Monday 16 October 2023

Hex Crawl 23 #274: House of Shuna

Eleven hexes northwest, three north of Alakran.

   

Here, fertile watered fields support a number of dull villages, which we will pass over as being in Tilillu, and therefore no use to adventurers. Yes, Tilillu has a name as a province where ambitious people are born. But they must all leave Tilillu to realize their ambition.

The road is another matter. Ten miles out from the caravanserai, ten miles to Eryptos, there stands the House of Shuna. It looks quiet, respectable, walls in a forty-paces square, a barred cedar door, no doubt a courtyard in the middle. That front door will never open to a knock. The back door is another matter. People with that back door in mind will often dawdle, backtrack, along the road outside; anything to avoid being seen ducking back there by another traveler. Inside, furtively, they seek fulfillment. But how?

Few people talk about it, though nobody really disappears or is endangered there. The room, apparently, is dark, or at least one is blindfolded throughout the whole experience. One is invited to share one's darkest desires, and then, somehow, one has the vivid experience of satisfying them.

You might, however, find one person who made the mistake of whipping off the blindfold. These people are reluctant to talk about their experience. It's nothing so crude as being deceived about the gender, or age, or comeliness of the House's courtesans. The room, as said, is dark, and some may consider the blindfold superfluous. But even in the dark, the ghostly eyes in the skulls of generations of the House's dead keepers glow deep crimson, as they watch with impotent prurience the writhing of the living. That is enough to put one off entirely.

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