This post/doc is part of an ongoing collaboration organised by William of the Half a Worm and a Bitten Apple blog. It is part 8 of a collaborative worldbuilding project called Woland, and I hope you find something interesting or worth incorporating into your own Mythic Bastionland games!
Now to the Realm...
Referee’s Summary
A demigod of destruction brings his temple-car to the Realm, eager to bring about apocalyptic ruin. Scores of golem constructs and celestial warriors descend alongside him, pulling the great war-chariot to its ultimate destiny. Despite his power, the endeavour isn’t as straightforward as he was led to believe, and the Knights have an opportunity to intervene before things get worse.
Realm Map (Keyed for Players, then Referees)
Hex Locations:
- A2: Trail of Destruction (Hazard)
- A3: The Temple-Car of the Great Leveller (Holding, Site)
- A4: Tapir Hills (Chapel)
- B2: Eriri, the Swiftlet Crags (Monument)
- B3: Vanguard of the Temple Car
- B4: Urwode, Temporal Forest (Fountain)
- C3: Grasstide (Wild Hex, Ruin)
- C4: Caer-Petros, "Peter's Fort" (Dwelling)
A2: Trail of Destruction (Hazard)
Spanning nearly the entire breadth of the hexleague, deep furrows in the ground. Some great thing has gouged out the topsoil, flattened trees and hills, pulped all life that crossed its path. A new road has been carved into the earth, headed southward.
- Travel Mechanic: Few things linger here. Some scattered human survivors, curious outrider scouts, spectacularly lucky flora and fauna, perhaps… but not much else. When approaching from the north or south, this Hex does not take a Phase to travel through, but the sight of such indifferent and thorough destruction is disquieting: Knights suffer D6 SPI loss.
A3: The Temple-Car of the Great Leveller (Holding, Site)
To call the Temple of the Great Leveller a “Holding” would be… reductive. It is no mere settlement, no motte-and-bailey, no towering spire or palisade hastily constructed around a market. The Temple-Car is the weapon, steed, devotional act, palace, barracks, and slave complex of Dur-Danat, Great Leveller, Grand-Shaper of All Realms, the Wheel Inexorable!
Dur-Danat intends to carve bare every hex in the Realm before relocating to continue his grand crusade elsewhere. He serves an important function in the cycle, as the terminus of reality- but the clarion call meant to summon him came too early.
Fate had writ that his march across the realms would be unstoppable, and yet he finds himself confounded at every turn by the wiles of Seers and unforeseen circumstances! His temple is damaged (the Weorpan Seer displaced it to catastrophic effect), his warriors and slaves comb the surrounding landscape to recover a means of repairing it, and worst of all, the Shaper is growing increasingly bored.
Until he can return to his grand purpose, how best can he amuse himself?
- The Great Leveller, Dur-Danat (VIG 18, CLA 9, SPI 16, 7 GD)
- Topaz skin (A3), Earthbreaking Mace (2d10, Repel and Stop Gambits always count as Strong), Searing Light (d12, Blast, does not discriminate between friend and foe). Can Deny.
- Mace serves as a badge of office and a “master-control” rod. Wresting it from him and lifting it overhead allows you to influence the movement of the Temple-Car.
- Profoundly unoccupied, he wishes to have his temple-car repaired and continue cleansing the Realm utterly. Will reward individuals who assist in this endeavour by offering them salvation aboard his Temple-Car.
- Requires: the Blood of a Seer to grease the Temple-Car’s axle, primordial wood to repair a spoke, minerals to construct new, more efficient golems.
- Wants: a more efficient means of controlling his golems, a good fight, interesting trophies to pilfer and preserve aboard the Temple-Car.
- The Temple Car (10 GD, A4, Treat as Structure of Meteoric Iron)
- Attacks with Crushing Wheels (2d12), Archer volley (d12 Blast), Gouging Maw (3d12). It can be stopped with extraordinary effort and ingenuity.
- Movement: must spend a Phase reorienting itself in a new direction. Moves 3 Hexes per Phase, utterly annihilating everything directly in its path.
- Bowels house a Warband of Celestial Warriors (page 11, as Knights, but unhorsed and armed with Iridescent Weapons), three times that number in slaves, petty staff, stewards, and 1 Warband of Celestial Men at Arms (as Mercenaries)
- 1 Warband of Treading Golems. (VIG 14, CLA 4, SPI 4, GD 5, A2 Body of Stone, d12 Trample. Will mindlessly march in one direction unless directed otherwise by Dur-Danat’s or one of his Officers.)
Temple Car Site Map
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| Site area number 1 obscured by perspective. |
- Ruined rear wheel: Damaged after the Weorpan Seer forcibly relocated the Temple-Car. It was a colossal effort, but it temporarily hobbled the vehicle. Spoke and axle alike are damaged, and the entire structure tilts rightward. Moving forward may topple the pagoda, which would infuriate (but not meaningfully harm) the Shaper. The entrance is guarded by Celestial Warriors armed with iridescent weapons, but characters who declare their intention to visit the Shaper and genuflect properly will be granted passage. (Unless they draw steel, of course.)
- Crushing wheels: Roughly the size of a waterwheel, four of these enormous, impossibly dense stones serve as the Temple-Car’s means of traversing the realms. They could erode mountain ranges, given time.
- Shaper’s kiln: Clay, raw material, stone, and other elements are mixed here through an unknown rite. Clusters of golems are baked simultaneously and tethered to the front of the Chariot. A complicated pulley mechanism and an impossibly hot, ever-burning flame ensure production never ceases. The vast kiln never ceases operating, and the smoke trail it leaves behind is visible from adjacent hexes.
- Crushing/Gouging maw, Golem control platform: While Dur-Danat slumbers, his stewards can maintain the Temple Car’s inexorable advance. Lesser control rods are entrusted to his officers, and this grants them control over a cluster of constructs each.
- Rear wheel, Slave quarters: Surprisingly livable, but growing increasingly cramped. Some dissent- slaves from other Realms foment possible rebellion, while others are reluctant to fight, for fear of being thrown beneath the Temple’s wheels. Particularly impertinent Knights will be thrown in here for reconditioning and prayer.
- Secondary forge: The rear forge-kiln, used in the event of catastrophic damage to the Shaper’s Kiln in front. Loosely guarded- a point of entrance for enterprising knights.
- Dur-Danat’s Pagoda: Foundations of blackened, ancient wood, hewn from primordial trees. Many-storied, maximalist and eclectic. Statues to unknown divinities and beasts adorn nearly every inch of its surface: sea-beasts supporting raincaps, daemons in contorted agony serving as buttresses, tigers ornamenting arches, etc. Its facade stares down the falling sun.
- Dur-Danat occupies himself with games of wit and strategy, unrecognisable to the people of this Realm. On stormy days, he makes sport of prospective petitioners, allowing them to test themselves against him in exchange for boons.
Temple Car Holding Threads
When I initially imagined the Temple-Car, I pictured an engine of chaos that would essentially bulldoze its way diagonally across the map, causing as much destruction as possible before it rolls off to trouble some other unfortunate Realm. In its current state, the Temple-Car is hobbled and will require significant intervention to regain its mobility.
Should the Referee wish to track the progress of these repairs, you may use these Holding Threads to chart any progress the Court of Dur-Danat makes with/without the intervention of the Knights.
Repairing the Temple Car
- Scouting parties and outriders depart from the Temple-Cars in droves. They seek a means of repairing the temple.
- A means of repairing the axle, repairing the wheel, or empowering the golems is discovered.
- Assets are recovered. The scouts and vanguard consolidate themselves at their camp.
- The marshalled warbands of the Great Leveller march towards Caer-Petros.
- Petrite is recovered, the Temple-Car is repaired, and Dur-Danat resumes his duties with gusto.
- Caer-Petros is destroyed, levelled utterly. Dur-Danat seeks his next target.
A4: Tapir Hills (Chapel)
Southwest, populated largely by mighty, woolly tapirs. A lack of predators and human settlement here has allowed the beasts to swell to near-monstrous size. Some of the most venerable of them can speak, through dreams. Lands traversed by the tapir clans are fecund, and the great beasts take kindly to offerings of fruit.
- Threats: The tapir clans have long memories and can be physically imposing (D6 bite, tapirs will engage to protect their mates and young). The venerable tapirs can also afflict their foes with potent nightmares, barring them from repose. (The curse-weaving beast must be appeased or slain to lift this enchantment.) Hermit monks occasionally commune with the beasts, and they will fight to the death to defend their sacred charges.
- Hermit monk: Stats as Guide (Mythic Bastionland Core Rulebook, pg. 13), but with Woven Shield (d4, A1). Special Gambit: Torpor. The target loses D6 CLA. On CLA 0, the target falls into enchanted slumber.
- The Hollow Hill: Painted walls along the interior, matching the striped patterns of the tapirs. Resting beasts dot the landscape, having surrendered to the oblivion of slumber. Befriending the monks of the hills may grant the Knight the ability to visit the dreams of others.
- Hermit Monk Yanok’s Wisdom: “Gaze upon them, good Ser… when bird and beast and flower were one, when death was but a dream, life was a profusion. Indistinct. The Venerable Ones are closer to that luminous state! Look upon them!“
B2: Eriri, the Swiftlet Crags (Monument)
Remnants of an ancient ecology- perhaps the receding fingers of the Short Sea? These limestone formations rise from the choking vegetation to the East, porous surfaces amplifying the songs of thousands of swiftlets. It is humid here, and the floors of the avian caverns teem with life; fish in cavern-pools sup on excrement and cave insects, algae blooms, and the odd corpse of unfortunate venturers.
Isolationist cragfolk make their homes here, too- youthful nest-takers and families of fishermen, who subsist at the fringes of limestone karsts.
- Wonder: Pain, Stones. Concealed beneath generations of calcified bird saliva, the crags conceal bountiful deposits of strange ores and minerals. Only the cragfolk are aware of this, but the scouts of the Temple Car will find out soon enough.
- Flora and Fauna: Microclimates, brackish water teeming with fish and amphibians. Swiftlet swarms fly high and lord over the ecology here in this hex, untouchable save for the most daring and audacious of human nest-takers.
- Luxuries: Swiftlet nests are constructed out of the birds' saliva. Gourmands consider them a delicacy, and folk healers swear by their healing properties. (A stew which incorporates a boiled swiftlet nest can count as either Sustenance or Stimulant.)
B3: Vanguard of the Temple Car
Assembling outside silken pavilions, the roar of trumpets and the terse barks of serjeants punctuate the comings and goings of scouting parties. The group here contains multitudes- warriors from various realms, garbed and ready with strange, iridescent arms, their commanders bearing reddish-orange sashes as badges of office and distinction.
Some of them might share your tongue, but that is of little consequence. They serve the Great Leveller now.
Unfortunate locals, those who cannot defend themselves, are stripped of their valuables and conscripted into the ranks of the vanguard. More vigorous and capable foes (such as the Knights) are either captured and brought to the heel of Dur-Danat (Hex A3) or offered the choice to “Serve a true lord.”
The surrounding landscape is turning barren. Foraging parties are venturing further and further. Soon, the vanguard will relocate.
- The Camp houses roughly 3 Warbands: a group of Outriders (as Riders with Lances, d10 hefty), a company of armed Guards (as Mercenaries), and a warband of conscripted vassals (as Militia). Are a threat when organised, but will crumble in a prolonged engagement with disciplined fighters. The ratio of trained warriors to scouts and recruits is skewed unfavourably.
- Iridescent Arms (accessible to every combatant save for the militia): These weapons, seemingly hewn from gemstones, cut, smash, and cleave with startling efficacy. When determining a Scar, roll twice and choose one of the results.
- If two of the Warbands are defeated, the Vanguard scatters and retreats to the Temple Car.
B4: Urwode, Temporal Forest (Fountain)
Fountain: Natural springs found in the most difficult-to-reach areas of the realm. Those stumbling on them only see the spray of their water from a distance.
Persistent fog lingers about the Urwode. None can perceive beyond the banked clouds and the endless tangle of knotted greenwood roots. Menhirs serve as a decent means of navigating the Wode, but these ancient stone faces only seem to show themselves to Knights.
Journeying deeper into the Urwode is a harrowing experience. Here, the distinctions between life and matter become increasingly blurred. Brooks gurgle in unknown tongues, whorls, patterns, and knots in the bark-like flesh of trees regard all beneath the canopy with curiosity, and names become ephemeral, transient things. With the binary of life and death destabilised, no one can be meaningfully harmed here, but a prolonged stay would likely lead to lunacy.
Becoming Lost in the Hex: Without a Knight’s will or a Seer’s guidance to orient them, the passage of time is blurred. Roll a collective CLA or SPI check. Tally successes and failures. If more of the Knights have failed than succeeded, they become Lost in the Urwode. When you emerge from the Urwode, roll to see how much time has passed:
- 1: Mere minutes have passed since your sojourn into the Wode.
- 2-3: Weeks have passed.
- 4-5: The Season turns.
- 6: An Age has passed.
Searching the Hex: A toppled ring-fort, a stone structure that seems to have been constructed over a roaring river. Crumbled walls. Roots grasp at what remains. The courtyard holds a moon-pool, sides slick with damp moss, reflecting the firmament.
The Moon Pool: A flask of water from this pool, when poured on the ground, always runs toward whichever place, person, or thing, the pourer asks for. Replenishes per Season.
Three Knights stand vigil over the Moon Pool. They say nothing, but their movements are sluggish, impeded by the ages. They long for death. They have dreamed of it for so long. They enter battle against the Company together, extricating themselves from root, moss, and vine.
 |
| Decrepit, broken. |
Peter/Petros, the Stone Knight, Thrice-Forsaken (2d8 Longsword, Hefty, Stone Helm and Armour A3, Strength of Stone +d8 to all attacks, Shield d4)
- Valiant Knight VIG 15, CLA 8, SPI 8. GD 4. Sun-heraldry. Can Smite.
- Lucid Knight VIG 8, CLA 15, SPI 8. GD 4. Moon-heraldry. Can Focus.
- Unbending Knight VIG 8, CLA, 8, SPI 15. GD 4. Three-star heraldic device, arranged in a reversed triangle. Can Deny.
If the Stone Knights are defeated, the cloud-fog veiling the Urwode is lifted, for a time, but it and its strange defenders will return in an Age. If the Company is slain, they awaken at the edge of the Urwode, unharmed. They can never return to the moon-pool.
Can the Stone Knight be freed? Perhaps we must seek a Seer’s guidance.
C3: Grasstide (Wild Hex, Ruin)
The desolate northeast of the region. The landscape here is populated by vicious grasshounds, slender and eel-like, who make sport of hunting the stoneborer ferrets that form enclaves throughout the plains.
- Grasshound: VIG 13, CLA 11, SPI 5, 2 GD. Eel-like, slippery. Despite their name, not canid. Hunts in mating pairs, d8 agonising bite (VIG save or Impaired for 1 round). No constitution for stronger foes. Favours targeting stragglers, the weak.
These two clans of beasts have been locked in a deadlock for centuries, with the stoneborers’ warrens forming a labyrinthine network of tunnels, contested by the predatory instincts and canny lethality of the grasshounds.
Man-sized thatchgrass, bracken, and heather shrubbery thickly carpet the entire region, concealing treacherous cenotes and ferret-holes. Galloping through the area is ill-advised. During Harvest, potent crosswinds scatter seeds and pollen from the flora, and the grass undulates like the surface of some alien ocean.
- Additional D6 VIG cost at the steed’s expense to Gallop through this hex, or D6 CLA virtue loss from a given Knight.
- Threat: Pain, Beasts. If they can be caught, a grasshound’s venom can be distilled by the knowledgeable into a potent, uncommon poison, the agon. The unfortunate victim suffers from the Impaired condition, as blinding pain drives away thought, memory, and will. Best delivered through fang, tooth, or steel. Can only be treated by herblore or the ministrations of a Seer.
- Wonder: Secrets, Shadows. Revealed if the Knights spend a phase searching the Hex. Worn by time in the limestone passages of a cenote, or by entering an unusually large stoneborer tunnel. Miles below the surface, an abandoned forge. Silverwork. Pale lanterns, unlit. A single blade of cold (2d8 Hefty, ignores metal armour, shatters if unsheathed in sunlight) is retrievable here, frozen in a pool of inky black water.
C4: Caer-Petros, “Peter’s Fort” (Dwelling)
- Luxuries: Esoteric Ore. Petrite, the stones which once comprised the enchanted arms which Peter famously wielded in battle. The knowledge on how to work such material has been lost. The devotees of the Temple-Car may soon discover the strategic worth of Caer-Petros.
- Goods: Traditional Tools. Caer-Petros trades decent farming implements, nails, simple blades, and the like with nearby settlements and wandering merchants. They get what they need during these exchanges, but rarely enough to turn a profit.
- Woe: Escalating Exodus. The banners of the temple-car acolytes can be seen on the horizon. A scant few of the vassals are willing to fight.
Author Notes
Hello! This post/doc is part of an ongoing collaboration organised by William, of the Half a Worm and a Bitten Apple blog, the creation of a patchwork realm called the Woland. Thank you for making it this far. I hope you found the reading interesting, or found an idea worth pilfering for your own Realms!
I’ve had some experience in collaborative worldbuilding games before, mostly through games like A Quiet Year, but this is my first time participating in a shared endeavour as loose as this one. I absolutely loved every other hexflower. In particular, I have a deep affection for the moon hex in Peter’s Lowlands (Hexflower 6), and I felt I needed to do something with the figure of Peter, and so he and his legacy feature slightly in my Landfall hex.
Inspiration and Rationale
I chose Hexflower #2 primarily because… I wanted to introduce some element of chaos into the Woland. There’s been a relative stability amongst the various Hexflowers and their rulers, thus far:
- Burntburh lingers with an arcane mystery + devastation, and is populated by quiet monks, inkeeps, sailors, and a dutiful knight (+ the Weorpan Seer, but even they prefer change, not necessarily chaos)
- the Lone Willow’s crazed alchemist, Monteglielle, pursues his solitary affairs, gaze turned inward and surrounded by literal clones of himself
- the Anointed Seer of the Troubled Downs contents himself by escaping his destiny into a realm of imagination
- the Cawler (Pykes and Guard) of the Barrowode have their own system of governance and are fiercely independent
- the Pristine Seer is a recluse, repelling the corruption of the swamp that surrounds them merely by existing
- the Vagabonds of the Deeproot Forest, likely due to their proximity to the Barrowode, but distinct as outcasts, have formed their own kind of relatively stable society as well!
The element of chaos I wanted to include was some faction that had a motivation to visit (and scour) the other Hexes. As inspiration, I looked through some other RPG books in my collection, recalled Kenneth Hite’s Qelong, and was taken by the idea of both the Varangians and the Myrmidons, two factions (mercenary vikings and a mindless, colonising hivemind, respectively), who savage their realm. Simultaneously, I remembered someone conceptualising a single vehicle as a one-page dungeon, towed by constructs. The golem treaders here are something of an homage to that half-remembered concept.
Of course, an invading force would shake things up, but Warbands of threats or an endless army struck me as being adequately embodied by several existing Myths already (see: the Star, the Legion, the Dead, etc.). The notion of an eschatological threat that had been “summoned” too early fascinated me, and the grandiose boasts of Arayda the Charioteer made me consider if he had a sibling or divine kinsman of similar import who would be tasked to unmake the world when the time came. Instead of a single legendary chariot, however, a temple-car pulled by clusters of golems seemed a grander alternative. I was keen on the idea of a Holding that could physically move through the Realm itself, leaving a visible and harrowing trail of devastation. For the Knights of the Realm, defeating a demigod of destruction would strike me as a mythical endeavour, but perhaps the Temple-Car could be reworked as an independent myth, rather than a physical Holding sometime in the future.
The Temple-Car is obviously the centrepiece of this particular hexflower, and so I simply generated the rest of the hexes as I would any normal map. Like Burntburh and Peter’s Lowlands, there are secrets to be found here, but this corner of the Realm is relatively safe and stable, which makes it an ideal place for Dur-Danat to break in his temple-car and begin his holy task.
That’s all from me, I hope the map makes a decent impression at least! I’ll work on a colour version soon. Looking forward to all the following Hexes! Thanks again to William for accepting my entry, and to all the other collaborators for this Woland project. I appreciate the time and effort you all put into your own corners of the realm.
I can’t wait for this thing to come together!
P.S: If someone has a better idea for Peter, please feel free to take on the task. There’s probably more than one in the Realm, right?
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