A Table And A Map

Things have been busy around here lately, but posting should pick up soon.  In the meantime...

A TABLE
The ConTessa Online convention ran a quick little contest for a d20-based table, so I cranked out a table which generates Over-the-Top Titles for characters like bizarre fairy nobles.  Hope somebody gets some use (or amusement) out of it.  I enjoyed whipping this one up partly because I gave myself an explicit deadline ("okay, devote ten minutes and come up with something").

AND A MAP
Check out this hexmap.  If you're not playing with Hexographer from Inkwell Ideas by now...you should be.

The map below shows an area I'm calling the Painlands - it's a sword-and-sorcery region that's part of Wampus Country's past, depicting an area subject to the Eye, rival to the Peacock Throne; I've been fiddling with it in my spare time and may do something with it down the line.  A little place where I can dump ideas that don't "go with" Wampus Country proper.

Speak to me not of the Painlands; I recall well how we were beset upon by stoneblooded bandits, and how many of our caravan disappeared down the gullets of cockatrices in the night. There can be no fond memories of the Dolorous Desert and the rapacious, invisible creatures which therein dwell; nor of the smoky skies above, choked with cackling filth-harpies. 

 There were islands of civilization in that place, perhaps, but we were fools to think we would find them in the cities. What of Hul Thazzar, the storied City of Stars? We knew some small pleasures there - sweet leaf and sweeter company bought with purloined gold; yet that piercing Eye was constantly upon us as the thunder-priests stared down from their twisted minarets. The growl of the chariots rings yet in my ear, the inviting scent of spice-bread still wafts past on quiet nights. And when I’ve had too much sour wine, I close my eyes and I cannot help but see her there, ample tears leading rivulets of kohl down her porcelain cheeks. 

I’ll not hear you prattle on in ignorance -- tell me no tales of the fable-workers of Ghusk and their guardians of red clay, nor of the dream-borne miracles within the Impossible Palace, for I have seen it all, and bear still those scars on my heart - the scars of seeing, and the scars of loss and the longing to return. 

 If luck and the gods are with you, boy, the Painlands will kill you outright, and quickly.