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| Sea of Vipers by Kyle Marquis |
The general feel here is that particular gonzo blend of Stone Age meets Sorcery meets Saturday Morning Cartoons meets Super Science that I associate with the Anomalous Subsurface Environment or with Operation Unfathomable.
The world is ruled by a wizard called the Technogogic Implementer and administered by a bevy of vice-potentates, The Enthroned. Among the gods who rule this world are Ootoon, the Flowing One, the god/goddess of slime. Other NPCs and factions sound nearly as cool.
The individual entries are just as good, with that special blend of creative imagery, evocative names, and terse prose (imposed here by Twitter's character limit) that people love to see in their RPG writing.
I've picked out a handful that I enjoy, really just the first five that were too good to not write down. All these samples are from the left-hand side of that first island, because that's how quickly I got to five. I think Hex 0622 is my personal favorite so far. I really want to see those fish, kill that aboleth, and steal that treasure!
One thing you can't tell from this sample is that there seem to be a lot of interconnections between the hexes, as well as a lot of NPCs with agendas that the player characters could choose to become involved in. For example, one hex has a dragon searching for crystal shards from a half-dozen other hexes in order to assemble them into a weapon to go murder a wizard. If the players like that idea, they could easily spend a session or several tracking down the missing shards and pitching in to un-throne the potentate ... or they could just as easily try to defeat the dragon and earn the wizard's favor.
Hex 0416 "Werewoses. Cavemen bites shift your mind back to a prehistoric simian body when the moon rises, as your body runs amok in this time."
Hex 0622 "Beneath a long-dry riverbed: ancient aboleth mummy guarded by skeletal flying fish. In its treasure hoard: the TRILOBITE OF HOURS."
Hex 0723 "Rock troll vampire that couldn't reach its lair before dawn. It simultaneously burns and petrifies, forever, but can say 1 word/day."
Hex 0728 "Unicorn graveyard. Magically hidden until recently; anyone finding and speaking of it will trigger a horrible magic-horn gold rush."
Hex 1007 "Coast patrolled by mermaid pirates in upside-down catamarans. The captain has a lobster on her shoulder that says 'Yar!' "
Anyway, if that interests you, check it out on Kyle Marquis' website.
Kyle's stuff is fantastic. Thanks for spreading the good word further!
ReplyDeleteShit, I just know I want that TRILOBITE OF HOURS!
ReplyDeleteLooks like we might have to PVP for it, Martin!
DeleteSeconding the Trilobite of Houres. Hex0622 has something in the description that tickles my brain in the right way. It has the same pleasant terseness that a good rogue like has like Caves of Qud for example.
ReplyDeleteSo you can see why it's my favorite so far.
DeleteThanks for the writeup - this is heady stuff, and there is so much you could do with it.
ReplyDeleteIntriguing how Judges Guild's archaic and often downright oracular hex entries have found a match on Twitter's space age technology, which is mostly used for worse than useless purposes. The structure and limitations imposed by the character limit (or, in JG's case, the primitive publishing tools) encourage focused creativity. Great! You could imagine a dungeon module produced under similar constraints.
That's a good point, Melan. This is a case where constraint has bred creativity, and very tightly-focused creativity at that!
DeleteThank you for bringing this twitter feed to my attention!
ReplyDeleteWhen Sea of Vipers was completed, I compiled the entries into a reference doc here (doesn't include the background info on his site though)
ReplyDeletehttps://docs.google.com/document/d/1Bbklw2TFaSt_99glELlMuj8mlDsUUDbCLF0GxY_Lz5Q/edit
It would be interesting to make a campaign framework that makes the most out of this content, seeing as how it might feel a little anemic if treated as a typical hexcrawl. Allowing the party to travel fairly quickly would help that. I do think Kyle also intends to flesh out both Sea of Vipers and the current Hex a Day project with encounter tables and such, via his Patreon (where he as already posted some adventures) https://www.patreon.com/Hexaday/posts
Oh, very cool, David! Thanks for doing that formatting work. I wonder if he'll keep the extra content Patreon-only, or put it out another way sometime?
DeleteThat's a very cool edit! Both good-looking and user-friendly. Do note the maps therein seem to be off by one hex row with respect to the key.
Delete...dang. I'm not sure where that discrepancy seeped in, since the hex map came from Kyle. IIRC I did open it into hexographer before exporting those images so it may have been there.
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