Celestial Scent-Swinger - The Harry Clarke Bestiary

Another submission for the The Harry Clarke Bestiary

Get your submissions in! Cavegirl's blog post features a plenitude of inspiring images, and a gallery with even more.

Melōidía - The Harry Clarke Project

Cavegirl has posted about a new OSR Community Project in the vein of Ford's Faeries (I reviewed her excellent The Gardens of Ynn here):

The Harry Clarke Bestiary

I absolutely adore Harry Clarke's illustrations. They are weird, wild, and wonderful, so I couldn't resist contributing to this one as well:

Get your submissions in! Cavegirl's blog post features a plenitude of inspiring images, and a gallery with even more.

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.

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