Clerics Wear Ringmail: 10 Halloween Themed Hex Locations

What's more fun in a game about exploration and discovery than exploring and discovering! In support of that goal, and in keeping with the turning of the seasons, provided below are 10 hex locations themed to the spookiest of months: to be incorporated, at leisure, or to be idea-mined for your October sessions!

What's that you said? OSR fantasy adventure is about getting rich pulling treasure from the bowels of the earth? Well... something might happen on the way to those bowels, might it?

Hexplore on, readers!

1.	Hangman's Falls Along the divide, where the hills drop off into the flat-land and the soil turns to clay, the old kingdom built a canal: a canal and a mule path to bypass the rapid shallows and link the up-country river folk to the sea. To control the depth of the canal - they built a dam, too - and to control the dam, they built a gallows: where wild men and bandits might hang, a warning to others to leave the infrastructure (and its resultant commerce) in peace. The canal is deep - half a dozen yards - and it can provide a team with boats smooth, quick traversal along the downstream current: but the spirits of the hanged... the old keepers, those that yet remain past the dereliction, they say the hanged have lingered: bound to the murky bottom those few fathoms below. And they never leave the gatehouse at night.
2.	Fallen Leaf Downs The hills to the west, where the sunset silhouettes a sparse wide-leaf forest, roll gently - low vales and shallow dips that barely challenge the horses to walk up and down along its winding way. No horses walk through it - however - and a wise rider goes cleanly around: as no matter what season, no matter what time of the year, the trees - maple, beech, oak... - their leaves are colored brightly - a riot of reds, yellows, and browns - stuck in an eternal autumn, and forever shedding - forever perforating the grass and ground with a patchy blanket of leaves. The woodsmen brave the outer perimeter of these downs - wood being scarce enough to justify their cautious approach - but they warn the unknowing traveler: sometimes a man might enter, and the leaves - they seem to pile up and form heaps: but then stepping through them, there is firm ground beneath. It's as though the earth itself moves and changes, subtly rolling in the beginnings of sleep, to a comfort that might imply it had been there all along. It's easy to get lost in the Fallen Leaf Downs. And easy to enter - as in the fall, when other trees and other glades are likewise bedding down for winter - its border is difficult to discern.
3.	Cairn of the Cider Dragon Standing stones are not uncommon - some say that they are soldiers, enemies of a sorceress, who hexed them upon breaching her sacred ground - but among them, a few stand out. This field of them, however, stands out - within a concentric spiral of stones, at the center stands a taller stone: atop which is a horizontal lintel - bearing a strange likeness to a reptilian skull: an illusion completed by two red coral are embedded around the eyes. In the springtime - an artesian spring flows from the base of the stone, flowing down and out, but producing not quite enough to form a river, more a rivulet: but in the autumn - sometimes midsummer or even as late as a few frosts - it's said that if you place a piece of fruit in the center of the stone and pour water onto the center of the "head", such that the fruit blocks the flow and causes the water to dribble over the coral eyes, it will flow down to the "snout" and off, dripping to where the spring will form come the turn of the new year: but by the time it makes it to the ground, it will have turned to fermented drink. None but the pixies have partaken from it - but perhaps if a mortal might try...
4.	The Spellbook's Mausoleum Ringed by stone and iron - the fence crumbling in places with neglect - a graveyard stands, a hundred or more tombstones scattered together in a bowl in the earth, spaced across the area of a sports pitch. Several statues - angels, symbols - stand against time: but in the dead center - a mausoleum. Small, only four foot to the door, the mausoleum is open to the air: inside which can be found a single sarcophagus, stone, flush and flesh with the floor, no discernible seam for a lid: almost as though the entire piece was carved from a single boulder. Embedded in the far wall are three alcoves: each of which contains a single book. A user of magic will be able to tell that they radiate magic heavily. Any character not of Chaotic alignment who tries to take one, the book will bite - THAC0 20, 1 point of damage on successful hit. Opening a book - with intent to read - has one of the following effects: Eldritch Secrets: The reader's Intelligence increases by 2, but their Wisdom decreases by 1. Third Sight: The book blasts energy into the face of the reader. Their eyes turn glossy red and lose their pupils; the reader is no longer able to grow a moustache or eyebrows (presuming they were able before). They are able, then, to see invisible and ethereal creatures as normal - including the innocuous spirits living outside our own dimension: spirits who cannot, themselves, see us. Blood of the Vine: The reader must Save vs Spells immediately. On success, the character's skin thickens and becomes waxy - turning a slight green color, with orange on the hands and feet - their eyes sink, and any hair they had is transformed into leafy tendrils. They may no longer eat: instead requiring sleeping under the open sky to subsist; however, their spell-casting level is increased by 2 levels. That is, a level 3 Elf or Magic-User casts spells as though level 5 instead. On failure, the character permanently transforms into a pumpkin vine. Once the effect occurs, the book that was read ignites - destroying itself - and the other two books turn to stone: their writing erased and the magic dissipated.

5.	Blood Shallows Along the river bend, where the water moves slowly and the banks are wide - embracing and containing the hundred silt shallows where the reeds break through the surface - an old coven: a gang of warlocks and witches in league with the messengers of Chaos - one congregated to dance under the blood moon. Throughout the shallows can be found bones, skulls, animal - human, alike: each inscribed with strange runes. A character versed in the Chaotic tongue will recognize the characters... but their meaning?
6.	Cursed Cross Crag Outside town - in a rocky place where once builders quarried stone - is a crag - the depth of two men's height in the center and thrice as wide: forming a crescent in the grass. Hidden in the base of the crag - at its nadir - is a silver holy symbol, wedged into the stone. It can be removed with sufficient force - it will not be damaged in the process. Once removed, it will function as a standard holy symbol, but will cause a sense of unease in those around it with keen senses or attunement to the natural world - and in places where undead stalk the grounds, the chance of a wandering monster wandering near to the symbol's bearer is increased by 1-in-6.
7.	Headsman's Orchard Behind a wooden fence, painted with lichens and damp, apple trees grow in rows into the distance. Near the front of the orchard, however - behind an old gate, half fallen, a dozen trees from the entrance through the fence - is a circle of gravel: the same as might be found on an old road, where no trees grow. Here - post-holes might be noticed by a careful observer: where a platform once stood. Here, a headsman once worked - plying his ghastly trade. Each time justice fell, to assuage his own guilt, the headsman planted another tree. As the enemies of the state multiplied, so did the trees. Orchards living longer than men, justice moved on - but the trees did not. However the blood of the damned makes for cursed fertilizer. A character which eats an apple from the Headsman's Orchard experiences horrible nightmares thereafter - more horrid and for more nights, if eating from the trees closer to the platform. But are these nightmares simply psychological echoes, or are they the voices of the damned, crying out to the living in envy - or perhaps supplication? In either case - can those visions be interrogated: might the echoes of past spoils be resonating with the emotions of the spilled blood of the spoiler?
8.	The Gourd Garden The landscape gives way here - an oval in the bird's eye view - to a patch of vines, springing forth from the ground and ranging from ankle to knee deep. Nestled among them are a dozen gourds - varying shapes and sizes, varying smoothness or stubble of texture. They ripen in the fall - between one and eight at a time when a party might cross it. They can be removed and carried - spoiling as quickly as a standard gourd might - but if carved into a face, it's said that the carver gains a second sight in the moonlight: as though their own eyes had their vision merged with the unblinking smile on the gourd.
9.	Dew-Frost Valley Along the hills runs a wide defile, a road between ruins, a highway built to connect the kingdoms of dead kings. In the warmer months, many a trader still makes use of the path: a quick route around Bandit Wood. But they never tarry long, as regardless of the month - regardless of season - men who sleep along this path wake to find themselves shivering: a thin layer of frost having fallen over the grass and over their wagons. It's only ice - the caravan masters say - but is it? And why is it that the night watch reports the hills to be taller at night on the flanking horizons - growing with the sunset, reaching up in attempt to hide the stars? A question - perhaps - only known to the road's kings.
10.	The Frogman's Grave Hidden among the reeds and swamp grass swaying in the breeze rolling across the moors is a lonesome shrine: a simple pillar by a dead tree. An epitaph is engraved into its side - the exact notes of which are hard to make out, having been erased by time, but describe the person buried there: by which account was a child, unknown to the people who found it - bearing large eyes, a wide mouth, and speaking in a guttural tone not common to people of its stature - but whom they could not save and laid to rest according to their custom. At the base of the marker, the rain has eroded enough that the coffin is ever-so-slightly visible under the peat. If opened, inside is a strange skeleton - four feet in height - its legs powerful, its arms spindly, and its skull, an oversized skull of a frog. By a Dwarf of Halfling, the skull can fit wholesale over their head - if worn as a helmet, it grants them the ability to "breathe" underwater, as oxygen diffuses in through their skin.