Random Barbarian Tribes of Uldrac

Barbarians live way down south by the Revanwall mountains, down where it's as cold as a witch's teats.  They usually live in insular tribes, but they also share their territory with tribes that have begun to modernize, as well as at least one Nothic colony and one Meltherian colony.  

They call it Uldrac, or the Land of the Big Sky.  All of the cities (and there are a few) have ridiculous names like Iron Eternity or Deathblow, and are shared among multiple tribes.

This generator is for small tribes.  Big tribes are on the map, so to speak, and get their own custom set of details.  I won't go into the big tribes, but one is really into brewing, one is really into mammoths, one rides pterodactyls, one is allied with Oshregaal, etc.

by Mike Mignola

HD 1d8+2  AC leather  Axe 1d8  Javelin 1d6

Mov 12  Int 10  Morale 7

Most barbarians only carry a single javelin.

Barbarians with the minimum amount of HP are shamans.  Barbarians with the maximum amount of HP are heroes.

What Is This Tribe's Gimmick? [d10]

1. Women have each amputated a well-tattooed breast and turned it into jerky. If eaten, they cannot be reduced below 1 HP by non-magical weapons. Lasts 2 hours. ½ of fighters will be female, and 1/3 of female fighters will still have their jerkied breast in their inventory.

2. The greatest warriors are castrated, and their remaining genitalia stuffed into elaborate cod-pieces: scrimshaw mammoth tusks or narwhal horns. Their severed gonads are used in a fertility ritual by a chosen girl to conceive a hero-child. Tribe has +1d3-1 heroes.

3. Half of the warriors are children. Children have half HP, but if they drug themselves before combat, they get two attacks. The drug is the insufflated, pulverized liver of a raven that has been fed increasing amounts of poisonous lichen its whole life.

4. Half of the warriors are elderly. Half HP, but unless you coup-de-grace them, or drop them to -5, they will spend their dying turn cursing the player. (Curse of Ill Omen: next critical hit turns into a critical miss.)

5. Half of the warriors are undead ghouls (who alternate between traditional axes and paralytic claws). These ghouls are indistinguishable from the living barbarians (who look especially decrepit and unhealthy).

6. Know how to revive those who have frozen to death. They will have 1d3-1 additional heroes frozen in a secret basement in their village, and if needed, they will thaw them in a 12 hour ritual to defend their village. 2-in-6 chance to also have a foreign scholar, linguist, or wizard on cold storage as well.

7. Have 1d6 tame mammoths. The largest mammoth will have an enchantment braided into its hair. This enchantment give them either (a) the gaze of the vor-mammut 1/day, save or suffer broken limb, or (b) weaponized birth, a half-demon baby mammoth with HD 4, tusks for 1d8 + save pain 1 rnd, damage cannot be healed except by magic.

8. Fight alongside a pack of 3d6 wolves. 2-in-6 chance that the chieftain is actually a worg, and the wolves are higher ranked than the human barbarians.

9. Foreign clan. They are the next-generational remnants of a foreign army. Most of the people you are fighting are the children of an army sent to fight the barbarians, but became captured, abandoned, or converted. They look like foreigners (not barbarians), speak a strange patois, and some still wield foreign weapons or armor. 1d4 of them will fight in plate armor, retrofitted with warm fur on the inside and outside.

10. Doomed. Their witches have cursed and abandoned them. They have no shamans (use disease-ridden lepers instead).  All crits against them cause death (think vorpal) and they are desperate, desperate for a way to break the curse. Morale 12.

Shamans [d10]

1. Shamans only wear things produced by the human body. They can be damaged, but not killed, by manufactured weapons. They know heat metal.

2. Shamans are all little girls, wearing hair shirts and lizard scale bangles. They are all identical twins, and share a pseudo-hivemind (empathy, local telepathy only), and are products of an intergenerational witch. The first one to get pregnant will give birth to the next generation of the witch sister hivemind. They know charm, and if at least four of them cast it in unison, it works as dominate person (maintained by one of the girls).

3. Shamans are instructed by a rock troll, who spends most of its time slumbering in the center of the village, covered in flags, rags, and offerings. They know anklecrusher.

4. Shamans are cannibals, and gain the knowledge of those they eat. They know clairvoyance.

5. Shamans are small quadruple amputees. Rolling eyes, echolalia. They are carried on the backs of their (full-sized) siblings inside wicker cages. They know shrivel.

6. Shamans walk around on stilts, wear deer skulls adorned with women's scalps. They know fear.

7. Shamans are all actually dogs, or perhaps the spirits of ancestors reincarnated into dogs. They are shaved and tattooed with colorful screed. They walk around on two legs, but drop to all four legs when they need to run at full speed. Speak in mewling growls that almost sound like words. They know haste.

8. Shamans are permanently invisible. They have invisible gems in their eye sockets. If extracted, these gems can be used to make lenses for an invisible lantern (the lantern is invisible, not the indirect light it produces). They know invisibility.

9. Shamans crawl on all four and have long hair. They wear masks of knotted wood-whorls, painted purple, white, and blue. They speak backwards and know command.

10. Shamans are constantly snorting hallucinogenic lichens from turtle shell snuff boxes. They are wrapped in their own hallucinations, and appear to be male, female, young, old, cheerful, depressed. . . sometimes all at the same time. Their ancestors sometimes stand behind them, whispering in their ears. They know illusion.

Heroes [d10]

1. Wears a mammoth skull backwards over their own head. Ridiculously bulky and heavy. +2 AC but moves at dwarven speed.

2. Wields a giant-sized sword or hammer covered in prayer flags. Increase damage by one die size.  Speaks fluent giantish.  If they are killed in a dishonorable way, there is a 50% chance that their giantish relative will hear about it and seek revenge.

3. Naked and wielding a sharp rock (as a handaxe). Blessed by the spirits of wild places and immune to damage from all crafted weapons. Loses this power if they ever wear clothing or any crafted thing. Covered in lice, but possesses a statuesque physique and kingly demeanor.

4. Capable of absolutely insane jumps. Like 50' horizontal. Always jumps into combat with a spear, dealing double damage. Covered in red body paint with dozens of bird skulls woven into their hair.

5. Wears the fur of a cave bear. Skull belt buckle. Possesses strength equivalent to a hill giant, as well as a hill giant's ability to throw stones, which they will do from a distance before melee.

6. Carries an enormous wineskin full of fermented goat's milk. Wears a stupid hat (ironically) taken from some milklander they killed. Will drink booze while they fight, getting drunker and drunker. Each round they will get -1 to hit and +2 damage. After 1d3+3 rounds of drinking, they will pass out and begin snoring loudly.

7. Raised by wolves. Wears wolf head over their own head. Fights with a pair of kukris. Only speaks in howls and other wolf noises, even to other barbarians, who must also treat this elite as if they were a wolf. Is accompanied by their loyal mate, another wolf. If both attack the same target in unison (as they usually do), they both get +2 to hit.

8. Possessed by a demon. Wears a mask painted to look like a tusked red demon face. Actual face is much more terrifying, the result of decades of demonic possession. If there is any roleplaying going on, they attempt to intimidate the party through self-mutilation. Is especially vicious and cruel. Wounds inflicted by their battleaxe are cursed, and cannot heal normally until the curse is lifted. Will always coup-de-grace injured characters.

9. Axemaster. Steely-eyed exemplar of barbarian fighting techniques. Wears a dark green cloak and has a face covered with tattoos. Eagle feathers braided into hair and eagle claws hanging from belt. Fights with a pair of handaxes. Whenever someone attacks the axemaster In melee and misses, the axemaster gets a free attack against them.

10. Tremendously fat. Has +10 HP. Carries a bandolier full of rabid weasels, which they will throw at people before closing into melee. If they trip or fall over, 2d6 rabid weasels will escape, half of which will run away, and the other half will join combat. Speed as dwarf.

Bandit Plot Table

This post is written at the behest of +Dunkey Halton (who is sort of a gestalt person made of two people, I think?  Maybe like an ettin.)  If you combine this post with his post about bandit personalities you'll have enough for a complete bandit encounter / stocking a charming forest full of people who want to kill and rob you.

Bandit Hideout [d6]

1. Behind a waterfall.
2. Elaborate treehouse.
3. Abandoned tower.
4. Overgrown farm in the middle of the woods.
5. Beneath a monastery.  (50% chance the monks are complicit.)
6. Riverboat moored amid thick reeds.

Bandit Agenda

1. Steal from the rich and give to the poor.  If the PCs are poor, they will be given some money, perhaps grudgingly.
2. Steal from the rich, steal from the poor, and lie about it.  Spend it all on shoes.
3. Sell drugs from the bushes.  Wear eyepatches.  Scared of dogs.
4. Kidnap a wizard in order to cure their leader of a curse (slowly turning into a cherry tree)
5. Obey these fucked up witches who lives in a tree; steal specific organs from specific people.
6. Their leader is the rightful king; they have been hired to keep him drunk and far away from town (he's always wanted to be a bandit).
7. Building a boat from stolen carriages.  You're free to go.  They will use this boat to sail away to a promised land that doesn't exist, at the behest of a mad "prophet".
8. Just really want to kidnap some royalty.  Like, just want to touch a real princess, just once.
9. Expand their fort.  Accept refugees.  Develop theftocratic utopia.
10. Leader is writing a comprehensive be-all end-all guidebook to banditry.  Conduct experiments during their raids.
11. Raise funding for a distant war against a terrible foe.
12. Guilt trip.  [d3] 1 They need food for their starving children, 2 they're all lepers, 3 their parents need medicine to cure their black lung.

Bandit Clan Shtick [d12]

1. They all have dogs.  Dogs resemble their owners.  (Big shaggy dude = big shaggy dog.)
2. They have hidden ropes positioned throughout the woods.  They use these to swing through the trees with frightening alacrity.
3. They have all been enslaved by goblins, who ride their shoulders, choke their necks with their feet, and pull their ears to direct them.
4. Were-toads.
5. Deposed royal family from the next kingdom over.
6. Why are they all so fat? [d3]
      1. Inherited their mother's curse.
      2. Ex-members of a corpulent cult, hoping to lose weight.
      3. Captured 3000 pigs in a lucky raid and can't stop eating.
7. Communicate entirely through birdsong.
8. Literally insanely polite. Bourgeois affectations even while stabbing you in the guts.
9. Pretending to be orcs, in order to be more fearsome.
10. Have a magic flying canoe.
11. Have trained monkeys dyed in fearsome motley colors.
12. Have a cave troll!

Mystical Pokebeast Integration

For +Richard Grenville

Okay, you probably don't need a pokemon generator (just roll a d719), but I want to write something anyway.  (Actually, you could probably just roll a d719 and then look up whichever episode featured it.)

This generator has two parts:  The first part generates a pokemon, the second part generates poke-plot surrounding a new area.

let's play Name That Pokemon!

Type:
50% chance that it has a second type.  If so, roll 2x.

1. Normal
2. Fire
3. Fighting
4. Flying
5. Poison
6. Ground
7. Rock
8. Bug
9. Ghost
10. Steel
11. Water
12. Grass
13. Electric
14. Psychic
15. Ice 
16. Dragon
17. Dark 
18. Fairy
19. Slime???
20. Water, again

Body Plan:

Either think of something psuedo-appropriate, pull up a random animal combination from here, or roll a d20 on this table.

1. Feline (or small mammal)
2. Canine (or large mammal)
3. Rodent
4. Song bird
5. Bird of prey
6. Snake
7. Human-shape (think Power Rangers)
8. Child-shape (or maybe just a floating head-thing)
9. Abstract Angular (think porygon)
10. Tentacular
11. Leggy
12. Army
13. Dinosaur
14. Abstract Soft (think solosis)
15. Inanimate Object (manmade)
16. Inanimate Object (natural)
17. Mythological Rip-off
18. Arthropod
19. Reptile
20. Bird

mankey + primeape

Other Trait:

1. Fat
2. Skinny
3. Super Big
4. Super Small
5. Intelligent
6. Mischievous or Malicious or Angry
7. Beautiful
8. They all have a specific personality (roll on an NPC trait table).
9. Huge swarms of them
10. Breaks physics
11. Symbiotic with another pokemon
12. Muscular

Lastly: 

Give your pokemon 2-3 abilities (50% chance of each).  Either roll on a random spell table or use this thing to generate some pokemon moves: http://thousandroads.net/asb/metronome.  Might I recommend 1 spell and 1-2 metronome moves?

In game, pokemon can only ever learn 4 moves, so perhaps it is good to leave some room, hmm?

i can only assume this is a graveler + geodudes

first, ROLL THE NUMBER OF POKEMON IN AN AREA

The coolest part of playing a pokemon game is getting to a new area and finding out what kind of pokemon they have there.  Whenever you get to a new area, there will be one type of pokemon that you totally expect, so if you visit a volcano, of course there's going to be a fire pokemon (with a 50% chance that it has a secondary typing as well).  So in addition to the Expected Pokemon, you gotta roll to see how many other pokemon there are in this area.  These Additional Pokemon will be rolled randomly, on the above table.

1. +1 normal pokemon, +1 legendary pokemon with UBER MOVES AND STATS
2. +1 normal pokemon
3. +1 normal pokemon
4. +2 normal pokemon
5. +2 normal pokemon
6. +3 normal pokemon

So when you're finished, the area will have 2-4 normal, catchable pokemon, and a 1/6 chance that there is a hidden, legendary pokemon that is hiding in a well somewhere and will probably TPK you if you glance in its direction.

your mom

DISCOVERING THE POKE-PLOT

The coolest part of the pokemon anime is that there is always a pokemon related plot afoot whenever you get to a new town, or some sort of mystical beast with IQ 300 pulling a plow or some bullshit.

We need to see what the poke-plot is for this fucking village.

First, we need to roll and see which pokemon is part of the pokeplot.

1. Some travelling trainer is using a pokemon.  Roll a new pokemon, then see table ZORP.
2. Some entrenched poke-institution is using a pokemon.  Roll a new pokemon, then see table QUARF.
3. The Expected Pokemon is being used in a generic way.  See table DEGENERES.
4. The Expected Pokemon is being used in a specific way.  See table SPACKLE.
5. The first Additional Pokemon you rolled is being used in a generic way.  DEGENERES.
6. The first Additional Pokemon you rolled is being used in a specific way.  SPACKLE.

Now just roll on whatever table I just told you roll on.  Don't even read this sentence.

manpac

ZORP - Pokemon Trainer

1. Trainer will not let you enter the area unless you can beat him.  50% chance he is being cruel to his pokemon, independent 50% chance that he'll follow you to the next village.
2. Trainer wants to trade.
3. Your rival is here.  If you don't already have a rival, you will meet your rival in this town.  He's just like you, except better.  (This can be the rival to an individual PC, or if you're feeling ambitious, there can be an entire rival adventuring party.)  The rival will show up, verbally abuse you, and then challenge you in a friendly way.  You probably can't kill him because he's a prince or something.  Make something up.
4. Someone is using pokemon to commit crimes in the area!!??? who could it be?  They're probably just stealing pokemon (ripping spirits out of people's heads?) but they might also be committing some stone-cold murder.
5. Trainer has gone into dangerous area and has not returned.  Friend wants you to go in there and retrieve him.  Dangerous areas with precedents: crystal cavern, burned out building, weird tunnel dug by pokemon, freakishly magnetic mountain, sea cave filled with whirlpools, meteorite-impacted mountain, forest filled with mushrooms and spirits.
6. Something weird.  Roll a d6: 1 - trainer is possessed by his ghost pokemon, 2 - trainer is fleeing with a stolen pokemon, 3 - trainer must go to great lengths to save his pokemon's life, 4 - pokepoliceman is pursing a criminal, 4 - trainer from a distant land is wreaking havoc with his cultural ignorance, 5 - trainer has died in suspicious, public circumstances, 6 - trainer is researching something that should not be researched

jigglypuff?  is that you?

QUARF - Pokemon Institution

1. Gym Leader will give you a boon if you overcome the trials inside and then best the leader.  Pokemon gyms have gotten weirder in the last few games, and usually involve some sort of puzzle, and always involve some combat.  Giant spiderwebs, lightless mazes, moving dragon statues, etc.  In a more primitive game, you probably want something more topical.  Tea plantation maze full of plant monsters?  Sunken, waterproof ship accessed via tunnel?  Gym leaders always give you three thing.  (1) enhance some stat of all of your pokemon by some tiny, ultimately trivial amount, (2) give you a badge, so that higher level pokemon will obey you, (3) and give you a TM, so you can teach a new move to one of your pokemon.  Honestly, the only thing worth getting excited about is the TM.  In an OSR game, a TM could be replaced with the gym leader teaching you kung-fu, how to walk through walls, or grow a prehensile tongue.  Alternatively, you could just add an ability to one of your pokemon, but whatever.
2. Museum of pokemon, 50% they have the ability to resurrect pokemon from fossils.  (Depending on the ruleset, you may want to extend this into sort of a pokemon-temple, where pokemon can be resurrected).
3. some sort of non-violent pokemon competition.  dancing contests, beauty contests, eating contests.
4. Pokemon breeding / daycare.  Either way, pokesex.  Can be a literal day care run by two old people who have NO IDEA WHAT SEX IS or some sort of mystical ley-crossroads where chimeras mix their bloodlines.
5. Shopping hub that specializes in pokemon stuff.  50% chance that there is a huge gambling den adjunct.
6. Something weird.  Roll a d6: 1 - villagers are pokemon in disguise, 2 - pokemon training academy with a 50% chance that it's some sort of trap, 3 - secret castle/ship where bourgeois trainer-nobles do battle with gold-encrusted pokemon,  4 - haunted pokemon cemetery, 5 - pokemon storage system that can send and retrieve pokemon from around the world via technology, so I guess he can store extra pokemon for you if you catch more than your limit, and establish some method of switching pokemon around, 6 - insane professor gives pokemon to children and tasks them to travel the world documenting pokemon, no reason why he shouldn't give PCs the same opportunity.

holy shit cofagrigus

DEGENERES - Generic pokemon

1. oh noes a bunch of these pokemon are attacking the town!  Surely there's something that's causing this.  Surely you don't have to kill all of them.
2. oh noes all of these pokemon are interfering with daily living in a humorous way.  what could be causing this?
3. oh noes all of these pokemon have been taken over by their biologies and won't stop mating/migrating/stampeding/burrowing/sporulating
4. the pokemon are weaponizing, or at least forming into a warband around a charismatic leader
5. the pokemon are all dying OR are getting trapped somehow.
6. oh noes all of these pokemon are being killed/captured by a single person/group with ignoble intentions
7. weird pokemon interaction: d3: 1 - pokemon have adopted a human as one of their own, 2 - are returning from myth and upsetting the natural balance, 3 - have been artificially created
8. another weird pokemon interaction: d4: 1 - are invading people's homes with strange intent, 2 - are building/chipping away at a certain structure, 3 - have completely destroyed the natives/invaders and then just-as-suddenly returned to their peaceful ways, 4 - are only present as fossils

SPACKLE - Specific plot

1. pokemon are being exploited en masse as weapons.  This has to do with their Type.
2. pokemon are being exploited en masse as non-violent tools.  This has to do with their Type.
3. pokemon are being exploited en masse as spiritual guidance.  This has to do with their Type.
4. pokemon's Type has greatly impacted a Certain Human Activity in the area for the worse/weirder.
5. people have bonded so closely with their pokemon that they have begun to take on their Type, or at least have started living in imitation of Their Favorite Pokemon.
6. Pokemon is not actually available (possibly gone extinct), but has permanently changed the area, based on their Type

it's zubro!

EXAMPLE

So the PCs walk into a seaside village.  This place obviously has a water pokemon in it (the expected pokemon).  I'll roll on the Number of Pokemon Species in an Area table, and get +2 pokemon, for a total of 3 in the area.

Let's discover the first, water pokemon.  First I roll to see if it is mono-water Type or Water/something type.  (50% chance of each).  It's bi-typed, and the second type is Flying.  Water/Flying then.  I roll on the random animal mixer and get smelt-goose on my second click.  But that's stupid, so I decide to make it a very literal goose barnacle, that clings to side of ships, but turns into an attack goose when it's molested.  Great.

Then I roll for how many moves it's got.  2 moves.

Sleep spell - probably via yawning.

Pluck attack - similar to Peck, except it also eats any food the opponent has

I'll call it it CYGNACLE (water/flying type).

Roll up two more pokemon the same way.

HELICAN - Flying Type

hated pelican-demons that eat away bad children

people that try to stop them will be shat upon, while the bird flies away laughing

Protection from Good spell: this is obviously an evil fucking bird

Cotton Spore attack: it probably shits on you, working as either an web spell or making you automatically lose initiative

Rock Slide attack: probably just barfs rocks on you, or fish bones or children bones

GARGARFU - Dragon Type

look like chinese foo dogs crossed with chameleons

act like foo dogs crossed with chameleons crossed with wolverines

Blend spell - It has chameleon skin, so it can melt into the jungle

Thunder Fang attack - it's a bite that does +1d6 electrical damage, maybe

Psych Up attack - honestly, this is probably just barbarian rage

it's munna!

That wasn't so bad.  Now to roll up a plot.

4  + 6 = The Expected pokemon is not actually present, but it has permanently changed the area based on its type so, this sounds like there isn't a direct plot hook, but maybe something like:

All of the Cygnacles have been killed off as pests.  Vast graveyards of Cygnacle shells litter the bottoms of harbors and decorate tavern walls.  Because of this, the natural enemies of Cygnacles, Helicans, have proliferated, and the town is now covered with Helican shit.  It regularly rains fish bones and Helican bile.  At dusk, the Helicans call to each other as they circle overhead, but it mostly sounds like cruel chuckling.  A paladin has showed up, but has been at a loss for how to combat the birds (which sleep on the waves over the reefs).  A woman has begun trying to breed Cygnacles back into the ecosystem, but faces two obstacles from both (a) certain townspeople which continue to view the Cygnacles as pests (and will continue to do so, until they see an demonstration of how good Cygnacles can be at killing Helicans), and (b) the Helicans themselves, which will attempt to stop the woman from releasing the baby Cygnacles into the surf, because the Helicans are assholes.

i WISH this was a pokemon

Encounters on the Sea of Suloi

So my Centerra setting is pretty much just South America.  There's a big continent that stretches from sunbaked wasteland in the north to frozen wasteland in the south.  And there's an ocean on each side.

South America, pretty much

And since I'm currently working on a hex crawl centered around the Frogstar Peninsula (i.e. this place). . .

I figure I should do some more write-ups about the Sea of Suloi (i.e. this place).

the prismatic waters, the sea of suloi, and the arcade

Technically, everything that is blue in that picture is the Sea of Suloi.  The southwestern part is called the Prismatic Waters and the northeastern part is called the Arcade.

The Prismatic Waters are called that because they change colors.  Like, without warning, the whole ocean will suddenly change colors from Pantone 15-5217 to 17-5641.  It happens in an eyeblink.  If you're at sea and watching the horizon, you can see it sweep across the ocean like a shockwave.  The colors don't seem to do anything, but some of them herald certain ocean-wide effects.  Every sailors most feared color is this one.  They won't even name it out loud.  It is literally the worst luck.  It's a baseless superstition everywhere else except the Prismatic Sea, where it really does herald Bad Things.

pure evil

Wizards think that the color changes occur because of a massive, enchanted prism prison beneath the waves that holds a rainbow elemental.  Different colors correspond to different emotions, and these emotional releases affect the outside world.  (Purple, of course, represents fear.)  But then again, wizards are idiots.  Scholars believe that this is the result of tiny organisms in the water (bacteria?  viruses?  abiotic prions?) that are attuned and reacting to some external stimuli.

The Arcade was named thus because it sometimes has a lot of columns.  The columns are waterspouts.  Ocean tornadoes.  They happen all the time in the Arcade, and no one knows why.

But not only are the waterspouts constant, they're also weird.  They form during storms as often as they form during clear weather.  The form rows.  They form pairs that spiral around each other like DNA.  They form arches, and funnel the water from one part of the ocean to another.  The arches look like rainbows; you can sail safely beneath them.  (It is said to be good luck.)

Of course this also makes the Arcade incredibly dangerous for ships.  Most boats go around it.  Even the merfolk, with their mostly-submerged boats, still risk getting their sails torn off by waterspouts.

And of course the ecology of the place is all jacked up, too.  Enormous flying things filter the filter the plankton out of the air (which is constantly filled with plankton-containing mist).  There is a species of large dolphin that rides the waterspouts for fun.  But most animals have a hard time surviving in this place.  Near the boundaries of the Arcade, it is not uncommon to witness a rain of anchovies, kelp, or tiny squid.

it's rare that I find a picture of exactly the image I was thinking of

And strange things happen in the middle of the Sea of Suloi, too.  

The Sea of Suloi is a remarkably shallow sea.  Between a major river (the mighty Shunatula) emptying into it and massive algae blooms, there is a lot of biomass drifting to to the bottom of the ocean.  The sludgey, sandy bottom is a vibrant ecosystem (and not truly comparable to anything we have on Earth).

Biology Digression: There is a type of colonial yeast that grows in the nutrient-rich sludge on the ocean floor.  These yeast-colonies grow over the course of decades and resemble oversized sponge-corals.  These yeast-colonies are eaten by a species of giant sea cucumber which burrows holes through the yeast-coral, forming a tunnel system.  These tunnel systems form their own microecosystems, and are home to all sorts of specialized animals.  These creatures produce a large amount of gaseous waste, which eventually infuses into the yeast-coral to such a degrees that the whole thing becomes bouyant.

No one in Centerra has any notion about anything in the previous paragraph, however.  I only mention it to you, dear reader, so that the next paragraph will make sense.

Every so often in the Sea of Suloi, a giant island of spongy mud will explode to the surface in the middle of the ocean.  These sponge islands, called cucumber baskets, spongetunnels, kingmuds, or brinestacks, are hundreds of feet across and full of tunnels.  These tunnels are full of lots of animals, but they are also full of giant sea cucumbers, a fantastic delicacy--the dish of kings.  A dried giant sea cucumber is worth its weight in gold.

And so everyone is thrilled when one of the sponge islands erupts to the surface.  Although the air around a sponge island is dangerous immediately after it surfaces, people will flock to the site because such great treasures can be found inside of it.  There are specialized ships and crews that search out these floating islands and make good profit by doing to, even though their appearance is mostly random.

And they are quite dangerous places.  The giant sea cucumbers can defend themselves by shooting sticky, acidic intestines from their anuses (google it) but they are not the most dangerous of the sublittoral organisms that live there.  And there are environmental dangers, too.  Drowning, "bad air", becoming trapped in a smaller tunnel, and--the biggest danger--that the whole island might flip over.

they stink on the outside
they smell even worse on the inside
especially if they've been drying in the sun for a couple of days

But it's not only the specialists who venture into these death traps.  Merchant galleons, whalers, passenger ships, pilgrimage barges, poet joyjiggers--nearly all ships will stop and investigate one of these things, simply because a giant sea cucumber is worth a small fortune.

Side note: despite the fact that the merfolk are the hated enemies of all land-dwellers (and vice versa), giant sea cucumbers are the merfolk's greatest export.  Merfolk smugglers and human smugglers do profitable business with each, and have shared many a glass of wine as they grow rich together.  Both groups are hated by their respective species as traitors.  (The merfolks' biggest import is tinplated steel.)

Physics Digression: The solubility of a gas in a liquid is (roughly) proportionate to the pressure.  So when the pressure drops, previously dissolved gases will appear as bubbles (like opening a soda can).  This is true for yeast-coral-islands that rise to the surface.  As they rise, they become more bouyant, not less. Their eruption from the surface of the water is a violent, dramatic process.  The waves capsize small boats, the ocean turns brown with mud, and black crabs rain from the air.

money in the bank

So if Centerra is analogous to South America, there is also cheap Panama Canal knockoff (although it's really more like the Sea of Marmara).  Go back to that close up picture near the top (#3) and you can see where the Sea of Suloi meets the Sea of Fish.  It's a pair of small oceans: the Valdine Sea and the Queen's Sea.

Like the Panama Canal, all ship traffic that wants to go from one ocean to the other must pass through there.  These two small seas are ruled by merfolk--it's probably their biggest stronghold.  (They even have some land-based colonies, like Valdina).  And since merfolk generally hate humans*, very little traffic gets through.

*Merfolk have weird ideas about identity.  They hate humans on the institutional, conceptual level, but are much friendlier to lone humans.  This friendliness sometimes extends to small groups.  Sometimes.

The only people who get through the Valdine sea are the friends of the merfolk, and that's a very short list.  The weirdos from Valdina get free passage, but there aren't many of them, so whatever.  Most of the ship's you'll see there are pirate ships and smugglers that have managed to get into the good favor of the merfolk.

Interestingly, the Valdine and Queen's Seas have currents.  In the winter, the ocean pours from east to west, draining the Sea of Fish into the Sea of Suloi.  Millions of gallons of water per day.  It's impossible to sail against the current.  And in the summer, the inverse occurs.  Because of this, the Valdine and Queen's sea are only bidirectionally navigable about 70% of the year.

No one has any idea why the seas do this.

Encounters on the Open Ocean
After every X days of sailing, roll a d6.

1 Harmless sea creatures
2 Dangerous sea creatures
3-4 Other ship
5-6 No encounter


Harmless Sea Creatures

1 Mermaids
2 Butterfly migration
3 Sea gulls or other birds
4 Whales
5 Anomalocarisoid
    (beautiful but stay the fuck out of the water)
6 Straylight marauader
    (at surface to release planula, will tan you in ~3 minutes, don't stare directly at it)
7 Octopus dog
    (looks like an octopus, acts like a friendly dog, climbs on board, dances for food)
8 Freak Wave
    (easy sailing check)
9 St. Elmo's Fire
    (Green will-o'-wisps temporarily infest sail, harmless unless disturbed)
10 Eel migration
    (Good eating)
11 Mist people
    (look more like small, vertical pillars of mist, but sailors insist they're people)
12 Local effect: water color change, waterspout formation, or cucumber basket.
    (Depending on location.  Waterspouts require an immediate sailing check vs disaster.)

the first 25 seconds of this video are useless and annoying

but you get to see a sea cucumber poop later on, so there is that

Dangerous Ocean Creature Disposition

1 Mating / birthing / courtship display
2 Fighting / eating something else
    1 Harmless sea creature
    2 Dangerous sea creature
    3 Another ship
3 Hunting Cautiously
4 Hunting Patiently
5 Hunting Playfully
6 Hunting Desperately
7 Hunting Erratically
8 Berserker Mode


Dangerous Ocean Creatures

1 Sharks
2 Giant Shark
3 Flying Squid (magical flight, sneak in your window and eat you in your hammock)
2 Giant Mantis Shrimp
3 Flying Eyeballs (paralyzing gaze)
4 Dire Pelicans
5 Tiger Seals (Sorta cute, really fucking scary, like dire wolves)
6 Memory Fog
    1 Adrift and starving
    2 Lost love
    3 Mutiny
    4 Drowning
7 Sirens
8 Napalm Squid
9 Barnacle King
10 Dunkleosteus
11 Razor Rays
12 Phantom Mantas
13 Maelstrom Maw (Charybdis + Sarlacc)
14 Brine Slime (floating ooze, vulnerable to fire)
15 Weresharks
16 Flotsam Elemental (only destroys ships, does not attack people)
17 Ship Golem (insane relic of ancient war)
18 Sailback crocodiles (supposedly taught sailing to humans, sailors respectful but scared)
19 Cumulonictus
20 Bad news. . .
    1 Stygian Spike Kings (1d3)
    2 Corpiculata Infectatus (terminal stage)
    3 Leviathan
        1 Serpentine
        2 Fusiform
        3 Insectile
        4 Mantaform
    4 The Witch Whale
        1 Curiosity
        2 Enslavement
        3 Madness
        4 Devour

GUYS THIS WAS A REAL ANIMAL ONCE

DUNKLEOSTEUS AND  HIS LITTLE BUDDY, DAVY

NOTICE TEH TADPOLE TAIL IS SUPER ADORABLE

Wtf are those goblins doing?

So you've just rolled on your random dungeon chart and the result comes up: 2d6 goblins.  2d6 goblins.  Again?  I hope the party doesn't get bored of goblins. . .

Wrong attitude, Mr. DM!  Humanoids are awesome because they can do anything that the party can do.  They're people!  Little green, incompetent people that you can kill and loot and not feel bad about because they aren't really people!  You are so lucky to roll 2d6 goblins!  Here's why:

The Mighty Plot Machine

They say that imitation is the easiest form of creativity.  I’m okay with that.  I'm copying this idea that I got from a bunch of blogs that I like.  It's a random plot generator.

http://metalvsskin.blogspot.co.nz/2012/11/the-plot.html
http://monstroustelevision.blogspot.co.nz/2012/11/grotesque-horror-plot-generator.html
http://monstermanualsewnfrompants.blogspot.com/2012/12/plot-generator-from-planet-best-ever.html

I think I totally succeeded in making the stupidest one.  My plot is the thickest!  You'll never have to think of a plot again.  This generator also works if you are trying to name an NPC as long as they have a Native American-y name that's just a bunch of nouns and adjectives strung together.

Random Weather Table

Mundane Weather (95% of the time)

	SUNNY WEATHER	RAINY WEATHER
1-3	Still	Overcast
4-6	Breezy	Light Rain
7	Gusty	Heavy Rain
8	Windy	Thunderstorm

If the weather was sunny yesterday, it has an 80% chance to be sunny today.
If the weather was rainy yesterday, it has a 50% chance to be sunny today.
If it's cold outside, the rain is snow.
If it's dry outside, there is no rain and treat Heavy Rain and Thunderstorm as Duststorm.

Weird Weather (5% of the time)

1	Acid Rain	16	Stone Rain
2	Painted Rain	17	Reverse Stone Rain
3	Noxious Rain	18	Rain of Horror
4	Reverse Rain	19	Rain of Worms
5	Hallucinatory Sky	20	Rain of Slimes
6	Blackness	21	Rain of Meat
7	Insanity Sun	22	Rain of Knives
8	Sun Invasion	23	Rain of Vermin
9	Distant Space	24	Rain of Gasoline
10	Thick Air	25	Rain of Soot
11	Antigravity	26	Rain of Noise
12	Low Gravity	27	Rain of Rage
13	Empty Wind	28	Blasphemous Clouds
14	Hungry Fog	29	Burning Clouds
15	Drunken Fog	30	Roll 2x

All weird weather is preceded by something indicative.  Strange looking clouds, “squirming” in the sky (or behind it), chaotic droning from the sky, etc.  Weird weather doesn’t come as a surprise, and you usually get 1d4 hours warning.  It lasts for 1d6 hours, unless indicated otherwise.

Acid Rain corrodes metal, wears down stone, ruins cloth, kills fish, and does 1d6 damage per minute if you are caught in it.  More damage afterwards, too, if you don’t get that stuff off your clothing and skin. 

Antigravity pillars roam over the land like searchlights from mars (which they might be).  Things caught in the beams fall upwards for 3d20 seconds before falling back down.  Cars are dropped on buildings.  Schoolchildren pepper their playground like a dozen dropped eggs.  Smart folks hang out in their basement and tie themselves to the floor.

Blackness.  No sun.  No moon.  No stars.  It’s as dark as being in a cave.  Up above, you can hear slow sliding noises, like someone is sandpapering a square mile of elephant skin.  And there are things reaching down, extinguishing the bonfires and the lights, clustered so tightly in the sky that no light gets through.

Blasphemous Clouds!  Deformed, inhuman faces appear in the clouds and rain down booming indictments, blasphemies, and profanities.  20% chance they tell embarassing/horrific secrets from one of the PCs past.  20% chance they tell horrible lies about one of the PCs.  Wasps fly down and sting people who talk back to the clouds.  The clouds say whatever will disturb people the most: dead baby jokes, mockeries of god, homoerotic poetry. . . whatever will make the most children cry.

Burning Clouds!  The clouds turn red, roiling masses of angry cinders.  20% chance it rains fire.  20% chance it rolls along the ground like asshole fog.

Distant Space.  Oh wow.  For 1d6 hours, it looks like the Earth has been teleported to some distant part of the universe.  5% chance bathed in the warmth of another sun, 95% chance the temperature drops 10 degrees F per hour.  Independent 10% chance of deadly meteor shower.

Drunken Fog!  This fog is way more fun than the hungry fog!  Everyone it touches gets wicked drunk!  Chance for alcohol poisoning is low, but don’t drive a car.  The police try to pull people over but they drive into ditches.  Sometimes bad stuff attacks, ‘cuz it knows that everyone sucks at fighting back.

Empty Wind!  If this wind blows on a living creature, it will be transported into the future!  D6: 1-2 is 1d6 rounds / 3-4 is 1d6 hours / 5 is 1d20 days / 6 is 1d6 months.  There is a 10% chance that this wind will be ethereal, and will blow through walls, affecting everyone.  Transported creatures arrive naked, covered in sunburns, and smelling like campfire.

Hallucinatory Skies are completely harmless, but they are freaky.  D6: 1 - fleshy eyes and faces peering down / 2 – warped vision so that you can see over the horizon and appear to be in the bottom of a bowl / 3 – planet appears to be spinning at 1000x the normal rate (nauseating if you watch it) / 4 – flickering sheets like grey membranes shot through with pulsing yellow veins / 5 – bright light and an orchestral roar, temperature raises 10 degrees F / 6 – clouds appears to be animals fighting/fucking/running, etc.

Hungry Fog!  The fog comes in on little cat feet, a hungry stomach, and sucking tendrils like giant hungry elephant trunks.  Hide and seek as the fog breaks down doors and windows, trying to suck you into its central stomach, where you will be held above the ground, paralyzed, slowly whirled around, and digested in layers.  Lasts 1d6 hours, and usually leaves piles of bones, shoeleather, and keychains in the town square.

Insanity Sun.  The sun shrinks down into a tiny pinpoint of bluish-white light, although its still brighter than a full moon.  Everyone who looks at anything illuminated by this watery light, even for a second, goes stark, staring mad and will mumble about “the people behind the sun”.  Unless they make their save.  Town is full of people with blindfolds on, and other people trying to rob them.

Low Gravity!  Like, 1/10 of normal!  It’s like being on the moon!  You can jump really far!  Waves look really cool!  You suck at throwing things because they don’t arc the way they should!  Running is difficult without traction!  Lasts for 1d20 * 10 minutes, and then whops back to normal.

Noxious Rain causes vomiting and mutation if you get more than a few drops on you.  Save negates.  It looks like thin, golden brown fluid that smells like a pile of goats that died of dysentery last week.  Use your favorite mutation table.  Afterwards, brown mushrooms grow out of everything that isn't metal.

Painted Rain comes down in different colors.  D6: red / orange / yellow / green / blue / purple.  Mostly harmless, but the green one causes mercury poisoning and the blue one causes hallucinations.  Surfaces (and people) will stain that color until it is washed off.

Rain of Gasoline! A very bad time to have a cigarette craving.  This is why we don’t have wooden buildings anymore.  Inevitably, a fire starts by the end of it.  Air quality = shit.  Sewers, waterways, rivers, lakes, ocean runoffs will all become infernos.  Afterwards, oil stains and ashy smudges.

Rain of Horror! Roll a d6: skulls / skeletons / heads / headless corpses / garbage / ectoplasmic ghost guys that crawl around moaning piteously before dying.  20% chance that this stuff comes to life and attacks everyone.

Rain of Knives! Actually just pieces of really sharp ice.  D4: 1 – icicles / 2 – ninja star snowflakes / 3 – no physical knives but things just start getting cut / 4 – totally metal knives, I lied about the ice.

Rain of Meat!  Most of these are bitesize, but roll d20 * 100 to see how heavy the biggest chunk of meat is (in pounds).  20% of the meat is recognizable, 20% of the meat is poisonous, 20% of the meat looks pre-chewed.  A lot of carnivores slouch in from the hills.  Slorgs go into gluttony mode.  Afterwards, everyone makes bonfires.  Alternatively, fly swarms next week like Moses hates you.

Rain of Noise! Metal rods fall from the sky and vanish upon hitting the ground.  Each one sounds like a gong, or an off-balance washing machine, or a destruction derby, or a rhino in a china shop, or two skeletons fucking on a tin roof.  Conversation is impossible.  Cover your ears or save vs deafness.

Rain of Rage!  Blood rains from the sky!  Anyone who gets it in their eyes or mouth flips out in a murderous rage!  They kill their loved ones first!  All recorded music is temporarily replaced with Cannibal Corpse!  Even U2!  After the rain stops, affected people make a save to avoid being rageful forever!

Rain of Slime! Globs of carnivorous slime.  Tough to kill, but sunlight, fire, cold, and salt destroy it.  Normally immobile, but if it eats enough (falls on an unlucky herd of cattle), then giant blobs rampage through town eating people.

Rain of Soot!  Hot ashes and soot rain from the sky!  1d6 feet of it!  1 damage per round if you are caught out there.  Afterwards, snowplows and choking hazards.

Rain of Vermin! D6 frogs / locusts / lice / snakes / minnows / rats.  50% chance that the vermin are a new species.  50% chance that they all share a specific deformity (no eyes, no mouth, no head, two heads, no limbs, spider limbs, etc).

Rain of Worms! Most of these are just 3” long carnivorous worms, but roll a d4 * d4 to see how big the largest ones are (in feet).  These are stormworms, with mouths like rotary electric razors and skin in big leathery flaps.  They take minimal damage from falling.  They mostly devote their energy to eating each other, and afterwards people make hunting parties.  Like a lot of these weird weather effects, looting and burglary are rampant.

Reverse Rain pulls water from the surface up into the clouds.  If a creature isn’t indoors or underwater or something, they take 1 damage per minute as they desiccate painfully.  Pink clouds form over crowds of people who are losing a lot of blood.  Green clouds form over forests.  Most clouds formed this way are yellowish brown.

Reverse Stone Rain!  Pieces of rock break off of everything and fly into space.  Buildings look like bites are being taken out of them by invisible rats.  Your exposed skin with also break off in fingernail-sized servings and fly away.  1d6 damage per round after your clothing is gone (shouldn't take more than a couple of rounds).

Stone Rain!  Stay indoors.  Mostly pebbles, but sometimes fist-sized stones and 1d4 boulders!

Sun Invasion.  There isn’t just one sun.  There are hundreds.  Of all colors and sizes.  Swelling, swarming, and eating each other.  Sometimes things outside spontaneously combust for no reason.  Temperature raises 20 degrees F.

Thick Air.  The air has the consistency of water.  Breathing is exhausting.  Old people die.  Guns and engines don't work.  Fish swim out of the ocean and through the air.  When the weather ends, all the fish swimming over dry land drop and die, gasping faces mouthing the word “Why??????”.  The fish all die looking betrayed.