Blood for Mother Mountain (Hex actions and schizo brainstorming)

Movement Crunch

First section of the hexcrawl, right before the Break. Besides a small number of modules and predetermined landmarks, most hexes will probably be randomly determined with different goodies inside them.

Travel in general: Most likely based on chunks of 2 hours. 12 chunks/day, with each hex action taking up a chunk. An easily traversed hex will take 1 chunk. Difficult hexes may take more time. 

Things that will probably be used for time chunks:

• Entering Hexes
• Rest (sleep specifically), unsure if short rests will be used with this
• Finding food/foraging/hunting
• Scouting
• Raising morale
• Miscellaneous events

Import GLOG rules for dungeon crawling and adapt them for hexcrawling? (may mean that "chunks" take up more than 2 hours. Unsure exactly how to adapt speed of travel and care of travel. More speed = less detail/high chance of getting lost/more encounters? Or maybe high speed crawls are simply not going to be the option unless the party is running away from something.

• 1 chunk: going through a hex slowly
• 1 chunk: Searching an entire hex

Something approximate to this is definitely possible, but I'll need to spend more time thinking about it.

Standard practice uses this idea of 3 movement points/day with the unused ones rolling over to the next day. Converting movement points to time chunks might look like: 3 movement points = max 15-18 miles covered. 2.5 or 2 miles per hour walking at a careful place in decent terrain? 

At a pace of avg 2.5 mph you can cover 20 miles in a day over 8 hours. Assuming each chunk = 2 hours = 1 movement point/5 miles over a hex. 12 points/day? 4 points to sleep without risking exhaustion, 2 to make camp? assumption of taking time to eat, also 2?

This is getting ridiculous. Time to condense this shit.

Assumptions:

• taking time to prepare for sleep and sleep everyday to avoid exhaustion
• taking time to eat and rest in intervals
• party is going at a relatively slow pace as to not be caught off guard or completely exhaust themselves if action is needed. This is NOT an exhaustive search of the hex

A Hex action lasts around 2 hours. Under the above assumptions, the party will have 6 Hex actions every day.

• Traversing Decent terrain Hex: 1 Hex action
• Traversing Rough terrain Hex: 3 Hex actions
• Traversing Perilous terrain Hex: 6 Hex actions
• Searching a terrain Hex costs the same number of Hex actions that you spent to traverse it.
• Food finding: 1 Hex Action. Roll for number of rations gathered based on size of party and skills; alternatively determine "satiation"
• Scouting: 1 Hex Action. Something like finding a good place to get an idea of the surrounding Hexes (or maybe more)
• Events, combat, quests will all be tracked based on Hex action costs

If you're really desperate, I suppose you could forgo eating and sleeping and sprint through hexes. But we'll construct that bridge when we get to it.

Getting Lost will be rolled for at the start of every day. Unless certain markers can be used to triangulate position, roll on table. (Using the table from this vid)

Decent terrain                                  Rough                                 Perilous

1-clockwise 60 degrees ------------------------------------------------------->

2-counterclockwise 60 degrees------------------------------------------------>

3-on track                                         cw 120------------------------------->

4-on track                                         ccw 120------------------------------>

5-on track                                         on track                                180

6-on track                                         on track                                lose day

Encounters may also be rolled on a daily basis. Though they are currently equally as likely to be predetermined and/or based on local hexes exclusively.

The only problem is that in this game the hex map will already be formatted and given to the player (just without any major details). So, is there any point to getting lost? Probably not, so instead of getting lost I'm going to use obstacles instead. The goal here is to allow PCs three general options for dealing with the obstacle: go around, go through, or wait. 

60 degrees: 

• a toll 
• small river with no bridge 
• small enemy scouting party ahead
• large tree fallen onto the road
• small clay deposit which would ground the boat
• massive herd of deer blocking the path
• wizard duel (students or hedge mages casting lame spells and scuffling in the mud)

120 degrees: 

• rapids or a deep, deep river
• ogre gathering of about 20
• lake valley that only is traversable during high tide; thick mud otherwise
• heavy-ish fog; randomly determine which forward hex PCs come out of
• small waterfall
• cliff face with footholds
• village overrun by undead or a raid
• massive herd of bison blocking the path
• Big thing eating something ahead
• active skirmish
• wizard duel (also lame but this time they know one or two actual spells and usually have an entourage)
• Heavily armored paladin who is clearly seeking someone out

180 degrees:

• sheer cliff drop or ravine for miles
• Infested water
• thick fog: randomly determine which hex PCs come out of (any)
• Orc warband on the march
• hunting grounds of a Ridiculously Large Predator
• In the way of troops being routed
• Riot
• Getting a bit too close to the territory of a hostile faction
• wizard duel (same thing but one or more has undergone spell psychosis)
• paladin squadron preparing for an inquisition (not actively dangerous yet but they will be soon)
• Place where dragons/any other RLP come to seasonally mate or something

Lose Day: 

• Combine options to make pushing onwards suicidal
• active warzone
• Irradiated wasteland
• psychotic trans metallic ascendent ahead
• Active inquisition; stumbling into them means you have seen too much

BRAINSTORMING:

Abomination list based on the slush piles of goblinpunch and the two pass method from guccifuligincloak. Basic idea is to shotgun write a bunch of images within 5 minutes and then go over them again and shotgun down the first image you image related to the first word. After that you can revise and extrapolate.

Neolithic Tribes:

cave paint//moving tattoos

bison//wolf skins

sabretooth//hanging bodies

mammoth//war

terror bird//tall grass

spear

stone

clay forms//funeral urns

paint//orcs -> uruk hai

furs//rugs

trees//holes

pines//fire -> wildfire

tracking//footprints

dung//chimpanzees

bears//hibernation

neanderthals//extinction or prions

throwing weapons//axes

sling//executions

dragon//god

chalk//rituals -> mathematics

body paint//kill count

snow//the thing

glaciers//giants

fire//shadows -> dancing shadows

hunger//bugs

mushrooms//hannibal mushroom farm

hunts//sweat

bone//weapon

berserkers//pits

raids//mudwalkers

waterfalls//sailing -> sailing down a waterfall

rivers//snipers

blood//bathtub

trepanation//corpus callosum -> homunculus

cave holes//wind -> flutes

remorhaz//black ice

frost giants//fog

wind//singing

buried in ice//teeth

climbing walls//shattered bodies

aurora borealis//skinner -> flayed

spirit animal//ursine -> possession

totem//mask

herding//goats

mongols//bowmen

skulls//cancer

stalactites//predators

salt caves//preservation

squeezes//giggling

occultum//color out of space

screaming//blood trail

ghosts

bogeymen//spiders

arrows//6ix9ine

whirlpool//mouth

waterfall//meditation

cliff//attestupa

shadow//cheshire

sky//clouds -> nimbus clouds you can rappel on

reed people//darts

kapeks//monoke

ghouls//climbing walls

megaliths//gears

stairs

eagles//Roc

Forest

Glaciers

Loch

Hills and Tundra

Direct from the Slush:

• Ironic shibboleth 
• Kidney stone weapon (take that kidney and use it like a sock full of quarters)
• marinel or goblin variations of nikali tribes? 
• Hunger learning
• Vampire disease refugees living underground? 
• Hands free nut shamans 
• Hunting taboos, death and burial rituals, painting, manhood rituals of danger, buried, flogged, informed they would be eaten by a beast 
• Brahman ritualistic speech impotence; enlightenment exists where words fail
• Eye focus vision range’ chicken pecking 
• Auditory goal focus in veins Barbarians that wear blinders all the time except when their attack? Cross eyed? Blinking resets perception of time
• Antonia invasion into waking; alien abductions are sleep paralysis demons; sleep paralysis demons are alf aedal? 
• Antonia drink for far range kidnapping? 
• Lack of rem sleep: catastrophic thinking and schizophrenia 
• Lack of SW sleep: bad motor learning and recovery 
• Racist carrot 
• Stealing meaning/associations 
• Myopic barbarian tribes/women with masculinized brains’ prenatal hormone soup
• Lucid dreaming mask: light crystal that is used as a dream anchor 
• Non sleep deep rest skill learning, cultural ability
• Civilization with circadian staggering. The people of night are VERY different from the people of day but those two specific cultures are symbiotic 
• Children remain awake at night, they take care of the youngest along with the eldest
• Ursine spiritwalkers 
• Knife pierced down the middle of the head, severs the corpus callosum and pineal gland, wizard vision? See invisibility?
• Co2 lake height based death
• Slaad 
• Leaving potential members of your groups with people that will torture them so that you can foster hatred
• Rainforest maize sacrifice god, fertility and blood 
• Conquered war god that is now a god of tobacco, vice, multiplicity, he exists in a thousand bodies and regularly interacts with the people of his land. Drunk since before you were born and will still be hammered when you die. Incredibly wise and powerful to an extent, but a bit of a liar and should not be taken at face value. Grandpa after a few too many drinks after midnight.
• A powerful wizard cursed with memory loss
• Naked mole rat people 
• Gender swap fish people
• Bloodskull cult tribe
• Giant sentient bug (MIB) Human Disguises
• A society where everything is settled in bets 
• Society where influence is based on pure strength/number of people you’ve slept with 
• The living goddess: occupied prepubescent girls. Significant bleeding causes the goddess to vacate the body and reincarnate. 
• A man who everything he touches turns to sand? Drilling your own head to see homunculi? To activate your sixth sense?
• Strong man who asks you to kill him because he suffers from a disease, never gets better, and yet cannot die
• A series of hills which is actually just a massive coiled snake
• Bugs with bird wings 
• Birds with bug wings Feathers are replaced with bug wings 
• Giant flying manta rays that suck you up and chew you to death
• Pod people
• FOODS: Giant centipede eggs, Parasites that live on the Mantelwray, Mealworms
• Your lifespan as currency 
• The body and head broken into a hundred bloody pieces. When they are pieced together, the person begins speaking again
• People made of worm colonies
• Fat fold “shell” to suck yourself into for warmth
• Foot binding/bone binding
• If you can hear it, it can see you. RUN
• A king is putting together his dead daughter like a frankenstein
• Help a dragon attract a mate
• Cavern/bunker in which an old insane soldier has been living for years, eating people and simulating a family
• Talking shrimp
• Bee hive filling out the skull
• Souls of ancestors stored in a dead tree husk
• Mercenaries that are willing to be paid a shitload of money to take a shitload of drugs and help your soul fight off your Death when you die

Welcome to the Broken Coast

Dark Gods of Rock and Stone

When travelers first arrive along the clouded Eastern shores of the Broken Coast and look westward towards the Revanwall, most are impressed by what they see. 

An enormous palisade of sheer rock jutting out from the earth, stretching up thousands of feet into the sky and reaching out for miles across the horizon. If you could look closely, you might be able to see the sides of the giant barricade littered with tiny cave openings; great earthen maws that look like small termite holes from such a distance. Many believe they are looking at the mountain. The unlucky ones move on before they realize their error.

At night, the cloud cover breaks open and the occasional newcomer, sleepless from their long voyage, will gaze up at the Revanwall and see, bathed in moonlight, the shadow of the true mountain towering over the thousand foot cliffs and ringed by Nimbus cities, nearly blotting out all light in the lowlands. Many find living here unnerving, as if the shadows cast under the Mountain could stroke the soft skin on the back of your neck while you sleep.

They are right; there is nothing the Mountain wants more than to drink your blood. 

Revaydra is quite possibly the largest mountain on the planet. While most mountain ranges are composed of multiple mountains, the Revanwall is simply composed of one looming, jagged, figure. 

War feeds the mountain. During the Age of Heresy, her gluttonous stone swelled up from below the crust and overflowed the pungent Nightmare upon the waking world; choking liquid shadow upon the Break, lidless pale beasts in the woods. Countless were eaten by their own dreams.

Nothic scholars tend to avoid the Broken Coast. The more they've studied their own mountains, the more superstitious; too many angry earth elementals nearby for their taste. Revaydra is bad enough even when she keeps to herself, not to mention the tribes who descend the Break to wage war in her name. Gloxagon is a whole different problem. A letter to the Nothic division of Geo-occult studies from renowned scholar Aimil Grollson reads thus:

"It is with no shame that I must decline this offer of study. There is no grant in existence that would convince me to travel to the Gloxatic faultline and I am, frankly, fucking insulted by this obvious attempt at assassination. I would advise the projects committee to choose another for this prestigious award, perhaps one of those oh so useful ethnographical students from the division of cultural studies would be more appropriate."

Brynthians

Vegetarian lawyers and warriors from the nation of Brynth. Arnold's writing about them should give you a pretty good sense of their culture.

The Lassican empire, predecessor to Brynth, used to rule these lands. Time has not been kind to them. The Lassicans who survived the Age of Heresy were either colonized by their Brynthic descendents, turned to the pagan ways of the natives, or shelled themselves off in their ancient fortresses.

Their greatest creations are still in use: the Panoptical Cities. Near-megalithic prison colonies heaving with parapets and iron bars. Brynth prides itself in how well they have maintained this particular cultural heritage.

Vaslorians

Cousins to Brynth, the two nations have nonetheless come into conflict over their cultural and political differences.

Brynth despises priests and kings. Vasloria is congested with both. Imagine a Camelotoid fantasy kingdom. Now mix that with the Holy Roman Empire with it's messy tangle of noble families and minor kings. THEN add in a dash of Edo period Shogunate culture. This is how you make the bones of Vaslorian politics and culture.

Occasionally, noble families have sailed across the Sea of Kaskala to the Broken Coast. There they find land ripe for the taking, as well as settlements left over by the Lassicans who came and crumbled before them. Though it pesters the Brynthians, it is enormously difficult to remove a Vaslorian noble family once they have an understanding of the local land. Analogies of city sized parasites are not uncommon.

The Break

This is where the Revanwall gets its name from. For as long as anyone can remember, a few dozen miles inland the surface of the Broken Coast suddenly and sharply elevates as if the entire region was punched up from the earth by a gigantic hammer. 

The Break curves around the Broken Coast and peters off just as it curves towards the Langan Peninsula, forming the gigantic shelf upon which the colossal Mountain sits on.

The Break is, on a massive geological scale, extremely smooth. There are only a few jagged outcrops; most of the massive cliff edge is textured with noticeable vertical striations (in addition to horizontal strata along the cliff's edge).

It is also extremely tall. Over 3000 feet tall on average, but most likely not much more than that. The Burj Khalifa is about 2700 feet tall for reference (also around 300 feet over two NYC world trade center towers stacked on top of each other). From the Break you can see all the way past the Broken Coast to the Halcyon Sea. Some even claim that the lands beyond are visible.

It is perilously difficult to ascend or descend The Break. Occasional megalithic structures are suspected to assist in this purpose, but no one is sure of their exact function or if they will ever be reusable. 

One could also traverse the spidering network of cave systems buried within The Break, which has resulted in an extremely high rate of disappearances over these expeditions.

Other options include rappelling/climbing up the Break, a suicidal feat which is rumored to have been accomplished but difficult to verify, and using giant cyclopean steps carved into the cliff face. Neither are considered very safe options, and certainly both are quite inefficient.

It is rumored that there have been other ways to go through the Break. While true, none are considered terribly useful for the purposes of moving large numbers of people, particularly colonists or armies.

Anvils of Ice

Glaciers ring the Mountain upon the Break. There are forests and lands that are possibly suitable for agricultural living, but the vast majority of this place is a harsh tundra of snowbleeched desert. 

The only people living here are the native Xan'dun Nikali tribes. They are the children of the Mountain. 

Mother Mountain gives and takes life. She nurtures you and your children in her belly, away from the freezing winds and icy rocks. She provides glory, secrets, and enlightenment. But like any mother, she expects great things from her children.

Hunger made the tribes strong. Made them clever and brutal. Ruthless enough to survive the snow but not so much that they lost their social circles. The first children learned from Mother Mountain, learned not to die. In turn, the Mountain hungered for blood that no longer dripped into her maw. She learned to speak to tribes; like the first children, hunger made her clever.

Mother Mountain provides well for her children, but only enough to make sure you are hungry. The tribes consider this a blessing; a reminder of the sharpest state of human experience. As they say, "You cannot know your enemy unless you are forced to eat him". Lowlanders usually have a hard time understanding this idiom, but when they've run out of food and fire and savagely attack one another for their warmth and supplies, suddenly they begin to get the gist of it.

To live near the edge of death, near the edge of Nightmare, reminds the Xan'dun of what it means to be alive. The lowlanders are soft and gluttonous. While Mother Mountain cannot stretch her hands to crush them and devour their quivering bodies, her children have strong limbs and hungry gullets. 

Satiation of hunger always comes at a blood price. This is always true, no matter the form. Your uncle died during the hunt, but now the tribe may eat. Your grandfather died from the frost, but his body may feed Mother Mountain. Your sons died in the caves and dungeons of Mother Mountain, but you have learned how the Beast hunts and thinks. Next time, it is your hunger which will be satiated.

Your history is written in blood. Food, for both the mind and body, is priceless because it carries with it the memories of the ones we have lost. Outsiders, ESPECIALLY lowlanders, have not paid their blood price. The lowlanders want what you have and they want what you know. They do not care about Mother Mountain. They do not care about the enlightenment of hunger. They do not care to sacrifice their own children and are happy to let you and your loved ones die for their satiation.

Fuck them. They do not deserve our food, our light, our stories. Let it be known: the lowlanders WILL pay their fair share of blood. One way or another.

DM note for players: This last section was mostly to give an impression of how most of the tribes think, generally speaking. Do not let it completely dictate how you interact with lowlanders and other NPCs. After all, they may come to understand the philosophy of the Mountain, or perhaps your PCs will have grown a soft spot for their silly beliefs.

Metagame Structure and the Lethality Buffer

Metagame:

The overall structure of this game can be divided into four basic blocks:

1. Revaydra -> The Break

2. The Break -> The City of Chaîneaux

3. The Bathhouse

4. Deep Carbon Observatory

While, hypothetically, you could just ignore everything I mention in the game I think you will all realize that every plot hook I explicitly nudge towards you is something I would like you to explore.

The two major stories that you will definitely encounter are Boswitch Bathhouse (from Goblinpunch) and the follow-up: Deep Carbon Observatory (by Patrick from Falsemachine). (other modules are littered throughout the first two sections, but are technically optional).

Deep Carbon Observatory is a decently (or maybe highly) challenging adventure, and has a very good chance of being incredibly lethal in a number of different ways.

Because of this, I want you all to know how the first two parts of this hexcrawl are meant to facilitate the second two. 

Collecting resources (weapons, items, tools, money) is all very useful, but another resource you will be able to collect during your first two adventures is people. Recruits, those who are grateful, and really anyone you think might be plucky enough for adventure. Not only do these hirelings/NPCs likely have small skills or uses that might be useful for the bathhouse (translation skills, lockpicking), they are also a lethality buffer.

Yes. I expect some people do die; with hirelings, you may have more meat to grind before you get down to the PCs that you actually are piloting, or more replacements for your PCs if your originals end up biting the bullet.

In any case, even if they are a lethality buffer, I am sure you will become frustrated and desperate when the useful and/or NPCs you like begin to die off, so the lethality should still have some teeth.

Rules used for followers will be from the "hirelings" section of GLOG (found in Lair of the Lamb PDF). They will also be listed here for expedience:

• Cost: followers will (usually) expect some form of compensation, though this will depend on the nature of the follower. Normal henchmen cost 5s/day (or 1/2 share of loot), mercenaries cost 50s/day (or 1 share of loot). For these, cost is whichever is higher. 
• Henchmen will not take risks or fight for you but they do have 10 inventory slots and will gladly hold stuff. Mercenaries are the same but they will take fair risks and engage in combat. 
• Hirelings that fight will instead give their adjacent PC "master" a flat bonus to attack and damage. lvl 1 fighter: +2/+2, non fighter lvl 1 or 0: +1/+1. May increase with level. Hirelings may also have special skills to use.
• Further hirelings attacking beyond the first only increase attack by +1 (always use most powerful hireling to calculate bonus).
• If you would take lethal damage, base 50% chance that a hireling will die in your place. (changes based on loyalty, high leveled hirelings may have more "lives")
• Default loyalty (or morale) is 5. Good things can kick it up by 1 or 2 points. Bad things can kick it down by 1, 1d4, or 1d6 points. Certain followers may be easier to keep loyal (think someone who idolizes you as a hero). 
• Loyalty checks are required whenever you ask a hireling to do something dangerous outside their job description and may also be required to save you from death. Whether or not they do it, asking a hireling to do something of this nature automatically drops their loyalty by 1.
• At 0 loyalty, they will attempt to flee at the earliest opportunity

In any case, while you will all have more opportunities to collect followers. Every PC starts off with (probably) 2 lvl 1 barbarians from your tribe. +1/+1, extra sturdy and can take two lethal hits potentially. Basically no cost. You'll need to take care of them, but they didn't come along with you because of a paycheck. Probably extra loyal; they are family, after all.

Large enough groups will use pieces of "settlement" rules (mono barbarian campaign) and rules from large groups of peasants (all peasant campaign).

Most hirelings will be basic carriers or mercenaries (or unique NPCs), but other types of hirelings can be gained such as blacksmiths, tanners, priests, carpenters, etc... The AD&D DMG for example has a list of hireling categories but the point is that hiring people of different functions besides combat and carrying treasure is an option.

The Ticking Clock:

The time pressure built into the game (~30 days) is interesting and fun in concept but I have no earthly clue how long it would take for you guys to actually navigate the hexcrawl once you start. 

I don’t particularly want you guys to just skip past everything on the way to the bath house; the more the PCs explore and engage with adventures along the way, the happier I am (and the more interesting this will all be).

The “advantage” of a time limit would be that the PCs are forced to really consider how much time they spend on each adventure, interacting with NPCs, and gathering resources. No time pressure would encourage boring behaviors. 

Additionally, while I would appreciate consideration of how character’s think and would act, the most important variable is what the players wish to do. If you go into a dungeon because you think it will be fun, then we can easily integrate that into character psychology or motive. 

Interactivity already will be variable based on luck, clues, and whether the players even have an interest in that particular adventure; no need to put in a (ambiguously fun) time pressure or hamstring players with character specific motivations.

So, while ~30 days is the tentative time limit I have written in, the honest answer is that as long as the PCs act “as if” they have to keep a schedule, then things will probably work out. I might keep both a “rigorous” and “loose” track of time based on actual in game time spent as well as the types of decisions you make: more time saving ideas, more time saved regardless of how long it actually might take. Risk is correlated with reward; easy enough to remember.