2023 Year Start: Hex Crawl 23 #1,The Village of Alakran

So yeah, let me revive the old blog a little with this #dungeon23 madness. But it's a hex crawl! In fact, the campaign environment for my online Game of Bronze Roll20 game, which ended with a definite bang last August.

I'm going one hex at a time, spiraling out from the tentpole town, Alakran. As we see the hexes, details of the setting come into view.

 

 A village of only about 50 souls, nestled between two parallel terraced ridges running east to west. To the northeast is the high, forbidding red sandstone mass of the Scarp, which divides the land of Wahattu from the land of Dulsharna. Alakran was once a thriving trade post, sitting astride the paving stone of Nama'a the Road of Flowers, before the invasion and collapse of Dulsharna. Now its population is much diminished, half the adobe houses lie empty, and the inhabitants live on subsistence agriculture of barley, pistachios and stimulant acavar beans.

The irrigation system is primitive by Wahatti standards, and labor intensive. A boon of 500 gp will improve the happiness of the village, allowing construction in 1 month of better conduits that allow some leisure time and specialization. With successful diplomacy the villagers will support the benefactors, possibly supplying hirelings (no more than 1 adventuresome soul per 30 denizens) or gifts (common fare, lodging, and up to 1 gp a month per 10 denizens). 

The village's population can be increased by 10 for each peril adjacent to it, and to its westward road, that is eliminated. This will require again some diplomacy in larger settlements, to get people to relocate.

The village priest Dan-El worships the dominant god in Wahattu, Mitra the benevolent sun disk. He is a coppersmith by trade but his local source of ore is tapped out. He will become friendly and supportive if he is connected to a new source of copper metal or ore.

A merchant with two camels, Hasanain, visits the village every other week, braving the dangers in between Alakran and his home to the west, Gesshed. He will pay 10 gp each way for well-armed company.

 As well there is a wise woman, Sertha, skilled in herbal medicine, and a loose woman from the west, Pe-Khawy, whose red-litten house is often visited by soldiers of the garrison to the east. 

The village is roughly based on Jason Morningstar's Khas Fara (Fight On! magazine #5) and some of the conflicts and adventures from that adventure will work here. Other crops and industries can be introduced to the village, but the water supply will really not support a population of more than 100. Diverting water from agriculture to other occupations, so that Alakran can grow, will require the resumption of trade across the Notched Pass in the Scarp -- and what a tall order that would be!

Edit: Two extras, a detail map (these hexes are 1 mile and the larger hex, then, is 5 miles):

And a d6 encounter table if the village is rolled as the source of an encounter on the 5 mile map (using this system which worked great in my campaign):

Alakran (no encounter if wrong time or range)

1. Goatherd, with sling and flock of 30 goats, day or night (asleep), range 0

2. Hasanain the merchant, with 2 camels, road only, day, range 2

3. Dan-el the priest and 2 villagers, futilely prospecting for ore, day, range 2 /Dan-El on the way to or from a mysterious errand to the north, night, range 0

4. Sertha the wise woman, looking for medicinal-hallucinogenic cacti, day, range 2

5. Pe-Khawy, terrorized out of her home by intolerant villagers, seeks help, day or night, range 1

6. Three village children, talkative, wandering farther than their parents would like, day, range 1