her, and succeeds if they roll under their Wisdom -6.  Gurdelgur will wait until the party is distracted, and then attack the weakest looking person.  If the PCs leave the room, she'll follow, swimming along in the shallow, dirty water (this gives the most observant PC another chance to see her.)

GURDELGUR: HD 3, AC 13, Claws +3/+3 (1d4 + lung rot), MV average, ML 7; Lung Rot—target struck by a claw attack must save or endure their lungs filling up with necrotic swamp water.  This lasts 1d6 rounds and targets take 1d6 damage damage each turn unless they spend that turn coughing up swamp water.  (Bog mermaid ghouls lack the traditional paralysis, and inflict lung rot instead.)

9 Crackle
3' of stagnant, black water on the ground. Low-hanging roots scrape at head and shoulders of people at human height.  A few fat-bodied weevils parasitize the roots of the Fragrant Mother.  Make a crackling sound as they munch on the roots—heard before they are seen.  Gross but harmless.  Would take about an hour to remove all of them.

10 Mummy
3' of stagnant, black water on the ground.   Mummified bogfolk priest days named Morothmo is in here, coiled up inside a broad, flat, cylindrical sarcophagus.  Lid depicts his visage.  Cruel, calm, heady-lidded.  Inside is the priest himself, holding the Flute of Fair Weather and wearing a tarnished bronze torc with a black spinel the size of a baby's fist (worth 500s).  If the torc is stolen, Morothmo will animate 24 hours later and stalk the thief for three days, first leaving signs, then appearing in the corner of their vision, and then finally attacking them on the third day in order to retrieve his torc.  However, he will not pursue anyone beyond the boundaries of the swamp, and will not seek revenge if a PC sells his necklace--he's too dead to carry a grudge.

Gurdelgur is terrified of Morothmo and will not enter his room.

MOROTHMO: HD 6, AC 13, Claws +6/+6 (1d6 + lung rot), MV average, ML 10; Lung Rot works the same as with Gurdelgur, in Room 8.

11 Root
3' of stagnant, black water on the ground.  There is an indentation in the wall here that looks not unlike a chair.  Or at least a place to sit that has armrests.  If a person sits there, the roots will begin to mesh with the person.  A person could jump out safely when they realize what's happening, but if they linger more than a few seconds, the roots will mesh with their body and assimilate it.  All that will be left in the roots is a paper-thin husk of skin and hair.

Seven days later, the Fragrant Mother will bear a fruit.  77 days after being planted, the fruit will grow into a pod, which will rebirth the assimilated person whole, and free from disease and mutation.  The person will also lose 1 point of Dex and gain 1 point of Str.

If anyone repeats this process multiple times, the same thing happens, except that they will not gain a point a Strength on subsequent passages (they will still lose a point of Dex, however).  Too many uses of this fruit-based rejuvenation will turn a person into wood.  The pixies do not know about this function.

If no one tends to the fruit that grows, there is only a 50% chance that it germinates and grows into a pod.  Otherwise, the pixies eat it, or it falls into water that is too wet for it to survive, etc.

12 Worms
3' of stagnant, black water on the ground.  1 plump worm (3' long) gnaws on the roots here.  This is what is making the Fragrant Mother ill.  If the worm is attacked, two more worms will burrow up from the ground.  If these worms are killed and no further vermin are allowed to infest the Fragrant Mother, it will begin bearing immortality berries in 3 years.

PLUMP WORM: HD 1, AC 10, Bite +1 (1d6), MV slow, ML 8; Acid Blood—any weapon that hits a plump worm is damaged and gains a Notch or a Ding or just has a 50% chance to become useless.

13 Runes
3' of stagnant, black water on the ground.  The bog mermaid runes on the walls here spell out the history of the Fragrant Mother and the decline of the bog people.  It also describes how the immortality fruit was made into immortality elixir (but lacks a detailed recipe) as well as how the roots in Room 11 function.

A mound of smelly rubbish in the corner holds Gurdelgur's treasure: a leathery goat bladder containing 204 silver, 9 gold, and a magic blowgun (+1/+3 vs amphibians) made from blackened witch-reed, and engraved with the bog folk runes for “friendship”.

Appendix: New Items

Saddle of Horses
No, the name is not redundant.  This ancient saddle is made from horse leather.  The pommel is in the shape of a stylized horse's head.  And if the saddle is ever strapped to a creature's back, that creature will turn into a horse for as long as the saddle remains on.

The horse is just a horse.  It cannot talk or cast spells.  The only non-horsey part about it is its mind, which it retains from its previous form.  Since bucking a saddle onto someone is pretty tricky even when they're cooperating, it is only possible to put the Saddle of Horses on a willing or helpless target.  Horses cannot take their own saddles off.  You need thumbs for that.  Once you've been a horse you will dream about horses 1d6 times a week for the rest of your life.

The Saddle's last known owner was the famed bounty hunter Phineas Rage, who was fond of riding his bounties back to the sheriff's office.

Flute of Fair Weather
This is one of the most important artifacts in bog folk culture.  They'd do a lot to recover it (if they knew where it was), and they'd be very grateful it if were returned.

If the Flute of Fair Weather is played by a human, it will get windy after 1 hour of continuous playing, overcast after 2, rainy after 4, and stormy after 8.  If the human is not an experienced flautist, they will lose control of the magic in the worst way possible.

In the hands of a bog mermaid, the flute has more powers, all of them weather-related.  Notably, it can be used to calm down storms and summon up stiff winds (although it cannot control the direction).

Chicken Feather Arrows
A target struck by one of these arrows must save or flee in terror for 1d6 rounds.  But if the arrow is used to shoot an egg—and kind of egg—it will instead turn into a full-grown chicken.


Appendix: New Spells

Guiding Light
Magic-User 1
A ball of light shaped like a 6' goldfish flies from your mouth.  It is as bright as a torch.  The goldfish immediately tries to find the fastest “way out”, and then immediately swims in that direction at a walking pace.  The goldfish cannot be halted, slowed, or dimmed (though it can be dispelled).  As a mindless spell construct, the goldfish has no concept of safety or accessibility, and will swim right through doors without slowing (because that is a path you could take, see?).  Big or non-euclidean dungeons confuse the fish, but in general, it can lead you out of a dungeon no deeper than 1 level per caster level.  If there are no ways out, or there is no “out”, the fish will freak out for a few seconds and then explode.

Frogstar Peninsula Hexcrawl v0.2

Ugh.  I've been typing for so long I feel nauseous.

I chose the Frogstar Peninsula for my first hexcrawl.  It's the only place in Centerra where you can see the Frogstar in the sky.  I wrote some rumors for it a couple of days ago.

So here's the area of Centerra that's getting turned into a hexcrawl.  I've never done a hexcrawl before, so a I figure that a 16x16 grid of 8-mile hexes would cover a decent area.

I was fucking wrong.  128 miles is nothing on a big world map like this one.

Anyway, I made the hex map.  That doesn't look so hard to fill out!  That doesn't look so big!

Except it is big.  16 x 16 = 256.  Even if I didn't fill in the water tiles, I'd still be writing 125 entries.  That's on par with that giant bullshit House of Hours thing I wrote once.  (And that thing is halfway to having an actual PDF.  It's just LARGE and WEIRD and STRANGELY HUGE).

(I wonder how much work it would be to cover the whole continent of Centerra with hex crawls?  Is that a good life goal?  I'm 26, and I don't know what good life goals are anymore.)

Anyway, I plan for the Frogstar Peninsula to be a good spot for levels 1-3.  It will have 10+ mini dungeons (<10 rooms) and 3 full-size dungeons.  The TREE PALACE OF THE APE KING, the WATERFALL WARRENS, and the SECRET FROGSTAR DUNGEON THAT DOESN'T EVEN APPEAR ON THE MAP.

Honestly, I'm more excited about the mini dungeons.  My favorite part of any Zelda game is taking time out from the epic main quest to investigate some random hole in the ground, and then being delighted when the hole in the ground has more than 1 room.  Because I never know what I'm going to find in those random mini dungeons.  Big epic dungeons, I got expectations.

Starting Out

I have given some thought to how to start players out.  They could enter from the civilized direction: Fort Forello, on the southern border.  They could land in one of the harbors from god-knows-where.  Or they could be passengers on a ship that is attacked by pirates, and then either escape to shore or join up with pirates.  Or they could be prisoners on a ship that is attacked by pirates, and make their escape through the hole that the catapult stones tear through the wall.  That would be cool.

Spoiler Warning

If you happen to be already playing on the Frogstar Peninsula, you should probably stop reading now.  You know who you are.  Yes, you in the loincloth.  And your friend in the puffy pirate shirt.  Stop reading.

Or if you keep reading, just skin through it really fast.  I mean there's 125+ entries.  No way are you going to remember more than a smidge of this stuff.  I can't remember more than a smidge of this stuff.

Stop Procrastinating and Show Me the Entries

I reference the Book of Mice a few times in here.  It's a pdf bestiary I wrote.

CAUTION: These entries are very big (17,000 words) and may bog your computer.