Hex Crawl 23 #2: Scarp Pass, Raghru, and the Tomb of Narshish

1 hex north of Alakran.

This area has 3 features.

1. Raghru, Hyena Mother (captain) of a small pack of 8 female fighting gnolls, heavy hand weapon & longbow, and 4 males, weaker gnolls with spears, that maintains a camp by a natural well west of the Scarp. A hunting patrol with her and d6 of her warriors can be found by night at range 1 to the NW and SW or in the hex itself.

Raghru's pack was one of those that ravaged Dulsharna to the east in the past few years. Betrayed and defeated by former allies Leetakh and Junjeh, she escaped here through the climbing route and plots revenge, even willing to ally with humans - hence why she leaves Alakran in peace.

2. Climbing Place. The Scarp is 500 feet high and normally unclimbable, but known currently only to Raghru, there is a series of ledges and holds that allow climbing up and down, on the east side screened by a jagged badlands. Each climber on the west side must pass 2 easy and 1 moderate difficulty skill checks or fall; if roped together, more than 50% must fail to provoke total catastrophe. Falling distance is d12 x 10 feet to the next ledge below. The east side requires only 2 easy checks. Time each way is 90 minutes plus 15 minutes for each failed roll.

3. Tomb of Narshish. (triangle icon to the north) This is one of the damnation tombs of ancient Urighem, 300 feet up the Scarp behind a ledge, facing east so the dead cannot enter the land of the setting sun. Flanked by bird-headed apkallu statues, the name of the inhabitant has been chiseled off the door, as it was stricken from all records of the Urig Empire. The door, say the inscriptions, can only be opened by "no grown being nor child" -- that is, only by a person on their 13th birthday, a lock that is immune to all magic but a wish. Inside is a vrock (apkallu) demon seeking to kill and escape, This demon, Chuzema, will call out from within, pretend to be the wronged spirit of Narshish, and plead to be given proper burial rites.

Inside are wall paintings, a sarcophagus, and at its head and foot two coffers. The paintings, their hieroglyphs from the mid Fifth Epoch of the Urig dynasties, tell of Narshish, an Urig governor of Wahattu whose family was murdered. He sought revenge by summoning a vulture demon, using a small black stone, and sent it to slay those who, it told him, were responsible. Power went to his head and he sent the demon on many other murderous missions until the Hawks and Falcons seized him and he confessed all under torture. He was sentenced to be embalmed and buried alive under a damnation of his name and memory, but the demon and the stone were never found. In a coda, the real murderers of Narshish's family were found out soon afterwards; the demon having lied to slake its own bloodthirst on innocent suspects.

At the foot of the sarcophagus are three semiprecious stone jars, red, white, and black (500 gp each), which an inscription identifies as the unused embalming fluids for Narshish, while a curse warns that if anyone tries to give him the correct burial rites or steal the jars, "I shall seize his neck like that of a goose." The head coffer is lead-lined and contains the golden adornments of office shown in the first wall painting, but degraded and with their inscriptions erased (still worth 1500 gp, or twice that to an antiquarian). The curse against looters inside this lid is more elaborate: "May the crocodile be against them in water and snakes against them on land. May the hippopotamus be against them on water and the scorpion against them on land." The foot coffer has an unused jade scarab (500 gp) and gold funerary mask (2000 gp), protected by the curse "Their arm shall be cut off like that of a bull." These curses are real and the GM should interpret them severely.

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