A Fistful of Woodland Hex Happenings

For those who don’t know my personal life, I have a younger sibling who’s going to be introducing their significant other to D&D soon. They’ve asked to play a game where they’re a woodland ranger type, and a gnome. My younger sibling asked me to help them craft a small hex crawl for their paramour, and knowing them I thought it best that it be kind of... fairy-tale-esque. While I do specialize in folklore type worlds, I imagine they are looking for something a little more idyllic than my usual fare. My worlds are a little less like Disney and a little more like The Brothers Grimm. I also know my sibling plays a bit more on the mainstream side, and is only really just now dipping their toes into the OSR. 

So this is largely taken from myself spitballing ideas, and once I hit a roll I asked my sibling’s permission to turn it into a really raw blog post. I can’t even figure out how to get my fonts the same size today.

Anyways, here is a hunch of hexes or points or squares and some content for a hex crawl for a gnome ranger in a more standard game. You could easily port any of this into your own world, especially if you were looking to do something a little less Elmore and a little more Froud.

So when doing hex crawls, I lay out my terrain with an event or two happening in the hex. Typically I list what players can see, hear, or otherwise notice (smell, magic, etc) from the hexes around them. This means they’ll go in one of those six directions.

I should also specify I tried to throw some hooks in here to more typical D&D fare, including a likely dungeon and some larger and nastier baddies where combat will likely be unavoidable, as well as a few gribblies. 

So I would start with the character’s home hex. Like, a hollowed our tree. Likely under the tree/stump is a home, similar to Gummy Bears/Hobbit homes

I would also describe the trees as huge. Redwoods. These are Primordial woodlands. Bumblewort lives under a stump with his family. He is a Knight Errant of Badgers. His father, King Brindlewood, and his mother, Queen Bramblewyrd, rule gently and strongly. They have an excellent pact with the local druids.

Bumblewort, Prince of All Badgers is a L/G Celestial Dire Badger who Rages 1/Day (Totem Warrior Bear Powers) and Smites 1/Day (2d8) his HD (d12) are double the PCs. At 4HD his powers increase to 2/day, 6 HD 3/day (max). STR 18 Dex 10 Con 20 Int 8 Wis 12 Cha 14. Proficient In Survival, Diolomacy, and Nature. AC 16

I’m thinking that the Badger family is a lot like the gods of Princess Mononoke. Something more than just physically large beasts, something Spirit-worldly as well.

The Druid Circle’s hex contains their Nemeton, centered with a menhir and a sacred Oak, and all their tree-house homes. One Druid should live outside the hex, and your character is on good terms with him. 

There should be a hex that’s a gnome village with like, civilization in stuff, but rural and pastoral.

You can use any of these NPCs for rescue ops, fetch quest contacts, or just flavor.

Two to three hexes should have a river passing through them. One should have a mill, whether for grist or for lumber is up to you. 

One should be home to a family of giant otters because those are adorable: Misses Fishes

One hex should be a Bog, and in it is a Hag’s Hut. The Hag doesn’t cause trouble for the forest, cause there’s humans with a farm closer to her. She IS causing trouble for them. But the humans just moved in, and haven’t invoked the protection of the druids. They likely don’t even know. It would be the character’s job as ranger to inform them. Magatha has been trouble from the start.

There should be a hex with a cave. That’s where the Nailbiter Goblin Clan lives. They recently had to boot out a bunch of their clan due to 1) Not enough food and 2) they caught ten of them or so cutting deals with Magatha for magic sticks.

Clan Chief Pewpsiedaisy Nailbiter the Second explicitly says only Refluxicus Farts the Shaman can have a magic stick. It isn’t fair otherwise. 

Refluxicus has lost his magic stick, as it was stolen by Giant Crows and put into their nest. Weird things might happen if it’s left there. Bad weird things. Or he could get a better magic stick from the the newly formed Handbiter clan.

There may also be a hex with a lake. This is pertinent because Athalariel the Water Nymph lives here. She desperately wants to fall in love, but insists she fall in love with a Knight. The only Knight available is technically Sir Scabzalot, a goblin paladin of (deity of love and poetry)... but he’s a goblin, he doesn’t count. That farm boy might make a handsome knight... 

She’ll likely drown him though unless someone can fix that. Maybe a Druid?

The farm has a pickle. And by a pickle I mean a lot of pickles. They win the blue ribbon at the county fair every year. They have enough to feed a small army, or maybe some hungry goblins. Especially if you swapped the cucumbers for fish heads.

The gnome village also competes in the county fair every year. And Ingleglitz Edgecutter is tired of losing to the humans. He’s willing to pay for “an accident” to happen to the pickles.

Fritz Glittergleam is a heartbroken gnome who just sighs and shirks work all day. He was in love but rejected. Maybe a date might help him back on his feet.

At the edge of the forest, where it meets the mountains, Garaz Skulltaker, orc Hunt-Master, has had several of his finest hunters go missing from their latest boar hunt. He fears they may have met a terrible fate seeking a glory hunt of the local Owlbear, Night-Scar, rather than Wild Boar. 

Far to the East and north of the farm, Captain Brighthelm of the Kingdom’s Leonine Guard has captured several armed Orcs he believes are raiders. He is mistaken. He has four armed watchmen with him, and three captured orcs. The orcs are no raiders, they can’t even hunt. They got caught inside of one of their own traps.

In the mountains to the north, just above the forest overlooking the near-frozen stream where most people fish for salmon and trout, lies the cave Night-Scar the owlbear calls her home. Inside is a clutch of three eggs. She must find a way to feed her young when they hatch, and boar carcasses are hard to find due to increased hunting by the Skulltaker orcs. 

Further north in the mountains, lies the sealed entrance to Doomsayer Crypt. 

At the bottom of the mountain, opposite the side of the Skulltaker Settlement, lies the secret entrance, now opened by a poor Dwarven spelunker, to Doomsayer Crypt. 

Once Men Dug the Earth for gleaming gold here, and a king arose among them. Through sorcery he took his throne, asking dark gods for power and sight beyond that of his mortal men. He was granted such, but only to see Ill-Fates, and began to prophesies the down-fall of the peoples who lived here. Not content to be a pawn of fate, he began to act as its instrument, commanding his warrior cult and spectral minions to bring ruin to the land. But among the folk that lived here noble gnomes, fierce orcs, and wise druids, and cunning elves banded together and brought forth their champions to defeat him. The last black fate the sorcerer-king was allowed to see was his own. But using evil magic, he swore to return a thousand years after his demise. This was why he was interred so deep in the mountains, and why his remaining lackeys carved the secret entrance themselves. 

Far to the south, in his tree-home of sculpted pale banshee-wood, rests and meditates the elven hero Keltois Lillarien, the same elven archer who’s ghost-touch arrows pinned the sorcerer king to his throne a thousand years ago. He is old, but vigilant. 

Three-hairs Twice-twined is a member of the Druid circle. He’s had a bout of insomnia and has heard that Rhess the Half-Elven has a mushroom poultice that will bring restful sleep. He can’t pay gold, but will happily trade herbs and offer what teaching he can in bird calls for a decent night’s rest.

In a hex to the northwest is an idyllic log cabin, the woods around it felled and filled with carvings, laquered and stained against rain. A woodcutter lives here, brawny and with a hefty axe. He was a warrior once, and now just wants to raise his family. His wife keeps calling for their daughter. It’s not like her to be late.

Frozenfang is a Winter Warg who has taken over the Western Brambles Pack. She longs for revenge against the woodcutter who slew her mate.

Rolled randomly in an adjacent hex is Annadell, a girl of seven who went flower picking alone, away from her father, the woodcutter. She is very lost and tired and hungry. She will be food for wolves if not found. 

There is a hex with a waterfall somewhere. Behind the waterfall is a cave, and inside of it is Rumbletrunks, a troll. He’s been asleep for a long, long time, and wishes to stay that way. If awoken rudely, he’ll be cranky. If awoken politely, he’ll be less cranky, but still want a troll-sized breakfast.

Brilly Grumplelumps is a gnome with a treasure map. All she really needs is a good forest guide and maybe some armed muscle to go deep into the mountain’s entrance. There, in the crypt, are the spoils of war and gold and gems from a thousand years before.

A Belated Bloggiversary!

Four days ago marks the one year anniversary of this blog, so, a very happy bloggiversary to me!!!

Obviously this has largely been a semi-private venture, but I intend on sharing this blog in some public places over the coming days, and may even put a short adventure I wrote up in celebration. I hope that, if you’re new and reading this, that my own imagination inspires yours and you hit the keypad or put pen to page or brush to mini or whatever you do that’s creative with newfound vigor. 

I have a lot more world building I’ve done and to do, but mostly it’s taken a back seat to other projects. I’ve been very focused on trying to get a promotion at work, and also handing a lot of IRL life stuff lately. To say the least of the madness I’m sure most of you are catching from social media and the news these days.

I’ve got several projects on my plate, and my local gaming crew (as well as several of my distant crews) are clamoring for games. And frankly I don’t blame them. The worlds our imaginations can conjure are vast and wonderful. My biggest project is a Megadungeon I’m working on. Half in secret, I’ve chatted with a bunch of people on it. I’ve got eight levels, and am shooting for thirty-five rooms a level, but as I map it it may be bigger. I had one level blow up to forty, and another is looking more like sixty-plus. My dilemma is actually mapping these room titles and scenarios I’m planning, and in all honesty I should just hunker down and get off my ass and make a consternated effort to do rather than dream, if that makes sense. 

Beyond that I need to actually read some tutorials as to how to add a blog roll to this blog so you all know who I’m reading.

Thank you for being kind enough to read me, truly I’m humbled. 

The Arcane Arcades of the Master of Games

Sometimes Dungeons make people sick. Wizards, alas, seem especially susceptible to this. Perhaps it has to do with their connection to magic, all that primordial power and it’s ability to change... 

In any case, there exist within certain places, those driven utterly mad by their esoteric studies and delves into forbidden realms of blood and gold. The question remains if they are human or not. These beings cultivate dungeons, willingly tearing and tugging at reality, chiseling away at the walls and pulling at the threads of reality’s curtains until their cozy little parasite is just the picture perfect home. Or laboratory. Or abattoir. Taste is subjective. 

Who knows how long they’ve existed, or if they ever truly were or are human, but there exists one being in particular who vexes adventurers like no other: Jubilem Vile, The Master of Games.

Devious, cunning, without remorse or pity, something alien and broken in the manners by which he has laid his traps. Games, a thousand thousand games, lethal in nature and horrific in intent. Even the most mundane now feature something gone awry to cause the downfall of adventurers who wander into his demense. Often adventurers have little no no idea they’ve even stumbled into a dungeon, so crafty are his wiles, while other times his worlds become alien renders of children’s playthings.

The worst part is dealing with Jubilem himself during the events. Like a sadist child at play, everything is “fun”, a comedy of violence, a playtime without consequence for his self, but the highest stakes for mortals. One may feel that the only way to win is to not play, and if it were the material realm that would be true, but not here. The game proceeds whether the players wish it too or not, because adventurers are never playing alone: Jubilem always has more than one set of players, some even champions who’ve won more than one game on his behalf, to say the least of all the pieces he controls on the board.

Which game is he playing with you today?

Lethal Chess: It’s a chessboard, where the players are assigned their piece by class (warriors are knights, mages are queens/kings, thieves and scoundrels are rooks, clerics and priests are bishops). The pawns are helpless farmers and peasants, and the enemy pawns slavering monsters, the rival royal pieces fellow adventurers and bigger monsters. One piece taking another initiates combat, but the aggressor always wins initiative.

Penny Pot Poker: Vile himself leads the game, being played with the worst of the worst: faeries, demons, hags, and other extradimensional horrors. The catch, unspoken truth being that every copper is a day of your life, silvers a year, and golds a decade. Whether spent in servitude or in just life-drained is dependent upon who wins the final hand. There’s even a rumor that Death Herself occasionally plays. 

Diabolical Sliding Brick Towers: Moving the small wooden bricks of a little tower and place them atop the stack. With each brick moved, a larger stone tower in an adjacent room moves with them. Double the tower’s height, but don’t knock it down. The rest of the party is in the room with the stone tower, the exit is within reach of the tower doubles in height. Pulling bricks reveals the creatures Jubilem’s hidden in a pocket space behind them.

Hot Frog Run: The exit and safety is just in the other side of the room, but alas, it’s bisected by a series of roads. Gorgons stampede down each lane, huffing and puffing venomous fumes that petrify those who breathe them, only for iron-shod hooves of the next demonic cattle to crush them to rubble. Between these creep spike-shelled tortoises, impossibly large. The gorgons dodge them, juking left or right into another lane at random. 

The Blind Armada: a shimmering curtain of darkness bisects the room. One adventurer watches from the balcony, while their compatriots sit in boats below along a lettered and numbered grid, armed with flaming arrows. Across the room, Vile plays for the enemy, a similar fate for those he’s chosen. Shark fins break the water, a promise of what lies below the waves. The last boat standing is the winner. 

Shoots, Snakes, and Ladders: the room has been designed as a manifold labyrinth of ladders affixed to long, thickly greased slides above a gaping pit of roiling acid, the exit once again a the top. Each slide terminates in a metal serpent’s face, some of which are animated and hungry. The adventurers must exit at the top again, while other players fire arrows set ablaze at them from balconies on each side.

Making Combat Fun

So the other day I had a friend complain that combat was the least interesting part of their D&D game. Admittedly, I’ve felt this way before too depending on how the game has been ran. This post is mostly me stealing from myself from that chat, to try and give you all a better idea of what’s going on in my games and in my head when I invent a combat scenario, and also a bunch of opinions on combat and other stuff.

So, the first question is “which better describes combat in D&D for you: Final Fantasy Turn Based Whack-A-Mole, or brutal Jason Bourne desperate life-struggle, or riveting Musketeer Style Swashbuckling?”

The second and more important question is “What do you want combat to be?”

Personally, I want swashbuckling and brutality in equal measures, but with a focus on swashbuckling. Leiber, Moorcock, and Howard were the heart of D&D’s fictional inspiration, and I want my fights to mimic theirs in speed, tone, and lethality. Or as much as they can, given that this is a game and not fiction. 

To begin, I always try to remember what The Tome of Adventure Design said about combat: that combat encounters are only ever as interesting as they are as a game-board. Meaning that a mob of ten goblins in an empty room is boring. 

A mob of ten goblins riding giant wasps while you climb a latticework of climbing roses, in order to get to their wizard employer’s tower is memorable and fun. 

Granted, not everything has to be in weird and wacky locations. Currently I just finished running the wonderful Deep Carbon Observatory by Patrick Stuart, and had an absolutely lethal dinosaur fight, which ironically took place in a mostly empty room, but was super memorable due to just how bonkers it was. Still, the fight should be interesting or exciting somehow, and fights should take place in interesting locales. The environment should be a danger, a tool, or both. The minute my Barbarian gets two attacks in 5e, I flip the script on the caster with minions every time, because I now have the ability to grapple (as an attack action, doesn’t end rage) and YEET a minion (advantage on athletics checks from rage, it’s an attack so it doesn’t end) INTO the wizard. Concentrate on THAT.  It’s an example, but like, why couldn’t I do that with food at a banquet hall? Or if I’m in a bridge, just kick them off the edge? Why can’t that be my Attack? Interacting with the environment is an onus that is on the player, but you as the GM Set that up.

The other tip I have is that, for me as a player, I know what I’m doing before my turn. And as a Game Master, I expect my players to tell me what they’re doing when I call their name. Combat for me is RAPID pace. I do group initiative between the party and monsters, and for multiple opponents split them into chunks. Only the party’s initiative matters, the monsters go in whatever order I want on their turn. If a player, especially a caster, doesn’t know what they’re doing, or starts flipping pages in a book to find out what their spell does, I’ve told them ahead of time that their character has done a brain fart and is flipping in their spell book during combat and they get skipped this round. We did two rounds of combat last night. Just like boxing, I feel a fight should be three rounds or less. A real fight is over in less than two minutes; D&D should feel that short and lethal.

I also ask my players to briefly describe their attacks when they hit, or describe their misses when they whiff. If they don’t want to, I’ll fill in that gap with a short sentence. I also have them describe Crits and Death Blows, as every player likes to describe their Mortal Kombat Fatalities.

Badguys and players should also be encouraged to do and be things besides chunks of numbers. Have villains tangle and trip the players. Have them take hostages mid fight, have them retreat when half their numbers are killed. Let them try to disarm them.

Honestly, this works so well for me, and this is why I veer much more into low and mid level games. At high levels, monsters and bosses just becomes BLOBs of HP, and it’s a whittling game that’s boring as fuck. No offense to some people’s GMing style, but some people’s boss fights are awful trudges through simple math. As a player, I once had had an excellent boss encounter where we fought in an antigravity room with mystic shields blocking LoS for casters, making athletics checks to astronaut push our way around the room and stop ourselves before overshooting enemies (that would have given them attacks of opportunity). Especially for 5e, that was a great fight, and it owed a lot to an interesting location/gameboard.

By comparison, many years ago I once had my players fight a dragon in an empty room. It was a snore fest, and an important learning point for me. Despite all the working up of the boss narratively and the dread and themed dungeon dressings, by the end of it my players weren’t hooked, and one was actively looking for something else to interact with in the room.

Since then, the outstanding article “A 16 HP Dragon” over at the La Torra blog has informed a lot of my personal Dragon fights. I don’t keep them as low as sixteen HP, but I keep most of my monsters under 200-300hp for a reason. And I put them in better locations. 

Here’s my other combat-related opinion: getting “cool things” per level, like action surge, second wind, etc, is BAD for the game and players. It teaches them to think in terms of what the GAME says they can do and not what THEY think their characters can do. Especially as it encourages players to crave numerical bonuses instead of weird and whacky shit that drives the fantasy genre. 

This is why my humans get no racial bonuses. Humans get a Special Thing. Each player chooses their special thing they can do (typically starting out as once a game session, or once a dungeon room/scene) and if they can’t think of one then I tell them to take a feat, they can do that once a game session/room instead.

“I can teleport 30ft in any direction once a game.” 

Cool. 

“I can echolocate twenty feet in front of me once a room/scene.”

Cool!

“I can attack with such fury it gives me advantage to hit once a game.”

Cool!

“I am a kleptomaniac and have accidentally stolen just the right non-magical item once a game.”

Perfection. 

“I wear gloves because once a scene I can use psychometry on an item to find it’s history.”

Glorious!

These are all things humans in my world have done.

They aren’t in any books, and are infinitely better than +1 to all ability scores or a feat.

I’m a firm believer that D&D and combat gets creative when players and GMs do.

The other thing to for me is, combat happens when combat is the 1) only choice or 2) the players’ choice.

Meaning that, when the players encounter a Minotaur in The Crawling Gardens, it will attack them back if they choose to attack it. But if they greet that Minotaur with a friendly “Salutations Horned One!” I’m sure the scene will go differently.

And when they encounter cannibal scum cultists of some torture god, they are gonna have to fight no matter what (unless they get cool with some evil shit reeeeal quick).

Cursed of Circe

The Moon, and thus The Queen of Night has an... unusual influence on some people. The Moon changes. It should come as no surprise then, that the witches, priests, and supplicants of Her darkling faith are both prone to change themselves and also can hold that power over others.

Enter the tale of Wallor Gloll, leader of a modest mercenary group. The stories vary, but Gloll and his crew were not good people, and transgressed a deal with a priestess who gave them food and shelter. In her fury, she cursed them with a change, but not the usual kind that her Queen bestowed: a permanent change, one that they could not shake, and one that grew. Some say it was not the priestess herself who cursed Gloll, but rather The Queen of Night Herself, taking revenge for those who would act with gluttonous greed and callous indifference to Her half-holy servants. 

Wallor and his lot were malformed into half-swine, porcine faces that walked on two digitigrade legs. Nails replaced with hooves for feet on weak ankles, little nailless hands that can’t scratch itches, layers of choking fat between their tissues, sores, boils, and all manner of skin-lesions. And above all, a relentless hunger that could not be filled despite their ability to devour food. Just as Gloll and his crew blasphemed the comfort they were offered, the life of one of The Cursed of Circe is one of constant discomfort.

Since then they have splintered into various tribes and warbands, scattering across the world and seeking work as foot soldiers for anyone wicked enough to hire them, or foolish enough to allow them into their kingdom. For the curse, you see, is transferred to those who share their food and shelter with the revolting Pig-Men, a reminder that this is a divine punishment, and that mortals need not intervene. 

Which war-band has your party encountered?

1) The Lesionnaires: scab and wart crusted warriors in lorica segmenta and horse-hair helmets. Barely regimented mobs covered in pustules. 
2) Refined Swine: Gloating bloated autocrats and politicians covered in the garbage of the elite and hyper-wealthy. Costume jewelry and gold paint, lipstick on ignorant pigs.
3) Slag Hogs: Tusked raiders in heavy, rusting plate. Bursting at the seams of their armor, they screw hot metal into their flesh to brace their joints. Smells of grease and salt.
4) Wild Pigs: Razorback ruffians with sharply crested backhair, they pierce their porcine flesh, tattoo butcher lines. Won’t stop drooling, as dumb as they look. Gluttons for punishment, and anything else. 

What are their horrible desires this time?

1) A feast of flesh! Animal, man, it matters not as long as they can tear sinew from bone and suckle at marrow. 
2) Wealth by the pound! Buckets of gold, glittering gems and baubles galore!
3) Sloth! To sleep, lazing the days away. They refuse to do their work, or anything but lie around farting and telling crass jokes.
4) Drink! Alcohol, drugs, whatever dampens the mind and produces mild euphoria. Great gallons of the stuff, they can never be drunk enough. 
5) Filth! Whether mud or muck, cisterns or emptied chamberpots, they wish to roll about in the mire or man’s making. 
6) Company! Join them, feast with them, tell them a tale and stay a spell. They’re sure you’ll fit right in.

The Names of Wolves

Nobody really speaks the language of wolves, unless you’re raised by them, or perhaps a wash of moonlight madness pulls your soul closer to the Wilds of Night, and the Old Dark. 

But wolves do speak. Less often than you or I. Their sentences tend to be short and to the point without being blunt. Pragmatically taciturn, not brutalist short. A dog that speaks will have a conversation. They will tell you that they have a favorite tree and that they like you and generally chatter. A wolf will tell you what you need to know, and that’s about it. A dog will say “please.” Wolves do not. And they are fine with it that way. 

If one uses magical means to speak with wolves, one will quickly realize wolves don’t have names like dogs. Dogs have names given to them by people, and thus know that name and go by that name. Wolves have names given to them by wolves, and they aren’t like our names. 

Wolf names tend to be like their sentences, and change over time, as their names tend to be centered around the roles they fill or have filled in their lives. Sometimes, important wolves get important names, but this is a rarity. Wolves are familial creatures, and tend to think of “we” before “I” or “you”. And just like you know many people with the same name (like Andrew, Chris, Ashley, or Jessica), most wolves have the same name. There isn’t a way to separate them, save that they know one another and themselves. How this works in conversation is unknown, and most wizards who have tried to find out haven’t come back, their research lost to teeth and claws. 

Here is a list of Wolf Names:
Closes the Circle
Wounds The Leg
Tears The Throat
Eats Last
Listens
Watches 
Oldest
Harry and Bleed
Howls First
Mother of Six
Three-Father
Loves Play (a name most pups carry, and any adult during play)
Hunter (a name used specifically when a wolf is moving between packs)
Takes The Weak
Den Guard
Runs The Edge

The Cult of Crows

No one knows how long the corvid cult has existed for. Eons, likely, or at least as long as therianthropic cave paintings of men with wings and black birds were lit by firelight and painted with fear and reverence by men. It’s called many names, Raven Host, Murder of A Thousand Eyes, Corvus Occassus, The Crow Cult. Their totemic worship is answered in omens, signs, and whispered secrets in Thrush. 

The cult’s tenets are simple at first, consisting of only three core rules: deceive once a day, always take from the dead, and warn other siblings of danger before taking flight. The higher the echelons of worship, the more esoteric the laws: a feast of flesh, a sacrament of theft, a secret kept. 

Thus fledgelings are brought into The Great Wheel, the first and central circle of the Black Bird Gang. The make-up is similar across the world: thieves, grave-robbers, brigands and street toughs, the usual rabble. But something is different with them, something uncanny in its ability to unify them. Maybe it’s how there’s always a crow watching them outside, ubiquitous though they are in the world. Maybe it’s how they know where she hid the knife, like somebody whispered it to them. Maybe it’s the little colorful ribbons and coins they keep finding on their person, like gifts.

For all the blessings, the great bird-beast they worship has increasing demands. The Great Wheel encompasses all followers, but the Left Wheel follows stricter rules in preparation for the Filled Skies: that certain earthly members, in possession of certain treasures, must be plucked as gifts to their god. Assassins, the lot, murderers of finest skill, Rhyming Rooks, a penchant for poetry with every kill. They mimic voices and sounds without equal, and cling to the dark like black pinions. The Right Wheel finds harsher laws making way for the great all-scouring flock that will pick the earth clean of life: seek the secret sign, hoard the glimmer of glamour, and the gilded coin so greedily guarded by men and worse alike. Wizards, druids, and all manner of hedge-witch make up the arcane arm of the cult, Augers and Haruspex, Magus Magpies and Raven Mavens all to the man. They are the esoteric priests and diviners, giving orders to the other wheels as the omens see fit.

The Central Wheel is the deepest chamber of Their Thieving Trickster God, the truth apparent to their high-priests: The Raven Creature wishes to steal much, much more than arcane might and physical wealth. They divine on carrion, crawling through the wreckage and the aftermath of battles. Some follow armies like black-clad priests of the dead and dying, hearing the last words of warriors and victims like a profane version of confession. They never help. Where else would their brothers and sisters over head feed? Trophies they take: teeth, eyes. Sometimes ears, to better hear and see the cries from the Crystal Mountain filled with the Cold Sun that their god speaks from. 

For members of The Murder of A Thousand Eyes, life is but an illusion. In death, is truth found. For there lies beyond this world another, the Shadowed Realm. The actions they take are necessary, not as a tribute to their dark god, but in mimicry of them. For there will be a time of Filled Skies, when the Thrush speakers turn on the rest of the world, and All Eyes Will Be Blinded. From the Shadowed Realm a new world must be hatched, and the Corvus Occassus will be the darkling phoenix that rises from the ashes.