I do not like talking about things I will do, because they do not always happen, and then I feel silly. But I will have a fair amount of free time for the next year, so if I don’t have something good to show for it, I ought to be embarrassed. 

My plan is to compile and organize and refine all my Albion stuff into The Pernicious Atlas. It will be a retroclone friendly book/pdf/publication/whatever containing:
  • a 400 hex wilderness crawl
  • setting-appropriate versions of the Warlock and Beast Child
  • a brief bestiary, including information that ties the creatures to the class features of the Warlock and Beast Child
  • a handful of spells, each interacting with hex locations in some way
  • some tables for running the faux Regency era English society of New Londinium, the setting’s main city, and all the social warfare, character/literal assassination, and rumor-mongering that implies

Feedback is welcome, of course, but this is something I might be selling for dollars, so if helping for free bothers you, keep that in mind. 


Anyways, here are 10 fairy-related wilderness hexes, in no particular order or geographical grouping. 

  1. In these fields of rose and thorn stands a lonely hill of stone. Deep within its dusty halls, upon the throne he claimed by right of ancient pact sits the fairy-lord of Albion: the King of Roses Red and Fair, a crown of flowers in his hair.
  2. A woman stands in a golden cage garlanded with roses. She weeps and wrenches at the bars, but she sings exquisitely and without pause. 
  3. Heartbreak, a Briton village of 30 souls, stands here. Its ruler is Pretty Tyrant, a minor fairy-noble and self-styled Earl of Heartbreak. He has extracted the obedience and adulation of the village’s inhabitants with magic, stolen their children, and disguised Heartbreak’s ruinous state of repair (the fruit of his neglectful rule) with glamour and illusion.
  4. A gallows creaks in the wind. Anyone hung from them, whether they be fairy or king or simple wretch, is dead forever, beyond the reach of magic or miracle.
  5. Orchards and verdant gardens surround the foundation of an old manor. Everything here is cursed with deathly poison (Save vs Poison or die upon eating any of the garden’s fruit, drinking water from its well, or breathing the scent of the flowers).
  6. Here hunts a fairy-hound. It savors the blood of magicians and attacks them on sight. However, it will act as the mount of anyone who subdues it, and it is sensitive to loud noises and terribly afraid of flame. FAIRY-HOUND: HD 4, AC as leather, MV Fast, d8 damage bite, Save 12
  7. A spring burbles at the base of a standing stone. Any magician who bathes in it can inscribe Speak with Dead in their spellbook. If they do so at night, d12 skeletons will rise up from the earth and attack. SKELETON: HD 1, AC as cloth, MV Medium, d6 damage weapon, Save 14
  8. An inn stands alone in the heath. The innkeeper says that the pleasure of the party’s company is payment enough, but they must ask no questions and make no demands under her roof. Should they violate her conditions, they will awaken d10 hexes away in a random direction, each with their maximum HP permanently reduced by 1. Regardless of the party’s compliance, the inn vanishes the next morning.
  9. A circle of white stones encircles a copse of ash trees. For every day that passes within the circle, an hour elapses without.
  10. A crudely hammered sword of iron lies in a field. It bears no enchantment, and in fact is utterly unremarkable, save for the fact that its wielder killed the Lady of All Nights millennia ago. All titled fairies will recognize the sword, and treat its owner as a peer. This is not always helpful.

Published by jacinto

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