The sands of the Pavonate Vale have for centuries borne the bones and bloodstains left by the untold wars of the city-states surrounding it.
To the southwest of the Vale, across the far side of the bizarrely-layered geology of The Puzzling mountain range lies the vast Beast Waste, where the creatures pressed into service into these conflicts have hunted and bred since before the dawn of humanity. It is an arid plain made intelligible only by the shapes and colors of its brutally capricious geology: the weird domes of the Carved Land, the Place of Knives and its jagged vertical slabs, the toxic purples of High Violaceum.
Tusks, teeth, barbarians, bones, broadswords, war magic and drums, chanting, ruins, scavengers, schemes, and no signs of civilization. This is where gnolls come from.
If you've got Frostbitten and Mutilated, it's kind of like the Devoured Land but with sand.
Is there something in every 6-mile hex? Yes--no? Kind of! Anyway it is like this:
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The Black Ocean becomes, at this point, blacker.
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Giant seahorse dwells beneath the waves. Ancient and wise.
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RUINS OF CRUCIS NARRIQ
All that is left of the most recent victim of the Pavonate Vale's
unceasing warfare. Wizards and treasuremen are still seen
stalking the remains of this thrice-cursed place, seeking secrets.
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Eerily calm waters.
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THE CITY WITHOUT LAWS
This city-state has no ruler, as the Cobra Queen (see below)
has cursed it.
A great serpent devours any who attempt to mount the throne.
Zarak, a half-orc and an assassin, has achieved great
renown during the anarchy, selling his blade to
the highest bidder.
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THE TOURMALINE CITADEL
The fortress-city of magic-reflecting stone was built in ages
past to guard against the depredations of the ancient war wizards.
Dissidents now seek to overthrow King Nin Draala,
the mad sorcerer-king whose reign has lasted 500 years.
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THE CITY OF RATS
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Survivors of a lizardman raid celebrate finding
A hieronymoid formed from parts of various mutilated carcasses
An ancient warren of accumulated structures, none know how deep.
This place is the domain of the rat gods, and of all who
steal, scavenge and seek shelter in narrow places.
Many a foreign outlaw, brigand and oathbreaker seeks
refuge here, fleeing justice or righteous vengeance.
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48-49
CITY OF BLACK SPIRES
The largest and wealthiest of the Slaughterland city-states, the
City of Black Spires is a haven for pirates and traffickers in
dangerous and blasphemous goods.
This is the Beast Coast city most likely to contain
NPCs who speak the party's language, who know
the lands from whence they hail, and to track down
their families and kill them should the player
characters disappoint them.
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Neothid philosophers roam the plains, protected in their
psicysts, feeding on trauma of the dying and the doomed.
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52
A traveler interrupts a summoner's meditations.
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A masked agonapraxite from the City of Black Spires leads
a company of mounted Inflictors.
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There is a tent on the edge of desert.
It is there you will find what you seek.
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CITY OF BLEACHED BONE
Contrary to legend, the revenants that inhabit the City of Bleached Bone
are not mindless--it is merely that their desires, and the connection
between their ritual actions and whatever esoteric purposes they
seek to accomplish, are maddeningly obscure to the living.
The Gilded Lich whispers his orders from a throne of
pyrite and white obsidian.
It is said the eerie music from his palace issues from the Leviathan
Organ of Nasen-Ra, a legendary artifact of unimaginable power.
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Winged disenchanters are harmless-they only
eat magic items. Their stomachs contain writhing
plasmic bezoars of molten metal, cellulose and
half-digested eldritch energy.
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shelter high in The Puzzling.
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THE CRUEL CITY
Whether the inhabitants of The Cruel City are any crueller than
the rest of the population of the Slaughterlands is up for debate, but
the fact that half the population are lizard-hybrids is not.
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pulls itself across the dunes
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her pirate fleet from the Iron Hand. Her crippled crew is
adorned with a wide variety of threatening prosthetics.
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Exhaustive search of this hex will reveal the The Mask of Johydee
buried in the desert sands.
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THE REPTILE CITY
The oldest of the extant Beast Coast cities and the largest settlement
of lizardmen and reptile women since the fall of Nyctopolis, what we call
The Reptile City is referred to by its population using a precise series
of inaudible hormone releases.
It is said the chronomancers who rule this city
are responsible for the mesozoic creatures who
still stalk the Beast Wastes.
Mammals found within the city are subject
to unspeakable atrocities.
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THE RED CITY
Little is known of the Red City or the Red Cult which
rules it via inscrutable psionic democracy.
While remaining aloof from open warfare of any kind,
agents of the city-state have committed acts of sabotage, assassination,
and destabilization against the other city-states, with no other seeming
purpose than to encourage and prolong the intercity conflicts that
ravage the Beast Coast.
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A pair of raggedclaws scuttling across the floor of the Silt Sea,
looking for something to cast a spell on and then eat.
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THE LYING CITY
it cannot be seen until one is entirely through its gates....
...it's also known for the popularity and ferocity of its
gladiatorial pits.
The enchantment is the work of its Witch-Queen--Marique--who despises and
is despised in turn by King Nin Draala, of the Tourmaline Citadel.
Her longtime consort is Naksus of Ynd, a horrifically-
scarred gladiator, nine years undefeated.
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--
Art credits: Daniel Vega did the psychedelic desert psychic thing, Sergio Toppi did most of the cities, also: P Craig Russell, Frank Thorne, John Buscema, Frazetta, Jeffrey Catherine Jones, Mahmud Asrar, Sanjulian, Mike Mignola, and the movie Fantastic Planet, among others.
--
3 comments:
Cobra Queen, rat gods, warthog, toad. Excellent.
Set sail for the Beast Coast, Bêlit.
I can fit desert lands and gyth in all 2 & 1/3 campaigns I ref (one game we have rotating DMs). The evocativeness is splendid as usual. I am starting a completely old-school, local, in-person-only, Wilderlands campaign in a couple weeks. Ha, planning lots of Cube World to overlay old Judges Guild stuff going so brutal sword & sorcery that old players are WTF Wilderlands??? and new players will be I thought D&D was a game for kids?!!!"
I want it
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