This is inspired from this youtube video about how species fill vacant ecological niches on isolated islands. For exemple how kiwi birds took on the role and characteristics of rats in the absence of these mammals.
Let try to apply this on random encounter tables. Now random encounter tables are not really ecologies or biomes but since we are familiar with their content it can be fun to generate interesting variants.
Let use the the Forest/Wooded encounters from the Labyrinth Lord's Wilderness Monster Encounter Table.
Forest/Wooded encounters (1d20)
Bee, giant killer
Boar
Bugbear
Cat, Panther
Cockatrice
Dryad
Dragon, Green
Elf
Ghoul
Hobgoblin
Werewolf
Brigands
Orc
Roc, small
Spider, giant crab
Troll
Unicorn
Wight
Wolf
Wolf, dire
Let remove half the encounters so that the "surviving" monsters can fill their "niches".
We roll 10d20: 20 - 11 - 2 - 17 - 20 - 5 - 12 - 12 - 6 - 4 (re rolling doubles: 7, 10)
Bee, giant killer
Boar
Bugbear
Cat, Panther
Cockatrice
Dryad
Dragon, Green
Elf
Ghoul
Hobgoblin
Werewolf
Brigands
Orc
Roc, small
Spider, giant crab
Troll
Unicorn
Wight
Wolf
Wolf, dire
Now let see who fill these empty niches
For each absent monster we assign a random survivor who will speciate to fill it empty niche, we will combine the two monsters to create a new one. This new monster use the survivor stats bloc and switch 2d3 characteristics with the monster it is replacing.
Characteristics table (d12)
No.Enc
Alignment
Movement
Armor Class
HD (size)
Attack type
Damage
Saves
Morale
Hoard class
Special ability or vulnerability
Appearance
If we make the rolls we end up with:
Boar wight
Panther trolls
Cockatrice elves
Dryad bugbears
Green dragon ghouls
Hobgoblin wolfs
Werewolf bugbears
Brigands giant killer bees
Unicorn giant killer bees
Dire wolf wolf (??)
What happen to the original survivor monsters?
Let roll on the adaptation table to find out:
Adaptation table (d8)
1-2 Dwarf variant (-1 HD, step up No Enc.)
3-4 Giant variant (+1 HD, step down No Enc.)
5-6 Random characteristic variant (roll on the characteristic table and modify this characteristic to create a variant)
7 Stunted variant (roll on the characteristic table and nerf or dilute this characteristic)
8 Hyper variant (roll on the characteristic table and boost or intensify this characteristic)
If we make the rolls we end up with:
Giant giant killer bee
Hyper Bugbear (Hyper variant: boost number encountered!)
Dwarf Elf
Giant Ghoul
Dwarf Orc
Dwarf small Roc
Giant giant spider crab
High Damage Trolls (Hyper variant: boost damages!)
Giant Wight
Climbing Wolf (Random characteristic variant: movement type)
Our final forest island random table:
d20
Giant Wight
Boar Wights (tusked wights who search the ground with their big groin)
High Damage Trolls (ouch!)
Panther Trolls (stealthy four legged trolls)
Dwarf Elves
Cockatrice Elves (use petrification to craft stuff out of petrified victims)
Hyper Bugbear (larger No. Enc.)
Dryad Bugbears (tree linked female bugbears)
Werewolf Bugbears (bugbears who turn into dire wolves)
Giant Ghoul
Green Dragon Ghouls (greedy scaly toxic breath ghouls)
Dwarf Orc
Hobgoblin Wolfs (weapon using bipedal wolfs)
Dwarf Small Roc (mounts for the dwarf elves or orcs)
Giant Giant Spider Crab
Giant Giant killer bee (they are getting quite big!)
Brigands giant killer bees (killer bees who ambush people to hoard their stuff)
Unicorn giant killer bees (white bees who produce magical honey for maidens)
I put back The Doodle Factory in the Skies on my LULU store.
The zine is build around a drawing jam I did with my friend Melissa (but the zine is composed of 75% of my illustrations). The zine is in full color so a bit pricey but not too much.
This is a really whimsical set of 20 floating locations. Each location is represented by a big central illustration and a set of 6 (or more) small illustrations. The thing is that you roll a couple d6 to see what you find in these locations. These is also some rules for drifting from one location to a other.
The central theme is a big factory that pollute the other floating islands and a dragon that hoard enchanted trash around a micro-moon.
I personally like this setting and I enjoyed playing with it using the Black Hack but some people told me that the setup was too strange for them to figure out how to use it. If you are looking for something with more emphasis on wonder you might like it. There is a bit of a Planescale vibe to it. My non-gamer friends quite liked it and had a lot of fun contributing more to the setting when I asked them questions.