Hex Crawl 23 #254: The Shunned Hills of Hamuparra

Ten hexes northwest, two north of Alakran.

  

This series of two or three folded ridges surveys the plains around and the heights of the Dhuga to the east, but has an evil reputation. It is said that no enterprise that ends in the Hills of Hamuparra can end well.

A foolish thief, it is told, once put the superstition to the test by escaping from the agents of the law into the Hills. "Yes, I may end up in these Hills," he reasoned, "but my pursuers must also end in the same place as I am if they succeed, and these are the Hills, so they are bound to fail. And as my ultimate goal is to leave the Hills, it cannot be said that my flight is at an end there, so I will prevail!" He did not consider that for them to find a dead thief would also be failure. Indeed they found him face-down, perished from a scorpion bite.

Hex Crawl 23 #100: Grim Ruins of Tur Kasgi

Three hexes northeast, three hexes southeast of Alakran.

 

Tur Kasgi was once the strongpoint of Dulsharna's western plains army, a keep of eight towers built on an artificial mound and surrounded by a wall of sixteen towers. Four years ago, a horde of gnolls, Khilan lizardfolk, and demon cultists forced the last remains of the army into the fortress and began a months-long siege. The taking of Tur Kasgi was brutal; the gnoll mothers, briefly united under the visionary leader Roz'taa, fell apart from each other and from their allies after she was killed breaching the keep. The minotaur Bosmaritus tried to take command but could not convince the fractured victors to come together. In vain he ordered atrocities against the survivors; in vain he set up the grisly display that nobody has dared disturb to this day. Commanding only a fraction of the original horde, the bull-man and his cohort fled north to take refuge in Nathrak.

In mockery of the defenders, the bodies of beast-folk and cultists were hung from the broken walls of the fortress, the bleached skull of Roz'taa given place of honor above the gate. The corpses of the defenders were scattered in the desert, face down, heads pointing away from the walls, as if fleeing. 

 The grisly display still stands, but oracles and visions may point to a resolution. If the bodies of the invaders are removed from outside the alls, and the bodies of the defenders are returned to the fortress and given burial inside the series of cellars dug beneath the keep, and then that tomb is sealed and blessed, anyone involved in the enterprise will have their sins, maladies, and curses blessed and removed by the power of Mitra or whatever you may call the force of good that looks on the world with mercy and pity.

Hex Crawl 23 #7: The Bronze Tree

At the head of a valley with a stream that flows wet only in the rainy season -- circled by high hills and rocky outcrops, evident only to those who stand on the highest point of an adjacent 1-mile sub-hex, or who approach from the valley -- is the dread Bronze Tree.

It is in the form of a 25 foot tall cedar, with stylized bark and needles and symmetrical branches that begin 8 feet up the  trunk, which is 5' wide at the base narrowing to 2' at the crown. In a band where the trunk meets the floor, there is carved a circle of arcane glyphs. For those who can interpret them, let it be known that they are a charm to stop evil entities from passing through the ring. 

There is no apparent way in, but anyone reaching the top will observe that some kind of noisome bird (harpies, on a truly difficult nature knowledge check) once lived there; the upper branches are soiled with large splashes of droppings, and something has pierced and torn away a hole in the side of the topmost branch. Beyond the hole, the tree is hollow all the way down, with a somewhat ironic support structure of actual cedar struts and beams, blackened with age.

All reasoning beings who live within 20 miles shun the tree, knowing of evil legends surrounding it. The bronze represents a fortune in metal-poor Wahattu (easily 10,000 gp) but nobody thinks of salvaging it. Rightly so: there is a curse on the bronze that any tool made from it will rise to strike its wielder, and any ornament will render its wearer loathsome in sight. This curse is inscribed on the inside of the trunk where the band is.

Under the tree is another damnation tomb, one very late in the period, when the punishment extended to more mundane crimes and the edict on the dead was enforced by necromancy. Thus, in the chamber dug 10' beneath the tree are arranged 6 withered ancient corpses, their necks broken and heads turned backward that they may not enter the land of the dead. Each corpse is a vengeful shadow; but they may not pass up beyond the ring unless it is broken or the writings effaced. There are no grave goods or even clothing save for 6 leaden tablets detailing their names and crimes: these are a cartel of merchants from the western province of the Urig Empire, Pungatan, who defrauded the House of the Divine Emperor in the provision of cedar wood in the 6th Epoch, 700 years ago, when apparently bronze was cheaper to use as a building material. As historical curios an interested buyer will pay 100 gp each for the tablets.

 Banging on the tree will produce a loud sonorous gonging that (on successful morale tests) will bring curious goblins from the west and gnolls (hex #2) from the east. The gonging will take on unearthly undertones as the imprisoned shades wail and moan within.