The lords of rock and river: a tiny regional hexcrawl

16 Aug, 2025

There are three seasons in a year, and all are dictated by the river. Life is the gift of the river, and the river is the gift of Lugal. Praise Lugal for His gift.

• The season of the emergence begins when the river floods recede to reveal the river’s gift of fertile land.
• The season of the low water begins when the river slows to a trickle, and the dry heat comes to scorch the crops. Harvest them before they burn.
• The season of the inundation begins when the river floods. The black mud revitalizes all.

Then the river recedes, and the season of the emergence begins anew.

The stretch of terrain from the river’s headwaters, birthed from the divine elephant, until the river’s fork at great Uruk, is near-uninhabited by men. Great beasts and monsters roam free; it is wild country. Only the arbiters of the cult of the elephant, on their yearly pilgrimage to the river’s headwaters, soundly know the way. But how hard could that way prove to trek? Simply follow the river, the gift of Lugal.

Any travelers coming from Uruk are likely to arrive first in B3, the lowest point of the region, during the season of the emergence. All travel is done on or beside the river, as a matter of survival. Praise Lugal for His gift.

Minor encounters

1. A tiny lizard, speckled brown and green, does pushups on a wide flat rock. It absorbs as much sun as it can, surprisingly bold for a creature of its size. It does not shy away from kungas nor men, though it eyes any accompanying cats or dogs nervously.
2. Thousands of warblers sing the praises of the prince’s birth as they fly to and from A2 in one miles-long flock.
3. A dozen wild ass plod along the side of the river, watching warily for crocodiles—they will never see them in time.
4. 1d4 elegant shore birds: speckled white herons with deep blue throats and radial feather crests colored a brilliant yellow—like miniature suns. Wise and ancient servants of Aynana, paradoxically: not suns at all, but moons.
5. Two badgers square up at the mouth of a den dug underneath a low-hanging acacia tree. Teeth and claws are bared, but the younger one who originally dug the thing abdicates to the scarred, hoary old beast who’s just arrived.
6. A huge, hairy spider scuttles over your foot.
7. A herd of half a dozen elephants migrate up the river, holy as can be. They must have passed by another group of Urukites earlier in their journey—handprint prayers adorn their wrinkled skin, painted in all the colors of nature.
8. A tiny fox with ears each individually as large as its whole body and a tail just as oversized cocks its head, listening to the ground in a dusty clearing. It shifts two paces and listens again. It’s trying to hear insects marching beneath the earth, but you are too loud and distracting. The fox meets your gaze with distaste and scampers off.

Major encounters (before the princely vessel is stolen)

1. An emerald serpent, golden-horned and malice-eyed, rears up out of the grass a few paces away. Its fangs drip venom. Roll reaction at -2, for serpents are the great enemy of man. It does not just want to be left alone—it wants to kill you. (HD 1; damage 1d6 and roll fortitude or die in agony)
2. 2d2 lionesses on the prowl (see below). They have no qualms attacking humans, but neither do they have any particular reason to attack a wandering warrior over their larger, less-well-armored kunga. (Reroll in C2.)
3. A crocodile (HD 3; damage 1d6 or 1d20 from ambush) lurks in the river shallows, utterly invisible in the sediment-stained water. (Reroll in A1.)
4. A baby baboon shrieks in the boughs of a date palm on the river’s shore. A pair of hyenas giggle as they devour the mother; their chatter will attract 2d2 more hyenas and 1d4 cynocephaloi within minutes. The pair of monkeys are utterly alone, the mother having been exiled from the troop not long ago for a perceived offense. Neither the hyenas nor cynocephaloi can reach the baby baboon, protected as it is by the sheaths of the palm, but there are no other baboons around to come to its rescue. A hook-beaked river eagle circles high above, waiting patiently for the baby to make a mistake. A crocodile lurks invisibly in the river, waiting patiently for the hyenas to make a mistake. (Reroll in A1)
5. A long-necked, long-legged, and humpbacked bird three meters tall watches cautiously from the other side of a clearing in the brush. Its axe-blade beak—comically oversized in comparison to its fist-sized head—shimmers with a metallic glint in the sunshine, and its small, black eyes gleam with violent delight. (HD 2; damage 1d6+2; runs thrice as fast as a human)
6. 4d5 lithe, short-furred otters (HD 1; damage 1d6-1) bully a crocodile on the river’s shore, slapping its head and nipping at its tail. When it tries to slink into the water, they herd it back to land with more threats of violence. The crocodile snaps and bellows, but the otters are too quick and too numerous. (Reroll in A1)
7. Lurking in the wet strip of mud at the river's edge is an amphibious catfish over two meters in length (HD 2; damage 1d6 and it either grapples or swallows), who at cursory glance appears to be another wet lump of mud. It follows at a distance, either flopping along on the shore in a series of wet plops or swimming near the riverbed, feeling the way with its whiskers. It waits for a show of weakness and follows until it is successful in eating you, finding easier prey, or another, more dangerous encounter is rolled. (Reroll in A1)
8. The lord of the river (see below), just awoken and blindly irate (Reroll anywhere but C2)

Major encounters (after the princely vessel is stolen)

1. 2d2 lionesses, who immediately attack at the scent of man
2. 2d2 lionesses, who immediately attack at the scent of man
3. 2d2 lionesses, who immediately attack at the scent of man
4. 2d2 lionesses, who immediately attack at the scent of man
5. 2d2 lionesses, who immediately attack at the scent of man
6. 2d2 lionesses, who immediately attack at the scent of man
7. 2d2 lionesses, who immediately attack at the scent of man
8. 2d2 lionesses, who immediately attack at the scent of man

A1: Lord of the rock

Beyond the verdant shore of the river lies a strip of arid grassland a scant few miles wide. It is this borderland that the lord of the rock has claimed as his hunting grounds. He observes his domain from his stronghold nestled in the center of a low valley, a wide basin protected from the biting desert winds to the west by a ring of rolling hills. The stronghold itself—the rock—is a rocky structure composed of several tiered plateaus that rise out of the surrounding flatlands and which come to a head at a central outcropping. Leap from plateau to plateau—a trek treacherous to all but the most experienced human climbers—to find a yawning cave mouth that opens up into the gullet of the rock, where the lion lord and his fourteen wives make their home.

Within the spacious halls of the rock, three wives take turns nursing the five female cubs and guarding the one male. The other eleven lionesses prowl the lord’s hunting lands bring the carcasses of large animals—whether it be crocodiles, wild ass, boars, cynocephaloi, or wandering men, far from home—back to the rock as an offering for their lord, who spends his twilight days slumbering atop his throne. He was once a great and powerful lion, but the years have taken their toll: The lord of the rock is a hoary old beast whose mane falls out in patches and whose once razor-sharp fangs have dulled into blunt instruments. Varicose veins wind up and down his limbs and cataracts have reduced his vision to ghostly outlines. His earthly vessel rots away, and everyone knows it. But his vital breath—a gift given to him by the very sun who once called him into being in those halcyon days long past—the diminished king of the gods to whom he still swears fealty—remains strong.

Thus the lion lord has sired a son. All the birds of the air and the beasts of the land proclaim the birth of the prince of the lions. Even the dogs in your company, so removed from the order of the wild, bark to each other the news: Hark! By ancient design, this son remains an empty vessel until three long days and nights go by, at which time the old lord will breathe the breath of life into the lungs of the new. It has been one day and one night since his birth.

If the princely vessel has been stolen from where he now rests curled up under his mother, nothing but a furry sack of flesh and bones, then the only inhabitants of the rock are its dying lord and five female cubs, who whine and mew for milk unforthcoming. All fourteen wives search for the lordly heir.

Lord of the rock

HD 6 (HP 18) / AC as leather / Damage 1d6+6
Mind like Macduff: noble, but with a taste for vengeance
Voice like an aging smoker: once earth-shaking, but now sorely diminished

Lionesses of the rock

HD 3 / AC as leather / Damage 1d6+3, with advantage on attacks against targets another lion has already hit in combat
Minds like valkyries
Voices commanding when raised, though oft silent

All the lions of the rock can leap twice their own height vertically and thrice their length horizontally without warning; the narrowest portions of the river are all well within their ability to cross in a single bound.
The claws of a lion of the rock can be made into weapons that confer a +2 bonus to damage. It is said—heretically—that the claws of a lion are the sharpest weapons in the earthly realm, sharp enough to cut even Lugal’s flesh.

The lions of the rock are honorable: They will not attack any unarmed woman or any person who lays prostrate in groveling surrender. Their children will nip your heels as you flee, but they will not strike you down. It is best not to test how far their honor goes.

Should you manage to earn their respect—by killing the lord of the river, rescuing the princely vessel if he should be stolen, or some other act of valor—the lionesses of the rock can teach you to fight with the pack: a technique granting advantage on attacks against targets an ally of yours has already hit in combat.

A2: Announcement chorus

The water has cut a deep channel here, and sediment walls stretch nearly thirty feet on either side of the river’s course. Tufts of shrub grass hang over the sides, providing shade to the thousands of globe-nests built from globs of gold-flecked mud that grace the channel walls. Brown-and-white warblers sing of the prince’s birth to all that pass by.

When the warblers’ eggs eventually hatch, fat golden honey bees take up residence in abandoned nests, filling the empty hollows with industry. Honeycomb and grubs alike make fine meals for the many hungry mothers who return with the next year’s clutch of eggs.

B1: Asherah, mortuary heretic

Hiding amongst the thick riverside shrubbery are three of swift Rakesh’s most agile warriors (genders vary; HD 1: obligated¹ to serve swift Rakesh; wear leather cuirasses and greaves, wield bronze-tipped spears, and carry bronze helms quieted by cloth on the ends of their spears) and the mortuary heretic Asherah (see below). The group is camped here in a scouting maneuver, watching A1 and plotting an opening to infiltrate the rock and steal the princely vessel. Asherah plans to evoke Kukku to aid in this infiltration. When the theft is complete, Laodike—the quickest of the warriors—will run to alert swift Rakesh in B3 to begin the attack while the other three cross the river to the east, avoiding detection as best they can. In the meantime, the warriors are frustrated by orders to avoid a campfire, but they are sufficiently cowed by Asherah’s unnerving mien. They make do with dried rations and quiet conversation.

Asherah has sworn no oath to serve swift Rakesh. Indeed, she has no qualms betraying him should his own plans interfere with her hidden goals. Asherah aims for greater heights than just a trophy for the warlord to bring home. Once the lord of the rock has been slain, his vital breath returned to the sun, Asherah plans to breathe her own breath into the princely vessel—to take on the form of a lion of the rock for herself. But, should swift Rakesh and his warriors be slain before the lord of the rock himself perishes, Asherah is willing to cut her losses and give up the princely vessel in exchange for her own life. (She is sorely mistaken as to the willingness of a lion to barter with a human who has done it wrong.)

Asherah, mortuary heretic

HD 2 / AC as armor / Damage as weapon
Gender weird²
Mind like an ambush predator: patient as the grave
Voice like branches snapping

Asherah is obligated both to observe the living rites of the doorkeeper until she herself passes beyond his doors and to serve the aims of the mortuary heretics even unto the lands of death. She carries a bronze knife, a pouch of bone chalk, and a silver bell.

Asherah can reliably evoke Kukku, a lampad—one those spirits called torchbearers—and one of the sacred servants of the doorkeeper: he who is sometimes blasphemously called King of Hell. Kukku appears as a hunchbacked woman mummified with age, crowned with a halo of interlocked skeletal arms. Her eyes are empty sockets sewn shut, but nonetheless Kukku’s head follows your every movement—others will swear that, no, she was following them. She does not speak; her mouth, too, is stitched shut. Kukku wields a black flame that sheds disorienting darkness as a torch does light. Under the auspices of Kukku’s black torch, the senses are dulled and the mind wanders—apparitions appear at the edge of the gaze, the paranoia of seasons spent in isolation in the great caverns below the earth. Kukku can be evoked for only [sum] minutes before she departs once more.

She also knows how to perform the doorbell ritual, which involves evoking a mouth of hell in the aperture of a cave or abandoned ruin. The cave or abandoned ruin must have been entirely uninhabited by any human in living memory. The aperture must be large enough for an elephant to pass through and the interior must be either large or dark enough for the magician to be unable to see its full extent. The magician must mark the threshold with bone chalk and recite the doorkeeper's prayer, then ring a silver bell to call forth the mouth of hell. The mouth remains open for as long as the line of bone chalk remains undisturbed, during which time any denizens of the Underworld may travel through to the earth or any denizens of the earth may travel through to the Underworld. The doorkeeper will dispatch mighty servants to investigate the mouth and seal the way, if not pre-approved.

B2: Cynocephaloi

A small band of cynocephaloi (thirteen in total, accompanied by seven hyenas; they have no matriarch to direct them) feast on the bloody remains of two kungas abandoned by Asherah’s scout band in an attempt to avoid conflict when they noticed traces of the cynocephaloi nearby. Here, along the riverbank, the monsters gorge on flesh and water alike. They keep a low profile, afraid of lords of rock and river alike.

The lionesses will discover the cynocephaloi soon in their search for the prince, and the they are defined as likely perpetrators despite the lack of scent-evidence. The following battle results in 1d6 lioness casualties and 2d6 cynocephaloi casualties, and the cynocephaloi are routed out of the lions’ hunting ground and back into the wastes outside the river’s reach.

B3: Swift Rakesh, trophy hunter

East of the river waits swift Rakesh (see below) and his warband of nineteen loyal warriors (genders vary; HD 1: obligated to serve swift Rakesh; wear bronze helms, leather cuirasses, leather greaves, and wield bronze-tipped spears) whom he leads with the goal of slaying the lord of the rock and taking his skin as a powerful trophy. His ambition was initially stoked by Asherah, who appeared to him one day and foretold his victory in the bones, should he follow the wisdom of her heretical god. He suspects the truth: she lies about the providence of the gods.

You find the camp in a moment of exciting violence—in the center of a circle of yelling warriors, Pamphilos wrestles Porcius to the ground in retribution for the latter’s insult of the former’s mother. The warband grows louder and more boisterous and more bored with each day that passes; Asherah, blessed with the patience of the grave, waits for a perfect opportunity that may only come after swift Rakesh loses the goodwill of his warriors. Swift Rakesh does not intercede in the fight; instead, he can be found overlooking the river, massaging an old scar on his shoulder with a grimace: two white pinpricks contrast an otherwise masculine tan. He privately contemplates Asherah’s motives, but will quickly adopt the mask of the warlord if interrupted. He is not subtle about his plans or reasons for being here, so far upriver: He and his warband impatiently await Laodike’s arrival with news of a successful heist, at which point all the lionesses of the rock are sure to be drawn out in search of their prince, leaving the lion lord alone and vulnerable. Indeed, swift Rakesh is more than willing to boast of his coming glory, though the precise role of the heretic in bringing it about is downplayed. You are even welcomed to join in the attack, though certainly swift Rakesh will receive the most honors.

With the warband are six kungas and five dogs, as well as three blood bulls—bred for the tithe and taken as spoils from Ediu, a small village on the fringes of the river kingdom. (Without the bulls, they will likely have to offer children to fulfill this year’s tithe—less expensive than dogs or goats.) On this side of the river, the lions are unlikely to smell them, though swift Rakesh has stationed two warriors to guard them from potential ambush. The bulls will ford the river with the warband once the lions are drawn out, and once they arrive at the foot of the rock Asherah plans to perform the doorbell ritual to evoke a mouth of hell in the cave entrance of the lion’s den and then slaughter the blood bulls to attract the attention of the hungry shades that emerge from the mouth. She plans to then immediately close the mouth and barter with them, either gaining powerful ghul servants or at the least denying the lions access to their fortified position once the ghuls begin to feast upon the bulls at the cave entrance.

Swift Rakesh

HD 3 / AC as armor / Damage as weapon
Gender male
Mind like the runt of the litter: he’s got something to prove
Voice like a wolverine: gravelly, simmering with anger just about to boil over

Swift Rakesh has thwarted cunning Temüülen’s obligation to defend the matron of tongues from harm and once-swift Hol’s obligation to bring aid from Uruk before the warband of swift Rakesh burnt the high hall of Cypress Cloister. He is obligated to fight alongside his men. He wears a bronze helm, leather cuirass, bronze greaves, the feather-winged sandals of once-swift Hol, and wields the serpent-spear of cunning Temüülen.

The feather-winged sandals of once-swift Hol propel their wearer to action, allowing them to run at twice normal pace and fly in short bursts—motions closer resembling great leaps.
The serpent-spear of cunning Temüülen is made of a single bough of lacquered mangrove carved into the visage of a serpent. The serpent-spear, when mastered, winds around its wielder’s arm, fighting attempts to disarm. The spearhead is the serpent’s head, and in place of a single point there are two golden fangs protruding outwards from the carved mouth; from a distance, the spearhead resembles a delicate prong. If pierced by the golden fangs, one must roll fortitude or be afflicted by the serpent-spear’s venom and die in 1d4 days. Even a successful roll inflicts great agony, and the scars will ache until the day you die.

C1: Way cairns

A cairn of river stones piled as high as a person is tall sits on a small hill beside the river. Each has a prayer chiseled in Lemur on its flattest face. Hundreds of stones make up the pile; arbiters of the elephant cult add a stone and a prayer each time they pass by.

A mile to the east, broken into its disparate pieces long ago and almost entirely buried by soil, lies the remains of another cairn formed of smooth river stones, chiseled Lemur prayers almost entirely lost to the wear of time. A long time ago, this cairn stood tall beside the river. A long time from now, the river might find it again.

C2: Lord of the river

Water pools lazily in this lagoon, forced into quiet stasis by the force of the riverbend. Stasis is enforced, for here slumbers the lord of the river. He is a grand hippopotamus (HD 8; damage 3d6; reduces all damage taken by 2), larger than your boat, and his blubbery hide is covered in the scars of ten thousand battles. You are lucky he spends most of his time sleeping for days at a time, so for the careful traveler there is little danger. But on those days that he does awaken—or heaven forbid you awaken him—he is inexorably enraged. He charges, moving faster than a riverboat, and can easily capsize it, crushing anyone within it with his jaws. The lord of the river does not want your fealty, he does not want your attention, and he certainly does not want you in the river—he wants to be left alone. Many have tried to kill him, and even more have failed. It is said that only the teeth and claws of a lion—the sharpest weapons nature ever created—can pierce his hide. But killing him is worth it, for it is said that the river lord’s body can be transformed by a cunning magician into many substances of great power: his teeth ground into a powder that grants unshakeable courage to those who snort it, his liver prepared into a dish that grants his unstoppable strength, and the juices of his brain distilled into an oil that can heal any mortal wound in moments.

Dozens of crocodiles lazily float around the lord’s lagoon, pampered by crocodile birds and totally unmolested by otters or lions or terror birds. They are the beneficiaries of a careful alliance—one that closer resembles fealty. But if ever a crocodile annoys the lord of the river, it is snatched up and remorselessly bit in half no matter how old or dignified the beast was; it is then thrown up and out of the river in a huge arc, its corpse soon devoured by shoreline scavengers.

Half-buried at the bottom of the lagoon is an ancient shrine of human make. Everything but the walls of the central structure have collapsed. A thick layer of mud fully covers a faded mosaic floor that depicts an emerald serpent without horns on any of its three heads: a truth long-forgotten, even by the serpent heretics. The serpent’s tail begins where the doorway once was and its body stretches across the rectangular ruin, its three heads cradling a dais raised opposite the doorway, just high enough to avoid most of the mud. A bronze gong lies on the dais, its wooden supports long-since rotted away. Examined closely, a design has been pounded into it: a woman made of flowing water blesses a kneeling congregation, filling their proffered drinking vessels with her own essence. She is crowned with a halo that takes the form of an emerald serpent eating its own tail. The gong is extremely valuable to serpent heretics and slightly less valuable to others with a vested interest in heresy.

The bronze gong can instead be rehung in the sunken shrine and struck with enough force to produce a crash unhindered in sound by the surrounding water. Nirigima, now-stagnant, still heeds the call. But she does not come to serve any longer.

Stagnant Nirigima, once-mistress of purified waters

HD 10 / AC as leather / Damage 1d6
Mind like a pumpkin that’s been left out past the new year
Voice stripped from her long ago
Moves like a puppet that's been cut loose from its strings

Nirigima’s touch turns pure water into a diseased morass. A well is poisoned for ten generations. Open wounds are immediately infected, near-ensuring amputation.
Weapons that roll maximum damage against Nirigima are stuck to the hilt with a squelch in the muck that makes up her physical form, soon to be swallowed if not quickly pulled free.

A monstrous woman drags herself out of the mud, her form constructed out of a mess of riverbed muck. She slouches, staring at you with wild eyes from beneath a canopy of tangled hair made from aquatic weeds. She either slams you to the ground with a single swipe of a heavy arm or she simply gores you with the pair of twisty, jagged horns protruding from her head: they are made of thick plant roots that hurt all the more for their dullness.

For G L A U G U S T 2 0 2 5, a "tiny regional hexcrawl."

#MEGsopotamia #glaugust #monster #scenario #treasure