Hex Crawl 23 #277: The Golden Hive of Shuddud

Moving due west of Eryptos, we find ourselves eleven hexes northeast, four north of Alakran.

  

For many centuries the Golden Hive of Shuddud has the pride and comfort of the province of Eryptum. A small group of Mitraic priests tends the Hive in a tall red brick shrine not far from the provincial capital, that looms over a barren stretch of ground. The Hive’s bees make a honey that empowers mighty remedies.

The following rumours, not all of which are true, buzz around the Hive.

1. Many years ago, in the most wicked reign of the tyrant Ushum-gallu, the honey of the Hive turned black. And when in defiance Ushum-Gallu ate of it, he sickened and died within a week.

2. The priests have a fine legend about the Hive. But if you go far back enough in the royal chronicles, you simply find that the priests found a magic beehive near a hole in the ground, built it larger, and put the shrine walls around it for protection.

3. Sages think it no coincidence that the Hive was established a slow day’s walk from the ancient holy grounds of the old god of insects, Apshai.

4. The honey of Shuddud has power even over death. It has revived two kings, two royal heirs, a queen, and countless people of lesser importance.

5. I know someone, who knows someone, who has seen the Hive. It is enormous; a person could easily stand in it. And covered all in gold!

6. The toy mantises in the hands of children are from a festival that protects farmers against insect pests, which was last week—the only time people here hold Apshai above Mitra in their hearts.

7. A good thing they’ve forbidden the old Apshai place. A child was playing near there and got stung by a wasp. When he tried to swat it, it cursed at him and threw a splinter in his face!

8. Never are bees seen outside the shrine, and those who have seen inside say there are no flowers. How is the honey made?

9. It is said of the honey of the Hive, a person may receive its blessing only once in a lifetime. Thereafter, it lies bitter on the tongue, sickly in the belly.

10. The priests of the hive learn the language of bees, which is a kind of a dance.

11. According to the scrolls of the keepers of the Hive, it descended from heaven in response to the prayers of priests during a plague, giving honey to cure the sick and even revive the dead!

12. Sacred texts tell us that of all insects, the bee was the only one to leave the old god Apshai and acknowledge the truth of Mitra. The Hive was given to humanity in honour of the bee’s wisdom.

The Hive was also the site of one of the Band of Bronze's strangest adventures - but that story awaits to be told another time.

Hex Crawl 23 #189: The Dharvi of Ship Rock

Seven hexes northwest of Alakran.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dervishes make their debut in D&D in 1976, a mere word on the Desert Men encounter table in the Eldritch Wizardry supplement. By the release of the Monster Manual two years later, the type is described at length: a fanatic warrior order of the desert with high morale, plenty of supporting clerics, and a tendency to build fortresses. 

This usage follows the a mistaken application of the term that dates back to Britain's colonial wars. In reality the Persian term "dervish" applies to a mendicant order of ascetic mystics, Sufis for the most part, some of whom perform the famous whirling dance as part of their practice. The term was misapplied to the followers of the Sudanese religious leader, the Mahdi, during his wars against the British in the late 19th century. It is this sense, of a fanatical army, that D&D has picked up. Sometimes, when dervishes are developed in further detail for gaming, the Sufi practice mingles with the warrior idea and they are enabled to attack in a whirlwind dance with their swords -- starting, I believe, with the Complete Warrior supplement to 3rd edition, although Old School retro-fits have also been seen..

Let's escape the bounds of history, then, and call the red-robed dwellers atop the western end of Ship rock the Dharvi. These are an order of Mitraists centered on an eternally burning Sacred Flame who embrace both warrior traditions and mystical ones. There are three main fortresses to the complex, each perched on a different edge of the great terminal mesa. The path from the Bridge of Red Trial leads to a central crossroad, built about a labyrinth mosaic set in the ground that allows the traveler to choose their path at random, for three roads head off from this hub: one north, to the fortress Satu-Innassar; one west, to the main fortress Shukanum; and one south, to the fortress Shilan-Bari. Besides these three strongholds, a number of hermit huts, waypoint houses, and watchtowers dot the top of the plateau.

Shilan-Bari is the place visitors are most likely to be escorted to, a squat block of brown sandstone with battlements, central buildings, and towers. It watches over the dry plain to the south and west, and the smokes and buildings of Gesshed can be seen from its ramparts. Guests are bedded down on fragran pine-needle mattresses and served a conjured meal of rice and spiced lentils, to be eaten in contemplative silencce before conversation begins. 

Shilan-Bari has a garrison of some thirty warriors, adeptly trained, some to a high degree (average level 3). These are led by a fairly young, saintly-looking man with an aquiline nose and gold eyepatch in the shape of the Solar Disc, called Darish; he is a level 5 monk/level 4 paladin of the Dharvi. The fortress also holds the library of the sect, maintained by an old, tall woman with deep vertical lines in her face: Belessunu, level 7 cleric. 

Nearby is a way down to the desert floor, a long stout cord woven around a bronze chain, staked to the western edge of the cliff and stretched a thousand feet across and two hundred down to an anchor at the bottom. This ceaselessly guarded one-way exit is the Path of the Descending Sun. By grasping the loops at the end of a thick leather strap, one can slide down it in a few harrowing minutes. It cannot normally be ascended, and the Dharvi will undo and cast down the rope with no hesitation if it proves a threat to their security.

Also nearby is the pile of stones that marks the underground seat of the Dharvi sibyl, Kumai. Blinded by staring at the sun, her eyes are now continually covered with a pure, magical white light. She is a thin woman with long, tangled graying hair, in a robe of unfaded, bright red, who meditates continually sitting on a bronze three-legged stool in an austere cavern. Her prophecies are rare, but renowned for arriving without the slightest trace of ambiguity.

Shukanum is the largest fortress, built of red and yellow stones the size of oxcarts, a hexagonal wall with two flanking barbicans and an inner keep that houses the Sacred Flame. A bell calls the garrison of fifty warriors and twenty priests and mystics to an act of devotion, a farewell and promise to the Sun every day as it sets beyond the fortress walls. Great Elder Nablish, whose beard twines thrice around his tall and lean frame, is the keeper of the flame and the foremost exponent of mysticism on the Rock, as well as a formidable Mitraic scholar and saint (mystic level 9, cleric level 11).

Shazar of the Golden Sword, paladin level 10 and monk level 6, is the battle master and instructor who commands the training ground that is the fortress Satu-Innassar. Lean, bald, with a dense squared-off false beard of pure white, she is the best fighter on the Rock. In addition to 20 or so apprentices, she commands 20 heavy infantry behind the tall white walls dotted with arrow slits, and a troop of 24 riders on golden and brown axe-beak birds, of which 16 will be making the circuit of the fortresses at any given time in patrols of 4.

Hex Crawl 23 #181: St. Sallos Monastery

Sixteen hexes north, one northwest of Alakran.

 

Here we find an outpost of the strange faith from beyond the Salt Sea to the north, the cult of Odaus. This colony some sixty strong is known as "the place where men weave and spin," but the absence of family life among these male celibates only spurs them to work harder at all their self-sufficient crafts. They live from goat herding, brewing, and the small farms and orchards around their low fortified sandstone complex that sits atop a steep hill. 

Today's monks are all drawn from the local populace, the place having lost touch with the mother church in the land of Lor centuries ago. Their worship is even slightly syncretic, with prayers to the sun drawn from the older traditions of Mitra, and a renunciation of the hermit life in favor of brotherhood and communion. Their abbot, Petras, is a robust man with a bald head and spreading beard so black it's almost purple. He holds court with a jester monk, Griphos, whose outbursts, riddles and parables are in imitation of the namesake of the monastery, St. Sallos the Holy Fool. The monks can fight in defense of their homestead, but these are civilians, clerics and mystics armed mainly with staffs and crossbows, not super-martial artists.

The monks are down-to-earth but also interested in amassing wealth, of which they have a large amount hidden away. They brew a selection of the more common potions for sale, also sells scrolls of lore produced in their scriptorium, and also are interested in buying rare items, especially if they can find clues to their worth in their well-stocked library..

6 random antics of Griphos:

1. He throws a dozen almond shells, all empty except one. If the gift is rejected he hurls abuse, but if the one good almond is found and eaten, he will praise the eater, saying "Thus is wisdom among the dross!"

2. A riddle:

Like the man who is his own king

The woman who is her own mother

The dog who is its own master

So stands what I say

("Riddle" is the answer to the riddle)

3. He lifts his habit to show his backside, with five carbuncles in the shape of the Holy Staff of Odaus (essentially, a short-armed cross), and screeches "Here is your salvation!"

4. A riddle: 

From dawn to dawn, without let or slack,

She bears white-haired children and swallows them back.

(The ocean, with its waves. But have any of the desert dwellers seen the ocean to be able to answer?)

5. He holds out his clenched fists and orders, "Choose the one with hope." In his fists he holds a dead beetle and a living one. If he likes you, he says you have chosen hope no matter which fist he opens, changing the explanation as it suits him. . For it is a greater hope that the dead beetle will fly tomorrow than that the live beetle will fly, but the live beetle is capable of infinitely more hope than the dead one.

6. A body is brought from the infirmary, for Griphos has proclaimed a miracle -- that he will make the dead stand up! Alas, he can only accomplish this by grabbing the corpse and dragging it to its feet. If visitors bring a dead or inform person, he will pull this trick by preference.