12 Hexes

 This could be a fun holiday tradition, the 12 hexes of Christmas. That would be fun. That's not exactly what I did, but you are free to your own interpretations.

 

I sat down and wrote 12 hexes with pen and paper. Here they are, all typed up. For use with Troika! or Vaults of Vaarn, or for anything you like. 1-6 are in one column, 7-12 in the next. I might do more. This is incomplete, a game of fill in the blank, and you get to place the blanks where you think they go.

 

1. A pocket of forest holds the same amount of life as the miles of desert surrounding it. There are signs of past civilization - abandoned homes and fire pits. A large sinkhole contains a giant blind porcupine and a heavy chest. The chest contains an egg-sized lump of priceless metal - recognizable only by a blacksmith or machinist of high skill.

2. The desert slopes down into a canyon of a rushing river. Traveling along the riverbed invites attacks from the local raiders and bandits. Signs of scuffles can be seen in impressions in the riverbank mud. Behind the one waterfall in this hex is the bandits' hideout. Many weapons and supplies can be found here, along with three of the following:

• A blasphemous text to a hateful religion
• An obtuse tangle of metallic cables, coils, and capacitors with no obvious function. It can only buzz ominously if powered.
• A puzzle box that shakes and rattles on the ground. It contains a homunculus who seeks its master.
• A mechanical diorama with three obvious dials. The dials are labeled with common symbols: animals, elements, numbers. When wound, a play ensues in the diorama; at its end the dials turn to three symbols in a tarot reading.
• A wireframe cube. It  can support slow loadings of any weight, but collapses under sudden force. Springs back to into shape if necessary.

There are 20-40 bandits present.

 3. A groups of donkey-human chimeras wander aimlessly across the desert. They bray and bite aggressively. Each is branded with a cult symbol, and cult members search for them. The chimeras are incredibly irritable and agitated.

4. Small village of Qolla. Lies in a bend in the the river. Paddy farmers harvest from the floodplain bearing weapons; their xenophobia is extreme. Their rigid sunmasks afford anonymity from their god in the case of  violence. They await the chimeras' return. Accepted outsiders may be granted a visit to their temple, and one may barter. Everyone in the village knows their isolation guarantees their extinction in two generations' time.

5. Blasted wasteland. The river's turning leaves a dry brittle waste here, with no cover but for the debris of mechanical husks. Scavengers hunger here, surviving only by the flesh of errant wanderers. Wolves, giant bugs, even some intelligent creatures number among the scavengers. Many holes litter the land, suggesting treasure. Some petty jewels on deformed skeletons may yet be found.

6. A tower, stretching to the sky. Borealic pulses of power stretch from its crown. The figure within in hunched with age and ailment, but invites all comers. Its hood is never thrown back by its wrinkled gray hands. It will offer a grand tour of its vivisection collection and mechanical contraptions, most of which are impressive. A visit to an obvious basement is denied; it contains many past visitors. The tower master's homunculus has been lost.

7. Tall grasses sprout from the sandy soil. They grow thicker away from the desert, reaching head height. Many beasts whose heads can see over the grass roam the savannah. At the center of the hex is a colossal tree. Its branches are stories above the ground, but mnay burrows and dens nestle between roots. A place to rare game or pelts, or to be hunted.

8. Tall grasses border chasms and sulfurous springs. Much rarer elements can be harvested, at the risk of poison. Creatures survive on those metallic compounds - and they will fight to protect again demineralization. The swim in their crocodilian form, but do not survive long outside the warmth of the pools. The alkaline swamps are noxious - organic beings become poisoned if exposed for more than a day.

9. The grasses are controlled here, around the city-market of Jasce. A merchant city with a strong guard presence, it is perhaps the last place that has sustained peace between the mountains and the desert. Harvest idols dominate every public space, continually and easily refreshed. One may find journeyman of most trades, a need to haggle at every stall, and the most delicious preparations of mantisswine. The city has no state, as it is little more than a permanent market ground among the grass. 

10. Far above the grasses are 3 story pillars, and on these pillars are sparsely constructed huts. Each hut is different, its construction material and its design; but beyond that special, the rules of physics, or chemistry, or biology or psychology, or some combination are inverted. A few huts:

• Mirrored, inside and out. All reflections show your true nature, your original face before your parents were born. A long communion with your reflection bolsters the viewer's weaknesses.
• Ossuary. A pool of red metallic liquid in a birdbath in teeming with bugs. Bugs swarm the weakest character, burrowing into their skin. They become stronger.
•  Thin riveted metal. Small rools float through the air, repelled by anything nearby. The hut is bigger on the inside, the size of an auditorium. Any tool can fit most ancient machines - with some lost skill or decades of tinkering.
• Lensed windows in a wire frame. Many distance things can be seen, on this planet or others. Microscopes, telescopes, and oversized spectacles scattered around the room improve the effect. Somewhere unthinkinkably distant the aurora of a supernova can be seen, wiping out solar systems and quenching the view back to the utter darkness.
• Greenhouse. Many ambivalent flora chat about what outside plants get to do. They all have too orchid-like of constitutions to survive out there, but ask for stories.

11. Dry, brittle grasses snap in an everblowing wind. Preadators stalk, and nomads hunt. Their rare psychedelic festivals culminate in feasts of brinetigers and proudhawk. They fear the automaton due to myth began by a factual genocide committed long ago. To make a buzzing sound at another is a special curse and deathwish. The nomads will try to assimilate all intelligent organic friends.

12. Putrid bog. Everything decays here after dying All water is fetid. Rowing is the only means of exploration. While most is sludge, a massive mushroom sprouts at the wetland's root, its gills the size of a rowboat and a prime delicacy. Many miasmas, parasites, and diseases serve as its local defenses.

 

 

I think most of these are not really gameable, but that's ok because I just busted these out on a whim. I only did the fun parts. What do you think?