Generating Stats: Fool's Roll

The fastest and simplest way to generate stats, but also the most risky.

Roll 6d20 in order.

That's it.

It's quick, it's easy, and it's a gamble. There's no bell curve buffering to protect you and while you might get a 16 to 20, you stand an equal chance of rolling 1 to 4.

It's stupid and fun. Godspeed.

Generating Stats: Narrow Band

This method of generating stats has a linear probability and uses padding to guarantee the values rolled fall within a smaller range than the normal d6 bell curves would produce. It has two variations for a low band or high band.

Low: Roll 6d8 and add 7 to each value. Produces stats between 8 and 15.

High: Roll 6d8 and add 10 to each value. Produces stats between 11 and 18.

You can fiddle with the die size or number added to shift the band around, but a d8 gives the most interesting spread of values while staying within the common 3 to 18 range for stats.

Generating Stats: d6 Bell Curves

Rolling a handful of d6's to generate stats with probabilities on a normal distribution is the classic method. Effectively the oldest way of rolling stats in RPGs and the most common. What I'm interested in is all the variations on "roll Xd6" that have accumulated over the years.

When you pick up your fistful of dice chances are you're using one or more of these: 3d6, 4d6, drop lowest, drop highest, reroll 1's, in order.

*2d6 is used to generate stats too, but it's not technically a bell curve/normal distribution so I'm not including it.

Stats put a character in context with the game world, so tweaking the probabilities of your stats definitely has an effect on how challenging the game will be. Here's how each of these variations alter where the peak of the bell curve falls:

"In order" doesn't do anything to change probabilities, it just requires you to be more creative(?) about the character you're making. You've got fewer options when the stats you're rolling have to be used in sequence so you either run with it or reroll. It's a purely flavor modifier.

3d6 is the plain standard with the highest probability of rolling a 10 or 11. It's why 'average' in D&D is a 10. 4d6's distribution skews higher, with the highest probability rolls in the 13 to 15 range and a much lower chance of rolling single-digit values.

"Drop lowest" is almost always paired with a 4d6 roll and bumps the peak of the bell curve down a little to the 12 to 15 range. A 3d6 drop lowest has 8 to 10 as its most common rolls. It's not an extreme effect on the basic Xd6 rolls.

"Drop highest" on the other hand… It moves the peak of a 4d6 curve way down to the 7 to 9 range, and a 3d6 curve to 4 to 6. It's merciless. I've never played a character made with drop highest rolls, but it sounds fun.

"Reroll 1's" also has an extreme effect on the roll. It pushes the peak of the curve towards higher numbers. On a 3d6 roll the highest probability becomes 11 to 13, a 4d6 drop lowest is 13 to 15, and a 4d6 is 15 to 17. It does exactly what you'd think it would, just by more than I expected.

With those ranges in mind, the order of common d6 roll combos from average lowest to highest is:

1 3d6 drop highest (4-6)
2 3d6 drop highest, reroll 1's (5-8)
3 4d6 drop highest (7-9)
4 3d6 drop lowest (8-10)
5 3d6 drop lowest, reroll 1's (8-11)
6 4d6 drop highest, reroll 1's (9-11)
7 3d6 (10-11)
8 3d6 reroll 1's (11-13)
9 4d6 drop lowest (12-14)
10 4d6 (13-14)
11 4d6 drop lowest, reroll 1's (13-15)
12 4d6 reroll 1's (15-17)

If you want check out the probabilities, here are the calculations I used on anydice to visualize all this.

For 3d6 calcs y = 2, x = 3. For 4d6 calcs y = 3, x = 4.

Plain:
output xd6

Drop lowest:
output [highest y of xd6]

Drop highest:
output [lowest y of xd6]

Reroll 1's:
output xd{2..6}

Drop lowest, reroll 1's:
output [highest y of xdxd{2..6}]

Drop highest, reroll 1's:
output [lowest y of xd{2..6}]

Matrix Rolling

I've said that rolling stats is an important part of character creation, but the actual process of rolling takes time. Not a lot, but in a high-lethality game where you're regularly making new characters (often mid-session) the time spent rolling stats can become a bottleneck.

I use matrix rolling to avoid that delay.

Normally when creating a character you roll 3d6 or 4d6 six times and move on. With matrix rolling you roll 36 times and place the values in a 6x6 grid (aka a matrix).

This gives you 12 possible stat lines to choose from, 6 vertical and 6 horizontal. Whenever you make a character, pick one of the 12 lines and cross it off. Then, when that character meets their horrible end, go back to the grid and pick one of the remaining lines to use in making your next character.

It takes a little extra time to generate the matrix when you start, but it's worth it to be able to jump back into the game faster after being dispatched messily.

This is what a "roll X in order" matrix looks like:

The inner square (blue) is the pattern to fill the grid in; starting in the upper left and going down, wrapping around to the top of each column until you reach the bottom right. The outer numbers (red) are each of your possible stat lines, and the stat names for keeping track of "in order."

Here's an example of how it plays out. I rolled this grid:

Looking at what I got, I'd start by picking the third horizontal row. Cross that line off and make a beefy fighter, Gerald.

After Gerald's tragic demise (eaten by a grue) I decided to play someone brainier who won't bumble alone into the dark, so I grab the sixth vertical row for my new wizard.

(The last 14 is used by both lines. That's fine. Crossing a line off means you can't use that complete set of 6 numbers again. You can still use the individual numbers where different lines intersect.)

And so it goes until all 12 of your pre-rolled stat lines have been used, then you generate another grid's worth. (And wonder why your game is so incredibly lethal. Maybe it's you.)

Thinking About Stats

Most RPGs use stats. They're usually the first thing you do when creating a character and so common that you don't even think about it. When I stop and consider the role stats play in the fabric of an RPG it breaks down to three main things:

Stats are important as benchmarks.
Stats connect a character to the game's world by providing a context for how their skills and abilities fit into that world. RPGs are about having fun while interacting with a fictional world, and stats are the reference point that helps you determine what shape that interaction takes. They guide how your character might face a problem, what sort of solution they would come up with, and how well it would work.

Stats should be random.
Rolling for your character's stats creates challenges for them and sets them up to develop through play. If you wanted to play a wizard but rolled a low INT you have a choice: Reroll your stats until you get a set of numbers you like, or use the low INT and run with it. Be a sadsack wizard who's questing to become more powerful and focus on raising that stat throughout the game. Those decisions can't really come up if you use a non-random method like point buy to generate your stats. Randomness creates more interesting options to play with.

Higher stats aren't better.
Most folks assume players will choose higher stats for their characters if given the opportunity and that higher equals better, but high stats can be boring. Taking risks is part of playing games and where's the risk when you know your rolls will succeed because of your good stats? It's usually more fun to have a solidly mediocre statline and let RP carry the game, abysmally low stats the require extreme cleverness, or a wildly inconsistent assortment of high and low than it is to have high stats across the board.

Tiny Coffins Challenge: December (bonus!)

 Welcome back! This final prompt is:

"undeniable beauty in desolation"

Ice storms are an annual event around here. They're destructive as hell. Freezing rain that coats everything it touches in a glaze of ice. The extra weight breaks trees and pulls down power lines. The ice covering every flat surface makes roads impassable and footpaths a hazard. But when the sun comes out and sparkles through the branches of the trees that are still standing and makes the world look like it's plated in silver, it's still beautiful.

The Triple Door

Made of solid oak with birdseye maple veneer and patinated copper hardware, the Triple Door is a tasteful addition to any dungeon and the ultimate in discontinuous dimensional transportation. The top and bottom halves of this spatially untethered dutch door open onto different places, and lead to a third location when opened together as a unit.

Call 1-800-FUN-HOUS today to discuss financing and schedule your installation!

Troika! Background-Writing Tips

A while ago on the MAC discord server I shared a list of the things I try to do when writing backgrounds for Troika!. I'm posting it again here in case it might be useful to someone and so it's not lost in the scroll of channels.

The best advice on writing backgrounds comes from page 2 of the core rules: "Balance the enjoyment rather than the numbers."

The most important thing is to try and make something that's fun to play as. Something that will spark a player's imagination and inspire ideas about who this person they've rolled is.

Keeping that in mind, here are the rules of thumb that I try to follow when writing backgrounds:

1 Focus on a specific flavor and write only as much as it takes to convey that flavor.
2 Don't repeat information, unless you specifically want to make the repetition a joke or an important detail.
3 Imply information more than you actually write details.
4 When you do give details make them interesting and something that readers wouldn't automatically assume. (ex: An immortal hero background would obviously have a legendary weapon, so don't list their sword in their possessions. Instead list a battered photo album of their past companions.)
5 Don't go overboard with possessions and skills, only give the key elements of the flavor.
6 Only give a special ability if it's vital to enhancing the flavor.
7 Keep the background open enough that it can apply to multiple sequential characters. It's a background for a group/profession of people, not an individual.

Troika! Lists Reference

Troika! only uses d6's which means most of the lists in the game are numbered in base-6 or base-3 instead of base-10. I was curious and felt like doing some basic math, so here's the most common Troika! lists in ascending order by size with how many entries you'll need to write for each noted in base-10. Lists that generate bell curves/standard distributions are noted, the rest produce linear results.

d6 - 6

3d3 - 7, curve

d33 - 9
2d6 - 11, curve
d26 - 12
3d6 - 16, curve
d36 - 18
d66c - 21*
d333 - 27
d66 - 36
d3333 - 81
d666 - 216
d33333 - 243
d6666 - 1296

*d66c is d66 combo, where the order of the numbers rolled doesn't matter (ex: 12 = 21, 23 = 32, 56 = 65, etc.) It's numbered 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 33, 34, 35, 36, 44, 45, 46, 55, 56, 66.

A few more that I find aesthetically displeasing but do exist:

d222 - 8

d226 - 24

d336 - 54

d266 - 72
d366 - 108

Do not do this to yourself:
d66666 - 7776

d66 Elder God Exposure Side Effects

Treat elder gods, their avatars, and spawn like the existential hazards they are. 

They're cosmically awful and unspeakable entities beyond the scope of our reality. Exposure to them is physically dangerous and mutagenic in profound, unpredictable ways. Like standing unshielded in front of a living, baleful sun. 

Elder God Exposure Side Effects (d66)
11 Begin coughing up worms every Ud20 minutes after initial exposure.
12 Eyes skin over and migrate to somewhere else on your body.
13 Fingers begin to split and bud into a fractal net of phalanges.
14 Glowing cilia starts sprouting from your mucus membranes.
15 Perfectly round holes begin appearing on your body 1d3 days after initial exposure. Number increases exponentially after first appearance.
16 Webs of mycelium spread under your skin, fruiting bodies erupt through cracks and shed spores.
21 Your bones slowly transmute into jade ridged with fine networks of spirals.
22 Spontaneous second and third-degree burns forming unknown scripts appear on your skin 2d8 hours after initial exposure.
23 First-degree burns develop on any uncovered skin, immediately begins peeling in thick sheets.
24 Your teeth become deciduous and grow in rows across the roof and floor of your mouth.
25 Salivary glands begin producing silk alongside spit.
26 Begin seeing colors beyond the visible spectrum.
31 Teeth fuse into a single sharp bone ridge.
32 Your flesh automatically grafts itself to other living tissue on contact.
33 Your reflection is replaced by Something Else. Only some people notice the change.
34 Tears replaced by a thin black fluid that clots blood instantly.
35 You can't digest normal food anymore.
36 Blood begins to glow pale violet, pulsing in irregular rhythms.
41 Injuries heal quickly with rusty orange chitin instead of new skin.
42 Bones turn cartilaginous and connective tissues become elastic.
43 Your shadow billows and reaches towards light sources.
44 You can taste electromagnetic fields and radiation.
45 Flesh becomes transparent as glass in irregular blotches.
46 Begin hearing sound frequencies outside the normal human range.
51 Sweat turns pale milky green and corrosive to metals.
52 Fully comprehend every language except your first.
53 Eyes segment into compound eyes surrounded by smaller supplementary ocelli.
54 Begin experiencing detailed, accurate premonitions in dreams.
55 Begin accidentally initiating time loops during periods of high stress.
56 You can hear the things crawling behind the walls of reality and gnawing at the edges.
61 Begin reproducing asexually by budding.
62 You can see and walk through the spaces between acute angles.
63 Bond between spirit and body becomes attenuated.
64 Inanimate objects become warped and gnarled after a few hours in your presence.
65 You can see the things living inside others and behind illusions.
66 Die in 1d3 days, then get back up and continue as normal. Repeat.

Bonus!
* Something begins listening to your prayers and answering.
* Constant awareness of where the god and its children are.

Tiny Coffins Challenge: November

 Welcome back! This month's prompt is:

"deep water, cisterns, and the harvest"

Fall is my favorite time of year. The weather's beautiful, leaves are changing color, and there's all the harvest time celebrations. I try to make it up north to the Lakes at least once during the season each year. When I was little it was Lake Huron and we'd camp and fish for salmon. The past few years it's been Lake Michigan for rock hunting. Standing at the edge of a body of water that huge is peaceful in a way that's hard to describe. A view of nothing but water across the entire horizon. It's beautiful enough to make you forget just how many ships and people the Lakes have swallowed over the centuries.

Two-Part Potions

Most potions are pre-mixed concoctions with an indefinite shelf life. These ones are extremely volatile and have to be stored as separate reagents until they're ready to be used, then you mix them together and stand back. They're perfectly safe if you follow the directions and are careful. Really. Don't worry about it.

Casting Putty (Copy Paste)
Comes in a kit containing: 1 mixing cup, 1 stir stick, 1 gallon jug of liquid putty precursor (Cherenkov blue), 1 eyedropper bottle of curing reagent.
Fill the mixing cup with liquid putty to the fill line and add exactly 7 drops of curing reagent. Stir until the mixture becomes thick and gray, then pour over the item you want to make a mold of. The putty will spread itself evenly over the object and harden into a thin, translucent shell before cracking away in neat sections.
To create your castings remove the original object and reassemble the shell sections. The empty mold-shell will create a superficially perfect duplicate of the original object in any material you request. It cannot reproduce internal structures or moving parts. One mold-shell can produce 1d12 duplicates before crumbling to dust. Each kit has material to create 6 mold-shells.

Onmihesive
Packaged in metal boxes with hinged lids and two compartments. One holds a screw-lid can of glue and the other a small atomizer bottle of catalyst.
Coat the surfaces you want to bond with a thin layer of glue using the brush on the inside of the can's lid. Spray the surfaces with catalyst, then press together and hold in place until cured.
Omnihesive creates a literally unbreakable bond, gloves are highly recommended. Open time is 6 seconds.

Hypermelt
Distributed in flexible plastic tubes protected inside a heavy-duty metal outer tube with a screw-off top. The inner tube contains a soup of reagents and sealed glass ampules of catalyst. One end is prominently marked with arrows, indicating the plastic there is thinner, designed to dissolve first so you can direct the acid spray.
Remove the inner tube from the outer metal casing and activate it by bending it until the glass ampules crack. (Be sure to break them all for best results.) Shake until warm, then point the end marked with arrows at the object you want to destroy. If the tube doesn't start spraying acid within 10 seconds or becomes uncomfortably hot, drop it and run.
Hypermelt is an aggressive, explosive acid that will dissolve practically anything, even magic, and the few things it can't destroy it corrodes into ruin. Don't touch the residue, don't breathe the fumes. Gloves are useful for moral support, but functionally useless. One tube can dissolve up to 100 cubic feet of material.

Mixtanium (Viridian Stuff)
Packaged as two sticks of clay, 1 yellow (2lb) and 1 blue (1lb), wrapped in resealable plastic film inside a plastic tube.
Mix 1 part blue to 2 parts yellow until soft and evenly green. Apply to the item you want to mend and/or sculpt as desired and allow to cure.
Mixtanium is a space-filling adhesive putty that can be easily shaped and is indestructible once cured. The cured putty isn't magical, but reacts to detection spells as if it were. Curing time is 12 minutes. Harmful if swallowed.

Orange Stuff (Liquid Dragon)
Comes in a sturdy cardboard box. Two bricks of firm clay, 1 red (12oz) and 1 yellow (12oz), individually wrapped in reusable metal foil.
Mix equal amounts of red and yellow until evenly orange and warm. Apply to the surfaces you want to weld, press together (clamp if necessary), and retreat to a safe distance.
Orange Stuff is a self-igniting pyrotechnic compound used for welding in remote locations. It burns hot as dragonfire and will weld any metal (or slag anything else). It works underwater and cannot be smothered. Do not use in enclosed spaces. Wash hands thoroughly after use. Working time from activation to ignition is 6 minutes.

Why Bottles?

The default form for potions is a drinkable liquor in a small glass bottle, like a vintage medicine bottle. The description of the liquid and bottle's decoration can be anything, but usually it still boils down to some sort of liquid-in-a-tiny-bottle. It doesn't have to be though. Instead:

This potion is (in a)… (d20)
1 Perfume/cologne
2 Lip balm
3 Eye drops
4 Snuff
5 Blotting paper
6 Syringe
7 Inhaler
8 Breath spray
9 Gel capsules
10 Lozenges
11 Gummies
12 Juice box
13 Milk carton (individual serving)
14 Can (carbonated)
15 Wine bottle (3 servings)
16 Amphora (12 doses)
17 Lidded styrofoam cup (served hot)
18 Thermos
19 Plastic bag with a straw
20 Honeycomb

Taxidermied Animals

Need a stuffed critter for a curio cabinet, parlor decor, or just general odd treasure? I got you covered.

Quality (d36)

11 There's no hint this was ever an animal
12 Can't tell what animal it was
13 You feel embarrassed for the animal
14 Terrible
15 Bad
16 Kind of unsettling
21 A little rough around the edges
22 Acceptable
23 Clearly made with a lot of care by a beginner
24 Good, but the eyes are wrong
25 Good
26 Well-made but with subtly wrong proportions
31 Skillful
32 Incredible
33 A remarkably fluid and natural composition
34 A masterpiece
35 Are you sure it's not actually alive?
36 I swear it just moved!

How are they posed? (d66)

11 Head trophy mount
12 Skull only
13 Skeleton only
14 Hide only
15 Preserved in a jar
16 Standing
21 Standing on two legs
22 Sitting
23 Stretching
24 Laying down
25 Sleeping
26 Lying in wait
31 Jumping
32 Pouncing on another animal
33 Chasing another animal
34 Eating another animal
35 Roaring
36 Playing
41 Flying
42 Doing circus tricks
43 Juggling knives
44 Dancing
45 Driving
46 Wearing a suit
51 Giving a lecture to an audience
52 Lying in a suitable coffin
53 Playing in an orchestra
54 Playing cards
55 Playing charades
56 On a game show
61 Attending a dinner party
62 Reading
63 Dueling
64 Jousting
65 Fighting a battle
66 Made into tasteless furniture

Animals (d666)

111 Aardvark
112 Albatross
113 Alpaca
114 Anglerfish
115 Anole
116 Anteater
121 Ant
122 Axolotl
123 Badger
124 Banana slug
125 Barracuda
126 Bat
131 Bearded dragon
132 Beaver
133 Bigfoot
134 Bighorn sheep
135 Bird-eating spider
136 Bison
141 Black bear
142 Blue whale
143 Bluebird
144 Boar
145 Bobcat
146 Bullfrog
151 Bumblebee
152 Buzzard
153 Camel
154 Canary
155 Cane toad
156 Capybara
161 Cassowary
162 Cat
163 Cheetah
164 Chickadee
165 Chicken
166 Chimpanzee
211 Chinchilla
212 Chipmunk
213 Chupacabra
214 Cicada
215 Coati
216 Cobra
221 Cockroach
222 Coconut crab
223 Condor
224 Cormorant
225 Cow
226 Coyote
231 Crab
232 Crane
233 Crayfish
234 Crocodile
235 Crow
236 Cuttlefish
241 Deep sea isopod
242 Deer
243 Dikdik
244 Dog
245 Dragonfly
246 Duck
251 Eagle
252 Echidna
253 Eel
254 Egret
255 Elephant
256 Elk
261 Emu
262 Ermine
263 Ferret
264 Flying fox
265 Fox
266 Garter snake
311 Gazelle
312 Gecko
313 Gerbil
314 Giant clam
315 Giant hornet
316 Giant squid
321 Gila monster
322 Goat
323 Goldfinch
324 Goose
325 Gorilla
326 Green heron
331 Grizzly bear
332 Grouper
333 Hare
334 Hawk
335 Hellbender
336 Hognose snake
341 Horny toad
342 Horse
343 Horsefly
344 Human
345 Hummingbird
346 Hyena
351 Ibex
352 Ibis
353 Iguana
354 Jackalope
355 Jaguar
356 Jellyfish
361 Jumping spider
362 Kingfisher
363 Kiwi
364 Koala
365 Lemur
366 Leopard frog
411 Leopard seal
412 Lion
413 Llama
414 Lobster
415 Loris
416 Lynx
421 Manatee
422 Manta ray
423 Mink
424 Mola
425 Monitor lizard
426 Monkey
431 Moose
432 Moray
433 Mountain goat
434 Mouse
435 Mudpuppy
436 Narwhal
441 Nautilus
442 Newt
443 Nutria
444 Ocelot
445 Octopus
446 Okapi
451 Orb weaver
452 Orangutan
453 Orca
454 Oryx
455 Ostrich
456 Otter
461 Owl
462 Ox
463 Painted turtle
464 Panda
465 Parrot
466 Peacock
511 Peccary
512 Penguin
513 Pheasant
514 Pike
515 Pillbug
516 Pine marten
521 Platypus
522 Poison dart frog
523 Polar bear
524 Porpoise
525 Possum
526 Preying mantis
531 Pronghorn
532 Pufferfish
533 Puma
534 Python
535 Quail
536 Rat
541 Raccoon
542 Rattlesnake
543 Rhinoceros
544 Rhinoceros beetle
545 Robin
546 Salmon
551 Scarab
552 Sea cucumber
553 Sea turtle
554 Sea urchin
555 Seagull
556 Seahorse
561 Sealion
562 Serval
563 Shark
564 Sheep
565 Shrike
566 Skink
611 Sloth
612 Snail
613 Snapping turtle
614 Snow leopard
615 Softshell turtle
616 Sparrow
621 Sperm whale
622 Spider crab
623 Spring peeper
624 Squirrel
625 Starfish
626 Stickbug
631 Sturgeon
632 Sunbear
633 Swallow
634 Tarantula
635 Tiger
636 Toad
641 Tortoise
642 Treefrog
643 Vole
644 Vulture
645 Walrus
646 Whelk
651 Wild turkey
652 Wildebeest
653 Wolf
654 Wombat
655 Woodchuck
656 Woodpecker
661 Wren
662 Yak
663 Zebra
664 Chimera - Roll x2 and combine
665 Chimera - Roll x3 and combine
666 Two-headed [roll again]

Guardian Trees

The Coin Tree

A holy cypress, the eldest tree in a sacred grove, stands a short walk off the road. Over the centuries generations of travelers and locals have driven a fortune of coins into the trunk and lower branches for luck. Its bole glimmers in the sunlight that filters through the canopy, more metal than wood. Below the soil its roots are carved with sigils that can still be made out, if the leaf litter is cleared away and one takes the time to decipher the healed scars left on the bark.

The coin tree is studded with 7000 GP worth of coins in mixed currencies. They can be retrieved if you spend a month prying them out of the wood, or the raw metal can be collected from the ashes if you cut the tree down and burn it.

The tree is a fairly famous shrine. Locals and travelers passing by will attack anyone defacing it.

Killing the tree will wake and free the malicious entity it was imprisoning. The entity will feel indebted to whoever releases it and will try to fulfill one minor wish. If you don't use the wish immediately, it will follow you until you do. If you don't use the wish within a month, the entity will become aggressive and start trying to force you to wish so it can discharge its debt.

The wish will be fulfilled in the spirit it's intended, no monkey's paws.

Once the wish is granted and the entity is completely freed it will roam, spreading chaos and indiscriminately slaughtering anything in its path. There's a good chance it will come after the ones who released it because they know what it is and where it came from.

The Entity

Amorphous shadow form. 8 HD, gains 1 HD with each kill. Fear gaze attack, grappling tentacles, 1d12 slashing attack. 3 attacks per turn, +5 to hit, move 50'.

The entity can be sealed away by creating a new holy tree. The party must discover the sigils carved into the roots of the original tree, replicate them on another living tree, and force (or trick) the entity to touch it. As soon as the entity touches the holy tree it will be safely imprisoned again.

The Rag Tree

A gnarled, knotty hawthorn growing on the shore of a perfectly clear spring. Its branches are tied with bright ribbons and strips of cloth, left as offerings for healing or charms against misfortune.

Once a month you can cure a wound or lift a curse by leaving an offering on the tree. Tie a piece of cloth onto a branch and prick a finger on one of the thorns (1d4 damage). By the end of the next day you'll be healed.

If you can remove one of the cloths without being pricked by any thorns (DEX save), it will act as an amulet against whatever misery it was offered to cure. Its power lasts for a month once removed from the tree and will protect its bearer three times. It visibly wears and becomes tattered as it ages or is used.

Protects Against:

1. Poison
2. Harm (wounds)
3. Sickness
4. Paralysis
5. Ambush
6. Death
7. Theft
8. Curses
9. Haunting (incorporeal things)
10. Fear
11. Scrying
12. Possession (and mind control)

Damaging the tree in any way will unleash the stored curses on the vandals, one after another. Gain a new random curse each month. The curses stack and cannot be removed with offerings to the tree.

The Iron-Bound Oak

A massive hollow oak bound in iron bands and chains to keep the sundered trunk from splitting further and falling to pieces. A thick ring of black iron is set in the earth five feet out from the trunk and supports a simple iron post and chain fence that circles the tree to keep people back. The townsfolk have many conflicting stories about the tree but they all agree that you don't go there at night, don't touch the iron, and if something calls to you from within the hollow, don't answer.

The grove where the iron-bound oak grows is an hour walk outside of town. It and the surrounding woods are peaceful, but subtly wrong. There are no wild animals within a quarter mile of the tree. Domesticated animals will refuse to go beneath the oak's branches.

Passing beyond the iron chain and going into the trunk has a chance of transporting you to another plane or an alternate reality.

Time Entering Trunk Transported Elsewhere (roll d% under)

Day                  36

Night              51

Dusk or Dawn          76

Full or New moon         100 (Bon voyage!)

Returning through the tree is possible only on the full and new moons. (Roll d% under 3 to return.)

Sometimes things emerge from the tree and are trapped inside the circle of the chain fence. They will ask anyone present to help them get out. Mortals who answer or speak to them are enthralled (WIS save) and forced to switch places with them inside the tree.

Maintaining the iron bands and fence circle is a traditional part of the town's summer festival. The ritual work is done at high noon on the solstice and has been performed faithfully every year for as long as anyone can remember. The idea of not inspecting the tree or even delaying the festival by a day is horrifying to the townsfolk, though none of them are able to explain exactly why.

Tiny Coffins Challenge: October

 Welcome back! This month's prompt is:

"cool nights, bonfires, and the full moon"

Campfires are a family tradition. I learned how to build, light, keep, and safely extinguish fires almost as soon as I was big enough to carry a bucket of water. Growing up we had a dug-in fire circle in the backyard that we used constantly. Build a fire, let it burn down and cook dinner over the coals, then build it back up at sunset and relax while watching the bats fly. I miss it now that I've moved away. There's no place to responsibly light and feed a fire around here.

Mean Suckers

These semi-magical creatures are voracious emotivores that draw out and consume pettiness, cruelty, the will to maintain grudges, and other emotions considered "mean." They're drawn to people and only exist in locations where there's a population large enough to be "mean" on a scale sufficient to sustain them. One or two are common in small cities while a metropolis may support over a dozen. In those numbers Mean Suckers are a natural and beneficial part of a city's ecosystem, but more than that is cause for alarm.

Populations affected by a Mean Sucker infestation are blank and listless, exhausted by the over-consumption of their emotions. Governments consider the apathy and lack of desire to upset the status quo extremely convenient and regularly import Mean Suckers from elsewhere in attempts to create artificial infestations and bolster their power.

Fortunately Mean Suckers are delicate and easily dispatched, as long as you can muster the energy to swing something heavy at them. It's a shame they're so cute.

Note: Mean Sucker blood is only a powerful euphoric after proper processing. Don't consume it raw.

How to Roll a d4

d4s need more love. They're delightful, solid dice and the best way to generate probabilities in 25% intervals. Yet they seem to be everyone's least favorite dice for two main reasons:

1) They're stabby,

This is a feature, not a bug.

2) They don't roll well.

I won't deny it. The d4's combo of acutely-angled edges and a low center of gravity prevents it from tumbling nicely when thrown in a normal roll, so you end up with that disappointing flop-slide we're all familiar with. The way to avoid that is to modify how you throw them.

A traditional dice roll is a low-angle throw that relies on the die's momentum and friction with the table surface to make it tumble and randomize. Works great for d6s and the rounder dice like d12s and d30s, but not for the elegantly stable shape of the d4. Instead of relying on a roll across the table, you need to make them bounce and tumble to get randomized before they hit the table.

You can do that by using a dice cup or tower, but the easiest way to do it is just shake the dice in your cupped hands to get some randomization, then throw them in an arc up instead of the normal straight-line toss. Your goal is to have the dice tumble in the air, then hit the table at as close to a 90 degree angle as possible so they bounce. You could even just drop them if you did a thorough shake first.

It works great. Try it. Do a few practice throws right now.

See? It's satisfying.

Now go and have fun with your d4s. Teach others what you've learned and maybe one day we'll live in a world where the d4 is only criticized for being stabby. (Because they are and always will be.)

What is Common?

The usual explanations I see for what Common is and why there's this one language that everyone seems to share are:

• It's a standardized trade tongue.
• It's the official language of whatever empire/nation/state/culture you're in.
• It's what humans speak, and they get everywhere so everyone else learns it in order to tell them to leave.

I don't particularly like any of those. They don't appeal to me, so here's my explanation: Common is the language of adventurers.

It's a professional language full of specialized jargon oriented around travel, exploration, delving, fighting, supplies, logistics, and contract law. You know it because you're an adventurer. Your colleagues know it because they're adventurers. The people you talk to (innkeepers, merchants, guides, nobles, etc.) know it because they regularly work with adventurers and need to communicate specifics while doing business.

When you're not talking about the job, you don't speak Common. It might have words for whatever the topic of conversation is, but that's for work. You have to maintain your professional boundaries. The random people you encounter during the day don't speak Common to each other or when they go home, they only speak it to you during the course of business. It only seems like everyone speaks Common regularly because your character is an adventurer and has an adventurer's view of the world.

It makes sense because adventuring is an exceptionally hazardous profession. You need fast, clear communication in the life or death situations you run into. There's no room for misunderstandings or hesitation. 

You need to be absolutely clear about contracts and exactly what you're being hired to do. (Nobles appreciate it because they don't want the party of people who can probably destabilize their realm to feel cheated, come back, and overthrow them.)

You need to be specific about the gear you purchase to make sure it'll be adequate for your nonstandard  needs. (Merchants appreciate it because adventurers are good repeat customers and they really don't want a party of vengeful survivors coming back because their gear failed them in the field.)

So you all speak the Common adventuring language to hash out details and make sure you're all on the same page.

Tiny Coffins Challenge: September

 Welcome back! This month's prompt is:

"decay, fungi, and transformation"

I like decay. Signs of wear and tear on everyday items, dilapidation and visible repairs on old things, and the way places and artifacts fall apart when they're abandoned. There are so many flavors of rot. Fallen trees festooned with mushrooms and bracket fungus, the wood still holding its shape but soft enough to push a finger into. Forgotten sheds and junked cars slowly being torn apart by plants and rusting away to nothing. Abandoned factories caving under their own weight as the elements eat them away. The endless variety of ways that it can happen is fascinating to watch.

Cursebreaker Gardeners

The devotees of the Order of the Enfolding Root have a sacred duty, laboring to disenchant and defuse curses on the blasted ground of magical wastelands. They work tirelessly, cultivating the land in careful phases and cycling through curated seed libraries in terminally ambitious projects of reclamation.

The Work starts with innately magical plants that can withstand the intense arcane residue. As the soil's taint decreases they're followed by plantings of hardy mundane cultivars, flowers, grasses, and finally crops.

A reclamation can take years, a lifetime, even multiple generations to realize. Successful efforts usually end in fallow fields and tracts of wilderness that are strange, bearing the faded scars of magic but no longer virulently cursed.

Etiquette For In-Person Games

When I started playing RPGs, games were in-person events. The tools and resources for playing online in real time didn't exist yet, so everyone got together at someone's house and played. (If you were lucky enough to have other players living nearby.) I don't miss those days. Voice and video chat, virtual tabletops, and the ability to find other players from all around the world are absolutely improvements on how it used to be.

Online games are a different experience from in-person though. Not better, different. With different sets of logistical complications to deal with in order to run a smooth session.

The availability of online groups combined with pandemic conditions and the world being what it is means there's a proportion of players who've never actually played in person before. And for those who have, pandemic conditions may have made you rusty. Since folks are starting to gather and play in person again (which I think is unwise) here are a few things to keep in mind to help you be a considerate player and friend in meatspace.

(Most of this is basic etiquette and common sense you probably already know. It would apply to any social situation just as well.

This is also advice about managing to exist together in physical proximity, not about playing the game. The basics of playing (taking turns, respecting x-cards/lines and veils/boundaries, making sure everyone's having fun, etc.) don't change and are even more important in person than when playing online. Don't be a jerk. If someone around you is being a jerk, stop them.)

Commitments, scheduling, and communication:

Scheduling multiple adults to do something together is a feat. Scheduling them to do it in person on a regular basis is a miracle. If you're invited to a meatspace game be sure you can actually commit to show up, especially if there wouldn't be enough people to play without you. Everyone understands that things happen and real life takes priority over games; but if you're going to regularly miss sessions let the rest of the group know so they can bring in more players to have a reliable group size or bow out.

Also, if you join a game and realize you're not enjoying playing, bow out. You can always come back for a different game later, don't force yourself to play if you're not feeling it. Your time is valuable too.

Be on time. You don't need to be perfectly punctual, but try to arrive within 15 minutes of the planned time and let the group know if you're running late. It's fine if you're late, things happen, just make sure to communicate with your group so they don't worry about you. They're your friends, they'll worry.

If you have to cancel or reschedule give as much advance warning as you can. Let your folks know what's going on and don't feel bad about asking for a schedule change if you need one, just try to give the rest of your group as much time to plan as possible.

TL;DR: To play in person folks have to travel, spend money on fuel and transportation, haul stuff around, and get back home. It's more of an effort to organize and more of an inconvenience to change plans unexpectedly, so be considerate. Respect your friends' time and communicate as much as you can if plans change.

Table manners:

There's a finite amount of room when you're playing in person. Be aware of how much table space you're using and try to make sure no one is too crowded. Try to bring as little stuff as possible, only what you'll actually use, and if you're not actively using something don't keep it on the table. Put it by your chair or against the wall where you can grab it if you need it, but it's not taking up table space.

Be proactive about messes. Watch your drink, watch other people's drinks. Watch your snacks, crumbs, and greasy fingers. Clean the table thoroughly before you set up for game, especially if you all ate there first. We all know how expensive these books are, and how many of them are out of print and literally irreplaceable. Do everything you can to not destroy your friends' stuff. The easiest way to do that is just to pay attention and think ahead. Watch your elbows. Keep drinks away from things a spill would damage. Use coasters. Consider what could go wrong and be ready to respond to other folks' messes too. Have a roll of paper towels on or near the table at all times, I'm not kidding.

Try not to distract from the game. No one is going to be completely focused on the game for the entire session and it would be unreasonable to expect that; but don't hand your phone across the table to share a meme while folks are in the middle of something. Wait for a lull or a break. If you're going to use electronics at the table, wear headphones or make sure your devices are muted. Online it's not a big deal, but in person it can make it very hard for folks who have trouble focusing to enjoy the game. Do your best to help make sure your friends have fun.

TL;DR: Make an effort to be self-aware and look out for your friends.

You got this. Be excellent to each other and have fun!

Tiny Coffins Challenge: August

 Welcome back! This month's prompt is:

"seeking to escape the relentless sun"

While it's the source of all life on earth, never forget the sun is a giant self-sustaining thermonuclear reaction that eternally screams at us in an unending electromagnetic barrage. It hates us and being out in its light is cumulatively bad for you.

Meringue

Meringue is a little egg, aware and friendly inside her shell. One day she'll hatch into something, but until then she needs to be kept warm and protected from getting squished.

"She's wiggling again."
Meringue can sense when invisible, magical, and concealed things are near and wiggles in response. She doesn't need eyes to help her friends.

"Hey, is that a crack?"
Meringue starts with a d30 usage die. Roll every time she detects something. When the die is depleted she hatches into a…

1 Duck
2 Goose
3 Swallow
4 Kestrel
5 Falcon
6 Owl
7 Hummingbird
8 Heron
9 Cormorant
10 Kingfisher
11 Sandpiper
12 Kiwi
13 Cassowary
14 Velociraptor
15 Ankylosaurus
16 Caiman
17 Iguana
18 Gecko
19 Tortoise
20 Rat snake
21 Python
22 Stick bug
23 Stag beetle
24 Preying mantis
25 Jumping spider
26 Fly
27 Dragonfly
28 Moth
29 Bumblebee
30 Wasp

If you roll an insect, roll a d8 to see if she's:
1-3 Normal-sized
4-5 Cat-sized
6 Dog-sized
7 Human-sized
8 Horse-sized

Tiny Coffins Challenge: July

 Welcome back! This month's prompt is:

"disguises, sacrifice, and a snare drawing closed"

I have a lot of memories of my dad getting bit by snakes. When I was little we'd go on family hikes in the woods and I'd catch animals along the way. Mostly toads, turtles, and bugs. The only snakes I was allowed to catch were garter snakes, because they're not likely to bite and are easy for a kid to identify. Dad would catch all the rest. He'd scramble down a river bank and come back up with a water snake wrapped around his arm and its teeth sunk into his finger, then tell me how its anticoagulant saliva worked. There are lots of local species I've only been able to see up close because he was willing to get bit, scratched, or stung in order to catch and bring them to me. Thanks dad.

d100 Dragon Hoards

Dragons have no need for gold and the other shiny baubles valued by the infant, ephemeral civilizations that grow and die around them. They amass vast, exquisitely-curated collections of whatever appeals to them, disdaining any judgment but their own.

1) Uranium glass
2) Teapots
3) Classic cars
4) Flags and banners
5) Stuffed animals
6) Taxidermied animals
7) Cameras
8) Items decorated with the Solo Jazz motif
9) Other people's scrapbooks
10) Vintage computers
11) Radio equipment
12) Remote-controlled vehicles
13) Trading cards
14) Buttons
15) Cardboard standees
16) Quilts
17) Handwoven rugs and carpets
18) Silkworms
19) Tropical fish and coral
20) Vinyl records
21) Scissors
22) Hand tools
23) Stained glass
24) Pillows
25) Dogs
26) Mirrors
27) Clocks and timepieces
28) Cardboard boxes
29) Bubblewrap
30) Marbles
31) Souvenir snowglobes
32) Fridge magnets
33) Collectible lunchboxes
34) Birdfeeders
35) Prisms and suncatchers
36) Art supplies
37) Thimbles
38) Pewter figurines
39) Half-filled diaries
40) Enamel pins
41) Retro videogame consoles
42) Pinball machines
43) Arcade cabinets
44) Eggs
45) Haute couture
46) Bouncy balls
47) Office supplies and stationery
48) Fountain pens
49) Trophies and ribbons
50) Houseplants
51) Boardgames
52) Comic books
53) Seeds
54) Garden gnomes
55) Wind chimes
56) Skeletons
57) Candles
58) Heavy construction equipment
59) Forklifts
60) Jean jackets
61) Blank notebooks
62) Bells
63) Seashells
64) Puzzles
65) Fossils
66) Paperback potboilers
67) Home movies
68) Musical instruments
69) Accordions
70) Novelty telephones
71) Neon signs
72) Stickers
73) Vintage televisions
74) Trampolines
75) Slugs
76) Blacklight posters
77) Circus memorabilia
78) Psychedelics
79) Cool rocks
80) Personal aircraft
81) Maps 
82) Autographs 
83) Secret family recipes
84) Bottles
85) Pinecones
86) Driftwood
87) Graphic tees
88) Kawaii mascot merch
89) Fanfic
90) Gossip
91) Virtual pets
92) Beadwork
93) Lamps
94) Doll houses
95) Weird fiction
96) Withdrawn library books
97) Fancy soaps
98) Hand-knit socks
99) Furniture
100) Postcards and letters from pen pals

Ghost Livestock

These strange creatures resemble animal skeletons wrapped in hazy, transparent ghost flesh. They're the same as normal livestock in their care and behavior, and are raised for their intensely magical meat and byproducts.

The only difference between ghost livestock and their mundane cousins is in how they reproduce. They don't breed. After being slaughtered the bones must be scoured and sheltered from the sun. If the skeleton is complete, undamaged, and perfectly clean a new ghost animal will rise in three nights. It won't be the same creature as before, though it shares the same skeleton.

No one knows where the come from, only how to care for them.

Thinking About Wards

Warding is one of my favorite types of magic. It's extremely flexible and there are so many flavors that it's easy to work into just about anything. I'm always disappointed when games reduce warding to basic shields and 'protection from'-type spells, or ignore it in favor of flashy destructive magic. Immolating your foes at will isn't always the answer. It's practically boring compared to setting guardian spirits behind you to tear apart your pursuers.

I boiled down the different variations of wards I've seen and came up with six general types that spells tend to resemble. Description and flavor-wise a spell could be anything, but the effects and power sources usually fall into at least one of these main categories:

1) Creates a physical barrier that intruders can't pass. This is stuff like magic circles and boundary stones that exclude or contain entities. Anything trying to get into or escape the warded area runs into a solid wall of force that keeps them from entering or leaving the space.

2) Repels intruders with the sight or physical properties of an object. This is "garlic repels vampires" and "fae can't touch iron"-type stuff. There's not a physical force keeping intruders out, but they're blocked by the properties of whatever's set out along the boundary. It might have an actual effect or the intruder might just believe it does, but it's more applied folklore than magic.

3) Repels intruders by invoking a Power to protect the space. This is when the warded area is guarded by a god or guardian spirit that the caster has politely asked to help. Anything that tries to get in either can't, gets thrown out, or has to fight the guardian entity. The key thing is that the guardian is helping because of an entreaty from the caster, not compulsion.

4) Tethers a force to guard a space. This is stuff like the spirits of ancient warriors bound to statues in a tomb to guard it forever. It's the same as 3, except the guardian(s) is there and acting the way they are because of a compulsion from the ward's magic.

5) Makes an area actively hostile to intruders. Things like holy ground or threshold magic, where an intruder either can't enter at all without an invitation or are severely weakened while inside the bounds of the ward. May also burst into flames.

6) Acts as an alarm. Intruders can pass across freely, but it pings the caster or otherwise records their presence. Sometimes acts as a trigger for other spells.

That's it. There are your archetypes. You can break down most types of protective magic and they'll fit into one or more of them. Try it out.

I also thought about why warding regularly gets downplayed or entirely overlooked in games and settled on two main reasons:

First, cowardice. Like I said before, warding is extremely flexible. Your options for using it change with each new space you visit. Codifying how the magic could potentially interact with different architectural elements vs things inside rooms vs open space in a way that produces satisfying rules would be an effort. So designers don't and we end up with boring and generic protection spells. Cowardice. There's no need for that level of exactness and specificity in rules, just give the players things and trust them to have fun.

Second, flavor. Warding is usually complex, static magic with (by definition) sharply marked boundaries. Making wards takes careful planning, time, and precise spellwork because they're supposed to be major enduring pieces of protection. It gives you things like castle cities where the wards have been active for centuries, family homesteads protected over generations, and magic barriers in the far-off wilderness that have barred monsters since before living memory.

It's good stuff and works great for locations the players might visit, but not so well for the players themselves while they're on the road adventuring. Any wards players might use in the field would have to be made fast. Improvised work cobbled together from whatever was lying around or in their pockets. Protections that would serve to secure a campsite for a few days or seal an area of the dungeon so nothing can sneak up on them, but that wouldn't last long after the party leaves.

In that spirit, here are some ephemeral wards made from basic supplies that can be easily carted around and deployed as needed.

1d12 Ephemeral Wards
1) Water from a holy lake or well. Works until it evaporates.
2) Blessed bones. Animal? Human? Something else? Yes! Each have a spirit bound to it that awakens and attacks when an intruder comes within range.
3) A stone. Seal evil entities by way of plonking a big rock on them.
4) Teeth. Summons a ghostly maw to devour unwelcome visitors.
5) Smoke. Creates solid walls of haze between fires burning at the edges of the safe zone.
6) Carved pebbles. Put them in conspicuous places around the area, the sigils on them repel interlopers.
7) A design of footprints pressed into the dirt by dance. Creates a palisade of invisible spikes from each print.
8) Sootblack collected from a sacred fire. A figure made of greasy lampblack tirelessly pursues anyone who crosses the ward's perimeter.
9) Fallen leaves arranged in careful patterns and drifts. Forcefully imparts the idea of gravity to pin anyone who enters the space uninvited.
10) Chunks of empty honeycomb. Houses a swarm of spectral bees. If anything passes by they fly to warn the caster with a waggle dance.
11) Holy texts. Stack them like bricks into a solid wall that'll seal doors and portals.
12) Braided cord made of hair. Delicate and so fine it's almost invisible. If anything breaks it, it starts screaming and won't stop.

(If you'd like more stuff in this vein, Luke Gearing's created a magnificent batch of wards that I absolutely love.)

Tiny Coffins Challenge: June

 Welcome back! This month's prompt is:

"the first signs of your efforts coming to fruition"

I grow morning glories every year. I've grown the same seedline for almost a decade now, collecting seeds to plant again each spring. The plants I have now are exceptionally hardy because I'm a neglectful gardener. Only the ones who can withstand regular droughts and bad soil make it to flower. I still worry though, mostly about the newly-sprouted seedlings. Will they survive frosts? Is their soil draining properly so their roots don't rot? Do they actually need fertilizer this year? It's not until about June when the vines have climbed onto the trellis and started flowering that I can be sure something won't go terribly wrong.

1d20 Ways to get the demon's attention

1 Call their name three times

2 Say their name

3 Think their name

4 Look in a mirror, any mirror

5 Compliment them out loud

6 Insult them out loud

7 Go on down to the crossroads and make your presence known

8 Talk to the doll they gave you

9 Write your request on an offering and burn it

10 Submit a request for audience in triplicate via courier imp

11 Turn around

12 Close your eyes

13 Go to sleep

14 Pour a drink

15 Put out a plate of cookies

16 Call them up, they've got a cellphone

17 They prefer texts

18 Email works best

19 Just talk to them, they're accompanying you on your journey

20 No need, they're always watching

Message for you

Message is a classic spell, one of the oldest and most useful out there. Here are some variations on it for when you want to play with magical telephony.

Black Fax
Duration:  3*[caster's level] minutes
Components: Your best imitation of a dial tone

Instead of conveying information this spell fills the target's head with darkness and static. Thought and movement is impossible for the duration of the spell while they receive the warped message. When it ends the target knows exactly who cast the spell. The target can't respond to anything happening around them, but can choose to make an INT or WIS save. On a success the spell only lasts half its normal duration, on a fail the duration doubles.

Spam
Components: A list of strangers' names and a shard of your soul

Sends an identical message to every intelligent creature within 1000'. They can't respond or tell who sent it. The spam message preempts or interrupts any other communication a target might receive. Spam can be cast as a cantrip to send 1 message, or with a spell slot to send [spell level] messages in sequence.

The message's subject is:

1. Advertisements
2. Unsound medical advice
3. Sketchy pharmaceuticals 
4. Celebrity gossip
5. Risky financial advice
6. Thinly-veiled wire fraud
7. Opinion poll
8. Gambling
9. Religious screed
10. Vampire transformation testimonials

Party Wire
Components: 1 SP

Sends the same message to up to 10 targets the caster chooses. Each recipient can respond, but their return messages will get garbled if they try to reply at the same time and talk over each other. After the caster sends their message and hears all the responses roll even or odd. On even only the chosen targets got the message. Odd, the caster accidentally connected another person into the spell and they heard everything. GM decides who the extra person is.

Landline
Duration: Up to 10 minutes
Components: A little bit of your dignity

Lay face-down on the ground with your forehead pressed into bare soil. While in that position you can speak to 1 target and carry on a normal two-way conversation with them no matter where they are as long as their feet are touching the ground.

Tiny Coffins Challenge: May

 Welcome back! This month's prompt is:

"winding trails, disorientation, and the scent of flowers"

Getting lost in the woods is a peculiar feeling. It quietly picks at something superstitious in the back of your head. The absence of people, places, even background noise you could use to orient yourself gets to you in a way that just 'not knowing where you are' doesn't match. It's easy to get turned around, even when you're on a trail, and if you can't find a blaze or marker to get your bearings you have to look for landmarks. A distinctive tree, a big rock you passed, the sound of a stream, anything that might cement where you are. I used to use the smell of honeysuckle. Most of the parks around here have their parking lots and trail heads in meadow areas where they grow; so smelling honeysuckle meant I was on the path back to the car.

How are the guards tonight?

Unless you invested in perimeter golems, guards are people. They have off days, get distracted, and are people. It's unlikely that every guard you meet will be completely on top of things all the time, so roll for their mood when you come up to a guard post. This doesn't replace a reaction roll.

The guards are... (1d8)

1. Attentive - On guard, doing a good job
2. Nervous - On guard, overly attentive and jumpy
3. Distracted - Focused elsewhere (weird noise, disturbing thoughts, personal problems, daydreaming)
4. Bored - Inattentive, lost in thought, maybe dozing
5. Grumbling - "Why are we even out here?"
6. Asleep - Physically there but unconscious
7. Patrolling - Roll again and they're mobile
8. Missing

Tiny Coffins Challenge: April

 Welcome back! This month's prompt is:

"waking, hunger, and iron determination"

Early spring is a hard time in nature. The hopeful associations with renewal are something that we attached to the season. Yes, the snow's melting and it's warming up, but there's not much food yet. The winter forage is mostly gone, new plants haven't grown in yet, and most of the small prey is still dormant. The creatures that are active are running on the fumes of their winter stores and have to hold out until there's something to eat. One of the few things that thrives is skunk cabbage. It generates its own heat to melt through the snow and start growing weeks before other plants even sprout. It can survive frosts and drinks in the weak sun like nothing's wrong. The sheer moxie of this plant is breathtaking.

Spell Reeds

Magic is inimical to human life. It consumes the unwary and eventually burns out even the most judicious mage. If overused or worked without proper shielding raw magic will taint its surroundings, rendering the land toxic and unusable for generations. There are several species of plant known to withstand the noxious effects of magic-poisoned soil. Some, such as common spell reed (Phragmites incantus), even thrive and can be employed to reclaim land in the wake of magical disasters or pollution from long-term arcane discharge.

Spell reed is a hyperaccumulator that, when planted in tainted soil, absorbs and condenses any magical residue present. Research shows they are effective in mitigating all forms of arcane phenomena, including even well-contained spellwork such as ancestral curses or enchantments that some may consider beneficial. The condensed mystic power is sequestered within the plant's tissues and may be harvested for proper containment and disposal. As with any such project, the speed at which territory can be rendered safe for habitation varies depending on the severity of the contamination and the number of reeds planted. If following best practices, it is usually possible to reclaim up to an acre of land within 1 to 2 months, though heavily tainted soil may require years of effort.

It is possible to use specially processed spell reed in crafting magical objects or to augment spellwork, but such practices are dangerous and release the concentrated magical energy stored inside the plant. As such, they negate the environmental benefits of cultivating spell reed and are not advised.

-------------------------

Spell reeds:

• Absorb and condense the latent magic in the soil they're planted in.
• Process absorbed magic into pure arcane power regardless of what the original flavor was. (Ex: necromantic, illusion, transmutation, etc.)
• Take 1 to 2 months to grow to maturity and be ready to harvest. (1d30+30 days)
• Will absorb any magic. Can be used to break enchantments and curses on land. Takes 1 crop of 1000 reeds per level of the spell being broken. (Ex: a 7th level spell can be broken in 1 to 2 months by raising a crop of 7000 reeds, and be broken in 7 to 14 months by raising 7 crops of 1000 reeds)

The refined ashes can be:

• Used as a power source when enchanting normal items or crafting magical ones. Cut crafting time by 1/2 for every 100 reeds worth of ashes used. (200 reeds cuts time to 1/4, 300 reeds cuts to 1/8, etc.)
• Ingested, usually as a pill or snorted, to restore expended spells once per day. (Requires 25 reeds worth of ash/level)

Ash abuse is dangerous. If you consume ash more than once a day, for each extra use roll over 50+(# of extra uses * 10) on a d%. On a fail cast fireball on yourself as the stored magical energy breaks free.

If planted in a dead wizard's skull or brain, it will absorb the spells they had memorized at the moment of their death.

• Slit the harvested reed open, press it flat, and dry it to make a papyrus-like strip with the spell encoded in the ridges of pith. It can be used like a scroll but not copied.
• Burn the dried reed and consume the ashes to gain the spell directly. It can be copied into a spellbook, but has a 30% chance of being involuntarily cast immediately.

Tiny Coffins Challenge: March

This month's prompt is:

"volatility, predictions, and the slow grind of change"

March might technically be spring, but around here it's still very much winter. The snow's only barely begun to melt, the weather changes by the hour, and the days aren't getting noticeably longer yet. It can be demoralizing, even when you know the season is turning and you just need to be patient. The best sign of change is the birds. When the robins start building nests and the goldfinches turn yellow again you know spring is actually on the way.

d10 Unsettling Natural Phenomena

1 Moss Mist - Opaque green fog banks that carry microscopic fibers and spores of moss in their droplets. Occurs regularly in the spring when the bankmoss reproduces. Homes near where it grows are protected with airtight seals and fine filter meshes. It's safe to go out in it as long as you wear a properly-fitted filter mask, but DO NOT BREATHE IT.

2 Talking Storms - Occur in high winds near certain honeycombed and eroded sandstone canyons. The wind running over and through the rock cavities doesn't just sound like voices, it produces actual human speech. The words are distinct and range anywhere from beautiful choral concerts to horrible things whispered directly into your ears.

3 Inky Rain - These organic deluges happen in late spring when driftcap mushrooms sprout. These inkycap relatives grow lighter-than-air fruiting bodies that break free from their stalks and float on the wind in clouds of thousands. They begin to melt within hours of takeoff, dropping inches of self-digesting spore-bearing black fluid as they go.

4 Giant Lamprey Migration - In mid-autumn the lamprey swim inland from the ocean to spawn, choking waterways of all sizes with their 12'-long squirming grey-white bodies. They're delicious if you can catch one, but DO NOT GO IN THE WATER.

5 Mirror Sky - Occur on warm days over low rolling hills and plains. The still air creates a mirage of the ground below, a perfect reflection complete with exact copies of all the local places and people. If you look straight up, you can see yourself staring back. It feels as if there's a second planet hanging directly overhead, even if you know what's going on.

6 Night Tide - Schools of impenetrably black microscopic diatoms that drink in all light, casting the areas around them into constant night. The schools can be miles wide and come into the shallow waters in high summer, blanketing swathes of coastline in darkness. A tide usually lasts for about a week before the school disperses. The longest on record lasted almost five months.

7 Companion Halos - On cloudy days distinct rings of indigo-violet light form in the sky directly over thinking creatures. Each individual attracts a single halo that follows them perfectly, staying exactly overhead and visible for miles. The halos' size and intensity occasionally change, no one knows why.

8 Sibling Suns - Instead of setting the sun diffracts into many much smaller suns, each a different color. Together they shine their single-hued lights in overlapping cones, casting bizarre vibrant shadows and filtering the world into zones of monochrome. Events occur more frequently the farther north or south you go.

9 Return Frost - In late autumn before the ground freezes extreme overnight cold snaps cause frost heaving so intense it churns the soil and unearths recently-buried corpses. Morning finds the land encrusted in feathery rime and the exhumed bodies impaled on thousands of needle-fine shafts of ice. Areas with frequent return frosts usually create the dead, so bodies found after a frost are deeply suspect.

10 Coffin Rain - Torrential freezing rains that occur in high winter. The water falls and freezes fast enough to trap anything caught outside in a shell of ice a few inches to feet thick. Seek shelter immediately! Buildings in areas that experience regular coffin rains have extremely wide eaves that curve downwards to protect exterior walls from ice buildup.

Fire Tyrant

A massive salamander with the ability to control fire. These intelligent creatures cause chaos by entering a settlement, extinguishing all fires, and refusing to allow new fires to kindle until their demands are met.

Their demands are often strange and inscrutable, running the gamut from strenuous quests (like retrieving a rare food or treasure) to simple favors (like giving a good back scratch).

Aside from their ability to shut down all civilization in a 50 mile radius, Fire Tyrants are usually nonviolent and willing to negotiate, but they're stubborn.

HP: 12d12+12    AC: 19

Resistance: Magic, acid, poison, cold, physical weapons

Immune: Fire

Extinguish - Magically douses as many fires within a 50 mile radius as it wishes. Fires can't be relit without its permission. Affects magical fires.

Flare - Reignites as many fires as it wishes within a 50 mile radius. They suddenly explode causing damage as a fireball spell.

Gentle Smile - Just a big old goofy salamander smile. Gives +7 to its CHA and CHA-based skill checks. Any character with proficiency in Animal Handling who sees the smile must pass a DC 14 WIS save or fall under a Charm Person spell.

Tiny Coffins Challenge: February

Welcome back! This month's prompt is:

"bonds and letting go"

We usually think of bonds in the context of connections to people and not the connections we have to places, objects, and times past. Things that shaped us or anchor us back through time with memories. Your childhood home, the park you used to hang out in, the small collection of cool rocks you picked up over the years, your pet's old collar kept as a memento. What do we draw from those bonds and what happens when we decide it's time to let them fall away?

Have at and have fun!

Tiny Coffins Challenge: January

 Welcome back and happy new year! This month's prompt is:

"waiting, sleep, and the in-between"

I'm all about liminal spaces and states. We're in the heart of winter now, here in the north. It's a time of thresholds and change according to the calendar; but outside most everything is dead or dormant, on pause until the snow melts. Winter is a season-long liminal state while we look forward to spring and a static silent time all its own. Plenty of time to think about all the changes that happen even when things are supposed to be still.

Have at and have fun!