#hexplore24

2024-12-31: Southwest Oregon (Hex 31)

Salty breezes from the ocean to the west blow across the humid landscape. A very slight mist comes almost constantly here, while fog creeps in a blanket through the lush old growth forests.

Notable Feature: Moore Mountain Quarry (Dungeon)

Medium dungeon, 11 areas

Thick fog that is much darker than usual covers most of this old quarry, tendrils of cloud blanket waving like the tentacles of some sea monster. Lately, people in the area have had their personalities suddenly change to become much more impulsive and amoral. The condition worsens for a few days, after which time, they flee toward the quarry. By now, the fog of the quarry is filled with dozens of half-monstrous people who are partially morphed into a caricature of their vices and misdeeds.

All this is happening because of a series of chance encounters with a sin-eater named Elaine Romero. Elaine is hired to stand next to recently deceased individuals and consume a small loaf of bread and a glass of beer that has been passed over the corpse, and the act transfers all the sins of the deceased to Elaine so that the spirit of the deceased can go to wherever it needs to go. However, Elaine was recently hired to eat the sins of a person who was quite touched by powerful magics. When that person's sins were transferred, Elaine immediately felt sick. The sins ate away at Elaine like a cancer, and soon Elaine asked another of her mystic friends for advice. The friend gave her an enchanted stone from the Old Country that is known as a Stone of Absolution. The stone is supposed to be able to absolve any sin or misdeed when kissed.

Elaine kissed the stone and immediately felt better, though the relief was short-lived. Soon Elaine began vomiting up a viscous black substance that was the physical manifestation of pure sin. Elaine stole the Stone of Absolution and fled to the quarry to live out her final hours in hopes that the sin would be contained in the disused quarry. However, some of the sin has breached a small stream that provides water to a semi-populated area and is mutating those who drink the water.

If the party can protect the stream from further incursion by sin and purify the water that was already tainted, they will soon be drawn to the Stone of Absolution that is clutched tightly in the fist of Elaine's corpse. The stone has 7 charges that replenish each day, and each time a person kisses the stone expends one charge. A charge can do one of the following things:

Restore 1HP

End a curse on a person

End the poisoned condition

End the frightened condition

Service Station: Pacifica Truck Stop

Long black tire marks on the road indicate the poorly-placed entrance to this truck stop as many drivers have to suddenly brake and reverse in order to pull in here. It's hard to see from the road, because almost everything about the truck stop is a shade of green that blends in with the surrounding rainforest. As far as amenities go, the food is good, the coffee tastes like black lightning, the showers are clean but can't shake a slight mildewy smell, and the walls of the lounge area are plastered in Teamsters Union literature.

Each time the party visits Pacifica Truck Stop, there's a 75% chance that a man named Fergus Mitchell is there. Fergus always carries a Polaroid Land Model 100 instant camera (pictured below) with him and will ask if anyone in the party would like to have "a picture for the future" for 50 cents. Fergus can take a total of 1d8 pictures each time he appears.

2024-12-30: Nevada (Hex 30)

Sagebrush shrubs grow in clusters on the edge of the desert, while the desiccated husks of tumbleweeds crinkle softly as the wind blows them in an erratic path across the dusty soil.

Notable Feature: Spotlight Dunes (Natural Landmark)

Points of light shine like miniature spotlights embedded into the sand dunes when the sun is at your back. They are formed as a consequence of iron rich sand piling into dunes formations where it interacts with the dry and dusty climate to attract lightning when the weather conditions are right. When lightning strikes the sand, the intense heat and energy fuse the sand into a dark glass. Over time, the wind-blown sands smooth out the surface of the glass and polish it into a mirror-like sheen.

Service Station: The Ace of Diamonds Gas Mart

The Routes make it hard to get to Las Vegas from here, but make it easy to get from Las Vegas to wherever this place is. Many people leave the bright lights of Vegas and find themselves stuck in the desert, and it happens often enough that the last service station for many miles started embracing these accidental visitors. There are a handful of employees present at any given time, and they are all dressed like Liberace. Although they have more typical names that were assigned to them at birth, they only answer to "Liberace" while on the clock.

2024-12-29: Arizona (Hex 29)

Dust hangs in the dry air, perpetually flowing across the landscape like shallow waves from the ghost of a sea.

Notable Feature: The Lonely Vendor (Resource)

A sun-weathered woman in her mid-50s (Willow Greenberg) sits in a folding chair by the highway with a pickup truck of food. A large umbrella keeps the sun off her during the day and a camping lantern keeps her lit and warm at night. Propped up between the chair and the pickup truck is a large sign that says "Free Food!"

Regardless of the direction you're heading, you'll encounter her eventually. Willow never seems to leave her location or run out of food, though she is in a different location on a deserted stretch of highway each time she is found. Those who visit her will be offered free food in exchange for telling her stories and news about what's happening in the world. Willow lives so far away from everything, her booth is the only human contact she gets. For every hour a person spends chatting with Willow, they will receive 2 meals worth of healthy, safe, and ready to eat food. For every 4 hours spent chatting with Willow, she divulges a rumor that she heard from another traveler. Any rumor received from Willow is guaranteed to be at least mostly true.

Some of the foods Willow might provide are listed below, and appear regardless of the season.

Jerky

Tamales

Melons

Sandwiches

Salads and hard boiled eggs

Fresh bread

Hidden: The Withering Farmer

Mose Acosta runs a farm that is quickly withering away from lack of water. The irrigation channels he normally uses have run dry, and the North Texas Water Authority has struck up a deal with Colorado to divert more than its fair share of water flowing through Colorado into Texas. Mose was told by the NTWA that the arrangement was only temporary, but he's pretty sure they are just trying to take advantage of him. If the party can find a way to force NTWA to revert to a more equitable distribution of water, Mose would be most grateful.

Encounter: The Stranded Motorist

The party sees a pack of coyotes (1d10+5 of them) traveling in the same direction, and seconds later sees a man in his early 20s fixing a blown-out tire on the side of the road. The man is named Lonnie Hedelman and he's capable of finishing the task on his own in about 15 minutes, but he's unaware of the pack of coyotes approaching his location. The coyotes are normal animals, though they appear to be under the influence of some supernatural force that causes them to be more aggressive and travel in larger packs than usual. If the party does nothing, the coyotes will ambush Lonnie 1 minute after encountering him.

Service Station: Desert Vista Fuel

You can stop here, but you don't get what you pay for. Desert Vista is not exactly an honest establishment. The fuel is subpar and more expensive than usual (because the pumps are intentionally set to register more fuel as being pumped than actually came through the nozzle). Observant players (DC 13 WIS (Perception) check) will notice that the pump indicates that more fuel had been pumped than the vehicle could actually hold.

But that's not all the shenanigans happening here! You can buy snacks and other gas station trinkets here, but be careful with how you pay. The store accepts credit cards, which is a rarity along The Routes, but expect to get some extra charges on your next account statement when the number was used for mail ordering some suspicious wares. Paying in cash isn't much safer, though, because there's a 50% chance that any bills given back as change are counterfeit. Players handling any counterfeit bills will be asked to make a DC 16 WIS (Perception) check; a success identifies the bill as counterfeit.

2024-12-28: South Texas (Hex 28)

The road travels through chaparral and scrubland, alternating between long straight stretches and snarls of turns that seem to serve no purpose.

Notable Feature: The Smuggler's Ranch (Dungeon)

Medium dungeon, 18 areas

There is a palatial ranch house out here that belongs to Tristan Harper, who is known to the public as a wealthy rancher, farmer, and world-class poker gambler. However, Tristan's wealth comes primarily from the importing and distributing of cocaine from South America. Large quantities of the drugs are hidden at the house through a combination of false walls, secret doors/tunnels, and magical obfuscation. There's also a tiny airstrip for "crop dusters" that are mostly just smuggling vessels.

Many people are on Tristan's list of blackmail and kidnapping targets. One such person, Mayor Josephine Rotondo of the town of Corpus Arañas (located outside the outside The Routes), currently has both her son and husband kidnapped. The husband and son were out for a horseback riding session nearby, and Tristan's goons ambushed the pair because didn't want to pass up the opportunity for leverage. Now they are being used as collateral to make sure that a huge shipment of drugs doesn't encounter any police presence on the way out of the county. Mayor Rotondo needs someone discreet and not ideally not affiliated with the local police to infiltrate the ranch house, locate the hostages, and get them out safely. For those who are successful, Mayor Rotondo will pay a small anonymous reward for their safe recovery, but the more important reward is that the quick thinking father was able to memorize the path to a place they were held that had both a lot of drugs and a briefcase full of money.

Secret: The Dealer's Sanctum

Carefully hidden in a cow pasture is a cistern with a false wall that leads to a maze of tunnels and secret passages. Those who know the way can reach a chamber that holds drugs ready for distribution and a briefcase full of cash to pay for the transportation and bribes associated with the drug trade.

Service Station: El Burro Gasolina y Comida

The parking lot is packed dirt and the business is a blocky concrete structure with a garage for repairs. Strings of lights run from the building to the pumps and to a series of benches surrounding a seemingly empty patch of dirt. The shop serves meals of traditional Mexican cuisine for migrant workers in the morning and in the evening. After sunset, there's a good chance that there is an event or social gathering with live music in the area with the benches (2-in-6 chance on weeknights, 5-in-6 on weekends).

Items From Other Hexes

2024-12-27: Louisiana (Hex 27)

Slow-moving water filters through swamps on both sides of the road. Insects constantly splatter the windshield as you travel, blending with the cacophony of bugs living in the swamp to sound like radio static.

Notable Feature: Sills Ethyl Synthesis (Dungeon)

Medium dungeon, 13 areas

The old Sills ethyl synthesis plant got shut down years ago for numerous safety violations, the most notable was being a house of butterflies because the chemicals involved often caused workers to hallucinate insects coming out of their bodies before they went violently insane. Recently the lights at the old plant have come back on and smoke is rising from the stacks again. Most folks think it's just started operations again, but they stay clear lest they fall victim to its hazardous emissions. The truth, though, is much more sinister.

A chemical weapons specialist named Caleb Ormstead has received secret orders from the U.S. federal government to develop a chemical that can be sprayed on Vietnamese food sources designed to achieve two goals. The first goal is for this chemical to function as an herbicide to cause food shortages, while the second goal is to leave enough lead in the soil that the next several crop harvests contain lead in amounts high enough to induce lead poisoning and hopefully render the Viet Cong (and innocent bystanders) unable to fight.

Unbeknownst to Caleb when operations began, a group of vigilante magic users had been engraving ritualistic sigils on the property in the years that the facility was dormant in an attempt to speed up the facility's destruction. These efforts were largely unsuccessful because they required more blood sacrifice than could be discreetly provided. But when a worker fell to his death a few weeks ago, his blood activated the dormant sigils and opened up a portal to the elemental plane of fire. Now there is facility full of dangerous chemicals that is slowly being consumed as the portal grows larger.

The party's goal is to retrieve a sample of the hazardous chemical developed by Ormstead so that local scientists will know what they are dealing with, create a circle of protection large enough to contain the portal and stop it from spreading, and stop the weaponization of the factory if at all possible. Success in this endeavor will see the party rewarded with up to 6 consumable magic items (selected from this list: potions of gaseous form, oil of slipperiness, oil of etherealness, potion of fire breathing).

Secret: Gulf Ranger

Crawdads (crayfish) are among the numerous creatures that inhabit the bayous of Louisiana. Normally their coloration ranges from reddish brown to an olive green, but some rare ones exist in much more vibrant colors. Those who find such a crawdad and feed one to an alligator will summon a being known as the Gulf Ranger. The Gulf Ranger is eternally cursed to never leave the bayous of Louisiana unless they find someone to willingly trade places with them. The Gulf Ranger has the ability to teleport you to any waterway in the contiguous US, but it is incredibly painful for the Ranger and the curse dictates that they cannot refuse a teleportation request.

The teleportation is in one direction only, though vehicles can be teleported as well to ease the inconvenience. Overall, the teleportation takes about 10 minutes, but it also summons a torrential rainstorm centered on the party's location (even if the skies are clear and no rain is forecast) that will attract attention, especially if anyone is a wanted person.

If anyone opts to trade places with the Ranger, they will give up their character sheet and make a new character. The only way to return a character to a player's control is to find someone else to willingly switch places (and the former Ranger will never agree to go back).

Service Station: Boudin Bobby's

This place is little more than a shack with a sagging roof, but Boudin Bobby's manages to cram a cafeteria-style lunch counter inside. Obviously the boudin is the star of the show, but several other dishes are available (though they all smell very spicy).

Boudin Bobby's closes at sunset; no one needs to be out here in these parts after dark. A lone light fixture illuminates the closed sign. Those who stumble upon the fuel station at night will notice swarms of fireflies clinging to the side of the building. Legend has it that the shape these fireflies form can provide information about the future if you know how to interpret them.

2024-12-26: South Carolina (Hex 26)

Cramped roads are surrounded by marshy forests, the trees draped in Spanish moss that give the limbs a bearded appearance.

Settlement: The Town of Erasmus

Erasmus is a community in a remote part of coastal South Carolina that has long been under the care of Gullah Geechee people. The Gullah Geechee are descendants of chattel slavery who lived on isolated plantations and managed to carve out a distinctive culture that incorporated many of the African traditions of their elders.

Nearly the entire population of Erasmus is Black, and most of the remainder being indigenous people from the Edisto nation/tribe (though it would be 1970 before they officially adopted the Edisto name). The community is defined by outsiders for its arts like basket weaving and textiles, as well as its delicious food.

Few people come this way because of how isolated it is, though more people are stopping by as awareness spreads of how reliably the settlement can be found on The Routes. Most of the travelers through these parts are people of color, though white folks are allowed as long as they don't try to start anything.

Many of the buildings are painted in bright colors, often with murals or patterns. Houses are on the small side (by modern sensibilities), and much of the infrastructure is forced to be simple, sparse, or improvised to cope with a prejudiced lack of investment by moneyed individuals from outside the community (and that's on top of the extra expenses that inevitably pop up when trying to complete any large project so far out in the boonies).

Hidden: The Developer Holdout

A modest house at the end of a long dirt road is the location of a place where the old traditions, stories, and history of the Gullah Geechee are taught. The house is owned by Thursday Molengo, and it is located on land that a developer is looking to acquire. So far Thursday has refused the developer's offers to buy the land, publicly stating that history and traditions matter more than money. Privately, he's willing to sell if the offer is high enough.

Unfortunately for Thursday, no more offers are coming. The developer has struck a sweetheart deal with seize the land through eminent domain. A team of bulldozers are arriving soon to demolish the house, and Thursday would like the party to help hold off the bulldozers for a day or two so that a lawyer friend of his who specializes in fighting government land seizures that take land away from non-white communities. He will arrive in 1d3+1 days, because he is not terribly familiar with The Routes.

Encounter: The Surveyors

A team of three surveyors (Patrick Hughes, Glenn Wilson, and Roy Evans) from the Bureau of Transportation Standardization and Consistency is in the middle of an expedition to document some of the more dangerous sections of The Routes and ran out of food some time ago and are starving from their time being lost. Their car was abandoned some time back when they ran out of fuel. They have money to pay for food, but Patrick will refuse any food offered by or touched by a person of color.

Service Station: Singing Oak Fuel & General Store

In addition to providing gas and diesel to travelers, the Singing Oak is a convenient place for locals to get many of the supplies for daily life. Most of the locals come by on foot because it's so close, so there always seem to be many more people shopping and chatting in the store than there are cars outside. The main building is an older structure probably built during the Great Depression with several bottle trees (shrub-like sculptures with glass bottles covering the branches) guarding the perimeter to ward off malevolent spirits like the Plat-Eye (there are a bunch of different conflicting stories about the Plat-Eye, and I can't find my book of lowcountry ghost stories, so just pick a version that resonates with you and makes sense for your table).

The interior of the shop is lit by several bare bulbs that alternately cover the wares in bright light and deep shadow. The floor is wooden and extremely sturdy despite its age. A grandfather clock that no longer works is afforded a place of honor along one of the walls. Legend says that the clock stopped working the moment the local plantation owner died of old age.

For folks traveling by car, lost objects have a tendency to appear here. There is a 10% chance that a missing object appears in the glove box each time a car visits the store, though the object must be small enough to fit there.

Author's Note: I decided to name this community Erasmus in honor of the group behind Lowcountry Crawl, who have done a wonderful job of condensing the real history and folklore of this part of South Carolina into something that is both informative and fun to play. Although LC is set considerably earlier than 1966, much of the history and folklore still shows up in these rural areas (I speak from experience because much of my childhood was spent in the Lowcountry and the vibes of LC are spot on).

2024-12-25: West Virginia (Hex 25)

Clouds poke at the rounded peaks of these old mountains covered by forest except for the parts where the mining companies saw an opportunity. Rumbles from the distant mountaintops interrupt the sounds of nature; it’s not thunder, but the mountaintops being broken apart by explosive mining. The way to the southeast is prone to delays.

Notable Feature: The Appalachian Tunnel (Hazard)

Only the shortest trips along The Routes in West Virginia don’t go through the Appalachian Tunnel. It doesn’t seem to matter where you’re going or what direction you’re traveling, The Routes will make you travel the tunnel. The Appalachian Tunnel is a twisting 40-ish mile section of enclosed road that has been blasted through the heart of a mountain and nominally paved. Ancient sodium bulbs illuminate some of the dark spaces with erratic flickers, though they are spaced too far apart to do much good and there are things lurking in the darkness that will test the fortitude of even the strongest travelers.

For cars traveling through the area, every passenger in the car must make a DC 17 CON saving throw check. If a majority of the passengers succeed on the saving throw, the car traverses the hex without incident. If the majority fail, the car traverses the hex after suffering a misfortune. Roll a d6 and consult the table below to determine what misfortune occurs. All individuals in the car suffer the same misfortune.

Tunnel Misfortunes (1d6)

The gruesome remains of someone who perished in the tunnel fill you with dread. Gain disadvantage on all checks to avoid the Frightened condition for the next 1d6 days.

Pools of darkness in the tunnel hint at the things nightmares are made of. You do not gain the benefits of your next long rest as you have difficulty sleeping.

Smoke from the burning wreck of a vehicle releases toxic chemicals into the stale tunnel air. You are poisoned for 24 hours.

A poor soul in the car in front of you grew too paranoid from the shadows and started shooting at you for following too closely. Randomly choose 1d4 people in the car to sustain Dangerous (piercing) damage.

Unnatural darkness settles within your soul. For the next 1d6 days, all light within 40 feet of you is one dimmed. Bright light becomes dim, and dim light becomes darkness.

Horrible things seen in the tunnel ruin your appetite and prevent you from eating. After the first day without food, you may roll a DC 15 CON saving throw once each day to end the condition and eat normally.

Hidden: The Scheming Biker

Waiting near a vocational school that trains people to become mechanics is Buster Morgan. Buster is part of a motorcycle club (the Road Raiders) that was on its way to participate in a rally down in Alabama and he was left behind after a major engine failure. No one wanted to let Buster ride with them, so Buster forced to find a way to repair his bike with limited funds and make his way to the rally. That's why he's helping out at the vocational school to hopefully get his bike repaired for next to free. His club's actions have stirred up massive feelings of resentment in Buster, and he'll ask anyone who is going to Alabama if they would mind helping bring club leadership down a peg by sabotaging or disrupting the club's performance at the rally which will happen in 4 days. Exactly what will be done or how it will be accomplished is up to the party, as long as no one is seriously injured or killed and only people with Road Raiders insignia end up affected.

Hidden: The Misguided Missionary

Brother Abram Ellison is an arrogant priest who presides over the Jordan Salvation Southern Baptist Church. He has heard rumors that there are large black dogs that portend the imminent death of those who see them while driving, and their existence is clearly evidence that the devil is working on the mortal plane and that the dogs have some sort of connection to Hell. He asks the party to collect one of these supernatural dogs alive and bring it back to the church.

He believes that by sacrificing the dog using a particular ritual, Brother Abram can open up a portal to Hell and travel through it to rescue the souls of damned who turned away from Christ. To protect himself from the flames of Hell, Brother Abram will be symbolically baptized again via complete immersion in holy water which will prevent the denizens of Hell from touching him. Brother Abram is correct that the holy water will keep him safe from hellish devils, but he is unfortunately wrong about a very important point: when he steps through the portal into Hell, the flames will almost immediately turn his wet baptismal robe into steam and nearly boil him alive. Within 30 seconds, the water will be completely evaporated and since there is no holy water to protect him, the devils will swarm upon him to enact their vengeance for his hubris.

Attentive characters will be able to memorize/copy the surprisingly simple ritual that opens a portal to Hell after seeing Brother Abram perform it. The hardest part of the ritual is finding a creature that works for the sacrifice. Opening up a portal to Hell doesn't have much of a practical application for most character, but it might be useful in the right situation.

Service Station: Kevin’s Kave

Built halfway up the mountain on a narrow road, Kevin's Kave has the architectural distinction of incorporating a shallow natural cave into the building's rear. The cool stone of the cave walls turn that part of the store into a natural cooler, which is (of course) used as a way to keep large quantities of beer cold. However, the location of the business means that space is at a premium. Everything is spread out in a long line that's about the width of a two-lane road.

2024-12-24: Vermont (Hex 24)

The road meanders and weaves over rolling hills covered in forests. Beech, birch, and maple trees cling tightly to the cool ground; the forests conceal a variety of wildlife.

Notable Feature: The Lotus Eater Forest (Resource)

Consisting of several dozen acres of boreal forest on the edge of a lake, the Lotus Eater Forest is named after the lotophages in Homer’s Odyssey. Several of the trees here produce a chemical aura that is mostly imperceptible to humans but makes mammalian Beasts docile and unafraid of people. For every 4 hours a person waits in the forest near one of these trees, an animal native to the area wanders into the influence of the tree. Roll 1d12 and consult the table below to see what animal appears.

Animal Caught By The Trees (1d12)

Coyote (Use Hyena statblock)

Fox, Red or Gray (Use Jackal statblock)

Bobcat (Use Panther statblock)

Ermine, Weasel, or Mink (use Weasel statblock)

Mountain Lion (Use Panther statblock)

Otter (Use Giant Weasel statblock with a swim speed of 40)

Fisher or American Marten (Use Badger statblock)

Skunk (Use Troglodyte statblock with 4 HP and no chameleon skin)

Raccoon (Use Giant Rat statblock)

Black Bear

Deer

Moose/Elk (Use Elk statblock)

Animals found in this way can be easily captured in this stupefied state. Some people in other places would pay good money to have some of these creatures as exotic pets. The animal recovers from the effects of the trees after being out of their influence for 1d4 hours. Sticks and small branches taken from these trees can be placed near creatures to prolong the effects (useful for transporting creatures!), but will lose their potency after 12 hours.

Service Station: Unity Heating Distributors

A small office building and a gravel parking lot is surrounded by industrial-scale storage tanks that hold propane and heating oil. Unity Heating Distributors is not a traditional service station because its purpose is to supply rural Vermont households with the supplies they need to keep warm. However, gas and diesel is often hard to find out here, so the company installed a few gasoline and diesel tanks to top off their service vehicles. Locals and the occasional travelers passing through the area are welcome to fill up here, but it costs about twice as much as a regular gas station. Minor repairs and light engine work can be performed by the garage technicians on site, but they don’t usually keep the parts in stock for cars and light trucks and it’ll be a long wait to get them delivered out here. Those in search of food will need to settle for handfuls of candy from gumball style machines or a soda from a vending machine that hasn’t been refilled in a while.

Items From Other Hexes