The Bone Forest Strikes Back

I have a love hate relationship with hexes in games. I have fond memories pouring over the hex maps for the various Mystara Dungeons & Dragons products and wondering what was going on in the various locations. I also have less fond memories of trying to fill those gaps as I ran game after game using the Troy Denning version of Basic D&D.

I opted to take a different approach than I have seen hexes done in the past. Instead of a single thing sitting in a hex, I opted to created multiple thematic possible points of interest within each hex. I also wanted the thing to be a maze, hence the rules for navigating in the previous post.

I think the results work for what I am trying to accomplish. Each location is weird, has definite encounters as well as hints at gaps that a D&D group could pick up and run with. The only challenge I see with all of this is that it ultimately is more a campaign level set of content rather than a single dungeon adventure. When I convert it over for Torchbearer next year, I will have to keep that in mind.

The Colorful Death (Hex B)

When the baleful eye of the God cast its light upon this region for the first time, a great sorcerer did all the could to stave off its ill effects. The result was that all the bones within this region became a shifting rainbow of color. Instead of a sickly green twilight, the light moves from color to color, creating mirages just at the edge of sight for weary travelers.

1-3. The Desolate Camp

An campsite stands empty and disheveled with refuse tossed about and coals still smoldering in the campfire. Clearly whomever made this their home has fled in a hurry. From who or what isn’t clear upon inspection.

4-6. God’s Rest

The ruins of a hamlet sit in a small valley, the bone structures clearly having suffered from a long ago fire. Only two structures remain intact, though they show sign of charring and damage wrought from the losing battle with time. It is unclear if anyone or anything makes their home here.
Mini-Adventure: God’s Rest’s two structures are quite large, one once being an inn and could house anything.

7-9. The Laughing Tomb

Navigate To: The Desolate Camp, The Kaleidoscope Yard
Looming out of the trees is a massive mausoleum upon which is carved hundreds of smiling faces. Giggles, chortles, and outright guffaws echo from those faces as someone or something makes their home in the heart of this tomb.
Encounter: The Broken (1D6+1)

10-12. The Kaleidoscope Yard

Once a great manor house stood on these grounds, but it was brought to ruin as the armies clashed during the last apocalypse. All that remains is the open yard where mounds of multicolored bones signify the results of the bloody contest. On the wind, one can just hear faintly the ringing of metal and the screams of the dying.

The Hungry Ground (Hex C)

Each footfall through the forest is an exercise in endurance, for the ground fights to pull against each step. To lay down on the bare powder of bone is to invite death by suffocation beneath the ground. The ground hungers for more death and hates to be denied its feast.

1-3. Necrolord Encampment

The edge of the camp is marked by mortal skulls of uniform size and shape, each charred black by fire and painted with silver runes. An endless keening can be heard from victims held in cages on wagons made of bone. At the center a great fire rages, illuminating the faithful slaves to the Necrolord as they go about their business, faces painted like leering skulls with grease paint and charcoal.
Encounter: Slaves of the Necrolord (3D10)

4-6. Arthur’s House

A quaint two story house breaks appears within a clearing, looking entirely out of place in the macabre desolation that is the Bone Forest. A wood structure right out of a storybook sits upon a lawn of green grass just within a fence of dry mortared stone. A small pool of crystal clear water houses large goldfish and ducks paddle about in its center.
Encounter: Arthur

7-9. Tower of the Crawling Hierophant

Navigate To: The Waiting Song, The Council Tower, Arthur’s House
In the waning days of the final battle of the last apocalypse, the hierophant of the God lost faith in the face of the failure of prophecy. He sought to betray the Last Son and bring an end to the destruction of his people, but was betrayed by those closest to him. The Last Son bound his soul to his tower and sealed the structure up save a single window at its summit so all could hear his traitorous cries of agony.
Mini-Adventure: This tower has been locked up for countless ages. What treasures might reside within.

10-11. The Waiting Song

The sound of a dozen voices or more rides the wind well before the camp comes into view. A great bonfire rages in the middle of makeshift bone shacks. Around it men and woman dance and sing a raucous hymn to the God’s glory. The song is clearly multiple songs strung together endlessly by these devout believers.
Encounter: Singing Men (2D12 + 10)

12. The Council Tower

Pointing towards the Eye like a single bone finger wavily accusing a traitorous friend, the tower rises up from the bone trees. Lights flash in it’s windows and cracking and breaking of bones can be heard from beyond the open door. The air is thick with an animal musk that cloys at the back of the throat.
Encounter: The Changing Bones (2D10)
Mini-Adventure: The Council Tower was once home to the Last Son’s most trusted advisors. Who knows what reaches lie within its halls?

The Watchers (Hex D)

As one enters this region, the endless maze of bone trees transform into bone statues whose ominous eyes appear to follow every movement. Out of the corner of the eye, they shift their positions, always just out of sight, but never changing their gaze. Their whispers can be heard faintly at all hours as they warn one another of the coming steps of strangers.

1-4. The Stone Faced Man

At first glance, a living giant appears to be sitting on a boulder, head resting on it’s fist, deep in contemplation. Upon closer inspection, this massive figure is either the work of a brilliant sculptor or the victim of a horrendous curse. At his feet glitters… something that reflects the light from the Eye.
Trap: The small gilded casket at the foot of the giant statue is locked but empty. It is trapped with a poison mist that will fill the air for a 10 foot diameter. Those that fall prey to it have a 1 in 6 chance every hour of having their vision be pulled out of time to witness the last days of the Bone Forest on the surface. This effect will be tremendously distracting, hindering all rolls for 5 minutes by 1 and will continue until the poison is cured magically.

5-8.The Festering Pond

This hamlet clearly has not changed since the last apocalypse, for the buildings are of an older architectural design… and made of wood and stone. Shadowy figures move just out of sight, living lives as they did before the Last Son worked his revenge on the world.
Mini-Adventure: This hamlet has seven ten story structures, untouched by dust and possibly haunted.

9-12. The Watchful Ladies

A red tinged mist floats on the air through the clearing coming from a bubbling and belching iron cauldron at its center. Around it several robed figures converse as that work with ingredients they periodically add to the mixture. From a distance they appear to be women, but the faint lines of blue swirling tattoos on their skin and the strange nature of the setting warn that they are clearly something more.
Encounter: The Watchful Ladies (1D4+1)