Connects to: 03.02, 12.28, 15.28, 16.23 and 39.09.
Gnolls (15.28) and Nekh (12.28) both rely on desert game for survival. To ensure that the beasts come, they meet at the ancient temple of Ogo Tassak every year at the vernal and autumnal equinoxes to perform rites. The meetings can be maddening to outsiders. For hours, the Nekh squawk and beat their wings to the drumming and mournful baying of the gnolls. But the carving and painting of new animal totems is the most important rite. The Nekh sculpt animal figures from driftwood and paint them with cave ichor and the gnolls sing enchantments into them. Their cooperation attracts a season of game to the Singing Waste. When the rites are not being held the temple entrances are sealed tight to prevent ghouls from haunting the place.
To visitors, Ogo Tassak seems a humble temple complex. It consists of only a few circular chambers decorated with bizarre, crude engravings of beasts no longer seen in the Shrouded Lands. No one knows who its builders were, although the esteemed lizard man historian Kashikik (16.23) is certain that they were human.
The gnolls know of several shafts near the complex that lead to lower chambers. They do not bother exploring them because their forays into the darkness have yielded little water, no food and hostile creatures. An old gnoll named Kroo did, however, discover a bronze blade of exotic design that can erupt into flames. His description of the chamber sounds like a tomb.
Subhexes:
- 14.27.01 (The High King’s Crown): the crown of the old High Kings of Gore lies beneath this temple.
- 14.27.02 (The Head of House Brucoloc): Anselm Brucoloc has misplaced his body but his head yet lives.
Connections:
- The carvings on the bronze blade that Kroo found seem similar to those on the tombs of the ice mummies (03.02).
- The Nekh that congregate here would pay well for one of the lenses of the Roots of Dream (39.09).
Hooks:
- Do the totems have powers besides attracting game?
- How are the entrances sealed so well? Ghouls are pretty tricky.
- What sorts of beasts are engraved on the temple walls?
- What hostile creatures lurk beneath the temple?
- What other treasures await their liberation?
- What’s up with this place and the ice mummies?
The High Kings’ Crown
Hex 14.27.01
Connects to: 03.19, 05.18 and 05.20.
Below the Temple of the Hunt there may be a tomb of an ancient king and there may not, but it certainly contains as many treasures and dangers as any tomb I have heard of. Let me tell you of one of each.
Crowns change men. A prince may be your closest friend but after they put some jewelry on his head you’ll only find a stranger sitting there on the throne. This was nowhere truer than of the old High Kings of Gore. Brave and honest princes ruled as blood-drenched tyrants and cruel and lazy wastrels became even-handed lawgivers (05.18). But after the Lords Sanguine killed the last High King of Gore (05.20) his crown was lost. Somehow it ended up, every rusted iron ounce of it, in the tunnels beneath Ogo Tassak.
None have been able to recover it because it is near the lair of a strange beast. It looks something like an albino lion, lion-limbed and sharp-ribbed, its claws dripping a powerful solvent much sought-after by alchemists that allows it to claw through walls to seek out its prey. Is is able to do so with some skill because its “mane” is actually a thick fungal growth that sends out spores that look much like dandelion seeds. When one of them touches anything warm and fleshy, the lion awakes and comes.
Connection:
- Some of the Lords Sanguine have attempted to reclaim the iron crown in order to restore the monarchy (03.19).
Hooks:
- Why would anyone use a Helm of Opposite Alignment as a crown? Why is it all rusted? Does it have any properties besides changing your alignment?
- How did the crown end up here?
- What is the lion creature called? What’s its back story? Who has it killed?
- Which alchemists want the lion’s acid?
The Head of House Brucoloc
Many Lords Sanguine have quested for the Iron Crown of Gore (14.27.01) but Anselm Brucoloc (08.21) knew that he would be the one to recover it and reign as a new High King. After all, he had gained the gift of immortality and, not being a fool, made sure to acquire imperviousness to aging as well.
But, sadly enough, Anselm is not impervious to injury and managed to lose all of his body while searching through the dungeons beneath Ogo Tassak (14.27). All that remains of him is a still-living head that lies covered in dust in a forgotten corner of a side room. As he does not have any lungs, he is only capable of speech if someone blows through his severed trachea. He would be most pleased with anyone who could provide him with regeneration magic. Until then, he’ll lie in his corner and twitch his lips.
Connection:
- After long years of lying still, Anselm’s hearing has grown keep indeed and he can hear the echoes in the earth, even those of the dwarves who beat their hammers in deep carverns to send messages reverberating from vault to vault of the Hoard (33.00).
Hooks:
- How did Anselm gain immunity to death and aging?
- What happened to his body?
