Hex’s Rivals

Useful context for upcoming Actual Play posts.

Blodvinter

• Brutal giant kratocracy
• War-like and notoriously belligerent
• Huge slave population is replenished by raiding and piracy

Perched upon the frigid Stained Steppes where the Shriekwinds scream men into madness and the Razorhail shreds travellers into ribbons, Blodvinter is carved almost entirely out of ice – not frozen water, but frozen blood.  Ruled by the thurs, a race of giants with blue-black skin like that of frostbite victims, Blodvinter was created in centuries past by a brutal warlord who at that time had led a great horde down from the Steppes to conquer much of the north.  After his wars of conquest, the thur chieftain demanded that every people he had subjugated deliver to him sacrifices, conveyed to his ancestral home on the Steppes.  These sacrifices he had slaughtered; their blood was collected and used to form first the blackish-red Hall of Frozen Carnage from which he ruled and then the rest of the city.  Blodvinter stands as a monument to the brutality of the thurs, even after their empire fragmented and dwindled.  Though the giants still hold sway within the city and the surrounding Steppes, their numbers are few; much of the city is now populated by their innumerable thralls.

Erubescence

• Vampire-ruled aristocracy
• Aggressively expansionist
• Motivated by a desire for land, wealth, blood

Ruled by the Sanguine Lords & Ladies, Erubescence is a realm of vampires, a place where the living pay homage to their undead masters in hopes of one day being chosen and ennobled themselves. Warlike and ancient, Erubescence conducts frequent raids on neighbouring realms in hope of acquiring thralls and sustenance. Necromancy here is commonplace; those who die are almost universally reanimated, or else broken down for parts in the construction of massive necrotic servitors. Despite its militant aggressions, Erubescence itself is an orderly and prosperous realm. While vampires in other lands must dwell as parasites, killing to survive, existing in the shadows, here their open rule ensures that their needs are met without unnecessary deaths, and centuries of governance have made them wise and deft in matters of statecraft. Erubescence has recently been highly expansionist and is known to covet many of the territories around Hex.

Ganglion

• Living capitol of the noocratic Gelatinous Empire
• Centre of maritime power
• Insatiable lust for knowledge and dominion

Clinging to Carbuncle, the largest of the Iridescent Isles that lie in the Gilded Sea, Ganglion is a gigantic super-organism, capital of the Gelatinous Empire, the civilization of the psychic jellyfolk. Consisting of thousands of jellyfolk Blooms forming a single hive-mind, the Gelatinous Empire spreads out from the quivering metropolis of Ganglion, where elder jellyfolk contribute their minds to a vast pool of psychic sludge at the heart of the city. Nacreous spires rise from the Carbuncle, the palaces of the Imperial Court, while dozens of slaves labour under the watchful eyes of their medusoid masters. In addition to slaves, the Gelatinous Empire are infamous for their desire for knowledge. In particular, wizards and other spellcasters are favoured victims, their minds consumed by ruthless jellyfolk psychics, their spells and lore devoured and added to the wisdom of the collective. Though Hex and the Gelatinous Empire have had little direct contact, doubtless the jellyfolk long to absorb the accumulated wisdom of its mages.

Hypogeum

• Underground parliamentary democracy
• Besieged by monsters
• In need of resources to repel subterranean invaders

The grand city of Hypogeum is the largest of the underground gnome cities, though it is inhabited by many other subterranean creatures as well: troglodytes, ratfolk, derro, kobolds, subterannean Fair Folk, earth elementals, salamanders, cambions, trollbloods, and goblins (confined to a Goblin Town, a goblinoid ghetto), among others. Built on the shore and even atop the Gloomsea, Hypogeum is constructed within stalactites and stalagmites, buildings clinging to the rocky spires, tunnels winding their way through stone. The city’s government is unique, with each stalagmite or stalactite selecting their leader through their own particular methods – some are aristocratic, some democratic, some administer elaborate tests, some hold a series of magical duels. These leaders form a rough parliament called the Cavemoot which makes policy for the city as a whole. Hypogeum’s greatest threat comes from below, for in the deepest layers of the Sunless Realms, slumbering monstrosities are awakening: primeval monsters, perhaps created by the Librarians or other ancient species, now stirring from their torpor. Hypogeum is in desperate need of warriors, weapons, and wealth to repel this endless onslaught of horrors, help which surface cities have been reluctant to provide.

Idolum

• Secret city of shapeshifters
• Government by sortition
• Unknown long-term agenda

The legendary city of Idolum was long thought to be nothing more than a myth, a travelers’ tale, but recent expeditions and commercial ventures have confirmed its existence. Idolum is the city of doppelgangers and their kindred, a haven for shapeshifters where they need not disguise themselves to survive. The structures of the city are cunningly disguised; most believe they must be fashioned entirely of Murkstone, but the wilder stories insist they are actually gigantic mimics in the shape of buildings. Whatever the case, Idolum camouflages itself in the presence of intruders; only a select few outsiders have been given the privilege of walking its ever-changing streets. Since its citizens can assume any identity they please, Idolum has a deeply anti-hierarchical society, with decision-making carried out using sortition, political positions symbolized by certain immutable insignia. It is widely believed (but almost impossible to confirm) that Idolum has a vast spy network and may have even installed agents in powerful positions in rival countries. Its ultimate goals are unknown – and, thus, all the more unnerving to outsiders.

New Ulthar

• Cat-ruled dynastic theocracy
• Militant religious society
• Seeks a return to bygone days of imperial glory

In the city of New Ulthar it is death to kill a cat, for the cats of Ulthar are incredibly intelligent, ruling the city with rapacious wisdom.  Capable of speech, the cats are thought by some to be the result of magical experimentation – possibly the descendants of wizardly familiars. Such theories are considered heresy in New Ulthar, whose pitiless Inquisition roots out such unorthodoxy with ruthless efficiency. New Ulthar itself is a plains-city with many gardens and vineyards, as well as necropolises dedicated to previous generations of cat-rulers. A priestly class tends to the cat-princes and -princesses, with merchants, craftsmen, and slaves. Its rulers see themselves as divine scions of a fallen empire, old Ulthar, and long to restore the half-forgotten glory of their heroic past. They are supplied with slaves and other bounty partly through piracy, commanding an impressive corsair fleet known to capture ships and raid towns and villages to the north. Though relations between New Ulthar and Hex are currently fairly friendly, they have clashed in the past when New Ulthar’s ambitions conflicted with Hex’s commercial and political interests.

Penumbra

• Ghost-city with unfinished business
• Phases into existence unpredictably
• Torments its former foes until destroyed, to return again

The spectral city of Penumbra was destroyed utterly during the cataclysmic Third Patchwork War, fallen to the forces of an alliance including Hex and many other realms. Centuries past, Penumbra’s enemies razed the city to the ground and slew virtually everyone within using a mixture of magic and mundane might, leaving nothing behind but ashes and a few broken stones. Such was the totality of this hecatomb that the city itself has become an enormous, immensely powerful ghost, the souls of its former citizens trapped within it, undead and eternal. Over the ages, Penumbra has returned many times and in many different locations to continue its war of retribution against those that destroyed it. Each time it manifests, the city sends out its ghostly forces to assail its foes, sometimes reanimating corpses to form zombie battalions, or afflicting the citizens of its erstwhile destroyers with gruesome hauntings, curses, and guerilla necromancy, an ectoplasmic terrorism that ends only with its exorcism – until it returns, re-forming in the Ethereal Plane to renew its undying campaign.

Roost

• City of towers with a resurrection-based economy
• Phoenix-warden nobility command enormous wealth and power
• See Hex as a competitor whose magic might undermine their abilities

Composed of hundreds of impossibly tall spires rising above gleaming walls, the city of Roost is a site of pilgrimage, for its noble families – the tower-builders – are phoenix wardens, tending to the magnificent fire-birds within the specialized nests that give the city its name. Gigantic bird-feeders and eyries, the nests are each created and maintained for a particular phoenix, one who visits the lucky noble house over the course of its remarkable life cycle, in which the bird bursts into flame and then is reborn from the ashes. The nobles collect the ashes, which they use as reagents in elixirs capable of returning the dead to life. Because phoenixes live for several centuries before combusting, their ashes are incredibly rare, allowing their noble wardens to charge enormous fees for their alchemical wares. The rest of Roost flourishes around these towers, with much of its population directly employed by the nobility as servants, guards, alchemists, assassins, or thieves. The nobles live in terror that arcane innovators in Hex or elsewhere will some day find a more cost-effective means of resurrection, fatally undercutting Roost’s economic system.

Teratopolis

• Magic-scarred republic
• Monster-breeders
• Motivated by a desire for retribution against Hex and a return to prosperity

Teratopolis was once a thriving port city, until during an arcane war with Hex (the War of Miscreation) the city’s drinking water was poisoned with alchemical substances that permanently warped the populace, transforming them into ravenous monsters. Most of the citizenry devoured one another in days, but a few managed to retain their sanity and survived. They rebuilt the city, taking in outcasts, rogues, pirates, parasites, and other pariahs, making themselves a haven for the deformed and unwelcome. They herded those former kindred rendered insensible and beast-like into great pens and pits, selectively breeding these creatures into beasts of burden and war. Though two hundred years have passed since the War of Miscreation, Teratopolis still nurses a grudge against Hex, and spies from the rival city are constantly striving to undermine the interests of the City of Secrets, disguised using potions and magical rings or garments to obscure their monstrous forms.

Tetractys

• Magocratic city of exiled wizards
• Innovative theories of spellcraft competitive with Hexian lore
• Resent Hex and long to return to their home of old

Hex’s greatest rival in scholarship and eldritch learning is Tetractys, the City of Mysteries, which was founded by wizards from Hex who were exiled for magical misdeeds. These disgraced scholars created Tetractys for the express purpose of besting Hex in matters arcane, taking with them many magical artefacts, books, and other items stolen from their erstwhile home. Though lacking access to the Old City and its lore, the wizards of Tetractys discovered another source of knowledge: the Sortilege Engine, a machine of tremendous power designed and built by Jagged Sullengrove, which is able to formulate new spells and perform complex arcane calculations. Using the Engine, the wizards of Tetractys have devised all manner of revolutionary new arcana, contesting the sorcerous supremacy of Hex, and insisting with haughty certainty that their modern knowledge surpasses the ancient lore of Hex’s institutions. Despite such boasts, many believe that the wizards of Tetractys would like to seize Hex to combine its magical knowledge with their own, and the two city states have fought several minor wars over the centuries, each marshalling the best of its magical prowess to outdo the other.

Verdigris

• Junkyard city of primeval machines ruled by scavengers
• Sophisticated technological prowess
• Crazed automaton Chrono-Pope urges robot crusades

A city of rust and ancient machines, Verdigris is a huge junkyard, a scrapland ruled by Scavenger Barons who comb through the corroded remnants left behind by the Morrow – the vast empire which ruled the world during the Amniotic Age, after the Librarians fled or died out. The city has a parasitic economy based around salvage: relics gleaned from the sputtering, dilapidated depths of the city are sold to trading partners in exchange for food, clothing, and other goods. The Barons have used some of this bygone technology in wars with their less commercially amenable neighbours to terrible effect, leaving whole towns smouldering craters, armies displaced in time, and fortresses transformed into unrecognizable forms. Verdigris has often been Hex’s ally, but tensions have recently been mounting as the Chrono-Pope of Verdigris has protested Hex’s use of automata, deeming it exploitation and slavery.

Welkin

• Shattered remnants of a broken cloud kingdom
• Feudal monarchy obsessed with chivalric quests
• Paranoid court wizard believes Hex caused its islands to fall

Once, the mighty state of Welkin ruled the skies, a series of floating islands which drifted above the lands it ruled, threatening those below with utter destruction from above should they ever shirk their feudal dues. Individual flying keeps roamed the clouds, and the Sky Knights of Welkin – wyrm-riders of the highest calibre – were a force to behold. Now, Welkin is a dying kingdom. Over the ages its islands’ magic depleted, the eldritch crystal suspending the flying archipelago in the sky waning and eventually giving way. Some islands toppled and fell, with cataclysmic results, killing hundreds or thousands; others settled slowly, and a few limp on, sluggishly clinging to the sky, their sorrowful descent the subject of melancholic odes. With the destruction of its floating fortresses came a corresponding decline in Welkin’s power, its many landbound vassals rebelling, till now all that remains is little more than the city itself, an archaic monument to a bygone age of chivalry. Its Sky Knights linger, the ancient families still breeding wyrms, but even these are growing fewer, many retreating into a torpor and refusing to mate. Welkin’s king, the young Cadwallon IV, is advised by a powerful archmage, a cambion known as Ambrosius Wilt, who insists that Hex was responsible for depleting the sky-stones that made the kingdom fly.