Four Pregens / followers

I used my prompts generator for NPCs backgrounds to generate these four pregens or followers

(I decided their gender identities and sexual orientation on my own) 

(That generator is fun but it need more work) 

Wandering Merchants

Itinerant merchants seem like a obvious interesting random encounter but we rarely see them in random tables.

Ordinary merchants are ok but fantasy or surreal ones are more intriguing.

I tried to design some with Carys. We each drew four merchants (and later Carys drew a extra one), then with help of Brian we wrote 6 items for each merchant.

You can find the resulting PDF here.
https://theunburnedwitch.itch.io/wandering-merchants

Bonus content: a itinerant merchant generator

The merchant... (d10)

1. is a headless artificial construct or a golem
2. is a monster wearing pretty clothes
3. have been cursed with a animal head and can't speak humanoids languages. 
4. wear a veil and speak softly 
5. wear a old suit of armor and a sealed helm
6. is a insect using mimicry to vaguely look human 
7. is wearing baroque clothes from a other plane
8. wear a beautiful and elaborate magical prosthesis 
9. is a unknown humanoid specie wearing common clothes
10. is chained to a strange familiar

and is selling... (d10)

1. Dentures and wood noses
2. Keys and doorknobs 
3. Traps and whistles 
4. Gloves and ribbons 
5. Belts and girdles
6. Tiny chests and boxes
7. Optical devices
8. Achronistic items
9. Clockwork pets
10. Miniature idols 

Each time the group encounter the merchant they have a unique special item to trade or sell. If you need to improvise a item, ask one player to describe something that attract their attention, then ask a other player what kind of special property the item could have. If you need more details ask a third player, etc. Take notes and tweak their answer a bit using "yes but" or "yes and". 

If you are using the merchants from the PDF roll on their items table to determine the item. This way the players can wonder what the merchant will have the next time they will encounter them.

Misfits Band of Adventurers Generator

I used my pocket adventurers to create a Misfits Band of Adventurers generator:

Enjoy: https://perchance.org/qkd5wpv3zj

EDIT: NateTreme from Highland Paranormal Society created this mini game using my generator:

Also Dyson Logo did a nice review of my cards: https://dysonlogos.blog/2020/05/20/the-fabulous-pocket-guild

Adventure Planet Generator

A while ago after reading Jack Vance's Planet of Adventure (Le Cycle de Tschaï) I tried to write a setting generator inspired by it. While procrastinating I found back that old post and I completed the generator on Perchance.

The basic premise is that a human generation ship crashed on a earth like planet situated at the frontier of different alien civilizations. Each alien civilization built a colony on the planet and decided to uplift the surviving human population. Some humans continued to survive in the wild.

Centuries later a second human ship arrive in orbit to check on the lost human colony but one of the alien factions shot the ship down and only a few survivors make it to the planet surface.

The PC can be these survivors or they can be wild humans trying to survive in the shadow of the alien colonies.

In Vance's series each book is about one of the different alien colonies and their relation with the local human populations. The alien colonies have advanced technologies but they are also vulnerable as they are all far away from their home civilizations. The aliens should probably be non playable but the GM should create a few individual alien NPCs who have views or values different from those of their colony.

Colonialism would be the principal theme of this kind of campaign and it should be discussed with the group, probably using lines and veils.

The Adventure Planet generator create five alien colonies. their uplifted humans servitors and the local wild human populations. It also generate relationships between these colonies.

I guess that the generator could be also used for a campaign inspired by the SF comics Prophet.

I would recommend using Macchiato Monsters or a Sword & Planet RPG to run this kind of campaign.
(Some character sheets I drew for a old session of MM inspired by Prophet)

The Adventure Planet generator: https://perchance.org/adventureplanet 

Some covers of the excellent french comic book adaptation of Planet of Adventure:

Mythos entity generator

I wrote a mythos entity generator.
You can quickly generate a entity with the automated generator I crafted on Perchance: https://perchance.org/rswdaedldh

Or you can do it with dice:

The entity is [TRAIT] and [TRAIT].
It reacts to [STIMULI].

The entity is [ACTION]
to [GOAL].

A [PERSON] has been in contact with the entity
and is now [REACTION].

Tore used the generator to write a entity for his blog: Dorzad, the Parasite Redeemer.
(If you create one, share your interpretation of the result or a link in the comment)

TRAITS (d30)

1.   fractal in nature
2.   immaterial
3.   mineral
4.   hyper dense 
5.   impervious to weapons 
6.   a colony
7.   small
8.   gigantic 
9.   invisible 
10.   toxic
11.   shapeless 
12.   tentacular 
13.   immobile 
14.   fibrous
15.   exist in a different time 
16.   parasitic 
17.   symbiotic
18.   partly real
19.   made of energy
20.   fleshy
21.   slowly awakening
22.   crawling 
23.   blind
24.   fluid
25.   {foul|sweet}-smelling
26.   biomechanical
27.   multi-eyed
28.   fossilized
29.   bending {light|space|time|matter}
30.   radioactive 

STIMULI (d20)

1.   light 
2.   fire
3.   heat
4.   sound
5.   a specific mineral 
6.   water
7.   emotions
8.   electricity 
9.   radio waves
10.   radiation
11.   wounds
12.   incantations 
13.   odors 
14.   cold 
15.   alchemical compounds 
16.   a specific virus 
17.   a alien material
18.   patterns 
19.  cells 
20.  thoughts 

ACTION (d20)

1.   growing
2.   sporing 
3.   splitting
4.   sending visions 
5.   emitting {radio|micro|sound} waves
6.   producing biomatter
7.   assembling minerals 
8.   manipulating time, light, memories, 
9.   infecting matter 
10.   secreting matter
11.   cloning biomatter 
12.   consuming matter
13.   mimicking life forms
14.   mutating life forms
15.   spawning organisms 
16.  digesting and assembling minerals
17.  laying eggs
18.  chanting incantations
19.  draining {body water|blood|fat tissues|body minerals|spinal fluids}
20.  grafting biomechanical materials

GOAL (d30)

1.   communicate with {us|a other entity|a Great Old One|the Outer Gods}
2.   heal {us|a other entity|itself|a Great Old One}
3.   reproduce {itself|us|a Great Old One}
4.   migrate to a new {world|time|reality}
5.   worship {us|a Great Old One|the Outer Gods}
6.   feed {us|a other entity|a Great Old One|the Outer Gods|itself}
7.   understand {us|our plane of reality|our time line}
8.   record {our specie|our reality|our time line|our civilization|our biosphere}
9.   protect itself from {us|our reality|a other entity|a Great Old One|the Outer Gods|time dilatation}
10.   {build|repair} a {weapon|portal|spaceship|communicator} 
11.   end it eternal existence 
12.   teach us {it language|it history|it science|it religion|a technology|the nature of the universe}
13.   preserve a record of {it language|it history|it science|it religion|it technology}
14.   prepare a {landing site|nursery}
15.   help us to evolve 
16.   find a {copy of itself|a mate|other entity|gate|Great Old One}
17.   seal a {copy of itself|other entity|gate|Great Old One|reality breach}
18.   summon a {copy of itself|other entity|Great Old One|the Outer Gods}
19.   terraform our world
20.   preserve {it biosphere|itself|a copy of itself|it civilisation}
21.   mature into a new life stage
22.   make food reserves {to hybernate|for it future spawns}
23.   proselytize the gospel of the Outer Gods
24.   prepare to go into hybernation
25.   repair {reality|a space-time distortion|a time paradox|it specie|our specie|a Great Old One}
26.   open a gate to {it homeworld|a alien city|a different time line|the prison of a Great Old One|a other dimension|the Great Library of Celeano|a alien archeological site}
27.  connect things with {us|a other entity|a Great Old One|the Outer Gods|itself}
28.  recover a artifact 
29.  run a complex simulation 
30. build a colony

PERSON (d30)

1.   religious person
2.   scholar 
3.   local worker
4.   small group of {children|women|men|teenagers|elders}
5.   teacher
6.   homeless person 
7.   hermit 
8.   investigator 
9.   conman
10.   drunkyard 
11.   junkie
12.   hunter
13.   mailman
14.   farmer
15.   doctor
16.   veterinary
17.   veteran
18.   artist
19.   escaped convict
20.   reporter
21.   inspector
22.   exterminator
23.   cop
24.   husband
25.   student
26.   engineer
27.   medium
28.   librarian
29.   couple
30.   activist

REACTION (d50)

1.   afraid of going back there
2.   worried for someone
3.   terrified of someone
4.   dead
5.   hiding a mutation
6.   hiding a artifact
7.   trying to communicate with it
8.   traumatized 
9.   seeing things
10.   crafting strange things
11.   trying to record everything
12.   trying to warn people
13.   trying to destroy it
14.   trying to protect it
15.   hiding a sample
16.   worshiping it
17.   in self quarantine
18.   behaving strangely
19.   mumbling strange words
20.   painting strange patterns
21.   obsessed about it
22.   deep in conspirations theories
23.   trying to find help
24.   afraid of people
25.   paranoiac 
26.   drawing a star map
27.   sculpting idols
28.   having nightmares
29.   sick
30.   sleepwalking 
31.   taking someone hostage
32.   suspected of murder
33.   poisoning the water
34.   missing
35.   speaking a strange language
36.   blind
37.   mute
38.   deaf
39.   insomniac
40.   hoarding things
41.   digging holes
42.   trying to draw it
43.   trying to feed it
44.   a mathematical genius
45.   wearing strange clothes and amulets
46.   writing a book
47.  arming themself
48.  modifying their house
49.  trying to learn magic
50.  different person

Spooky City!

I launched a collective Spooky City set for Halloween and Anxiety Wizard edited it and used it to post a introduction to his City Generator Kit.

I made a video where I generate a Spooky City using the set: Generating a Spooky City!

Here is the cleaned up map:

As a experiment I zoomed in a district and applied the landmark rules to create neighborhoods (this is how I generated the secondary streets). To color the neighborhoods I mixed the district theme with the themes of entries I rolled on the districts table. A other possibility would have been to roll random encounters for each neighborhoods to color them.

Keywords maps

As a experiment I used keywords instead of names to fill up a map. I selected the keywords using free associations but I guess that you could also randomly generate them or use a mix of both techniques. Generating them collectively could also be fun.

I think that I like the result, I could easily use the map to improvise a point crawl session. The only annoying thing is that you have to figure out how to actually name things in the game world, I guess that you can combine the keywords with other words to craft names. Like the town with the keyword "sad" could be Sad Street or Sad Sparrow.

You could also use the keywords to generate random encounters. Let's try this.

The red keywords are regions or kingdoms, lets try with Diaspora of Remembrance. 

On one table we put up 20 keywords located in the region. 

1. Remembrance 
2. Sad
3. Moon
4. Quiet
5. Buried
6. Paintings
7. Healing
8. Light
9. Ghasts
10. Joy
11. Old
12. Memories
13. Abandoned
14. Forgotten
15. Ribbons
16. Milk
17. Exiled
18. Mourn
19. Roots
20. Rest

On a other table we put 10 types of encounters

1. Group of people
2. Loner or outcast 
3. Trader
4. Small beasts 
5. Large beast
6. Undead
7. Spirit
8. Monster
9. Conman 
10. Figure of authority  

If we combine some rolls to craft a d10 random encounters table we get:

1. Healing + Figure of authority 
2. Joy + Outcast 
3. Memories + Undead
4. Exiled + Spirit
5. Remembrance + Conman
6. Ghasts + Small beasts
7. Light + Undead
8. Buried + Group of People 
9. Milk+  Group of people
10. Forgotten + Trader

I could easily work with this. You can apply the same formula to generate treasures and magical items. 

Potoo Island's building blocks

I am taking a break from drawing to work a bit on Potoo’s Island.

So this project is partly based on a joke and on a dream, I don’t really know where I want to go with this, I only know that I love potoo birds and that I want to craft something fun and strange based on them.

So I did some researches on the potoos and I took a good quantity of notes. I want to do something with the legend about the potoo being the spirit of a woman who fell from the moon and who call her moon husband at night.

Since I have no clear directions, I will begin by generating encounters to populate the island and then I will try to make sense of what will emerge. I will try to use the monsters building blocks method I posted earlier.

My building blocks will be things related to the potoo and the island.

Building blocks (d8)

1. Potoo bird 
2. Bugs (beetles, moths, grasshoppers and termites) (preys) 
3. Small birds (preys that potoo swallow whole!) 
4. Falcon (predators) 
5. Monkey (predators) 
6. Shipwrecked humans (who probably messed up the balance or ecology of the island) 
7. Rotting wood, tree stumps and mushrooms (thing that potoo camouflage as) 
8. Something fallen from the moon or the sky (reference to the legend) 

I also wrote some monsters archetypes to combine with the building blocks.

Encounter types (d12)

1. Sentient humanoids 
2. Mutated specialist function 
3. Strange chimera and hybrids 
4. Wild or primordial beasts (ancient ones may speak) 
5. Spirits (linked to a element or concept) 
6. Guardians (linked to a special location, gain advantage or power from it) 
7. Corrupted, cursed or undead 
8. Monstrous hoarder (accumulate stuff) 
9. Mimics, shapeshifters 
10. Deforestation, destruction of the environment 
11. Influenced or affected by a other building block (like falcons trained by humans or a ancient potoo spirit who hate humans) (Roll a d10 on this table to determine archetype and d8 on the building blocs table to determine relation) 
12. Roll two d10 on this table and mix the results, double result give a unique champion encounter with +1HD) 

I also crafted a random table that spotlight traits or aspects of the potoos. I will roll on this table when I need inspiration.

Potoo's aspects (d10)

1. Big eyes 
2. Big mouth, eat things whole 
3. Eerie call, induce fear or sadness 
4. Camouflage 
5. Stillness (or the need to avoid movements) 
6. Nocturnal, sleepy or lazy during day 
7. Eat insects and small birds 
8. Don’t hunt on the ground, mob defense 
9. Mate for life and lay a single egg, camouflaged hidden egg. 
10. Can be cartoony or spooky

I will probably start by generating creatures for each Hit Die I want to feature on the island. Then I will assign HD to areas of the island and craft random tables around these.

My template will probably be something like:

Area HD (d6)

1. Encounter from area’s HD 
2. Encounter from area’s HD 
3. Encounter from area’s HD 
4. Encounter from lower HD 
5. Encounter from +1 HD 
6. Encounter from +2 HD 

I will post next what I will have generated with these tables.

(cartoony)

(spooky)

Slumber City

This is a contribution for a city generator project that Anxiety Wizard is working on.
Anxiety Wizard generated this map using his system with my city set: 

Slumber City

A long time ago, to repel a large invading force, the mages of the city casted a powerful mass sleep spell, they lost control of the spell and now it essence is bound into the city itself. The city now stand at the edge of the waking and slumber worlds.

Truths

• Slumbering: because of the sleep essence infused in the city, people are often dozy and regularly fall asleep, sleeping is greatly respected, waking up someone is badly view.
• Slumberland: the city coexist in the Slumberland, people who fall asleep in the city continue their daily routine in the Slumberland. Work in the Slumberland is considered on the same level as working in the waking world. The farther you venture beyond the city walls the more strange and alien the Slumberland become.
• Sleepwalkers are people who are stuck between both world, they exist in both and do everything in a sleepwalking mode, it is hard to communicate with them in either worlds.
• Architecture: baroque and highly influenced by the strange architecture of the Slumberland. There is a lot of import and export between the two worlds. Sandmen do most of the import and export as they can physically travel between both worlds. Dreams gates can also be summoned but are unstable.

Landmarks d10

1. Gigantic rock carved in the shape of a sleepy moon.
2. City hall build with meteorites stones imported from the slumber world
3. Clockwork dome containing mechanical spheres following the movement of the planets and the stars.
4. Giant clock tower that stopped after midnight, strange events sometimes cause the big needle to advance.
5. Multi story baroque hostel made of beds
6. Slumber sanitarium for the sleepwalkers, immense marble hallways and high coloms.  
7. Quiet lake always reflecting the night sky. Dream creatures can be spotted at night.
8. Royal statues of the sleeping royalty, sleeping beauty style, gigantic sculpted bed.  
9. Giant hourglass building with stairways and offices.
10. Gigantic sleeping monster, felt asleep while invading the city. It dreamself is tiny.  

Neighborhoods d30

1. Sleeperhood, everyone felt asleep during their daily routine. People are paid to take care of them but it is forbidden to move them.
2. Sweet dreams hood, sleeping here give better dreams, higher priced.
3. Nightmares hood, sleeping here give bad dreams, low rent.
4. Boring dreams, sleeping here bring super boring dreams. People develop odd habits.
5. Houses for insomniacs, shunned or pitied by everyone. Paid by city council.
6. Bed crafters guild and prestigious families.
7. Hypnotists convention, lots of little shops.
8. Secret coffee shops, operate like speakeasy.  
9. Sandmen neighborhood. Mysterious but friendly, locals avoid them.
10. Cats neighbors, own houses. Waking a cat is a crime.
11. Dreams selling market, dream gates summoners, sandmen unwelcomed.
12. Runaway dreams and Slumberland refugees. Spontaneous dream gates.
13. Dreams theater, lot of artists, opium cafe, bordello.
14. Dream powder makers. Lots of bakeries.
15. Clockwork craftsmen, lots of clocks and mechanical hourglass.  
16. Academic neighborhood, occult psychology, Slumberland history, astronomy.  
17. Astronomers, every houses have a telescope. Night lights are forbidden
18. Swarm of fireflies, some large ones are sacred, fireflies temples.   
19. Silent neighborhood, noise is forbidden, lots of pianists (who work elsewhere).  
20. Sleepwalker’s families are honored and their house are decorated.
21. Painted shadows on walls. Old woman’s shadows shop. Orphans shadows catchers.  
22. Nocturnal birds market, elaborate cages. Best pillows and mattresses.  
23. Moon masked people own shops, sell selenites goods and services.
24. Windowless houses, people avoid each others. No one speak of their dreams.
25. Best Paprika spices, exported in the Slumberland.
26. Best lanterns crafters and candle makers, frown upon torches.   
27. Force sleepwalkers to wear tiny bells and coloured ritual outfits based on a slumberland monster that haunt the neighborhood.
28. Pyjama market, import silk from the Slumberland.
29. Statues of famous sleepwalkers and Slumberland creatures. Sculptors are highly respected and feared.  
30. Street lamps lighted by a single person who is treated like a king.

Encounters d100

1. Sleepy people disturbing circulation or activities because of their sleepiness.
2. Chain sleep: 1d6 people fall asleep, on a 6 roll a other d6.
3. Someone try to exploit or steal from a sleeper.
4. 1d6 sleepwalkers interacting together.
5. Faded dream self of someone stuck in the waking world.
6. Someone thinking they are still in Slumberland (or the reverse).
7. Helpful or simply pleasant dream creature from a sweet dream.
8. Someone being tracked down by their nightmare (real or imaginary).
9. Someone having too many boring dreams and being full of strange ritualistic habits.
10. Insomniac begging for dream powder
11. Bedcrafters guild members delivering a masterwork bed
12. Bedthiefs heisting a bed, working for the thief guild.
13. Pillows fight, bystanders are horrified for the pillows.
14. Bed crafters apprentices offering their services to repair beds.
15. Depressive Hypnotist, their hypnosis always go wrong in some manner.  
16. Random people under the control of a criminal, delusional or rogue hypnotist.
17. Coffee beans dealers making a secret delivery or city guards looking for coffee beans accompanied by a coffee sniffer.
18. Sandmen speaking their sign language or smoking colorful pipes.
19. Sandmen tracing a dream gate using colored sand.
20. Sandman kid, mother or elder observing the characters.
21. 2d6 cats holding council.
22. Cat with human condemned to serve them for 1d6 moon cycles for waking them.
23. Old cat lady under the cat council’s protection.
24. Dreams sellers trying to catch a escaped dream or nightmare.
25. Someone asking a refund from a dream seller
26. Dream sellers bullying a lone sandman
27. Runaway dream creatures in need of help or hungry.
28. Dream mage and their entourage headed to summon or stabilize a official dream gate.   
29. Guards cleaning up a sandmen’s dream gate. (removing the sand).
30. Lonely dream or nightmare lost in the big city
31. Family of Slumberland immigrant searching for a place to settle.
32. Spontaneous dream gate, very unstable. May lead to bad dream weather.
33. A small dream theater performing in the streets, one of the performer is interested by one of the PCs
34. Misfit group of rogues delivering opium.
35. Sleepwalker teenager running away from a local bordello.
36. Dreamworker selling their erotic dreams for cheap.  
37. Street painter who can paint your dream self or even alter it if you are willing to visit their workshop.
38. Orphan having stolen a dream powder loaf of bread
39. Oh! Oh! A dream powder application or delivery accident, save vs sleep!
40. Someone consuming dream powder to fall asleep.
41. Dreampowder gang using custom powder to steal from people.
42. Jovial dreampowder apprentice bakers offering sample pastries decorated with dreampowder sugar.
43. Orphans working as clockwork oilers, some of them are still very clumsy.
44. Clockwork construx, may be sentient and sad for not being able to dream.
45. Clockwork construx, malfunctioning, damaged or rusted.
46. Clockwork merchant driving a wheeled stand, sell tiny clockwork pets and devices.
47. University students, stressed or distracted by their studies or assignments.   
48. Lonely student being bullied by… (roll again on this table)
49. Teacher of (d6) in need of assistance: 1) occult psychology, 2) Slumberland history, 3) celestial astronomy,  4) dream botany, 5) sleep chemistry, 6) clockwork mechanic.
50. Students distributing their newsletter or journal.  
51. Passionate astronomer trying to install a telescope in a unusual location.
52. Lunaphiles offering to tell your lunar horoscope
53. Mercenaries hired by a biter astronomer to dismantle street lights and other source of light pollution.
54. Out of control light devouring creature summoned by a cabal of occult astronomers to fight light pollution.   
55. Swarm of large fireflies, may follow adventurers for the night
56. Procession of fireflies worshipers with beautifully crafted lantern and fireflies jars.
57. Giant firefly hunting moths and smaller fireflies.
58. Firefly mimic using her light to attract a human mate.
59. Swarm of large moths or other nocturnal insects.
60. Large dream powder moth, grumpy and don’t want to be disturbed.
61. Mothman drinking from dreams.   
62. Pianist needing help moving their piano.
63. Members of the Silence Guild trying to keep people quiet so that people can peacefully sleep.
64. A lone sleepwalker try to join the group, it is hard to communicate with them but they are a good team player.
65. The family of a sleepwalker take good (or bad) cares of them, some people give them offerings (or tax these offerings).
66. People respecting, pitying or mocking a busy sleepwalker.  
67. A drained shadowless person desperately try to stand in the shadow of other people.
68. Escaped shadows playing, running, crying or hunting in the street.
69. Shadow catchers kids tracking down rogue shadows.
70. Shadow grabbers stealing shadows from tourists.
71. Large nocturnal bird spying, hunting, guarding or delivering something.
72. Bird catchers delivering a rare nocturnal bird or trying to catch one.    
73. Large sentient nocturnal bird, talkative during the night and dreaming during the day.
74. Moon masked people doing business in sign language. (1 chance on a d6 of this being about something occult, criminal or romantic).
75. Sélénites, tall alien inhabitants of the moon, speak only in sign and phases language. Probably tourists or scholars but there is a chance on a d6 that they have some occult, criminal or romantic goals.
76. Grotesques moon beasts buying merchandises, eat dream beings and despise Sélénites.
77. Veiled agoraphobe looking for shelter.
78. Paranoiac person scared of imaginary dream beings.  
79. Contagious dream or nightmare that spread like the flu.
80. Paprika imbued dream mage. Protect dreamers and dream beings, helpful but fear their own past trauma or self doubts. Friendly with sandmen.   
81. Merchant delivering paprika peppers to a spice maker. May be targeted by pepper thiefs or small dream beings who love the taste of pepper.   
82. Street dealer selling paprika spice cut with dream powder or dream sand.  
83. Fully geared professional lantern keeper offering their service. Full refund if their lantern ever extinguish.   
84. Magic lantern hanging in some strange location, it prismatic light have strange magical effects.
85. Garden of candles full of oddly shaped candles and moon cakes offerings, dream sprites like to hang out here but there is a chance on d6 that the garden hide a wax homunculi or a corrupted dream being (that devoured the sprites).
86. Sleepwalker brightly costumed as the bogeyman monster.  
87. Slumberland bogeyman in search of a lone prey, the bogeyman is sacred and no one want to hurt it.
88. Spontaneous monster festival because someone spotted the bogeyman, people wear grotesques masks and paint grotesques effigies on their doors.   
89. People having a open door pyjama party, everyone are welcomed if they wear a pyjama.
90. Someone wearing a impressive tailored pyjama or a custom self made one.  
91. Old person transporting a large collection of colorful cloth ballots on their back.
92. Silkworm people delivering their goods, may be targeted by silk thieves, silk eaters or worms hunters.  
93. Strange sculpture, oddly disturbing or calming.
94. Sculptor, feared and respected for their strange powers stolen from the Slumberland.
95. Animated sculpture doing a task for a sculptor, silent, strange movements.
96. Decorated streets lamps, local people are cheerful and more friendly.
97. Street lamp lighter, respected chosen one, geared to ward off light devourers and shadow beings that are maybe stalking them.  
98. Street lamp hosting a colony of life draining glow wisps.
99. Sleepy mage specialized in sleep spells. Work for the city mage guild, apprentices may be assigned to the city watch.
100. City watch investigating a recent serious crime. May use a sleep mage or a sanctioned sleepwalker detective.

Basic boring monsters as building blocks

I am playing on my computer Heroes of a Broken Land, a procedural grid based dungeon crawler and I noted that the monsters were all variations of basic boring creatures like bats, snakes, rats, slimes, zombies, etc… I wondered if it could be interesting to create a monster manual using a limited palettes of creatures as building blocks.

Why? I like low-fi basic stuff and I am intrigued by the thematic settings that may emerge out of these limited palettes. This is just a “lonely fun” experiment but it could be useful to generate local biomes. Well, I guess this link to my love of biomes too.

So for our basic palette I thought of six basic boring monsters types:

1. Flying harrowers: bats, birds, flying bugs 
2. Slow and slimy ambushers: frogs, slugs, snails, leeches 
3. Poisonous predators: snakes, centipedes, spiders, scorpions 
4. Smart scavengers: rats, crows, monkeys (ants?) 
5. Stubborn turtlers: crabs, beetles, turtles 
6. Formless dissolver: slime, ooze, jelly, moss (plants could be fun too)  

We could start with something very generic like:

1. Bats 
2. Frogs 
3. Snakes 
4. Rats 
5. Crabs 
6. Slimes 

Or we could go with something more whimsical like:

1. Fireflies 
2. Anemone 
3. Centipede 
4. Hyena (a bit too big for a basic monster but let's try it) 
5. Trilobites 
6. Jellies 

So then I created 10 types of flavors or types of creatures we find in the monster manual.
(I put exemples in broad order of HD in parenthesis)

1. Humanoids (goblins, orcs, burbears, ogres, giants, titan) 
2. Domesticated beasts (pets, messenger, hunting, burden, war, mount, cattle) 
3. Ferocious packs, lone predators or territorial grazers (wild beasts, from small to gigantic) 
4. Strange chimera (satyrs, harpies, centaurs, pegasus, griffons, manticores) 
5. Artificial construx (animated statues, clockwork beings, golems) 
6. Nature spirits (sprites, faes, blinking, nymph, unicorn, elemental, swampthing) 
7. Watchful guardians (skeletons, gargoyles, medusa, minotaur, sphynx, naga, mummies, beholder) 
8. Creatures of the night (zombies, ghouls, shadows, werebeasts, ghosts, vampires, demons) 
9. Monstrous hoarders (hydra, abomination, dragon) 
10. Mimics (doppelgangers, carnivorous traps, parasites, shapeshifters) 

Now the idea is to mix our palettes of monsters with these special flavors. I think that I would generate 6 creatures for each step of HD.

Generic palette

1HD

1. Hunting Bats (trained to hunt giant bugs) 
2. Tiny Faes riding on Frogs 
3. Cameleon Snakes 
4. Ratfolk Carpenters 
5. Collector Crabs 
6. Slimes Hounds 

2HD

1. Clockwork Bats 
2. Clawed Frogs 
3. War Snakes (warbeasts) 
4. Wolf-Rats 
5. Mule-Crabs (beasts of burden) 
6. Coins slimes 

3HD

1. Bat maidens 
2. Work Toads (beasts of burden) 
3. Snakemen shapeshifters 
4. Ghoul Rats 
5. Mace Crabs 
6. Ectoplasmic Slimes 

…9HD

1. Blind giants with batlikes features, live deep underground. 
2. Titan Toads (grumpy but gentle giants) 
3. The Watcher of the Ivory Tower (100 eyes giant snake) 
4. The Eater of the Deads (gigantic many headed humanoid rat queen) 
5. Old Molten (gigantic steam breathing Crab) 
6. War shamblers (gigantic slimes mind controlled for war) 

Whimsical palette

1HD

1. Blood Fireflies (drain blood with their light) 
2. Shoulder Anemone (pets) 
3. Temple’s Centipede (ivory carapaces) 
4. Laughing sticks (hyena made of tied sticks by witches) 
5. Trilobites Tribe (humanoids) 
6. Jellies Gloves (jellies that wrap around hands) 

2HD

1. Fireflies-Mentis (dog sized nasty hybrid) 
2. Guarding Anemone (dog sized crawling anemone) 
3. Rollers (centipede who roll on itselves and hunt in packs) 
4. Thirsty Watchers (hyena with eyes on their fur, must be summoned) 
5. Mermaid’s Masks (trilobite that sing like mermaids, their shell look like a woman face) 
6. Butterflies-Jellies (shimmering flying faery jellies, dissolve hopes) 

3HD

1. Ghost Fireflies (their ghostly light lure people like will-o-the-wisps) 
2. Shadow-Anemone 
3. Centipede-Gargoyles (take a lot of patience to sculpts the legs) 
4. Trap Jaws (clockwork big jawed hyena who eat metal bits) 
5. Crawling Masons (big land trilobites colonies who form stone structures) 
6. Jellies Ruffs (graft around neck to control host) 

...9HD

1. Balefirefly (demonic firefly that eat souls with it light) 
2. Anemone-Naga (guardian giant anemone-headed snake with multiple women heads hidden inside the anemone) 
3. The Horde (fire breathing giant centipede, named for it thousand legs) 
4. The Laughing Mother (giant centaur hyena woman) 
5. The Elder (Gigantic fossilized undead Trilobite) 
6. Carmina Jellies (vampire jelly that can take a humanoid form) 

Maybe I could use this to generate the biome of the Potoo Island.

Fantasy houses generator

Fantasy houses

Traits (d6)
1-3 Roll one house type and a special feature.
4 Roll and combine two (or three) house types into something odd. (reroll similar results)
5 Roll and combine two house types and a special feature.
6 Roll one house type and two (or three) special features.

House type (d12)
1. Yurt / Tent / Hut / Shack / Cabin
2. Caravan / Boat / Stilt / Mobile house
3. Barn / Farm / Store / Granary / Greenhouse / Mill / Workshop / Factory
4. Commerce / Shop / Bar / Inn / Hostel / Bath / Brothel house
5. Theater / Arena / Music hall / Agora / Forum
6. School / Office / Justice hall / Guild house
7. Cottage / Dacha / Izba / Chalet (small house)
8. Saltbox / Gable / Family house (medium house)
9. Hall / Long / Clan house (large house)
10. Manor / Villa / Mansion / Palace (opulent house)
11. Tower / Bridge / Prison / Fort / Castle (fortified house)
12. Temple / Church / Monastery / Mosque / Shrine (holy house)

Special feature (d20)
1. In a special location (tree, cliff, cavern, lake, hill, mountain, fire, sky, clouds)
2. Legged (mechanical, insect, crustacean, reptile, bird, mammal legs)
3. Winged (mechanical, insect, bird or bat wings, sails, fins)
4. Living / Undead / Mimic (with fleshy organs)
5. Automated / Mechanical / Armored / Transformable / Foldable / Self repair
6. Sentient / Possessed / Haunted / Cursed
7. Edible (Candy, Gingerbread, etc)  
8. Giant Fruit / Vegetable / Mushroom / Tree
9. Giant Item ( shoe, teapot, stove, bottle, lamp, hat, etc.)
10. Giant Bones / Shell / Armor (skull, rib cage, snail, crab, turtle, helm, gauntlet, etc)
11. Made of fragile material (Paper, ceramic. glass, straw, cards, etc)  
12. Belly / Back of a giant beast
13. Direlic Structure (giant statue, galeon, spaceship, alien ruins, etc.)
14. Bigger / Smaller in the inside
15. Gigantic / Miniature sized  
16. Hidden nature (the outside is different from the inside (dilapidated outside but beautiful inside, etc)
17. Enchanted (well kept by invisible servitors, never get wet or burn, stay warm, etc)
18. Hidden / Camouflaged (impossible to find without directions and maybe a magical word)
19. Illusion / Mirage / Mirror / Dream (appear as you imagine it or reflect who inhabit or visit it)
20. Appearing / Vanishing / Teleporting / Duo-location (wasn't there yesterday)