Recommend me Generators of Underground Worlds

 In my big re-work of ‘Veins of the Earth’, I have begun looking at the systems used for generating the geography of the Veins, the large main routes, smaller areas, etc.

My plan isn’t to fundamentally change the methods from the first VotE, but to re-make them, to make the new versions more of a comprehensive generator, with a sequence of tools to systematically generate a large area, routes, cities, villages, trade routes etc.

Something else I would like to do in this version is gesture to or recommend alternate methods or other ways different people have tried to deal with this non-trivial problem of generating and mapping complex, large three-dimensional spaces underground.

From the first VotE. We won’t be using this layout as it belongs to Raggi but the general concept will likely be similar.

My aim here isn’t to copy but to, in the spirit of a bibliography, directly point people towards alternative possibilities. (I am also planning on doing this with monsters so people can put together their own encounter charts).

So far the only other book I’m intimately familiar with which deals with this specific problem, is Douglas Niles Dungeoneers Survival Guide, which has a neat but somewhat challenging method for isometric mapping.

What other books or works, or even posts, are people familiar with that deal with, specifically; generating and mapping large pseudo-natural underground spaces?

(I know there are a million methods of dungeon and mega-dungeon design, that’s not what I am talking about here.)

Fetch-Quest Generator

 Hey remember back in the day when we I put useful stuff on our my blogs?

This was going to be at the start of 'Vault of Setebos', the dungeon I am doing for Ben L's 'Through Ultuans Door' but will likely be cut so here you go, a means to generate a reasonable-sounding semi-legal item-retrieval quest

Absolute Legend

 

	The Mcguffin “Bring for me..”	“It’s actually reasonably mine because…”	EXTRA SAUCE
1	The Lunar Orb. Said to be a True Moon made small.	I am fighting to save ALL OF REALITY and I need this particular thing to do it.	Quest-Giver is extremely hot & seems like they are into you.
2	Cup of Horn. Legend says any who drink from it will have true prophetic dreams that night.	I channel the Spirit of the creator who, since they speak through me, is not *legally* dead.	Quest-Giver has proof of deep perversion which, if used as blackmail, will get your long-standing enemy off your back.
3	The Prismatic Leaf. Said to hold the souls and highest dreams of a realm now lost to Entropy.	I was briefly removed from causality by a mocking God. On my return it had been inherited and sold-off!	Quest-Giver is part of a Multiversal masonic-style order & can get you in too. Room, board, contacts and assistance wherever you go.
4	Hourglass of Ash. It’s said that while this glass runs, any entity in its presence becomes mortal.	I’m a member of a distant religious order dedicated to preserving the *true intentions* of the creator.	Quest-Giver runs/represents a narco-empire and can get you *anything* you want, free if its for personal use, and cheap rates on bulk.
5	The Sabre of the Red Dawn. Made from a tear in reality to one where the physical laws are anathema.	It was stolen from me, and used as payment to imprison someone I love. A double-insult which I would see avenged.	A Tame Giant Roc! Ok its just “mostly tame”. Still it can fly you and your crew wherever you need. (You must pay for upkeep and ‘Roosting Costs’ yourself.)
6	Psalter of Sardinac. The Prayers if intoned continually for a year, will return the Good God Sardinac to life.	That side of the family have been replaced with animated flesh golems, (its why I don’t talk to them), I am the only real one left.	Quest-Giver offers prism-keys to the fastness of Zim of the Fifteen Prisms! A Tardis-like dimensional fortress accessible by refracting sunlight through the prisms. (Zim presumed dead.)

 

The Quest-Giver is willing to pay a ridiculous amount of money and/or resources, as well as whatever the ‘extra sauce’ is.

Courteous Quest Generator

First, the Gawain Kickstarter for an illustrated, hardback print of my version of "Gawain and the Green Knight" is FUNDED, and has been for a few days.

Click here, click the Knight on the Right, click anywhere really.

So this is going to happen and people are going to get their books.

As of the 18th everyone who backs for a print copy gets a digital copy for free.

If you want extra gubbins added on and have an idea, we have nine days left so drop me a comment in the Kickstarter.

Check out any of the promotional content here;

Dans Notes on the Art Development;

Gawain and the Green Knight - From sketch to final illustration

Gawain and the Green Knight -  Character design notes

Gawain and the Green Knight - From sketch to final illustration - Stanza 39

Mateos Arthurian Troika Hacks;

https://hexculture.com/2019/10/gawain.html

https://hexculture.com/2019/10/the-sharpest-sword-does-not-exist.html

My.. whatever I was doing here;

Pilgrims of the Green Moon

Twenty Green Knights


Now, on to the fresh content!

Courteous Quests

Words not Swords. Just delete the "S". What follows is my attempt to create a kind of mission or situation generator for problems that can only be solved by courtesy.

I was trying to take apart the complex situation between Gawain, Bertilak and Lady Bertilak in the poem, to see if I could create a generator to produce situations like that.

Essentially - no, but I came up with this instead.

First, the feudal Matrix. This has to be a place limited and bound in some way, so that neither the Quester, nor anyone else, can just avoid the problem by leaving. It also has to be a 'civil' place, with reasons for people to talk to one another, and with enough room and potential anonymity for intrigue and sneaking around.


A - You are All In:
(d6)
1. The Court at Christmas. Its freezing out and no-one should leave until festivities are done.
2. A Ship becalmed at Sea.
3. An Enchanted Forest or garden. Full of Glades and Strange Airs. No-one can get out until the situation is resolved.
4. A Monastery or Nunnery. Possibly one or more of you are in disguise as the other gender.
5. A Masque Ball - Plague is ravaging the country outside.
6. A Castle under siege.



B - You Are:
(d2)
1. A Knight known for courtesy.
2. A Lady, Full-Fair


(You can just apply your own character to this, but they should be something like a Knight or Lady, someone high-status, known to be courteous? Someone with enough of a social role that surrendering it will be a serious loss.

In the poem, people keep telling Gawain "You are not Gawain". His position as current Best Knight of Arthurs Court makes him a simultaneous badass, moral paragon, celebrity and fetish object. He tries really, very hard to live up to this role and ultimately fails, which is part of what leaves him so crushed at the end of the book.

Whoever the main protagonist or 'player' is, they need to, essentially not be an old-school D&D protagonist. They need to care about their social role and to fear humiliation and to want to live up to the positive qualities their role exhibits. If the Player Character is Cugel the Clever, you might get an interesting game of manipulation but I think that's all.

Of course you can "create" these situations in D&D temporarily by turning the desired personality shift into a voluntary diegetic element; "You can go to the party but you have to wear this crown which ensures you can only be courteous / accept the Witches curse or Geas / wear this Jewel which the Quest-Giver will observe through." etc.



C - One you May Not Offend
(d10)
1. A powerful secretive and dangerous Witch, possibly under a Glamour.
2. Your Queen. Beautiful, adored by all and the only thing holding the nation together.
3. A Maiden, known by all for Purity and Virtue, daughter of a powerful Duke.
4. A Nature Spirit, Dryad or Forest Fey, who rules the wild lands around.
5. The Ghost of an innocent murdered girl. May not know she is a ghost. Fulfilling her desire may set her free.
6. Crowd of Washer Women & Serving Girls. The lower orders may revolt, leading to danger for you, or a massacre of them.
7. A Beautiful Courtesan. Desired by all, with many strong Knights obedient to her word.
8. The Abbess of a Nunnery. A Royal relation known for learning and religious observance.
9. An Imperious Small Princess.
10. Your Mother.


D - Another You Fear to Refuse
(d10)
1. Your King! Brave, handsome, beloved and the only thing holding the country together.
2. The Bishop. Wise, respected, charitable, wealthy and observant.
3. The Wizard. A respected, if mercurial, Adviser of unknown, but potentially vast, power.
4. The Kings Champion. First Knight of the Kingdom, handsome and feared.
5. A Foreign Potentate. Wealthy, imperious, powerful. Your nations teeter on the edge of war or alliance.
6. A powerful Ogre or Giant. One who could seriously wreck the place. Possibly temporarily changed in shape or under a Glamour.
7. A Holy Hermit, famous for visions and access to God.
8. A Grieving Father who has recently lost his Daughter or Son.
9. A Powerful Moneylender (probably a Jew if you are going 'real-ish Middle Ages).
10. A Demon! In Human Form!


E - The Object of their Desire

1. It’s You.
2. It’s the Other. If C, they are obsessed with D. If D, they are obsessed with C.
3. Your Bae. They are obsessed with whomever you are crushing on.



F - The Nature of their Overwhelming Desire

1. Desire-based desire. They wish to possess their object sexually*.
2. Pride. They must have their greatness recognised and admitted to, in public terms, by their object.
3. Suspicion. They are certain their Object is Up To Something and obsess over worming out their secrets.
4. Faith. They have a deep religious interest. Either conversion, corruption or something else.
5. Honour. They either feel slighted by the Object in some way, or are obsessed with testing their Honour.
6. Hate. They despise the object and secretly want to ruin them.

(*Unless you roll something which makes this too creepy to game, like your Mother or a child. (Unless you are playing a real dark game.))


So to create a Courteous Problem, roll

A - A Place and Situation.

B - Who you are.

C - One you may Not Offend.
E - The Object of their Desire.
F - The Nature of that Desire.

D - Another you Fear to Refuse.
E - The Object of their Desire.
F - The Nature of that Desire.

That should create a near-impossible problem of courtesy.

If you want something a little more focused you can simply roll once for E - The Object of their Desire, meaning both are obsessed with the same person (or each other), and possibly once for F - The Nature of the Desire, meaning they both want the same thing (although if its sexual, that may be a short adventure.

Well that doesn't quite produce Gawain-Level situations, but it may at least produce some interesting situations.

Processions

Another element of the Faerie Queene is that rulers are often proceeded by processions of unique individuals who illustrate the nature of their power in various ways. These are often extremely vivid and interesting, some of the best parts of the book (and also get a bit rubbish towards the end). In particular, Femme-Satan in her House of Pride gets her seven wizards riding even beasts, each incarnating a major sin. Cupid also gets a great entry, first music; "full straunge notes", then Fancy "like a lovely boy", then Desire beside him, then Doubt "In a discolour'd cote, of straunge disguyse", then Danger, Fear, Hope, Dissemblance, Suspect, Grief and Fury, Displeasure and Pleasance, Despight and Cruelty, and then the winged god himself riding a lion.

Hey, and here they are, by Walter Crane, proceeding.

No doubt Edmund had seen a few of these in real life and just expanded on the structure, introducing supernatural and moral elements.

The utility of the procession in games is varied;

- It makes the main thing feel like the main thing. Instead of 'oh hey its the King', you get this loooong build up and concentration of different powers until 'oh fuck, its the king!'.

- It translates feudal/religious/state/family/other power structures into highly specific, *vivid*, elaborately costumed and easy-to-remember people.

- It does this sequentially, and slowly. Instead of the PC's wandering into a party or mixed group and having to navigate it, all the major players are introduced one at a time, or in linked pairs, they are given a moment to recognise and remark on them, and when the procession is over, they know who to look for and/or avoid. It makes the large amorphous mid-sized group which is hard to translate into natural language for an RPG, more navigable, essentially providing its own map.

- It highlights power structures and precedence in the kingdom or polity where the PC's are. Different factions and their position in the procession is a strong indicator of how powerful they are, or want people to think they are. It's clear who you have to speak to get what.

- If you want to get freaky and Spencerian/Vancian with it then you can include strange stuff like incarnated moral values that make the kingdom possible, extra-dimensional alliances, Wizards who have become their own reflections, dudes made of crystal etc.

A theme in the generator is going to be that each individual element or member of the procession doesn't have to be that complex. What important is that they are visually striking, direct, memorable and exemplify their faction, group or idea in the procession. In Spenserian (and Comic-Book) fashion, complexity comes not from characters who are complex in a literary or post-Freudian way, but from the combination and interaction of individually simple, stark and unique elements. (Plus you can always add psychological depth if people want to interact with someone).

Firstly, this generator, (or vague idea for a generator) works if you already have a monarch and a kingdom/empire/barony or whatever. It's built with the idea that you already know what that is. And of course it works better in feudal and pseudo-feudal settings.

  

1. MAKING IT INTERESTING

Even if it’s interesting, watching a procession is a somewhat passive act. Here are some ways to make it feel more active and animated

The Interlocutor;

Its good if the PC's have a guide, or at least an interesting parasite, who wants to tell them stuff they might not know. The purpose of this individual is to hang out with the PC's, gossip with them and  These are almost always going to be chatty extroverts.

1. High-status noble got caught doing something sketchy with a stableboy or groom, so massive status loss, but can't be kicked out.

2. Faithful but questionably-liberal priest of state church, happy to be meeting people!

3. Governess or Tutor of minor royal. No-one else they can really talk to.

4. 'Artists Model' or 'Poet' ridiculously attractive, likeable & shallow courtesan or rent boy, currently between patrons, happy to grab the free food. Stays talking to the PCs so they can't be ejected.

5. Very Noble but old-as-fuck individual. No longer cares about protocol but no-one can stop them rambling to the PC's because nobody nearby outranks them.

6. Teenage noble wannabe so over this hierarchal bullshit, wants to impress dangerous outsiders.

Music;

As the procession begins some kind of music will start to let people know to smarten up. Due to ancient ethnological, cultural or ritual reasons, the kind of instruments used may be utterly out of seeming character with the current culture of the kingdom. There is always a specific reason for this. You can probably make this up yourselves but here's a crappy list;

1. Carnyx

2. Saung

3. Male voice choir

4. Bone flutes

5. Full Orchestra

6. Intense drumbeats

Audience Behaviour;

The audience isn't meant to just stand around and stare, there is a specific way that everyone is meant to be behaving, and if the PC's aren't behaving that way, then they are going to get into trouble;

1. Deep and weepy.

2. Silent and stiff-backed.

3. Periodically jubilant.

4. Awed and Amazed, in a positive fashion.

5. Awed and Humbled in a near-downcast fashion.

6. Movement from one of these extremes to the other as the arrival of the monarch approaches.

Reactions to each Emergence;

The immediate group around the PC's, and their interlocutor, will react in particular ways to each emergence of the procession. Each of these elements, and their position means something specific to the people around.

These reactions always take place underneath the expected behaviour, in sotto voice or cross talk, if PC's, and players' don't act this out then they will lose status and may be ejected. (Of course the rich & powerful can talk sotto voice as much as they like, the less important you are, the more you will be policed.)

Here are some ideas

1. A processional farts mid-step. Nearby elite individual moans "this is the end for us, saddle the horses".

2. Serious intra-group power struggle or doctrinal shift indicated by micro alteration in ritual - i.e. sword of justice held sideways. Gasps and remarks abound.

3. Procession member is masked, crowd members suspect replacement by unknown, those nearby become obsessed with minutia and bearing.

4. Procession member is out too early in procession, their group or faction has lost power. Shock, interest and comments move through crowd. Faction members bristle.

5. Procession member is closer to monarch than expected. Faction members glow with pride, other groups angry or manoeuvring.

6. Procession member is highly divisive with base for intra-faction reasons, 50% of that faction hate, 50% love them, both groups have individuals near the PC's. "It's about time" vs "This is the end!" Other factions utterly indifferent.

7. Members proceeding together represent factions currently in conflict, tension grows in crowd, will they try something?

8. Procession representative is new to the job and visibly nervous, looks like they are going to fall/screw it up. Faction members hold their breath, others observe in fascination.

9. An entire faction is missing! New faction present! Massive unexpected power shift! Old factions members aghast, new members thrilled. Tension rises in crowd.

10. Muttered local argument about exact symbology of the precise thing this faction member is carrying/doing.

2. CONSTRUCTING THE PROCESSION

Without any actual playtesting, I've decided that the standard procession is made up of ten individuals, who appear in five groups of two each.

If you go much lower than ten, it’s not really worth processing, you may as well just arrive. If you go much over ten then the PC's have to do a lot of hanging round and are probably not going to remember as much as they should.

Ten people and five pairs means five whispered conversations and five repressed (or expressed) reactions, and then the Sovereigns arrival, and then we are back into 'real game' space where the PC's can wander around, get into trouble, be called on by, or brought to the attention of, the ruler.

So this is an abstraction of a 'real' or historical procession. Many of the ceremonial ones would have been a lot longer than this I think. It also blurs together quasi-real feudal elements, pseudo-real 'classic fantasy' elements and hipster OSR magical or strange elements.

My guesstimation for how many of each element you want is;

Standard D&D Fantasy;

4 Feudal Locations

4 Organisations

2 Powers

Spouse

Pseudo-Real Fantasy (Harn-ish);

6 Feudal Locations

4 Organisations

Spouse

Highly-Magical Fantasy (Spencerian);

4 Feudal Locations

6 Powers

Spouse

So we will go through each element of the procession, deciding what they are, and giving each three (actually four) separate things;

1.      A Name and Title (you are going to need a name generator, or a list).

2.      A Costume.

3.      A Behaviour.

4.      An Object.

These three things, linked together, are intended to form a sharp and coherent block of identity, easily describable in natural language. They are then linked in pairs, each emerging together.

Again; these individual concepts don't need to be very 'good', that is, original and deep. The combination of simple, stark, basic identifiers means the scene as a whole is meant to be easy to read. People are types and/or want to be see as types, at least while the procession is on.

If important people are acting in, or dressed as, a ridiculous fashion or way, then they are doing it for ancient ritual reasons, respected by all, and you are the idiots for pointing it out.

Put simply, this gives the DM something interesting to describe and the players something interesting to experience, which they will hopefully remember. The reactions of the crowd and their attempt to interrelate the PCs with those reactions, hopefully turn the moments of the procession from a boring experience of watching people going past, to an interesting discovery.

Remember, processions process quite slowly relative to normal walking

So the ideal process is;

1. Announcer or interlocutor announces names and titles.

2. A Pair Emerges.

3. The DM describes their strange looks and behaviour.

4. The Crowd and/or local guide reacts and relates this reaction to the PC's.

5. A possible short, whispered conversation takes place between the guide and the PC's.

The process is repeated four more times as excitement and drama builds.

6. The Sovereign (and possible Spouse) arrive.

3. LOCATIONS

This isn't the location itself, but someone representing it. You've seen stuff like this in Game of Thrones and, most recently, Black Panther. It essentially represents different geographic areas as Star-Wars-Style mono-biomes with one determining element and character type, and one costume or symbol that defines them.

In real hisotry what really seems to matter are arable river valleys and catchment areas, and maybe pastoral hillsides, so in a 'real' feudal situation, all the location-controllers will be pretty damn similar guys who each control a river valley.

But this is a game, so, like in Star Wars and Black Panther, we want them to be grouped as a type and highly distinguishable within that group.

To pick your locations, look at a map of the areas controlled by the kingdom or sovereign you are looking at and go for some combination of economic or political utility, and simple identifying elements.

If you are doing a pseudo-real version of this, then the guys from the arable river valley that also contains some mountains refer to themselves as 'the mountain folk' and the guys from the arable river valley that contains the forest think of themselves as 'the forest folk'. The components of a feudal culture are as much involved in distinctive and highly physicalised expressions of identity as players in an RPG.

And in a 'realistic' setting, the representatives of these places are wearing this whacky stuff and acting in this very arch and strange way because it is the time honoured way of their people, and everyone around takes it super seriously too.

Here are some not-that-good suggestions;

Location	Costume	Behaviour	Object
Forests	Green silk ribbands, fake silk leaves, horned crown	Scattering truffles, shooting toy arrows into audience	Ceremonial hunting bow, hunting horn, charcoal censer.
Mountains	Bear Pelt	Being Philosophical (maybe carrying stones or honey symbolising wisdom?) Disdainfully scattering ‘snow’.	Climbing staff. Grapple & rope.
Rivers	Fish-scale cloak	Pretend-fishing? Pages blowing into a pseudo-sail or with pseudo-oars.	Trident. Ropes. Scales for trade goods. Net full of fake or real fish.
Pastoral Lands ‘The Vale of somethingother’	Sheepskin, Cloak of Goat Bells, Great Cow Head	Weaving a huge cats cradle, chopping meat, dispensing hams	Hurling meat into crowd, ‘chopping’ crowd with big fake cleaver

4. ORGANISATIONS

An organisation is something that either has a big main building, or a lot of buildings spread through the domain, or has no building and is purely distributed.

The Church should always be one of these, if there is a state religion. The judiciary also. A major school, especially if magical. The Iron Bank of Bravos is a good example of one of these. The chancellor of the Kingdom could be one, major regiments or military commanders as well

Most of these actually already have pretty good costumes and honestly I got bored writing a table for them, it wasn’t very good.

5. POWERS

The idea of a Power originates with the habit of Spencerian monarchs to spend a lot of time hanging out with literalised metaphors. In less-Spencerian settings the Powers become a kind of dumping ground for high-weirdness, or for the strange forms of otherness and ancient ritual on which many monarchies depend. The King or Queen, after all, is not just some dude, but is an intercessor between the material kingdom and a bunch of freaky supernatural stuff that ordinary people may never see. The axis of eternal powers. And in D&D, these powers can actually turn up.

Classic D&D - Powers might represent the Splatbook Races. Crystal dudes, Gythanki, Warforged or anyone not in the players handbook. They could also be supernatural monsters whose nature links them to the realm, a Naga in human form for the major river, an ageless silver dragon in humanoid form.

Vancian D&D - These would be extra-dimensional entities like meta-wizards or quasi-aliens.

Spenserian D&D - These would be actual, literal virtues or sins, or other moral or natural elements, depending on the monarch. For example, the classic virtues are Chastity, Temperance, Charity, Diligence, Patience, Gratitude and Humility. And the classic ‘seven sins’ are Wrath, Envy, Gluttony, Pride, Greed, Lust and Sloth.

Hipster OSR D&D - Bound multidimensional horrors, living reflections carried in smoking mirrors, and that hoary old standby - freaks in masks.

6. THE SPOUSE

These can add variety and can be very gameable. A kind of aesthetic and/or behavioural counterpoint to the court as a whole. By bringing in someone or something 'other' to the group it centres them as a group. Plus the players are probably going to be dum-dums and completely botch their meeting with the King so if there's a Queen who has different ideas, it gives them a second chance to not be fuckwits. Here are a few options.

1. Classic Pairing - same class, origin and temperament. Not spookily similar but talking to one is pretty much like talking to the other. Victoria and Alfred would be a good example. So would Michelle and Barak.

2. Other Does The Job - whoever is meant to be in the inferior or passive position relative to this society actually does most of the work and wields most of the power. So, Marjorie Tyrell in Got (if she had lived). This might be obvious, or hidden, tolerated, or hated.

3. Rival Power Scion - If this is the pseudo-euro Empire then the spouse is from the pseudo-arab Empire. If its pseudo-Han, they are pseudo-Mongol, etc, etc. This is meant to prevent or halt a major war so the marriage is important, but the court is freaked out.

4. One-Point Opposite - A Classic Pairing except one is extremely different in one particular, behavioural, physical, political or aesthetic way. To the extent that its either immediately obvious or comes up very quickly in each interaction.

5. Full Opposite - Physically, mentally, personality, politics, behavioural tics and costume. One wears black, the other white, etc etc. Could be an accident of the heart, of political convenience or for strange spiritual or otherworld-management reasons.

6. Mysterious 'Other' - They aren't even a thing like the things we are! What do they even do in the bedroom? What's behind the mask/veil/robe/endless dry ice?

7. ENDING THE PROCESSION

In most cases they will be proceeding towards the throne or throne-equivalent. During the procession its members will usually take positions adjacent to the throne, with those coming out first ending up furthest away. One option is the corridor of individuals, with the Monarch and Spouse proceeding down it to the throne at the end.

Once the procession is over, Royal business can begin and this can be PC-centred or background stuff, depending on the needs of the game. The processionals should move out into the crowd, forming marked and visible elements to interact with. In less-magical settings they can 'drop character' a little, and discuss how things went.

If the PC's are trying to get access to the monarch and the game is that this is hard to do, then space closer to them is dominated by increasingly important people. The PC's will need to have conversations where they 'get through' each group or conversation, getting closer and closer to the main person with each success.

If the PC's are there for other reasons, then there should be a person, faction or element that doesn't want them there and it actively trying to get them removed. In this case they may end up having to socially manoeuvre to stay ahead of them.

In both cases, effective social interactions gains you social influence, getting them what they want, and the visible processionals can form predictable nodes in that social structure so PC's can make interesting decisions about who to go towards or away from, with the DM bringing in

HOARD OF THE THINGS

So, treasure in SAVAGES isn't treasure. None of the PC's (except Thieves and Human-Obsessed weirdos) really care about it in the same way Adventurers would. Treasure for Savages is food and days spent alive and maybe status and burning a village of elves or a sword that doesn't break.

But they have treasure, because the work in a dungeon. And their boss has treasure. So why do they care?

I wanted players to start the game with great heaps and piles of gold and then have to fight to keep it. What could be more pleasurable than having a hoard? What more satisfying than simply keeping it? Playing Midas, going into the cave and running your fingers through the piles of silver and jade and looking at all the statues and artifacts and scrolls and mysteries and knowing that all of this is yours. Yours forever.

And I wanted them to generate the hoards they guard as part of their character, like generating dungeons and the landscape around them. The hoards should be good and special in some way. Which lead me to ask, what is the poetry of a hoard?

It is the story that it tells, or hints at. Treasure is just history worth preserving. so the question we should ask of a mighty hoard should be 'how does it pierce through time?'

The weight of the gold pressing against time itself, so when you guard gold you are guarding slow time, preventing it from being employed, preventing entropy and change, preserving the world, time holds itself still around a great treasure.

You should get a heavy rep if you manage to stop anyone taking your treasure. Well, not a reputation, but an anti-reputation. You become the blank spot on the map. The part where it says 'here be monsters' that's you. The Place From Which No Man Returns.

And the more treasure you can accumulate and not spend, the more fully you can slow down the world, so the whole thing becomes about stasis, slowing down, preserving the long slow cycles of the world against the rage for order and organisation.

So another way treasure must be assessed is the danger of losing it, the extent to which it will accelerate human development and expansion. And visa versa, this is why you take treasure off humans. Not to own gold, but to cripple economies and cultures. The more you can steal from humans the more their economy slows down, the more cultural capital you can destroy, the harder it is for them to manage their disparate minds and the more fractured they become, obviously, the more magical items you can take off them, the less they can use against you.

So I jammed together these very awkward experimental tables to help generate hoards from the Monsters perspectives. These would be used in a game of SAVAGES where the PCs occupy the centre of a map and on the edges are numerous human cultures, all gradually pressing in, ejecting thieves and adventurers like spores.

Currently its really more of a sketch idea than a workable system. The tables should interrelate and feed off each other and there should be more options and more 'chunky' options for specific artifacts ways it relates to the overall system.

Ways to define a hoard.

1. How does it pierce through time?
2. How much time does it guard?
3. How will its loss accelerate human development and expansion?
    a. Financially.
    b. Culturally.
    c. Magically (reality altering)


1. How does it pierce through time?

1. Days.
2. Months.
3. Years.                                                            (Someones probably really pissed off that you have this.)
4. Decades.                                                      (Knights might still come after this)
5. Centuries.                                                     (Henry VIII's crown)
6. Origin of Current Culture.                               (Excalibur.)
7. Height of Ancestor Culture.                            (Roman, Greek)
8. Origin of current ethnicity/nation/racial group. (Probably Indo-European/Babylon for us.)
9. Forgotten Ancient Culture.                            (Example might be the briefly-imagined feminist Iron Age before horse-riding-swordsmen-ruined-it)
10. Age of Heroes/Origins of Gods                    (Zeus/Hercules/Typhon origins if-they-were-real)
11. Outer/Other/Aberrant/Should-Not-Exist        (Brainmelting Lovecraft stuff)   
12. Primordial or Elemental Origin                      (ie langauge of Fire, First Ice, Laws of Stone)


2. How much time does it guard?

This is the strangest one, I am not sure yet how this will actually work, or if it can actually work. I will keep chipping away at it.

Maybe nothing new is created around it or nothing is lost around it. Maybe it keeps the consequences of that distant time away and stop them compiling with the present. Or that the more Treasure you keep, the slower your turns go and the more time you have to react to stuff

1. Dreamlike Passing Of Days.
2. The Forests Refuse To Yield.
3. An Age Without Discovery
4. Wars But An Echo.
5. Slows Death To A Crawl.
6. Keeps Back A God.



3. How will its loss accelerate human development and expansion?


A. Financial

1. Live Fast, Die Young. Adventurers get rich, famous, more will come.
2. The Company. New Adventuring company set up. All further Adventurers better resourced, equipped and trained.
3. Thieves Ennobled. Adventurers promoted to nobility/elite. Each now heads small armed force based on speciality. Add new armies to the map.
4. National Rebirth. Base culture can renew all armies and settlements for free for a certain number of years.
5. To Big To Fail. banking system renewed, credit everywhere, all human factions get a boost.
6. A New Empire is Born. Introduce a new human faction with low population but full coffers. Base its culture on the Adventurers that survived.

B. Cultural Boost

(A load of the cultural change from the retrieval of ancient treasures will be broadly invisible to the SAVAGES players, the only way it effects them directly is how it changes the actions of the enemy, not their internal culture. But yeah, if someone brings Excalibur back from a dungeon, that's  a big fucking deal.)

1. Buccaneering Spirit. All base culture forces and settlements gain morale, lose fear of the Other (i.e. you), for limited period.
2. A String of Victories. Base culture inwardly unified, gains belief in manifest destiny of frontier, diverts more resources to settlement.
3. First Among Equals. Rival human factions a bit scared of base culture, will not fuck with it unless attacked.
4. The New Cesar. Rival human factions very scared of base culture, will seek alliance/appeasement.
5. Touch of the Divine. All human populations convinced some serious shit is going down with base culture. Other settlements start spontaneously converting.
6. The Power Of Gods. Base culture now wields unquestioned divine sanction. All other human cultures must test morale. If failed they become vassal states to the base culture, now operate as its limbs.

C. Reality Altering

1. By This Axe! Introduce single supercool magic weapon into setting in enemy hands.
2. The Affairs of Wizards. Base culture now has shitloads of Wizards everywhere.
3. The World Beyond. Base culture now aware of/has access to other realities/plains. Intelligence and mobility improved but resources diminished by the same extent as they gain ambitions in the Other Spheres.
4. Moving Mountains. Base culture can now forgo other actions to move lakes/mountains around on its turn.
5. Time and Space. Can rewind time/move capital/send agents to past.
6. Gone Melinbone Way. base culture effectively neutralises self as expansionist force as brainfractured/decadent/invading mars.

Non Magical 5e Characters

5^th Edition Magical Rehab

Like a coke dealer sneaking into a Bat Mitzvah, 5e thinks everyone deserves a little magic in their lives.

EVERYONE.

So if you are an old school weirdo who wants to keep a clear divide between magic using and normal classes, or if you just never want to look up a spell, ever, or think about ‘expending a slot’, then it actually becomes a little difficult to avoid picking up some magical special sauce from your class.

So here are all the ways to avoid being magic.

Race

Ok

Human

Dwarf (Hill or Mountain)

Halfling (Stout or Light)

Half-Orc

Rock Gnome

Half-Elf

Mmmaybe

Wood Elf (Stealth powers not really magic but…)

Dragonborn (Breath weapon is semi-naturalistic but….)

Never

High Elf (One cantrip is one too many)

Drow

Tiefling

Wood Gnome

Class

Ok

Barbarian – Berserker

Fighter – Old School Improv Fighter

Fighter – 4thy Asperger’s fighter

Rogue –Thief

Rogue – Assassin

Mmmaybe

Monk – Way of the Open Hand nnnn so close, you do get ‘Tranquility at 11^th level, which is a spell effect but maybe not a spell. This one nearly got promoted to 'Ok', but if we are not letting in 'totem warriors' then I don't think we can allow meditating monks.

Barbarian – Totem Warrior. Communing with Nature, whatever.

Ranger – Any. Almost. You get spells but in theory you could just use them to power your ‘Primal Awareness’ thing which is like a sonar ping for weird. But you would have to keep not using spells.

Never

Fighter – Eldritch Knight, (let’s be kind and call this Weird Arthurian Knight)

Bard – Any

Cleric – Any

Druid – Any

Monk – Ninja monk

Monk – Anime Elemental Monk

Paladin – Any

Rogue – Arcane Trickster

Sorcerer –Any

Wizard – Any

Warlock - Any

I also made this generator for a world in which there are no magical classes. Instead of having Human as one choice equal with the rest I decided to include a range of human races, that's unlike D&D races, which are actually species...

Anyway. Instead of using made-up D&D Human races I gave human races the very rough equivalent of the human racial distribution of Earth. Which was a can of worms I can tell you, since no-one agrees with anyone about anything and once you get past the vaguest kinds of ethnic distinction people differ a lot. So, surprise news for me, most people on earth are vaguely asian, there's roughly equal numbers of black and white people and no-one can agree what 'South American' means. Who knew dividing people by race could get so complicated so fast?

Anyway, here you go, click this Hellblazer page to generate your entirely non-magical character.