Under the Floorboards

 "I fell through the floor, and there I was..." for GLoGtober 2024.

Alan Lee

If you look at floorplans of centuries-old palaces and temples and castles, there's all these gridded webs that seem like they must be pure support, not normal rooms. What's going on in there? I have fair guesses, but it's hard to investigate online.

That structure in the middle of the courtyard. Who is she?

wtf?

I'm sure this is clear and obvious to many people, but it's the sort of thing that's hard to google.

Peripheral structures, supports, and architectural necessities can create interesting spaces in otherwise mundane areas, just because they were not designed for people to enter or scale them. They're natural obstacles, fine hiding places, and when destroyed might trigger a suitably impressive chain reaction.

Prince With a Thousand: City Infiltration Procedure (GLoGtober 2024)

Alan Lee

This is a procedure for that early Assassin's Creed-ass situation where you must carefully navigate a city controlled by an antagonistic force, one where thousands of people live and provide cover for your activities on accident, while guards are on the lookout for you in particular.

 Every public place is potentially hostile. A patrol of guards is less like a normal combat encounter and more like a trap or puzzle-- how do you avoid a confrontation that mobilizes the city against you. If their notice is brought down on you, how do you escape and hide?

In theory, every antagonistic city should be mapped out with routes between all the landmarks. In practice, I'm personally more likely to realize partway through a session that I'd like to use this procedure, and would like to be able to adapt it on the fly. So, here is a route type table:

d6 Route Types

1. Empty Streets. No native opportunity for stealth.

2.  Checkpoint. Guaranteed static encounter.

3. Cramped Alleys. May be underground or interior passages.

4. Vertical Intersections. Bridges, different levels, roofs. etc. 50% of encounters having no good way to reach you right away.

5. No Man's Land. Residents move in small groups. Many oppose the ruling powers.

6. Busy Boulevards. Won't be noticed until you draw attention to yourself.

Encounters
Encounters should occur at a comparable rate to dungeon encounters. To me that's a 1-in-6 chance per route and location, but I might increase that if I didn't design the rest of the city to be likewise dangerous. It makes sense to curate an encounter table for each antagonistic city. Again, think of these encounters as being like traps-- with signs the players can pick up on, triggers, and effects.

Sample Encounters

• Pair of wandering guards with halberds, lanterns, and horns.
• Dark riders, literally able to pick up the PCs' smell. Normal people don't get near them.
• Bullying bravos. Harass people rather than earnestly search out enemies. Seeming like a victim might be safest.
• Squad of counter-insurgents. Not necessarily seeking the PCs, but locking down the area to arrest other enemies.
• Spies-- something's off about these civilians.
• Aerial observation. Large, clumsy, perceptive forces overhead.
• Politicized animals. Their eyes are spies for Sauron.
• VIP and entourage.
• Elephant-sized mount, essentially a clumsy and fearful APC.
• Collaborators. Bureaucrats, but knowledgeable of the city and how you may abuse it.
• Inspectors. Papers please!
• Cordoned-off perimeter. Line of soldiers, no bypass without proof of rank.
• Overseers. May conscript passers-by for a day's labor.

Like you would do for a standard hazard or trap, let players describe how they (if needed, detect, then) avoid encounters. Good ideas don't need to roll here, but try to vary the exact disposition of encounters so that their tactics must always be sensitive to the particular situation. Characters with powers of stealth may be able to roll those even after a plan fails to pan out. That's like their saving throw, to continue the comparison to bypassing a trap.

Penalties for Notice

In antagonistic cities, the enemy force is aware of the PCs and opposed to them. If guards notice who they are, they might have only a few seconds for a hail-mary, then the situation turns deadly. They have the option of running it as a combat, but this is a bad idea in an enemy city. Let more reinforcements arrive, let escape routes get cut off, let chaos ensue. 

It would be wiser for the PCs to flee. In that case, let them make a save to avoid damage or other effects as their enemies pursue them through the streets. If they survive, then they've made it away. The amount of long-term heat they draw is based on how important they are as enemies. If the antagonistic city is just opposed to them as thieves, upstarts, or unpersons as a matter of course, they might be able to get away with hiding in an alley for ten minutes, then carrying on. If the party is prophesied to slay the tyrant occupying the antagonistic city, they'll have to navigate to another sector of the city, deal with increased chances of encounters, and possibly get tracked back to their hideout.

Example
For your consideration, here is an encounter table for the city of Nevermore.

d6 Encounters
1. Pair of Wandering Guards with halberds, lanterns, and horns. Notice: save vs death or take 1d6 damage.

2. Doctore, several Orderlies, and three Judge-Executioners. Curtly seeking signs of plague. Notice: 2d6 damage, save vs wands for half.
3. Riot Court. Torches, yelling, an angry mob but not the cool kind. Notice: save vs breath. On failure, you've been grabbed and dragged off to the Vigilante Jury.
4. Quarantine. Line of guards turn everyone away. Notice: save vs death or take 1d8 damage.
5. Two Plague Birds, man-sized, perched in a vantage point. Notice: save vs death. On failure, 1d4 damage from the King's Plague, +1 for all previous contact with King's Plague. +3 encounter chance on next encounter roll, due to squawking.
6. Suborned Gangsters with brutal blades. Forceful "requisitioners" and peddlers of protection. Notice: 1d4 objects snatched and 1d6 damage, save vs paralysis for half.

-

 "A procedure relating to a city" for GLoGtober 2024.

Temple of Four (Location)

 After reading this goblinpunch post, I was inspired to make a dungeon with many secret areas. This has been a long-time fancy of mine, so I decided to combine that fancy with another, the desire to make a dungeon with a "four elements" theme that I didn't find boring as hell. They're often too one-note, you know?

Thesaurus of Alchemy

Click on the picture above, or the link >>> here <<< for the dungeon. For your titilation, here are some excerpts out of context:

Eating the wet organ within serves as a second dose.

... inspecting them for signs of green chalk and replacing any body parts, items, etc. with mechanical alternatives...

... you can't see if you're stupid, and if you're really really thick you can't even feel it

... each one with colorful streamers pasted onto its pudgy abdomen.

Air blasts from floor vents, totally negating gravity.

... leaving white lime-streaks wherever it slithereth.

... a 1-in-6 chance that the octopus either attacks or investigates the party...

... so many bottles of piss ("for experiments").

... and if someone reads it the talisman explodes...

Empty

... its contents ruined by hunger-maddened scrawls.

The skink is likewise trapped...

... is horrifically cursed. It cannot be removed except if a Remove Curse spell is cast while the wearer's blood courses with deadly venom, and it slowly transforms the wearer into a snake. This process takes seven years, but...

Our Journey Now (GLoGtober)

 Romance for GLoGtober 2024.

Howard Pyle

When I think about romance in adventure games, I immediately consult Udan Adan's Romance Plots in RPGs, which provides a great framework for creating "romance-ready" NPCs. They're pretty broadly useful, since using simple character tropes to evince depth can come up in romances, intrigues, persuasions, or other common PC activities. If the GLoGtober season calls on me to write on romance, it really behooves me to simply expand on the list provided at the end of that post, as I'm sure to have want of that at some point.

17. Workaholic Tyrant: Possesses rare executive abilities and runs their powerful organization well, but utterly neglects their interior life. Has no sense of themselves outside of the commands they issue and the hours they work. At risk of succeeding their soul out of their body.

18. Exploited Loyal: Servant of an unjust master. Often transmutes unworthy orders into humane ones. Beneficent and capable, they have no idea how little they are valued or how close their master is to expending them.

19. Widower: Nominally single, but as of yet incapable of moving past the notion that they must not love again. Warm, mature, and just a hair too committed. 

20. Devotee: Someone for whom emotional unavailability is the sign of a compact. They think that love is a distraction from what they, in fact, can only get from love. They are a perfect romantic, focused on the wrong object.

21. Wary Heir: Expect to come into their power soon, and excited to use it. Dynamic, altruistic, capably navigating between the Scylla and Charybdis of responsibility to their parent and opportunity to do something new. Gives mixed signals because they fear others will try to manipulate them to get at their birthright.

22. Monster: Fascinated by the world, but barred from normal participation in it. Possesses inhuman capabilities, but must constantly bend them toward preserving their own freedom. Engaging, earnest, hurt.

23. Bright Addict: Confident and self-directed, with a good head on their shoulders. Constantly drained by some singular exception, a chemical, relationship, or glamour that they cannot resist. Bravely insists on forging ahead with a relationship despite constantly being led to undercut it. Require an outside perspective.

24. Client: Someone at everyone's disposal. Perhaps a servant, or an envoy who is not at their own liberty. Utterly starved for personal connection, but lacks the legal or social means to protect themselves from abuse or misuse. Consequently, their amore resists their mutual feelings out of apprehension of taking advantage of the client.

25. Compelled Paramour: Either by curse or mundane wager, someone bound to act against their nature. This compulsion made be odious, or simply a clear indication that they aren't being straight-up. If it's possible to act against the compulsion, they hold back out of fear that no one would love the "real" them.

26. Dragon: Grim, habitual, stubborn, and out of touch. In many stories, an unstylish villain. Is it really so surprising that they yearn for one good thing, something they can safely treat well, and know love instead of just fear? I promise this will be romantic if they're a stony-faced malefactor.

27. Perceptive Wit: Discerning and practical, but unable to keep their mouth shut. Wants to be well-liked, but wants blowhards to be punctured just a little bit more. Just slightly too reasonable to believe anyone would fall in love with them, and ready to help all their friends find a decent mate before they realize that they want an honest equal for themselves too.

And just for ease, these + the original descriptions in one random generator:

d20 Finds in Death's Apartment (GLoGtober)

 "Death and Divinity" for GLoGtober 2024

💀

d20 Finds

1. chess set, but all the black pawns are knights and the black king has a skull instead of a crown
2. hand mirror. Shows all the bad things likely to happen if you survive an incipient brush with death
3. the oldest dog in the world
4. very, very long checklist
5. hostage kit: whistle, vial of acid, cuff-slipping gloves, razor-edged shoes
6. pot cigarettes, a gift from the Devil. Take a puff and make a save vs. death!
7. Magnus, his godson (Magic-User 3). Waiting around to see if his godfather remembers it's his birthday
8. cross, for sale, barely used
9. box of old needles, each containing the life of otherwise immortal personages. Can't deduce how to get em out of there
10. a posthumous Van Gogh painting of a lady in the shade of a tree
11. old record, "Swansong", worth its weight in platinum
12. weights set, but all bones
13. a canary in a cage
14. Death's address book. Highlights include Dracula, Acererak, and God
15. several half-drunk bottles of very poisoned wine
16. jar of bird blood. Attracts ghosts
17. anti-gun. Brings things to life. Six shots.
18. bag of hand bones. Functions as a wand of finger of death, with five charges. The bag lightens with each casting
19. portrait of the master of the house with an artist friend
20. many, many candles, your own burned down nearly to the end.

In Praise of Acquisitiveness

 I want to describe an aspect of some games that I really like, and I want to give a bit of advice about how to play into it. I don't want to make a formal argument for why I think it's good and I certainly don't want to argue it's the exclusively best way to play. If I get emphatic, take it to be part of the spell I'm casting so that you might be as enchanted as I am.

Matt Morrow

In many old-school games, experience points are awarded for gold and other treasures pilfered from the dungeon. I've played with some people who don't really vibe with this. They're not greedy people in real life, and often all to aware of the connection between wealth and the cruelty often deployed to keep it. They're not motivated by in-game rewards, preferring the intrinsic reward of enjoyable conversation, or problem-solving, or other (perhaps even more central) goals of play. 

"What is there to even spend all this gold on?" they say.

Dog, you are so valid. But I really think you're missing out if you aren't aware of how fun it is to go gold-mad, greedy of gain, ready to risk your PC's life for the chance that they might be rich beyond their wildest dreams. What if the mechanical incentive of getting to the next level was matched with the emotional incentive of acquiring that ruby, shining luridly in the torchlight?  What if every financial step towards achieving your goals was as sweet as anything you ever felt? 

In the real world, a windfall feels weighty-- it conjures anxiety over how it is spent or kept, exhilaration at what can be done with it, the sense of total miracle as your most pressing concerns now seem solvable. The right mindset can realize those feelings in your play. 

Personally, in mainline dungeon games I think almost every PC should be on a scale between reasonably acquisitive to unreasonable acquisitive. They don't even need to be greedy. But they should have goals they can address with funds, and should be hungry to do so. Do not be afraid of being rich in this fictional world. Wealth cannot corrupt nearly so easily in the game as it can in real life. Money is power-- it does what you tell it to-- it is your vote in the absolute democracy that is the warring market. 

Food, shelter, clothing, dignity, warmth, friends, games, pets, homes, the starving masses, vengeance, vengeance, blood-thirsting vengeance, finery, honor, scholasticism, patronage, passing on good luck, risk, ruin, political change, proximity to power, fine mounts, the means to seek truth, the means to collect disparate information, to prevent what happened before from happening again, big hats. What do you, the player, care about in this game? Use gold pieces to expand how you can interact with it. What do you, the character, care about in this game? Use gold pieces to expand how you can interact with it. And when you care about what money can do, try to care a little bit about money itself. Let it be a token, then a totem, then a fetish. If you want to level up, you already want power. Seek power in money!

Dungeon masters who use gold-for-XP systems should conversely be ready to allow for means to address broad problems with cash, to see all those thousands of silver pieces spent on constructions, formation of a company, uniforms, swag, and everything else that can be done, responsibly or irresponsibly, by chancers. 

Here I formally poo-poo those who require PCs to spend their gold on training or carousing in order to level up. If there's some way to spend gold for extra XP, that's okay, but the players shouldn't be making a trade-off between normal advancement and extrachartal advancement. If you do that, they're sure to spend at least some of the XP on normal leveling up, which is way less cool than the incorporation, research, and in-world advancement they could be doing with that cash. 

Furthermore, it should never be the job of the DM to separate the PCs from their treasure by contriving stupid taxes and similar means to ensure that money spent has minimal impact. If you want to use financial travails as yet another gameplay obstacle, that's perfectly virtuous. It's just the bass-ackwards problem of giving the PCs too much money and then taking it away that I find unmeritorious.

"But Phlox," you say, "my heart simply does not ache for gold and silver. I see how it can bring me to the thoughtful caterpillar and the prancing springbok, all my heart desires, but I cannot choose to love what I do not."

Gentle reader, I had no idea you felt so keenly, nor that you were so open to a change that must to you seem so alien and distant. To change a heart, you cannot reason with it. You must nourish it with fine words, and give it time.

I wanted the gold, and I sought it;

   I scrabbled and mucked like a slave.

Was it famine or scurvy—I fought it;

   I hurled my youth into a grave.

I wanted the gold, and I got it— 

   Came out with a fortune last fall,— 

Yet somehow life’s not what I thought it,

   And somehow the gold isn’t all.

No! There’s the land. (Have you seen it?)

   It’s the cussedest land that I know,

From the big, dizzy mountains that screen it

   To the deep, deathlike valleys below.

Some say God was tired when He made it;

   Some say it’s a fine land to shun;

Maybe; but there’s some as would trade it

   For no land on earth—and I’m one.

You come to get rich (damned good reason);

   You feel like an exile at first;

You hate it like hell for a season,

   And then you are worse than the worst.

It grips you like some kinds of sinning;

   It twists you from foe to a friend;

It seems it’s been since the beginning;

   It seems it will be to the end.

- Robert Service, The Spell of the Yukon (excerpt)

-

Here is a poem by a player in Loch's Ashes to Ashes game:

Dead cities are like chestnuts,

Crack them open! Crack their shells!

Slurp out their golden darics,

And forgotten lores as well!

Send scouts out before you!

Keep the linkboys close behind!

Spring the bolts and jump the pits,

And valuables you’ll find!

Heft the shining blades and

Gleaming treasures of the past!

Give tongue to long dead magic words,

That long to writhe at last!

Break the traps that guard them!

Break immortal guardsmen too!

I came here to enrich myself,

There’s no riches left for you!

What gods are looking on here,

At what merry sport we make,

Of their temples and their grave goods?

That we nab, acquire, take?

Well you idols, keep on looking!

To that old god we heed!

Sanctifying our ablutions,

To that giddy god called Greed!

“Transgression”? “Violation”?

These are just words to me!

I’ll buy the corpse-king’s entire stock,

For the low, low price of free!

Emerald, ruby, sapphire!

Jade and jasper, myrrh!

Diamond, mithril, osseum!

Silver perfect, pure!

Chip the golden filigree!

Pilfer princely prizes!

Be a buzzard growing fat,

From ghoulish enterprises!

When I, myself, am dead and gone,

Crack the coffin! Crack the lid!

I’ll make it worth your time, my friend,

You’ll be so glad you did!

- Regalia, Song of the Tomb Robbers

Let Me Hear You Say (GLoGtober 2024)

 "Feuding poets and their ruinous verses" for GLoGtober 2024. Some people say 5e strongest build 2024 phb crypto bitcoin osr dice set. Me? I say D&D dungeons and dragons best purchase starters shadowdark dolmenwood reddit worlds without number.

Arthur Rackham

1. Poetaster (1/2 HD) Tin ears (as chain). Small, self-amused. A round of verse deals 1 damage to all but the shallow. Kindred spirits to polemicists, various mongers, and marketing departments.
2. Parodeer (1 HD) Easily enraged. Can copy the abilities of opponents, barely. If they flee, will always return later.
3. Odist (2 HD) Wise. No one ever wants to really hurt them. Parties that include them get +1 morale and loyalty. If you have some kind of rules for funerals, they make them a little bit better.
4. Balladeer (4 HD) Really will get out a guitar and start improvising lyrics in the middle of a gunfight. Those who go against their chosen side have double the normal fumble chance when they serenade, but if they get a natural 20 on a die roll, the balladeer will switch sides immediately. This always breaks their heart.
5. Sonnetist (4 HD) Ether wears a neck ruff (as leather) or hidden blade (surprise attack for 2d4 damage). Can woo anyone's heart on your behalf after [target's WIS] nights of verse, but there's a 2-in-6 chance they'll steal your girl.
6. Bard (8 HD) Thick-skinned (as leather). With a Turn of composition, can inscribe a Shame of Shames that turns the common man's heart, activating that often-sleeping spark of life. This can depose a king, provide for neglected heroes, and otherwise knock the public towards the right.
7. Anti-Bard (8 HD) As above, but thin-skinned and opposite.
8. Lion Addict (10 HD) May fire bow at up to ten targets per turn. Can only say their own name.

Those Things Which Happiness Distract Us From (GLoGtober 2024)

Acrostic GLoG class for GLoGtober 2024.

Edward Penfield

Bought Death

Commencing Skill: 1. Archaeology, 2. Glassblowing 3. Camels
Devices: gauzy cloak (as leather), worn staff, necklace of ineffectual charms, and a Nameless Wonder.

• 1: equipment slots +1, Intentional Hostage, Jacinth Eyes
• 2: find secret door +2-in-6, Kismet
• 3: grapple +2, Lacuna
• 4: HP +2, Mirage

Intentional Hostage: As long as you serve him, you are immune to other charm effects, suffocation, and swarms. Whenever you find a magic scroll, potion, or similar item, there is a 2-in-6 chance he will claim it and give you a different one, of similar power. All blunt weapons are loyal snakes in your hands, and magic blunt weapons are venomous.

Jacinth Eyes: They itch. You can glimpse fortune and misfortune. With a round of careful staring, you can sense if someone is cursed, or it they've hidden valuables on their body. If an ally would be the target of a critical hit, you can anticipate it and take the blow for them.

Kismet: In the wilderness, ask for an object and throw away valuables worth ten times what you ask so that no one will ever find it. Then, dig a hole. Your request will be granted.

Lacuna: With a minute of quiet begging, you can turn into [level] slots of red sand for any duration that you specify. After the specified duration, a random mote of sand grows back into you. Your belongings all transform with you, except for sufficiently powerful magic items or banes of your master.

Mirage: In the wilderness, ask for an oasis (50 gp), a village (100), a city (300) or other negotiated point of civilization and throw away the proper fee so that no one will ever find it. On the horizon, your request will be granted. Any inhabitants are his servants as well, but though most are less powerful they consider themselves of a separate and higher order than you, and always will.

Nameless Wonders (d12)

1. Opalescent belt. Converts sunlight into nourishment through pins along your waist.
2. Proven blade. Always lands blade-first when thrown. 1d4 damage, and attack with advantage if thrown while charging.
3. Quiver of sandstone arrows. Six. Utterly shatter against stone or metal targets, releasing the acid-jaw beetle within.
4. Red sash. Magic projectiles fired at you stick harmlessly to the silk, transfixed like stars in the heavens. Wizards will be able to identify your allegiance on sight if they spot the sash.
5. Secret name. Overheard when your death was paid for. Can be used to intimidate his other servants.
6. True death mask. Half-finished clay. Those who don it resemble you. When you don it, resemble a freakish (but anonymous) beetle-dame.
7. Unproven blade. Always lands handle-first when thrown. 1d4 subdual damage, and can be tossed to allies with no risk of harm out to 30 feet.
8. Vicious dog. Floppy ears and lanky build. The only one who may ever tolerate you.
9. Wax seal. The first thing you attach it to belongs to him. A most complicated sigil, but you can draw it without lifting your pen from the page.
10. Xenomorphic idol. When upended, makes a constant rainmaker sound. When fed, dances around.
11. Yellow cloak. Glistens in the midst of riches, and becomes powerful camouflage in treasuries, including inside dragons, fine coffins, and the Unsinking City of Altunsehir.
12. Zombie shoes. The first time you die, after 1d4 Turns you awake, mental stats halved. Slowly, slowly rot. At that point if you remove the shoes you shrivel up and fully cease.

Is There Then No One? Is There Then No One? (GLoGtober 2024)

 Spooky Halloween monsters for GLoGtober 2024.

Skara Woundbite- party attacked by four 1 HD orcs. After the battle, one is still alive but in pain. You gotta put her out of her misery. Every 1d4 days, she comes back, with +1 HD and a new ability based on method of dispatch. Slit her throat? That cut becomes a second mouth. She believes that killing the party will end her curse.

• Final death: buried with funeral, Remove Curse spell, or complete destruction of the body.

Grumbler: random PC dreams that a nonexistent party member, a scraggly soldier in a bright blue and red coat, sits around their fire, making a lot of petty complaints about the PCs. Why does she get a full share? She didn’t help at all when those hellhounds attacked. How come you get to pay for your rations out of the party fund? I told you guys that room was trapped and you didn’t listen. The next day, at the worst possible time, they’ll turn and see the Grumbler make some decisive action— triggering a trap, spoiling an ambush, etc. Every night a new dream, and each day more frequent interference. If challenged, will aggressively defend his actions as simply being his nature, and will claim he’s a good man, just a little chaotic.

• Final death: exorcism (counts as 6 HD undead for Turn attempts), pour holy water in the afflicted’s ears, or one-shot the grumbler when he appears.

The Bonelicker: reptile-like, muscular demon. Preferentially attacks women. (People don’t like it when the monsters are sexist.) Lair (multiple chambers in a dungeon) covered in woman bones, sucked dry. Final death if slain by a woman. Otherwise, will hatch from the next problematic book read by the person who delivered the killing blow. (There will be several in the lair.)

Needle Master: body of a bear, quills of a porcupine, legs of a horse, head of a skunk. Whenever PCs damage it, explain that you’ll be really upset if they kill it, but keep having it try to kill them.

Bellumundi: A complex creature. Resembles a naga, but the tip of its tail is connected to the heel of a warrior, gentle and bold both. Where they fight, bystanders die. Banks empty. Crops are carried away by the wind. Each has 7 HD, and if one wins their fight, the other is nourished to new life after about a week as the victor gloats and feasts.

Sirens: 3HD. Unaccountably strong for their famine-ruined frames. Not beautiful. Voices cracked with salt-pang. Can weep but never sing. Beg for rescue from war’s unjust prison, shout quick claims that the sailors’ tales are fiction and cruel lie, throw themselves on the beach in despair. Help us, help us, help us. You are killing us. On a successful bite attack, lobster antennules emerge to automatically grapple.

Following a Star (Location)

 Wrote up a quick adventure location, an abandoned Victorian cottage built around an observatory. Good for placement in suburban hexes.

Click here.

Initially, I wanted to keep the area descriptions super-short, but I grew attached to too many little details to do that. Hopefully the site is better for them.

This Probably Shouldn't Be a Dungeon Checklist

 riffing (badly) from here.

8. a key and a lock

9. a skeleton!
(funny and/or sad)

10. a dungeon self-destruct trigger

11. a vat of goo

12. a potential cave-in prevent you from leaving and turning air into a precious resource

13. a new class you can level up in

14. a message in a carefully boutique conlang of the DM's devising

15. a tunnel to another dungeon

16. letters between the dungeon's master and other major NPCs

17. something like a spell scroll but in a strange medium

18. a statue with gem-like eyes

19. a lifelike statue, spooky coffin, gargoyle, sexy person or other entity that could foreshadow a particular kind of monster (medusa, dracula, gargoyle, etc.) but doesn't in this case

20. vape rig or other wizardly anachronism

21. ducts you can but probably shouldn't crawl through

22. fashionable clothes

23. orcs, done right this time

24. the Devil, looking to make a deal

25. a way to permanently change your primary attributes

26. someone ready to swear vengeance

27. someone who could plausibly be a PC's cousin

28. confidently incorrect plot hook from a map or book

29. one-way travel

30. dope vehicle or mount, and you're actually allowed to use it

31. a way to accidentally fuck it all up

32. mundane animals

33. thematically appropriate painting

34. big ol pile of trash

35. dead adventurers as environmental storytelling

36. obnoxiously trapped chests

37. passwords

38. national anthem for the bad guys

39. rival adventuring party, American

40. shop in the middle of nowhere

41. consumable, multi-dose magic item

42. magic item that has a cost of making you drunk when you use it

43. on a neutral reaction roll, the bad guys need to have a sport or card game they resort to

44. wheedling second-in-command

45. turn all the doors that could be secret doors into secret doors

46. a lever or button with no apparent function that has a radical effect on the dungeon

47. gross smells for all the monsters

48. elfs, done right this time

49. ridiculous over the top overkill trap (with sawblades?)

50. roll twice and combine

Homophrosyne: the Richest Man in the World (Location)

After years of siege and a night of slaughter, the richest man in the world finally has the most beautiful woman in the world back in his house. They drink, and they brood, stuck in this spartan coastal fort, and they worsen.

John. Armor as leather. +1 blueglass spear, +3 when thrown. Wears a key to the armory (10) around his neck. Carries an old blackfeather arrow smeared with a sovereign venom (save vs death). Wants: to avoid his wife, deal with the suitors, and unweave the marriage of his daughter to the son of his old war buddy Black Robert.

Richest Man in the World: Can always pay another team of bounty hunters and mercenaries to pursue those who wronged him. Always has a friend in port. Knows the methods of consulting sages and inventing strange devices just like a high-level PC would.

Irene. Unarmored (see below). Wants: to stick it to her husband, live in comfort, and die with dignity.

Most Beautiful Woman in the World: Not simply attractive, but beautiful in the way that a sunset or unconditional trust is beautiful, only more so. Casts light as a torch. Unless you're a witch or something, she counts as wearing plate mail and a shield. If you swear an oath that you must bring her away from this place and have her stay in your home, gain 500 XP or 1000 if you're a knight. Tell the players this when their characters see her, to tempt them.

d6 Encounters

1. Unscrupulous Suppliant (see Appendix A: d20 Unscrupulous Suppliants)

2. Two Tipsy Pirates. Veterans of hard fighting, used to getting their way. Always pass morale checks in sight of John.

3. 1d4 Unambitious Slaves

4. William of Nofry. A spy for the suitors. False beard, pretending to be a suppliant.

5. Leaman the Bard. Amused by the PCs, knowledgeable of most things.

6. Alan and Horace. Sons of two of John's oldest friends. Their fathers, the masters of two nearby dungeons, will ransom or avenge them as needed. Alan is a magician who knows Charm Person and Levitate. Horace is a swordsman in a chain hood with a whirlwind area-affect attack. 

House of John

First floor. Areas 5 and 9 have a second floor keyed to the same number.

1. Storage and Office. A storage magazine full of durable chests of outdoor gear, as well as a small office space. In addition to unimportant documents about the credits and expenses of running the house, John's seneschal has prepared a ledger of shipwrecks (see Appendix B: d20 Shipwrecks) for him to consider speculating on. The DM may wish to place these shipwrecks at an appreciable distance from the area where the house is established to be to ensure there is sufficient challenge in reaching them.

2. Starboard Overlook. Lightly furnished and well-worn, with a dart board and an artful carving of a sexy hydra. The door can be barred from the inside. 1-in-4 chance there are two pirates in the room at any given time, rising to 3-in-4 when the house is on high alert. Stairs lead down to area 14, where the pirate guards sometimes hear John speak to his long-dead comrades as though they were still alive. Very sad, that.

3. Stable. Six amazing horses, all worth 1000 gc but all with John’s brand. They have 9 morale, and if someone tries to steal them they will cause a ruckus that will attract attention unless they fail a morale save (and give circumstance modifiers for especially horse-wise PCs.) The horses are:

1. Canavaul, bay and nervous. Runs faster than the fastest running horse.

2. Menelaus, gray and bold. Stats as a troll, but pack horse speed.

3. Trotter, roan and friendly. Can leap 50 feet.

4. Diamond, pinto and haughty. Max HP. Goes rabidly hungry at the sight of moss.

5. Boatswain, dun and placid, Automatically passes all saves she is called upon to make.

6. Rowan, palomino and intelligent. Can cast Magic Missile 2/day and use spell scrolls, simple math, and doorknobs.

4. Port Overlook. Lightly furnished and well-worn, with a skittles set and copy of Murand's Great Highwaymen and Footpads of History. The door can be barred from the inside. 1-in-2 chance of 4 pirates present, rising to 2-in-2 when the house is on high alert.

5. Storage Magazine. Pallets and chests of thread, firewood, various tools, soaps, dry goods, ex chetera. Stairs lead up to a hall with several looms, couches, and pitchers of cool wine. Several doors split off to women's dormitories. The best furnished belongs to Irene, radiant and unhappy. In her room, she keeps the tinctures and potions of Toleme, a land renowned for its poisons and cures. Among mundane emetics, emollients, opiates, and the like, she keeps:

1. A cure for sorrow, odorless. Lasts 12 hours. Only 4 doses left in a massive bowl that must have once held over a hundred.

2. A deadly poison, berry-scented. Made to be painted onto fingernails or a carefully waxed lips. Perfectly harmless, when it's dry. 1 dose left. Kept in a small ruby tube.

3. A beauty draught. Vinegar scent, tasteless. Confers +1 permanent charisma and gives your next seduction attempt a charm effect. If you exceed 18 charisma with this potion, you've gilded the lily so much the bonuses are reversed for your freakish super-symmetrical face and uncanny affect. 3 doses. Kept in a labeled bottle with a wax seal.

4. Witch's Brew, a pumpkiny buggish mixture. Gives the random spells of an 8th-level magic-user for two hours, then causes a save vs death from utter neuroplastic exhaustion. Those slain by the potion have their brains leak out of their ears. 3 doses, separated into three simple vials displaying their rainbow-sheened liquid contents.

5. Potion of Impotence. Vanilla flavor. Lasts 6 weeks. 4 doses. Stored in a metal flask.

6. Sobering Fluid. Ironic scent. Dispels drunkenness and ongoing illusions. Deeply unpleasant. 1 dose. Left as dregs of a simple clay cup.

6. Courtyard. Creeper vines on the wall make it easy to climb on the roof of areas 7, 8, and 12. From there, you can look into the windows of random dorms of the hall.

7. Porch. John’s ancient dog, Gilmote, sleeps on top of a key to the armory here, pretty much constantly.

8. Altar of the Furies. Grotesque statues like five gargoyles piled up and melted. 245 gold coins and a ruby worth 1000 gc given in offering here. If PCs interact the altar, make a reaction roll, with modifiers if they've given an offering themselves or stolen from the altar. The altar responds with a blessing, blight, or sign by one of the following means (d6):

1. Birds

2. Shit

3. Oaths

4. Exposure

5. Rage

6. Rebels

9. Hall. Balcony with doors into men’s dorms, and the master’s room with balcony. A mural of a master smith forging a beautiful shield conceals a lock of a secret door that pushes open to reveal the armory. John's room is spartan (or, if the DM wishes, Argive), an ill-fated attempt at minimalism. The first gold piece he ever stole hangs on a red string on the wall and his boxy bed is decorated with geometric shapes.

10. Armory. Locked— John has the key. On racks and in stands: 25 cutlasses, 5 bows, and 50 arrows. In a locked cabinet can be found:

1. A battered brass helmet (once belonged to John's warlord brother)

2. A bloodstained +1 net (instrumental in killing John's brother, later acquired by John)

3. Two petards

4. A very poisonous arrow, kin to the one John carries.

11. Dung Heap. A good place to hide, if you're not proud.

12. Pool. A magical illusion— seems to resemble a Scrooge McDuck-style pool full of gold and jewels. Actually an open hole into a basement-level pool full of water, home to the mermaid Rachael, a war-captive and the favorite candidate for an underwater revanchist political movement that seeks to overthrow the Merfolk Congress. Passionate and friendly, with a simplistic worldview. A mural of a woman wrapping her arms around a pained lizardman conceals a secret door that opens to a simple push.

Basement

13. Treasury. Secret doors to 12 and 14 are obvious from this side, with seams and handles. Golden tripods and fine cauldrons piled around worth 5000 gc, weighing as much as 8000 coins. In the pile is the key to a vault in a nearby large city, the largest single cache of John's wealth in any one place. Along one wall is a mummified centaur wizard with an empty quiver hanging from his flank, slain by his own very poisonous arrow. If unwrapped, the skins tears open to release deadly poison gas. 

14. Work Room. Here, John has clumsily created a magic circle and a ritual to resurrect his old war buddy, the unstoppable Black Robert. The risen Robert lingers in the circle as a half-seen shade, bulky but insubstantial, raspily whispering for blood. If allowed to drink at least a pint of fresh blood, he will become capable of speech. Dour, relentless, and desperate to undo his own death, he will try to charm the party with facts about the land of the dead before demanding more blood. If they can get him a total of eight pints, he will return to the world as a powerful wight, but only sustain himself as long as he can keep his throat wet with blood (stats as vampire). He has no loyalty to John or the PCs, but will only attack them if he feels he has a special reason to. In the corner, a mural of a harper standing at the mouth of a cave conceals a secret door that opens to a simple push. Door opens to a staircase up to area 2.

Wooded Camp

While John was away, leading all the men of his home to war, a whole generation grew up without fathers, and with mothers who were prevented from making the right interventions. They became mean and braggadocious. Many have risen up in disobedience and rebellion, more out of aimlessness and frustration than genuine disdain. Called the suitors because they nominally desire to slay John and marry Irene, their goals are ever-more mercurial.

1. Watchtower. Lookouts will alert the camp if the party approaches openly.

2. Gate. Guarded by two very mossy mossmen (See area 6).

3. Pool. The center of camp life, as it's here that a dirty old pool spirit tells the suitors sex stories in exchange for wine. Inveterate shit-stirrer, he is likely to provoke, challenge, or exalt the PCs upon meeting them.

4. Tents. 20 suitors roughing it with spears, axes, and the odd helmet or bit of old linothorax. Between them they've got 800 gold coins constantly getting circulated through dicing, as well as a prism-cut peridot worth 300 gc hidden under the head suitor's pillow. The odd clump of harvested moss from area 6 is seen.

5. Estovers. Several trees cleared, with axes, stacks of firewood, and tracks leading further out from the camp towards area 6.

6. Mossy Rocks. Covered in a magic moss that staunches wounds for 1d6 healing, but it infests the area permanently and you get that many Moss Points (MP). On future moss-based healing attempts, there’s a MP-in-Max HP chance that the injury is to an enmossed area and more moss won’t be effective. If your MP ever equals your HP, you become a Moss person (-1d6 to all mental attributes, become 3 HD, move 90’, slam attack for 1d6, 1-3 surprise in wooded or mossable places, distrust fire)

Appendix A: d20  unscrupulous suppliants

• 1. Malthuzlathrax the Confuser, a wizard in red robes. Talks in the third person and desires to trade magic in exchange for missions to obtain a specific trinket, “of no real value to your quest.”
• 2. James Redhand, a thief who wears a ratty old tigerskin toga. Begging sanctuary until the heat dies down from his latest heist, an unsuccessful carriage robbery of a comptroller's husband.
• 3. Captain Catherine the Grey, a successor-alderwoman to a piratical port that John technically ruled for a short time. Overly chummy with him, would like to set up some onerous recurring donation, seeing as it is his alma mater.
• 4. King Troggue, a warmongering troglodyte who needs shipments and shipments of weapons. Haughty.
• 5. Edith, a waifish duelist who hopes her blood- and tear-soaked history will convince John to lend vast resources to tracking down the list of men she wishes to exact vengeance upon.
• 6. Buellerian, the prodigal son of a foreign general who gets by on his wits. Inoffensive but very impressed with himself.
• 7. Abbot George, a venal priest who seeks to reform his ways and earn a good mid-level sainthood by recovering the sword and armor of a dragon-killing martyr, and needs financing.
• 8. Mary the Green, a veteran ranger seeking a good ship and crew to sail over the horizon, seeking new places and new people.
• 9. Lady Florence, a noblewoman of a respectable family who needs vast sums if she's to clinch the right candidates into the right bishoprics to ensure her family's holdings remain secure.
• 10. Jape Drangul, an officious robin's egg blue diplomat from another world. Has an all-business personality, desperate to purchase human heads, but keeps getting derailed by our world's quaint customs.
• 11. Gabriela Fairhair, a middling tomb robber who seeks to ply information from John about where good scores from his wars would be.
• 12. Charles the Jay, a rambler and man of many facets. Actually a disguised warlord trying to make up his mind about John.
• 13. Dame Ruth-Glad, a knight seeking to obsequiously beg for the forgiveness of certain unwisely spent loans. Wears a helmet that resembles a birdcage.
• 14. Viscountess Nell, who is losing a war badly and seeks to commission a privateer fleet on credit.
• 15. Bess, a fur-clad fighter from a land where everyone is thick-thewed and pantherlike. Spending some time drinking with kings before she's back to strangling anacondas and smashing eunuchs for pay. The one suppliant John enjoys so far.
• 16. Master Lawrence, esquire, a barrister undertaking a performative suit against John in order to show off his bone fides and eventually get hired.
• 17. Rudolph, a banker/crusader with a chip on his shoulder. Needs vast sums to seed a new bank.
• 18. Macey McDonald, an egotistical wandering shieldmaiden who tries to turn people against each other with slander and gossip for her own amusement.
• 19. Long Raymond, a fishmonger. Hoping to get as many glimpses of Irene as he can.
• 20. Kasimir DuVre, a baron and a mystic. Slowly bleeding John in exchange for drabbles of secrets and mystical references. Doesn't know why John seeks after necromantic arts, but is starting to connect some dots.

Appendix B: d20 shipwrecks

• 1. The Orphan. Entered a cursed cove in a storm, where it fell victim to 20 undead pirates (stats as skeleton, captain has a +1 flaming hook [must fit into handless wrist] and demon parrot (stats as vampire bat). The cargo, bolts of fine cloth and enameled bottles of choice wine, is intact. Worth 2,000 gc. The ship itself is mostly functional.
• 2. The Unsinkable. Lost in a storm off the coast of a remote island while transporting the renowned oracle Dara Dolema. Before drowning, she wrote a final message and sealed it in a bottle, which now floats along the ceiling of her quarters. When a PC opens it, tell the player they get one question. The message is an answer to that question.
• 3. Lady Amalthea. A spice vessel, lost while attempting a less-charted route between ports. The ship has run aground on a small island, covered in sun-polished bones and a trio of sirens. Some of the spice has been fouled by storm, but there is still properly-sealed pepper, cinnamon, and saffron worth a total of 2,500 gc.
• 4. The Answer. Intended to carry a valuable sarcophagus over the sea, but never arrived in port despite good weather and seeming in fine order at its last point of call. Found in a placid sea, utterly abandoned and undamaged, except for the captain, dead, lashed to the helm. The sarcophagus is missing.
• 5. Squalproof. Sent to melt down statues and furnishings from the cursed palace of the doomed King Lessos, who was cursed so that all he touched turned into silver. Lost too much of its crew after repelling raiders, and sank off the coast of a desert island. Contains 20,000 coins' worth of cursed silver bullion. Double encounter chances as long as you carry any of this, and every day there’s a 1-in-6 chance of a rival adventuring party showing up seeking the silver.
• 6. Damien's Pride. Confirmed to have returned from a successful diplomatic meeting with the Merfolk Congress, but ambushed and sunk by hateful sea elves due to waterlogged political rivalry. The hold contains four well-labeled water-breathing potions with three doses each, lasting 2 hours and imparting a vague nausea in the last 20 minutes as an alchemically-infused warning that time is running out. A set of five golden tridents worth a total of 1000 gc can also be found, alongside well-wishes, a couple clamshell bras, and a scrimshawed tusk depicting well-to-do merfolk having a feast.
• 7. Linebreaker. Was in the middle of a tricky operation transporting an ancient symbol-covered pillar to the home of a wealthy prince when a relatively minor storm sunk it due to lack of compensation for the extreme weight of the cargo. The pillar is pretty much impossible to lift from its watery grave but if you speak dwarven, you can read the inscription that shows a hidden compartment containing special amber lenses worth 2000 gc that give +2 to secret door rolls.
• 8. The Shadow. A swift vessel lost while transporting rare cargo, a kraken's tentacle severed by a magician's cutting spell. Mid-transit, the tendril suddenly animated and tore the ship apart. It now lies resting in its jetsam tomb, but if a PC gets too close to it they must save or be grabbed, taking 3d6 damage ever turn unless freed.
• 9. Bastion of Saint Roland. Was carrying fine weapons to a warzone when it was unintentionally beached on a sandbar and set upon by a trio of weresharks. Now half-sunk, the cargo is largely intact, save for the pieces the therianthropes have raided for themselves. 1,500 gc in fine swords, stiff spears, helmets, and chain shirts.
• 10. Secret-Fire. Lost after "liberating" several magic scrolls and rare books from an occulted library. The entire haul was ruined as the ship fell beneath the waves.
• 11. Shield-Basher. Sent to purchase a particular artifact, its features circumscribed in all notes, with a hold full of treasure. On the way back from the Wintermoot, struck an iceberg and stubbornly sailed on, refusing the approach of all ships offering help. This single object is a gas-lamp that contains a potent fire spirit (stats as efreet). Will serve the holder of the lamp, but after completing three tasks the spirit and the holder switch fates. This traps the user as a spirit until they can complete three tasks and releases Mary Blackthorn, a master thief afflicted with mummy rot.
• 12. The Gunga Din. Set out on speculative expedition, seeking new ports of call. Came upon the remote island of the Lotans, who possess a superlative narcotic flower. Sampling it in the midst of their voyage, the crew grew so slack they starved, eventually tossed aside by a great wave. Within their hold remain five buds of the drug— when eaten, save or enter a deep somnambulant addiction, itself like death.
• 13. The Parakeet. Returning from a trade mission that utterly ruined their finances. Their fortune continued to dive as poor weather stranded them in a still sea, where, starving and sunmad, they resorted to cannibalism. Seven and a half lacedons remain on the vessel.
• 14. Relentless. A former naval vessel converted into a prison vessel, dispatched to retrieve the renegade wizard Tenchan Three-Hand. Sunken due to faulty equipment and loss of stability. The crew had to abandon ship, but the brig, which takes up half the hold, still contains several prisoners' floating remains, for they were deemed too dangerous to keep alive. Abandoned in haste in a chest in the captain's quarters is a waterproof case containing Three-Hand's spellbook, which has the following spells inscribed: Detect Magic, Read Languages, Youthful Image, Knock, Tenchan's Barred Entry, Turn Shadows, Conjure Glock Gnomes, and Disguise Self. Those who carefully study the book will notice that the writer was tridextrous. And yet, all the prisoners they saw in the brig had two hands…
• 15. The Freeport. Recovering belongings and trappings of a Wintermoot raider, now settled in what is more commonly considered civilized lands. Unfortunately, most of what remains after a sudden sinking is Klolse, a regional delicacy that involves shitting into a squash and letting it ferment for a few months.
• 16. Chadia. Was embarked on a journey to recover strange creatures for a king's menagerie. Now a watery cage for drowned gorillas. 😭
• 17. King Brand. Sent to take letters from a beleaguered port. Crashed midway, and is now the home of a giant octopus, which practices its camouflage against the lower deck and sings strange songs.
• 18. The Antipode. Sent on a rescue mission to recover the crew of Secret-Fire, presumed shipwrecked. Shipwrecked itself, then gradually digested and replaced with one giant mimic (12 HD).
• 19. The Line. Taking bullion to buoy colonial authorities, then return with indigo and rum. On the return journey, it was raided by privateers of a rival power, then scuttled. Nothing valuable remains.
• 20. The Red Pike. Attempted to find an oceanic passage around a large landmass. Got caught in a horrific whirlpool. Those who search it out risk entering into that whirlpool themselves. 1-in-3 chance of surprise if not forewarned, leads almost inevitably to a save vs waterlogged death situation.

d30 Rings

 Something neat about rings is that to use one (if we imagine it has some use), it's fair to say it must be warn with nothing over it, allowing it to be seen by all. This means that unless the players employ creative means, you're probably not wearing a gauntlet or thick leather glove on the same hand as your special ring, which has all sorts of great implications for trap mechanisms, venomous stings, and the like.

Some of these rings are mundane. Some are bad, whether they carry a potentially deleterious social consequence, are more conventionally "cursed", or punish you with more adventure. There's a broad spectrum of bad consequences that can come to a PC. It's nice to get a mix.

d30 Rings

1. Clan Ring. On an outsider, signifies adoption. Fraudulently wearing the ring is punishable by death.
2. Irregular Shaped Head. Used as a key, inserted into a mated circular lock.
3. Inscription on the inside, a password.
4. Hilt Ring. Odd head, but when twisted upside down it fits perfectly into the groove of a unique magic sword's handle, unlocking its powers.
5. Secret Society Symbol. 2-in-6 chance of favorably being noticed by (d10):
1. Officers
2. Rebels
3. Priests
4. Intelligent Undead
5. Politicians
6. Dwarves
7. Intelligent Extraplanars
8. Rangers
9. Shamans
10. Dopplegangers
6. Ruling Family's Signet Ring. Delightfully illegal to possess.
7. Hollow Jade Compartment. Currently contains Powder of Giant Strength.
8. Mouse-Pattern Etchings. Can roll around under its own power and will obey its owner if well treated. Too brave.
9. Lead-Button Ring. When pressed, fixes itself in space. When pressed again, unfixes it.
10. Obsidian Gem. When the ring is held out, the obsidian glows and sheds light light a bullseye lantern. Your hand likely has to be empty to get much use out of this.
11. Silver Fang Ring. When put on, bites for 1 HP damage. When removed, for as long as the blood is wet, shows a pinhole tableau of the person you have most hated in the world.
12. Copper Glass-Stone Ring. The next time you're electroctuted, instead of suffering harm the glass stone explodes.
13. Spinning Ring. When spun, shows a brief zoetropic scene of a sword dancer.
14. Flinty Gem. Creates a spark when struck against stone.
15. Centipede Ring. Legs on the outside, carapace on the inside. When set against a wall or ceiling, can swirl at high speed like a wheel on a zipline to carry the wearer side to side.
16. Narwhal Horn Ring. Itches and turns taupe in the presence of poison or bad air.
17. Whistle Ring. Blow into it to produce a sound that dogs can hear. Also other creatures.
18. Holographic Cameo Ring. Shows an important person's face.
19. Monkey Ring. When put on, it can't be taken off. The finger turns hairy and wrinkled. Grants one wish in a dickish fashion, then turns to slime. The finger is ruined forever.
20. Magician Ring. Can cast the following spells at will, and will use them to punish the wearer: Knock, Animate Dead (takes 1 minute, 60 ft. range), Charm Person (Touch only, not the wearer).
21. Larcenos. The command word "Larcenos" is written on the inside of this fine gold ring. Speaking it while holding the ring summons a bugbear to beat you to death with a club.
22. Soul Ring. Contains the mind of an ancient thief. Gain +3 effective thief levels for the purpose of thief skills, but save vs spells every time you have the opportunity to use one but don't want to.
23. Decision Ring. One edge is blue, one is red. Flipped by the indecisive to make choices.
24. Pearl Ring. Turns black when your true love dies.
25. Cracked Ruby Ring. That which you pick up in this hand combusts a few seconds later. Can only be removed at temperatures above 120 F (49 C).
26. Cloudy Yellow Gem. Explodes on contact with water. 2d6 damage, and save to salvage 1d3 other fingers, plus thumb.
27. Banker's Magnet Ring. Used to find counterfeit coins.
28. Moaning Gargoyle Ring. Drains 1d4 HP per round-- profound sizzling needling pain. Save each round to remove.
29. Wedding Band. By wearing this, you are officially married to the Prince of Dust, bound to him as he is to you. A merciless wizard tyrant, he is pleasant but not loving. Ring can't be removed without annulment, divorce, or death.
30. Wedding Band. By wearing this, you are officially married to the dryad-witch Candomede. Beautiful, but oddly shallow and careless for a witch. Always needs help dealing with more of the local pirates. Ring can't be removed without annulment, divorce, or death.

PS, here's a generator with most of the magic items I've come up with over the years: