20 keyed hexes
Settlement w/ NPCs
Dungeon A (6-room)
Dungeon B (6-room)
Dungeon C (6-room)
Dungeon D (24-room)
Dungeon E (12-room)
Bestiary 9 original monsters (3 uniques)
An encounter list with at least 1d20 entries
Hand-drawn maps
Best effort before I ran out of time below; first our Hexes.
This whole region are the foothills of mountains where a wicked god was slain; the veil between planes warped and wounded, souls trapped one place, things from beyond easily entering another. Across all this, conflict rages - the clerics of Kirianshalee driven back by invading dragon-blooded orcs. Once vassal fey-folk now rise in insurrection and simultaneously ancient horrors bottled up by the church of Kirianshalee seize their moment to break out.
A1 Living Glacier Tundra + Tundra riders - titanic rhemorhaz with accompanying dragon-orc warband, stopped to confer with the hermit of the searing geyser in the shadow of a great glacier.
B1 Screaming Sky Tundra - tundra, often flooded by the melt-water from the geyser at A1, hiver-bug scouts monitoring the tundra riders
C1 Pit of Secrets - a bottomless pit found in these foothills, watched by a spy of unknown loyalty
D1 Soulsgrasp Peaks - soaring mountains, haunted by trapped spirits - the veil between worlds is very thick here, the dead cannot leave. The stars above are wrong.
A2 Floating Islands - Fey-devourers
B2 Oasis of the Unamable Elder - Oasis within a ruined and overgrown triumphal monument, currently garrisoned by a mercenary company considering their options
C2 Great Zithkas Lair - a colossal floating nautilus, filter-feeding on stray fey and spirits from the mountains to the east
D2 Bearking Mountains - territorial awakened animals jealously guard their mountains where the veil to the feywild things
A3 Whispering Necropolis - pest-driven die-off of the forests here has revealed a long buried necropolis of aeons past, haunted by whispering incomprehensible beings
B3 Demon wastes - a yawning cavern to the hells breaches an endless cliffside that traverses this wasteland. An impenetrable fortress bars the entrance but demons and dreadful heat still escape
C3 Shrieking Mire - another damaged planar boundary, the shadowfell is close at hand in this festering mire amid mountainous forests
D3 Steepled Tower - Mountains shelter the entrance to the underground Steepled Tower of the hiver-bugs, nestled within treacherous quicksands and caverns of explosive vapors
A4 Forest of the Monolith - these forests prosper around a great monolith, free of the pests that ruined their northern neighbour. Few come here.
B4 Risen Yriska - besieged town, shrunken within its once greater precincts, siege-lines close around the ruined temple at its heart, currently dedicated to Kirianshalee
C4 Caverns of the waking dead - foothills riddled with caverns where the veil to the shadowfell thins and the dead walk.
D4 Wanderings Peaks - steep mountains marked by floating peaks
A5 Stormsheim - half-fey animal-folk, turned against Risen Yriska, deadly foes of the fey-devourers and aided by rebels of their kind. Hiverbugs stalk the chaos for prey.
B5 Reindeer Islands - siege-line of the tundra dragon-orcs, blocking Risen Yriska from these game-rich lands
C5 Floodlands - megalithic fey rings guarded by the folk of Stormsheim
D5 Tumbling plains - rich grasslands on old lava flows, often disturbed fresh lava flows or when Wandering Peaks no longer float
Settlement w/ NPCs - Stormsheim - Fey-devourer rebel (sage) - Fey-animaling leader (leader - Mercenary fixer (henchfolk) - Tundra-orc ambassador - Kirianshalee apostate (clerical)
Dungeon A (6-room) - Howdah of the Mighty World Bearer (C2)
1. Lashing Barnacles attack any passing near
2. Slick titans saddle - scaling this huge, worn item is hazardous
3. Cargo basket lid - a trial of strength to enter quietly
4. Barnacle jarring - huge amounts of preserved foods, more being prepared by mind-wiped ratfolk
5. Flying centipede stable - giant arthropods alert but recently fed, will rush to any fights that start.
6. Chameleonic resident - appears as harmless, older version of whoever enters. Stats as mindflayer, will deal generously for fresh news
Dungeon B (6-room) - Steepled Tower (D3)
1. Regenerative cell in a hive comb, filled with ichor, other cells open, with mummified siblings
2. Hiverbugs in elaborate jewellery, lounging in luxury
3. Hive comb with various prisoners, some stunned in open cells, some being reduced to nutrient goo in sealed cells
4. Room of hundreds of moults of the hiver-bug lord
5. Lean, armed hiver-bugs, daubed with sigils of ownership and devotion
6. Hiver comb with cells filled with scrolls, tablets, books and maps. Hiver-bug lord found here.
Dungeon C (12-room) - Risen Yriska Catacombs (route to Stormsheim, B4-A5)
1. Smashed shrine, effigies scattered, bones and signs of violence molder under centuries of dust. Aura of festering evil. Path in dust leads from entry to doorway along wall.
2. Bone golems guard shattered doorway, blocking way to smashed shrine, ignore those exiting
3. Grand temple, clearly rededicated to Kirianshalee, now empty bar signs of fighting
4. Gauntlet corridor of lunging undead and life-draining traps, stilled by praying to Kirianshalee as you pass
5. Prowling hiver-bugs, infiltrating to Stormsheim, through rift
6. Rebel-fey devourers skulking in a dormitory
7. Deserters from Risen Yriska rummaging in a refectory
8. Damaged tunnel section with teetering ceiling slabs
9. Crypt with chained sarcophagus, defaced divine dedications
10. Catacomb with mummified Kirianshalee faithful
11. Shrine to Kirianshall, with a trapped offering pool
12. Rain-slick staircase up to Stormsheim.
Dungeon D (24-room) - Unearthed Necropolis (A3)
1. Lair of 2 large vipers lurking in hole revealed by fallen tree, giving access to complex
2. Two huge vipers lurking, one in a chute, one in a trough with broken apparatus. A dusty dome in a side room shelters a mummified chrysalis
3. Stairs up lead to a statue of an insectoid, behind it a curtain behind that a small table and bench
4. Empty rooms, dusty, the stairs down sealed with blocks mortared with a waxy substance
5. An Ochre Jelly creeps around the perimeter of the room, it has despoiled burial niches all along the walls
6. 3 Ogres snooze in the depression of another fallen tree.
7. A chair stands beside the shallow pit in the floor.
8. Empty rooms, cleared and dusty with long age. Empty shelves might once have held burial urns.
9. A carrion crawler feasts upon a rat corpse
10 2 ratfolk with 5 giant rats are searching for the carrion crawler to kill it.
11. Empty but for multiple tracks on the floor. Memorial plaques line the walls.
12. Scrawled warnings on the walls are a trap for the wraith who lurks just off the main passage.
13. A fearsome wyvern arrow trap is hidden in a room scattered with fur bits and smashed dishes. Beneath the trap are a half dozen jars with 40,000 copper pieces
14. 2 Large monstrous scorpions skitter about these burial niche lined rooms
15. A harpsichord sits to one side, crawling with moths. Paint is daubed on the walls and teeth are scattered in a corner
16. A broken drum and the razor that slashed it are thrown in a corner. A pot sprouts fungus in the centre of a gallery of burial niches
17. A displacer beast has dug its way in.
18. 2 doppelgangers, appearing as a pair of ratfolk are tying a box to a large hook with twine
19. The walls are lined with a weapon rack and from the ceiling hangs a winch and pulley, An alcove contains a book case with nothing but scraps of dust on it.
20. Gargantuan centipede curled up on a ladder leaning against a shelf beside a tomb
21. A single large memorial plaque hides a treasure of 100 gp and 3 gems (100gp golden pearl, 500gp black pearl, 1000gp fire opal)
22. A quartet of dusty insectoids pull themselves free of cells in the wall.
23. Scattered before the burial niches are aottle, an illegible scroll and bits of fur
24. A proud Kobold Sorcerer has concealed their treasure (potion of delay poison, scrolls with See Invisibility, Bulls Strength and Flaming Sphere)
Dungeon E (6-room) - Great Lock of the Impenetrable Fortress (B3)
1. Rotating Key-shaft
2. Exposed infernal crystals
3. Ichorous lubricators
4. Great Key - imp roost
5. Keyhole - observation site, to spy on the doings within
6. Ruptured faceplate - scrabbling claws of a thing trying to snatch spies
Bestiary
1. Long Watch - vampire elves of kirianshallee -
2. Brute Thralls - ogre skeletons w/ bone weapons
3. Claws of the Steepled Tower - hiver-bugs from the underdark
4. Flying giant centipede
5. Tundra-riders - orc-dragonblood lancers
6. Ratfolk
7. Elder hiver-bug - vampire to insectoids; carapace cruncher, pheromonically seductive
8. Long Watch Warden
9. Fey-eater - from before planar clarification; ultimate chameleon by becoming whatever they touch
Encounter list
1. Long Watchman with mercenary squad
2. Tundra-orc patrol - sweeping for ratfolk, Long Watch
3. Ratfolk militia
4. Escaped imps
5. Undead warbeast
6. Arisen dead
7. Shattered mercenaries
8. Swooping drifters
9. Fey
10. Hiver-bug snatch squad
11. Hiver-bug sappers
12. Foragers - tundra orcs & goblins seeking food, not a fight
13. Disorienting Terrain
14. Poisonous Mist
15. Territorial jungle beast
16. Hazardous ruins
17. Ratfolk settlement
18. Caravan of plunder
19. Mysterious loner
20. Roll d10 twice - fighting
Hand-drawn maps - art skills insufficient, Hex Kit to the rescue.
Design notes
Things I learned about myself - I get no joy from creating new monsters, stock monsters with setting appropriate tweaks is good-enough from my point of view.
Prompts I rolled up are below - note the quantity mis-match because I mis-read the instructions...
Dungeon A (6-room) - Cult stuff/horrors from Beyond again
Dungeon B (6-room) - Vampires/plague
Dungeon C (12-room) - Slasher flick/attrition
Dungeon D (24-room) - Cursed doll/who made this thing?
This has ended up as the rough sketch I could take to table - I have run out of time and the month has ended, so here we go.
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