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 – 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.)

Marvelous Mushrooms - Generator

Just a quick post sharing a generator I needed to build out for Perchance: Marvelous Mushrooms & Tantalizing Toadstools. Since this one can requires a few rolls, I like to make those a little faster with a generator that can collate content in a click.

d100 - Marvelous Mushrooms & Tantalizing Toadstools

Yesterday it was pointed out to me that I had been remiss with providing a Random Table for generating Mushrooms/Toadstools, which is indeed a tragedy considering how fond I am of sprinkling “fun” fungi as Resources and Hazards within my Wilderness Adventures. So, I aimed to rectify this oversight post-haste by moving this Table to the top of the dev pile (where in all fairness, it sprouted with almost uncanny swiftness).

These can be used in conjunction with my venerable Herb & Plant Generator, and although the Name-stems are intended to be used to generate new and unusual Local Common Names, you can just as easily read across if swiftness is required and treat this more like a standard d100 table. I often like a quick name for flavoring Foraging Results as “You found some Edible Mushrooms” is just so frightfully bland.

Use your best judgement to determine an appropriate randomizer if you find yourself in need of a “Number Appearing” (I'm rather fond of 2d6 with "Doubles Add and Roll Again" most of the time, but you could also randomize the die type to use with a quick d8: d4 through d100.) I prefer to heavily festoon some places in evocative fungi as a mood-enhancer, but a few of these are probably best when more precious and significantly rarer. If not expressly edible, and you find yourself in need of a nastier consequence for the foolhardy consumer, there is always my Terrible Toxins & Vile Venoms Table as well.

See The Forest For The Trees

Here's another handy-dandy table for adding some more botanical flavor to your fantasy wildernesses.

Again, my focus is still on Forests for the time being, but Trees tend to be present in most terrains₁:

Generate uncommon names for real-world trees, or graft-together completely new arboreal creations. I find that arming myself with 3-4 types per large woodland is generally sufficient, but I'll produce a new one when the terrain starts to change or I want to telegraph a shift in the overall hex biome.

I like to make a quick note when I make a new one, just for verisimilitude's sake if they ever come back through an area. As the title of the post says though, don't get too bogged down in details. Tables like this are intended to help provide inspiration and gingerly sprinkle on some flavor here and there. Even just a single distinctive tree can serve as a useful waypoint/landmark (“Meet up by that old Rotcoat Willow”).

Some quick results from the table seem to pass the "sniff test" so to speak:

• ❧ Yellow Briar Privet
• ❧ Cat Blister Laurel
• ❧ Gnomeblind Beech
• ❧ Towerleaf Paw-Paw
• ❧ Elf Shield Yew
• ❧ Stinkbark Hickory
• ❧ Queen Flower Tallow
• ❧ Graveknot Gum
• ❧ Sweetpetal Hemlock
• ❧ Tombseed Pine
• ❧ Deer Pip Cherry
• ❧ Priestburn Cypress

Might experiment with weighing results by Precipitation/Climate/Terrain somehow, or even placing more "common" trees lower on the table so that smaller die can be rolled to make them more prevalent. Ideally, I'd start by breaking out Broad-leaf and Conifer trees in some way, because that can go a long way to informing climate.

1. Save maybe Deserts (although one could remix this as Cacti/Succulents], Oceans [Weird Kelp/Coral?], and Polar environments.

Herbs & Plants - Online Generator

A gracious and patient individual took the liberty of loading all the table entries from my Herbs & Plants document into an online tool that quickly generates results:

❧Fantasy Herb Generator❧

It is certainly more convenient to see them instantaneously. Here are a few that stuck out after a few clicks:

• ❧ Stinknecklace is a plant sometimes found near planar gateways. Side effects of brewing it include a glowing ring finger.
• ❧Witchsorrel is a herb rarely found on hanged man's graves. Side effects of keeping it under your tongue include being compelled to wear clothes inside out.
• ❧ Giantbright is a plant rarely found in bird nests. Side effects of keeping it tucked inside your cheek include excessive thirst.
• ❧ Horseheather is a herb occasionally found on sandy beaches. Side effects of applying it include chapped lips.
• ❧Honeybonnet is a herb rarely found where sheep graze. Side effects of keeping it under your tongue include developing feathers.
• ❧Hencelery is a herb commonly found in ancient dolmens. Side effects of applying a paste made from it include migraines.

The benefit derived from generating the names alone is great, because it's always handy to have some semi-reasonable common plant names at the ready. It appears that they added a system that includes the frequency or rarity of the plants as well.

Eventually, I might try to add a 1d100 table or two for what a given plant's positive/intended uses might be. Right now I've just been roughly mapping them to the Rules Cyclopedia Cleric/Druid spells with a 1d8 for level (with an 8 re-rolling on the Magic User Spells), and then a 1d12 for the spell, but it might be more interesting to build word pairs using something similar to the old Magic Word system.

More Migration - Herb & Plant Generator

Here’s another bit of Google+ Content that I threw together a while back and forgot to share here. It's a Herb & Plant Generator that I whipped up based on some scattered notes and previous practices. I'm sure that Rolemaster 2nd Edition's juicy “list of Herbs, Breads, and Poisons” provided some inspiration here. I seem to recall it had some stern admonishments against having only magical sources of healing in your campaign, and since I acquired Character Law years before coming across Spell Law, for the longest time Herbs and Natural Healing were the only systems I had.

In particular, I recommend whipping up a few new plant names to use in descriptions for new regions to give the area some distinctive flavor. If the Lungwattle found sprouting in sunny clearings near creekbeds gradually gives way to Ghoulgrape as you approach the marshes, observant players may pick up on these changes in flora and they can even eventually serve as a subtle navigatory or climatory shorthand. Plus, fantastical worlds often benefit from even the most minor or mundane ornamentation, and developing a custom botanical nomenclature can be a great way to dress the setting.

Originally, I think the plants and herbs generated here were intended to assist with a system for replicating/replacing Cleric Spells (see this post: Cleric Spells Are Herbs). If you have a Ranger-type, Druid, Witch, Elf, or other “Woodland Type” in the party, consider letting them start out with knowledge of a few of these. Although for fun, I would be initially inclined to provide them with only the vaguest notions of side-effects or possibly only partial recipes for proper preparation. Experimentation with systems like this can help foster a neat kind of environmental engagement.