d100 - Fascinating Fruits or Bewitched Berries

Many of my Tables seem to revolve around Plants in some way, but I noticed that I didn’t have one devoted specifically to the potential Magical Effects of some of the Fruits or Berries of these. Since these are usually “Single-Use” Items they can definitely be an interesting Resource to plant in some of those Wildernesses (and maybe even some more atypical Dungeons!) As with most of these Tables, I often like to include Properties that might serve as specific Solutions for hereto Unknown Problems/Challenges. It’s awfully fun to see what Creative Applications the Players might come up with, but as always, feel free to season these to taste for your table.

I needed quite a bit of space in the entries for the effects, but should a Name be needed, I can see these being quite useful with my Magical Plant & Herb Generator, as well as my Fantasy Tree Generator. At some point in the future, I can even see these effects being combined with entries from other, related Tables in one of my Perchance Generators to cut down on the need to toss and tabulate those d10s so much.

Fruit with Magical Properties like this has a lot of folkloric resonance to me, but unfortunately, I couldn’t wait until another Fairy Tale Friday to publish this one!

d100 – Bastion Boons & Helpful Holdings

As Promised, here is a Random Table of events to complement the one I completed Prior for Stronghold Struggles & Castle Hassles. Setting up a Stronghold should have some Windfalls associated with it after all, and I enjoy how some of these entries almost read like “Headlines.” In addition to serving as a Place to safeguard/store those hard-earned Treasures, by Default in my games, they also tend interface well with the Six “Rs” of Downtime:

• Rest/Recuperation
• Research
• Retainers
• Rumor Mongering
• Revelry
• Re-supplying

But it’s always nice to have a blend of positive results to compliment any negatives, otherwise Players can quickly grow discouraged having invested so much in something that only seems to bring sorrow or inconvenience. Rolling on either one at Intervals might inject something interesting into the otherwise hum-drum day-over-day Duties. I tend to prefer to handle this on a Seasonal Basis, and in fact, my initial tinkerings had this presented as a more “Seasonal” affair (with Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter Tables.) Perhaps I might revisit this one and its counterpart for that kind of arrangement at some point in the future, but with two hundred entries between them, I suppose this could potentially handle about half century of Domain Management! For even more items of potential interest/overlap there is also my Haven Happenstances table.

d100 – Stronghold Struggles & Castle Hassles

Over on bluesky the peerless Prismatic Wasteland posted some suggestionsfor Blog Content Ideas , and this one immediately intrigued me. There are just so few Resources for the Domain Tier out there after all.

Lamentably, Domain Play does seems a bit rarer these days. It relies so heavily on the Preponderance of Prior Play generated from consistent, sustained Campaigns, that often we don’t really get a chance to see much of it with Contemporary Play Culture. But still, it does serve as a lofty aspiration, and if you’re using B/X or a similar presentation, don’t forget that the Fighter and Halfling Classes each possess a super secret Special Ability that lets them engage with Strongholds at any level, you can always get a taste of this in the lower levels that way!

Some of these might require a little tailoring to taste, but even for those Dungeon/Wilderness Tier games, I can see a few that might just be suitable for hiring a band of Lower-Level Adventurers to investigate or deal with while the Lord has more important things to attend to.

Whilst working on this one, I did dust off another older Table that I’ll now need to finally finish. I feel that having a corresponding “Bastion Boons” Table for Happy Happenstances to counterbalance the Misfortunes associated with these Strongholds might just be in order!

d100 – Destructive Deeds for Malevolent Marvels

Occasionally, the Player Characters might come into possession of something infused with Mighty Magic, but also quite Cursed, Harmful, or Inconvenient in some way. They might then decide to try and figure out a way to Destroy or rid themselves of it. Here’s a list of some ideas for how to handle this situation, many involving some legwork on their part. I tried to avoid the “Cast it into a Forebodingly Named Volcano” trope, figuring that everyone was fairly aware of or perhaps a bit bored with that timeworm method.

There may be a bit of overlap between this Table and some of my others and I suppose one could even string together quite a Journey around gathering information concerning what needs to be done, and then discrete steps to insure its success (qq.v Methods for Magical Item Identification, Rumored Cures for Curses/Energy Drain, or even Whimsical Wants for Fickle Fey.)

Dungeon Stocking - Expanded

When Stocking Dungeons, we sometimes turn to using Dice to Randomly Generate the Room Contents. In B/X and its successors, we’re presented with this lovely little table to help us with this process:

With a few quick throws of some six-sided dice, we’re able to get a rough idea of those Room Contents!

I’ve committed this table to memory at this point (I use it in my Wilderness Stocking Procedures as well, just slightly re-skinned) but one thing always irked me slighty: The “wasted opportunity” hiding in that “Chance of Treasure” Roll. It would be much more preferable if instead of a binary yes/no, that roll could give us a little something more.

After thinking about this for a bit, I came up with the following Table. This utilizes both of the dice rolled (in that lovely d36 method) to get a little more granular while preserving the same results as the table above. With the additional combinations it exposes, my hope is for it to serve as a bit of a “Helper” or “Oracle” and provide some additional inspiration/ideas for the results. I often find myself looking toward certain additional Random Tables I’ve created for this in various ways, so I’ve linked some of them here to make them accessible with a quick click. During the Process, I even spotted a few new opportunities for some additional d100 Tables and added those to my growing Dev List. 🤣

Random Stocking can provide a wonderful “Starting Point” sometimes and it remains the backbone behind my “20 Minute Dungeons” and the Dolmenwood Dozen Project I put together recently. It’s always interesting to me how that initial idea produced can sometimes spawn interesting connections or situations once the results are assembled together and presented in context.

So, without further ado, here’s the Expanded Dungeon Stocking Table. I’d love to hear if you find it useful when digging those Dungeons and would be excited to see what it shakes out for you! There may even be a similar tool/resource for Wilderness Stocking in the pipeline as well!

d100 - Dungeon Fauna

Dungeon Rooms and Corridors are often rife with Monsters and horrible Beasts, but what other smaller creatures might be flourishing in those depths? Here’s a d100 Table with some Dungeon Fauna to hopefully breathe a little detail into the various vermin and other (mostly harmless!) Denizens that dwell down there. As with it’s companion Table (Dungeon Flora) these are largely intended to provide a little bit of embellishment and not necessarily trigger those full fledged “Encounter Procedures.” So should you need to dress up an otherwise “Empty” room with a bit of life, some of these little critters might just do the trick.

d100 – Dungeon Flora

Sometimes, when Stocking a Dungeon Room or Corridor I find myself at a loss at what to do with an otherwise “unremarkable” area. Occasionally, I’ll decorate these with a little bit of harmless spelean flora or fungi, remarkably thriving somehow in those dank and dark locations. Usually, this is just for a bit of flavor, a way to distinguish this place from the next, but occasionally these have ended up serving as Welcome Waypoints or Lucky “Landmarks” in musty Mazes or other particularly perplexing Places. This is just one example of how that off-the-cuff “fluff” can end up becoming much more fictionally relevant for an attentive Player. However, one must always be wary that these decorative distractions do not consume too much precious Time or Resources.

Here are a Hundred Sample Specimens of these Peculiar Plants that one might find growing in those depths:

d100 - Magic Beans

Here’s a rather unusual Table that I put together concerning Magic Beans. It’s been a little while since I’ve done something a little more whimsical, or food related (like my infamous Garlic table) and while musing on other “Single Use” Magic Items, my mind kept returning to Fairy Tales.

A Bag of Beans will usually contain multiple beans. I generally default to 3d6, with any doubles adding and rolling again, but you are welcome to season the amount to taste for your tables. Some of the effects might be pretty potent and require a little stinginess. You use a Bean once, and it’s done.

This d100 Table is rendered in categories should a specific type be required. My hope is that these should be mostly self-evident: Swallow Beans are consumed, Sling Beans are hurled at a someone/something (either by hand or with the namesake Missile Weapon), Sow Beans need to be Planted, and Store Beans placed somewhere.

The main category that might be a little unusual is the Swindle one. These are benefits that are gained if the otherwise mundane Bag of Beans is traded/bartered with another for something of great value to the other Party. The Swindler gains a wonderful Boon if successful. Usually, the Bilked is left just with a bag of Normal Beans as part of the transaction, but every so often that process could imbue them with Magic all their own (2-in-6, roll on the table to determine which properties they gain.)

d100 – Sentient Swords

Random Rolls on the Treasure Tables often produce Magical Swords. This is especially common with the Flat Distribution in some of the earlier presentations. Sometimes they might even result in the temptation to place a Sword with a Special Purpose or Intelligence. These Swords often have a slew of additional abilities and some can even communicate via various Languages. I usually assign a Sentient Sword a number from 1-20 (more talkative ones receive a lower number) when this number is rolled on a die in Play, it can serve as a reminder to me to make a comment or quip if appropriate.

The same rules for making NPCs Memorable generally apply to these Treasures. Should a Sword be Sentient, I do like to dress them up a little further by applying a Personality and it is often hard for me to resist adding a few pertinent Powers. They do say that all Magic Swords deserve Names, but I feel that the ones that the Players can communicate with deserve this doubly so at least.

Here's a table of a hundred Swordbound Souls. While lately I’ve been cleaving a little closer to only applying this quality to Magic Swords exclusively, it is often nice to graft them onto other Weapons as well (a Snarky Dagger or Belligerent Battle Axe can be a nice change of pace!)

d100 - Encounter Activities: Rival Adventuring Parties

A little while back now, I completed some Random Tables that were focused on each of the Monsters listed in B/X and OSE. When I was working on these, I made a quick list of Monsters that appeared in their section, and used this as my baseline, but I had neglected to give a generous gander to those Encounter Tables, leading to a glaring omission: The Rival NPC Adventuring Party.

When these show up in your Dungeons/Adventures it can often lead to surprising situations. On their own they work a little bit like an Opposed or Neutral Faction: Players know that they’re in direct competition for any Glory or Gold that might be found nearby. Sometimes those lovely Rivalries develop, but they can also serve as a way to swell Ranks as erstwhile Allies, or even as a pool of replacement Player Characters if necessary. So here are a Hundred Activities that those Rival Adventuring Parties might find themselves getting up to. As always, strategic substitutions of a few Nouns can make a given entry a bit more bespoken to the given situation.