Treat Lists of Deities Like Roll Tables to Create a Scrambled Pantheon

Mythological pantheons in the real world are fascinating. They raise all kinds of fascinating questions about how the people who worshipped those gods thought about the world and understood their place in it. Pantheons in fantasy worlds are often a lot less interesting. 

Look at those tables in Appendix B of the 2014 5E players handbook. We have gods like “Leira, goddess of illusion; CN; Trickery; Point-down triangle containing a swirl of mist” or “Rao, god of peace and reason; LG; Knowledge; White heart.” These are… easy to remember, I guess? They are tropey and linear. Not very evocative, though. Most of these gods lack implicit internal tension. Some of them have obvious roles vis-a-vis their believers, but others only make sense as a flavor hook for a possible cleric character’s desired domain selection.

What if we treat these tables as roll tables? If you count from the first entry in Appendix B, on the Forgotten Realms table, and then number it up through 100, you get most of the way through Greyhawk, Dragonlance, and Eberron. Roll five d100 – once for each column, plus twice on the first column, splitting the name and honorific. I re-rolled entries that came up more than once. Here’s what I got.

Name: Gond
Honorific: Goddess of the Moon
Alignment: LG
Domain: Death, Knowledge
Symbol: Oak Leaf

I just rolled this up outta nowhere. A few details jump out right away. Note that in Appendix B, all the gods with the death domain are either neutral or evil. What does it mean to have a lawful good death goddess? How important is death to the order and well-being of the world? And what’s with the moon and the oak leaf? Are these pure symbology? Or do they mean something more? Is the moon the world of the dead? Are oak trees mystical gates to the moon?

Name: Mystra
Honorific: Goddess of Wrath and Madness
Alignment: N
Domain: Knowledge
Symbol: Feather

I love the idea that the goddess of madness also has the knowledge domain. Very evocative to think of madness as a contingent risk to seeking more knowledge.

Name: Hiddukel
Honorific: God of Meditation and Order
Alignment: NE
Domain: Knowledge
Symbol: Flame drawn on silver or molded from silver

This is what I love. Why is the god of order NE? There’s a story there. My first thought is that he is an usurper. But it could be even weirder. What if the former god of meditation and order trapped him in this role, forcing a NE deity to rule over an order-inducing pantheon? Is he meditating to gather knowledge? Perhaps his parishioners are split between those who venerate him in his captivity, versus those who want to set it free. That’s an interesting deity.

Real-world mythologies are more interesting. In fantasy creators' defense, ancient Egypt has a 5000-year head start. Colossal figures in front of the Great temple of Abu Simbel, via Old Book Illustrations

Name: Milil
Honorific: God of Fire and Change
Alignment: LN
Domain: no clerics
Symbol: Upright flaming sword

Right away we have a “god of change” who is LN. How do we even square that? Some kind of dynamic change that is part of a larger rebalancing of the world? The domain is “no clerics,” an entry specific to Dragonlance, which raises further questions. Perhaps this god considers divine magic to be an impermissible exception to the LN “change” they allow? Perhaps in this god’s view, it is clerics themselves who unbalance the world, and they seek to apply their power in ways that punish or curtail divine casters.

Name: Kelemvor
Honorific: God of Storms
Alignment: LG
Domain: Life, Light
Symbol: Blank Scroll

Again, we get more interesting results from random rolls. Storms are typically chaotic, but what if we associate them with law instead? And the domain of life? And the symbol of a blank scroll? Perhaps a world where lighting strikes spawn new demigods and monsters who serve to maintain the divine order? 

Name: Lunitari
Honorific: God of Thieves
Alignment: NG
Domain: Death, Life
Symbol: Bundle of five sharpened bones

What do you even make of a NG death/life god of thieves? I’m thinking of a mythology where Lunitari steals souls from competing law and chaos factions to balance the scales.

The basic idea of all these ordinary-pantheons-turned-weird-by-roll-tables is this – the incongruities and contradictions that the rolls produce are features, not bugs. The world does not need more chaotic-weather-god-versus-good-light-god-versus-evil-death-god pantheons. Rolling forces the DM/worldbuilder to grapple with weird contradictions. That’s what produces strange, distinct, actionable worlds. Go for that energy when worldbuilding. 

d100 Questions to Design A More Memorable Dragon

A dragon is the single most evocative visual element of fantasy games. That same universal familiarity makes it difficult to describe to players in fresh, evocative ways. 

Below is a series of questions and prompts for mixing up the appearance of a dragon. Some of these will suggest novel monster designs or adventure hooks. But many of them will have no concrete gameplay application. The point is that when you tell your players to “picture a dragon” their brains should be lighting up in a way that is measurably different from telling them to “picture a Toyota Camry.”

Much credit to this Wikipedia list of dragons in mythology and folklore as a source of dragons that break conventional mass-media informed conceptions of dragons. You could run dragons based on these mythologies for a lifetime and never run out of interesting ideas. And it is funny to note how many non-dragon creatures (by Monster Manual taxonomy) are listed here as types of dragons – behirs, tarasques, hydras, many such cases.

A memorable dragon by Iguanadon't

d100 Ask Yourself, What Does This Dragon Look Like?

Roll as many times as needed, until the dragon is clear in your mind's eye.

1. How many colors are the scales? If it's a chromatic dragon, is it consistent coloration across the body, or does it vary (e.g., darker on top, lighter on the bottom?)
2. Are the scales reflective or matte? 
3. Do their scales camouflage the dragon in its environment? Or are they bright and distracting colors?
4. What do the scales feel like to the touch? Warm or cool? Rough or smooth?
5. Do they have patterns? Banded scales, like a coral snake, are a personal favorite aesthetic for me.
6. If they’re bright and distracting, is it a warning to other creatures? A mating display? A form of dazzle camouflage to make it harder for the few things that can threaten them (mainly other dragons) to hit them?
7. What are the scales made of? Keratin? Something else? 
8. Are they perhaps scaleless, like a sphynx cat? Natural, or lost to disease?
9. Do metallic dragon scales make a sound like metal when they strike against something? Or are they metallic in appearance only?
10. How big are the scales anyway? Small and countless? Human-shield-sized? Really big like an armored dinosaur?
11. Bones. Light and thin like birds, or strong like steel?
12. Does it have externalized bones, like a carapace? Scales could be absent or just in a supporting role.
13. Shedding skin, for more-explicitly reptilian dragons. What do they do with the shed skin? Hugely valuable to alchemists and treasure hunters, but obviously dangerous to get ahold of.
14. If dragons are not related to reptiles, what characteristics most differentiate them from reptiles?
15. Accretion of treasure. Superheated gold tracing the seams of the red dragon’s scales. A gold dragon whose scales are actually melted gold that they basked in.
16. Do they have feathers? For flying, heat regulation, mating rituals, or something else?
17. Is the dragon sleek and impossibly clean, or scarred and marked by age?
18. Does it have a shell?
19. Frills or a crest, like some lizards? 
20. Does any part of the dragon change color depending on its mood, level of activity, or age?
21. What about its spine? Is there a mane, ridges, or even a sail-like protrudence?
22. Are shed scales and egg fragments left in the lair? Destroyed? Bartered to alchemists? 
23. Quills or spines? For defense, offense, presentation, something else?
24. How many limbs? Two arms and two legs?
25. Does it even distinguish between arms and legs? Does it have claws capable of manipulating objects on each limb, and use them as the situation dictates?
26. Are the wings unusual? Feathered? Bat-like? Manta-like? Jellyfish-like? Don’t worry too much about the physics of how the dragon stays aloft, just think about an evocative way to describe how they fly.
27. When it flies, does it cruise like a raptor? Or flap constantly? Can it bank tightly or does it have a wide turning radius?
28. Is the skin of its wings translucent? Same color as the scales, or contrasting?
29. Does it shed talons?
30. Any vestigial wings or legs?
31. No legs at all, like a lindworm? 
32. Weirder limbs? Tentacles? Ew.
33. Can they regrow lost limbs? Maybe even other parts of their bodies, like salamanders?
34. Artificial limb(s)? Don’t get too steampunk with it. Or do, I’m not your boss.
35. How soon can the dragon fly? Right out of the egg? If not, how long? Does a parent protect it or is it immediately on its own after leaving the egg?
36. Does it walk on all fours, or slither, and only use its feet to climb or hurdle obstacles?
37. How finely can its claws manipulate things? Is it characterized by broad monstrous movement, or delicate manipulation that belies its size?
38. Are they rough and indiscriminate with their claws, or are they capable of fine digital manipulation? For example, could they pluck a single coin out of their hoard? What does it look like if they can?
39. Are there parts of their bodies they can’t reach?
40. Does the dragon have a flat or peaked head? A flared hood?
41. Dragons in most versions of D&D have enhanced sight (blindsight in 5E). How does that work? Is it through their eyes, or some other organ (e.g., pit organs, like in some snakes)? What combination of senses gives it that heightened awareness of its surroundings? 
42. What’s the tongue like? Smooth? Ridged? Sticky? Prehensile? Eww.
43. What organs power its breath weapon? Are they located in the mouth, throat, or abdomen?
44. Can you see the breath weapon charging from the outside? Smell it? Feel it?
45. Horns and antlers? Think about what purpose they serve. Do they shed them?
46. What are its teeth like? When it closes its mouth are they all hidden, or do they stick out?
47. Are its teeth like teeth (they stop growing when mature) or like tusks (they grow continuously)?
48. Are any teeth missing? What does that look like? Does the dragon care?
49. How does it digest prey? What does it look like if the dragon vomits? Especially a black or green dragon?
50. How long is the neck? Does it have a discernable shoulders to its body (like most quadriped-style dragons) or does it continue into the body without an obvious break (like a Chinese-style dragon)?
51. What does the inside of the mouth look like? Do the jaws distend like a snake?
52. Internal or external ears? Do they have good hearing, or do they favor other senses?
53. Can they hear high or low frequencies, beyond what is typical of most creatures?
54. Is their breath weapon apparent when they are not actively using it? Do they seep acid from their mouth while talking? Leave trails of fire through the sky?
55. What about its eyes? Like a snake? Like a bird? Something else?
56. Does it have binocular vision or monocular vision? If the latter, why, given that they are apex predators? Don’t worry about making it evolutionarily logical, but do think about it.
57. Can it see parts of the visible light spectrum that humans can’t? If so, would it use that to leave messages for other dragons?
58. What smells does it emit? Do they differ when the dragon is active versus slumbering?
59. If they can transform into other forms, do they reflect their natural physical traits while transformed? Will a red dragon polymorphed into a human have reddish hair or ruddy skin? Or can they hide their form completely?
60. Altered by magic. What spells left their mark on the dragon? Were they cast by the dragon? It’s allies? It’s enemies? 
61. Does it have runes or sigils on its body, representing protective spells or other enchantments?
62. If it can cast spells, what does that look like? What are the somatic components like?
63. Is the dragon a tyrant? Does it have heraldry, markings, symbols to denote this? If it sleeps for hundreds of years, does it want humans to recognize it from stories when it awakes again?
64. Decorations? Tattoos, pigmentation, jewelry?
65. Are they marked by a mate? Do they wear an equivalent of a ring? Or show scars from aggressive mating behavior?
66. Cold-blooded? We don’t need to get too scientific about it, but does the dragon like or dislike heat?
67. Symbiotic organisms. What do they provide to the dragon that the dragon can't or won't do on its own? 
68. Scars and discoloration. Sickness? Battles? If this old dragon fought in that ancient war, can it point to the part of its body that bears the mark?
69. Any embedded weapons? There’s a story there. 
70. Prey adaptations. What does it eat, and can you see the signs? How are its teeth shaped accordingly?
71. Does it consume anything really unusual? Gold? Moonlight? Does a red dragon drink lava?
72. Does it ingest stones like a bird to grind up food? Perhaps only special stones like diamonds?
73. How long do the remains of digested adventurers stay in its body? LINK Dungeon Meshi
74. Where does it defecate? A designated place in its lair?
75. Does it hork up pellets like an owl?
76. What kind of spoor does it leave?
77. What happens when they hibernate? Will mushrooms and moss grow on their sleeping forms? Or do they cover themselves in anti-fungal treasure while dreaming through the centuries?
78. What kind of ridges or protrusions do they have?
79. Does it have an relationship with other creatures that comes across in its appearance or the trappings of its lair? What kind of guests, if any, are allowed in the lair?
80. Are the teeth like huge tusks? Or tiny rows of thousands of daggers? One row of teeth, or many?
81. If the dragon was hungry or even starving, could you tell? What does it look like shortly after it wakes from a centuries-long hibernation? 
82. What fluids, if any, are present? Can it cry? Sweat? Drool?
83. Can the dragon be suffocated or die from exposure to a vacuum? Or does it merely go into a hibernation state?
84. Does the dragon have any predators at all? What does it taste like? 
85. Does it’s body reflect its preferred mode of locomotion? Will it always fly unless constrained? Or does flying take great effort, and it only does it while hunting?
86. Does their appearance change during mating season?
87. How do they regulate heat? Similar to a reptile, or different? Are they slow to get moving when in torpor, or can they wake up fast like a cat?
88. If the dragon is a type that spends part of its time underwater, what does that look like? Does it have gills? Or just hold its breath for a phenomenally long time, like a whale or dolphin?
89. How much does it drink? What does it look like while drinking? Does it lap up water like a beast, or drink out of vessels like a civilized creature?
90. How high into the sky can they fly?
91. How does it sleep? Spread out or coiled up? Out in the open or wormed into a burrow?
92. Does it display sexual dimorphism? Is its sex obvious on sight? 
93. Does it even have a binary sex? Do dragons experience sequential hermaphroditism? 
94. Are they producing eggs? Can an expert tell? If yes, how?
95. Do they lay unfertilized eggs, like some birds and reptiles? What happens to unfertilized eggs?
96. Are they capable of parthenogenesis?
97. What parts of their body decompose? How quickly? 
98. What does the skeleton look like? Regular yellow-white bones, or colored by their environment, symbiosis, diet?
99. Do they go somewhere special to die? Do they dig graves? Incinerate themselves when it is time?
100. Can it die from old age? Or does it just kinda keep going forever, like a Greenland shark?

Unfinished Business: Complicating Resources Like a Scene in a Film

Many games give players “resources” as an extension of character creation or advancement. Some of those resources are people. Family members, former colleagues, friends, and so forth.

It can be difficult to introduce these resources into the game in an evocative, dramatic, interactive way, because everyone knows that the resources are character features, and ludologically, not so different from a piece of equipment or a special ability.

How can we make these resources feel more like tangible elements of the fictional world? One way is to steal a trick from films. 

Imagine this scene in a movie; you’ve almost certainly seen it before. A character needs something to achieve their goals. Information, access, tools, whatever. They know someone who can help, but because of something that happened in their shared past, they are reluctant to reach out, and know this person will not be happy to see them.

Trainspotting 2

Why? 

The second-person subject in each result below refers to the PC in question, while the third-person object refers to the resource.

1. Unpaid debts. You owed money or wealth of some kind. They may want compensation with interest; or may have decided that money alone isn’t going to be enough to make things right.
2. You ended on bad terms. You argued, litigated, fought, or worse. Time has not healed any wounds, and they are ready to pick up the struggle where it left off.
3. Your connection was more than professional. Bodies or feelings were in play, and they were either left hanging, or punished after you left. Their reaction to you will be complicated and extreme, and they will be very interested in what personal relationships you’ve made since.
4. Respect has faded. They looked up to you, admired you, or perhaps saw you as the only "real" one. The circumstances of your departure or your long time away have dimmed that esteem. They don’t believe you still have whatever made you stand out back then. They will want you to prove it before they help you.
5. Competing obligations. Since you last met, they’ve started a family, committed themselves to a cause, or otherwise entangled themselves in obligations that rival or overshadow whatever loyalty they once had to you.
6. You’ve changed. They are disturbed by, curious about, or obsessed with how different you are since the last time they saw you. They’re going to have a lot of questions about what has happened to you and what you’ve done, and won’t take kindly to disambiguation. 
7. Old rivals. Whether you were sparring in the dojo or performing on stage, you were their only real competition. They still think they’re better than you, and want to prove it before they offer any help.
8. Left behind. You escaped. They didn’t. Maybe you thought they were as good as dead, or maybe you were just looking out for number one. They’re going to expect you to answer for leaving without them before they lift a finger.

As with any game element, these should not be punitive; if the resource is something the character earned through advancement or by virtue of their class, playbook, whatever – they need to have it. But these kinds of ideas can be useful when a mixed success or an emergent complication suggests the game needs some friction. 

Heist Logic: Why the Guards Stand Down in a TTRPG

False Machine had a nice post about the Thief video game series, its emphasis on stealth, and what aspects of the game can (and cannot) be applied to TTRPGs.

A useful comment by Kyana focuses on a particular issue for TTRPGs; how and why does security “reset” after an incursion? 

Thief (1981) Michael Mann

I haven’t played the Thief games, but I’ve certainly seen the same problem in other video games, like Metal Gear Solid. You’re spotted in a secure area by multiple antagonists, the whole place goes on high alert, you’re caught in a firefight, grenades are exploding, soldiers are dying. But after 90 seconds spent hiding in a locker, the game reverts to its baseline state, and the guards resume normal patrols, as if nothing happened.

Video game players accept this artifice because it facilitates good gameplay. It would certainly be realistic if you had to wait hours (or days, or indefinitely) for the guards to stand down from high alert, but it would also certainly be boring. So the game speeds past the boring part and gets back to the fun part.

TTRPGs also endeavor to speed past the boring part and get to the good stuff, but they also have a generally higher expectation of verisimilitude than video games do. This is, in part, because players in a GM-led game expect the GM to dynamically react to PC action in a way that is impossible (thus far, at least) for a video game to match. 

So say you’re running a heist or infiltration in D&D or a similar game – basically, any game that isn’t like Blades in the Dark, which has built-in procedure for heist complications and failure states. You need a plan for how and why the guards are going to stand down or otherwise redirect attention in a reasonable amount of time, because you don’t want a single guard sighting to botch the entire enterprise. What kind of circumstances and conditions can we add to prolong the heist without resorting to video game-level suspension of disbelief?

1. Misdirected response. The guards react, but deploy their resources in the wrong place. Perhaps they cut off exits while the players are still delving deeper into the facility, or move to protect the big boss when the players are really after the MacGuffin. 
2. Expecting someone else. A twist on the above. The defenders suspect a completely different adversary is behind the incursion. Either directly (if they didn’t get a good look at the PCs) or indirectly (they presume the PC party is a decoy, or merely an illusion, or similar). It might be a faction or NPC that the PCs know, or even a group they weren’t already aware of. Either way, the defenders’ reaction to the perceived “true” threat wastes time or resources that give the PCs a renewed opportunity.
3. Multiple infiltrators. Twisting the above in a different direction, there actually are other infiltrators, unconnected to the party, whether here for the same prize, or something unrelated. The defenders catch one of the other individuals or groups infiltrating, taking some heat off the PCs. 
4. They don’t appreciate what they have. Most of these options presume that the defenders have a good idea of what they’re protecting. But if they don’t – if they’re unaware of the value of what they have, or don’t even realize it is within their area of control – the nature of the heist changes, and it’s more plausible that their reaction would be delayed, misdirected, or ineffectual.
5. A crisis is also an opportunity. There’s some internal conflict within the defenders’ ranks. Maybe a second-in-command wants a shot at leadership, or a sub-faction wants to leverage the situation against a rival sub-faction. Resources are spent primarily to advance this goal, rather than respond in full to the threat presented by the PCs.
6. Environmental distraction or complication. “Environmental” in this instance is just shorthand for something happening independent of any faction action. Something in the scenario outside the defenders’ control hinders their response. It could be bad weather, wild animals, invasive plants, stellar emissions, localized tremors, or even some supernatural effect of the MacGuffin itself. 
7. The heist is counterintuitively helpful in some way to the defenders of the location, and tacitly allowed to proceed. The aforementioned Metal Gear Solid game does this. The antagonist actually needs the protagonist to succeed, at least in part, to advance their overall plan, so some suboptimal efforts by the guards can be interpreted as an intentional ploy. But be careful with this one, as it can stray into gotcha-style GMing. The antagonists’ goal should probably be orthogonal to whatever the PCs are trying to do, rather than a direct negation of their success, so that circumstances out of their control or awareness can’t rob them of a win if they complete the heist.
8. Dumb but dangerous. This is essentially what Patrick recommended in the False Machine post with his ogre guards. Aggressive, loyal servants with goldfish memories are good antagonists during a heist. 
9. Programmed guards. Some or all of the guards act programmatically. They are undead, golems, trained animals, robots, mind-controlled servants, or similar. They can patrol, pursue, and attack, but they don’t have the capacity to react in complex, adaptive ways to PC action. The PCs can take advantage of this to continue the heist even if they’ve been spotted once.
10. A wizard did it. Similar to the above, but more open-ended. Perhaps the wizard or other magical antagonist is so paranoid that they dose their guards with amnesia-inducing chemicals. Perhaps the guards are all charmed, and some of the enchantments breaking (due to accident or PC intervention) disrupt an organized response to an alarm.
11. Magical passage of time. Remember how we said it would be realistic but boring to wait a really long time for the guards to stand down from a high alert? In a fantasy world with magic, that’s not a hard limitation on PC solutions. Some kind of magical item that allows them to do a duration-extended Rope Trick or similar effect could go a long way here. In this instance, the heist goes on, but every failure requires waiting some long period of (in-game) time, with possible complications in the outside world. This trick is the twist to a certain heist movie, where the protagonist waits out the guards for an implausibly long time. Hiding for spoiler purposes, but I'm talking about Inside Man (2006).
12. Life is complicated and mistakes happen. The simplest explanation of all. If you read accounts of real-world revolutions, battles, and other pivotal historical moments, it’s amazing how often the fate of nations and peoples hinges on situations where people simply make a lot of mistakes, fail to communicate, or organize suboptimally, and those errors domino out of control. Defending a secure location is quite complex, and some security failures are going to boil down to this kind of thing.

Feels Within Wheels: An NPC Emotion Generator

I am occasionally guilty of watching helplessly as the themes of my blog posts and the focus of my game prep diverge and wander off in different directions, never again to meet. But not this time!

Here’s an old post that I actually use: Feels Within Wheels. I took an “emotion wheel” as a prompt for NPC behavior.

Oh Lemur of Serenity, who watches over us all, please grant me the peace I seek. Gif source here.

I’ve been using this in my games to good effect, but the table is a little awkward to use directly as a die-rolling prompt. The middle and outer rings of the wheel feature irregular numbers of entries, and some of those numbers don’t correspond to die sizes. It’s always possible to scale them up to a die size (e.g., a choice between five options can be determined by a d10 roll halved), but it's extra brainwork, and in the middle of a session when characters are running around with their hair on fire (figuratively or literally), anything that streamlines decision points is helpful. So let’s make another random Perchance generator.

https://perchance.org/feelswithinwheels

While populating this generator, I noticed some odd details in the wheel I used in my prior post. Why does “dismayed” show up twice on the outer wheel? Is there a meaningful difference between being astounded and astonished? Why is “illustrious” on the table? If I asked someone how they were doing on a given day, and they told me they were feeling illustrious, I would suspect they had been replaced by an alien or an artificial intelligence.

We could fix those things… but ironing out small details isn’t actually that important. A tool like this can be a fuzzy tool. It provides some basic inspiration, but it doesn’t need to be tightly wound or perfectly edited. Some rough edges are OK. Enjoy the generator, and have an illustrious day.

A Random Generator Is Worth a Thousand Hours of Prep

One of the games I ran this year involved adventurers hopping unexpectedly from plane to plane. While prepping for the game, it quickly became obvious that this was not something that I could prep in the same way I would prep a megadungeon or a scene-based mystery.

So how do we produce interesting planar content without prepping dozens of worlds in exhaustive detail? How do we make sure characters “get” each plane they visit? Especially when they’re not spending much time on each one?

Planes of existence in a fantasy world are exaggerations of the “natural” world (the prime material). They are defined by their defiance of rules or expectations we have about the regular world. To boil it down to a very simplified binary, it helps to think about the two sides of what makes a plane different from the normal world.

Concepts that epitomize the plane. Something inherent and fundamental to the place that defines it. It should usually be immediately obvious and prevalent throughout the plane.

Concepts that are antithetical to the plane. Something that is against the plane’s nature. It should either be prominent for this reason, or conspicuous in its absence.

It’s important to think about both aspects. It’s all well and good to say the elemental plane of fire is epitomized by fire. It’s hot. Fires raging, smoke, lava, and so forth. But that’s not enough. Think about near-absolute absence of water. What does the air feel like as a consequence of that? What is the weather like? Are native creatures violently allergic to water? Or is it a precious treasure to them? Possibly some of both, living side by side?

Let’s put this in motion with some prompt tables. 

What are the local landmarks? What captures the eyes of the visitor?

Epitome

• A castle, city, or other built structure. It’s composed of the essence of the plane, or its structure and function is defined by the presence and abundance of that essence.
• A mountain, body of water, or other superficially “natural” feature. It behaves in a strange or exotic way that reflects the essence of the plane.
• A vortex, portal, or other magical, extraplanar juncture or aperture. Its presence indicates the permeability of the plane, as well as its adjacency to affiliated planes. 
• The site of disaster or change characteristic of the creative or destructive forces of the plane.
• Valuables that are rare on the prime material plane are abundant here (e.g., valuable gems on the elemental plane of earth). 

Antithesis

• The absence of something we take for granted in the normal world (e.g., no fire on a frozen or entropic world).
• A concentration of a rare resource, whether precious or merely exotic (e.g., an oasis on a desert plane).
• A structure, object, or feature that was native to another plane, but was moved to this plane, intentionally or accidentally. Its original nature has been warped or changed by this plane.
• Something removed or exploited and taken elsewhere, leaving tangible absence in its place.
• Something antithetical to this plane, but reshaped by the epitomizing forces here.

What is going on there? How is the situation ripe for adventure?

Epitome 

• The plane’s essence is difficult to understand or interact with, or otherwise defies material plane logic. 
• An event (natural or social) is occurring that restricts or slows visitors’ ability to travel and explore.
• A power from a sympathetic or aligned plane is trying to influence, ally with, or absorb the plane.
• Political, commercial, or social activity focuses on a commodity or treasure that can only be grown, made, or refined in the unique environment of the plane. 
• A gift or creation of the ruler or power on the plane, unique to this place and never taken off-plane, has been damaged, compromised, stolen, or otherwise altered. 

Antithesis

• The antithesis of the plane, something that would be expected in the prime material, is totally absent. Natural laws may be distorted to account for its absence.
• The antithesis of the plane is imprisoned, contained, rationed, or besieged.
• The antithesis of the plane has been memorialized, shunned, sanctioned, or put on display.
• The plane’s enemies or natural opposites are invading.
• Magic is altered in some fundamental way by the absence of something that would normally power, channel, or enable it. 

Who is nearby? Factions? NPCs? Monsters?

Epitome

• Natives of the plane, whose nature is linked to the essence of the plane. They are not merely planar loyalists; their very understanding of the cosmos is defined by the epitome of their plane.
• True believers, either in the ruler of the plane, or the nature of the plane itself. They either transmigrated here after death, or traveled here by magical means.
• The ruler of the plane. Whether a demigod, demon-king, or something stranger.
• Created creatures made of the essence of the plane by archwizards, gods, or others who use the plane’s essence as raw materials.
• Creatures from allied planes who have come to visit, trade, or evangelize. 
• Guardians, persecutors, or judges of the epitome, who seek to destroy, expel, or dominate the antithesis. 

Antithesis

• Creatures trapped here, either intentionally by denizens of the plane, or those stranded by accident.
• Creatures that are valued or respected because – due to their antithetical nature – they can do things or provide value that native denizens cannot. 
• Invaders from an opposed plane who have come here to destroy or conquer part or all of this plane.
• Explorers seeking to secure the epitome of the plane for use as an antithesis on their own plane.

What hazards, traps, or dangers are here?

Epitome

• The essence of the plane is hostile or otherwise dangerous to travelers. Simple actions like movement, breathing, or eating and drinking may be difficult.
• An out-of-control or escalating expression of the epitome is becoming more extreme over time.
• The landscape or physical properties of the plane are changing in a way that defies material plane laws.
• Traps, barriers, or other intentional dangers have been established to keep planar visitors either from accessing sensitive areas, or out of the plane entirely.

Antithesis

• A forced merger or overlap with an opposed plane creates violent or unpredictable interactions.
• Open conflict between factions or individuals over antithetical elements. Multiple factions may seek to recruit outsiders. Innocent bystanders may be caught in the crossfire.
• Remainders of a long-ago planar conflict between epitome and antithesis persist to the present (e.g., metaphysical minefields).
• Weapons deployed in the plane broadly attack a weakness or vulnerability inherent to the epitome of the plane, endangering anyone unfortunate enough to be nearby. 
• Something hazardous was placed here for containment or safekeeping, because the nature of the plane itself or the behavior of its denizens can suppress, control, or monitor the antithetical thing.  
• Something stolen from an antithetical plane, which is disruptive or wrong in this place.

Here is our random generator that incorporates all these bits into just four prompts. We can adjust it some more going forward; maybe we want the epitomes to be several times more likely than the antithesis.

https://perchance.org/whatishappeningonthisplane

Bonus Table: How Did You Get Into This Mess? (d12)

1. A wizard did it. A spell was cast upon you. It went wrong.
2. A wizard did it (the wizard was you). You tried to cast a spell. It went wrong.
3. Portal passenger. You wandered into a portal and now you’re here, wherever here is.
4. For science. An experiment went awry. Whether you were an experimenter or a test subject doesn’t matter now.
5. Trapped! A nefarious entity created an inter-planar trap. Congratulations, you have sprung that trap.
6. Hot pursuit. Something is chasing you across the planes. You don’t know what it is, but it seems to be accelerating and salivating.
7. Left behind. You were hired for some specific job or expertise, but the person who hired you left you behind. 
8. Cursed! Whether it happened to a distant ancestor long ago, or to you personally last week, the terrible curse has sent you hurtling between worlds.
9. Debt. You owe such a vast amount that when a particularly dodgy character offered you an especially suspicious way to get out of town -- really, really far out of town -- you took it.
10. Transmigration. You died. While your soul was on its way to the afterlife, it took a wrong turn, and you are now lost. Depending on where you were destined to go in the afterlife, this may be either relatively good or relatively bad news for you.
11. Prison break. You were trapped in Tartarus, a demiplane, or some similar extraplanar confinement. You're free now but you didn't plan too far beyond your escape.
12. Sole survivor. You were part of a highly larger team that was intentionally traveling the planes. You're not in a good situation now, but you wouldn't trade places with your recently deceased companions.

Going Up, Going Down: Incrementing Die Sizes for Information Density

I've occasionally seen people online present six related random tables, with each table tied to one of the classic polyhedral die sizes. For example, rolling a d4 to choose a location, then a d6 to determine what’s currently happening there, then a d8 to decide what monster is present, and so on.

I don’t know where this idea originated, or if there’s a proper name for it, or how far back it goes. It’s just a nice execution, because it’s satisfying to roll a fistful of dice all at once and then discern the results. It’s a fun prep technique, but a little too time-consuming for use at the table. Still, there’s something compelling about using all six of the main dice in one throw. What kind of similar ideas would be more useful at the table?

Picture a single random table, numbered 1-20. The entries near the bottom of the table are positive (or at least neutral) for the PCs, while the ones at the top are increasingly negative. For example, in a dungeon, a result of 1 could be something simple like a torch burning out, while 20 would indicate a random encounter with the most dangerous monster in the joint.

When you first roll on this table, use a d4. Interpret the outcome of the result, then cross it out. If you roll that same result a second time, nothing happens, but you permanently increase the die size to d6. Continue in the same fashion, increasing the die size to d8 and so on whenever you hit a previously rolled result that has already been crossed out. If you reach the d20 and can no longer increment upwards, treat re-rolls of previously rolled monsters as the nearest as-yet-unrolled result (and cross it out afterward). 

Rolling Downhill

The above method builds in a time delay for the really tough stuff. The increasing die means that the worst danger from the deepest part of the dungeon won’t show up while exploring the first room; but the incrementing dice and crossed-out possibilities mean that the more time the party spends in the dungeon, the more certain it is that those events will eventually happen.

What if we want at least a chance that the biggest dangers show up early? We can turn this around and put the bad stuff at the low end of the number range, and the good (or at least relatively "less-bad") results at the top.

Start with the d20, and roll as usual on the 1-20 table, crossing off results as you go. When you reroll a previously rolled result, switch to the next-smallest die. So the DM could roll 6, 11, 3, 20, 11, crossing out each of those results. When the second 11 is rolled, the die increments down to the d12; results 13 and above are now out of range.

This one will run on a much more aggressive clock, and after a handful of encounter rolls, the PCs will quickly get into hot water. For some counterplay (and a chance to still use numbers that have fallen out of the shrinking die range) give the players a way to release steam from the dungeon. Say that every favorable negotiation or parley with an NPC or a faction can increment the die back up by a level. Or exploring a certain number of rooms. Whatever connects to the intended gameplay loop and provides some motivation to the PCs.

There’s nothing special about either of these systems that makes them “better” than conventional random event or dungeon exploration tables. They merely take advantage of the natural tactile appeal of the varying sizes of polyhedral dice. And for in-person games, the d20 (in the first system) or the d4 (in the second system) is a powerful sign to the players that they are in as much danger as the dungeon has to offer. 

d100 Reasons for a New PC to Suddenly Show Up in the Dungeon

“If your character dies, you can roll another one and get back into the game in five minutes or less” is one of the key elevator pitches for OSR-style play. And yes, henchmen and hirelings can be promoted to PCs. But sometimes there aren’t enough hirelings to go around. Or the existing NPCs are just not the right fit for what the player wants to try at that moment.

This post was inspired by d4 Caltrops’ invaluable d100 lists, as well as the (relatively) high lethality and troupe-style play in the 3d6 Down the Line Arden Vul podcast, wherein new PCs sometimes need to show up deep in the dungeon, often all alone. Some of the phrasing and tone is indebted to the failed careers in Electric Bastionland.

Sometimes a new character needs to serendipitously arrive with an incentive to join the party. Who are they? Where did they come from?

Isometric Dungeon by Athena Kipen

Roll 5d20 for a result that will skew toward the middle of the list, where the (relatively) “normal” results appear. Roll 1d100 for a truly random result. If you’re wondering why the first few entries on this list are so gonzo, it is so they won’t show up at all on the more controlled 5d20 roll. Skip to the entries in the 50s for examples of the more conventional results.

1. The DMPC. You are the extension of a quasi-mythical divine omnipotence that rules us all. Take a fate point, even if (especially if) the game you’re playing doesn’t use fate points.
2. The narrator. You’ve been faithfully relating the adventure to an implied outside audience, but now the PCs have learned the fourth wall is an illusionary wall, and have decided to pull you through it. Take foreknowledge of the next three random encounter rolls (the DM tells you what the result will be before you encounter it, and you may act accordingly; for example, if you decide to confront a wandering monster, you automatically gain surprise).
3. Time traveler. A demon tore open a portal in time and flung you into the future, where their evil is law. Take a +2 bonus to reaction rolls with elderly and tradition-minded folk, who recognize something of the old ways in you.
4. Transmogrification! Randomly choose a monster of 3 HD or less. You are this monster, polymorphed into an otherwise-normal adventurer. You have no special monster powers, but monsters of a similar type will subconsciously sense there’s something about you, and will avoid conflict with you if possible. Anti-magic fields or similar effects may temporarily return you to your monstrous state, but you won’t remember your non-monstrous life during this temporary reversion.
5. Doppelganger (one-sixteenth, on your mother’s side) posing as your last character, claiming to have miraculously returned from the dead. Take the ability to mimic a humanoid’s appearance, once per day. Your appearance stays that way until you use this ability again; you can’t turn it off. You don’t remember what you originally looked like.
6. Resurrected ancient. You are one of the dungeon builders, inadvertently brought back by misdirected magic. Your memories are gone, but the remnant technology or magic of the dungeon builders still obeys you (...sometimes).
7. Dungeon jester. You play the fool, but you are as clever as they come. Factions will typically underestimate you on an initial encounter. You are skilled at flattering rulers.
8. Seen servant. The mage who conjured you never dismissed you, and your lingering essence has coalesced into a real person. Take the ability to turn incorporeal for one turn each day, but you can only carry a single slot’s worth of gear (or 25 pounds worth of encumbrance) while in this state.
9. Frozen in the ice. Moon pie… what a time to be alive. Gain a resistance or +2 save bonus to cold damage and other effects from cold temperatures.
10. Benthic backwash. The ocean found your flavor bitter, and spit you into the deep depths of the dungeon. You take twice as long to drown as a normal person, and fish respect you.
11. Aberrant survivor. The brain parasite is (probably…?) gone, and you are now on your own, for better or worse. Take a +2 to saving throws against enchantment and compulsion effects.
12. Double agent. Take a +2 to reaction rolls with two local factions of the DM's choice (but if you ever encounter members of both at the same time, you’re going to be in a lot of trouble).
13. Corpseweed dealer. You harvest and sell a powerful narcotic that only grows on corpses deep in the mythic underworld. Take 2d2 doses of dried leaves that can knock a horse on its ass when ingested or smoked.
14. Teleporter mishap. You stumbled onto a one-way teleport pad somewhere else, and you are now stranded in this dungeon. Take a +4 bonus to saving throws against magic that would transport you to another place against your will.
15. Thrill seeker. Twenty-seven dungeons in three years. Anything to execute the perfect delve! Take an adrenaline rush; whenever you are at exactly 1 HP, you receive a +4 to any rolls (including saving throws) that could mean the difference between life and death. 
16. Medic! You came down here to help someone. You got there too late, and now you could use a hand yourself. Take a surgeon’s kit, bandages, and three draughts that heal 2d4 HP each, but also make the body numb for one hour.
17. Downtrodden translator. You seem to be made to suffer. It's your lot in life. Take fluency in a randomly chosen language, plus a background in (mostly useless) etiquette protocol.
18. Wrongfully accused. Convicted of a crime you did not commit, you have fled the authorities, taking shelter in the dungeon. Take a +4 to rolls to flee from someone or something that knows your name.
19. Rightfully accused. Convicted of a crime you actually did commit, you have fled the authorities, taking shelter in the dungeon. Take a thieves’ guild ally who can provide an ordinary service (fencing treasure, laundering money, or similar) at no cost, or an unusual service at half the normal cost, once per month.
20. Dungeon tour guide. Most of your latest group of thrill-seekers didn’t make it too far; good thing they signed the waivers. Take a terrified, wealthy noble, who is useless during delves, but will pay you a bonus of Xd50 GP, where X equals the deepest dungeon level you took them to and spent a non-negligible amount of time in.
21. Monster whisperer. Choose a random monster from the Monster Manual or most appropriate random encounter table, per DM instruction. Take a +2 bonus on reaction rolls when encountering that monster.
22. Dungeon flirt. Wouldn’t it be funny... 👉👈 ...if we kissed in the dungeon? 😳 Take a +2 bonus to reaction rolls with kissable NPCs (your DM has a list of the most kissable NPCs in your game; don’t believe them if they deny this). 
23. Dungeon merchant. Got some rare things on sale, stranger! You have plied the trade of dungeon merchant long enough, and now wish to see how the other half lives, by becoming an adventurer yourself. Take three weird trinkets or very minor magical items, as rolled on a table like this one. 
24. Mushroom hunter. Take a mushroom hat and a +2 to reaction rolls and saving throws when encountering fungal monsters.
25. Dungeon docent. You are a font of dungeon knowledge. A tiny percentage of it may even be useful. Take the ability to identify the approximate era and historical context of dungeon architecture if you have time to carefully study it.
26. Wizard’s apprentice. Until recently, you served an irascible malcontent wizard who dwells in this dungeon. Take a spell scroll with a randomly chosen spell from levels 1-3. (This may seem odd if your character is not a magic user, but that is just another reason for them to have quit the job).
27. Cast into the depths. Someone threw you into a pit, at the bottom of which was the dungeon. Whether the dispute was over love, money, magic, or madness, you can’t recall (probably because you landed on your head). Take the ability to radically forgive your enemies. If you defeat and then spare an intelligent creature with HD equal to or less than your level, it must pass a morale check to take action against you or harm you in the future.
28. Dungeon dressing. Long ago a witch turned you to stone to fill a you-sized gap in the masonry of her wall. The magic finally wore off, and now you’re ambulatory again. Take the ability to ask yes/no questions of worked stone; the stone is generally positively disposed toward you, but will quickly tire of successive questions. 
29. Dungeon heir. You are the lost heir of the dungeon who has returned to claim your birthright. Take a signet ring that anyone familiar with the circumstances of the dungeon’s founding will recognize as legitimate (no one is necessarily compelled to help you, but they at least know you're legit).
30. Trap maintenance worker. Take general knowledge of the location and mechanisms of three nearby traps in the dungeon that the party hasn’t already encountered.
31. Kidnapped. Take a rag that still has 1d4 doses of ether soaked in it.
32. Dungeon ambassador. You were sent from a megadungeon halfway around the world to make connections and facilitate dungeon cultural exchange. Take a scroll case filled with authenticated documents and a spotty book of translated phrases for the most common language that you don’t already speak on this or a neighboring dungeon level.
33. Dungeon junkie. You’re fascinated by dungeons and are happy to finally turn your hobby into an ill-advised profession as an adventurer. Take an encyclopedic knowledge of dungeon trivia (you know something of the lore of the dungeon, but your chance of answering any particular question is inversely proportional to its relevance to the party’s present situation).
34. The licker. Many come to see the dungeon. Few are brave enough to taste the dungeon. Take a +2 bonus to saves against diseases and saves related to refuse-adjacent monsters like carrion crawlers and otyughs. 
35. Ammunition runner. You were a minor cog in some long-running conflict between dungeon factions. That conflict recently ended, leaving you without a job. Take a powerful but fragile bomb that you don’t know what the hell to do with.
36. Claim verifier. Some foolish merchants will underwrite insurance policies on adventurers. There’s money to be made in verifying (or disproving) claimed policyholder deaths. Take a 1-in-6 chance to identify any adventurer corpse you find as a policyholder, earning you a commission back in town of 50 GP times X, where X is the level of the dungeon where the body was found. 
37. The grand tour. You set out to see the world before accepting your inheritance. You didn't realize so much of the world was dungeons. Take an ineffectual aristocrat rival (suggested names: Eustace, Pollyanna, Bianca, Archibald) who will periodically show up to confront you in ways that typically distract genuine dungeon threats or otherwise inadvertently help you.
38. Dungeon chef. 完成じゃ! Take a cookbook detailing how to safely turn monstrous ingredients into edible food. 
39. I’m not even supposed to be here today. You were a last-minute fill-in for another henchman. Take a 10% XP bonus (from overtime pay from the hirelings’ guild) on the next haul of treasure you bring back to civilization.
40. Chaperoned adventurer. After much negotiation, your parents agreed that you could enter the dungeon, as long as a loyal family retainer was there to keep an eye on you. Take an otherwise-normal hireling with a morale of 12 who will literally die for you.
41. Daredevil. No one around your parochial hometown appreciated your sick stunts; you set off to find a place dangerous enough to warrant your reckless behavior. Take a +4 to rolls to balance and tumble while in hazardous situations.
42. Cartographer, in over their head. Take paper, ink and quill, a compass, and a reasonably accurate awareness of the dimensions of the dungeon rooms near where you join the party.
43. Proselytizer. You were charged with bringing the One True Word to those most in need; who needs to hear it more than denizens of the dungeon? You can turn undead as a level 1 cleric, or – if you are already a cleric – as a cleric one level higher than your current level.
44. Dungeon native. You were born in the darkness, molded by it. Take a +1 bonus to surprise rolls in near or total darkness.
45. Thieves’ guild fence. You can sell things that are normally too strange or forbidden to put on the market: trapped undead spirits, starpeople tech that no one understands, weird cult shit. You can always find a buyer, but there may be Consequences if you close more than one weird deal per month.
46. Death’s reject. You were left for dead, but something pulled you back from the light. You won’t die again. At least not the same way. Take a one-time +4 bonus that you may decide to use before making any saving throw.
47. Treasure seeker. You are on the hunt for a particular piece of treasure. Take a (very generally) accurate map to a treasure hoard on the current floor or a neighboring one.
48. Carouser. You partied so hard that you woke up inside the dungeon. Take a result from a good carousing table, like this one, and apply it to your character. Interpret it as favorably as is reasonable for the PC. 
49. Corpse retriever. You’ve seen a lot of death while dragging corpses back to the surface to claim a reward. You can generally tell what sort of monster or weapon killed someone, unless it is really exotic or the corpse is damaged beyond recognition.  
50. Mistreated minion. You were mistreated by your monster-master. Take a minor magical item that you stole from its hoard when you decided that you had finally had enough.
51. Mercenary. You were hired by adventurers to smash a faction they didn’t like. The operation went south and you were left on your own in the dungeon. Take training in fighting in close formation, as well as the knowledge of how to beat antagonists who fight in a similarly militarized manner.
52. Town militia. In addition to your other equipment, take a spear, chain mail, or a jug of strong rum (your choice).
53. Deserter from an adventuring party. Take an amount of extra gold equal to 5d6 multiplied by X, where X is the current dungeon level. This money counts toward gold-for-XP rewards if you survive and return to civilization.
54. Lost hireling. Take a voucher good for a week’s free room and board in the nearest settlement. 
55. Deserter from the nearest faction. Take one true piece of information about that faction’s current plans and priorities.
56. Lone survivor. Take a random piece of extra starting equipment, a memento from your fallen comrades.
57. Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, rich man, poor man, beggarman, thief. You have done a bit of everything in life, but you never succeeded at something well enough that you didn’t end up back in the dungeon. You always have at least a 1-in-20 chance to be momentarily competent at any common profession or job.
58. Trophy hunter. Pick a monster with 5 HD or more; you won’t rest until you have its head mounted on your wall. Take an unsettlingly keen ability to recognize spoor.
59. Smuggler. Dungeon halls are a good way to move things those on the surface shouldn’t see. Take an illegal cargo of your choice (like poison, liquor, or peryton eggs).
60. Unfinished meal. You were left for dead after a monster gobbled you up, but it turned out that you were hard to swallow. Take an innate ability to make things bigger than you gag or vomit at your touch once per day.
61. Inspection unit. Take an ability to detect construction tricks as if you were a dwarf. If you are already a dwarf, take a browbeaten dwarven intern (hireling working at half normal rate) who can do this for you while you “supervise.” 
62. Deserter from a faction on a different dungeon floor. Randomly choose the floor above or the floor below. Take a simple map to the nearest connection between this level and that level.
63. Esoteric contractor. A faction or power in the dungeon hired you because of your hyper-specific expertise in some weird niche field of your choice. Take an exhaustive book of lore which answers every question about this subject.
64. Spelunker. You are good at squirming through tight spots. Take a jar of grease, a climbing pick, and the ability to move through tight spaces as well as a creature half your size could.
65. Rag-and-bone man. You show up at the site of dungeon battles, after the victors have grabbed the obvious treasure, and scavenge from what is left over. When searching a corpse, you can almost always find something that you can repurpose or sell for a modest sum, even if other adventurers would dismiss it as junk. 
66. Attenborougher. This is a story of our changing dungeon, and what we can do to help it thrive. You know what any animal or animal-like monsters’ favorite food is.
67. Dungeon angler. You’ve barely adventured at all, but you have already maxed out the entire fishing minigame. Take a week’s worth of rations (salted fish) and a mounted trophy bass with the Magic Mouth spell cast upon it (your choice what phrase it speaks when activated). 
68. Goo-ologist. You stumbled into the study of oozes, and ever since you’ve been unable to unstick yourself. Take a +2 to bonus to saves against the effects of slimes, oozes, and acids.
69. Chimney sweep. You didn’t think the air in the dungeon stays breathable on its own, did you? Ventilation is important. Take the knowledge of one chimney on this level that leads to the surface. It’s a secret known only to the sweeps. It is difficult to traverse unless very lightly encumbered. You can't put your finger on what lies in store, but you feel what's to happen all happened before.
70. Subterranean prospector. Gold, I tell you, gold! Or silver, or oil, or aarakocra guano, or whatever. The point is, you found something that could make you rich and you’re determined to make good on your claim. Take a crude map to a valuable (but difficult-to-move) natural resource that local factions don’t (yet) know about.
71. Secret stonemason. You are an esteemed member of a highly secretive fraternal organization. At least one creature in every faction is also secretly a member, and will know you by a signature handshake. They will attempt to aid you as long as it doesn’t expose their position to their faction.
72. Adventuresome archeologist. You came down to find the origins of the dungeon. Take a whip and a mysterious idol worth 1000 GP that belongs in a museum.
73. Orphaned sidekick. You shaped your whole identity around the epic hero who led you into this dungeon; now they’re dead, and you’re on your own. Take a randomly chosen minor magical weapon that you’re not (yet?) proficient with.
74. Bounty hunter. You won't stop until you bring your quarry back to civilization, dead or alive. Take a wanted poster featuring a local NPC with a reward of 100 GP times X, where X is the dungeon level where that NPC resides or has spent the most time.
75. Chthonic chameleon. You’ve survived alone down here by learning to camouflage yourself. Take pigments and paints made from mushrooms and moss, capable of concealing you against natural surfaces as long as you remain motionless.
76. Busting out. Tonight there’s gonna be a jailbreak, somewhere in this dungeon. Take thieves' tools and a 15% chance to pick locks (or a +5% or approximate equivalent increase to your chance to pick locks, if you already have this skill).
77. Sinkhole survivor. You were coming home with groceries when the earth opened its dark maw beneath your feet. Now you’re an adventurer. Take an ample supply of a household substance of your choice (like cooking ingredients or cleaning chemicals).
78. Charmbreaker. A bewitching spirit, fey trickster, or other diverting being brought you into the dungeon. You broke the spell and are happy to be free again. You can tell if someone is under the effect of Charm Person or similar magic when you are in physical contact with them. 
79. Amnesiac. You genuinely have no idea how you got here. Take a one-time ability to recover a memory about your prior life at an opportune moment. 
80. Vengeful sibling. You are the previously unmentioned relation of your last character. The two of you were so close that perhaps only a single letter in your respective first names distinguishes you from each other. The monster or faction that killed your last character gets a -2 to morale as long as you are in the thick of any fight with them.
81. Art student. How can you ever hope to equal the old masters unless you study the ancient friezes and sculptures deep within the dungeon? Take the ability to improvise crude but usable paint out of moss, fungus, bones, and other dungeon detritus.
82. Keymaker. Where there are locks, there are keys, and where there are keys, there is a keymaker. Take three keys that each have a 1-in-6 chance to match any given non-magical and relatively ordinary lock you find; on a success, that key matches only that lock and won’t pair with any future locks.
83. The lover. You are in search of your lost boyfriend, wife, platonic soulmate, or similarly important person. Take a locket with their picture and a +4 bonus to saves against fear and charm effects as long as you’re on the same dungeon level as your beloved (chosen or rolled randomly by the DM at their discretion).
84. Transformed animal. You were once an ordinary beast; magic has turned you into a person. You have gotten pretty good at faking it, but still occasionally forget, and do something like munch grass or bray loudly. Take an iron stomach, keen sense of smell, or similar animal trait of your choice.
85. Dungeon revolutionary. You have dedicated yourself to undermining the structures of power that keep the dungeonfolk in check. Take a bucket of red paint and a knack for rallying the rabble.
86. Genealogy junkie. Whether you are searching for a biological parent, or merely traces of the distant parts of your family tree, your search has brought you into the dungeon. Take an uncanny ability to convince strangers you meet that you are a distant relation of theirs.
87. Corpse guy. You got corpses? You need to get rid of them? You need a guy. A corpse guy. They'll take them to the dungeon and NO ONE will see those corpses again. You are the corpse guy. You can intuitively sense the general direction of the nearest area in the dungeon with soil six feet or more in depth.
88. Dungeon telepath. You can connect to other minds, but your talent is hard to control. Take the ability to cast the spell Clairvoyance once per day, but the creature you connect to is randomly chosen from creatures within a 100’ radius of you (including, at the DM’s discretion, creatures you aren’t aware of).
89. Underdork. You’ve come up from the deepest depths to explore the mythic overworld. You haven't quite reached it yet. From your perspective, the dungeon is like a cool attic above the "normal" world. Take a baby purple worm that can eat through 10 feet of stone per day, leaving a 1’ diameter tunnel.
90. Undead ambassador. Caught between life and death due to some dark dungeon magic, you are uniquely suited to entreat both sides of life/death dungeon division. Unintelligent undead hesitate to harm you and have a 50% chance to lose their turn in indecision when trying to attack you.
91. Netherworld newsie. Extra, extra, read all about it! King Cacophonous declares war on the gnolls on level three! You were paid a pittance to spread news about dungeon developments. You are aware of a few salacious rumors about any well-known faction, at least one of which is actually true!
92. Stasis survivor. Of the sleepers in your vault, you were the only one who survived the centuries-long slumber. Take a non-operational piece of technology or an “exhausted” magical item that could be restored through some arcane means.
93. The creation. You were born in a laboratory within the dungeon. Take the ability to heal HP up to your level when you are struck by lightning or electricity, instead of being harmed by it (but yes, you’re also terrified of fire).
94. Interplanar tourist. Take a magical, ambulatory steamer trunk. It can’t fight or talk, but it can carry 100 pounds or four slots worth of equipment, and will follow you faithfully.
95. The curse has been broken, and you are now awake. Take a cursed apple, poisoned spindle, or similarly folkloric object. You bore the brunt of the curse, but it's still got some magic to it.
96. Singing telegram. You were teleported into the dungeon to deliver a message. You were not told that it would be a one-way trip. Take perfect pitch and a vendetta against the Academy of Arcane Arias.
97. Living spell. You are the essence of a spell that has taken physical form. Randomly choose a spell from levels 1-3. You can cast that spell once per X weeks, where X is equal to the level of the spell. Despite your exotic origin, you are otherwise a completely normal mortal.
98. Butlerian butler. While you are a normal PC in all other regards, you are also secretly a robot manservant. A hidden container built into your body can dispense up to a gallon of hot tea per day. 
99. Froggy fresh. A princess kissed you and doomed you to a life as a miserable human, far from the lily pad you once called home. Take a sticky, prehensile tongue that can grab anything the size of a cell key or smaller from up to 10’ away. 
100. Loose clone. You’ve escaped the vats, but you still have a weak psychic connection to your gene-siblings. Once per day, take a weak premonition about whether a course of action would be baneful or… boonful (similar to the Augury spell), based on one of your siblings' experiences while also wandering the dungeon.

Dungeon Crawler Animated by OpoTerser

Caveats and Common Sense

Tweak as needed and use common sense to adapt the result to make sense for the game, system, and setting. For example, a +X bonus can be replaced with advantage in systems that use advantage; a bonus to reaction rolls can be replaced with advantage on Charisma checks when the latter is the norm; and so forth.

Many entries include the instruction to take something, in addition to whatever gear the character would normally have. This is inspired in part by Electric Bastionland’s dirt simple character generation, which prominently features getting at least one unique item, skill, or trait. In my experience, a small, unique bonus softens the blow of starting a plain-ass character at level one. 

Randomly rolled results should be a negotiation between player and DM, with the DM (as always) reserving the right to rule what is appropriate for the dungeon milieu, as well as the agreed-upon game experience. No player should be forced to play something they don’t vibe with, but neither should they be allowed to reroll endlessly; consider limiting their chances to a few tries, or creating a consequence for passing on a roll; for example, making the rejected rolls nemeses of the PC.

Premises, Themes, Genre Hacking, and Shower Thoughts

“Where do you get your ideas?” It’s a famously cliched question for novelists and other creatives at Q&A sessions. I’m mostly against comparing novelists and other narrative-creators to DMs and game designers, but in this instance there are parallels.

So where do they come from? You can get some ideas from your players, as long as you’re careful to do it in a way that separates the planning DM from the adjudicating DM. But for all but the most purely improvisational games – and the resolutely GM-less ones – the DM needs to generate quite a lot of ideas before the players ever come to the table.

Ideas are everywhere. Other games, other media, news stories, dreams, random combinations of unrelated words. Ideas are easy. Premises are easy. The difficult part is turning those inherently amorphous starting points into actionable tools.

Inspired by a few sources, particularly the spark tables in Electric Bastionland, I’ve settled on a process for turning a premise into actionable themes. I’m thinking primarily about developing a new campaign in a TTRPG, but a lot of the same principles apply more generally to other open-ended, game-adjacent planning and creation efforts. 

That said, I do not advocate this as a one-size-fits-all system. Idea generation and cultivation is highly personal. I expect that if anyone else finds this useful, they will modify it beyond recognition, devising their own tools for developing campaigns, settings, worlds, modules, or entirely new games.

Identify the Major Themes of the Game

This sounds obvious, but many people jump directly from a mere premise to creating content. It’s easy to skip an important intermediary step – unraveling the premise to find the themes that support it. This is much more a matter of deciding what the game is not than deciding what it is.

Science fiction games are a good example; this putative genre includes everything from gritty blue collar space truckers to sword-and-planet romance, and from space opera to physics textbook in action. Throwing a lot of sci-fi at the wall without clear themes will produce an incoherent setting and an indistinct game. It’s absolutely imperative to make choices, to decide what is (and especially what is not) central to the game.

So what are these themes? They’re just universal terms that define the world. At least a dozen words, and ideally closer to 20, like the Bastionland spark table, is good to start. I find half adjectives and half nouns a good mix. For the latter, abstract nouns or gnomic noun categories (“vehicle” rather than “motorcycle”) are best.

A random word generator or AI text generator can be helpful here, but usually only as a starting point or to provide “wrong” answers that can be corrected (because changing a “wrong” answer to a “right” answer is much easier than coming up with a correct answer out of thin air).

Compound the Themes 

The setting comes alive not when a single theme appears on stage, but rather when two themes intertwine, dovetail, or clash violently.

If your list is pretty short, combine each of your words into two-word paired terms, with each pair appearing once. If the list is longer, don’t feel obligated to pair every possible combination; roll dice to pair up words and see where the list takes you. Any time you can introduce a little randomness into the process is beneficial, because it unlocks your oracular subconscious. 

Take some deep breaths in a quiet environment and then go through each combination of words and just think about what images those combinations bring to mind. If you meditate, you can employ that tool here. If you don’t meditate, think of the state your brain is in when you have shower thoughts. Why do shower thoughts arise in the shower? Because for most people, it’s one of the few (waking) periods of the day when the brain is released to wander freely. Embrace that feeling. You want to unscrew the lid on your head halfway, just enough to let some air flow in both directions.

Evaluating the Results

Working through this process will commonly produce two results. The first result is interesting, and the second is really fascinating. The first is a meandering walk toward the expected or genre-vanilla result. Your space opera will include laser swords. Your fantasy world will have elves. Your gritty urban world will have a corrupt underbelly. 

No surprise, right? But it’s still worthwhile to have “gotten there” on your own power. Validating a genre convection proves that you need it and that it deserves to be there. Every idea needs to be checked to confirm you’re not just gliding on assumptions.

The second result, the fascinating one, is when the process spits out something really unexpected. You may feel an immediate instinct to toss out the weird or incongruous result. Don’t do this. Instead, add it to the list and let it hang out. Keep it around for a while. Savor it. Remember, if you’re creating a genre-salient game-thing for players or consumers who are savvy in that genre, the fastest way to lose them is not to create something that doesn’t engage with their expectations of the genre, but rather to create something that relies on those expectations too much. We want – we need – our game to be surprising, even – especially – to people who know the game’s premise well.

If, after some time, you realize that a theme-pair really is too strange or confusing to use as-is, don’t throw it out entirely. Instead, consider the permutations. Is there something synonymous that is worth using? Antonymous? Is the combination’s meaning just obscure? Slang? Jargon? An acronym? Magic words? A brand name?

Remember, the players will probably never actually hear many of these word pairs in a session. These are working in the background. You don’t have to be self-conscious about it or worry about explaining it to someone. This is inside-voice stuff, for your use only. 

Next week: Themes, Thesauruses, Mysteries, and Megadungeons

A Closer Look at the Medusa: Seven Variant Gorgons

I posted this to Reddit last year, where it received a generally positive response. I've made a few improvements based on the feedback. I'm leaving the weird distribution of damage favoring the reaction for the Mother of the Desert, because I'm enamored with the idea that it would incentivize strategic play by the PCs; but if I ever have a chance to extensively test that in a game, it would be ripe for possible revision, per the comment in the thread. 

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The various Monster Manuals of D&D provides classic, archetypal creatures. In many cases, they are fine to use as-is. But they also invite interesting questions, opportunities for variation, and implicit worldbuilding. The following is an attempt to explore the variations within one classic monster: the Medusa.

A taxonomic note: This entry will use the term “gorgon” as the group term for monstrous humanoids related to the singular Medusa of legend; not the etymologically confused Foure-Footed Beastes described in the “Gorgon” entry in the Monster Manual.

Mother of the Desert

The lands to the west of the steppes were once rich and green. The weather was fair and the harvests bountiful. And the land was safe, for giant stone sentinels guarded the borders. The prosperous queen of this land had everything except time; so she prayed to the gods for more of it.

In her immortal form, she outlasted her prosperous kingdom. Into the ruins came invaders. First small bands of treasure hunters; eventually, conquering armies. Preferring the peaceful silence of her empty queendom, she petrified them all. Over time, the land became cluttered with statues, so she ordered the giant stone sentries to dispose of them. They did so by grinding them up, methodically, century after century, until the fine rock dust of countless soldiers formed the desert you see now.

Mother of the Desert (medium monstrous gorgon ruler)
AC 19 (stony skin) HP 255 SP 30’, burrow 30’ (sand only)
Abilities. Constitution +5 / Intelligence +3 / Wisdom +3 / Charisma +5
Saves. Wisdom +8
Skills. History +8 / Insight +8 / Intimidation +10 / Perception +8 / Persuasion +10 / Religion +8
Darkvision 60’; speaks only a dead language.
Petrifying Gaze. As Medusa (DC 17).
Sandburst (recharge 6). A scouring blast of sand in a 60’ cone deals 8d8 magical bludgeoning damage (DC 17 CON save for half). Petrified creatures are immune to this damage.
Heavy Scepter (x3). +10 to hit, 4d6 bludgeoning damage.
Anguished Cry (reaction). After taking damage, the Mother may use her reaction to emit an earsplitting cry of pain. Each creature within a 30’ radius of the Mother must make a DC 17 CON save or take 10d8 thunder damage. Creatures made of stone or petrified creatures have disadvantage on this saving throw. Non-magical objects neither worn nor carried also take this damage.
Legendary Action (once per round). Move up to her speed by burrowing through sand; does not provoke opportunity attacks.

Stone Sentinel stats as Stone Golem.

The Coral Gorgons

After a hero of old killed an ancient stone-eyed king, the hero severed the head, for use in some epic quest. The hero did not think of what might happen to the headless corpse they left behind. For 999 years, the body bled a continuous river of blood down to the ocean, subtly changing the sea life dwelling just off those shores.

The aquatic gorgons that now swim in this part of the sea have the power to petrify soft flesh, but their gaze does not turn intruders to lifeless stone; instead, they transform them into living coral. Over many generations, a barrier reef has formed, entirely composed of pearl-stealing divers and trespassing merrow. Those brave or foolish enough to explore these waters can still find traces of terrified faces in the coral formations. And some claim to have used Speak with Animals to converse with this coral, saying that it still retains vague memories of its life before transformation…

Treasures found among the coral statues of the sea gorgons:

1. Gilt-Leaf Kelp. Leaves can be hammered to extract 20 GP per pound, but it must be done immediately after they are removed from the water, or they lose their value in the dry air.
2. Sea Urchin Armor (light armor). Offers protection equivalent to studded leather. At the start of each of the wearer’s turns, they deal 1d6 piercing damage to any creature grappling them.
3. Encrusted Cube. Man-sized; covered in so many layers of rust and barnacles that it is difficult to make out what it is. Time-consuming (roll random event) to scrape it away and heavy/difficult to move. Actually a remarkably airtight safe; contains three bottles of fine wine (100 GP each) and a dire ermine coat dyed magenta (500 GP to a buyer with bad taste).
4. Coral Sword (magic, martial). This longsword is composed of living coral, and grants +1 to attack and damage. The wielder of the sword is affected by the Freedom of Movement spell while underwater. The sword must be immersed in the ocean for at least an hour per day, or its magic fades, and is only restored after a month’s uninterrupted immersion.

The Arbor-Bane Gorgons

Stories say they were once wood elves who betrayed the treants of the old forests during a long-forgotten war. Today, just as the gorgons of human legend petrify the world’s fauna, these gorgons of elven legend are deadly to the flora of their ancient homelands. They wander the wilderness, wearing veils made of thin, gauze-like material that allow them to use their cursed vision selectively. Their petrifying gaze has no effect on creatures, but instead instantly turns wood to stone.

This does not make them much less dangerous than their famous cousins. They travel in small groups, and are skilled ambushers. Favored tactics include turning heavy tree limbs to stone to create deadfall traps, or transforming several treetops to stone simultaneously, such that they buckle and topple, and using the ensuing noise and panic of local wildlife to mask their approach. When they strike, these deadly archers use their gaze to turn the wooden shafts of their arrows into stone a fraction of a second before the hit, multiplying the force of their impact.

Arbor-Bane Gorgon (medium monstrous gorgon archer)
AC 15 (bark-like skin) HP 52 SP 30’
Abilities. Dexterity +4 / Constitution +2 / Wisdom +2
Skills. Perception +5 / Stealth +7 / Survival +5
Darkvision 60’; Elvish, Sylvan.
Petrifying Gaze. As Medusa (DC 15), but only affects creatures composed in part of wood.
Longbow. +6 to hit, 3d8+4 piercing damage.
Deadwood (reaction). The gorgon may add 2 to its AC against one ranged weapon attack that it can see, if the attack was made with non-magical ammunition made of wood or a non-magical thrown weapon made of wood. The ammunition or thrown weapon used to make the attack is petrified and useless.

The Time Travel Agent

Most people fear and avoid the gorgons. But a rare few seek them out, welcoming their gaze. For the body does not age, or grow sick, or even require sustenance while petrified. Perhaps a person wishes to see the wonders of the future; outlive persistent enemies; or merely wait for an investment to appreciate.

This scheme relies on the safe storage of the statue, as well as a reliable third party to cast Greater Restoration or apply the proper basilisk gut-oil when the “traveler” reaches their “destination.” But the few gorgons willing to engage with civilization in this way have made a profitable business of this practice.

Adventure Hook. A Gnomish reinsurance consortium is hiring adventurers to investigate a claim they acquired as part of a collateralized package of policies. Apparently a caravan of pilgrims went missing; they were last seen embarking on a journey through the Elemental Plane of Fire. Following leads in the City of Brass, inquisitive PCs can learn that the pilgrims voluntarily petrified themselves to safely cross the burning plains, but that the firenewt caravan guards they had hired to chaperone them abandoned the caravan when their wagon jackknifed into a fumarole. A hefty reward is on offer if the PCs can find a way to return two dozen cumbersome, petrified pilgrims to safety; but a clutch of purple worms is approaching the site, drawn by the smell of foreign stone, even as the local topography bubbles into seismological wakefulness…

The Sculptor

Like many of his kind, the gorgon who would come to be known as the Sculptor lived in exile, long after the kingdom that once feted him fell into ruin. Fascinated by mortal creatures, he would study how they moved with the eye of an artist. Through much practice, he learned to approach creatures that looked into his eyes just as the petrification process began, and gently manipulate their limbs into a desired pose.

This form of artistic expression began with creating individual “statues.” Over time, the Sculptor arranged figures in increasingly elaborate scenes, where petrified animals, people, and monsters populated beautiful gardens, and seemed to interact in lifelike ways. But eventually, mere imitation of life failed to satisfy the Sculptor’s ambition. He wanted to create something original; something the world had never seen before. So he practiced petrifying creatures in very specific poses, such that the statues would interlock or pile on each other in novel ways. Soon a stone superstructure on a heretofore unseen scale began to rise in the wilderness, built entirely from petrified bodies…

The Sculptor (medium monstrous gorgon artisan)
AC 18 (stony skin) HP 234 SP 30’
Abilities. Strength +2 / Constitution +4 / Intelligence +2 / Charisma +4
Skills. Athletics +6 / Insight +4 / Perception +4 / Performance +8 / Stealth +4
Petrifying Gaze. As Medusa (DC 16).
Darkvision 60’; Common, Primordial.
Chisel and Hammer (x1 each). +9 to hit, 3d8+3 piercing and 4d6+3 bludgeoning respectively; both attacks have advantage against creatures and objects made of stone, and deal double damage on hits.
Artist’s Eye (reaction). When a creature fails its save against Petrifying Gaze or another effect that causes petrification, the Sculptor may use their reaction to move up to 30’ toward the creature and attempt to initiate a grapple.
Creator’s Rage. Whenever a statue is destroyed in The Sculptor’s presence, he must make a DC 15 CHA save; if he fails, he has disadvantage on attack and saving throw rolls until the end of his next turn. If he reduces a creature responsible for destroying a statue to 0 HP, he is immune to this effect until the next dawn.

The Unblinking Eye

When the city guard finds a shattered statue of a man, the fragments of his face twisted in terror, everyone knows that the Guild of the Unblinking Eye has struck once again. This cabal of gorgonic assassins is famous for poisoning their arrows with a serum that curses their prey with 360 degree vision, even through solid surfaces. As their victims flee in terror, they cannot even avert or close their eyes to hide from the hideous gaze of their pursuers.

The Unblinking Eye’s “poison” can be quite useful to dungeoneers who inject to intentionally gain the x-ray vision it provides. Of course, stealing this poison from the Unblinking Eye is a good way to move oneself to the top of their hit list…

Lyncean Poison (magic, perishable, poison). If this perfectly clear liquid is introduced into a sighted creature’s bloodstream, they must make a DC 15 CON save or gain x-ray vision, with a 360 degree field of view, up to a range of 30’. This includes seeing through their eyelids and other parts of their body; they cannot avoid observing their surroundings as long as they are conscious. A creature may choose to fail this saving throw.

The Squamous King

If you ask the serpent-whispers of the Yuan-Ti, they will tell you the gorgons are pale imitators of their snakely ways. If you ask a gorgonologist, they will say the Yuan-Ti are merely an offshoot of a much older branch of gorgonkind.

But on at least one storm-wracked island amid an endless archipelago, these debates are moot. Here, the Yuan-Ti worship an immortal gorgon as a kind of demigod, and the gorgon has adapted over innumerable centuries to reflect the boons of that worship. The one they call the Squamous King has the lower body of a Yuan-Ti abomination, the torso of a man with green-gray skin, and a fearsome head covered in a mass of writhing serpents.

The Squamous King (large monstrous gorgon yuan-ti)
AC 16 (stony skin) HP 268 SP 40’, climb 40’, swim 40’
Abilities. Strength +4 / Constitution +4 / Charisma +4
Saves. Strength +9 / Wisdom +5
Skills. Athletics +9 / Acrobatics +5 / Deception +9 / Perception +5 / Stealth +5
Immunities. Poison, Poisoned
Darkvision 60’; Abyssal, Draconic.
Envenomed Scimitar (x3). +8 to hit, 4d6+4 slashing damage plus 3d6 poison damage.
Serpentine Blood (reaction). When the King takes slashing or piercing damage, he may use his reaction to create a flying snake-spawn (stats as Flying Snake, but with Cockatrice petrification effect in lieu of poison damage).
Legendary Actions (any two per round).
Slither. Move up to 40’.
Constrict. +8 to hit, reach 10’, 3d6+4 bludgeoning, grappled and restrained on a hit (escape DC 16).
Stones to Snakes. An area of non-magical stone no larger than 10’ x 10’ x 10’ within 30’ that the King can see turns into a mass of writhing snakes (stats as Swarm of Poisonous Snakes, but with speed 0’). A creature sharing this space (or falling into it) may make a DC 16 DEX save to move to an adjacent space.

Who is the Petrified Person We Just Restored?

1. A moon musician, petrified for playing displeasing music in the gorgon’s royal court. Talented, but out of sync with zodiac shifts during their long period of stony hibernation. Can cast Augury once per day by playing musical horoscopes on their lunar lute.
2. An art vandal, petrified as a form of ironic punishment. Will eye any other nearby unbroken statues lasciviously while tapping their sledge hammer absentmindedly.
3. A cavalry officer, petrified to buy time to find an antidote after she was bitten by a rare spider… You do have that antidote, right?
4. A scorpion knight, petrified while trying to steal poison from the gorgon’s hair. Hails from a forbidden knightly order that poisons its weapons. Weirdly chivalric; will honorably aid anyone who saved them, but will impulsively attack frog knights.
5. The gorgon’s lover, petrified during a quarrel. Will have complicated and conflicting feelings upon revival, whether the gorgon in question is alive or dead.
6. A chaste ascetic, petrified for shaming the gorgon’s alleged vanity. Restored, their outlook has flipped to epicureanism, and they now wish to live in the moment and indulge their senses, insisting their saviors join them in celebration.