Hex Crawl 23 #87: A Sinister Cave

 Four hexes northwest, one north of Alakran.

 

This was the entry point for my implementation of Matt Finch's module "Pod Caverns of the Sinister Shroom." The river here was largely diverted with a dam to spill down into a cave and form the stream that winds through the levels of that dungeon. In the entry cave there is graffiti:

• Mysterious scarab symbols
• Barely visible geometric coincidence-patterns in the stone, Derro command-language. Anyone who reads them with understanding must save (WIS, DC13) or fall under a suggestion to go out in an insensate direction and collect who knows what "samples" before returning to the home hive deep below the earth.
• A message from a centuries-dead Urig who had Seen Some Things, including the river of the dead and the demons who haunt it
• A gloating message exalting unfamiliar names in a faded white luminescent ink, Drow script. 

The dungeon is pretty much as written, and the merchant Mery-Tina was rescued and proved to be a great friend of the party and of the false-bearded warrior woman Hak-Bina in particular. The main changes happened on the third level down, where artifacts and paintings of the Scarab Society could be found. This was originally a proto-monotheist soteriological cult who believed in the resurrection and transmutation of the flesh through the metaphor of the dung-scarab's ball becoming the Sun. At this site, several epochs ago, they believed they had found a tributary of the river of the dead in the Shadowvein River. The statue in the goblins' cave held, not a ghast, but a sand silhouette, imprisoned by the former denizens.  And, a jade scarab retrieved from the site was instrumental in securing the cooperation of the modern-day Scarab Society, reborn as a secretive force for opposing the machination of Apep the Serpent of Chaos and his shape shifting minions.

Hex Crawl 23 #86: Bridge of the Gray Blessing

 Five hexes northwest of Alakran.

 

At the western edge of the Dhuga Hills, commanding a view into central Wahattu and almost to the capital of Mu-Asharru itself, is a great tableland, narrow from north to south but almost fifteen miles long from east to west. Its walls are not equally high along its length, for it rises from ground level here in the east, gradually standing two hundred feet tall in the west. The tilt reminded coastal travelers of a ship cresting a wave, and so the name "Ship Rock" stuck to the landmark.

Ascending the rock from this end westward, a faintly distinct path wends among upthrust stones and boulders. There is an obstacle after a few miles;  a chasm, thirty foot deep and forty wide, with a narrow basalt slab-bridge across it. Obelisks of the same stone carved in multiple writings tell of a "test for the pure" on crossing the bridge and that the "gift" of the first bridge is necessary for crossing the second. The bottom of the chasm is ominous; it continues down into the earth, its walls are blackened, and the trench is filled almost to ground level with gray and white ash.

Anyone who steps on the bridge will awaken smoke tendrils out of the chasm, which rise rapidly and in a few seconds cover anyone on the bridge, depositing ashes all over them. Here, D&D alignments come in, but if you are not using them, judge the character's behavior so far with respect to altruism, kindness, and law-abiding. 

* Evil or chaotic neutral characters find that just a few flecks of ash stick to them, no matter how many trips they make.

* Lawful neutral, true neutral, and chaotic good characters become about half covered.

* Lawful good and neutral good characters will be covered in a thick and full layer, looking like gray and white monsters. If they think of it, they can embrace a less-covered character in a spirit of generosity, and transfer half their ashes to them.

The ash can be scrubbed off with some effort but tends to stick to the clothing and skin, as if held by static electricity. Those who cross the chasm by other means or find some way to avoid the ash will simply be less ready to face the next bridge in the series, further to the west.