Hex Crawl 23 #225: Snakes in a Lake

 Eight hexes northwest, two north of Alakran.

 

Like the Lake of "Vampires," this lake is an overflow for the irrigation waters of the Rows of Muttra. It is less accessible to the Road of Flowers, so its perils are less evident. But by common report it is the watering and breeding place of a population of poisonous snakes, the black and white striped dipsas serpents to be precise. Tiny and hard to see, the dipsas' bite, rarely felt, brings death through a great thirst and consuming of the vitals with choleric humor. Indeed, just as the mosquito-ridden Pulka'al is dotted with the remains of the dead, so this nameless "Lake of Thirst" has within eyesight always one or two corpses of unfortunate man or beast who have rushed there to take their last desperate drink. 

Unfortunately for human assassins, the venom of the dipsas decays rapidly and is useless an hour after bring removed from the creature's fangs. Only the live creature will do, and there are many recorded cases of these easily concealed serpents being used for surreptitious murder.

Hex Crawl 23 #178: The Banelands of Dragotha

Fourteen hexes north, two northeast of Alakran.

 

Breathing poison while he lived and negative energy exhalations in his unlife, Dragotha left his favored preying grounds north of his lair a toxic zone. Their hazards persist even today. The place is not barren - fauna and flora can be found in relative abundance, but the animals are stunted with a strange sheen to their skin, the plants oddly twisted and crimped. 

Food or water taken from the area does 1d6 poison damage on a taste, or on a full meal or drink, 3d6 poison damage and save (CON, DC 13) or take 1 level of exhaustion. Two hours of travel in these gray hexes has the same effect as a taste, and eight hours, the same effect as a meal.