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.

Even More Wilderness Hexes - Forests

Work is gradually progressing on my ambitious Wilderness Hexes project. Attempting to get each Terrain up to one hundred entries apiece is proving to be a challenge, but the final product will hopefully be rewarding!

As a tantalizer of things to come, here are fifteen (15) additional Forest Hexes:

These are still in the early days/rough draft form, and I'll most certainly be revising them with an eye for more interrelationships and layout once I've settled on a full final list for the Terrain.

As always, I'm open to suggestions and ideas for other types of interesting landmarks/locations, especially at this early stage in the process. The demise of G+ has sadly scattered a lot of my previous sources of invaluable feedback to the winds. If you end up finding them useful, I'd love to hear about it, and how these end up working at the table with your group. If they help at least one flustered or prep-starved GM entertain their players for a session, then I consider them to be time well spent.

d100 Magic Swords

A bog-standard Sword +1 is a boring blade indeed. Here are a hundred extra features to make a magical weapon more magical than just the basic bonus.

These are largely system neutral, but feel free to season to taste. If anythings unclear, go with your gut or feel free to ask and I can try to explain my thinking in a less intentionally terse format :). Let me know how your players respond to these, and if you think it might be worth trying to put together separate tables for other types of weapons.

Random Impedimenta (d100) - Single Page Vertical Version

I've whipped up an updated version of the d100 Random Impedimenta Table. This one is a single page and arranged vertically for easy printing. It's a handy table to have behind the screen for character generation, dungeon dressing, “I search the body,” etc. See this prior post for more details.

Generate Four Random Mundane Items

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.

Ford's Faeries: A Bestiary Inspired by Henry Justice Ford

Over on G+ a while back, there was a solicitation for Bestiary entries inspired by the artwork of Henry Justice Ford.

I've loved these illustrations ever since I first read the various Fairy Books I could get my mitts on as as a child.

My contribution is included in the free download here: Ford's Faeries: A Bestiary Inspired by Henry Justice Ford

Looks like a print-on-demand version might be in the works as well!

By The Way/Beyond The Wall

With the demise of Google+ announced, I’ve been going through some of my older posts and migrating some of the soon to be orphaned content over to my blog.

I’ve created a new page to house some of the Beyond The Wall Playbooks I’ve generated in the past. Beyond The Wall still has one of my favorite Character Generation Systems, and it’s broadly compatible with most flavors of D&D. I enjoy group character generation, and the Playbook system in Beyond The Wall does a lot of heavy-lifting to spur the imagination, handle some basic backstory elements, and even includes some player driven world-building. It’s surprisingly difficult to make it out of character generation without at least a few promising adventure hooks, which makes it ideal for Sandbox play, and players are often more invested in NPCs/Locations they had a stake in creating.

While I was re-doing the layouts of these documents, I came across an old folder with a few more half-finished Playbook ideas, so when I get a chance and if there’s interest, I may go ahead and dust those off and get them finished.