Month: January 2021

Link to a more detailed image.

Here’s the progress so far on the city as a whole – now 75% complete, plus a few details:

The Blooming Quarter is ruled by Queen Titania, locked in an endless springtime. Colours acquire a pastel quality here – something in the softness of the light, perhaps. The weather vaccilates between the amber glow of spring sunshine and refreshing rains to keep the greenery of the Queen’s gardens forever lush. Ugliness is illegal in the Blooming Quarter, and punishable with strict fines, deportation, or death for the most serious aesthetic offenses, for though her Vernal Majesty is usually tranquil and full of grace, her temper is swift and terrible in sight of any blemish on her perfect realm, as sudden and as destructive as a spring storm; some say that despite the pleasantness of her usual demeanour, she is just as mad as her sister, Mab, but merely hides her temperament better beneath a mask of sweetness and calm.

Braidwell

The streets of Braidwell are shadowed with the looping tresses and endless curls that spill from the Plaited Tower, wherein dwells the changeling princess Persinette, favoured of Titania. Now as ageless as the other Fair Folk, Persinette was cursed by Queen Mab, one of her many vicious pranks against her sister; the poor girl’s hair began growing at an extraordinary rate, all but immobilizing her. Though no cure has been found for the curse, Titania adapted, granting her adopted daughter a home in the Plaited Tower, where vast numbers of pixies endlessly tend to her hair, combing it through the tower’s windows and out into the streets. Here, an entire district has sprung up dedicated to harvesting Persinette’s locks, transforming them into everything from wigs to rope to bowstrings to pillow-stuffing. Much of Persinette’s hair is ultimately cut in the enormous industrial salon known as the Shed, a huge factory into which her tresses are forever fed.

Dewgarden

The orchards of Dewgarden produce some of the chief exports of the Blooming Quarter – an array of enchanted fruits and vegetables, imbued with the magic of Queen Titania to ensorcel those who eat them with a variety of effects, beneficent and otherwise. Take, for example, the toothsome Speechpeach, varieties of which grant the eater knowledge of foreign tongues spoken by those whose blood was used to carefully water it, or the hearty Mule-Cabbage, which transforms the eater into a beast of burden. Within Dewgarden can also be found the Royal Menagerie, where fabulous beasts from far and wide are kept for the amusement of the Fair Folk, and the Hothouse, a gift from Oberon as a token of the friendship of Mag Mell, where certain plants found only in warmer climes can be grown.

Gumdrop Village

Perhaps the strangest district in the Blooming Quarter if not all of Gossamer, Gumdrop Village is a neighbourhood crafted entirely from candy, from the gingerbread houses with icing mortar, to the chocolate bridges spanning the canals to the pink park of the Candyfloss Forest to the quivering sublimity of the Jelly Guardian, the gigantic, child-like protector of the Village. Gumdrop Village was originally created as a retreat for Queen Titania, a kind of toy-town and place of leisure dedicated entirely to luxury and enjoyment, where her Vernal Majesty might linger with a few select maidens or youths, strolling the toffee-cobbled streets, lingering to dip a jeweled chalice into a fountain spewing honey or chocolate or cream. Peopled by living candies known as Sweetlings who rarely leave its confines, Gumdrop Village has grown since its creation, becoming not only a tourist destination but a source of considerable income for Tír na nÓg; such was the enchantment used to produce the Village that the candy used to create it forever renews itself no matter how much is eaten, resulting in a never-ending supply of confections to sate the sweet-tooths of Fair Folk throughout the four realms.

Piping

Swathed in perpetual steam, Piping is a gnomish enclave, a place of invention and refinement where Fair Folk come to eat finger sandwiches and partake of the most excellent tea, brewed in the vast Temple of Tea at thee district’s heart. Filled with cafes and teahouses such as the teetering Carafe, Piping is a marvel of engineering, more than a little mad in its crazed massings of chimneys and churning gears, but just as beautiful as the rest of the Blooming Quarter in its own peculiar way. Every building here is lacquered, gilded, or burnished; many resemble gigantic teapots themselves. Notable structures include the Fractured Palace, destroyed and rebuilt during the War of the Trees, home of the Dactyls, a legendary family of gnomes whose allegiance with Titania stretches back for centuries.

Puckville

Robin Goodfellow began his life as a humble servant of Queen Titania. Said to possess more than a drop of goblin blood, he was often shunned and mocked by his fellows at the Seelie Court. Now, however, Robin has had his revenge, for over the centuries he has slowly built himself a fortune, trading favours, acquiring properties, and growing his wealth. Now he is the richest creature in Gossamer outside of the Fairy Kings and Queens themselves, a fabulously wealthy entrepeneur. Puckville is named after him, for he built most of the district with his own funds, and still owns the majority of the buildings here, growing ever richer from the rents. The jewel of the neighbourhood is, of course, Robin’s Casino, Puck’s grand chance-house, where almost anything and everything can be wagered on games of fortune so strange and intricate only the Fair Folk and a handful of demonkind can fathom them fully. Also of note here is the Moth, an opera house and theatre, rival of the Grove in the Wilting Quarter; the two great theatres have often been known to put on duelling performances, and Puck himself has more than once graced the stage in disguise.

The Rosemaze

A defensive fortification as well as a private garden, the Rosemaze surrounds the Florid Citadel, Titania’s palace in Gossamer. Though her Vernal Majesty spends much of her time elsewhere in her realm, the Citadel is her home in the city and headquarters of the Petal Guard. The Rosemaze itself is a seemingly infinite labryinth of twisting paths; many such lead to strange an unexpected places, including to other corners of Faerie, to the Dreamlands, and even to the Feypark in the city of Hex. The entire place is maintained by the Greenskeepers, an army of labourers – mostly pixies and goblins living in the Weeds – who ensure its eternal splendour. The Queen herself can often be found pacing the branching endlessness of the Rosemaze, pondering affairs of state.

The Weeds

The beautous folk of Tír na nÓg dislike hard labour, the toil and sweat by which their exquisite realm is maintained, for such drudgery callouses the hands, wrenches the backbone, and inflicts all manner of other deformations. Yet, this toil must be done, one way or another. The solution, Queen Titania realized, was to import the labour required. Many goblins, pixies, trollbloods, and other creatures from the Unseelie Court covet lies free from the cruelty of Mab and Arawn. Such immigrants are not normally granted citizenship in Tír na nÓg, for many are too ugly, according to Seelie standards, to ever join the Vernal Realm. However, an exception is made for those willing to dwell in the Weeds, a permanent labour camp and shanty-town at the outskirts of the Blooming Quarter. Here, the Queen’s Petal Guard issue no fines for aesthetic deficiencies – provided the inhabitants show up to work on time and perform their manifold duties diligently. A rambling warren of crime and poverty, the Weeds is a black spot on the beauty of the Blooming Quarter, but a necessary one; consequently, it has been nicknamed the “Beauty Mark.” Hidden amidst the district, it is said, is the secret headquarters of the Pest, an underground goblin liberation movement dedicated to overthrowing the Fair Folk’s rule altogether and establishing an independent Goblin Commonwealth in Elfhame.

Encounter Tables from the Hex Gazetteer

By Bearded-Devil

On January 1, 2021

In Roleplaying

Work continues, slowly but surely, on the Hex Gazetteer. I thought I’d share some encounter tables for two districts, Mooncross and Suckletown – the first is a waterfront neighbourhood filled with cafes and artisan’s workshops and little bars, built around primordial monoliths that have covens of independent witches devoted to them. The latter is a rusted-out industrial district fallen into abandonment and poverty after the Elder Tree at its heart died, petrifying to become the Withered Tree. Most districts in Hex will receive similar tables, along with a table of adventure hooks, and of course the street-by-street descriptions.

Mooncross Encounters

Roll (1d20)	Encounter
1	A magically awakened mural depicts a fully functional farming village, a bucolic idyll quite at odds with the greasy metropolis surrounding it. The cheerful painted residents greet passersby with folksy idioms and local gossip.
2	The Fair Folk performers known as the Headless Troupe are doing their bizarre juggling act at a street corner. At the end of the performance, their severed heads hold out their tongues for coins. Especially generous donors may receive something in return – a Fairy secret, a glowing bauble, a tattered map to some treasure in Elfhame, or similar marvels.
3	A trash-can mimic lurks here, a tempting jeweled pocket-watch worth 100 gp atop the heap of garbage inside it as bait.
4	A tiny cult has sprung up worshipping stray cats. Dozens of saucers of milk and several hundred dead rats (both cooked and raw) have been set out in a strange shrine adorned with images of the cats in chalk, paint, and blood. The cult believe that these strays are the secret rulers of Hex, kin to the magical Cat Princes of New Ulthar. The cats do seem unusually alert. In fact, the high priest is dosing their milk with an intelligence-enhancing potion…
5	A nest of miniature raven-winged pegasi (no larger than crows) can be spotted in the eaves of a nearby building; they are delighted by oats, carrots, and shiny objects, and are frightened by waspkin.
6	A murder of jinxcrows, heads swollen with spells, cast Firebolts and Magic Missiles at a trio of cheeky seagulls attempting to feast on the spoils of a maggot-ridden cat.
7	Marion Bracewind sells fish and frogs caught in the Radula. These being Hexian animals, many are magically deformed, with extra fins, the heads of human babies, strange proboscises, tiny bat-wings, and similar mutations – the result of alchemical by-products regularly dumped in the river.
8	A side-street leads into a maze whose dimensions should be spatially impossible given the surrounding layout. Randomly generate a maze (online generators are helpful here!). The only way to exit the alleyway is to navigate the maze to its other exit – the way in appears as a blank brick wall, and climbing or flying is impossible, as the walls grow ever higher. A minotaur, Atta, lives here, but he is generally friendly and eager for the company – he cannot leave the maze, but is acquainted with many of the locals, and his lair is occasionally used by thieves as a dead drop. He cannot advise the party on an exit, as the maze changes regularly.
9	A mysterious bank of mist swallows anyone who steps into it and deposits them in Gloomway.
10	A philosophical debate over whether the true nature of the world-in-itself can be rationally deduced a priori or whether we can only ever receive phenomenological knowledge via the senses has snowballed into a full-blown brawl, with one thinker threatening to show another “the true face of the Absolute” with a broken bottle.
11	A dozen broken dolls are heaped in a grubby pile nearby. The insides of their hollow bodies bear residues of Ghostdust. An Investigation check reveals that one is still full of the stuff – the drug is worth 100 gp, and if sniffed, allows the user to peer into the Ethereal plane.
12	Psychic graffiti. Ask the players to write down or draw what their characters are thinking as they enter; this graffiti appears on the walls for all to see.
13	A spellshower has caused thousands of mouths to grow on the buildings here. Their jabbering fills the air with mindless chatter and halitosis. If one of the mouths is fed, it may temporarily speak enough sense to offer the party advice, divulge a secret of the city, or cast a minor, beneficial cantrip.
14	Two rival witches’ covens, the Frogsfeet and the Stardaughters, bicker over which coven filled out the paperwork to book a Sabbath at a nearby monolith. If no one intervenes, curses might be exchanged.
15	A stack of newspapers moulders on a street-corner. The newspapers are from two weeks’ hence, each issue prophesying some strange disaster – a flood of sentient marmalade, an invasion of trees, a raid from distant Pellucid with its evil machines, an outbreak of Wraithwaste that leaves whole districts of people permanently invisible. Are these some elaborate hoax? Artefacts left by time travelers?
16	Pulsating greyish-pink moss coats the walls of buildings and cobblestones. It is parasitic, draining spellcasters of their spell-slots beginning with the highest – one per turn unless a DC 15 Wisdom saving throw is passed. With each spell absorbed, the moss grows another foot.
17	A one-armed fairy knight, Sir Jonquil, offers his services on a street-corner, boasting that he is a stronger swordsman one-handed than any two-handed mortal. He charges an exorbitant 1000 gp per day but is indeed skilled beyond any mortal measure with a blade.
18	A gaggle of geese wander the street. Made semi-sentient from arcane runoff, they harass passersby with lewd jokes, peck at young children, terrify the elderly, and molest everyone else. Their shit is instantly everywhere. Shopkeepers will pay a small fee for the geese’s slaughter or removal.
19	Dense foliage chokes an alley off the street, alive with birdsong and the buzz of insects. Some spell-gone-wrong has turned the gap between buildings into a fetid jungle, complete with exotic birds and other animals. Venturing within may alert the two-headed tiger (as a standard tiger but with two bite attacks) that slumbers lazily within the deepest parts of the miniature rainforest.
20	A fractured mirror leans against one dingy wall of a nearby building. Anyone peering into it catches a glimpse of one possible death in their own future.

Suckletown Encounters

Roll (1d20)	Encounter
1	Two miasmentals inhabiting the bodies of members of the Beggars’ Guild have a gleeful fight with broken bottles in an alleyway, joyfully slashing at one another to experience the novelties of pain and mutilation.
2	A parade of worshippers from the Cultists’ Quarter winds ill-advisedly through Suckletown, the papier-mâché length of the Hundred-Headed God held up by two dozen cultists.
3	A broken-down clockwork automaton languishes in a puddle, its limbs rusting, its ornate mechanical brain slowly winding down; for all the world it resembles an abandoned toy discarded by a cruel and careless child. It can be repaired with a DC 15 Dexterity check using tinker’s tools, or with five castings of Mending. Its owner, Seraphina Opalfire, has been dead for some time; the automaton was sent out for alchemical reagents, but was waylaid by anti-automaton protestors and hobbled. If repaired, it becomes the servant of its saviour.
4	Amidst the ruinous husks of industry in Suckletown, a mysterious factory seems to have started up again, its windows filled with light. Sounds of machines churning echo from within. Locals look on the place with fear, claiming that those who enter do not emerge, but become recruited to work for all eternity by a shadowy figure known as the Foreman who can be glimpsed from a high window late at night. What the factory produces and where its goods are sent remains unknown.
5	Two Roofsguard, Mina Quench and Josephus Stonesky, were hired by rival gangs; they duel over a block of buildings, chasing one another from roof to roof and sending arrows flying. If one of them is assisted in defeating the other, they will give anyone who helped a cut of their profits from the job (50 gp).
6	A building has gotten so decrepit and rotten that is falling down, requiring a DC 15 Dexterity saving throw to avoid 2d6 bludgeoning damage from debris. Within the wreckage can be scavenged 1d100 gp and a Potion of Climbing, leftover from a dead thief’s cache.
7	Rogue hunting trash is rapidly gobbling up street-detritus and people into its pastiche body of wood, bones, glass shards, quivering sinews, nails, and rotting garbage. Snared amidst its variegated form is a bone amulet carved into the shape of a fish; its wearer loses the ability to speak all languages, save those of water-breathing creatures, including fish, cephalopods, crabs, and the like. Once worn it cannot be removed. save by severing the head of its wearer.
8	A sewer nymph, Greasy Georgina, has been left stranded in the street and is slowly “drowning” in the open air. Anyone brave enough to approach the putrid creature and help her back to the sewers will be rewarded with her affection and any boon she can bestow.
9	Demonic symbols drawn in blood cover the bricks of a nearby alleyway. Here and there, a brick is missing; placed in the hole is a humanoid body part such as a finger, eyeball, kidney, tooth, tongue, ear, toe, or nose. A wizard who makes a successful DC 20 Intelligence (Arcana) check can extrapolate the symbols into spell form as Conjure Lesser Demon.
10	Two members of the Beggars’ Guild, Skully and the Whistler, are intimidating a freelance pauper with knives, wooden planks, and a giant attack-rat on a leather leash.
11	A group of vagrants, street children, and other locals bet on a fight between a three-headed pit bull and a swarm of rats in the middle of the street. Among the gambled objects is the skull of a child, which sings what might be lullabies or mysterious hymns in a forgotten language.
12	The sewers have flooded this entire area, filling it with filth and murky alchemical sludge with similar effects to a spellshower. Rats who were caught in the arcane effluent are sloughing off their skins and starting to set up a symposium on the nature of eudaimonia, while a sodden newspaper saturated in the slime is rearranging its letters into what appears to be a religious tract revering a machine-god from the future instructing its followers in how it might be created.
13	A thrum addict has overdosed, spasming in and out of physical reality too rapidly to track, a flailing mass of phantasmal limbs and juddering abreal flesh. This poor wretch – Dexter Scruple – can be treated using a DC 10 Wisdom (Medicine) check or spells such as Dispel Magic or Protection from Poison. If untreated, he stumbles into the wall and materializes in a hideous spectacle of broken bones, blood, and brick-dust.
14	A grim band of twelve cutthroats bedecked with holy symbols sell phials of vampire blood and undead organs harvested from their victims. They call themselves the Garlic-Eaters and are trying to establish themselves as mercenaries and local toughs; they are led by Abra Blackblossom, an exiled Erubescent revolutionary. A phial of blood functions as a potion of Common Healing (2d4+2 hit points) and sells for only 10 gp per dose.
15	A Broken Glass Golem half-drags, half-rolls itself down the street, smashing windows to add to its body. It is not aggressive towards living creatures unless attacked and speaks with a voice like shards of glass scraping together in crudely fragmented Common, beseeching passersby for glass trinkets to add to its body. Medium construct, AC 14 HP 50 Spd 10’ Atk +6 (2 slam attacks) Dmg 1d8+4. 700 XP.
16	A band of 2d6 pallid, scarified Brickwoses led by the sewer princess Sludgepearl scavenge for food and detritus down a side-street. They will happily attack groups they outnumber, but rapidly flee if outmatched; if approached peaceably they may barter for scrap, food, and weapons.
17	Half a dozen Graveyard Girls have cornered three of the Filthy Fingers after a nasty little turf-skirmish. The Girls, triumphant, are cutting off the pinkies of the Fingers as gruesome trophies of their victory. They are led by a lieutenant of the gang, Christabel Rottenclock, whose burn-scarred face is always illuminated by a lurid grin, and who wields a serrated hand-axe with ferocity and fervour.
18	A pair of heimgeists battle for territory, the two ramshackle monstrosities scuttling back and forth and ramming one another, their zombie inhabitants scrambling over the stamping, charging knots of wild architecture.
19	An outbreak of Crownpox is spreading along this street – the Monarch’s Malady. Its sufferers all possess ornate crowns growing from their scalps, and have been seized by the delirious belief that they are kings, queens, and emperors. They loudly issue orders to all within hearing, demanding taxes, and are attempting to organize wars and marriage alliances with their neighbours to establish dynasties and borders.
20	A shrine to the Polypous Princess is evident in a carved niche. The icon in the shrine is a twisted congeries simultaneously arousing and terrifying. Sacrifices of coins, nail-trimmings, and the organs of stray animals are heaped before it. Sufficient sacrifices will Bless a supplicant for 30 minutes.

Monsters, Horror, Gaming

Month: January 2021

Building Gossamer, Part 6 – The Blooming Quarter

Encounter Tables from the Hex Gazetteer

Mooncross Encounters

Suckletown Encounters