A treatise on the Middle Kingdoms

 If you were raised in the Still Pond Monastery from a young age, you were taught that the Middle Kingdoms and the “petty squabbles therein” were cosmically unimportant, and that you were to avoid interfering with such “ephemera”. Those who have lived in the Kingdoms know that this is very far from the truth. The Middle Kingdoms are defined by a sweeping conflict between a newly-risen imperialist Dynasty and the old nations, kingdoms, and tribes of the land that threatens to plunge the entire world into total war.

THE DYNASTY

The largest empire of the Middle Kingdoms, hungrily expanding from its capital Da Wan Zo in the greying Eastern Valley. Its expansion is fueled by STRENGTH, rare and strange magic that enhances power and stamina so greatly that even mere mortals under its influence are capable of herculean force. The secret means of manifesting STRENGTH, and thus control of the Dynasty, are held by the Half-Celestial Empress Sai Lan, a battle-hardened general and bearer of the Blade of Heaven. The zodiac-emblazoned blade, said to have been forged from dragon’s blood in the fires of the Jade Emperor’s star-forges, is so heavy that only a STRENGTHENED Half-Celestial could hope to lift it. Empress Lan claims that her unique capability to wield this blade gives her Dynasty divine mandate. Though the Dynasty’s brute military power is near absolute, its understanding and knowledge of magic is limited, and so rebellions often turn to strange (and occasionally blasphemous) sorceries to create an advantage. No magic comes without a price...

TRAVELING IN THE MIDDLE KINGDOMS

While travelling, choose the number of days the travel will take. (Travelling between two opposite Pillars takes 4 tendays.) If you’re exploring a part of the Middle Kingdoms whose contents have not yet been decided, roll every d8 days of travel therein to find out what’s happening politically in that area.

1 Dynasty land, securely held

2 Dynasty land in conflict of some sort

1-2 Rebellion

3 The Dynasty is yet seizing this land, roll for Empire

4 This is a military outpost

3 Roll for Empire

4 Roll for Empire, but there’s a Half-Celestial around here somewhere

OTHER EMPIRES

1 Hua Din. The people here wear flexible stained-glass mail to denote their status; a farmer has a line of shards along their clavicle, while the rulers wear full-on multichromatic plate armor.

2 Mau. The ruler is a cat of no particular sentience. The locals believe in her oracular power.

3 Ko’rak. In this swampy region, crocodiles are worshipped as the progeny of the gods. Some of the more intelligent varieties hold government positions.

4 Zyn Shou. If you are in need of botanical assistance, this jungle conclave is the place to be. They can pull the souls out of plants and weave them into silken drugs.

5 Tian Tian Tian. Atop the plateau, their greatest city lies dominated by a tower that simulates the motion of the heavenly bodies. Their zodiac-reading and astronomy are legendary.

6 Gou Huang. This massive monastery and canoneer’s workshop is the home of gun-fu. The headmaster will personally teach you, if you can figure out how to make waterproof gunpowder.

7 Monastery. This area is simply a large monastery that teaches a very specific style.

8 Inkblot Atheneum. This academy teaches calligraphy and doubles as a major library. A living crystal computer lives in the center.

9 Turvy. This hub of criminal activity rests in the hulk of a graffiti’d-up, Empire-destroyed city.

10 Feng Yi. Marsh-barges carry floating yurts across stagnant waters and shallow sands.

11 Xyrx. Everyone here is part of a hive mind of Venusian Skinjackers cloaked in human flesh. Why are all the villages so symmetrical and clean? And why are there no children or elderly?

12 Sou Liang Da. Some of the most talented chefs can combine spices and ingredients in a way that sings to the cosmos itself, crafting wholesome and delectable culinary magics.

13 The Tan. These people haven’t forgotten the tongues of beasts taught to them by the first of the Half-Celestials, and Beastspeakers lead their nomadic tribes in their explorations.

14 The Stoneheart Unity. These people worship large rune-scorned cairns they claim come from the stars. Apparently, the veins of the earth twist out from below those radiant stones.

15 Khar. Mummies and wights rule from mausoleum-palaces perched atop massive cemeteries. The few living gather in the deepest catacombs to plan a resistance against the tyrants.

16 Oxen Mines. Tunnels riddle the cliff face from which earth spirits are plucked and put into living bronze weapons. The ruler here is Threeface Dan, a miner fused with two such spirits.

17 Ren Shi Highlands. An indigenous group guards diamonds cast down by a meteor. The diamonds grant near-divine physical strength and willpower when ground and snorted.

18 Moonrake. An archway of antediluvian stone opens to a random place in the cosmos, which shifts every full moon. Around is a shanty-town of accidental wanderers from the other sides.

19 Lands of the Yellow Palace. Te Wang The King With One Eye has a written record of the formation of the cosmos with him in a scroll case made of liquid lapis. Or so they say.

20 Roll twice, they’re in conflict.

A world, in 13 items.

1. Your mother's katana
2. A life raft that won't inflate
3. Notebook labelled "Blasphemies Yet to Pass"
4. A digital Hello Kitty watch with a shattered screen
5. A mugshot with a pentagram drawn on it
6. A lock of hair from a CEO
7. Some off-the-street experimental amphetamine
8. A "Mutant-Be-Gone" (TM) mosquito net
9. A painting of a moss-choked, half-sunken skyscraper dated 5 days from now
10. 100 dollars of unmarked cash
11. A pendant of a mutant, nine-tailed fox
12. A news clipping from before the Melt
13. The Trillionare's missing Necronomicon

now you do it

d10 types of True Names

1 Polysiliballic fantasy nonsense chock full of apostrophes 

2 The one word that best describes your soul 

3 An intricate rune

4 The name of the person playing the character/NPC

5 A song

5.5 A limerick

6 A normal, modern name

7 Plug the race/class/name/species into Google translate, then put it through Russian, Japanese, Spanish, German, Swedish, and then finally back into a language of your choice

8 Choose a random word/name in the nearest book 

9 A number, the rank of your cosmic importance 

10 The letters you read when you close your eyes so tight the little white spots appear

HATS

I needed a creative jolt, the Oblidikjsdftch delivers a prompt unto me. "Hats". This post is d10 hats, in response to SteppedOnAd4's challenge.

1 The Fish of the Bowling Bear. This is a large, taxidermied carp attached to a leather cap, in a faux sort of flopping motion. It is given as a prize to the person who manages to stomach the most Fire Eel, a drink of flaming Dwarvish ale with a live eel in it, within an evening. The Fire Eel is sold exclusively at the Bowling Bear tavern, and is currently held by Bjorkstel Untergaardt, the barkeeper and resident mixologist of the Bear.

2 Psychic Cap. This cap uses illusion magic to look like whatever sort of headgear any onlooker would find most impressive or fearsome, whatever that might be.

3 Coward's Beanie. This was some Elvish artificer's Sophomore year final, and they got a D+ on it. While wearing this bloodstained beanie, if you pull it over your eyes, you become invisible, but inexplicably emit a high-pitched whining sound. In addition, you can rip in in half to tear open a portal to the Astral Plane that sucks everything around it inside. Generally regarded to be a useless piece of garbage, which is code for ripe for adventurin'.

4 Skull-Crown of the Corpse Warlord. While wearing this rotten mass of spongy and mold-infested bone, you can roll CHA to command any mindless undead creature you can see. Once you have 10 commanded undead in your retinue at once, your skin begins to slough away. When you get to 15 at once, you become the new avatar of the Corpse Warlord, reborn in malice.

5 Helmet of Orb Attraction. This large, crystalline mass, covered in multifaceted spheres carved from magical gems, really puts a strain on the neck. When the conspicuously large switch on the back is flipped, it acts as a magnet to any and all orbs (smaller than an astrological scale) near you. If it can't be pulled to you, you are pulled to it. Once you put it on, you are cursed so that you cannot take it off.

6 Fez. This strange hat makes the user immune to aging and withering effects, and can be used once to travel to any other point in time, at which point it is destroyed. Once, it belonged to the Medic of Many Faces, but was since lost after his fall at the Battle of Trenzalore. (Sorry, had to.)

7 Twiggsley's Crown. Twigglsey is an archdruid from a far away woods. They are also a vulture. This mighty holy artifact, to the untrained eye, looks like an unkempt and empty bird's nest. Druids and priests of the old gods pay pilgrimages to visit this mobile shrine. Wear it and keep it safe for long enough and Twiggsley will lay an egg in it...

8 The Slime Helm. At first it looks like a globby, gelatinous mass on someone's head, but upon closer inspection, the ooze is actually congealed atop a steel helm. The ooze can attack with pseudopods at the wearer's command, destroying equipment with a corrosive touch, but if it remains unfed for to long, it will crawl into the wearer's eyes and begin to pilot their body.

9 Xymanthur's Cowl. An ancient lich-lord from Not Egypt (TM) was the bearer of this gaudy, bedecked cowl. The lich can speak in deathly whispers to anyone who wears the helm, making offers of power in exchange for "favors". There are three sapphires set in the front of the cowl's brim, the eggs of the eagle set just above. Touch the eagle after having drunk fresh blood to fly for a TURN.

10 The Dread ANTI-HAT. Nothing is atop your head, and nothing will ever be atop your head. If you put on a hat, it is instantly sent to a parallel dimension, never to be seen or heard from again save ungodly powerful magics. If you put something else on your head, the object sparks, burning you enough to make you drop it.

Thanks for reading, and happy gaming.

Base Under Siege

 I'm slowly warming up to that new-fangled Mandolorian TV show. I just finished the… I think 4th episode? The eponymous character is in the fishing village under attack by bandits with an AT-ST, that one. Anyways, that inspired me to write up some tables to generate an interesting “base under siege” adventure. Have fun, and happy gaming.

BASE SIZE (feel free to round)

1 2d8 people

2 1d20+10 people

3 1d10+40 people

4 2d100 people

5 1d100 x 10 people

6 The base is the size of a city

ENEMY SIZE

1 Solitary (perhaps the most frightening of them all)

2 2d4

3 2d10

4 d10 x 10

5 The enemy is an army

6 Roll twice, these are different enemy forces (this can stack)

BASE VALUE

1 Scientific [Something important is being studied]

1 The behavior of a nearby astrological or cosmological body

2 The physiology of some remarkable creature

3 The properties of an ancient artifact

4 The relics of a bygone civilization

2 Agricultural [A vital food product is being produced]

1 The food stores for a massive area

2 The key ingredient in a valuable drug

3 A a cyclical ranch-slaughterhouse system

4 It’s actually people… peeeeeople

3 Military [A large cache of weapons and soldiers]

1 The last outpost of an anti-imperial rebellion

2 A weapon stores for a powerful military company

3 A cobbled-together mercenary base

4 An experimental weapon-testing range

4 Defense [The base is protecting something important]

1 The last of a particular species

2 A source of a rare good or lots of income

3 Some volatile and strange anomaly

1 An artifact

2 A ripped ley line

3 A temporal distortion

4 A strange new type of creature

4 A tactically or scientifically significant location

5 An anthropologically significant site

6 A portal or passage

5 Production [Something vital is being manufactured or collected here]

1 A Shatterstar mine carving into a fallen meteor

2 A weaponsmithy or munitions factory

3 A craftperson's guild or factory

4 A library collecting very specific knowledge

6 Population [There’s a lot of civilians here]

ASSET (Roll once for both base and enemy)

1 Weapon

1 Heat-seeking

2 Metal-sundering

3 Wide area

4 Instant death

5 Intelligent

6 Structure-killer

7 Virulent

8 Elemental

2 Trap

1 Pit trap

2 Meddlesome terrain

3 Hidden siege weapons

4 High walls

5 Force field

6 Magic glyphs (activate on contact)

3 Spy

1 Animal compatriots

2 Mole

3 Scrying/surveillance

4 Capable of hypnosis

4 Ally

1 Monstrous protectorate

2 Powerful mage/engineer

3 Charismatic politician

4 The real native residents

5 Movement

1 Flight

2 Climb

3 Jump

4 Burrow

6 Something truly weird

LIMITATION (Roll once for both base and enemy)

1 Poor vision

1 Only capable of detecting movement

2 Cannot see color

3 Can only perceive one target at a time

4 Can only see thermal signatures

5 Can’t see FAR or farther

6 Can’t see any farther than NEAR

2 Poor weapons

1 Easily broken

2 Only melee

3 Only ranged

4 Have a habit of exploding

3 Poor mobility

1 Moves half speed

2 Cannot jump, fly, or go vertically

3 Takes a ROUND to change direction

4 Easily tripped or knocked over

4 Poor stealth

1 Brightly colored

2 Large

3 Noisy

4 Constantly emits…

1 Smoke

2 Sparks

3 The ice cream truck jingle

4 Lights and lasers

5 Poor skill (cannot add bonuses to non-attack rolls)

6 Poor adaptation

7 Poor communication

1 Only communicates through visual signals

2 Only communicates through touch

3 Speaks different languages

4 Missing key vocabulary words

8 Uncreative

RUNNING A BASE UNDER SIEGE

Advice. Each bullet has two points that run counter to each other, yet both sound. Read them, and choose what feels right to you. Play to your strengths.

• Give the players a strong motivation to help the base. Be it money, reward, or an emotional hook, you want your players to buy into the base as fast as possible so you can get to the fun stuff. Use every dirty trick you can to get the players invested. // Distance the players. The players might wander in the side of the invaders. They might have to choose between a monetary reward or a moral high ground. They might decide the residents of the base aren’t worth saving, and want to cut their losses and run. Paint in shades of grey, and let the players’ minds wander outside of the genre.

• Lay your cards out onto the table. Reveal all the variables ASAP, in simple terms. The barracks has the laser crossbow, while the reavers at the gate can summon their Hellfire Dragon at a moment’s notice, and carry atlatls, there’s a medbay and a stocked pantry, now go forth and figure it out. // Have a trick up your sleeve. Surprise the players with a new variable or two and watch their plans get rearranged. Get the panic going as a couple well-placed reveals can shatter the hero’s ideas of what’s about to go down.

• Add twists and reversals. Keep the players on their toes by throwing a wrench into the mix every so often. A new force shows up, the enemies cleverly overcome traps laid, the mole reveals themself. Don’t let them rest on their laurels, they should be on their toes throughout the siege. // Keep it embellishable. The PCs will already bring a lot of creativity and dynamism to the mix, and often their actions alone will provide enough variables that you can take your hands off the buttons. Push the marble, but just watch it travel down the course once it’s moving- don’t change the boundary conditions.

• Make choices matter. The player’s actions should make or break the siege. The base shall fall or remain standing by their hand and theirs alone. Agency is key in every adventure, but especially here. // Embrace inevitability. How will the players face down an army when they’re backed up by a 4-strong team of academics with a rusty golem and a psychic sword made of crystal? The sheer absurdity and hopelessness has great potential to spawn novel reactions and emotions, and generate stories told for ages.

I'm gonna write up an adventure using this generator soon, look out for that in a future post. Until then, happy gaming, and thanks for reading.

d8 Inverted Fairy Tale Hooks

    Are you feeling subversive? Have you been reading a lot of fairy tales, or derivatives thereof, and want to introduce them into your games? Do you just need some inspiration for your next adventure, and want to trick your players a little bit? Roll below, and find some topsy-turvy versions of stories we all know and love.

1 Princess in the Tower. To invert this tale, the imprisoning creature (usually a dragon) is actually doing it for the safety of the kingdom. The princess was born a powerful arcanist, whose volatile emotions caused outbursts that ended in conflagration. The royals, fearing for the safety of the kingdom, conscripted a dragon to sequester her in a far corner. The princess managed to get a message out, luring the PCs under the guise of a damsel in distress... To twist the adventure further, make the dragon’s tale ambiguous. Are they telling the truth, or hoarding the princess away for themself?

2 The Evil Stepmother and Prince Charming. Prince Charming is an undead monster, a warlord slouching across the earth. He knows of a sorceresses’ child who he could infect with the touch of unlife, and add a lich-bride to his army. The sorceress must perform a ritual to put her daughter in a coma and seal her daughter on another plane, where the warlord cannot convert her, but to do so, she needs special components and herbs from the distant woods. Enter the PCs...

3 Monstrous Transformation for Love. In the classic version, someone transforms into a monster as a result of their lust for another. In this version, they morph because they wanted to repulse their partner. Unfortunately for them, it doesn’t work, and their partner wants to make it work anyways. The monster pleads the PCs to help end their relationship, and perhaps rid them of their curse.

4 The Starcrossed Lovers. Two families, feuding for ages, are finally holding a marriage for the youngest of their clan, lauded to be lovers for the ages. However, the two teenagers despise each other with a burning passion. The whole ordeal was orchestrated by the patriarchs of the families, seeking to unite for political gain (or perhaps they are in love). The PCs are hired by the patriarchs to keep the wedding going smoothly, but are bribed by the young spouses-to-be to make the wedding go awry.

5 The Lost Children and the Witch. Two children who live on the periphery of the woods leave homes each day in the morning to head to a hut in the center of the forest. Their parents are worried, and hire the PCs as witch hunters to end the enchantment luring their children before they’re eaten. The twist is the woman living in the hut also doesn’t know why the children scratch at her locked door each day. There are wendigo spirits infesting the children, and they’re actually hunting the woman.

6 A Hero Lost at Sea. The legendary warrior, after the greatest war the world has known, begins to return to his home. However, over the course of the war, his home country’s values had changed, and they sought to cleanse their history of this hero, who they now saw as a senseless butcherer. They hire the PCs to waylay this hero’s travels with trials and tribulations until they can rally a navy with which to take him down.

7 The Chosen Hero’s Blade. In the original myth, this hero is the one destined to wield the blade. In this version, they will be the one to destroy it. A great ruler wields the greatest blade of the age, but a knight clad in gold in black begins an assault on their castle. The sage advises the ruler that if the knight so much as touches the weapon, it will crumble to dust. The PCs could be allies of the knight or the ruler, or perhaps even be the ones destined to destroy the weapon...

8 The Chosen Wizard. A small child is declared to be a great wizard-to-be, whisked away by a wizard of great repute (whose name no one seems to recall) to an arcane academy in the distant mountains. This is a fey plot- the child is a mundane one, the castle is an illusion, and this is a routine scam used to whisk away children for nefarious purposes. For extra fun, the PCs might be these non-magical children investigating the “academy”, and one among them the actual chosen one.

Thanks for reading, and happy gaming.

Forge Priest, a randomly-generated GLoG class

No, YOU'RE super late to hopping on a trend. Get off my back.

 

SOURCE

FORGE-PRIEST

Start with a portable anvil, donated scrap metal, and a holy weapon made of rusted iron

Each level, roll on the table below for your ability.

1 +1 DEFENSE while wearing Armor

2 You make one small, magical trinket

3 This Level acts as a SKILL in 2 tool sets of your choice

4 Summon a small metallic object +1 times per day

5 Your touch burns/you can breathe fire CLOSE/you can breathe fire FAR/roll again

6 Resistance to fire/immunity to fire/roll again

Dark Fantasy Rumors

     This is a post for Chamochin, on the OSR Discord. An entirely d12-based set of rumor generators for your dark fantasy game (hopefully this is Mörk Borg compatible, if not, replace entries as needed until it is). Many of these are very vague or interpretive, that’s space for you to fill in and customize for your world and story. Thanks for reading, and happy gaming!

(Protip: roll 3d12 to speed the process to one batch of rolls, or, when I figure out how to do it, press the button that may or may not appear on this page to have it randomly generate one!)

BASE RUMOR

1 [Person] is in league with/worships [Monster]

2 [Person] is fucking [Person] out of wedlock

3 [Monster] caused [Phenomena]

4 [Person] accidentally caused [Phenomena]

5 [Phenomena] is happening at [Location]

6 There’s a [Monster] lurking in [Location]

7 [Person] was secretly born in [Location]

8 [Artifact], hidden in [Location], can stave off the apocalypse

9 [Person] secretly owns [Artifact], hidden well away

10 The only way to kill [Monster] is with [Artifact]

11 [Artifact] can cause [Phenomena]

12 [Monster] is looking for [Artifact]

PERSON

1 The superstitious farmer

2 The elitist High Magister

3 The grinning executioner

4 The scarred skeleton-hunter

5 The hopeful bischop

6 The mute housewife

7 The eccentric noble

8 The embittered veteran

9 The village idiot

10 The starstruck lover

11 The sleep-deprived scholar

12 The glyph-marked witch

MONSTER

1 The Draugr King

2 She-Who-Sleeps-In-The-Eyeless-Realm

3 The Banshee of the Red River

4 The Battlefield Golem

5 The Corpse-Collecting Automaton

6 The Godkiller

7 The Hangman’s Hound

8 The Hag born from rusted nails

9 The Skeleton Horde

10 Gurman Targ, the Bloodsoaked Tyrant

11 Tzillman the Vampyr

12 The Shoggoth Quen

PHENOMENA

1 The Red Lightning Holocaust

2 The Reckoning of Black Dust

3 The Migration of the Vampires

4 Highsun

5 Psychopomp’s Eclipse

6 The Flood

7 The Rising of the Mud

8 The Plague of Stirges

9 Magiksbane

10 Hell’s Parade

11 The Gelid Cyclone

12 The Greencrackle Plague

LOCATION

1 Castle Errtün

2 The Ruined Chapel

3 The Blasphemous Grove

4 Fort Hellsmouth

5 The Crack in the Earth

6 The Blasted Steppes

7 Coldspire Mountain

8 Untervvald Forest

9 The Bone Plain

10 The Shattered Observatory

11 The Vault Below

12 The Manor Crypts

ARTIFACT

1 Angel’s Tears

2 The Golemist’s Grimoire

3 The Hand of Glory

4 The Rune of Blight

5 Ruin’s Edge

6 The Blade of Kasmorde

7 The Bloodseeker

8 The Electric Spider

9 Satan’s Heart

10 The Desecrated Crucifix

11 The Rusted Behemoth

12 The Eye of Shub-Niggurath