The Science Fantasy Frankentable

The Frankentable is an ever-growing multi-purpose random generator. 11,578 lines as of today. I’ve been maintaining and expanding it since 2020-2021, using Inspiration Pad Pro.

It’s gonzo science fantasy, sort of like Carcosa, but with even more stuff added in. I copied some stuff from my favorite PDFs and blogposts. I added tons of names from ancient civilizations. Lists of random adjectives and nouns... And wrote thousands of lines of custom content.

I love it, because it’s finetuned to how my brain works and always inspires gameable ideas... And it’s just fun adding stuff to it. I used to to run solo hexcrawls (session 1, session 2), then a randomized hexcrawl for my friends, use it all the time when I’m creating dungeons (to come up with fresh ideas), generate settlements. I used it to make pre-gens for a recent pick-up game.

Unfortunately, I cannot share it, sorry! It has copyrighted material in it alongside my own stuff. But I can only recommend creating your own Frankentable! Either as a digital tool, or, who knows, maybe as a bunch of index cards?

 

Just a sampling of raw results:

Seeds:

• regular sisterhood going to polluted inn
• android (Mawia, Sovereign of the baggy Pterodactyl-infested standing stone) telling bad news regarding lucky spaceman
• brigand (Mardonius) and archaeologist (ruby warlock Pro-Consul) searching for runaway lover Pharadates (the vigilante)
• cart-pusher (Urshanabi, Chief of the fountain) going to helipad
• motley cult embarking on expedition to mist-covered stone circle

 

Objects:

• stone flower
• stone staff, imbued with the power to poison
• oversized cape
• fake bottle, rumored to hold the power of invincibility
• glowing pharmacon, imbued with the power to overcome fear

Buildings:

• narrow bakery closed
• ancestral cairn is actually a front for something sinister (connected to hierarchic cult)
• bustling bank under attack from monarchist herald
• stucco-covered bakery rumored to hide secret knowledge
• decrepit carpentry rumored to hold treasure

 

Locations:

• (10 hexes west from here) windswept volcano is the hide-out of militaristic brotherhood
• (11 hexes west from here) poisonous Sabertooth-infested castle infested with vermin
• (14 hexes west from here) otherworldly garrison staked out by chimeric food-seller
• (5 hexes north-west from here) bowl-shaped sierra staked out by Giant Snake
• (3 hexes east from here) pleasent barrow hides buried treasure

 

Solo science fantasy hexcrawl - Session #2

Read previous installment here. This short session is the resolution of the combat that began at the end of the last...

Day 5 – continued [investigation in 1707, plains, favorable weather, random encounter in the afternoon]

Posidonios is ensnared! The wires cut into his flesh – and, alerted by his screams, the inhabitants of the place crawl forward… Four grotesque, goblinish figures, their wrinkly sky parchment dry and spotted. Some are emaciated and skeleton-like, some are potbellied. Dry and twisted, like the plains around them. In fact, they seem to have emerged from the barren ground itself.

Duke Seneb and Eucarpus, who are scavenging nearby, also hear the scream, but don’t come running just yet… They approach cautiously, behind the cover of the wreckage. They split up, Seneb circles to the right, Eucarpus to the left, weapons at ready.

The four creatures move closer to Posidonois. They aren’t in a hurry, and savor the kill. “What do have us here?” one of them whispers in a raspy tone. “We have us here some fresh meat,” the others reply in unison. They bare their pointy teeth. Posidonios screams.

“Get away from him!” shouts Eucarpus and rushes forward, brandishing his scimitar. The creatures are startled, and turn towards the fighting-man. “Well-well-well…” intones their leader. “Say, intruder, if you like our place so much, why don’t you just… stay with us? F o r e v e r . . .” The creature’s yellow eyes light up with an uncanny suggestive force. The mind of Eucarpus bends to the demonic will. “Y-yes, I wish to become one with the dust,” he mumbles.

Duke Seneb jumps out from his cover and mutters a string of syllables in an alien language. A cone of clashing colors erupts from his outstretched left hand. Eucarpus and the four monsters cry out in pain, cover their eyes, and fall to the ground. Duke Seneb runs over to Posidonois and tries to free him, but the wires of the snare are hard to cut. Knowing that the duration of his spell is limited, Seneb instead starts slashing the throats of the unconscious monsters. The ground swallows the black ichor instantly, without a trace.

But one of the creatures regains consciousness and raises up, blood splurting from its neck. It lunges at Seneb, but misses. “Get him,” he gurgles, and, to Seneb’s surprises, Eucarpus, who is by now also conscious and standing, charges Seneb. Seneb deflects the blade at the last minute and starts backing away. Posidonios, although his movements are hindered, tries to throw himself at Eucarpus, but the wires pull him back and he falls. Seneb faces two enemies alone – and one of these enemies used to be his comrade. “Snap out of it! It is me, Seneb,” he shouts as he tries and fails to hit the monster. But the charm is too strong, and Eucarpus cannot overcome it. “Must… kill the intruders… the sacred place must not be polluted,” he mumbles and buries his blade deep into Seneb’s body. Posidonios manages to free one of his legs, and kicks Eucarpus – who loses balance and also drops to the ground. This gives a bit of space for Seneb, and the Duke delivers a final blow to the last remaining monster.

“What happened?” gasps Eucarpus. A terrible hypnotic weight lifts from his mind with the death of the last creature. His two comrades are bleeding or bound. The bodies of the four monsters rapidly desiccate before their very eyes.

Duke Seneb shrugs, and tries to staunch his bleeding. Then together they free Posidonios. “Creatures of dust, the very soil of this wretched land,” Eucarpus verbalizes the weird phrases that still echo in his head. Then he points at a hole in the ground. “This is their burrow…” The underground hole hides a small hoard of 4,000 copper scales and a silvery metal diadem. This last object buzzes slightly when touched, and arcane glyphs light up on its inner surface. None of the adventurers feel up to the task of trying the diadem on… so this artifact will have to be identified at a later time.

For now, they set up camp in the cover of the wreckage and wait for the night to fall…

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

Notes: the generator gave me "spotted Dryads" with a Reaction of 2 - Hostile, so this is where I took it. Murderous barren plain dryads.

To be continued!

Solo science fantasy hexcrawl - Session #1

I played a ~2 hour solo hexcrawl session today, set in my weird pulpy science fantasy world. Every detail of the world is generated from a gigantic Inspiration Pad Pro file - it's over ten thousand lines, I've been working on it for a long time, adding new items, expanding word lists, etc. You might recall the settlements I posted before - they were sourced from this generator.

"Red Dward" by JustV23

So today I did a hexcrawl, with four random characters:

Characters:

Duke Seneb, hungry professional drunkard (Magic-User 1)

Sappho, heartbroken merchant (Fighter 3)

Eucarpus, exquisitely dressed archivist's husband (Fighter 2)

Posidonios, hideous servant of jeweler (Fighter 1)

Here's the write-up! Raw output (for comparison) in the comments.

Day 1 [entering hex 1309, plains with settlement, weather is neutral, no random encounter]

The story begins on the red salt-encrusted plains in the middle of nowhere. The village of Apollonia ad Rhyndacum stands here, a stop on the long north-south caravan road. A small community (pop. 170), clustered around a foul-smelling power plant (used to refuel any motored vehicles, but hated by locals) and a reconstructed caravanserai. Most buildings are of concrete. All of them are covered by a bright orange fungal infestation.

The exhausted party heads to the caravanserai’s bar. Their every movement is watched by the scary-looking human-shark hybrid bouncer. “Don’t cause any trouble here, fellas,” warns the barman, “Djed over there bites and is the best shot in town”.

Duke Seneb orders the cheapest, vilest drink, downs it, and orders two more.

The rest of the team consumes more cautiously. Sappho, who is currently unarmed, checks if there are any weapons for sale. The flamethrower on offer is too pricey, so she settles on a simple polearm.

Eucarpus inquires about the local situation. “Ask Pediamun,” says the barman and points towards a person who just entered: an older gentleman with unruly hair and haunted eyes, with a dirty puppet on his left hand. He immediately launches into a long-winded paranoid rant about how the orange mould is an alien organism and must be stopped. The only tool to stop the spreading is located in an ancient tech-orchard, some 30-40 miles to the north-east… and offers 800 silver shekels if the artifact (an occult microscope) is brought to him. Eucarpus agrees in the name of the party, then they drag Duke Seneb away from the bar and tie him to a bed upstairs in a rented room.

Day 2 [travelling from 1309 to 1408, jungle with ruins, unfavorable weather, no random encounter]

The party sets out towards the north-east first thing in the morning. Duke Seneb is hungover, so Eucarpus takes on navigational duties and pushes into the jungle that borders on the plains. The density of the vegetation, coupled with the slightly acidic rain makes the journey a nightmare. They don’t encounter hostile wildlife – or any wildlife, for that matter. An eerie silence sits over the jungle. By dusk, they arrive at some overgrown ruins. A collapsed gatehouse and explosion craters tell the story of a past conflict. The silence is deafening. And in the middle of all this – a pitched tent, intact, recent! Duke Seneb sneaks forward to inspect… after a minute of anticipation, he opens the flap – and finds the tent unoccupied! A large sack filled with stuff lies abandoned in the corner. Seneb rummages through it and finds some assorted adventuring equipment, but also a strange object: a discus, some 10” in diameter, made out of a diamond-like material. Seneb greedily grabs it – the discus flashes once – and Seneb is left with a weird sensation that something now is missing from his mind, or maybe not? He just sees that he is in a tent, which probably doesn’t belong to him, but who are these three people that rush in shouting “Seneb, what happened? What was that flash?”

Three science fantasy locations for weird sandbox settings

Three locations for science fantasy hexcrawls/sandboxes. These are based on output from the generator I put together in Inspiration Pad Pro. I just took the results and fleshed them out a bit, to make more sense. This whole thing took about 15 minutes (and the many hours poured into creating the generator ahahahahah). I will include the original output of the generator below in the comments so you can compare.

Soli

Village, population 150

Ruled by a noble family, the Turquoise Clan

The village used to be surrounded by a stone wall, which is now in ruins. The only part left standing is an archway above the main road, but it isn’t maintained either: the locals think it is a dread memento of an ancient horror, walk around it (never under it), and soil it with garbage and obscene graffiti.

Locations:

• The Atomic Abode of the Electronic Red Dragon, a lively tavern surrounded by standing stones

Seeds:

• The village is plagued by swarms of robotic mosquito – actually blood-collecting nanobots emerging from an ancient laboratory buried under the nearby swamps
• Nefertiry of the Turquoise Clan (a very religious person) is telling everybody that Orges, her identical twin brother, disappeared – actually she killed him because she was afraid that he might replace her completely

 

Corcyra

Town, population 700

Ruled by council of elders

A heavily fortified settlement, with four prism towers that can fire deadly lasers at each corner. The streets are patrolled by the local militia, the Corcyra Rangers. Despite the dry ground, most buildings are on stilts, so that the inhabitants can pull up the ladders at night for extra protection.

Locations:

• Smithy. An ancient laboratory that was repurposed as a workshop. Mostly produces regular tools and weaponry, but for the right price the blacksmith (Lightning Ape is his name) offers equipment made out of the weird alloys that remain in the laboratory’s repository
• Corcyra Rangers’ Station. A seedy-looking building, stinks like a gym, this is where the local militia hangs out and trains new recruits.
• Church of the Giggling Goddess. This temple is almost in ruins now, as the worship of this deity is discouraged by the council & militia. A single priestess (Thelma) struggles to keep the church in shape.
• Fane of the Awful Goddess. This temple is favored by the council members. “Yes, the Awful Goddess is Awful, but only an Awful power can protect us in these troubling times!”

Seeds:

• Trechus the sell-sword wants to burglarize the rich rat-catcher’s mansion (Oeobazus the rat-catcher is a council member and has monopoly on vermin control).
• It is rumored that there is a sealed-off dungeon under the Fane of the Awful Goddess, where the essence of the deity resides – the rumor is true, but the Awful clergy tries to suppress it.

 

 

Kallipolis

City, population 2250

Governed by Gotarzes, Bastard of Uhhaziti, a prominent & paranoid merchant

Clouds of fumes emerging from rotating chimneys hang ominously above the city. The main industry is a bunch of chemical factories, most owned by Gotarzes or his associates. Many of the locals are poor and suffer from the poisonous fumes emerging from the factories. The city feels crowded and is full of seedy establishments and dark back alleys.

Locations:

• Temple of the Blazing Cape. A radiant piece of cloth, which belonged to the mythical founder of the city, is venerated here. Worshippers who spend many nights kneeling before it attain a phosphorescent glow (they are known as the Brotherhood of the Blazing Cape).
• The Hexman Sisters’ Mortuary is the best place to get a proper burial; and ask about their family discounts!
• City Library. And old establishment, with stacks as dark, labyrinthine and smelly as the city’s back alleys.
• Sleaze & Heal Music Hall. A popular establishment with live music and deadly drinks.

 

Seeds:

• The most popular person in the city is Paris, the hairy wrestler, undefeated champion. Many would love to see him leading the city in Gotarzes’ stead…
• Ex-crime lord nicknamed the Pro-Consul is hiring assassins to kill Gotarzes. Pro-Consul used to be an important man, but the current mayor’s machinations led to his downfall and the gang war left him shell-shocked.
• The Brotherhood of the Blazing Cape want to embark on a sacred mission to a ruined castle. They think the soul of the city founder is imprisoned there.
• Some say there are valuable books hidden between all the trash in the City Library.

Art by Rich Longmore

True Name Generator

Here's a random generator of infernal True Names™, for weird/occult historical games!

Also available as an Inspiration Pad Pro file.

Update: now also available as a Perchance online generator, thanks, Redwood!

Structure of the name (d20):

1-6	Two syllables
7-12	Three syllables
13	Four syllables
14	Five syllables
15	One syllable, followed by a syllable repeated twice
16	The same syllable repeated twice, followed by another
17	Two syllables, then the first syllable repeated
18-19	The same syllable repeated twice
20	The same syllable repeated three times

* insert apostrophes, hyphens, sanity-shattering glyphs as needed

Roll for each syllable (d5 for column, d100 for row)

	1	2	3	4	5
1-4	Abd	Akl	Ab	Ar	Aaa
5-8	Bux	Blu	Bak	Bo	Ba
9-12	Cax	Cri	Cul	Ci	Cx
13-16	Dup	Dro	Dit	De	Dor
17-20	En	Exl	Eg	Ex	Es
21-24	Fer	Fri	For	Fuv	Fxu
25-28	Gik	Gho	Gul	Gi	Gee
29-32	Hab	Hni	Hax	Hed	Hnaa
33-36	Id	Ixl	Ip	Ix	Ibb
37-40	Ju	Jed	Jur	Ja	Jah
41-44	Kep	Kfu	Kax	Ko	Kna
45-48	Luc	Lhg	Lun	La	Ll
49-52	Mef	Mla	Mor	Mid	Maa
53-56	Na	Ndo	Ne	Nux	Nbu
57-60	Ox	Okk	Ob	Oph	Oo
61-64	Pul	Psi	Paq	Pox	Pla
65-68	Rip	Rer	Rum	Ro	Rxo
69-72	Sat	Sla	Seb	Su	Sin
73-76	Ten	Tfo	Tax	Ti	Tu
77-80	Unk	Ukl	Ur	Uq	Uu
81-84	Vox	Vru	Vif	Ved	Vop
85-88	Wih	Wun	Wer	Wa	Wur
89-92	Xal	Xro	Xin	Xa	Xx
93-96	Yoq	Yed	Yuk	Yi	Yad
97-100	Zex	Zox	Zap	Za	Zz

And here's twenty of them:

Abab	Aklpox	Arzox	Babaved
Frinuxmef	Hedhed	Hnihnihni	Kaxnejed
Kepwerhax	Lungul	Oxarzex	Psipsimor
Tisla	Uklox	Uqabab	Uqartidromid
Wurbaakl	Xalculnaculna	Xando	Zoxdepox

Abracadabra, suckers! Let's get goetic!