Oracular exercise: Fallen starship in the Sargasso Sea

Benign Brown Beast posted The Minideck, a wonderful 18-card set with all kinds of themes combined on a single card. Let's see how it fares when used as a spark/inspirational tool for gaming content creation!

Here's a quick adventure location, generated based on the following draw of three cards:

Fallen starship in the Sargasso Sea

·       Cigar-shaped shining metal vessel, at 45 degree angle, half of it waterlogged

·       Residual cosmic radiation caused mutations in local flora & fauna:

o   Kelp monsters

o   Fire-vomiting seagulls

o   Sentient krill swarms

o   Seaweed which accelerates healing when applied as bandages + causes weird plant-based mutations

·       Inhabitants: Pike-people from Beyond the Dog-Star

o   Elongated silvery bodies, fluid movements, naga-style, four upper appendages

§  weaponry: anchor-guns and boarding hooks

o   Actually fear saline water

o   They kidnapped 6 people from the planet, who are now in suspended animation in the waterlogged area

o   Want to repair their ship and leave the planet

This took me about 5 minutes. Weird nautical adventuring is GO!

Lenormand deck content generation

When you are a DM, everything is a random generator... Oracular/divinatory tools are a great source of inspiration, because they are full of flavor, they tap into archetypes, and so on. I've experimented with a couple of Tarot-based generators. In this post, I'm just going with something rather simple: drawing three cards from a Lenormand deck, and coming up with an encounter, scenario, or situation based on them.

Oh, and a cool thing about the Lenormand deck: it contains 36 cards... so you can roll that with a d66 or put it on a 6x6 matrix if you don't have your deck at hand!

	1	2	3	4	5	6
1	Heart	House	Letter	Mice	Mountain	Ship
2	Tower	Whip	Cross	Coffin	Child	Bouquet
3	Bear	Clouds	Fox	Dog	Stork	Clover
4	Garden	Snake	Key	Animus	Birds	Fish
5	Anima	Sun	Moon	Scythe	Anchor	Ring
6	Lily	Book	Star	Crossroad	Tree	Rider

Bonus content: Lenormand emoji spark table by Liche's Libram!

Without further ado, six random draws, interpreted:

1. (tower, clover, anchor) - A tower stands in the middle of a clover field. The edifice leans slightly to the east. A large anchor on a chain descends from the topmost window, as if keeping the tower in place.
2. (crossroad, snake, clouds) - A normal crossroads during day, but fog rolls in at night, and a serpent slithers out from the bushes. It grants a wish if it can afterwards switch bodies with a human.
3. (tree, moon, key) - A venerable oak with a keyhole in it. If a silver key is inserted and turned clockwise, the keyhole swallows the key, then expands into a portal. It leads into the Treasure Vault of the Moon Princess.
4. (sun, rider, letter) - Encounter: Messenger of the Sun King, cursing and shouting “clear the road!”, urging the horse to ride faster; but the animal is at its last breath and will soon collapse from sheer exhaustion. The Messenger carries a highly important message.
5. (bouquet, cross, fox) - An old cemetery, moss-covered headstone, overgrown crosses. After the abandonment of the nearby settlement, wild animals reclaimed the land. A fox has dug a deep hole into a mound – and a couple of silver coins shine in the dirt…
6. (fish, moon, house) - A noble estate, the house’s façade reflected in a small pond. The family’s coat-of-arms is a silver crescent on a green field. The eldest son is suffocated by responsibilities; he feels like a fish out of water – but he must take care of his sickly parents.

Simple Rumor Mill

Rumors/clues/hooks are a super important part of RPGs, especially sandbox campaigns. Here's a very simple spark table, inspired by Traveller. Roll d6 & d10, look up the result, if you need extra inspiration just roll twice and combine.

	1-2 Location	3-4 Danger	5-6 Tabloid	7-8 Politics	9-10 Lore
1	Treasure	Urban crime	Love child	Faction conflict	History
2		Highwaymen	Adultery	Secret society	Monster
3	Resources	Wild animals	Inheritance	Impending war	Place
4	Person	Monsters	Rivalry	Corruption	Magic
5		Nat. disaster	Marriage	Diplomacy	Technology
6	Mythical place	DOOM!	Dark secret	Spies	Religion

A couple of quick examples:

1. Location (Treasure) & Danger (Monsters) = either a place guarded by monsters, or, to give it a spin: the location of a VALUABLE MONSTER - to develop this further, let's say a local noble is looking for a unicorn for their park, and the rumor is about the last sighting of a unicorn.
2. Danger (Monsters) & Politics (Diplomacy) = Messenger from neighboring kingdom captured by monsters - peace treaty endangered / messenger from neighboring kingdom is actually a doppelganger!
3. Tabloid (Rivalry) & Lore (Magic) = there is a schism in the Wizard Council, caused by the variant readings of an ancient prophecy - and to add that "tabloid" element, maybe the prophecy is about a "chosen one", and the various wizards now want to influence this person.
4. Lore (History) & Tabloid (Love child) = a classic! Genealogical research reveals heir actually being from a different branch of renowned family or something similar.
5. Location (Mythical place) & Danger (Urban crime) = crime lord found an entrance into the Dreamlands.
6. Location (Resources) & Tabloid (Inheritance) = copper mine inherited by young noble is mismanaged by cunning assistant.

Edit: I was also inspired by the rumor tables over at alea iactanda est, and the rumor mill in Luke Kennedy's Basic Fantasy RPG Hexcrawl Supplement.

Edit 2: I was also reminded of Delta's rumor system.

Six Grasslands Lairs/Encounters

Six grasslands/steppe/open ground locations created using my quick lair generator and random encounters on the OSE SRD site.

1. 4 Acolytes inhabit the hovel-like Shrine of the Sacred Plow. A barely domesticated (and thus easy to anger) Elephant works the farmlands around the temple.
2. Three small burrows, surrounded by a stone circle. 34 Halflings live there, trapped inside the circle: the only person who can pass through the barrier is Sylvia, a psionic Halfling. She trades for food for her village and wants to find a way to break the spell.
3. 3 Thouls, brothers, live in a small shack next to a fishing pond. They are equally eager to consume human flesh and/or serve as mercenaries. The eldest knows a lot of stories about heroes, champions, great warlords.
4. A system of narrow underground tunnels criss-crosses the area: the work of the local band of 30 Pixies. They have the power to create and change these tunnels to their whim. The passages allow them to quickly disappear and pop up in a completely different place.
5. 19 Driver Ants in the process of meticulously consuming a small settlement. The only thing they cannot chew is a set of magical armor in the half-eaten temple building. One of the ants behaves in a strange way – perhaps it is breaking away from the hivemind?!
6. Permanent camp of 15 Berserkers, their rage triggered by the fumes emanating from a grotto in the middle of the camp. They are led by a married couple: Anadha and Ghear. Their herd of 34 Goats with braided fur grazes nearby.

Six Desert Lairs/Encounters

Six desert locations created using my quick lair generator and random encounters on the OSE SRD site.

1. 30 Nomads camping near a deep well. Unbeknownst to them, their leader Paranur was turned into an undead bloodsucking creature (like a Zombie, but sentient) by a cursed ring he’d picked up in the City Under the Sands.
2. Abandoned military camp, back from the time of the Great War, yet the Cursed Lord’s banner still stands proud in the middle. A pride of 4 Lions lives here; the alpha male wears a jewel-encrusted collar.
3. Spiritual retreat gone wrong: 6 Magic-Users, young, ambitious and foolish, rebelled against their elderly master. Now they are lost in the desert, haunted by things they summoned but couldn’t put down.
4. A small village of craftsmen (weavers of magic carpets!) terrorized by a Wyvern. All children are given to the monster as provender.
5. 50 Orcs who bury themselves under the sand during the day and terrorize caravans by night. Their chief, Oldhorn, carries the Blade that Sucks, a Cursed Sentient Sword created to detect magic and slay wizards.
6. This red sandstone cave is home to Aloyseus the snake-charmer, with 2 Giant Rattlers in his service. He extracts their poison so the real danger lies not in the bite of the snakes (which mostly distract enemies), but in the poison darts he fires from a blowpipe and the numerous pit traps in the area.

I wrote some of these in a bad mood, and I think that is kind of noticeable? Sorry. Take care!

Six Jungle Lairs/Encounters

Six jungle locations created using my quick lair generator and random encounters on the OSE SRD site.

1. A small burnt-out settlement. The natural steam vent (goes off every hour) attracted 4 Flame Salamanders. Valuable sulfur deposits crust the nearby ground and ruins, giving the place an eerie black-yellow look.
2. 20 Brigands camp out here in tents. Their situation couldn’t be worse: they were recently defeated by a party of highly-skilled adventurers and lost their leader. Oh, and the adventurers took the treasure map the Brigands were following.
3. 4 Spitting Cobras nest in a rock crevice, right next to a spring of fresh, potable (and untainted!) water. A cart with a broken axis stands abandoned.
4. Two towers connected by a bridge at mid-level. For some reason, the place is always surrounded by mist. 6 Dracos, starving and weakened, cling the vines and masonry, ready to drop onto any unsuspecting victim. At the top floor of the second tower, there is a stash of six Potions of Flying.
5. Well-built manorhouse, recently taken over by a swarm of 17 Killer Bees and their Queen (she even has a name, Elizzzzabuzzz III). The previous inhabitants are dead. Their treasured collection of expensive tapestries is intact on the walls of the main building.
6. Herd of 13 Antelopes graze peacefully in an abandoned caravanserai (the trade route moved decades ago). The nearby pond holds tasty fish. It’s truly a paradise on earth! …or is it?

Six Forest Lairs/Encounters

Six forest locations created using my quick lair generator and random encounters on the OSE SRD site.

1. 2 Centaurs, Roxtrix and Rebha, live in a moss-covered hovel. They are lovers but cannot bear child. A domesticated pack of 13 Wolves serve them.
2. 4 Merchants and 12 Caravan Guards hiding out in a gorge. They were attacked by a Basilisk and left their precious cargo behind (two wagons full of mummified bodies from the tombs of the Beast Tyrants – such bodies fetch great prices at the arcane black market).
3. 30 Orcs squat in a tower with a magical mysterious water cycle – rising on one side and falling on the other. Their leader is the ambitious Maradok, who is currently trying to come up with a plan to profit from that weird feature.
4. Smoke and the noise of metal against rock betrays the presence of 13 Bugbears running a mining operation in a small valley. Little do they know that they are actively digging towards an ancient cursed artifact buried underground.
5. Crashed metallic flying vessel, encampment of 3 Cyclopes – explorers from another dimension, two of them (Jad and Hrau) want to find a way back home, while the third (Zes) secretly likes it here and thwarts the attempts. He hid an important element of the vessel in a nearby cave.
6. Overgrown, but intact shrine to the patron god of travelers, staked out by 4 Warp Beasts. Fresh grave marked with stone actually hides treasure.

Six Mountain Lairs/Encounters

Six mountain/hill locations created using my quick lair generator and random encounters on the OSE SRD site.

1. The log chalet of Adalbert the Weretiger, with 24 Goats in a nearby enclosure and a nice smokehouse. The dwelling might look abandoned at first – Adalbert is suspicious (but also curious) of people. He lives here as a hermit, conflicted about his double nature.
2. Old copper mine occupied by small tribe of 21 Goblins, under the leadership of the young and cunning Sheila the Bitter. They are on the payroll of the lord of the nearby stronghold and hold the lord’s ambitious younger brother in prison (supposedly “gone missing” during a hunt).
3. High up in the mountains stands Keep Agher, a foreboding blackstone castle, surrounded by abundant springs. Four towers topped with large brass spheres – an elaborate weather control device. 3 Cloud Giants (Ergha, Gareh and Hraeg), identical triplets, live here, unaware of the function of the device. 16 Dire Wolves patrol the area.
4. Doomsday prepper cult of 40 Brigands, swayed by the paranoid visions of their charismatic leader, Lukretis, who thinks the end is neigh. Snares and pit traps all around the place. They also obsessively dig wells.
5. 22 Troglodytes serve Abglu, the hedonistic Stone Giant. Abglu has grown lazy and near-immobile, he just hangs out at his cave, and waits for the next meal to be served. He is especially fond of human meat and strong mead. The Trogs keep a couple of prisoners in a covered pit.
6. The tower-like temple of a long-forgotten hawk-god is now occupied by 6 Harpies. The monsters bicker a lot and can never decide how to divide up the prey. The god’s statue is covered in silver feathers.

Six Swamp Lairs/Encounters

Six swamp locations created using my quick lair generator and random encounters on the OSE SRD site.

1. Camp of 16 Lizard Men rebels, in opposition to the Reptile Lord. The group is led by Garmorzu, a one-eyed beastmaster, who successfully trained 3 Giant Crabs to serve as mounts.
2. Large decrepit manorhouse with seven gables, constantly surrounded by 4 Wyverns. Embullion the Wizard hides in the basement: he stole a Wyvern egg for his magical experiments, but drew a protective circle around the building. The circle will hold for 3 more days.
3. Half-flooded cave, home to 3 Trolls. The eldest has a laser blaster (an ancient alien artifact) attached to its arm. Inside their cave, there is a magical spring that grants the power of regeneration, but turns the imbiber into a troll after 12 days.
4. A creepy fairground, half-sunken into the morass. 21 Skeletons (former carnies and visitors) continue their routine of riding the merry-go-round, firing rifles at the shooting gallery, devouring toffee apples... An animated Cave Lion skeleton inhabits a cage.
5. Five-strong adventuring party (2 Dwarfs, 1 Thief, and 2 Magic-Users who always bicker) at the entrance of a haunted cave. They plan to sacrifice somebody at the altar in the first chamber to rid the area from the ghostly presence.
6. A herd of 5 Pegasi with clipped wings guard a shimmering amethyst grotto. Inside, there is a map of the local ley-line network carved onto black rock.

d10 adventure seed haiku generator

	NPC	Detail	Action
1	immoral noble	aided by seven warlocks	steals ancient gold relic
2	glamorous wizard	shamed by potent new rival	plans bloody jailbreak
3	band of highwaymen	worshipping the chaos gods	hosts one last game night
4	barbarian tribe	repenting for ancient sins	seeks arcane revenge
5	famed adventurer	on payroll of criminals	is back from the dead
6	young treacherous scion	disguised as foreign merchant	explores catacombs
7	addicted burglar	blackmailed by shady prophet	rekindles old flame
8	rioting beast mob	returning from colonies	changes history
9	local champion	with claims to power and fame	diverts threat of war
10	shape-changed murderer	respected and feared by all	builds secret tower

immoral noble
shamed by potent new rival
steals ancient gold relic

Decadent heir of famed house conspires to steal signet ring (supposedly the source of magical influence) from successful nouveau riche family.

barbarian tribe
disguised as foreign merchant
plans bloody jailbreak

Warriors from the Western Wasteland resort to trickery: disguised as fur traders, they enter the city in order to break out their imprisoned leader.

glamorous wizard
blackmailed by shady prophet
seeks arcane revenge

Leila the Lovely no longer wishes to be associated with the Cult of the Peacock God; but the prophet has a drop of her blood; Leila will try to fight magic with magic.

Special thanks to Syllable Counter.

Edit, later that day:

Appending this extra set of tables for creating locations/dungeon rooms. I'm not that satisfied with this one, because not all combinations end up having the needed flow, they are more like, well, random table results.

	Description	Danger	Reward
1	stones still wet with blood	magnetism pulls you under	secret deep below
2	absolute darkness	crystal spikes grow in the pit	the low-hanging fruit
3	balcony above	guarded by reptile army	hand-cranked machinery
4	bookshelves with curtains	but nothing is what it seems	way towards glory
5	bisected by fence	hopes crushed by armored fist	shiny but buried
6	clouds of vapor float	long-forgotten enemy	soft silks, sharp blades, joy
7	chapel to beast god	gathered around starlit flag	boxes in boxes
8	sculpted colonnade	behold, winged nightmares swarm!	leftovers from feast
9	overgrown by moss	reflection of past mistakes	flawless gems, inset
10	ink-like liquid flows	the ruthless leader thunders	alien knowledge