Jared Sinclair Dot Bear Blog Dot Dev

Hell

With Micah Anderson.

And he said to them: I saw Satan like lightning falling from heaven.

Hexes require a week of travel to cross on foot. The map wraps around itself in all three directions. Check for random encounters each day.

Characters are dead. They hunger but require no food, they thirst but require no drink. They have no HP, and they cannot die because they are dead. When a character takes damage, they add the amount to any damage they have previously taken. Then, they roll oblivion (1d1000, if the result is equal to or less than their current damage, they are annihilated forever).

Each time a character's current damage exceeds a new multiple of 100, they become maimed—some part of their corporeal body now hangs useless and agonizing.

Nothing heals.

Encounters

  1. 2d6 Black Hounds.
  2. A Swarm of Flies.
  3. 1d4 Masked Bishops.
  4. 3d20 Dead.
  5. 1d3 Minotaur Slavers, with 200 slaves.
  6. A Lord of Hell, marching to war.

Black Hound. HD 2. AC 0. As large as a man, with red-on-red eyes and hot, slavering mouths. They maim their prey, then leave.

Swarm of Flies. Hundreds of thousands in a dense cloud. They swarm for 3d6 hours, biting and flying into mouths and ears and noses. Anyone caught in the swarm must roll oblivion each hour.

Masked Bishop. HD 5. AC 2. Ten feet tall, with plague mask in white porcelain and a hooked fauchard. They move slowly, then lunge. A fist-sized black pearl on a chain around their waist grants them inquisitorial powers: they exact bloody retribution for all sins. Without the pearl, they collapse into non-existence.

Dead. HD 1. AC 0. Mindless, moaning, murderous.

Minotaur Slaver. HD 6. AC 3. Half again as tall as a man, carrying a fire-tipped whip (maims on hit) and a collection of iron manacles. They do not kill, they capture.

Lords of Hell

  1. Malphas. A stock dove, three stories tall. Four demon legions carry his perch upon their backs, three more carry his armory. He greets you in a low, hoarse voice, offering arms for arms: a weapon in exchange for a limb. A fair trade.
  2. Forneus. A gigantic octopus, dragging himself across land with tentacles as wide as a dry creek bed. Ten demonic legions follow him. He gasps his greetings, and demands from you a word he does not know. As a reward for obedience, he grants you knowledge of any earthly or infernal tongue. For disobedience he offers only annihilation.
  3. Phenex. A great bird of fire, singing sweet songs in a child's voice—lightning follows him everywhere. He leads twelve demonic legions. He greets you warmly and offers to answer any one question you ask him. He believes this will shorten his 1,200-year imprisonment in Hell. It will not.
  4. Orias. A lion, riding a great serpent-tailed horse, and carrying two hissing serpents in his right hand. He leads seven demonic legions. He offers to transform you into any shape of your choosing. Should you accept, his two serpents lunge and bite—one into your neck, the other into your genitals. As the slow poison does its work, you change into your chosen form. You take 1 damage from the poison every day, permanently.
  5. Glasya-Labolas. A dog, with the wings of a griffin. He commands twelve demonic legions. He speaks in a loud hiss, and offers the power of invisibility: a small, empty hourglass. Turn it once, and become invisible while it fills slowly with sand. Turn it again, and become visible while the sand falls to the other side. When it runs out, Glasya-Labolas conscripts you as a permanent member of his mindless army.
  6. Furcas. A fat old man, traveling alone, his nakedness covered only by his flowing white beard. He carries a pitchfork and rides a donkey, and he wheezes and laughs at everything you say. He hands you a silver-edged dagger and offers to teach you dread pyromantic magics if you murder one of your companions in front of him. He knows the location of the Ring of Solomon, and finds the Cambion's fruitless search for it endlessly amusing.

Hexes

map2

0202

You awake in Hell, in a narrow basin atop a lonesome, wicked crag. You are naked. Uneven stairs carved into the rock lead down to endless, smoldering wastes. The sky roils in purple and black, casting everything in bleak chiaroscuro. Unfamiliar susurrations, and a looming black spire to the southeast.

0106

The angel Anael has built a hut here, where he fell from heaven. He is missing his right wing, and carries a sword of cold light with which he plans to destroy Phenex. He has found it difficult to amass an army.

In response to earnest prayer, he offers a blessing (advantage on all rolls against the powers of evil until the blessed sins again).

0301

The enormous killing field of a recent battle, still writhing with severed bodies both human and demon. The terrain and dead alike are variously scorched and crushed and shredded, the produce of warring Lords of Hell. Sulfurous smoke rises intermittently. Items found on bodies crumble to ashes and smoke when you touch them.

3-in-6 chance of random encounters here. Roll 1d4 on the encounters table. Black Hounds eat the flesh of fallen soldiers. Masked Bishops accept their suffering as penance. The risen Dead, still armed, mindlessly seek foes to slay.

0305

An eternally unfinished pyramid of black basalt rises sharply from blasted plains. For miles around, innumerable wasted dead drag wagon-size stone blocks to the top. When complete, it will rival even the Adversary's throne in height and scale.

Behind a soot-covered door, The Cambion lounges in his massive audience chamber carpeted in flayed human skins: son of the Adversary, beautiful and towheaded, with utterly black eyes and teeth. He laughs bemused at the temerity of mortal supplicants, and offers them a front-line position in his army. He will depose his father, best to get in on the ground floor.

The Cambion desires the Ring of Solomon above all. He frowns darkly as he denounces Furcas for keeping its location a secret from him. If you agree to retrieve the ring, he offers the services of one of his hundreds of minotaurs as assistance. In return for failure, he promises eternal enslavement.

0401

A sprawling village of hundreds of the recent dead, still mostly cogent and performing whatever afterlife they can muster. Most have forgotten their names, many have forgotten their former lives. They have no need of food or water, but they toil placidly over invented chores. Tall piles of rocks and scavenged detritus surround the village like walls.

A girl-child in rags runs up to greet visitors. She is dirty but chipper, and asks if you have come to stay—there are plenty of empty houses. She's eager to play jacks, and produces a small bag of bones from human fingers to play with. She just needs a ball. Perhaps one of you has an extra eye she could use.

A man whittles stones into worthless coins. On one side, the Adversary's face; on the other, a picture of his own ass. He throws them onto endless piles in and around his house, then begins carving another.

A despairing woman hangs herself every night, and climbs down from the tree every morning. She has lost any desire or capacity to speak.

A man brandishes a silver-edged sword in the town square, shouting obscenities in Latin. He makes unbroken eye contact with anyone who comes near.

Most folks here spend their time scavenging things from the wastes. They have no use for any of it. There is a 4-in-6 chance they accept any proposed trades. In addition to endless stores of junk and gold coins and oddly shaped rocks, one man has a chain shirt, one has a map of the surrounding wastes drawn by some long-annihilated soul, and one woman has a pickaxe and two bronze swords. Searching the various piles of junk around town can turn up some items the townsfolk don't realize they have:

  1. An enormous princess-cut sapphire, the size of a child's fist. Inside, blue-gray mists swirl slowly. Hold it up to your eye and peer through it, it reveals all invisible things, and conceals all visible things.
  2. A portable, folding chess set. Missing only the black king.
  3. A small flask of holy water.
  4. An ancient codex containing instructions to conjure lightning.
  5. A ragged bible, dog-eared at Psalm 51.
  6. The gold signet ring of a forgotten king, decorated in finest rubies.

Townsfolk. HD 1. AC 0. Attack thieves on sight.

0505

A great obsidian spire bursts forth from the ground to a wicked peak hundreds of feet high. At the top, the Adversary sits upon his terrible throne.

0603

A forgotten field of fetid pools among ruins of standing stones, each pool from ten to fifty feet across and filled with moaning, splashing dead. The ground winds jagged between them for miles. The dead call out to you in familiar voices, begging for help. Approach, and their puckered hands reach to grab you and pull you in.

Each day spent traveling here, 1-in-1000 chance to see the gold glint of treasure at the bottom of one of the pools, twinkling from beneath the writhing bodies: the Ring of Solomon. Those who know of its presence in this hex have a 1-in-20 chance instead.

In the center of the field, a Bone Dragon makes its nest. It has grown complacent and sluggish over centuries, eating the still-moving bodies of the dead instead of hunting dangerous prey.

Bone Dragon. HD 8. AC 6. 1-in-2 chance to be sleeping. Weak cold breath (2d6 area damage, 1/day), attacks every other round. Can no longer fly. In its ribcage, a heart blackened with atrophy still beats.

Ring of Solomon. Gold, and inscribed upon its face with Solomon's Seal. Wear it on your second finger, turn it thrice around, and invoke Hashem—up to 20 HD of nearby demons and devils experience blinding, burning pain until you twist the ring back the other way.