Appendix N for The World of Tomorrow

The World of Tomorrow, our science fantasy campaign, is pretty much built with a kitchen-sink approach. The initial pitch can basically double as the Appendix N: “moebius jodorowsky tangerine nightmare oranssi mutant pazuzu heavy metal barsoom carcosa acid police surf”

The main rules are: If it could be published as a DAW book or an ACE Double… if you can imagine it on a sick space/psych/prog rock album cover… if there is a conspiracy theory about it… then it fits.

Due to its eclectic and expansive nature, I could probably list off every piece 1960s-1970s sci-fi and dystopian fiction and every krautrock album ever. But that would defeat the purpose. So I will try to limit myself to a couple of key entries for each category.

Books: the biggest influence is Fred Saberhagen’s “Empire of the East” series. It’s chock-full of COOL SHIT that you can steal for your post-apoc sci-fant games. “The Elephant”? A must. Radar stations as scrying magic. Nuclear demon lords and their satraps. Good stuff. Read them if you can. The main protagonist is kinda bland… But the world is great. Add Lin Carter, Leigh Brackett, Poul Anderson's early stuff...

Movies: oh boy… Logan’s Run, Planet of the Apes + Beneath the Planet of the Apes, 2001: Space Odyssey… Hard to narrow this down. Phase IV too, for sure.

Comics/art: yeah, Moebius is the big one here. No explanation necessary. Mike Grell's Warlord, another great hollow earth weird fiction title. A lesser known entry would be the stuff from Planet Comics, in particular "The Lost World" which ran in #21-69 (1942-1952).

Other RPG stuff: McKinney’s Carcosa (I use a bunch of tables for robots, weapons…), Gamma World, Mutant Crawl Classics – actually, from these last two, I borrow very little specifics, but definitely lean into the same atmosphere.

Computer games: Fallout 1 & 2, for sure. The most powerful motif for me is the Vault suit, which always marks the wearer as either/or a weirdo, a demigod, a target.

Last, but not least: history/non-fiction… I use my science-fantasy Frankentable extensively, so many characters have names from ancient cultures (Egyptian, Akkadian, Greek…). There are lot of ziggurats, statues, artifacts, stuff that comes from my academic interests. And my non-academic interests in weird shit, conspiracies, cults.

In collage form.

[Map] LEG DAY! The Dungeon of Stairs

I drew a slightly ridiculous dungeon map - a level chock-full of stairs leading up and down. Ridiculous as this map is, I do like certain parts, like the bridge/tower above the water caves in the north-east corner (#32-32).

I don't have keys or even a particular concept. I guess this dungeon was built by creatures who just LOVE stairs. So, this isn't a great fit for Barsoom (where they use ramps instead of stairs). 

Or for certain areas of Jane Gaskell's The Serpent:

'Now we should like to see our rooms,' Zerd said.

The governor led him over to the staircase - the more menial of us followed closely, the rest trailed behind or simply didn't bother - and the governor stood aside to let his guests precede him. I ran up, two steps at a time, and only when I was at the top did I realise that everyone else was still at the bottom.

They all stood quiet, with upturned faces, then gasped.

'What's the matter?' I said, feeling appallingly self-conscious alone at the top there. T'm sorry, I thought we were supposed to come up here - ' and I began to descend again, feeling the blushes rising up my throat and scorching my cheeks.

'How do you do it?' 'Where did you learn?' said several voices.

'Learn what?' I asked, most embarrassed.

'She ran up, two at a time,' said someone.

I was now at the bottom and a crowd of winegirls ran forward cheering me, and Isad came up, dripping wet, hooting on his pet horn. Lara looked sour.

'Do it again, do it again!' cried the winegirls to me.

'What is it?' I said.

'You're so fast, could you do it again just as fast?'

'Of course, my country is full of stairs. Our houses are often four-storeyed - aren't yours?'

'No,' Zerd said. 'We don't have stairs in the North. Do it again, Cija, it's fascinating to watch.'

So I ran up and down the stairs for them twice more, and they cheered me and chanted compliments, and at last all trooped up after me.

This version has the relative depth of areas:

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

Example of the "36 Character Types" random table in use

I posted the "36 character types" table on Reddit, and r/thebalckveil asked for an example of the generator in use. I thought I would save the example here:

"For example, I would use it to create a court intrigue situation. Roll three times to get three NPCs or inspirational details. *roll roll roll*

65 The Weak, 61 Murderers & Assassins, 21 The Avaricious and Grasping

Interpretation:
NPC #1: Prince Bernardo, the king's eldest but sickly son, heir to the throne (The Weak)
NPC #2: Jacopo, the ambitious husband of the king's daughter (The Avaricious & Grasping)
Situation: Prince Bernardo fears that Jacopo, the newcomer to the family, will try to take advantage of his bad health and seize the throne for himself. Prince Bernardo hires assassins (Murderers & Assassins) to take care of the matter.

How to use this situation in your game? Well, there are a couple of ways, for example:

• The party is approached by Jacopo, who fears for his life and hires bodyguards.
• The party is approached by Prince Bernardo's agent, who wants to hire them as assassins.
• The party hears rumors about the tension between Prince Bernardo and Jacopo, and might try to exploit the situation. Or they hear rumors about the Prince hiring assassins."

36 character types (extracted from Georges Polti's "The Art of Inventing Characters")

Georges Polti (1867-1946) compiled long classifications of different types of literary devices. His most famous book is "The Thirty-Six Dramatic Situations", a description that was also taken as a prescription by future authors. He also did a similar work on character types, "The Art of Inventing Characters". In it, he outlines 36 types of literary characters.

36 you say?

THAT'S A D66 TABLE OF COURSE!

So I took the e-text of the 1922 English translation (available on archive.org!) and turned it into a random table. There are also freakin' subtables for each of the 36 entries, with a dozen or so types.

Warning: Mind, though: the source text is quite awful. It's essentialist, moralizing and misogynistic. It's naive in how the author thinks that a classification of things (including literary constructs) is the revelation of the true nature of the whole world, and a key to understanding human psychology.

Nevertheless, here's a random table!

Good for melodramatic RPGs?

			CHARACTERS
1	1	VESTA	The Pious
	2		The Wise
	3		The Faithful
	4	JUNO	The Jealous
	5		The Vengeful and Just
	6		The Strict and Severe
2	1	NEPTUNE	The Avaricious and Grasping
	2		The Despotic
	3		The Ambitious
	4	MINERVA	The Daring and Romantic
	5		Adventurers
	6		The Eloquent and Boastful
3	1	VENUS	The Seductive and Seducing
	2		Courtesans
	3		The Vicious
	4	APOLLO	The Impassioned
	5		The Chimerical
	6		The Intellectual
4	1	MERCURY	The Shrewd
	2		The Traitorous
	3		The Knavish
	4	JUPITER	The Arrogant and Insolent
	5		The Haughty and Dignified
	6		The Majestic and Protecting
5	1	CERES	The Generous and Prodigal
	2		The Gay and Sensual
	3		The Vulgar and Practical
	4	VULCAN	The Earnest and Serious
	5		The Deluded and Discouraged
	6		The Unselfish and Devoted
6	1	MARS	Murderers and Assassins
	2		The Violent and Rebellious
	3		The Bold and Fearless
	4	DIANA	The Tender and Sentimental
	5		The Weak
	6		The Pure

Subtables for each type: