Hex Crawl 23 #194: Foul Footprint

Two hexes northwest, five southwest of Alakran.

 

Here is another feature the Band of Bronze never found. It languished on my area map through the 2 1/2 years of the campaign in the hex south of the Jagged Temple as just "Giant Footprint Foul." A description that came piecemeal from interpreting one of my personal random feature tables.

 

And here's an on-the-spot method to make sense of any such description -- even one generated randomly by other means, as I've been doing a bit of in this series, using the adjective-noun generator at Perchance.

For each key word roll d6.

1-2 = literally true; 3-4 = kind of true, but not literally; 5-6 = not at all true

Did a giant have to do with it? 3: kind of

Is it a footprint? 1: very literally

Is it foul? 2: literally, yes

In aeons past, a being of pure evil, taller than a mountain, must have strode the world. Perhaps its other footprints were found, cleansed, and the waste deposited to make the Stench. Perhaps this one was allowed to remain as a reminder. Only the most arcane annals hold records of this monstrosity, which towered over the land for months, taking one step a minute.

Heel to toe, the footprint is as long as a felled cedar, and sinks five feet into the ground. At the bottom pools a black, fetid tar with the exact same odor as the Stench. To touch it is to risk contracting evil of the soul (WIS save DC 13) and a fatal disease of the body that kills in d12 days (CON save DC 13).

The heel and toe, if measured exactly and the line between the two extended 100 miles backwards, lead to the well-hidden ritual implements that summoned this colossus to earth. If extended 100 miles forward, this line leads to the expended, but still dangerous, remains of the weapon that slew it, very well hidden.