Tuesday 1 August 2023

Hex Crawl 23 #198: Kanu the Unremarkable

Seven hexes northwest, one southwest of Alakran.

 

Between the two fascinating loci of the Ship Rock of the Dharvi and the City of Gesshed we find that most uninteresting of villages, Kanu. Its inhabitants notoriously exemplify the old saw "Only boring people are bored." Indeed, they barely remarked the passage of such a bizarre and motley troupe as the Band of Bronze, and surely will do the same for any other misfit gang. 

Leaving the dull precinct of this 150-strong colony of goat-minders, who find most of their advanced services in the nearby city, you might have noticed an object in their path half-covered in sand. It is a palm-sized, lacquered metal token bearing the literal-minded emblem of the Radiant Gemsbok of Autumn: a rampant antelope of that wavy-horned species, black, against a sixteen-rayed solar disc of gold, on a ruddy background. A token of the Crown Prince of Wahattu so carelessly discarded out here? 

What this object is and where it was found will undoubtedly be of interest in the courts of Eryptos, both to those who scheme to bring down the Crown Prince (they are the baddies -- ultimately infiltrated by shape-changing snake-people minions of Apep) and those who would thwart such schemes. On one of his hunting trips, the Gemsbok espied a young maiden of the village, Nanaya of the Well-Deep Eyes, and had an illicit affair with her, foolishly vouchsafing her his token as a promise of legitimacy and social elevation. But when the parents discovered the token -- and the affair -- her father hurled the token out into the sand.

The shrewd merchant Hak-Bina, when shown the token, divined the broad significance of its abandonment, if not the precise details. She offered the flustered party a fluctuating sum of money for that valuable piece of blackmail, but they wisely declined, and kept the Prince's secrets safe.

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