Isle of the Scorpions

 

Pulmonoscorpius Paleoart by Vitor Silva

Three Hexes you could insert into your campaign - one island, one coastal, one oceanic. These hexes also represent my infinitesimally small part of Idraluna Archive's magnificent Antarctic Adventure Jam which is nearing the end of its first submission window. The Jam is a truly prodigious beast of a project and while far from complete, it is packed with fabulous content. Check it out here, pan around and click on icon'd hexes, you'll definitely fun something good.

And yeah, these hexes are just Beowulf but a bit weird.

## The Isle of the Scorpions

This red-wood forested, orchid-strewn isle is home to a race of sentient scorpions (stats as ‘Scorpion, Giant’ but Lawfully aligned and with human equivalent intelligence). They live in scattered nuclear families, lairing across the island in wasp-nest like papery ‘tree-houses’. The scorpions keep vole-like rodents as semi-domesticated livestock and hunt gulls and rays on the coasts with their stingers. Through great effort these scorpions can contort their mandibles to speak in strained two word sentences. They don’t know where they came from - their myths say they grew from seeds. The scorpions are ruled by an elected sage-monarch named ‘Sssn-snk’. The Scorpions are aware of people, though the isle rarely has visitors. Recently this otherwise idyllic isle has come under the predation of a most despicable monster - Muhwtor of the Mesopelagic.

Muhwtor of the Mesopelagic, a giant mutant Deep One has taken up residence off of the coast and once a month lumbers onto the island to eat 2d12 scorpions. He is immune to their venom and his scaly hide is filled, punctured and pincushioned with still pumping scorpion stingers. His bulging saucer-plate fish eyes are shot not with blood, but venom. Muhwtor’s stats are as a giant-sized, 9 HD, poison-immune Deep One, but when struck in melee a gout of scorpion venom sprays onto whomever dealt the wound.

1d6 Encounters:
1. A scorpion family (mother, father and 1d4 ½ HD scorpion children) harvesting mushrooms, stump-moss and orchids, they are chatting and joking with each other in their clicking scorpion language. 
2. 1d4 giant scorpions snap their pincers from the entrance to their tree home.
3. 2d6 scorpions hunting gulls/rays on the coast or voles in the forest.
4. Sssn-snk the scorpion sage-king (max HP 'Scorpion, Giant' with 18 Intelligence) and 3d6 decrepit scorpion elders scuttle slowly about in a circle, clicking and gesticulating wildly with their claws and stingers. They are discussing what to do about Muhwtor. The others say they will vote for a new king.

5. 1d8 Deep Ones walk back to the shore with young, alive giant scorpion slung by the tail over one of their shoulders. 
6. A pile of half-eaten scorpions, some a missing their stingers. One clings to life, gurgling "Muhwtor" before dying. 

### 161-86 Isle of the Scorpions
A pleasant and fragrant isle of redwoods and vibrant flowers - populated by 778 intelligent, giant scorpions (213 males, 285 females, 380 scorplings). If the players seem hospitable, the scorpions will entreat with them to help drive off Muhwtor offering them an unlimited and lifetime supply of their potent venom, the right to stay on the isle as honorary scorpions and as many scorpion brides as they desire.

### 161-87 Muhwtor’s Lair
Muhwtor of the Mesopelagic and 12 Deep One toadies lurk beneath the balmy coastal waters in the wrecked hull of an ancient submersible. The sea above is littered with chewed up scorpions. At low tide (around mid day) the top of the submersible can be seen.

Treasures found within the rusted submersible:

•  1 rusted torpedo (strike hard to detonate for 2d20 damage in a 50ft radius)
• *Voidlight* a +2 rapier, +4 vs extraplanar creatures. If the wielder dies their skeleton turns to aluminium.
• A pirate skeleton that has turned to aluminium (worth 3000 GP)
• 10 large leaden barrels. Each contains gold dust worth 10,000 GP.
• A seal-skin treasure map pointing to Hex no. 79-00 with the notations ‘all the world behind 100,000 doors’ and ‘beware the eater of men’
• A green swipe pass (used to launch a nuclear warhead in Hex no. 344-380)

### 163-88 Muhwtor’s Mother

The sulphur-smelling surface of this oceanic hex bubbles and roils. Muhwtor's Mother, a tentacular ur-beast slumbers in the inky depths of the sea beside a fiercely fuming volcanic vent. She nestles a colossal man-sized pearl (worth 240,000 GP). Her stats are as four conjoined Octopi, Giant. She will wreak a most horrible revenge on those that slay or humiliate her son. She'll travel unerringly and tirelessly towards the party at a rate of 2 hexes per day.

BONUS HEX:

### 165-82 The Boat-Scorpions 

24 Scorpion refugees lay limply strewn across 4 crude rafts, the survivors of a bigger 'fleet'. They are/were fleeing from their island home of Hex no. 161-86 but ran out of provisions after becoming stuck in becalmed weather. The scorpions will try as much as they can to warn the PCs of the 5d100 hammerhead sharks that swarm beneath their rafts.