OSE Encounter Activities - Normal Human

Decided to change things up a bit when I rolled Normal Human for the next Monster. Being a relatively “Normal” Human, I typically do not have as much trouble improvising what people are doing.

Usually, I handle this type of Encounter with Tables that are more tied to place types or potential hooks. I realized that I’ve already done these with posts like my These Village Folk Are… and These City-Dwellers Are… d100 Tables, so I wanted something that might help flesh these Encounters out in slightly different way.

I have professed my love for Professions previously and I was struck by this quote from the Normal Human entry in the OSE SRD:

Non-adventuring humans without a character class. Artists, beggars, children, craftspeople, farmers, fishermen, housewives, scholars, slaves.

So, I went a little overboard. Here are three-hundred various Vocations to apply to that Normal Human Encounter. First column in each set is a geared to be a little more Urban, second is Rural, and the third is kind of a catch-all. There is probably some additional utility in this table for Character Backgrounds or prior Occupations for Retainers/Henchmen if you so desire, and I always find these types of tables extra-handy for more unusual uses, like determining the function of a particular Building in a Settlement/City on the fly.

But wait, there’s more! As a spread, I’ve also included some tentatively titled “Mannerisms & Peculiarities” to help the DM breathe a little more life into these types of Encounters. Two hundred seemed like a good start. I know that Lists of NPC Personality Quirks are a dime-a-dozen, but with these I tried to focus a little more the traits that I felt might be more inclined to drive play in a memorable or at least more interesting direction. It also made sense to have something like this handy and adjacent to this Entry.

I will probably include the two City/Village tables above in a spread for the final compiled version of these Tables as well 😊. Only twenty-one more to go!

OSE Encounter Activities - Rock Baboon

The Rock Baboon!

Aside from appearing on a few Dungeon/Wilderness Encounter tables (and interestingly: the Neutral Reincarnation Results table!), I don’t think I’ve ever really seen these utilized in an especially memorable way. Hopefully, that will change with this table handy 😊.

OSE Encounter Activities - Herd Animal

Herd Animals may serve largely as set dressing most of the time (until an inadvertent Stampede is triggered), but these tables might also be useful for intrepid Adventurers who would like to take up Hunting to supplement those bland and flavorless Rations when travelling in the Wilderness. Someday I may even do some Hunting/Foraging d100 Tables (possibly even split up by Terrain type like I do with my Wilderness Hexes) to help expand on this, as I could see the utility of having a handy tool to quickly generate game and quarry.

OSE Encounter Activities - Insect Swarm

Insect Swarms! Reacquainting myself with how they work, these are pretty interesting Encounters. Automatic damage within an area (no Save) is fairly unusual, and I like how they largely ignore the type of Armor and just turn it into a binary “with do 2, without do 4.” The “swatting out” mechanism is also nice. I can see recycling this for all sorts of other Hazards, like entering a burning building and so forth.

Speaking of Swarms: Every year, I try to make a point to note the date that I hear the first sputterings of the Cicadas we get around here. So far, they’re running a little late, but this might be due to inimical weather. Thankfully, we’re out of the range of the coming Prime-Number (and super sinister sounding) Brood IX, but I’ve lived in areas when particularly big broods have peeked out before. What is always strange to me is how the Cicadas from different regions have almost distinctive accents. The ones I heard further North were almost more annoying (even though they were significantly less loud), just because they didn’t have the familiarity I grew up with.

Here are 3d30 Tables to cover the different modes of locomotion for this multitudinous monster:

OSE Encounter Activities - Shrieker

Like the previous entry on Oozes, Puddings, Slimes I’ve always treated Shriekers as more of a “Dungeon Hazard” than a traditional Monster. Even though they are ostensibly motile, they don’t seem to show up on most Encounter Tables, which is a real shame. Rolling one could be a great way to just have them randomly blare from another area and help telegraph their presence better.

If you stock one of your dungeon rooms with Shriekers, consider having them go off periodically to introduce a more dynamic auditory element to Exploration (I’m a big proponent of adding more Sounds and Smells to dungeons at every opportunity). Depending on their proliferation, some potential triggers include doubles being rolled, tying it to a number on the Wandering Monster check, or even when a certain somewhat uncommon secret word is said at the table (almost à la Pee-Wee’s Playhouse). The latter is pretty fun honestly and can engender a good-natured startle for tension. In the past I’ve kept a Kazoo or tintannabulating Egg Timer handy for just this purpose. 😊

OSE Encounter Activities - Pirate

I always enjoy a good Wave Crawl!

Pirates share some of the same headspace for me as Buccaneers which were one of the early Entries in this series. Since I resisted the temptation to revisit and retread those specific waters, forgive me if there’s some similarities in this table. It’s bound to happen after hundreds of these.

These entries may cleave toward the Nautical for the most utility, so some strategic re-mixing might be necessary on-the-fly if your Pirates ply Rivers or other Waterways, but for me, the on-the-fly adjustment is part of the fun! 😊

OSE Encounter Activities - Medusa

Gazing back at me this entire time has been a foe I’m pretty partial to: the Majestic Medusa. My impatience to tackle this one finally got the better of me, so here we are. I unabashedly adore the more Mythological Monsters.

There’s something almost intrinsically voyeuristic about writing Entries for a Medusa, since they’re likely only witnessed via peeping on a reflection by prepared Players (don’t forget to buy that Mirror!). Though I sometimes soften this a bit…rationalizing that it is meeting the glowering GAZE or seeing the (invariably pulchritudinous) FACE that petrifies, not simply clapping eyes on them.

But by the book, it’s an interesting dilemma: What is the unwatched doing when they can’t be watched? 😊 In this case the act of watching (unaided by reflection) almost certainly influences the viewer rather than the viewed in some strange evil twin of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. Schrödinger’s gassed grimalkin aside, here are one hundred entries for one my personal favorites:

As mentioned in the prior entries for the Cockatrice, Basilisk, and Gorgons there may be more interesting ways than simply “Save or Statue” to handle Petrification, and that might be helpful here as well.