Monster generator spark cards

I made a small 12-card deck monster generator today. Draw two and combine!

The contents as a d12 table:

1.     Ooze	acid, rust, pseudopod, subdividing, natural, lab-grown, medicinal, (a)morphing, mutating
2.     Skeleton	mausoleum, holding shit, bone weapons, femur, teeth, display, pirate, giant, monster, necromancy, skeleton key, grave robbing, tomb
3.     Fungus/Plant	flowers, seeds, pods, tendrils, roots, crawling, stationary, fluorescent, growth, poison, psychoactive
4.     Robot	laser, prosthetic, tracks, lights, hologram, armor, clockwork, steam, replicant, android, mecha, production
5.     Lizard	scales, amphibious, rainbow, reptiloid, swamp gas, thunder, toad, prehistoric, conspiracy, rending claws, running
6.     Ghost	immaterial, haunting, fear, hunger, bound, eerie, screams, want, swamp, chains, murder, fog, treasure
7.     Parasyte	symbiotic, infectious, mind control, autonomous, slow transformation
8.     Octopus	tentacles, floating, sepia, ink cloud, grabbing, reef, alien, weird, unsettling, slimy, suckered, jelly, genius, mastermind
9.     Elemental	air, fire, earth, water, outer planes, transformation, void, harmony, balance, alchemy, philosophy
10. Avian	wing, shriek, egg, flock, claw, migration, dive, beak, nest, sky, plumage, navigation
11. Beast	tail, sentient, cub, mythical, bipedal, fangs, armored, quadraped, uplifted, horns, tribal, magical, camouflage, mutated, hoofs, armed, nocturnal, centaur, cryptid
12. Psychic	mind blast, oracle, clairvoyance, hypnosis, telekinesis, voice, illusion, pyrokinesis, vision

 

Quick examples:

BEAST + ELEMENTAL = a tribe of fire-worshipping pigmen

PSYCHIC + AVIAN = giant bats that navigate using telepathy

OOZE + PARASYTE = jelly that replaces a humanoid’s brain and spinal fluid

FUNGUS/PLANT + OCTOPUS = a tree with lots of grabby roots

GHOST + ROBOT = a malevolent gremlin that possesses machinery

SKELETON + LIZARD = dinosaur on display in museum reanimated

And a drawing by my wife, a PLANT + SKELETON combo which she interpreted as a dried husk of a plant with teeth:

Searchers of the Unknown - pocketmod version

I really like Searchers of the Unknown, the super-minimal D&D by Nicolas Dessaux, where you just use the standard monster statline to represent any character. It's a one-page ruleset. So I converted it into a pocketmod.

Searcher of the Unknown pocketmod PDF for printing

I edited it a little bit to make it fit better. Then to PAD IT OUT, I added Monsters of the Unknown by Brent P. Newhall and a quick equipment list by me.

(Turns out, there is another pocketmod version out there, but I prefer my formatting)

Fight on!

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

 

[Dungeon] Secret Hide-Out of GLAXORZIS, that Sorcerous CREEP!

I drew and wrote a quick little dungeon by hand, in that foldable pocketmod format.

GRAB IT HERE FOR THE PRICE OF FREE!

What it says on the tin! 

You are after GLAXORZIS, THAT SORCEROUS CREEP, who wronged you somehow. Kidnapped your friend, stole your shiny artifact, played a stupid prank on you. Follow him underground into a complex of 21 rooms spread out over three levels. 

This is a barebones thingie, printable/foldable as a pocketmod. 

No stats. For fantasy adventure games where you die in a hole.

DIY dungeon geomorphs

I made a set of dungeon geomorphs yesterday! Took a sheet of cardboard, divided it into 30 equal squares, and then drew various combinations of rooms, corridors, caverns. I made sure to have the entrances/exits meeting roughly around the middle of each side of the square. On some tiles, all spaces are connected to each other; while other tiles have two or more separate areas. I filled the leftover spaces with dead-ends and finials - tiles that only have one entrance.

The drawing was done in pencil first (but basically with no erasing/corrections), then inked it with one of those Stabilo black pens.

Cut it up with a hobby knife and scissors, and ended up with a nice pile of dungeon tiles!

The first dungeon was a random draw of six tiles:

The second dungeon I started out with a random draw, then "curated" it: switched, reorganized or rotated some of the tiles, and added dead-ends to close off passages towards the borders.

I used the tiles where the areas are not interconnected to limit the sprawl of the dungeon too.

Then I fired up my trusty GIMP, and turned a photo of the tiles into a janky but also kinda stylish dungeon map! I cut off all the unconnected areas for now, to create an enclosed space.

It's an evenings craft project, and lots of fun! The geomorphs can be used to create a quick dungeon (draw a couple of tiles, assemble, take a photo, edit out all the unnecessary passages) during prep, or even on the fly; or just to inspire yourself.

P.S.: I numbered the areas on the final map, you can see it here: https://eldritchfields.blogspot.com/2020/10/map-forgotten-depths-of-geomorphic.html