Bad Evangelists, a magic item, a Hex/Hex layout

There are three parts to this post as I continue to work through my hex-y 5e thing. 1 is a how I'm doing hex keying. Thoughts very much welcome. The second is an item, which is how I'm seeing a lot of smaller, random magic items work out (in my head, at this point). The last is more on the Evangelists of Torment.

A LOCATION/HEX LAYOUTS
The general format is intended to leave space on the left for notes or to refer to other locations (a la Carcosa) and the space on the left delineates when something is available. Entries in the same row, separated by a semi colon are usually something more specific or a different visual "beat" in the description. The options thus far for the conditional/right hand column are:

always   is whatever is evidently here when you're just passing through

careful   is stuff happens when the players spend time carefully poking around

time       is stuff that happens only at a certain time (first time here, night, day being the three                      I've used thus far)

DC X     being a gate behind which things are put. Rolled stat/skill is determined by context.


Here is an actual example:

005	former farm house, mostly just its stone walls and floor and rotten ceiling boards and walls; the grass thins and reaches the knees rather than shoulder in large rectangular spaces around the house	always
	child’s voice singing backwards under the flagstones	at night
	the flagstones don’t sit quite evenly (under is the dolorous poppet)	DC 15

AN ITEM
the dolorous poppet. a child’s doll stuffed with soft blond hair and little teeth. an arcane focus granting advantage 1/session on any check relating to infernals or deep places or far places.

EVANGELISTS
I posted the Evangelist of Torment 5e stat block at the bottom of this post. Something in between dragon and deity. I think I need to up their CR a bit and maybe give them a recharge power. Part of the below is for figuring out who is around when you com calling the first time and part of this is for clerics.

THE NAMES OF THE EVANGELISTS

roll d6+1 to determine the number of Evangelists

roll d10s that number of times to determine which Evangelists. Multiple rolls indicate a greater presence.

roll d6 to determine which nest is where. if there is increased presence, they are currently in residence at more than one nest/palace (roll again).

/1/	Mag
as a bird	a snub, jagged beak, slightly erratic from parasites in its inner ear that occasionally peek out and tries to tell it what to do.
as a humanoid	an old woman of crooked aspect and prodigious hair under which she hides her clawed feet. Often talks to her parasites
desires	the fingers of painters or doctors, the beak of Lugh to wear over its own
hates	Kutkh, anyone asking too many questions, anyone disturbing its near-constant naps
/2/	Indra
as a bird	its body crackles with bolts of energy, like storms beneath its feathers
as a humanoid	drunk, occasionally gripped by paralytic spasms, winged, bloody-mouthed
desires	to drink, to fight until no one sober is left living and everyone living is dying of drink
hates	Mag, Lugh, Huginn, the sun, seriousness, questions
/3/	Na’Satja
as a bird	vicious, scabby-eyed, beak split down the middle, opens as normal or along split
as a humanoid	one head bearing two faces that speak simultaneously (only one is audible at a time, the other speaks thoughts. Na’Satja has no thoughts other than when it speaks)
desires	the tongues of lawyers and bureaucrats, the brains of scientists and philosophers, the moon hiding behind our moon
hates	books, maps, paintings and other records, science, philosophy, civilization, Indra
/4/	Naunghaithya
as a bird	all 343 of its eyes have been bound or pierced or spiked with an inscribed silver pin
as a humanoid	arthritic, swollen hands and knees, blind-looking eyes (that see just fine)
desires	the wealth of kings and merchants, the simplicity of beggars
hates	everyone and thing
/5/	Verethreghana
as a bird	three-headed, razor-sharp feathers slice whatever they touch, leaving cuneiform behind
as a humanoid	monstrously proportioned sex organs, pregnant, decked in an infinity of weapons
desires	endless destruction, endless birth
hates	Lugh, celibates, opposition
/6/	Sauru
as a bird	emaciated, its claws are black, wrought iron
as a humanoid	robed in feathers growing from it, magisterial, crowned in human bone, scepter is a smooth, slim arm
desires	everything is to be taxed (breath, dreams, thoughts, battles, births, deaths, names)
hates	justice, kindness to the poor, order, safety, comfort
/7/	Huginn
as a bird	leaves ink stains where it rests, appears as one bird or several or your mother or a king
as a humanoid	wears a crimson silk blindfold, ink-stained fingers, trails catalog cards and charts, writes using a brush of eyelashes
desires	the cessation of time until it has caught up
hates	time, fiction, imagination, sleep
/8/	Lugh
as a bird	flaming with negative light, clattering with bones
as a humanoid	gigantic, wreathed in a halo of black flame, armed with a spear and a clawed right hand, wears bodies from hooks around its waist like scalps
desires	order, power, the humiliation of others, empire
hates	weakness, Sauru, opposition
/9/	Kutkh
as a bird	body laced with torcs and it’s wings tingle from chimes of bronze and steel
as a humanoid	wind-burned, rugged, moustachioed or bearded or wild-haired, always with a black horse and a white horse and sword that always drips blood, usually at the head of a multitude
desires	conquest, the spread of its seed regardless of the subjects willingness or capacity
hates	everything not of its host
/10/	It Shits In the Water
as a bird	as any other, also appears as a black monkey or grinning, pregnant dog
as a humanoid	usually a young man or woman with a bulging sack or pack, always grinning
desires	to finish telling the joke that ends the world, to make the world again
hates	serious things like anything that isn’t strictly animal, including civilization, language, and the other Evangelists

attributions: Lucas/Richard Windsor, Wilfried Satty

you are in a field of tall green grass

So, I've been working on a big hex thing. BIG! But whatever I eventually share will be much smaller. Because of things.

Here is part of the details of a starting area (note: 5e based)

starting area:
“you are in a field of green grass that reaches to the shoulders”

"The ground is uneven, rich, black, lumpy but soft, full of holes and strange rises. It writhes with an overabundance of life, especially with annelids and myriapoda.

when running, the ground should be treated as a falling hazard,  requiring a DC 20 DEX Save to avoid being knocked prone.

horses and similar destriers may break a leg when they fail this Save.

when rolling a 1 on this Save, the character falls below into a roiling horror of enormous biting myriapoda and venom and blind hunger and madness. -3 SAN/round. The characters below 100 hp are automatically reduced to unconsciousness. Other characters take 104 (10d20) piercing and poison damage (divide evenly, if it’s important) and dies per the rules."

"EVANGELIST OF TORMENT

huge devil, lawful evil

_________________________________________

AC 16 (Natural Armor)

HP 119 (16d12+16)

Spd 40’/60’(fly)

_________________________________________

STR DEX CON INT WIS CHA

18(+4) 18(+4) 12(+1) 20(+5) 22(+6) 18(+4)

_________________________________________

Skills Perception+4, Deception+4, Persuasion+7

Senses truesight 60’, darkvision 120’,

pass per 20

Languages Deep Speech, Infernal, Common

Magic Res. spells affect with disadvantage

Immunities immune to charm-like effects, non-

magical damage

Challenge 8 CR (3,900 XP)

_________________________________________

Shapechange. May appear as a raven or in its

actual form, or a raven-like or raven-human

chimera of any size between the two.

_________________________________________

Multiattack. May Peck/Claw twice a round.

The First Sound. Caws once and rips light from

creation. Darkness 30’ radius anywhere within

sight. Counts as a level 8 spell.

The Final Sound. Caws twice and rends sound.

As Silence, but a level 8 spell, 60’ radius

anywhere within sight, from which the Evangelist

is exempt. Any attempt to speak while thus

silenced causes suffocation.

Rapt. Stamps once and a 20’ radius of any non-

magical ground is turned to a rust-flecked mud.

DC 20 DEX Save to avoid falling for 7 (2d6)

bludgeoning damage. Vines spring from the

muddy pit and hold victims in place (DC 20 STR

to break), dealing 18 (4d8) slashing damage in

the process. Bound targets take 4 (d8) slashing

damage/round.

We Are His Eyes. Spreads wings wide, all seven

times seven eyes open wide and the Evangelist

radiates oppression. 30’ gaze attack dealing 14 (4d6)

radiant damage to all within range and causing them

to bud half as many eyes (small, black, like a birds)

on their body (DC 25 CHA Save halves damage only).

No matter the distance between the afflicted and the

Evangelist, the Evangelist may see through these eyes

at any range, and may influence anyone bearing the eyes

as a level 8 Command or level 6 Charm (lasts 1 day) (may

compel self-harm (DC 15 CHA save to avoid)).

Peck/Claw. melee attack +8 to hit, reach 5’-10’ (per

current size), one target hit  2 (d4) piercing damage

Huge raven-like creatures or large humanoids with

some raven features (beak or wings or feet). Their heads

and wings, along the base of the underwing coverts

each sport seven-49 eyes in asymmetrical clusters.

There are 343 of the Evangelists operating at any

moment, but normally only seven in any given continent on

a plane. Clerics may pray to them for aid."   

attributions: gif from Altered States, something else

Something I'm working on/Deep Carbon Observatory

well-behaved formostian children

DeepCarbon Observatory is really, really good. +Scrap Princess +Patrick Stuart +Alex Mayo made it.

Rather than review it, here is something I wrote because of it for an adventure/ setting/ hexcrawl on which I'm working, which feels like a better, more honest way to review it (and really, who gives a shit what I think).

Formost

the ceiling slung low, crowded with stalactites of enormous size, home of small, hirsute men and women of broad physique and wide mouth with wide, flat teeth and a diet consisting of fungi and a thin ale, Formost hangs above, and occasionally touches the Black Sea.

The stalactite stuff of Formost is hollow and of a crumbly, soft, porous stone and have been worked in great intricacy to depict the weird geometric figures the people of Formost revere as ancestors and deities. A large portion of the town is sealed up and the sealed webwork of caverns of the stalactites have only been half-worked or not at all and appear to have been scraped out by a thousand little beaked, scraping utensil or teeth or mouths.

Most of Formost is lit with bioluminescent moss that grows on fish from the Black Sea. This gives most of the lit part of the city a distinct smell of rotten fish. Old Moss is a delicacy and is used much in brewing and accounts for the frequently glowing teeth and facial hair of the Formostian.

At three of the points where the inverse towers of Formost thrust into the Black Sea, there are water-side markets and fishing vessels and docks, all of a ramshackle, stinking, and grimy nature.

if you want information, head to the docks and ask around the watering hole. for every rumor sought, you have to buy a round of foil, oily-black drinks (and drink yourself); costs 2d10 small coins and Save v Rot or lose 1 HP permanently as your insides turn to black bile (death from this causes you to weep and vomit a quivering, acidic black mass composed of blood and a malicious, alien, rudimentary sapience). Use the roll for coins to determine the rumor and the person mongering them.

	rumors	monger
1	never trust a Formostian	a Formostian official, distinguished by her majestic scarification in the shape of an ancestor glyph
2	the Formost seal up their heroes to fight some monster in the center of the town	a Halfling, broken-nosed and gap-toothed, weeping into ale (will try to stab anyone that thinks is condescending, shows pity)
3	there is scratching at the boards inside the sealed up part of Formost	a Flotsian, weirdly pale and blind, speaks loudly, spits all over
4	the barnacles just below the surface tell secrets if you put your ear to them	rosy-cheeked Formostian with a brace of throwing knives, missing three fingers
5	Formostians brains have a third lobe wherein they store the secrets of their ancestors	a grossly fat merchant whose fingers swell with lividity around many rings and torques. He desperately wants back home.
6	deep worms can be ridden if you’ve the right tools	a rot-mouthed human with a conspicuous flounce hat and incredibly good luck
7	certain rocks and gems, when eaten or crushed into a paste or poultice will fill your belly for weeks	a gilled human in a makeshift breathing apparatus, desperate for word of its people
8	the Formostian will some day soon become hungry and eat and eat and eat until no one is left	a beautiful Formostian woman with scrimshaw teeth depicting something… strange. She avoids smiling and talks in the Formostian fashion (hand over teeth)
9	the glyph-deities of Formost are part of an ancient word	a shifty-eyed, nervous looking Formostian man, covered in sheets of fungal growth
10	there is a city lost beneath the waves where the beautiful god-people that made the Formostians sleep in glass chambers	a tall, wan Anglian in furs of a clearly dying of a venomous drug (has a single dose in his purse full of 10d4 small coins)

note that a Formostian will never talk about the lost city and most won’t talk about problems in Formost

somewhere far below the waves, lies Formoria the terrible.

the red bishop of Formost

attributions: Hikari Shimoda, Twin Peaks

Knowledge and Problem Solving (Cleric/Fighter/Magic-User) Ramble

meat fighter badass solves problems by looking tough, being tough and having a badass follower that looks like a hyena

In my head there is this Platonic ideal D&D wherein players control characters and the characters all go off and explore and have adventures in strange and dangerous places. There are obstacles and players use resources (what's on the character sheet) and skill (cleverness, co-ordination, knowledge of the game, etc) to overcome the obstacles. It is fun in the way that games that are about resolving challenges and exploration are fun. 

Character knowledge is one of those fun black boxes whereby player and referee get to peel back the protective flaps covering the games auditory pits and gently whisper questions into the game or at one another and then get something weird and interesting back. This character was a mucker of Nuln before donning the wizarding tunic they now wear. What might a mucker know about a particular sort of mud? The arid plains of Nuln are known for their mushrooms and nuts, does that mean the mucker knows a bit about what's good to eat in this forest?

The OD&D classes represent radically different approaches to character knowledge and problem solving. (this post here at 9 and 30 kingdoms is related to this)

Clerics, like Fighters, solve problems in a similar sort of sphere, both types of problems being of a decidedly fleshy nature. Magic-Users can, theoretically solve any type of problem at all but they can only solve so many in "an adventure" (which I take to mean in a single session, but later D&D refines to once-a-game-day-so-long-as-you're-getting-in-a-good-rest) and they have to figure out how to solve that problem in their weird wizardy way or they have to steal that knowledge from someone else.

Fighters exist as meat. Their plans are meaty, their actions take place in the usual meat space. They get ignored a lot when people talk about classes and games because they are generally so unproblematic/understandable. "Can my Fighter do this?" can nearly always be resolved with, "if you had the stats your Fighter has, do you think you could do it?"

Clerics are hopeful meat. They hope their god(s) pay attention and help out. It is generally a fun rule to treat the Cleric's spell list as mostly a description of the outer boundaries of what the god(s) are interested in doing for the Cleric this session. The Cleric prays over some of the Fighter's mangled meat body and hopes that things turn out well. Maybe the god is a Troll and the ruined limb heals itself over the next few minutes; maybe the god is an Ent and the replacement parts are some kind of muscle-wood hybrid because Ents don't totally "get" human parts; maybe the Cleric spent last night getting drunk (you know, carousing tables) and the Cleric's judgey white male god decides that while the Fighter is healed, the Fighter's wound is passive-aggressively transposed to the Cleric.

A Cleric doesn't necessarily know anything new or special about the game world unless it's revealed to them. It's like they have these giant monsters riding on their backs. The monsters help them sometimes and sometimes they don't and they impose rules on when they help and the general idea is that really, the real stuff is going on at monster-view level and the monsters are calling the shots and you're just a really advanced horse. 

The life of a Cleric is someone's nightmare about religion.

Magic-Users, on the other hand, know special stuff. Maybe what they know is monster-view stuff which is why it's always so non-linear and knowing it is a vertiginous experience and why Clerics and Magic-Users aren't supposed to get along. Rote Vance (and pretty much rote D&D) is super boring here in practice, but the fundamental theory is interesting. Magic-Users traditionally get their magic by (a) being a little magical themselves and (b) cramming magical, weird, non-linear magic (which might be a monster or something like an invisible monster, maybe made out of dark matter, maybe an angel or aether a la John Dee) into what is probably some special lobe of the brain. (b) nearly always involves reading and being able to cast a spell is usually stated as knowing the spell (and/or having it memorized with the distinction being: can you cast this spell at all [know]? versus can you cast this spell now? [memorized]) and, since the start of the hobby, Intelligence is the core stat for the Magic-User (in OD&D INT also influences how many languages a character may know and in Greyhawk, even the number of spells they may know). All of which is to say that Magic-Users are and always have been about having that certain special information that turns what was an obstacle into an obstacle no longer. (Note also that Clerics in Greyhawk don't get extra spells for high INT as, Gygax notes, clerical magic is "given).

The whole spell-hunt meta game for Magic-Users is similarly about seeking out the knowledge you might want in the future to solve some other kind of problem.

This is kind of related to other posts (esp stuff on Magic-Users and Clerics and Deities) but mostly to stuff I'm working on.

attribution: Pieter Hugo