ALLUVIUM (A Lanthanide Horizon Hexcrawl)

In the choking vacuum of the Machine Space, there are islands: sealed pockets of material in the mechanism of the Structure, waiting to be cracked open and stripped bare by anyone with the tools to do it. Most are more dangerous than what's outside of them, filled with crushing mechanisms and hostile machines- they were not made for you, you rat chewing on the wires. It should be no surprise what happens to you.

Yet, rare though they are, there are habitable places to be found. 

The only trouble is finding them first.

The Basin is inside of a hollow sphere, with gravity emanating outwards from the center at a level roughly equal to earth's. Two massive steel obelisks thrust up from the ground and meet in the center to hold up the "sun" with their points. The "sun" is an array of impossibly bright spotlights which illuminate the entire space, with "night" only coming from a thick cloud layer which covers half of the spotlight array at any given time with pouring rain in a 24-hour orbiting cycle.

During the daytime, it is hot and humid. During the night, it is still hot and humid. The only exception is in 1.1, where the vacuum pulling air and moisture through the sinkhole leaves the air cool, dry, and thin. 

Encounters

When passing from one hex to another, there's a 3-in-6 chance of encountering something:

1. 1d6+3 Gun Drones.
2. A Bull.
3. 1d6 Sniffing Creatures (HD 2, unarmored,  noncombatant.)
4. 1d6+2 Sept Cinereal. On a 1 or a 6, a named character is present.
5. 1d6+2 Oasites. On a 1 or a 6, a named character is present.
6. The Screamer Signal.

1.1 Howling Sinkhole

Assuming that you're a Navigator piloting your Sept-Vessel through the sinkhole, this is where you start. The inside of the sinkhole is a few miles of sheared-apart machinery and loose wires, swinging in an eternal hurricane-force wind. Only a Pilot could get through safely- anyone else has a 3-in-6 chance of damaging their vessel.

This hex is filled with half-bare trees, torn by the winds that howl into the sinkhole and sickened by the thin air. Few living things are found here- ignore all encounter rolls except those with Machines.

1.2 Sept Cinereal

The locust-like vessel Cinereal rests here, crippled by damage to its engines. The Sept was exiled a century ago in a bloody feud that escalated to an Assembly-level struggle for power; after a brutal defeat, to escape the threat of being banished and having their engine torn out, the Sept fled into Machine Space. It is an amusingly cruel bit of irony that the process of boring a hole into the Basin is what caused the engine damage.

Sept Cinereal, as it exists now, consists of sixty-seven people. They subsist by herding Sniffing Creatures in small family units, having lost past moieties.

A Sniffing Creature, or something strongly resembling it.

Their leader, Imperious Parva Mabilia (2 HD, medium armor, 8 morale, +3 to hit, massive standard-spear; her subordinates have +1 morale in her presence,) resides in the grounded vessel with her husband Waleran, young son Adelsinde, and six Lictors (2 HD, medium armor, 8 morale, +2 to hit, heavy crossbar pikes.) Her face is always twisted into a nasty sneer, regardless of her actual expression; a broken-and-healed jaw that, along with several missing teeth on one side, were made by the swinging fists of a Bull. She is known to be ambitious, even belligerent in pursuit of her goal to repair Cinereal and at last return to the Volume. Only parts from the Coracles in 3.2 Odsyp could serve to repair the Sept-Vessel's engines, but even in their reduced state, the Oasis exiles have a capacity for warfare that the nomadic Navigators don't have.

Serving as her right-hand man is Rogier Ciniod (3 HD, unarmored, 11 morale, +4 to hit, heavy executioner's sword [1d10+2]; when drunk off his hooch, 2 DR, critical on a 19-20, fumble on a 1-3), a deranged alcoholic whose habit of drinking high-proof Sniffing Creature kumis mixed with machine antifreeze has given him an axe murderer's sense of humor and what can only be described as a stroke victim accent. As a warrior, he's legendary; as a person, he's a disaster. If Mabilia needs some killing done, she'll get him and thirteen levies (1 HD, unarmored, 7 morale, +0 to hit, light handaxe,) to go hack the problem apart.

2.1 Pyramid

A massive concrete pyramid juts from the ground, buzzed around by a flock of 1d10+10 Gun Drones at any given time. Occasionally, one of four huge steel irises on the pyramid open up, releasing either a Bull or another 1d6+3 Gun Drones to disperse around the Basin. Besides these irises, there are no means of ingress to the pyramid. 

The inside is a factory assembly line of 3D printers, conveyors, and welding arms for the manufacture and arming of the various Machines of the Basin. Navigating this space carelessly is an excellent way to be killed in an industrial accident, and that's not taking into account the 20 Gun Drones buzzing around inside for security. Regardless, one could steal an incredible amount of machine parts and ammunition components, including an enormous store of nitrocellulose. Igniting the guncotton stores would cause an explosion much like the one that destroyed 2.3 Shattered Pyramid, killing everyone and everything inside the structure, and forcing anybody in close proximity to save or get struck by a chunk of rubble for 1d20 damage. With no Machines to maintain it, the Basin will slowly fall into disrepair- but that's a problem for the great-great-grandchildren.

2.3 Shattered Pyramid

A blasted ruin of sheared girders and cyclopean chunks of concrete, the overgrown aftermath of an industrial accident. This pyramid once manufactured Machines that would try to destroy 3.2 Odsyp for diverting the flow of the river, so the Oasites sent their finest warriors to destroy it; after breaching the interior, the powder stores for Gun Drone bullets were ignited, and the resulting explosion tore the pyramid apart at the cost of killing everybody inside.

As of now, the ruins are commonly scavenged by both Cinereal and Odsyp citizens, who are often chased off by the pair of Bulls trying fruitlessly to glue together the twisted machines and concrete bits strewn all over the place. Digging through the rubble here uses the same rules as dissecting a Machine, only it takes four hours and causes an encounter roll.

3.1 Stake Forest 

Crooked metal spikes protrude from the ground here like trees, covered in flashing arrays of lights. Underground, cables tangle like fiber optic roots. This "forest" is in fact an advanced communication array between the Basin's outer shell and 2.2/4.1 Obelisk, a machine corpus callosum. Damaging it, a feat that would require ship-mounted weaponry and several hours, would render the whole Basin uninhabitable within the decade as the temperature and climate completely destabilize.

A man, naked save for a loincloth and the calligraphy covering every inch of bare skin, wanders here. Czcibor (1 HD, unarmored, 6 morale, ignored by local Machines) was once considered to be an apprentice of Patron Alojz in 3.2 Odsyp, but was ultimately passed over simply because the old man was paranoid about challenges to his power. He's spent much of his adult life carefully decoding the flashing patterns of the "trees" or scrounging around 2.3 Shattered Pyramid, and has managed to learn bits and pieces of the "language" Machines in the Basin are programmed with; the glyphs he writes on his skin are in fact QR codes that the Machines understand to mean "this person does not exist". In a pinch, he can shriek dial-up internet sounds that drive any Machines in earshot into a homicidal frenzy.

Czcibor would like to have Dzvezda from 3.2 Odsyp assassinated, enough that he'd pitch the suggestion to any vaguely trustworthy foreigners who won't rat him out. He's aware of her desire to depose Patron Alojz, and still has a vestigial sense of loyalty to the old man. He also thinks that he can use such a power vacuum to get back in the Patron's good graces to eventually take the throne- and there's a 2-in-6 chance he's right. Regardless of outcome, Czcibor rewards a successful killing with a set of three thermal paper seals that, if brandished at a Machine, will force it to re-roll its Reaction. These work once per Machine and are ruined by exposure to fire or extreme heat.

3.2 Odsyp

The larger river branches out into a wetland delta here, pouring through a wide, shallow channel. Metal stilt houses stick up from the soft earth. Many are made from scavenged material, but a dozen of them are grounded Coracles: lunar lander type machines used for transporting small groups of people, much like the larger sept-vessels. This is the village of Odsyp, home to seventy-five refugees from the distant Oases and their descendants. Fifty years ago, they were a regiment of conscripts who, sick of being ground to paste in an endless war against two enemies with no regard for logistics, followed their Sworn Armiger Kazimiera Wojciech Lightning-in-Amber to steal a dozen ships and fly into Machine Space in search of a refuge. She died twenty five years ago, slain in the battle that destroyed 2.3 Shattered Pyramid. Her remains, and with them her aluminum-and-gold limbs, are enshrined in one of the Coracles.

These Oasites are of an odd-looking phenotype: pale and hairless, with their teeth in double rows for crushing shellfish. Half of them, those with the brain implant, emote on a one-second delay and often with theatrical exaggeration. Those without--the young, criminal, or intermarriages from Cinereal--are expected to show little emotion at all, and will often repeat a statement as a question for clarification, a la Solid Snake. Everyone lives mostly off of rice, duckweed, and weird little crustaceans.

The current leader is Kazimiera's former prostheticist, Patron Alojz Kazimiera Odsyp (1 HD, unarmored, 7 morale, +3 to hit, pistol [1d6, -1 to hit for each 30' past the first.]) He is a cunning old man who maintains his position not just by seniority, but because he controls the creation and distribution of the augmentations by which Oasites can consciously control their emotions- and by extension, he may control theirs. It's not often that he uses this power, but in an emergency he can send the town's augmented half into a blind, murderous rage against intruders. Nobody likes to speak of the last time this happened- ten years ago, when a Cinereal raiding party was torn apart in a bloody sparagmos.

Odsyp has a standing military of twelve spear-citizens (1 HD, light armor and shield, 7 morale, +1 to hit, medium spear,) split into three squads of four, with each of them headed by an Esquire (2 HD, medium armor, 8 morale, +2 to hit, heavy billhook, two pipe bombs [2d6 in a 10' radius, save to avoid.]) Leading the entire army on frail old Alojz's behalf is his masterpiece, the Armiger Dzvezda Alojz Odsyp (4 HD, heavy armor, 9 morale, +3 to hit, bare hands 1d6+3, one satchel charge [3d6 in a 20' radius, save for half,] two attacks per round.) Her arms and legs have been replaced with the double-jointed metal limbs of a Bull, and her torso has been braced with a skeletal metal frame to ensure she doesn't accidentally tear herself apart. Dzvezda barely emotes, consciously suppressing all emotion- she almost seems to sleepwalk through life, even when she's wrenching limbs off. Alojz sees her as a surrogate daughter that he and Kazimiera could not have, but Dzvezda deeply resents the old man for his unwillingness to even consider abdicating his Patronage. She'd be willing to kill him herself if not for the loss of vital skills and the risk of him setting her brain implant to "suicidal depression."

If Alojz sets off the homicidal rage setting in the brain implants, the military is supplemented by thirty bloodthirsty citizens (1 HD, unarmored, automatically pass morale, +0 to hit, light and medium weapons,) and automatically pass their morale checks, but can't manage any tactics more sophisticated than sprinting directly at anything that looks like a threat to murder it.

2.2 and 4.1 Obelisk

A pair of vast concrete pillars reaching up for miles to meet in the center, where a hemisphere of thick cloud cover slowly migrates around a spherical array of blinding spotlights as bright as any sun. Water pumps up from the reservoirs at their bases to cool the internal components, then pours out from the numerous pipes that protrude from just below where the clouds cover.

The Obelisks and their false sun are hollow. The most direct means of ingress would be to walk into the drainage pipes, then use a cutting torch to burn through the metal to get to the Obelisk's tangled innards; climbing through the pipes themselves would be several days of vertical climbing through hourly torrents of near-boiling water. The hollow space is like a jungle canopy of pipes and wires, lightless but warm and humid. Due to the sheer density of hand- and footholds, ascending into the spotlight array takes only three climbing rolls over eight hours, but each segment of the climb comes with a 2-in-6 chance of an encounter:

1. A Bull, sealing leaks with adhesive.
2. Boiling water comes knocking through the pipes, or steam sprays from a crack. Make a Dexterity check or get scalded for 1d4 damage.
3. 1d4+2 Welder Drones (as Gun Drone, but replace the gun with a 1d6 melee welder.)

The inside of the array is spherical, crisscrossed with lattices for structural support and strung up with a variety of cables. The heat and humidity is stifling from the hundreds of spotlights pointing outwards to the Basin, huge things fit to be mounted on a ship, each possessing a built-in computer for interpreting climate control data sent by 3.1 Stake Forest. In the very center, supported by a dozen support columns, is a humming matte-black dodecahedron of an unknown material: the Gravity Well, the miracle machine that keeps the entire Basin together. Were it to ever be destroyed, which would take a shaped charge or some other piece of, the entire region would explode, killing everyone inside in a single merciful instant. To prevent this, 1d20+10 Welder Drones buzz around in here at any given time, doing small repairs and swarming any intruders. 

Bull

5 HD (20 HP), AC as plate, 8 morale

Something like a stag beetle made out of a forklift, with six humanoid limbs where the forks and tires would be. The chassis is thickly armored, studded with arrays of sensors and cameras that give it a 360° field of vision.

Movement: Slow and plodding but a superlative climber.

Morality: Apathetic when it isn't committing workplace accidents on people. 

Intelligence: Pick up thing. Place thing elsewhere. Tear apart disruptions.

Attacks: +4 to hit, three limbs (1d6+3, can make only two attacks against the same target) or one grab and tear (target must beat the Bull's roll to hit with a DEX roll or be grappled, automatic 2d6+6 damage on the subsequent round if they don't escape,) or two adhesive sprays (20' range, target must save or either lose the ability to move or attack until a successful STR check is made.)

Gun Drone

.5 HD (2 HP), AC as leather, 6 morale

It's a quadcopter with a .22 pistol integrated on a little swiveling arm. It even has a drum magazine: 5d10 tiny little bullets are inside.

Movement: As quadcopter.

Morality: TRESPASSERS WILL BE SHOT

Intelligence: Shoot hostiles. If hostiles cannot be shot, change position so they can. Tactics don't get much more sophisticated than that.

Attacks: +1 to hit, one gunshot (1d6, -1 to hit for each 30' past the first.)

Screamer Signal 

7 morale

To the naked eye, nothing. In rain, a cloud of hissing steam. Through infrared or other electronic senses, a vague humanoid form like the shape of a man on fire. In the presence of speakers, it's an agonizing breathless shriek of gibberish syllables. It is universally feared by the inhabitants of the Basin, and for good reason.

Movement: Can effectively teleport through anything that isn't Faraday shielded. Otherwise moves at a leisurely stroll. 

Morality: Incomprehensible. Enigmatic and incoherent at best and outright sadistic at worst.

Intelligence: Clearly trying to communicate something. Uncaring otherwise.

Attacks: One microwave emission (target automatically takes 1d4 damage per round, +1 damage for each round after that. Blocked by Faraday shielding.)

Fleeting: The Screamer Signal cannot be "killed" without destroying the comms array of 3.1 Stake Forest, which carries its own consequences. However, it can be driven off or waited out; the Signal must check morale when confronted with large fires, strong electromagnets, or after each minute of combat.

Ghost in the Machine: If the Screamer Signal makes contact with an electronic device, it can "possess" that device with no need for a roll. It rarely ever makes the "optimal" choices when it's possessing a machine, often behaving erratically, even nonsensically. The easiest way to thwart this is to just turn the device off.