Wednesday 29 March 2023

Hex Crawl 23 #88: Into the Dhuga Hills

 Three hexes northwest, two north of Alakran.

 

The Dhuga Hills are a gentle range south and east of the ancient city Eryptos. They are associated with the city in song and poetry. A soothing sight, a place for hunting, filled with many green dells and spectacular views of the looming Scarp. Wild antelope abound here, and other beasts besides, as shown in the various hexes revealed and to be revealed.

The poetic conventions of pastoral and venatic ballads concerning the Dhuga have, in this decadent age, fossilized into tropes, stock epithets easily lampooned by means of a random table.

"My

(1) heart (2) love's kiss (3) love's glance (4) love's word (5) righteous jealousy* (6) song

(1) throbs (2) wails (3) runs (4) flies (5) hides (6) languishes

like

(1) a shy gazelle (2) a gentle hare (3) a royal chariot's wheels (4) a forlorn shepherdess (5) a lost he-goat (6) a hunter's arrow

(1) in the green valley after rain (2) among the hard stones of the rocky hilltop (3) in the fiery hour of sunset (4) in the tender shine of the waxing moon (5) when a lurking leopard is sighted (6) on the rounded flanks of a rising ridge" 

If you need someone cultured to hear your poem, then consider this. If while in the Hills you roll an encounter from 2 hexes away, and that hex is empty but lies in the due direction of Eryptos (8 hexes northwest, 5 north of Alakran), you meet with a hunting party from that city. There will be d6 nobles, 2d6 charioteers and riders, and one two-person antelope chariot for every 3 people in the party (the third riding on an antelope steed of some description). 

If 5+ nobles and 7+ entourage are rolled, it is the party of the Prince of Eryptos himself, known by his heritage-name Radiant Gemsbok of Autumn. With his father feeling poorly, the sixteen-year-old heir is the most prestigious huntsman of the Dhuga.

* An untranslatable emotion-term.  Often the stance of a poetic narrator who celebrates the agony of loving someone who is promised to another.

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