1d12.12 Ships

1.1 Sea Witch
1.2 Mother's Pride
1.3 Golden Girl
1.4 Serendipity
1.5 Zemblanity
1.6 Meteor
1.7 Seaborne
1.8 Coral
1.9 Hurricane
1.10 Typhoon
1.11 Blizzard
1.12 Witch of November
2.1 Bluewater Maid
2.2 Reef Queen
2.3 Waverunner
2.4 Albatross
2.5 Marmalade
2.6 Bravely Forth
2.7 Pickle
2.8 Carrion Crow
2.9 Cat's Cradle
2.10 Rat's Cradle
2.11 Crayfish
2.12 Sound Investment
3.1 Enterprise
3.2 Urchin
3.3 Full Moon
3.4 Cloudless Sky
3.5 Dark of Night
3.6 Fortress
3.7 Pangolin
3.8 Lost Soul
3.9 Three Sisters
3.10 Stray
3.11 Northwind
3.12 Survivor
4.1 Adventure
4.2 Endeavor
4.3 Manatee
4.4 Barnacle
4.5 Profitable Venture
4.6 Righteous Fury
4.7 Just Rewards
4.8 Dutiful Son
4.9 Beluga
4.10 Red Sky Morning
4.11 Coconut Crab
4.12 Flying Fish
5.1 Marlin
5.2 Dependable
5.3 Summer's day
5.4 Beagle
5.5 Thresher
5.6 Argo
5.7 Infallible
5.8 Curiosity
5.9 Inquiry
5.10 Right Hand
5.11 Bardiche
5.12 Halberd
6.1 Phantom
6.2 Charybdis
6.3 Harborless
6.4 Our Lady's word
6.5 Far Shore
6.6 Bannockburn
6.7 Safe Return
6.8 Sparrowhawk
6.9 Polychrome
6.10 Capybara
6.11 Nautilus
6.12 Narwhal
7.1 Wolf's Mother
7.2 Bookkeeper
7.3 Queen Conch
7.4 Amnesty
7.5 Yarrow
7.6 Brother Jerome
7.7 Time Enough
7.8 Valet
7.9 Kilgore
7.10 Relentless
7.11 Nail
7.12 Minnow
8.1 Vengeful Daughter
8.2 Conscience
8.3 Eclipse
8.4 Stargazer
8.5 Bountiful Maiden
8.6 Majesty
8.7 Discovery
8.8 Endurance
8.9 Cedar
8.10 True North
8.11 Ironton
8.12 Fitzgerald
9.1 Water Witch
9.2 Grape Shot
9.3 Meridian
9.4 Phoenix
9.5 Success
9.6 Lake Serpent
9.7 Morning Star
9.8 Vermilion
9.9 Sand Merchant
9.10 Waterlily
9.11 Iron Mountain
9.12 Sea Bird
10.1 Hope
10.2 Resolve
10.3 Victory
10.4 Mystic
10.5 Flamingo
10.6 Iris
10.7 Monarch
10.8 Oxford
10.9 Cormorant
10.10 Kildeer
10.11 Bastard
10.12 Amity
11.1 Atlas
11.2 Bradbury
11.3 Lichen
11.4 Wonder
11.5 Petroglyph
11.6 Ambassador
11.7 Fossil
11.8 Sincerity
11.9 Tenacity
11.10 Generosity
11.11 Goblin
11.12 Prudence
12.1 Patience
12.2 Audacity
12.3 Grizzly
12.4 Big Sky
12.5 Puck
12.6 Delta
12.7 Huntsman
12.8 Hare
12.9 Vision
12.10 Curmudgeon
12.11 Caballero
12.12 Jerboa

1d8.8 What is it written on?

Spellbooks and scrolls are a classic way to present information to your players. They're a nice, portable, comprehensible medium that the party can stuff in a sack and make off with. A genre staple. But consider: Wizards are weird. They're weird and secretive and heterodox in the extreme. They might start out recording their findings in books early in their careers, but do you really think an arcane researcher worth their name would keep their true works in that format? If your discoveries are mild enough that they can be contained in a mundane leather-bound tome, are you really even trying as a wizard? Universal truths could be crammed into a book, but they really deserve something more. Obscure formats, materials from elsewhere, monumental canvasses, works of art, or shifting chaotic mediums that can capture a nature that won't rest peacefully on a page.

The information the party found is recorded in/on...

1.1 A Hello Kitty locking diary, limited edition not available outside japan

1.2 College-ruled loose leaf scorched at the edges, 128 unnumbered pages

1.3 Dayglo neon construction paper, 56 pages in 8 different colors written in crayon and precisely indexed

1.4 Composition notebook, black and white marbled cover sealed with powerful Cool S glyphs

1.5 Microfiche, 32 pieces of A6 plastic film stored in individual paper sleeves inside a bakelite box

1.6 A butcher's cleaver, engraved in tiny calligraphic characters along the spine and flats of the blade

1.7 Murderboard, fills an entire room with documents layered inches thick on the walls and a web of multicolored strings obstructing the center

1.8 Ticker tape, 480' cut into 60' lengths and shoved in a garbage bag

2.1 Giant tortoises, 16 individuals each bearing a section of the work painted on their shells

2.2 Cuneiform clay tablets, fired for durability with color-coded glazes on their backs and edges

2.3 Thin lead sheets, pierced with a nail in one corner to bind them into a packet

2.4 A ring, etched on the inside of the band and visible through the magnifying cabochon

2.5 Bronze plaques, 8 2'x3' cast sheets 1/2" thick stored on shelves in a bronze cabinet shaped like the author's head

2.6 The streets and buildings of a planned city, encoded in every detail from street names and numbers to the placement of each brick

2.7 Sidewalk chalk, hidden among a block's worth of hopscotch grids and children's drawings

2.8 Graffiti, covering every inch of a winding back alley in vibrant tags and murals, residents occasionally feel compelled to add new details but can't say why

3.1 Bark, the entire surface of a living beech tree inscribed with scarred glyphs and lines of text

3.2 Veins, the whole circulatory system of a host creature reconfigured into interlocking sigils while still functioning normally

3.3 Tattoos, full-body calligraphic designs inked onto a cadre of trusted acolytes and an index and key on the master's forearms

3.4 3D wire sculpture, a delicate convoluted web of different metals, coatings, and gauges joined and twisted in a form-based code

3.5 Beeswax writing tablet, cyclicly erases and re-inscribes itself

3.6 Virus, text forms in ultra-fine linear pox sores after the incubation period

3.7 Hard drive, dented and scratched, clicks disconcertingly while in use, has 8TB of storage space but holds 1PB of data

3.8 Cassette tape, electric green and black marbled case, A side holds 64 minutes of coded atonal beeping and B side is a sludge metal mixtape

4.1 Snippets of text scattered through unconnected posts and signatures on a dead forum

4.2 Petroglyphs, carved into the walls, floor, and ceiling of the dungeon

4.3 Geoglyphs, combinations of geometric motifs and stylized animals covering several acres

4.4 Effigy mound, earthworks in the shape of a serpent with meaning contained in the twists of its maze of coils

4.5 A runestone, 16' tell with inscriptions winding around bas relief humanoid figures

4.6 The Dungeon itself, encoded in the combined structure of passages and chambers

4.7 A cave system, purposely shaped over millennia with controlled erosion and mineral deposition

4.8 A gem, fist-sized aquamarine bizarrely faceted in significant polygons and angles

5.1 Floor mosaic, exponentially smaller and denser tiles radiating out from the central motif of a leaping frog

5.2 Rawhide, an entire horsehide with mane and tail intact that walks on its own

5.3 Sheet music, the full score of an 8-hour long composition arranged for a 32-piece big band accompanied by air raid siren

5.4 A hymnal, block printed in red ink and dedicated to an unnamed power

5.5 A low quality jpeg of a kitten, encrypted and steganographically hidden in the data

5.6 Floppy disk, royal blue with a label handwritten in sharpie, holds a copy of Lemmings and a hidden 64MB zip file

5.7 Sand painting, multicolored and intricate covering several hundred square feet

5.8 Macrame, a sprawling fractal wall hanging of sculptural knots, mesh, and kitsch owls

6.1 Scent trails, an entire colony of ants ceaselessly tracing a pattern of wheels and spirals

6.2 Blackboard, 16'x32' with a rolling ladder to access the entire surface

6.3 Whiteboards, a stack of lap-sized boards packed full of doodle-punctuated scrawls and graphs, easily smudged

6.4 A silk painting, 24' long with paper backing and rosewood rods at each end, depicts toads and frogs cavorting across a barren countryside

6.5 QR code, takes up an entire wall and nauseating to look at

6.6 Papyrus, a 16' length looped into a mobius strip

6.7 Transparency, multiple sheets that have to be stacked and overlapped in the correct configuration to read

6.8 Red-figure pottery, an oversized krater painted inside and out

7.1 Clouds, an unnatural combination of different types and forms held in stasis

7.2 Reef, encrypted in the shape of the corals and movement of water currents and fauna, loops in a weekly cycle

7.3 Forest grove, branches grown so the light filtering through the canopy forms glyphs that shift from dawn to dusk

7.4 Disreputable thumbdrive, holds 128GB of data mixed in among poorly labeled pirated music and fan-translated manga scans

7.5 A deck of cards, handpainted with extremely detailed portraits and scenes, has 4 additional suits and 5 extra face cards per suit

7.6 Stained glass window, repairs itself if broken, growing at a rate of 24" per year

7.7 Skeleton, shards of etched and scorched mammoth bones from dozens of individuals reconstructed into a single complete articulated specimen

7.8 Tapestry, thick and intricately woven with a different pattern on every side

8.1 Index cards, thousands of cards meticulously organized in an old library catalog cabinet

8.2 Video, hundreds of hours of unedited camcorder footage on aging VHS tapes

8.3 Ostraca, a collection of engraved sherds in heaps and laid out in precise lines

8.4 Confectionery, extremely delicate sculptures of spun, cast, and blown sugar

8.5 A constellation, familiar stars shifted into a new configuration

8.6 Hive, generations of paper wasps directed to build in unpleasant angles and convolutions

8.7 Comic books, an extremely popular series with the significant details hidden in prime-numbered issues

8.8 Nothing, kept in memory with only an oral record

1d666 Monster Gut Contents

In amongst the acid and chyme you find...

111 A pair of gold lame heels
112 Acorns
113 Airstream camper
114 Algae
115 Amethyst crystal point
116 An entire heron
121 Anchor
122 Antique bronze diving helmet
123 Ants
124 Assorted coins
125 Beehive
126 Beeswax writing tablet
131 Bells
132 Berries
133 Bonsai tree
134 Boombox
135 Bottle of rum
136 Bouncy balls
141 Broken glass
142 Bronze dagger
143 Bullets
144 Butterflies
145 Buttons
146 Cake
151 Camp stove
152 Candy corn
153 Case of sparkling water
154 Cassette tapes
155 Cast iron radiator
156 Cat collar
161 Cell phone
162 Chainmail
163 Chess set
164 Chinese takeout boxes
165 Coffee beans
166 Container of eggrolls
211 Copper nuggets
212 Cowboy hats
213 Crayfish
214 Crow feathers
215 Crown
216 Crystal ball
221 Cut crystal shotglass
222 D-cell batteries
223 Dented ATM
224 Diplomatic dispatches
225 Dirt
226 Disco ball
231 Dog food
232 Doll house
233 Dominoes
234 Eggs
235 8-ball
236 Enameled silver tortoise shell
241 Feathers
242 Ferns
243 55-gallon drum
244 Fingers
245 Fire
246 Firecrackers
251 First aid kit
252 Fish
253 Fish food
254 Fishhooks and lures
255 Fishing nets and floats
256 Fist-sized ruby
261 Flies
262 Flip phone
263 46ct emerald
264 Fountain pen
265 Fresh grass and alfalfa
266 Fringed leather jacket
311 Frogs
312 Fruit
313 Funerary urns
314 Gargoyle
315 Giant silver belt buckle
316 Giant tapeworm
321 Gold dust
322 Gold ring
323 Gravel
324 Gunpowder
325 Hacksilver cache
326 Hairball
331 Half-full gas can
332 Hand still clutching a sword
333 Handcuffs
334 Handheld radio
335 High-vis vest
336 Horseshoe crab
341 Horseshoes
342 Human skeleton
343 Hundreds of eyeballs
344 Ice
345 Imperial seal
346 Individually wrapped saltwater taffy
351 Inkwell of blood
352 Iron cauldron
353 Iron nails
354 Jar of fireflies
355 Jellybeans
356 Jellyfish
361 Jug of rotgut
362 Kelp
363 Kingfisher feathers
364 Knife money
365 Laminated menu from a 50's themed diner
366 Laptop
411 Lava lamp
412 Lead curse tablets
413 Leather bomber jacket
414 Leeches
415 Legos
416 Letters
421 Lilies
422 Live rats
423 Live tadpoles
424 Live tortoise
425 Lotto tickets
426 Maggots
431 Marbles
432 Marionette
433 Meteorite
434 Mice
435 Mirrored shades
436 Moths
441 Mulberry leaves
442 Mushrooms
443 Nothing but garlic
444 Nuts and bolts
445 Nuts and seeds
446 Old tires
451 Onions
452 Oracle bones
453 Paperback romances
454 Parasitic eggs
455 Pheasant feathers
456 Photo album
461 Pinecones
462 Pipe wrench
463 Pixies
464 Plastic dinosaurs
465 Play tea set
466 Polyps
511 Porcelain doll
512 Prism
513 Propane tank
514 Pulverized brick
515 Puzzle box
516 Rabbit
521 Rag doll
522 Revolver
523 Road flares
524 Rodent bones
525 Rotary phones
526 Rowan berries
531 Rubber bands
532 Rusty bucket
533 Sand
534 Screwdriver
535 Seaglass
536 Sealed pop can
541 Seashells
542 Silver chain
543 Silver trade bars
544 Skillet
545 Sky iron
546 Slugs
551 Snail shells
552 Snakeskin cowboy boots
553 Songbirds
554 Spatula
555 Spiders
556 Spiked dog collars
561 Stamp collection
562 Stop sign
563 Strawberry danish
564 Styrofoam cups
565 Symbiotic oozes
566 Tar
611 Tasteful porno mags
612 Tetsubin
613 Textbooks
614 Thousands of pills
615 Ticks
616 Tin cans
621 Tin of tea
622 Tiny plastic crabs
623 Titanium spear head
624 Toads
625 Toes
626 Traffic cone
631 Travel mug
632 Treatise on the feeding habits of wasteland fauna
633 Tricycle
634 Trucker's cap
635 Truffles
636 Tumbled agates
641 Tumors
642 Turquoise bolo tie
643 Uncut sapphires
644 Unstable fusion reaction
645 Various live angry arachnids and centipedes
646 Velvet smoking jacket
651 Vintage tea towels
652 Vinyl records
653 Voles
654 VW beetle
655 Wallet
656 Wet cat food
661 Wildflowers
662 Wedding dress
663 Wolf teeth
664 Worms
665 Yarn
666 Zebra mussels

Emergency Blanket

A thin sheet of aluminum-coated mylar folded into a light compact package. Produces an item immediately useful to the situation at hand if unfolded during a crisis (ex: a first aid kit, survival shelter, dry fuel, provisions, flare gun, gas mask, oxygen tank, etc.). Otherwise just waterproof, highly reflective, and really warm.

A Note On Kobolds

Everyone knows there are two main varieties of kobold: dog and lizard. Arguments over which type is the "real" kobold are so common it's become a joke, which is ironic because both forms are the exact same creature. Kobolds have a complex genetic structure that causes them to shift forms in response to external environmental factors.

Most kobolds will say the dog state is their species' true form since it's the shape they take when left to themselves. In dog form kobolds have a distinct sense of self and canine traits like acute senses, fur, and endurance that let them thrive in a variety of ecosystems as resourceful semi-omnivorous persistence predators similar to humans. They use those strengths and their mobility to maintain a widespread but close-knit society of band, family, and clan groups organized around a network of partially subterranean hub cities. It's an efficient arrangement that can last indefinitely unless it's disrupted by exposure to a specific environmental factor, namely dragons.

The presence of a dragon in the area triggers an epigenetic shift in all kobolds within range, causing the exposed individuals to begin metamorphosing into lizard form. The change is agonizing and lasts several weeks as the kobold's body gradually reconfigures itself, completely consuming and rebuilding the skeleto-muscular and neurological systems. In lizard form kobolds lose a large portion of their individuality, falling into a set of closely unified thought patterns almost like a hive mind that's focused on the dragon. They become much more sedentary, living as purely carnivorous ambush predators in age-separated but otherwise egalitarian groups that keep as close to the dragon as possible without being eaten. If an individual kobold strays far enough from the colony they'll begin to revert to dog form, but it's so difficult to leave once the change is complete that it rarely happens.

With its effects and implications the change is obviously a subject of controversy and dread in kobold communities. Though some clans view dragons as holy creatures and consider their influence a blessing, most abhor the loss of self and agency that lizard form inflicts. Rumors of a dragon approaching or settling in an area will spark mass migrations out of the region to escape its influence and sometimes, in the case of wealthy cities, extremely lucrative contracts to slay the beast before it can nest.

1d12.12 Fuels

1.1 Firewood
1.2 Driftwood
1.3 Charcoal
1.4 White charcoal
1.5 Woodchips
1.6 Sawdust
1.7 Pellet fuel
1.8 Biomass briquettes
1.9 Dried dung
1.10 Straw
1.11Grass clippings
1.12 Fallen leaves
2.1 Hemp
2.2 Bamboo
2.3 Kudzu
2.4 Peat
2.5 Corn
2.6 Potatoes
2.7 Algae
2.8 Kelp
2.9 Mycelium
2.10 Raw biomass
2.11 Insect biomass
2.12 Tallow
3.1 Whale oil
3.2 Pollen
3.3 Nectar
3.4 Sugar
3.5 Maple syrup
3.6 Honey
3.7 Beeswax
3.8 Pine tar
3.9 Rosin
3.10 Paper
3.11 Styrofoam
3.12 Old tires
4.1 Municipal solid waste
4.2 Woodgas
4.3 Biogas
4.4 Natural gas
4.5 Propane
4.6 Butane
4.7 Cooking oil
4.8 Kerosene
4.9 Naptha
4.10 Turpentine
4.11 Gasoline
4.12 Diesel
5.1 Biodiesel
5.2 Glow fuel
5.3 Nitromethane
5.4 Aviation fuel
5.5 Hydrazine
5.6 Heavy fuel oil
5.7 Crude oil
5.8 Tar
5.9 Creosote
5.10 Coal
5.11 Coke
5.12 Oil sand
6.1 Fire ice/clathrate
6.2 Paraffin
6.3 Sterno
6.4 Hexamine tablets
6.5 Alcohol
6.6 Bioethanol
6.7 Beer
6.8 Cider
6.9 Wine
6.10 Aguamiel
6.11 Applejack
6.12 Brandy
7.1 Gin
7.2 Vodka
7.3 Pneumatics
7.4 Hydraulics
7.5 Steam
7.6 Winding spring
7.7 Flywheel
7.8 Wet-cell battery
7.9 Dry-cell battery
7.10 Li ion battery
7.11 Magnetic induction
7.12 Human/muscle power
8.1 Solar
8.2 Wind
8.3 Tidal/wave
8.4 Hydroelectric
8.5 Geothermal
8.6 Water
8.7 Seawater
8.8 Hydrogen
8.9 Slush hydrogen
8.10 Helium
8.11 Deuterium
8.12 Tritium
9.1 Plutonium
9.2 Uranium
9.3 Thorium
9.4 Polonium
9.5 Caesium
9.6 Strontium
9.7 Exhausted fuel rods
9.8 Pelletized nuclear waste
9.9 Gold
9.10 Silver
9.11 Mercury
9.12 Diamonds
10.1 Sapphires
10.2 Quartz
10.3 Obsidian
10.4 Opals
10.5 Pearls
10.6 Amber
10.7 Fossils
10.8 Bones
10.9 Blood
10.10 Ichor
10.11 Memories
10.12 Souls
11.1 People
11.2 Death
11.3 Scarecrows/straw effigies
11.4 Grain offerings
11.5 Libations
11.6 Incense
11.7 Hymns
11.8 Faith
11.9 Terror
11.10 Despair
11.11 Agony
11.12 Joy
12.1 Hope
12.2 Laughter
12.3 Lust
12.4 Gunpowder
12.5 TNT
12.6 Napalm
12.7 Molten salt
12.8 Lava
12.9 Shadows
12.10 Antimatter
12.11 Eggs
12.12 Clam chowder

1d20 Power Sources

1 The heart of a forsaken child, in situ
2 12ccs of joyful tears sealed in a glass vial
3 One irate pixie trapped in a vintage tin film canister
4 Fist-sized Dyson sphere, the internal microsun requires 1 mole of hydrogen fuel a week
5 Briefcase nuke converted into a Stirling engine, can be restored to its original purpose in minutes
6 10' tall, 2' in diameter tapered pillar of polished yggdrasil heartwood
7 Eight-chamber spirit reactor built from interlocking warded ribcages, currently contains 17 distinct ghosts
8 Aluminum motor housing holding a tiny golem who just really loves to spin
9 21 lbs of anti-helium in a magnetically-lined vacuum flask, clearly labeled with MSDS warning symbols
10 Coiled carbon fiber skep housing petrobees built with siphon spigots to non-destructively collect the diesel honey, chance of swarming if handled roughly
11 Perpetual motion core, stops functioning when you try to figure out how it works and resumes when you give up
12 Captive phoenix held in a fireclay aviary
13 Fuel cell housing lightning and water elementals that hate each other
14 3' long copper-capped silver tube packed with pulverized wizard bone, radiates ionizing arcane energy from the ends
15 Divine eyeball excavated from the husk of an old god, it'll want it back when it wakes
16 Potential tsunami caught seconds after its birth, condensed and contained in a blue glass fishing float
17 The Scream Vortex
18 Colony of ants trained t move in synchrony, respond to different chemical signals and expect pure sugar
19 Self-recharging batteries that draw power through a tiny wormhole leading to a light mill stationed just outside a black hole's event horizon
20 Car battery, corroded 12-volt wet cell with sparky cables

1d100 What were they doing when they were petrified?

1 Looking around a corner
2 Peering through a keyhole
3 Opening the door
4 Scanning for danger
5 Searching for traps
6 Triggering a trap
7 Caught in a trap (pinned, impaled, entangled, or partially dismembered)
8 Inspecting a mural
9 Inspecting another petrified figure
10 Pulling a lever/flipping a switch
11 Finally looking up
12 Lighting a torch/lantern
13 Climbing a wall
14 Climbing a ladder
15 Being lowered on a rope
16 Dangling from a handhold/ledge over open air
17 Pulling a cart
18 Lifting something heavy
19 Holding up heavy debris/a falling object to keep it from collapsing
20 Excavating/digging
21 Prospecting
22 Rummaging through a pile/hoard of treasure
23 Carrying loot
24 Fleeing with treasure
25 Trying to sneak away unnoticed
26 Hiding
27 Jumping (parts damaged)
28 Falling (in pieces)
29 Swimming
30 Making camp
31 Hunting
32 Butchering a kill
33 Fishing
34 Foraging for mushrooms/herbs
35 Collecting firewood
36 Picking flowers
37 Cooking
38 Eating a meal
39 Bathing
40 Writing a letter
41 Updating the expedition's logs
42 Updating their map
43 Sketching
44 Preparing their spells
45 Reading
46 Praying
47 Meditating
48 Stretching
49 Playing hacky-sack
50 Playing cards
51 Throwing dice
52 Dancing
53 Singing/playing an instrument
54 Telling a story
55 Talking animatedly with dramatic gestures
56 Arguing fiercely
57 Getting absolutely wasted
58 Stargazing
59 Building a barricade
60 Standing watch
61 Sleeping on their watch
62 Sleeping
63 Taking a shit/piss
64 Getting dressed
65 Donning their armor
66 Pointing and shouting a warning
67 Giving an inspiring speech
68 Drawing their weapon
69 Fighting bravely
70 Fighting another foe (two figures)
71 Swinging from a chandelier
72 Searching for their lost glasses
73 Casting a spell
74 Throwing a grenade (50/50 chance partially obliterated)
75 Diving for cover
76 Rolling out of the way
77 Shoving someone else out of danger
78 Raising their mirrored shield a second too late
79 Getting back to their feet
80 Struggling to break free of a hold
81 Fighting desperately
82 Retreating in good order
83 Carrying a wounded ally (two figures)
84 Dragging a body
85 Holding the door
86 Backing away in horror
87 Running for their life
88 Crawling away
89 Bleeding out
90 Whispering to someone
91 Negotiating a truce
92 Offering up a gift
93 Grovelling
94 Self-sacrificially grappling with the monster (mummified corpse still trapped in their grasp)
95 Delivering a deathblow (monster's bones scattered around them)
96 Just finished casting fireball (gravel, area scorched and vitrified)
97 On their knees, hands on their head
98 Looking too smug
99 Staring right back
100 Calling down an orbital strike (sand and ash-filled crater)

1d60 Ways to Seal a Pact

1 With a firm handshake

2 Giving your word of honor
3 Pinkie swear
4 Sharing a drink
5 Smoking cigars
6 Breaking bread together
7 Going on a vision quest together
8 A hug
9 A kiss
10 A dance
11 Get matching tattoos
12 Get matching brands
13 Tell each other a secret
14 Become blood brothers
15 Sakazuki
16 Trade knives
17 Cut off a finger
18 Cut off a hand
19 An arranged marriage
20 Adoption
21 Exchanging wards
22 Exchanging hostages
23 A toast
24 Publicly exchange oaths
25 Exchanging rings
26 Exchanging personal gifts
27 Publicly exchanging gifts
28 Granting land
29 Hosting a feast
30 Hosting games
31 Ritual combat
32 Swear before a priest
33 Sit vigil
34 Share a pipe
35 Share a series of ceremonial drinks
36 Ritual scarification
37 Ritual mutilation
38 Sacrifice (animal)
39 Sacrifice (sacred animal)
40 Sacrifice (person)
41 Sacrifice (votive offerings)
42 Exchanging collateral
43 A simple contract
44 An absurdly complex clause-ridden contract
45 Notarized affidavits
46 Swear before a magistrate
47 Treaty witnessed by a mediating third party
48 Treaty witnessed by a neutral third party
49 Mutually assured destruction
50 Place your soul in escrow
51 Swear before the bees
52 Give blood, hair, and breath
53 Disclose your True Name
54 Exchange True Names
55 Trade souls
56 Unbreakable geases
57 Psionically-implanted imperatives
58 Retrovirally-spliced genetic killswitches
59 Implanted explosive charges
60 Bomb collars

Cenotaphs

Proxy-tombs like Tombs of the Unknown Soldier and civilian memorials are a near-universal tradition, not just to honor the lost dead but because everyone needs a funeral or they turn into some flavor of undead. Everyone. And when you can't find and lay to rest everyone who was killed, erecting a cenotaph serves as a mass funeral and keeps your countryside from being overrun with ghouls, haints, wights, and the other unquiet dead for generations after every war or natural disaster.

The cenotaph's weakness is that while it does work, it's a patch job. Effective but not final. If you destroy a cenotaph all the spirits it placated wake back up and are even more dangerous, having grown old enough that they're entirely divorced from any lingering humanity or mercy. This makes cenotaph maintenance a vitally important public service and the cenotaphs themselves extremely high-value targets in conflicts.

Large cenotaphs will be better protected than palaces. They'll have dedicated fortified and garrisoned complexes to house them and ideally an associated order of traveling exorcists who seek out lost remains to lay to rest and gradually decrease the cenotaph's spirit burden. In practice effective psychopomp orders are expensive to support and the private mortuary contractor industry is extremely lucrative, so real exorcists are rare.

1d40 Magic Pools

(To roll d40 roll a d20 and d6 together. If the d6 is even, take the value on the d20 as-is. If the d6 is odd, add 20 to the d20's value.)

The pool is a...

1 Natural spring 10' deep, brilliant emerald, and perfectly clear. Breaks curses, lifts enchantments, and physically restores anyone who drink or bathes in it. Undead can't come within 30's of its edge.

2 6' wide man-made well bored 30' into the living rock. The virulently cursed jet black water is perfectly level with the stone rim. Grants immortality to anyone who drinks or bathes in it, but makes them count as undead to magic and anyone they meet. Grants wishes that mostly turn out okay if offered a coin. 13' deep layer of coins at the bottom.

3 Six separate wells carved in a circle, each 7' wide and 11' deep. Full of murky pale green mineral water, blood-warm and breathable. Complete prolonged immersion heals spiritual damage and lifts curses. 1 hour submerged restores 1 point of lost INT, WIS, or CHA. 1 day submerged restores 1 lost level.

4 Perfectly smooth undisturbed pool of violet and black water. Superheated and steaming if you're outside but immediately cool and brisk once you're fully submerged. Portal to hell. Climbing out is a bitch.

5 Shallow 20' square basin of quartz quicksand, each grain a perfectly spherical bead. Moves and ripples on its own. Stills and acts as a scrying mirror when a thinking being touches it. No limit on range.

6 Cement pond choked with royal purple waterlilies. Smell wonderful, have hallucinogenic and euphoric pollen. Swarming with magenta fireflies that sequester arcane power in their bodies. Eating them restores magic but makes your mouth glow neon pink.

7 Muddy pool with irregular banks, full of rust-orange water that smells like iron. Erupts in a geyser every 20 minutes. Turns anything that touches the water inside-out.

8 Convoluted metallic clockwork basin full of light machine oil. Restores anything placed in it by rewinding time. (Has settings to accelerate time too, it's just in reverse gear at the moment.)

9 Five-tiered fountain of faceted crystal running with streams of glowing water. Throws off thousands of tiny rainbows. Water can be bottled and carried as a light source, counts as daylight.

10 10' x 20' rectangular reflecting pool fed by a semi-circular basin fountain mounted on the wall. The sides and bottom are decorated with complex mosaics in all shades of gray. Randomly changes the color of anything that touches it. Leaches all color from items submerged more than 3 times.

11 20' circular well of dressed sandstone blocks full of faintly luminous champagne-colored water. A golden statue of a kneeling man with cupped hands raised to his mouth lies on its side at the bottom. The water turns whatever touches it to solid gold.

12 Deep 40' square pool of viscous wine-red liquid at the bottom of a stepwell. Drinking it has no immediate effect. Resurrects you the next time you die. If there's not enough of your body left to salvage, you're reconstituted in the pool.

13 Small round well of clear cerulean water 20' deep with spools of silver thread lying on the bottom. Contains an underwater labyrinth. You can breathe inside as long as you're holding a spool, but all movement is at underwater speed.

14 Tranquil cattail marsh, knee deep and 150' across full of arrowroot, orchids, and sturdy logs. Home to thousands of tiny wish-granting frogs.

15 Flooded impact scar of a meteor, lined with cracked plates of fused glass and surrounded by gem-quality tektites. The water's contaminated with an extraterrestrial virus that absorbs anyone touching it into a hivemind and dries their blood to powder in a week. Apologetic about it.

16 Average suburban swimming pool with a diving board and robo-skimmer. Strips the magic and enchantments from anything dipped in it, making the object the most mundane and unremarkable version of itself possible. Works on normal decorative details and people's charisma too.

17 Turbid charcoal gray lake, its shores covered in smooth fist-sized stones. Small boats, rafts, and floats rest half-beached at the water's edge. Touching or crossing over the water tears your soul from your body and incarnates it in the form of a symbolically appropriate animal. The change is permanent.

18 Hexagonal pool tiled in mica-flecked black marble with steps leading down into the water. Complete immersion binds a victim's soul inside their body, rendering them unable to die no matter how severe their injuries are.

19 Upwards-pointed parabolic dish of pink granite with a series of tiny mouths carved around the rim. The surface is raised in the concentric circles of a standing wave. Absorbs and records everything said within 100 miles of it. You can hear the recordings clearly if you dunk your head under, just indistinct whispers above the surface.

20 15' wide octagonal pool of crystal clear water decorated with colorful geometric mosaics along the sides and bottom. Looks shallow but is infinitely deep. You can see the bottom perfectly but never reach it.

21 12' long kidney-shaped basin of smooth white porcelain filled with a warm thick sterile saline solution. The sides are gently curved and rise a few feet above the liquid's surface, making it hard to climb out. Increases the size of living things. The effect is more powerful the smaller a creature is. Humans might only grow a few inches while microorganisms become giant.

22 Sandy-bottomed cenote of brackish sea green water thick with bioluminescent kelp that grows back instantly when cut. It's delicious, nutritious, and keeps for months when dried.

23 Plunge pool of a 50' tall waterfall that flows in reverse. Water from the pool reduces gravity's pull on the drinker by half, samples taken from higher in the falls are more powerful. Water from the very top of the falls completely negates gravity.

24 45' wide semicircular wading pool of opaque bubblegum pink serum fed by a rusty pipe coming out of the wall. Turns anything that touches it into stuffed animal version of themselves.

25 Circular bowl-shaped glass font 12' across with waist-high walls full of slowly-churning maple syrup. Occasionally visited by giant ants.

26 Jagged flooded crevasse of dark indigo-black water. The water's alive, actually an elemental in the form of a giant moray eel.

27 Gigantic white marble bathtub with gold faucets and drain plug. Can easily fit 20 people. When full lets you travel to any other body of water. If you have a portion of the tub water kept separate and protected in a container you can return to the tub but otherwise it's a one-way trip.

28 15' x 30' rectangular pool 50' deep and glowing with Cherenkov radiation. The gently-circulating water was originally mundane but has become magical, having been irradiated for centuries by the dozens of magic swords embedded in the pool bottom like spent fuel rods.

29 Natural ground-fed spring of frigid sky-blue water, sand and sediment roiling at the bottom. Occasionally bubbles up random toys.

30 Irregular stone pool of liquid amber with a convoluted bottom of glacier-scoured grooves. Hundreds of prehistoric creatures are suspended inside, held in stasis. They wake within minutes of being pulled from the amber.

31 Septagonal quartzite pool 10' on a side and encrusted with clusters of glittering crystal points. Converts non-mineral material into gem quality crystals of random minerals.

32 Steaming hot spring of milky white water with a metallic sheen. Lets you speak with the dead when the surface is completely still.

33 15' deep crater flooded with luminous silvery water. Curses whoever touches it with lycanthropy. If they've been bitten by something since the last moonrise they become a were-[that creature] instead.

34 Deep cold natural spring festooned with stalactites and stalagmites feeding a subterranean river. Home to a giant catfish named Clement who causes earthquakes when he's upset and accurately predicts the future when he's happy. Will do just about anything for processed fish food pellets and junk food.

35 Round cast iron basin 13' across and 5' deep, coated with an iridescent layer of oil and full of cobalt-tinged flames. Surrounded by neatly tended rows of popcorn.

36 Star-shaped pond full of pearlescent lilac oil that randomly swirls, stops, and reverses direction under its own power. Anything that touches it becomes unstuck in time. No control over the effect at first.

37 Massive 11-sided oak vat made of interlocking staves taken from used barrels and casks. Full of dark beer, the bottom layered with rose gold votive figurines of bundled wheat sheaves. Overpowering smell of baking bread. Home to a displaced harvest goddess.

38 Triangular well 8' on a side with midnight blue water full of floating silver flakes. Transforms the drinker's body into living liquid silver that can shapeshift into any form.

39 Waist-deep white-tiled channel 5' wide cut in a complex meandering loop that covers a 70' x 40' area. The refrigerated opalescent coral fluid circulates through the course in a gentle current. It's a liquid computer that holds massive archives of data from multiple worlds and across millennia. Intelligent, with a true AI and a verbal/holographic interface. Heartbreakingly lonely.

40 Ostentatious multi-tiered platinum fountain with dozens of jets shooting interlacing laminar arcs of water, glittering with threads of shifting color like wisps of ink that never disperse. Reads as extremely magical and makes anything that touches the water also appear to be magic, but doesn't actually do anything. Looks impressive though.

Write It

I spend a lot of time online talking about RPGs and something I hear regularly is that someone will have an idea for a project they want to make, but they aren't doing it because there's something similar that already exists. For example, wanting to make a game about mechs but holding off because Lancer's already out there. And no, that's not how this works. Knock it off.

If you've got an idea for something you want to write, then write it.

It doesn't matter if there's already another game in the same genre or that uses similar themes, make yours. Seriously, stop and think: Can you imagine this happening in any other art form? No movie studio is going to pass on making a spy flick just because there are already James Bond films. Painters don't look at waterlilies and think "Nah, Monet already did it." That's nonsense. Write the thing you want to write. Whether it's a system, an adventure, something small like a blog post or list, just write it and don't worry.

RPGs are a new and wide-open medium. There's plenty of room for everyone to create their own art. Do it. Don't stifle your creativity because you're worried about stepping on toes or that it'd be a waste of time or that you're not good enough to write compared to others. Make your thing and have fun doing it.

It doesn't matter if you're not the best, you don't need to be and you'll only improve as you practice. It doesn't matter if what you make isn't a success, in making it you've developed your skills and honed your taste by seeing what wasn't up to your standards. More importantly, if you enjoyed making the thing then your time wasn't wasted, even if you decide it's a failure in the end. Creativity is worthwhile in itself, not just a means to an end.

It especially doesn't matter if there are similar games out there already. Having multiple interpretations of the same subjects and concepts by different artists is a vital part of art. Having more options and examples of things to read, play, and experience makes the medium richer. It's a good thing. Your work might even inspire others in their turn. Also a good thing.

So stop worrying, take your idea, and write it already.

Experiment: The Tower That Follows You

The Tower That Follows You is something I've always wanted to use in a game. It's exactly what it sounds like, some feature of the world that follows the party and inserts itself into the local landscape as they move. The players can go wherever they like, do whatever adventuring they want, but that Tower is always there. It just shows up, no matter how far they travel. They never have to go in or interact with it if they don't want to, but the option is always there.

It feels like a fun mix of mysterious, ominous, and unsettling.

It's also important to remember that the thing following the party doesn't have to be a tower. I just think of towers as the default because they're dramatic and near impossible to miss looming in the distance. It could be any type of building or location like a dungeon mouth, temple, spooky old manor, or something as simple as a distinctive ornate door that keeps showing up on random walls. It doesn't even need to be man-made. The party could keep running into the same forest clearing with a fairy circle, the same tree, a particular prehistoric standing stone, or just a rip in space-time that keeps appearing.

The key things are that whatever's following is:

1) Conspicuous. Extremely obvious, easily visible, and distinctive so the players can't miss it. The rest of the world might not notice it (or think it's always been there) but the party has to know it's there and be able to recognize it as the exact same feature from past sightings.

2) Ready to go. It needs to be something the party can interact with whenever they decide they've had enough of its malarkey. That means it's got to be fully prepared and ready to run at a moment's notice.

3) A constant and unavoidable presence in the world that confronts the party just by existing. They can choose not to interact with it, but they can't ignore it's there.

The real fun is it might not even be something menacing. They might just have a fan who's a wizard with a mobile tower. No way to know for sure unless they go in and check it out.