Blogs & Dragons

Roll 1d12 for a random lich phylactery:

The Philosopher’s Stone. (or similar stereotypical powerful item) It’s a precious tool that the Lich wants to keep safe and secure for his own use, but that the players might have trouble destroying to end the Lich’s reign. Bonus points if you tie in the whole “Elixir of Life” thing with the Philosopher’s Stone to be either part of the Lich’s immortality and youthful appearance, or a gift he grants to his most loyal henchmen.

Their family line. The Lich has passed on his soul through his offspring, and every time they have children, his soul is likewise stretched across the generations. While this may cause the Lich’s family to live depressing, cursed lives as they think they keep seeing the Lich out of the corner of their eye, at least the Lich can rest assured that any do-gooder would have to basically wipe out the entire family tree to finally drive the Lich’s soul to extinction.

A ghost ship. The Lich’s soul resides in a magical, cursed pirate ship piloted by the souls of the damned. These undead pirates would sail the seas and make it a dangerous place that few would want to try to meddle with the ship. Furthermore, all of the undead crew’s victims would become undead themselves, eventually amassing a hidden, undersea, undead army for the dread-pirate-lich.

Another Lich. Two (or more) Lichs that have created a pact to keep each other’s souls safe. Thus, even if a Lich’s body is destroyed, it regenerates with the other Lich’s soul still attached. You’d have to destroy both Lich’s at the same time! Bonus points if the Lichs start to fall in love with each other as a side effect of having the other’s soul attached to them, but they cannot follow through with that love because they must never be in the same place to protect their souls.

Gates of Hell. (or any other terrible plane of existence) This Lich either tragically and accidentally attached his soul to a gate he helped create to stop the tides of evil and accidentally made themselves a Lich, or they knowingly sealed it away so that any adventurer would have to open up a doorway to a dark dimension and let the evil denizens there freely invade the material plane in order to destroy the Lich’s soul.

A Future Artifact/Ancient Relic. Basically, use a modern day item and have it sent into your fantasy world somehow. Maybe the Lich was once a kid from the 90’s that got sucked into a game of Dungeons & Dragons. Now his Nokia phone certainly won’t work to make calls…but surely it’s a nearly indestructible container for this soul. Bonus points for cheesey 80’s, 90’s, and/or early 00’s references from the Lich.

A Golem’s Heart. The Lich has crafted a golem to stay hidden or act as loot for any adventurers that would slay him. Then the Lich will slowly start regenerating inside the hollow golem and attack adventurers once he’s studied their weaknesses up close and finds them in a vulnerable spot. Alternatively, perhaps the golem is a gigantic, clockwork monster that the Lich uses as an indestructible tank that the party must infiltrate and destroy it’s core to get the Lich’s soul.

An Entire City. This Lich has been planning his immortal ascension for some time. He’s put in the hours and helped plan and construct major parts of a city, secretly craft arcane symbols and shapes into the very streets and city layout. Once completed, the Lich locks their soul into every piece of cobblestone, plank of wood, and mound of dirt within the city limits. Perhaps this also leads to the Lich slowly turning every city dweller into an undead citizen of a new Necropolis.

Deck of Many Things. This is a personal favorite of mine for the huge McGuffin storyline it can have. Basically, come up with some reason a Lich wants to put his soul into the deck (my Lich was trying to assert some level of control over it to allow him to use it’s more powerful cards), and then have the process of becoming a Lich cause the deck to scatter to all the corners of the world. Now your party has to track each card down one by one and decide which party member is going to grab each card without knowing for certain which card it is whenever they find one. (will the party member suddenly lose all worldly possessions or will they get a huge chunk of EXP?)

The King’s Crown. (or whatever headgear your ruling person(s) of any gender your world has) Basically, this Lich uses the crown to influence the ruler over time. And finally, once the Lich is slain, he will slowly start to regenerate within the ruler’s body before taking it over. Imagine the horror as the king’s flesh starts to fall off and reveal the Lich underneath!

A Comet. This Lich has created their lair inside a comet that only passes over the material plane every ‘x’ amount of years (DM’s choice). This sets up an interesting story possibility where every so many years the kingdoms of the world must be prepared for whatever the Lich’s next evil plan is as the comet comes into view, and if your party is ambitious it offers a tough challenge for figuring out a way onto the comet to destroy it and kill the Lich once and for all.

The Tarrasque. The unkillable Tarrasque is now a Godzilla shaped soul container for this Lich. Your party will now have to deal with whatever the Lich’s plans are as well as figuring out how to kill or otherwise banish from this reality one of the most unstoppable monsters in the Dungeons & Dragons mythos.

In a previous post I described making a pantheon by rolling against the set of domains. Below is a list of gods that I’ve created for my Broadlands campaign setting (which I think I’ll be posting things from occasionally). I plan to make posts every so often with detailing individual gods.

I’ve been playing the Witcher 3 lately, and man does it have all kinds of ideas buzzing in my head. I think I’ve only scratched the surface of this game, but I’ve decided that I’m 1.) Impatient to post about it and 2.) Think it’ll be too much for one post in the end anyways. So, here’s part one of my ideas for your tabletop games as inspired by the Witcher 3.

A group of mages so powerful they realized they could transcend mortal worries and become legends. They then pass on their magical knowledge to a select few they deem worthy. To normal mortals they seem like mythical creatures, like cloaked Death, the four hoursmen, or angels. While they seem as though they could be divine creatures, they’re just extremely powerful mages (near level 20, or mythic levels) in a lower magic setting. This is from my first thoughts about who the Wild Hunt could be, and just a guess/cool idea for NPCs for a world. It can be an unexplained phenomena to the world, until you learn the truth that it’s just men with masks and magic. Kind of a smoke and mirrors thing, but still very deadly.

When fighting the first member of the Wild Hunt, they first run through a large hall and open portals that spew out these ice hounds. It’s not really a unique idea, but it made me think of utilizing ‘monster spawners’ to distract/block the PCs when they come across the Big Bad Evil Guy. It can also be an excuse for why the level 20 necromancer didn’t kill the party of level 1s. He was there to get some artifact/info/etc, and just opened a bunch of portals for zombies to flow out of so he didn’t have to deal with them.

Simple riddle idea: There’s an inscription for what order to activate items in to open a door. In the Witcher, it describes what braziers to light by describing an order based on what the statues were holding. Example, “First come the trumpet player, next is his neighbor, third is accompanied by his hunting hound, and the forth bangs his drum.” You can come up with a set of statues or pictures that you can then vaguely describe the order of and the PCs have to activate something under each in a specific order.

Powerful hags acting as sudo-benevolent, sudo-deities is fucking genius. This seems like it could work really, really well for a starting area. You’ve got a bunch of level 1 characters in some backwater town. They hear about how the folk there revere the “Ladies of the Wood” or something vague like that. The people seem alright, but eventually the PCs uncover the fucked up shit that the townsfolk do with sacrifices to appease these gods (like cutting off their ear or send their children to them--presumably to be sacrificed and/or eaten). The more you can get your PCs to help the hags before they realize how terrible they are the better...or maybe even better if the PCs realize they need the hags help and must assist them in some way. It undoubtly will make them feel better when they’re finally a high enough level to come back and wipe the floor with the hags...but they will have to deal with the moral dilemma of what that could do to the townsfolk when they lose the hag’s “protection”.

Trail of sweets is perfect and creepy. This fits perfect with the hags, but just the idea of something sweet or innocent that most people are tricked into believing is real...and then realize it’s nothing but dirt and worms is fucking creepy.

The Witcher has reminded me that even in a medium fantasy setting, common magical creatures like griffins and cockatrice would wreak havoc on the common folk. And I like the idea of the dead easily coming back to life. Most of the time I feel like undead in D&D only rise due to dark magics or places that have been tainted by great evil...but a setting where the dead can randomly rise is much scarier, much darker. It makes the need for priests and proper burial more real, something that the players can respect more. If you want a darker, grittier, or more ‘realistic’ game, I think these are great ways to achieve it.

A lamp that you can use to see ghosts can have a lot of decent plot uses. In the game most of the ghosts you see are basically frozen in a scene near their death. You can use it as a way to show your PCs events of the past from ghosts that might still linger in an area. It reminds me of the plasmid-induced ghost memories from the original Bioshock, you could suddenly experience a ghostly image doing it’s make up in the mirror and notice in the corner of the scene something move and get a glimpse of the monster that attacked there.

More encounters where the monsters/enemies come to the PCs. The whole premise of the Witcher really facilitates this. He tracks a creature, and often (especially with the ones like ghosts) prepares a ritual or action that will make the ghost be summoned to that location so that he can deal with it. If your PCs are in the habit of tracking down dangerous creatures, you can easily work in a way that they could summon or call the creature at a specific time. For example, the woman’s ghost always appears at midnight, but they’ve found that if they burn the woman’s prized possession in life, it’ll guarantee that it’ll be summoned to your location when the clock strikes midnight. Similarly, I liked the idea of protecting the villagers from waves of undead that are summoned during their yearly ritual to help those that died to move on.

So far, I HATE the witch hunters in this game. Since the start they’ve seemed like douchebags (I assume that’s the point), but it did make me think of an idea that I plan to flesh out later. Paladin Fraternities. If you’re running a sillier game, you can have something like Alpha Sigma Pi, Holy Fraternity of Pelor. These paladins act like college frat boys with the addition of also acting holier than though. I like this idea, because it can also lead to rivals and even enemies with other Paladin fraternities, meaning that two Paladins of the same god could hate each other. I think it could lead to some interesting relationships, and provide an easy ‘good’ faction to hate.

And, of course, Witchers! The easiest inspiration to pull from the game is that a faction of monster hunters can exist in your world. They would consist of people trained in a specific way (you can even say magically altered if you want to homebrew some magical mutations). I think the easiest thing to do is just make it an order of Eldritch Knights, warriors that train body and mind to slay foul creatures. It would make them more interesting if they are an order similar to the Crows from Game of Thrones or the Grey Wardens from Dragon Age, a faction that’s neutral in allegiance to the kingdom’s of man and consists of people from each nation (criminals and runaways being an easy choice for who makes up the order, but it might make more sense for it to be orphans, as they’d have more time to train from a young age).

Roll 1d12 for a random apocalyptic event:

Towering magic war golems and arcane bombs leave the world an unstable wasteland. Civilization clings to life in small oasis’s, hidden valleys of green, and walled cities. The wastelands between settlements are savage deserts, warped petrified forests, and poisoned lakes. Strange creatures thrive and mutate in the residual magics that linger in the destruction, making the wilds a dangerous place filled with alien horrors.

The moon hatches. As shards of lunar rock crash down all over the material plane, a beast falls into the ocean. Tidal waves destroy coastal cities, and soon after the gigantic creature (potentially larger than a city) carries that destruction inland. A threat similar to godzilla (but even bigger) threatens all life on the material plane.

The god of death is no more, and everyone forgets how to die. Instead of death, mortals linger on the material plane because there is no god to show them the way to the after life. Those who’s bodies haven’t sustained significant trauma remain as sentient undead in their decaying bodies. Over time they deteriorate and become mindless zombies. Those whose death leave an uninhabitable body become ghosts and wraiths. Undeath is everywhere, and all eventually turn on the mortals that still survive. An undead apocalypse ensues.

Magic fails. Magic users become few and far between, and advanced magical societies collapse as arcane infrastructures, such as floating cities, magically directed water streams, and other reliance on magic and magical items from day to day cease to function. Magic items can only be created by finding and breaking down old magic relics to use the magical dust Residuum. (can be more devastating if the world was previously a magicpunk setting where large magical cities populate the map)

The earth crumbles, and soon nothing is left of the world except for floating islands and small continents. Only a fraction of the surface is left and those that survive must adapt to a life in the sky over a bottomless abyss.

The good gods win, and the 9 hells and other evil planes are torn asunder…only to have their remains collide with the material world. Now the home of humans, elves, and dwarves resembles that of heavy metal cover art. Though the dark gods have perished, their armies now enslave the mortal races of the material plane. Dark cathedrals and fortresses, as well as strange warped structures of torture and blood litter the world. The leaderless demons and devils form kingdoms and tribes, maiming, killing, plundering, and destroying as they please.

The oceans rise until only the land at the highest elevations is above sea level. Now mountain peaks are the only solid ground left. Most that survive now live (and die) on the sea. Mortals scramble to create makeshift boats, flotillas, and floating cities as they battle tsunamis and storms, and the denizens of the ocean that now find the land dwellers as easy pickings on the sea.

The gods have forsaken the mortals. As they retreat, all prayers are left unanswered. Those gifted with divine magical prowess are left empty handed and the presence of clerics and paladins becomes almost unknown. Famine and draught have become the norm. The planet slowly dies until those that still survive are left in barren wastes held together by their will (or a powerful leader’s will) to live.

The earth cracked, and beneath our feet they swarmed over us. Some force from the underdark has dug tunnels under much of the surface dweller’s kingdoms, and begin waging war by collapse cities from underneath and surfacing in the center of unprepared populaces. This threat could be something like drow, or perhaps in this world orc and goblins lived solely underground until they’re ready to wage war on the surface world. An example of this are the Locus from the Gears of War series.

A mighty, magical empire rises as a dictator too powerful to challenge claims city after city, kingdom after kingdom. This villain rules with absolute power, and his soldiers are all magically manipulated to lose their sympathy and swear loyalty to this dark emperor. Bonus points if the emperor is a buff, skeleton faced lich with a group of quirky lead henchmen.

The sun explodes, plunging the world into darkness. As the Evernight begins, the creatures of the night reign. Vampire and werewolf populations explode in number, and the citizens of the underdark surface into the now-safe darkness of the above world. Forests die and are replaced with dark, twisted growths from the underdark. Enclaves of holy light become hidden settlements for humans, elves, dwarves, and the other creatures of the light, forever under assault from the oppressing darkness.

Aliens have landed. In sleek, undulating spacecraft, the Illithid have begun their assault on earth as they conquer their way along the stars. Their advanced magic-tech ships ravage the land, destroying country capitals and military fortresses. The mortals of the material plane are either eaten or enslaved until only secret havens remain to live in hiding or attempt guerrilla strikes in vain acts of rebellion.

Roll 1d12 for a random disease:

Dragon’s Cough: The inflicted coughs fire (or similar breath related to different types of dragon, such as ice or lightning). It is unknown if contact with dragons actually causes this illness. In general, it is far more dangerous to those trying to treat the victim than it is to the victim themselves, so long as the afflicted avoids coughing on themselves (and can keep from burning their houses down…)

Sea Lung: Contracted largely by sailors. It’s believed to be caused from contact with aquatic beings. Many accounts suggest it’s a transmittable disease from having intimate relations with creatures such as merfolk. Symptoms consist of the lungs slowly filling with seawater and is quite deadly if not treated early.

Dryad’s Itch: Contracted from elemental sources in the wilderness. The afflicted begins having excessively itchy patches on the skin that slowly start to form as tree bark. A slow moving disease that, if left untreated, can lead to the victim’s body turning entirely to wood.

Death Rot: Contracted from contact with undead flesh or necrotic energies. The victim’s flesh begins to rot and turn necrotic as tiny particles of undead flesh infects the creature’s pores. If left untreated, the victim will degrade into a zombie over the course of a few days.

Gobnob: A disease said to have originated from men laying with goblins, Gobnob is now a common viral disease with one major symptom - large, ugly warts on the genitals (and/or mouth)

Flesh Sludge: Contracted from contact with oozes such as a gelatinous cube. This is less of a disease and more of a parasite. Tiny bits of caustic oozes infest the victim’s skin and begin to eat away at the flesh, similar to more mundane flesh eating diseases.

Bloodrust: Contracted usually from contact with rust monsters. The victim’s blood is attacked by the same bacteria that a rust monster uses to dissolve metals. The bacteria eats away at minerals in the blood, especially iron. Afflicted individuals appear drained, and many are mistaken for victims of vampiric draining or some form of magical energy draining.

Dream Fever: As some know, dreaming involves a person’s mind wandering into the shallows of the astral plane (or other dream plane as per your setting). This disease is contracted by your wayward mind that then becomes trapped in a dream state. During this time the individual is unable to be awoken through normals means and their soul becomes susceptible to dangers in the astral plane which can’t normally affect dreaming minds.

Primordial Pox: Believed to be contracted from contact with raw magic and magical entities. Small patches of skin turn into painful outburst of elemental energy. These consist of things like rocky growths, burning or freezing flesh, and plants sprouting from the flesh. The victim experiences extreme pain that worsens as the rash covers more of their body before they dissolve into a maelstrom of destructive elemental energy that eventually spurts out and all that remains is ash.

Mage’s Flu: Common amongst novice witches, wizards, and other users of the arcane magics. It’s believe to be contracted from individuals who aren’t well practiced or don’t fully understand the magics they’re trying to use, but can be seen in mages of all experience levels. Symptoms resemble that of a mundane cold, except that the user’s magical prowess seems to take a mind of it’s own and wild magic is let loose around the mage (usually made worse during sneezing or coughing fits). This can involve conjuring entities, animating or awakening things nearby, and other spontaneous eruptions of magical energies.

Planar Gout: A disease seen mostly in those who see frequent travel between planes. It seems that either the magics or foreign environments cause a reaction similar to mundane gout, causing severe pain in a creature’s joints.

Somatic Madness: Contracted from contact with aberrant creatures and creations from places like the far realm. It’s common knowledge that such unnatural horrors can break a man’s mind, but they can all sunder his flesh. Regardless of whether contact with such abominations have driven an individual mad, their flesh can be be afflicted by an aberrant disease where it no longer knows how to exist. A person’s flesh and bones will begin to twist and warp, at best leaving them hideously deformed and at worse turning them into an aberrant horror themselves.

I wanted to start a series were I write down some ideas that come to me as I watch movies, play video games, or read books that inspire things that can be used on the tabletop. For this first post, I recently rewatched the movie Hanna. It’s a movie I enjoyed and my wife loves about a young woman trained to kill a target from her father’s past. My notes below might be a little spoilery, so if you haven’t seen the movie I encourage you to go watch it! And below, let’s compare notes:

Give your PCs a surprising origin. Perhaps in spite of where they originally hail from a benevolent god or powerful evil sorcerer imbued them with power while still growing in the womb, or maybe their parents enrolled in a program by the kingdom to magically alter unborn children to grow strong soldiers…but that was before that monarchy collapsed and all those involved were forgotten about…until now.

Start a campaign with an NPC who has raised/trained PCs in secret isolation. They’ve grown up and spent years preparing for a certain goal (killing the BBEG in the case of Hanna). After a training quest or two (optional) things kick off and the NPC mentor sends the PCs off to complete the task by surprise because people don’t know they’re trained for that task.

Have the PCs THINK they killed the BBEG. They’ve only heard of what the villain looks like or some other reputation of the villain, then the actual BBEG sends in a look-a-like to contact them (probably to be killed by the PCs). After the look-a-like’s death, the BBEG continues working in secret, or launches the final phase of their plan. Maybe the PCs don’t know they’re still alive until the villain confronts them, or maybe shortly after dealing with the imposter they see pictures/images/etc of what the real BBEG looks like and realize they’ve been duped.

Try using imagery. In the film, the Grimme Fairy Tales seem to be a reoccurring element. When Hanna finally confronts the antagonist, the antagonist is walking out of a wolf’s mouth at a fairy tale themed amusement park. Perhaps add details early in the campaign that you can call back to during climactic encounters, you use imagery that reference stories/movies/games from real life that your players might recognize and add meaning or depth to otherwise normal encounters.

Make quirky villains. The flamboyant, whistling german is probably my favorite part of this movie. Reminds me a little of villains like the Joker, but more realistic, which makes it more unsettling. Give them strange clothing choices that clash with their brutal nature. Perhaps the sociopath murderer whistles a kid’s tune while on the hunt, and/or he wears preppy clothing (short-shorts with an expensive tunic?). He could dye his hair in an outdated fashion. Smiling while he does his work can make it all the more unsettling.

I realized something today while DMing. I bitch a lot when the party is doing too well. I design encounters and my players generally walk out mostly unscathed. I offer a slight challenge, but a lot of the time the players get a large upper hand (or straight mop the floor for most of the encounter).

But then I found that I would complain that they were doing so well, and I realized: the way I want them to enjoy the game isn’t the way they enjoy it. They want to have fun, be big heroes. I’m thinking they want to be constantly challenged, that they want to barely make it out of big battles, but they want to beat the shit out of some douchebags and win the day. I steal those victories from them too much by trying to make it challenging or no-win scenarios, but when those scenarios end up being miscalculated cake-walks I whine about it.

So, a note to other DMs that may find themselves falling into this: don’t lament that an encounter is going too easily, a lot of the time players just want to enjoy winning. If that’s what they want out of the game, you shouldn’t force them to constantly lose.

Roll 1d12 for a random gravestone:

A pile of rocks with trident shaped wood jutting out of it. A small plaque of wood with hand carved lettering reads, “From whence we came.”

A large stone sarcophagus sits towering over the graves around it. The top is engraved to have the appearance of it’s inhabitant. It shows a man with a giant mustache and a wide grin. The man is wearing fine jewels and clothing. Along the sides of the stone coffin reads, “Smile in the face of death. Take all you can from this world.”

A weather worn tombstone sits in a foggy graveyard of similarly small gravestones. Barely legible in the smoothed stone reads, “There is nothing. I was nothing. I am nothing.”

A large gravestone sits on top of a small hill. On top of it a large angelic statue stands with a broken wing and weather stained face that makes it appear as though it was crying. Below reads, “Forever Vigilant.”

The graveyard is low and flat, almost featureless. All around you are rows of headstones in the shape of small, pointed obelisks that are knee high. Each displays a Roman numeral, counting the graves in ascending order. The one in front of you is unmarked, and doesn’t seem to be counted with the ones that come before and after it.

An old, gnarled, leafless tree winds it’s roots around a grave. Weeds and vines grow over the grave and around the wide, short tree. A stone plaque that has become part of the tree’s trunk reads, “In The End, It Overtakes Us All.”

A large, ovular, natural stone as tall and wide as a man stands overtop of a grave. Towards the top of the stone is a round hole at head level, about five inches in diameter. Around the hole are faded arcane runes. A low whistle can be heard as wind blows through the cavity in the stone.

A cement headstone reads, “May you find your way in the darkness.” A rusty, dirty lantern hangs on an iron hook, lighting the grave. The flame doesn’t look like it’s been tended to lately, and all mundane attempts to extinguish the light fail.

The headstone of this grave is more of a small statue than a gravestone. It depicts a kneeling, robed figure holding a large bowl on it’s back. Along the inside of the bowl reads the inscription, “Wash It Clean.”

A squatting stone gargoyle sits over an unmarked grave. It has two red jewels for eyes and a snarling maw. Every night the gargoyle disappears, and every morning it is found again, but in a slightly different pose than before.

A dirt grave is outlined in stone bearing arcane inscriptions. Iron bands wrap over the grave, as if it was a cage designed to keep it’s occupant from leaving. The headstone reads, “Beware,” and a brass bell hangs from it’s side with a metal rod descending down into the grave.

A small metal cylinder sits half a foot tall at the head of the grave. Floating in the air inches about the cylinder is a crystal the size of a man’s forearm. It glows a dim, flickering blue. When touched the crystal brightens and floats up to head height of the creature that touched it. It gives off a low hum, and after touched it sounds three long notes that can be heard throughout the graveyard.

Roll 1d12 for a paranormal event at a farm:

As a low wind blows, a sickle falls from the rafters of the barn and lands between your feet or inches from your face. Inspection of where it came from shows no sign of any tools, and when you look back the sickle is gone.

In the corner of your eye you see corn in the field move as if something is running through it towards you, but when you look the corn stalks are deathly still. Later you hear strange noises from the cornfield, such as giggling or sobbing.

Cattle in the field drop on their sides, dead. When turned over, it’s revealed that their sides that were touching the ground look as though they’ve been dead and decaying for days.

In the middle of the night you hear a man’s laughter at the edge of the property. Minutes later it appears halfway up the drive. Then it’s heard at the front door. Next you hear it at the closest window. Finally, as soon as you try to sleep, you hear the man laugh as if he was standing over your bed.

You hear a door slam in the cellar. When you investigate, a door is there that never existed before. It is jammed and won’t open. As you try and try to pull it open, it finally gives to reveal a blank wall on the other side.

The livestock around the farmhouse seem to keep their backs to you, but otherwise are behaving normally. When you try to look at their faces, you find that they’re missing and exposed bone with empty sockets stares back at you before going back to grazing.

In the middle of the night the barn doors start slamming open and shut. When you investigate, the doors slam shut behind you. Nothing is out of place in the barn, but outside you hear screams of torment and horror. After a few moments the screaming stops and the barn doors slowly creak open. As you step out of the barn the screaming starts again, but this time right behind you.

The outhouse begins shaking violently. When you open the door it stops. When you investigate inside you realize there’s sobs coming from the toilet.

A heavy rain begins and the land around becomes muddy. It’s then that you notice that something that looks like bone can be seen in the dirt below the crops. When you investigate you start to hear low moaning and what sounds like a heartbeat. If you start to uncover the bone, a skeletal hand shoots out of the mud and grabs you.

From the well outside the farm house you think you hear shouts. It sounds like a young girl has fallen and gotten trapped. You approach to the sound of the girl’s sobs, but you find that the well is filled to the top with murky water. As you examine it’s surface you see a water logged hand quickly raise from the depths to claw at you. The arm retreats into the well and the water begins to turn a dark red. The next time you look into the well you see that it is filled with dirt and looks as though it has been for years.

You realize that the scarecrow in the field looks like it’s staring at you. When you move around you feel like it’s following your movements. Before you stare at it too long, a murder of crows flies in your face, obstructing your view. When the birds have passed, the cross that held the scarecrow up is now empty.

While out in the field or in the barn you hear a dinner bell ring at the house. As far as you know, no one is at the house at this time, but as you approach it appears as though lights are on and the chimney is blowing smoke. The lights are dimly lit in the house, but the dining room is laid out with enough places for everyone examining the house. There are covered dinner platters in the middle of the table. A name tag labels each seat with the name of everyone who entered the house. If the platters are uncovered, they reveal a harvest feast. There are pies and roasts, a plethora of cooked vegetables and fruits. You feel the urge to devour the meal as it’s delicious scent fills the air. Moments after you either begin or refuse to eat the lights suddenly blow out, leaving you in darkness. When you light the area again, you realize that the room is in shambles, the dishes are rusty, and the food is molded, maggoty remains of something humanoid.

Roll 1d12 for a random statue:

Statue made of expensive materials, with eyes made of gemstones

Statue made of otherworldly material depicting a tentacled, beaked horror

Statue created by primitive means, such as wicker, clay, or other dried material depicting a dark god

Statue of a lanky humanoid, positioned almost in a fetal position so as to make it’s head at an average humanoid height

An innocent looking guardian statue of a happy, nonmagical creature

Ethereal statue that is clearly visible though translucent, and is completely incorporeal

A mythical creature vandalized in a disturbing way, such as it's eyes dug out and tongue chipped off

A silly looking humanoid statue that seems to change what direction it’s pointing at unknown times

A monstrous statue showing victory over a peaceful race

Mummified corpses positioned as statues holding lit candles

A beautiful ice sculpture that doesn’t melt

I’ve begun fleshing out the setting for my secondary Dungeons & Dragons campaign. It’s a less serious game and is a pretty traditional fantasy setting a la Lord of the Rings and vanilla D&D. Today I worked on creating gods. I wanted to share how I’ve started doing my deities, as I’ve found it can provide some fun or interesting combinations.

I’m playing 5e, so I’ve pulled out the eight different divine domains that are in the books (the seven from the Players Handbook plus the Death domain present on other pantheons listed in the Dungeon Master’s Guide). This is a simpler list than one would find in 3.5, but the idea will work across editions --and even game systems).

Once you have a list of the different domains that your gods will represent, number them and then pull out two dice of that number (luckily I have only eight domains, if you have a strange number of them you may need to use an online dice roller that lets you input custom sides).

Here’s my list of numbered domains:

     1. Knowledge

     2. Nature

     3. Life

     4. Tempest

     5. Light

     6. Death

     7. Trickery

     8. War

Now I simply rolled my two dice and picked what domains those were, and then made a god that represented them. My first roll was easy, Life and Knowledge. I decided to make this a god I had already made up for a dwarven NPC, it was Mordheim the dwarven god of the forge, creator of dwarves and similar folk. This one wasn’t too exciting or unique, but it fits my more traditional setting.

Next I got Death and Light. Interesting...I’d not thought of this combination as working well, but it inspired an idea. We’ve all heard of ‘the light at the end of the tunnel’, yeah? Maybe this god is what inspires that phrase. I came up with the idea that this worlds reaper would be a silent woman in a white robe, who carries a lantern on a stick. It’s kind of creepy and unsettling, and is a bit more flavorful than your normal reaper. I’m imagining there’s probably a candle theme going to occur with her.

I won’t go through the entire list, but here’s a couple more of note. One god I got was War and Nature. I decided this could be more of a viking god, in tune with the primal energy of earth, but barbaric and aggressive. And another I rolled the same number twice. At first I was inclined to reroll one of the die, but realized that perhaps having a deity with a single domain would mean that that singular thing would be an intensified theme for that god. For this I rolled light twice, so I decided to make it a sun god who is probably going to be a dragon that created the sun in this setting.

Not all ideas are super unique, but this randomized way of creating your pantheon can lead to some interesting combinations and let’s you think of clever was to try and incorporate two (or more) domains together into a god, and what that god means to your setting.