Clerics Wear Ringmail: 10 Hex Locations from the Caanish Archipelago

Ask and ye (may) receive!

In a recent post of a blog I follow, BRINEHOUSE, posted an update including ten hex locations as preparation for being able to run an in-person game again. Inspired, I've checked my old notes and picked out some of the locations from my campaign map that I'd made notes about but that my players had not yet visited.

Provided below, a list of the 10 most interesting ones I saw. Steal, adapt, or allow to inspire - the adventure is yours!

1.	The Rut of the Ophinotaur Just offshore, this shallow atoll - a couple sandy, scrub-grass protrusions barely floundering out of the clear sea - forms a maze of coral around a protected interior lagoon. It is here that the ophinotaur - thick aquatic creatures, eight to ten feet from tail to snout (up to two more to include the horns of an adult male) with the tail of a dolphin but the fore-body of a bull come to calf. Many a merchantman has met their end here during the rutting season: might an enterprising type sneak through to recover their cargoes, or perhaps even tame one of the great beasts?
2.	Mancatcher Grove A forested region, this hollow is overgrown with thick vines. In both spring and autumn, the vines bear sweet fruits the size of a man's head which can be plucked and consumed; rumored to grant a man renewed vigor and health. However - trekking is difficult, as the vines seem to each connect to one another: a massive interlinking of herbaceous cord; and hidden throughout, interspersed, are curious flowers - large ones - with a number of grasping buds concealed about them. These buds will catch and cling to a man-sized target, dragging them down and wrapping them up, numbing them with a thousand tiny anesthetic needles, and liquefying them: leeching their essence into the vine. Is this route worth a shortcut, the fruit worth the risk - to life and limb, or perhaps to the tarnishing of the soul?

3.	Last Rest of Pen-Hebet Rising modestly from an outcropping, this shrine - located on rocky island a stone's throw from the coastline - is maintained by three keepers, shaman mystics, sedentary here on rotation from the nomadic tribes on the mainland. These shaman are supported by offerings from those tribes - and the shrine, itself, is a site for gifts to Pen-Hebet, an ancestor thought to guide those who follow the old tradition, to be likewise offered. The mystic keepers are wise and amicable to those who come in kind, but simultaneously mindful, knowing that a faithful type might come as a pilgrim - but that an enterprising type might come as a thief!
4.	Spinebrush Forest Spinebrush plants are common to the scrub-lands: woody, scraggly plants festooned with razor-sharp spines known capable of piercing and tearing mail that grow in a circular pattern of branches around an open interior - like the eye of a storm - a common respite for flying creatures, small things that can navigate the thorns, or on occasion even the nimble adventurer. But this place - where the spinebrush are typically independent in their spacing, this land is absolutely littered with the stuff: plant after plant, ranging in size from a few feet across to a dozen meters - scattered capriciously among one another as though seeded atop a relic of elemental Chaos. All the while, in the distance looms the Grandfather Spine - the single largest spinebrush known to exist: almost 200 feet tall and over 300 feet at the base. Or, believed to be, at least. It's not known if anyone has managed to penetrate that far into the Spinebrush Forest - though many have entered, never leaving, depositing their corpses and their treasures into this thorned wooden cemetery. Might you be the first?
5.	*The Crashing Place* A section of savanna which has been trampled deeply by the Gud-Alim, who come here to do battle, to cross horns and to compete for mates and dominance within the great herd. That is... Gud-Alim - the semi-divine shaggy plague bulls, whose breath is death, whose wool is steel: six feet tall at the shoulder - the pets of the Great Lord of the Autumn. Their lowing and their ram-like clashes can be heard for miles off and the soil, itself, is infused by their offal - radiating a warmth even under a winter's moonlight that causes a tingling in the hands and feet, if handled. Moving quickly while they rest, there may be much to learn here - or perhaps even more to harvest, when one of the great beasts falls: the crushed loser in their life and death exchange - might that quick runner evade being caught in the middle?
6.	Sanctum of the Dolphin In the briney shallows, a temple complex rises. Canals in lieu of roadways - and waterfalls and tiered pools in lieu of stairs - snake around a residential district to the south, a military-monastery to the north, and in the center, a set of four ziggurats: one larger in the center, three satellites, aligned north, south, and south-west. The compound is maintained by Icthyon Centaurs - half men, half dolphins: larger and stronger than a man, and air-breathing, but bound to the sea: the favored children of the Storm-Lord, Odakon. Everything is half-submerged in the shallows, if not submerged entirely. It would take quite the planning effort to visit this place - quite the effort more to engage it - but the blessings it is said to bestow to those who curry the favor of the Icthyons, or the ancestral treasures visible - glittering in the sunlight atop the central mound - that they guard both might be ample temptation!
7.	Grasscrawler Hollow A depression in the ground leading into hill country, where the grass grows tall: this route might be used as a shortcut, its low and flat topography being easy to traverse. But known to prowl the chest-high blades is a creature called the Aternae: a thick-bodied, thick-scaled creature with a ridge of hair along its spine colored to match the blooms of its native habitat. The creature walks low to the ground, its head shaped like a goat, but its muzzle not unlike a crocodile's. Its bite is strong and along its snout, a bone-ridge protrudes horizontally - the blade of a semi-circular saw - which it uses to gore its prey or to cut the legs out from under horses. Is time so precious as to risk an encounter? Or might a skilled hunter seek an encounter - to bag a prize envied by warriors and magicians alike?
8.	Glowshock Cavern This littoral ingress, accessible during a low or receding tide, casts an eerie glow in darkness, a warm luminescence emanating from its depths accompanied by slight and irregular tremors palpable to swimmers nearby. It's said that the cavern is home to bomber worms - creatures up to a forearm's length that grow and house bio-weapons, orbs almost like eggs which explode with concussive force when vomited at would-be predators: but no one has been to the bottom to find what lies at the cavern's heart. An inquiring wizard might be curious to find the secrets hidden therein - or perhaps a warlord might be curious to harness the potential of the amphibious and explosive inhabitants: could a keen wit and a quick hand beat the tide to escape with a prize?
9.	The Cannibal Yard Nested along the crossing of long-abandoned roads, a mid-sized township lies in ruins. The architecture is alien - old and advanced - and its symbology (at least, that which was carved deep enough to survive the ravages of time) is written in the script of Law, but a language which cannot be deciphered. Secrets have been scoured from the surface - but beneath, a great catacomb (a sewer, perhaps? Or subway?) snakes through the darkness. The coughs of ghouls echo along these deep chambers - and the towns nearby seal their gates with the twilight. What secrets yet lie undiscovered, what forgotten wealth might yet be horded, beyond the bone-paved entryways?
10.	The Guardian Totem at Stillwater Bend A lazy river makes a deep curve here, the water moving slowly - pooling a bit - pandering both to sleepy sunbathing and to waterborne insects. In the horseshoe formed by the river, an earthen mound has been assembled - fifty feet to a side - and from this mound rises a stone totem, facing the woodlands to the west. Here - the locals say - a coalition pushed back the hog-men from the plains, forcing them across the river and confining them to the dark of the wood: and this monument is both a tribute to their victory and a warning to their enemies, who surely lurk still beyond the far bank. It's said that should visitors pay homage to the shrine, the spirits of the fallen will smile on them for as far as their ghost-eyes see.