This article is about the unit of geography in This Used To Be About Dungeons. For the hex in Worth the Candle, see Aerb.
Hexes are the politcal and magical division of land used in the world of This Used To Be About Dungeons. Most of the planet is dived into hexes.[citation needed] Like many fundamental forms of magic, they were created by the Editors.[1]
Geography[]
All hexes are the same size[2] - six miles in radius.[3][4] The population, however, varies wildly, with some being completely uninhabited.[2] Many hexes have six roads converging in the centre, each leading to an adjoining hex.[5] Many also have markers along the hex boundary; although these aren't always perfect, so the rule of thumb is that you should go thirty feet past them before attempting to warp to the centre.[3][6]
The hexes are somewhat distorted to account for the fact that the world is a sphere. In theory, there are places where they are so distorted they form pentagons. Their spacing is even, and doesn't align with human borders and settlements, which often causes issues.[1] Technically speaking, most hexes are underwater, meaning there are lots of underwater dungeons that require specialists to clear.[7]
A collection of hexes can unite into a province.[8] Alfric interpreted "province-sized" as "dozens of hexes across ... a hundred hexes or more".[9] The province is the unit of political organization responsible for enforcing the law in rural areas.[10] They also recieve reports on dungeon escapes, in part to decide whether or not to have chrononauts reset the day.[11][12] In Inter, there is relatively little cultural differences between provinces, but in Kiromo there are strong cultural barriers between them.[13] A province is headed by a provincial chief, who has some ability to sanction hexes if their officials violate the law.[14]
A collection of provinces ,in turn, unite into a nation. A nation has certain powers to collect information, administered through the role of Prime Minister.[8] Interim, one of the largest nations, is comprised of almost 30,000 non-oceanic hexes.[15][Notes 1]
The story centers around the hex of Pucklechurch, in the province of Greater Plenarch,[10][12] in the nation of Interim (sometimes called Inter); Dondrian is the nation's capital.[8]
Governance[]
A hex has seven key roles: hexmaster, censusmaster, beastmaster, structuralist, cloudmaster, plantmaster, and collector.[16] Some hexes also have a "hexguard" in charge of enforcing the law.[17]
Hexmaster[]
Elected collectively by the occupants of the hex.[18] They assign the other six positions. It takes a mimimum population of around 20 people to elect a hexmaster.[2]
Censusmaster[]
The censusmaster of can track the details of anyone within the hex; including name, age, gender, occupation, residency status, elevation, eye color, skin color, hair color, weight, height, and guild status.[19] Much of this information is somewhat approximate; for example, the "occupation" system draws on a mechanisms a thousand years old, it labels Isra as a "ranger" and ectad engineers as "cobblers".[20]
One thing they cannot track is location.[21]
Beastmaster[]
Categorizes and tracks animals. In a rural area, they might deal with over-hunting of wild animals. In a city, they deal with things such as animal imports and animal abuse.[22]
Structuralist[]
Can track the location of every building in the hex. Could theoretically work together with the censusmaster to figure out where someone hiding in the woods is living.[23]
Cloudmaster[]
Predicts the weather; although the mechanisms that provide this info are unable to account for magic, such as weather-controlling entads or druids.[24]
Plantmaster[]
Could provide info on unsual plants in a region, including magical plants.[25]
Collector[]
The collector can trap information related to the aether, and their main function is to give warnings about major aetheric disturbances. Considered by some to be one of the most important roles.[18]
Other Functions[]
Each hex has a warp point in the center,[26][4] and a dungeon entrance which is used to collect and process stray magic.[citation needed]
Warping to the center of a hex requires only a series of simple hand motions.[27] A hex with a small town will generally have a small structure to mark the warp point and keep it clear.[27]
Notes[]
- ↑ Implying an area of nearly 2.8 million square miles: around the area of Argentina, Kazakhstan, or Algeria, a bit smaller than India.
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 It was an open question why the Editors had done as they’d done. The actual thought that went into the Editing was enormously complex, beyond the ken of a young cleric, but some of the effects that Editors of ages past had placed upon the world certainly had to be the result of unknown limitations they were working under. The hexes were certainly one of those places where limitations seemed most obvious, because the positions of the warp points were, most of the time, somewhat inconvenient. Hannah knew, of course, that hexagons could be used to tile a plane, that was fundamental knowledge for any cleric of Garos, but the world wasn’t a plane, it was a globe, and the hexagons were imperfect (and there were, in theory, pentagons somewhere). Given that they couldn’t have perfection, it seemed to Hannah that they should have gone in the direction of Oeyr, and simply made the hexes around cities. The math of it was a bit beyond her, but it seemed like it would have been better. But no, the answer was probably that the Editors were working under some unknown constraints which explained why they’d done things as they did. Or, possibly, they’d made a mistake: that was true of the dungeons, probably, given how dangerous they were. - Chapter 20: Temple Politics
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 “It’s the same in every hex?” “There are a few that are unsettled,” said Alfric. “It takes, I think, about twenty people to get a vote going, and once that happens, the positions are filled by the hexmaster.” He wondered whether she had ever gone through a vote before. “But in those cases, it’s just a matter of knowing things. They don’t really have any power to do anything, and a different group could move in pretty quickly to take the position, if they wanted to.” He shrugged. “We’ll be passing through one of those small hexes soon. Not small in size, they’re all the same size,” he had no idea whether that needed to be said, “But probably not more than a hundred people there.” - Chapter 9: An Unwanted Civics Lesson
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 When Alfric turned back toward the path, he realized that the white pillars that marked the hex boundary were right there, on top of the hill. He groaned in disappointment. “Problem?” asked Isra, furrowing her brow and trying to see what he’d seen. “We’re at the hex boundary,” he said, gesturing at the pillars. “That means that when we come back, we’re going to have to make that long hike again from the opposite direction. If the boundary were further away, then we could warp before we came near the big hill.” “Ah,” she said. “That’s a problem for tomorrow though.” She went ahead, walking quickly, and passed through the pillars. She was just about to start on the spell when Alfric called to her. “Wait!” he said. She stopped, giving him a raised eyebrow. “You need to go further.” “Further?” she asked, looking at the white pillars. She was past them, but only by about five feet. “Thirty feet,” he said. “That’s protocol. The pillars aren’t always perfect, and I doubt you want to walk those six miles over again. I’ve had it happen to me once, and once was enough.” - Chapter 9: An Unwanted Civics Lesson
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 “And the warp sent you to the center of some other hex,” said Alfric. “That’s always a painful experience, especially if you don’t know quite where you’ve ended up. Adding an extra six miles, at least, when you’ve had a long day, or thought you were getting an early start on things, can be awful.” - Chapter 9: An Unwanted Civics Lesson
- ↑ It was pretty common for a hex to have six roads going directly to the hex borders, though it took a fair bit of labor, and local geography sometimes stymied these efforts. They soon reached one of those places where the geography was definitely not ideal, a steep hill where the road became a series of switchbacks that carefully navigated the outcroppings of rock. In a few places there were short wooden bridges, and embankments holding back trees and dirt. The whole thing was in good repair, but it had a rustic quality to it that Alfric still found somewhat unsettling. Something like this in any of the city hexes would be solid stonework, and if it was a road that was going to the hex boundary, it was much more likely that the city would just make a tunnel straight through the rock. - Chapter 9: An Unwanted Civics Lesson
- ↑ And then they were at the markers for the hex border, where Mizuki asked for a brief rest before they went through. “Doesn’t it make more sense to rest after we’re through?” asked Verity as she sat down on a nearby rock. “Nah,” said Mizuki. “Here, at least, it’s a nice day. Once we’re past the markers and we do the warp, who knows? Six miles away, and at least a little bit up, it might be cold and damp, right?” [...] Then the break was over, and they went through the pillars that marked the hex boundary, far enough that there’d be absolutely no risk of winding up back in Pucklechurch, though Hannah thought that was a rather silly concern. - Chapter 22: The Journey More Than The Destination
- ↑ “Oh,” he said. “No, it’s very practical, but I’m not dense enough to think that’s why Verity wants it. There are underwater dungeons. Every hex has a dungeon, or at least very nearly, and a great many of them are underwater, given how much area the oceans cover. But for us to tackle one of those, we’d have to all be able to breathe underwater, and honestly, underwater dungeon clearing has always sounded hellish to me.” “People do that?” asked Verity. “It’s my uncle’s specialty,” said Alfric. “He’s got an entad that gave him gills, and the rest of his party has similar.” - Chapter 22: The Journey More Than The Destination
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 “Oh,” replied Alfric. “Um, more civics stuff. A hex under the command of a hexmaster can pledge information to a province, which is a collection of hexes, and provinces have their own people and rules and stuff.” He hesitated, feeling foolish for what he felt compelled to say next. “There are also collections of provinces, which is a nation. We’re in the nation of Interim.” “That, I knew,” replied Isra. “Alright,” said Alfric. “Sorry.” He cleared his throat. “Anyway, hexmasters can pledge information to a province, and the province pledges to the nation. The nation, through the mechanism of the prime minister, can appoint someone to administer, usually sent from the seat of power, in this case Dondrian, and then they send information back along the national backbone to be cataloged.” “But how do you know?” asked Isra. “There are detailed maps available for the public to view,” said Alfric. - Chapter 9: An Unwanted Civics Lesson
- ↑ “A demiplane is a created reality, like a dungeon,” said Alfric. “But stable, larger, and you can go in and out of it at will. The kind that people usually imagine is as wide as a hex, with its own artificial sun that’s a part of the demiplane, but they come in smaller sizes.” “And larger,” said Mizuki. “There are some the size of a whole province.” Alfric frowned at her. “Dozens of hexes across?” he asked. Mizuki nodded. “According to my grandfather, yes. You could fit a whole country inside of a demiplane, if you really wanted to.” [...] “I will say that on this one particular thing, it’s possible you know more than me. But I still do think that there are giant demiplanes.” “Legendary ones, maybe,” said Alfric. “Province-sized, with a hundred hexes or more … I don’t know, I guess.” - Chapter 54: Hatching
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 I don’t know what kind of entads the Greater Plenarch province has for doing detective work, but we’d want to figure that out. [...] I was just asking because now that you’re old enough, they can’t do that, so you could report the crime and maybe get a bit of help from the province, depending on what was taken. - Chapter 34: Woods Witch
- ↑ “Do you really think Lola might have done this?” “Absolutely,” said Mizuki. “Maybe,” said Alfric. “It’s the kind of thing I think she might do on an undone day, but for her to keep something like this … I don’t think she would.” “So this might be a day she’s intending to not keep,” said Mardin. “Maybe,” said Alfric. “It’s somewhat unlikely to be kept as it is, given the costs involved, but it depends on what kind of report gets sent back to the province about what went on here. Self-containment is preferred, especially if they don’t know where or how the escape happened. They like to keep a timeline that’s ‘good enough’, especially since it helps keep people on their toes and gives them some practical experience. I don’t know where Plenarch decides the balance of things is.” - Chapter 51: Mother
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 If they got to the end of the day with no deaths, Alfric would be willing to live with the inconvenience to the town, if only because on a reset, Lola might do something worse, or gamble with their lives and get a worse outcome. Whether or not the province of Greater Plenarch would agree was another matter, but he at least had control over his own resets, and while he couldn’t control Lola, he could try to manage her. [...] “If at all possible, I’d like to keep the day,” said Alfric. “To not have it reset.” “Hmm,” said Pann. “We just report to the province, I think. But this was right at the edge of what we could handle, and we did handle it, which I think means that we’d default to putting in a report and not making a request for reset. I’ll speak with Bo, he’s the one who handles this sort of thing, they’ve probably got him in the temple by now.” - Chapter 52: Teamwork
- ↑ “In Inter, you can go from province to province and not really know that it’s happening, but it’s not like that in Kiromo. You go into a different province and they wear different clothes, have different customs, different buildings, different food, and different history. I didn’t really go outside of that one province, but there’s some — I don’t want to call it animosity — but some suspicion of outsiders, even people from within the same nation.” “Sounds horrible,” said Mizuki. “I thought things were different under the new Emperor?” “They are, a bit, but it’s better, not good.” He shrugged. “Anyway, I’m happy to be back in Inter, even if it’s not quite what I had remembered.” - Chapter 91: Liferaft
- ↑ “There are a lot of things that surround the business we’re in though, things like counterparties and dungeon assistants and stuff of that nature. Shakedowns happen every once in a while, and you just tell them to piss off or suffer the wrath of the higher ups.” ‘Piss off’ sounded like unusually strong language coming from Alfric. “Hexmaster is probably the highest position in the hex, but if he gets the attention of the provincial chief, it’s possible the whole hex would face sanction.” - Chapter 38: Jockey
- ↑ Interim is one of the largest nations in the world, almost thirty thousand hexes not including all the oceanic territory - Chapter 9: An Unwanted Civics Lesson
- ↑ “Er,” said Alfric. “Well, there are seven positions of civic power within a hex [..."] “Censusmaster, beastmaster, structuralist, cloudmaster, plantmaster,” said Isra. “What are the others?” “Hexmaster and collector,” said Alfric. - Chapter 9: An Unwanted Civics Lesson
- ↑ “How about it?” asked Alfric. “Are we under arrest?” “My dad isn’t the hexguard,” said Bib. “He would send someone else, if he wanted to.” - Chapter 38: Jockey
- ↑ 18.0 18.1 “Hexmaster and collector,” said Alfric. “Arguably the two most important.” He hesitated again, unsure of how much to add. “The hexmaster is elected by everyone who has occupancy, and the collector is in charge of information related to aether, mostly as an early-warning role.” - Chapter 9: An Unwanted Civics Lesson
- ↑ Isra looked at him, almost glaring. “How did you know how old I was?” she asked. “The censusmaster,” he said, feeling slightly surprised. “That was how I knew about you in the first place.” “Oh,” she replied, frowning. “What else do you know?” “Nothing much,” he replied. “Name, age, gender, occupation, residency status, elevation, eye color, skin color, and hair color are the main things. The censusmaster can give weight and height, but I didn’t ask about those. Guild status, which I did ask about.” - Chapter 9: An Unwanted Civics Lesson
- ↑ “He?” asked Alfric. “Oh, the censusmaster. She’s a woman. Well, it’s not really what she says, because the information comes to her from a construct that was created by the Editors about a thousand years ago. The construct thinks, though that’s not the right word, that you’re a ranger.” “A ranger,” she said, as if tasting the word. “I suppose.” “It’s not a very good system,” said Alfric. “The categorization system predates the censusmasters, and hasn’t been updated in a thousand years, so you get weird things like ectad engineers being labeled as cobblers. Unfortunately, the category system is kind of broken and apparently hard to fix, so everyone just kind of lives with it.” - Chapter 9: An Unwanted Civics Lesson
- ↑ Isra nodded. “They don’t know where I live though.” “Er,” said Alfric. “Well, there are seven positions of civic power within a hex, and the censusmaster only knows who lives in or is visiting the hex, not where they are. The structuralist knows where all the buildings are, so if you live in a building, and the censusmaster and the structuralist talk to each other, they might be able to figure out by process of elimination where you are. I don’t know if they’ve done that.” - Chapter 9: An Unwanted Civics Lesson
- ↑ “The beastmaster spoke to me,” said Isra. “She said I was taking too much. She can track the animals through magic?” “Yes,” said Alfric. “Animals are categorized and tracked. In the city it’s mostly used to make sure that people aren’t bringing in the wrong sorts of animals, fighting them, things like that. I’m not too sure about in more rural areas.” - Chapter 9: An Unwanted Civics Lesson
- ↑ Isra nodded. “They don’t know where I live though.” “Er,” said Alfric. “Well, there are seven positions of civic power within a hex, and the censusmaster only knows who lives in or is visiting the hex, not where they are. The structuralist knows where all the buildings are, so if you live in a building, and the censusmaster and the structuralist talk to each other, they might be able to figure out by process of elimination where you are. I don’t know if they’ve done that.” - Chapter 9: An Unwanted Civics Lesson
- ↑ “I’m the cloudmaster for the hex,” she said, putting a hand on her chest. “When I started, which was a little more than a decade ago now, I was told that all there really was to it was telling people what I knew. But when I told them what the systems told me, it turned out I was wrong more often than not, and there didn’t seem to be any accounting for it. I went around, talking to all sorts of people, hoping that there was an explanation, but the weather just never seemed to do what I thought it would do, and I felt like a complete failure. People would ask when they should have an outdoor wedding and I would just have to throw up my hands and say that I had no idea. I spoke with other cloudmasters and they said that it was probably an entad, though controlling weather like that was rare, and it really did seem like it was just me that was having problems.” “Sorry,” Isra mumbled. She didn’t know what else the woman might want. It was a very similar feeling to getting scolded by the beastmaster for taking too many deer. “Oh, not at all,” the cloudmaster said with a laugh. “It was such a relief to know that it had been you all that time. I’d thought I was just bad at my role, that I was just some nincompoop that couldn’t read the clouds right. To be able to explain that no, there was a druid hiding in the woods all this time, well, that really helped me put it all in perspective.” - Chapter 104: The Pucklechurch Gardening Club
- ↑ Alfric had expected the flowers to have spattered the meadows with color, and they had done that, just not in quite the way that he’d expected. There were broad regions to the coloration, yellow at the tops of the mild hills, blue in the valleys, reds by the streams, and pinks around the scraggly trees that dotted the landscape. Orange and purple flowers crowded around rocks, and tiny white flowers bloomed in patches of moss where the ground was sufficiently wet for it. Alfric thought that it looked like a map he’d once seen, one that showed northern Inter in terms of its biomes and agricultural products, and he thought that if only he’d known enough, the patterns of the flowers might have acted as a map of their own. [...] “They’re not natural,” said Isra, whose palm had touched the ground. She rose from being crouched. “I’m not sure what’s causing this.” “We could try to track down the plantmaster,” said Alfric. “Though I don’t know where they’d be.” - Chapter 105: The Summer Dungeon
- ↑ No one picked the warp points, they were just the center of every hex, and it was the sort of thing that people complained about, from time to time, though not about the one in Pucklechurch, which was almost exactly in the center of town. - Chapter 22: The Journey More Than the Destination
- ↑ 27.0 27.1 Isra nodded and then moved, and Alfric walked toward her, reaching her just as she vanished. He shook his head and performed the spell himself, using familiar motions that he’d used dozens of times through the past few weeks on his way to Pucklechurch. The transition was instant, and the design of the warp point was quite similar to that of Pucklechurch, with pillars supporting a roof above an open area. He stepped to the side right away, over to where Isra was standing. - Chapter 9: An Unwanted Civics Lesson