Locations For Hexcrawls 4: The Tapatiotl Jungle

“Welcome to the jungle.

It gets worse here everyday.”

-Welcome to the Jungle, Guns N’ Roses

Yep, the people demanded another hexcrawl location and now I am delivering.

This time, we’ll be outlining a location in Jungle terrain (probably part of a larger tropical climate region). Again, the hex is still 5-miles across. Have fun.

Hex 4 Overview

The random encounter chance of the hex is 12 or less on 3d, outside of towns and villages. The majority Terrain type of the hex is Jungle (-3 to foraging rolls, no modifier to Tracking, and x0.20 travel speed). Most Jungle terrain is bad (with the usual penalties for those without Terrain Adaptation) and pathways through it are typically rare and poorly maintained. Dangers of The Tapatiotl Jungle include disease, poison (in both plants and animals), dire animals, dire plants, giant animals, hybrid animals, slime, quicksand, falling trees, lack of light (-2 worse than normal) thanks to the heavy tree-canopies, insect swarms, and sinkholes. The weather is humid, hot, and rainy (sometimes foggy). While there are towns and villages within The Tapatiotl Jungle, they are not spread out very much and they cluster mostly along the Jalisco River (see below). The hex’s Mana level is Normal with some isolated spots of High. The Sanctity levels of the hex do not vary much from Normal, except for the lost ruined temples of Evil godlings in the wilderness. Nature’s Strength modifiers can go from +2 (deep wilderness) to -2 (towns) in the hex.

Obvious Landmark: Jalisco River

The Jalisco River is a huge wide and long waterway (10 yards deep at the most) going through the hex, from one end to another. The terrain type of this landmark counts as River/Stream, Bank, Freshwater Lake or Tropical Lagoon for Survival purposes (+2 to foraging rolls). This river can be seen from outside the hex. Trade between towns, villages and from in and out of the hex typically goes along this river. Mercenaries and soldiers patrol up and down in boats to keep the shipments safe and on-time.

Casino steamboats make regular cruises between towns and villages, picking up wandering gamblers and those looking for some vice on the river.

River pirates and wreckers often attack travellers both on land and on the water. One ambush tactic is setting up a large net or “wall” of stakes just under the water line to catch boats. Vessels modified for ramming can also sideswipe target boats to run them aground in the banks of the river. At night, the wreckers can use false lights to fool ships into steering into hazards (spellcasters have even more options for ruining a water transport). Bounties on these robbers (dead or alive) are usually quite high.

Rumors tell of an infamous decade-old giant aquatic monster lurking in the river’s depths and sometimes attacking boats – but no source seems to agree on what kind of monster it actually is.

River guides can be hired to help travellers through the area – although the business is cut-throat enough that sabotage of trips happens from time to time.

A current well-known fixture of the river boats is a deranged and dangerous big game hunter on expedition, assisted by his large crew of servants, thugs, porters, guides, monster lore experts and scouts.

Plain Feature: Pequeño Prístino Bridge

Once you’re in The Tapatiotl Jungle, it becomes easy to find Pequeño Prístino Bridge. It’s a small turn off the main body of the Jalisco River, and it looms large across and above the water. The bridge is a huge stone structure that is flanked and cluttered with mountain-like trash heaps made of shipwrecks and discarded building materials. Five stone towers jut straight up (multiple rope bridges and ziplines between them), erected along the bridge. One can walk across from one river bank to the other on the bridge, boats on the river sail under it. According to tavern talk, there’s all sorts of buried treasures hidden in the trash piles.

A sniper camps in a high stone tower (giving him up approximately 40 yards of elevation over those on the ground), watching over the area. He has a handsome stockpile of supplies, a surprising variety of high quality missile weapons (perhaps including firearms), the skills necessary to use them all (high base skill, too), plenty of ammo (including specialty and enchanted types) for them all, some weapon accessories (such as the Dwarven Accurizer from Dungeon Fantasy 4 page 12), parkour gear, poisons, and camouflage on his armour. He has rigged up traps (high base Traps skill) all around the surrounding area, including noisemakers and flares to give away an intruder’s position. He may have tamed some monsters to have them act as his protectors and attack animals. Scuttlebutt around town says there’s actually more than one sniper, there’s a team of sneaky sharpshooters out there working as a team. Either way, there’s a bounty on his head (dead or alive), posted by an unknown party.

The sniper has kidnapped a pair of hostages for unknown reasons; 2 good-looking East Asian women (smooth pale skin, silky black hair, bright green eyes, slim figures, fine simple clothing), identical twins, named Chunhua and Jing. What the sniper does not know is that the women held hostage secretly have a stolen Soul Jar of a particular VIP archmage hidden in their possession.

Hidden Feature: The Ruined City of Mygalomorphae

This place is not well-known to most people. Only sages who have collected ancient lore and studied the jungle for years have managed to pin a general idea of where the ruined city of Mygalomorphae could be. According to legend, the city was once the capital of a small but powerful kingdom that fell into worship of horrid corrupting things from beyond. The city fell into ruin as the kingdom was wiped out when their power went feral. From there, the jungle seemed to swallow it up as if trying to bury any evidence of its existence.

Evil Sanctity is High within the ruins. Good Sanctity is Low. The local Mana might also be Twisted, Wild or malevolently Aspected. Nature’s Strength is oddly low (-1) compared to the usual jungle areas. The ruins of the city are half-flooded (some passages are outright underwater) and diseased or tainted. Avoid drinking the water within the city limits. That is harder done than said, as big pools of water are everywhere in the ruins.

If one could get past the various monsters lairing in the ruins, they could recover various treasures in the old buildings. But the truly valuable (and most dangerous) find is located in the depths of the old unholy temple complex (dedicated to a strange occult godling of Evil temperament); in an underground chamber, there is a strange purple glowing portal still active.

Through the portal, one can access a dark parallel mirror dimension, a distorted surreal horror reflection of reality. On the other side, the city is not ruined but instead intact as if at the height of its glory – although it is not populated by people but fleeting shadowy echoes of civilization and scattered strange monsters of myth and magic. Again, treasures (some cursed) can be looted from this otherworld but it is dangerous, the most common valuables are silver jewellery pieces inlaid with turquoise or coral. The warped sun in the sky does not warm you and provides only an eerie discoloured light. Nature’s Strength is -3 from the bizarre anti-reality despoilment. The shadows here appear to be deeper and darker than they should be, as if concealing a secret passage to somewhere ever more odd and sinister. Unidentified smells and noises are detected from time to time without apparent explanation. (The GM can throw in whatever “funhouse” dungeon areas he wants here.)

There’s said to be a soil on the other side that can purify and enhance soil in the “real” world. It’s identifiable by its bright orange colour and the smell of sulphur and cinnamon. It’s incredibly effective, although the resulting desalted and reinvigorated patch of land should probably be exorcised before you actually plant your crops.

A possible random encounter on the other side is a living illusion creature rushing over to you with unnatural speed and changes into an exact duplicate of you and mirrors your actions, half a second ahead of your movements. Brush your hair away from your face? It’s already doing it. It’s so fast that it can remain in front of you no matter which way you face, so no matter where you turn, it’s directly in front of you, a subtle out-of-time mockery of you. Getting rid of it is difficult because it’s so fast, but there are ways.

A common hazard in the other world is the mirror webs, thin shards of glass spun into webs that span corridors and doors, hard to see in the darkness (-5 to detect). If blundered into, they cause lacerations (1d+1 cutting, bleeding is very likely). Bleeding from these collisions attracts the webs’ makers (giant spiders with elder thing traits/prefixes). If a character detects the danger, they can try navigating through the gaps in the webs with a DX-4 roll or smashing the webs with a weapon (at the risk of making noise and risking a random encounter).

Adventure Seeds

What fun antics can adventurers get up to in the jungle?

Bought and Sold

A political scandal has hit a town in the hex. A major guild (probably the Fighters’ Guild) took lots of bribes from a crooked merchant running contraband – and they’ve just been found out. The civil outrage threatens to explode into a riot and the players are offered a reward to resolve the situation by hunting down the merchant and the corrupt guilders, who have skipped town and fled to a hideout (dungeon). The contraband shipments are valuable evidence and the players will earn a big bonus if they bring that back too (or they might covertly decide to keep it for themselves).

Against All Odds

An official of a major town has instituted a gambling ban and wants to make this a big splash by cracking down hard on a casino riverboat establishment. The players are hired to raid the riverboat and bust the petty mafia running the joint. They’ll need to get a water vessel (perhaps provided by their patron) or set up a wrecking trap to intercept the casino on the river and board the ship. (They may get to keep the casino vault contents as their reward or simply loot it under the table.) The casino staff and patrons won’t surrender their fun without a fight.