“The Wheel” is the collective term for a loose confederation of dipshit villages within the unclaimed territories; the name comes from the fact that any one village is roughly a day’s journey by horse-drawn wagon from the next (a unit of distance colloquially referred to as one wheel).
Roll 1d10 to determine which town you’re about to enter:
- Bell Throne
- Broken Pillar
- Candle Keep
- Crow Glen
- Pale Waters
- Sand Eye
- Shine Brook
- Topaz
- Two Kings
- Wilting Wood
All of the towns in the Wheel have pretty much the same things to offer travelers passing through – a general store, a smith, maybe a public house or a barber-surgeon. There most definitely won’t be magic-users or demi-humans, and the townsfolk will be awfully suspicious of anyone consorting with either (like people coming from, or headed to, Hexhaven). After all:
Of course, there’s one weird thing in each town that separates them from the others (roll 1d20):
- One of the townsfolk owns a talking goat that recites verses that may or not be prophetic.
- Any woman who gives birth in town will have identical twins.
- A partially ruined monolith stands in the center of town. It’s made of a stone not native to the area and has strange glyphs carved into its sides.
- The town’s quaint, rustic religion requires periodic human sacrifices.
- The town’s quaint, rustic religion has been co-opted by a monster living in the woods outside of town.
- Weird artifacts are routinely dug out of the ground in and around town.
- Nobody in the village is over the age of (1d4x10)+10.
- A capricious magic-user is running a protection racket on the entire town. The bizarre demands are annoying, but there hasn’t been famine or bandit raid since it started, so… it’s working?
- The town is completely opposed to the use of currency and operates on a strict barter system. Townsfolk will be insulted if offered money of any denomination for goods or services.
- The whole town consists of one very large, interconnected building.
- Somehow, the town gained possession of a relic of historical or religious importance. The townsfolk’s livelihood is entirely dependent on visiting pilgrims.
- Everyone in town is relentlessly, obnoxiously cheerful, but everything – their food, their clothing, their music – is just bland and awful.
- All of the town’s agricultural products and craft works are derived from insects.
- The town is actually a collection of houseboats that separate during the day and join together every night.
- Every building in town is elevated at least 10 feet off the ground; high social status is displayed by having even taller stilts on one’s house.
- There’s a plot of land just outside of town that reanimates the dead – the town uses zombies as a form of unpaid labor.
- The townsfolk are actually from a technologically advanced parallel dimension who are attempting to live a more “simple” agrarian lifestyle, but keep a cache of gadgets hidden in town.
- An ancient pact requires the town to regularly give tribute to a nearby demi-human community – a dramatic re-enactment of the demi-humans saving the town from certain destruction.
- A secret society, made up of the most prominent people in town, terrorizes the rest of the townsfolk.
- All disputes, civil and legal alike, are settled through trial by combat.