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Big Bear Mountain

It's still Fat Bear Week! Backpack is doing pretty good with 123,416 votes today (A number that almost looks made up).

Around these parts you get a whole bear-themed adventure location. Well half of one anyway, I'll get to the cave tomorrow. I probably should have fleshed out the settlement and lairs a bit. Also there's no map, but you can probably draw a mountain, they're basically triangle-shaped.

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Encounters

  1. 1d6 Bears
  2. 2d6 Berserkers
  3. 1d6 Werebears
  4. 1d6 Adepts
  5. Bear Merchant
  6. 1d3 Bear Monsters

Locations

Moving up the mountain costs 4 movement per hex, moving down costs 3 movement per hex. Travel penalties are reversed for bears.

  1. Big Bear Basecamp. A scattering of yurts, some terraced gardens and goat pens. Home to 830 souls, including a fyrd of 160. A tight cluster of yurts makes up The Golden Sow Roadhouse, famed for its smoked salmon whiskey. There are always 2d6 humans and 1d6 bear hirelings hanging out in the tavern.
  2. Big Bear Cave. The wide entrance is flooded with warm water and rimmed with white calcite deposits (I'll do this one tomorrow).
  3. Mother's Embrace. A treetop fortress of chaotic bear cultists. Home to 100 Berserkers, 5 heroes and 10 tame bears. Lead by Lady Kortope the Unavoidable who wears a helm of reading languages and magic, and wields the twin magic axes THEWS and SINEWS. They guard a treasure of 2500sp, each of the heroes wears a jeweled bear claw amulet worth 2000sp, and Lord Gleebo wears jeweled bear claw pauldrons worth 9000sp each.
  4. Temple of St. Bearamy. An octagonal log cabin with a tall peaked roof, surrounded by a dozen small outbuildings. Home to 90 adepts, 4 heroes and 7 werebears. Their leader is Patriarch Mavel the Nos who wears a ring of regeneration and bears a +1 mace and the legendary shield CRUSH OPPOSITION. Inside the main building is a quartz statue of St. Bearamy, depicted mid transformation between human and bear. While the quartz is of fairly low quality, 10 sapphire inclusions glimmer within, each is worth 500sp.
  5. Thornberry Spire. A broad, heavily-inclined patch of bramble bushes. Movement through here costs five movement per hex, and for each day of navigating, characters in plate armour have a 2-in-6 chance of taking 1 damage, chainmail and leather have a 4-in-6 chance, and everyone else simply takes 1 damage. While travelling here, a character can forage 1d6 rations worth of berries, or by spending a whole day at it, they can forage 2d6 rations. At the centre of the patch is a tower of bones. 9 Bear Skeletons guard the stairs up to the pinnacle of the tower. At the top, the skeleton of a once-great wizard lies slumped at his desk of bone. On his head is the magic circlet SKELETAL WILL. The walls of the pinnacle chamber are covered in bone bookshelves full of hundreds of books. Most are mildewed beyond readability, but the wizard's spellbooks are wrapped in oilcloth and in pristine condition, containing all standard spells from levels 1-5.
  6. Goldwater Lake. The water of this crater lake is crystal clear and warm to the touch and its bed is buried in the golden eggs of feathered salmon. The air buzzes with flying alvins, and there is a 4-in-6 chance of encountering 2d6 bears, gorging themselves on the delectable roe. By bear law, any non-bear who sees this lake must be put to death. 100cn of the smelly roe sells for 1000sp to noble gormands and alchemists.

New Magic Items

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Reading: Enshitification by Cory Doctorow
Listening: Warriors of The Dragonfang Order by Coniferous Myst
Playing The World Ends With You (Nintendo DS)

#fat bear week #od&d #wilderness