The Dungeon d100s: Doors, Floors, Walls & Ceilings

(An Italian translation of this post is available on Dragons’ Lair)

It has been my experience that even the most creatively written dungeons tend to ignore the opportunity to be creative with their basic building blocks. This isn’t the worst thing. Stone walls and wood doors work. Dungeons don’t exist to be flashy, they exist to channel play into interesting situations. That said, something as simple as giving your dungeon carpeted floors and steel doors goes a long way towards making it memorable. After being introduced those details can easily slip into the background, until brought forward again when the Magic User tries to power up their Lightning Bolt by rubbing their socks on the carpet.

Because this table is made up of details which are meant to slip into the background, I have specifically indicated that each results applies to everything of its type. That’s just my framing, though. If you roll “Floors are carpeted,” it is worth considering that instead of all the floors, perhaps only some are carpeted. Alternatively it may be that all floors in a particular section are carpeted. For that matter you might also consider that if the floors are carpeted, what does that say about the walls? The ceilings? Are they carpeted as well, or do they have some other styling which seems like an appropriate accompaniment to carpeted floors?

Thanks are due to Qpop for proof reading this post.

The Dungeon d100s
1 – Themes
2 – Structures
3 – Rewards
4 – Doors, Floors, Walls, & Ceilings
5 – Factions
6 – Locks & Keys

Bonus – Auto-roller, at Liche’s Libram.

d100 Dungeon Doors, Floors, Walls & Ceilings:

Doors are all heavy portculli. They are difficult to lift, and will slam shut again the moment they are released unless special care is taken to brace them.
Doors open automatically whenever someone comes near them, and automatically close again behind them.
Doors are all quite small, requiring adult humans to crouch or crawl to pass through.
Doors all swing freely in either direction, like saloon doors do (also called batwing doors).
Doors all have windows in them. Perhaps open bars or safety glass which can only be looked through, or perhaps easily broken plate glass.
Doors all have windows in them which advantage viewing from a single side, such as peep holes, or sliding hatches.
Doors are all terribly noisy when opened or closed. Perhaps their hinges squeak, or maybe each has a chime attached to it.
Doors have arms on the hinge side, allowing them to be barred. Some or all may even have bars nearby ready to be put in place.
Doors are all high up on the walls, and must be climbed up to.
Doors are all trapdoors in the floor or ceiling. Thus even rooms on the same dungeon level are connected by passages above or below.
Doors are all one-way. They close behind each person who passes through them, and cannot be opened from the other side.
Doors are all revolving doors, with “wings” that rotate around a central pivot point. There may be 2 or more of these, creating separated sections between them.
Doors are all open doorways, without any way of being closed.
Doors are all insubstantial. Hanging drapes, or strings of beads. Just enough to block clear sight, but not sound or entry.
Doors are all rollup style, like a garage door. The rails which guide and hold it might be exposed, or could be enclosed within the wall.
Doors all have a stable door style, with upper and lower halves. (Also called Dutch Doors.)
Doors all have smaller “wicket doors” built into them. (Are the wicket doors for creatures smaller than humans, or are the proper doors for masses of humans / large creatures?)
Doors all have a lower lip to step over as you go through them, like those found on ships.
Doors are all air tight, and opened via a time consuming turn crank or wheel.
Doors are all airlock chambers, with air tight doors on each side, and a space between where characters must wait. The airlocks might exist because the rooms are kept at different temperatures or pressure levels, or because their atmospheres contain trace elements which are dangerous when mixed, or potentially for no reason at all.
Doors are all janky, old, and often get stuck.
Doors are all locked, barred, or otherwise intentionally sealed. Some creatures may carry key rings, key cards, know passwords, etc.
Doors are all sliding doors.
Doors are all folding doors, to one or both sides.
Doors are all double doors.
Doors all have sticky notes, thumbtacks, or doodles on them. Clearly they’re being used as a means of casual communication between dungeon inhabitants.
Doors are made in the style of oversize pet doors. Great flaps which must be lifted as one passes through, and fall back down behind.
Floors are carpeted.
Floors are all slippery, perhaps covered in goo, or ice.
Floors are a raised constructed path through a natural space. Like a catwalk through a cave, or a pontoon walkway along a canal.
Floors are packed earth, or so thoroughly covered in dirt that they may as well be packed earth.
Floors are sandy, snowy, or otherwise provide awkward and unstable footing.

Floors are bouncy. They might be springy lick a trampoline or mattress, or they may have been coated in flubber.
Floors all have drains in them, and are gently sloped so water will run towards these drains.
Floors have dry channels running at their edges, perhaps once used as gutters, or ruts for wheels.
Floors are cracked and uneven. Footing is poor, and dropped items may be lost.
Floors have many weeds growing up through them, perhaps dense enough to occasionally tangle feet during vigorous action.
Floors are loose tiles or boards which can be removed easily.
Floors are noisy: metal plates, creaking timbers, or covered in dry leaves.
Floors all have paths to various locations painted on them, like you might see in an airport or train station.
Floors are solid marble.
Floors are angled steeply to one side, as if the dungeon is tilted at a 20°+ angle.
Oops! All pressure plates! There is nowhere to step that doesn’t depress with an ominous mechanical click.
Floors move those who stand on them. They may be conveyor belts, or be under the influence of magical riptides.
Floors are scattered with toys. Dolls, balls, bicycles, left scattered haphazardly about.
Floors have a rail system built on them. There may be mine carts or handcars.
Floors are wet, soggy, or perhaps even covered in ankle-deep water.
Floors are very wet. The water is at least waist high. A boat may be required.
Floors are fragile. Glass, or ice. One must tread carefully lest it crack, and drop them into danger, or simply into a lower level.
Floors are metal grating.
There is no proper floor. One must traverse the rooms and corridors by hopping between stepping stones.
Floors are pointy, covered in caltrops, broken glass, or nails mounted as spikes.
Floors are covered in detritus and trash. It may be omnipresent but scattered, or so dense that one’s feet sink into it.
Walls are easily destructible, perhaps made of rice paper.
Walls are dense with written language. It could be intended carvings, modern graffiti, or science fictiony scrolling text.
Walls are dense with art, perhaps carved bas relief, or murals.
Walls are dense with holes, cupboards, drawers, or animal burrows. These are mostly empty, gross, dangerous, or filled with useless junk.
Walls are dense with buttons, switches, and other controls. Some don’t do anything, others seem to cause random events to occur. Insert your favorite random table here.
Walls are dense with shelves displaying tchotchkes. Ceramic figurines, papercraft, old toys, fake flowers. Objects which once brought someone joy, but now serve only to collect dust.
Walls are plaster, and perhaps covered with wallpaper. The pattern could be nearly anything.
Walls are densely stacked with bones.
Walls have regularly spaced air vents built into them, which are too small to climb into.
Walls have regularly spaced air vents built into them, which are large enough to climb into.
Walls are very smooth. Not even the most skilled climber could find handholds.
Walls are rough. Even a complete novice can climb them with relative ease.
Walls are padded. Perhaps thoroughly so to prevent injury, as in an asylum. Alternately they may be fine tufted leather or velvet, meant to create an air of sophistication.

Walls often have windows into adjacent spaces. These might be glass, wicker, barred with metal, tiny arrow slits, etc.
Walls are periodically interrupted by half columns which could be used for cover.
Walls are constructed of a thick bramble, like blackberry bushes.
Something icky oozes out of the walls. Slime, blood, or more feculent excretions.
Walls are limited force fields. They might keep air in, and water/vacuum/monsters out. However, if one were to stumble, they’d go right through, and may not be able to get back.
Walls are constructed of poorly mortared bricks, many of which are loose.
Walls are made from honeycomb, shellac, or other insect excretion.
Walls on the interior of the dungeon are all metal bars. They can be seen through, reached through, and for particularly small characters possibly squeezed through.
Walls are dangerous to touch. Perhaps because they are very hot or cold, are dense with sharp protrusions, or charged with electricity.
Walls and Ceilings can be walked on as easily as floors.
Walls are great ramshackle heaps of junk. Oak tables nailed to bed frames, densely stacked chairs, supported by cast iron bath tubs, and insulated with soiled mattresses.
Ceilings have pipes running along them.
Ceiling leaks. Probably water, but perhaps fluids less wholesome.
Ceilings have thick roots protruding through them from plants up above.
Ceilings are low. Human sized creatures will need to hunch, or even crawl to get through.
Ceilings have cameras, crystal balls, or disgusting organic eyes on them. It’s unclear who (if anyone) is observing.
Ceilings are high enough that most light sources cannot illuminate them. What might lurk up there?
Ceilings are mirrored.
Ceilings have skylights or open shafts in them, which partially illuminate the dungeon.
Ceilings do not exist. The dungeon is open to the sky, perhaps with some danger on top of the walls preventing easily cheating one’s way through the dungeon.
Ceilings are covered by colorful drapes. These might be bright and tidy, or soiled and tattered.
Ceilings are home to a number of birds who’ve made their nests in the dungeon.
Ceilings are covered in sleeping bats, or docile insects. If disturbed they will swarm.
Ceilings are covered in loose paneling, which could be pushed aside to access a crawlspace above.
Ceiling has exposed rafters.
Ceilings are made up of something which, if the laws of physics were being obeyed, ought to immediately collapse. Something like water, or loose sand.
Ceiling has regularly placed fans, which may or may not operate.
Ceilings droop precariously, and are supported by ramshackle post hoc construction.
Ceilings have footprints on them.
Ceilings are coated in a weird and dense mist. If it is dangerous to breathe, it is at least too high to be accidentally inhaled.
Ceilings are dense with hanging chains, hooks, pulleys, and rails.
Ceilings are metal of a peculiar color. Anything which hits them bounces directly away without losing energy.
Ceilings are dense with hanging papercrafts clearly made by children.
Ceilings are dense with precarious icicles or stalactites, ready to drop dangerously if jostled.

Also, All Cops Are Bastards.

The Dungeon d100s: Structures

(An Italian translation of this post is available on Dragons’ Lair)

This table focuses specifically on cartographic prompts. The goal is to add both visual interest to your maps, and functional differences to your dungeon. It’s is challenging to clearly communicate lines on paper when my only tool is words, so I must thank Elias Stretch and PresGas for both taking a pass on this doc to ensure it was comprehensible. Thanks are also due to Dyson Logos, whose maps I studied extensively while filling out the back half of this table. I’ve also used clippings of his maps for the illustrations in this post. (Specifically: Coolant Processing Facility, Dwarven Mines, and Kins River Cave.)

The Dungeon d100s
1 – Themes
2 – Structures
3 – Rewards
4 – Doors, Floors, Walls, & Ceilings
5 – Factions
6 – Locks & Keys

Bonus – Auto-roller, at Liche’s Libram.

d100 Dungeon Structures:

Layout is mirrored on one or more axis. (Roll a d6?)
Layout is shaped like something, such as a dog, an axe, a word, a hand, etc.
Layout must conform to the shape of some object the dungeon is built within, such as an outcropping of stone, a titan’s skull, a colossal statue, a world tree, etc.
Layout is open concept, with many mini-dungeons all connected to the same central space, or with dungeon spaces being separated by distance and low visibility (mist, woodland) rather than by walls.
Layout is a rising or descending spiral. For example: a path carved around the outside of a steep hill, or around the edge of a quarry.
Layout combines both natural and constructed spaces.
Layout is built in and around some more ancient construction, so that two or more distinct architectural styles are evident.
Layout has been modified by amateur dungeon denizens digging out new corridors and chambers, knocking holes everywhere, and getting around on ladders and rope bridges.
Layout includes rooms or corridors which overlap one another while nominally being on the same level of the dungeon. (i.e., the same sheet of graph paper).
Layout includes varied room shapes which serve as indicators of their contents. For example, circular rooms might always contain magical traps, octagonal rooms might be claimed by a specific faction, etc.
Layout is built in and around a massive corpse of some kind. A neolithic mega crab, a dead titan, a cosmic snail shell, etc.
Laid out as several separate clusters of dense dungeon, connected to one another by long corridors.
Layout adheres to a certain regular structure. Perhaps a grid of broad corridors forming “blocks” of square dungeon space between them, or the dungeon could be a connected set of geomorphs.
Layout includes an exploration bottleneck. A single corridor or room at which all the dungeon’s tangled pathways converge before opening up again on the other side.
Layout is separated into 2 or more disconnected parts, such that delvers must pass through non dungeon space to reach different areas of the same dungeon.
A river flows through the dungeon. It may have been intentionally incorporated into the construction, or the result of a natural disaster which broke the original layout.
There’s a pond, lake, or even a sea contained within the dungeon. It may have been intentionally incorporated into the construction, or the result of a natural disaster which broke the original layout.
There’s one or more geysers in the dungeon, which erupt with hot water from time to time. They may have been intentionally incorporated into the construction, or the result of a natural disaster which broke the original layout.
The dungeon contains a pleasant hot spring.
The dungeon is replete with wells, fountains, or other constructed water features.
There’s a body or a river of some hazardous liquid in the dungeon: lava, acid, mercury, etc.
There’s a body of some entrapping liquid in the dungeon, such as quicksand, thick mud, or tar pits.
Some significant portion of the dungeon is underwater. (20% + [d8×10])
Dungeon has a water level which rises and falls dramatically. It may be due to tides, artificial cycles, or controlled by some accessible mechanism.
Numerous small pools of fetid standing water pockmark the dungeon’s layout, breaking up its spaces.
The dungeon abuts a beach, opening out into a hidden cove that is not otherwise accessible. Perhaps with a secret dock, and further dungeon rooms to be found on a nearby island.
Many half walls, fences, or barricades break up the dungeon’s spaces.
Many boulders, pillars, or statues break up the dungeon’s spaces.
Large furniture such as shelves, tables, couches, or beds break up the dungeon’s spaces.
Trees grow in the dungeon, breaking up its spaces. The dungeon may have been built around them, or they may have broken the dungeon’s original structure
The dungeon has moving parts, such as a room which rotates, slides laterally, or moves up and down like an elevator.
Many passageways are unusually narrow, requiring explorers to walk sideways, or remove bulky equipment.

Connections between areas are sometime spatially impossible. Corridors looping back on themselves, or doors leading to the other side of the dungeon, etc.
Vertical movement from level to level is accomplished by some means other than stairs. Climbing ropes, fireman’s poles, ramps, ladders, elevators, levitation chutes, etc.
Greased slides, escalating ladders, trap doors, or elevators create one-way passage to higher or lower dungeon levels.
Some passages are only accessible by swimming underwater.
There are many more stairs than necessary. Stairs everywhere. Hallways go up and down, doors enter rooms above or below ground level, etc.
There is a train, trolley, a system of teleportation pads, warp pipes, or other rapid conveyance through the dungeon
There are meandering, tangled hallways between rooms, perhaps with dead ends.
There are multiple paths up and down between each dungeon level.
Dungeon contains a broad staircase, or grand promenade.
Dungeon contains one or more rickety bridge.
Dungeon contains one or more gap which is crossed by something other than a bridge: a rope, a chain, a basket on a rail, etc.
Dungeon contains one or more balcony, which may look out over a different part of the dungeon, or over some exterior space.
Dungeon contains one or more sky bridge, connecting two dungeon spaces by walking over a different part of the dungeon, or over some exterior space.
The spaces intended to be inhabited are criss-crossed by traversible sewers, air ducts, or maintenance tunnels.
Some areas on the same level do not connect directly, and can only be accessed by traveling through a different level.
Main hallways include alcoves, perhaps originally intended for small statues or sitting spaces.
There’s a natural cliff face in the dungeon. There are rooms above and below, with no intended means to get between them save climbing.
Dilapidation has left several of the dungeon’s non-load-bearing walls weak and easy to knock holes through. Doing so is noisy, and leaves clear sign of passage.
The entrance cannot be used as an exit.
Dungeon’s entrance is a small dock, only accessible by boat.
The entrance is in some public and relatively safe space. The presence of the dungeon might be unknown to most folk, or it may be a landmark which everyone steers clear of.
The entrance is inside the ruins some structure which has long since been razed to the ground.
The entrance requires a perilous climb, preventing quick egress. Perhaps up a cliff, down a well, through a smoke stack, down a crevasse, etc.
The entrance can only be accessed by traversing an inhospitable environment. Perhaps it is deep in a swamp, hidden in a desert, behind a waterfall, or at the bottom of a lake.
The entrance is at the center of the dungeon, with rooms radiating out in every direction.
There is more than one entrance to this dungeon. (Roll 2d4?)
Dungeon includes obvious and useful entrances which are locked from the inside. One must open them by entering first through the most difficult entrance.
Immediately upon entering the dungeon, characters have access to d6 + 1 levels. Perhaps via a central staircase or elevator.
The dungeon has windows, or even whole walls open to the outside. These are likely in areas with a high elevation, and inconvenient as an entrance.
The dungeon includes a connection to the underdark, hell, the hollow earth, or some other new world with its own limitless adventuring possibilities.
An easily destructible wall could create an exit from the dungeon. It is not obvious from the outside, and may even open into some bustling populated space.
The dungeon intersects with d6 structures which are currently in use, but exist apart from the dungeon. For example, the dungeon may grant access to a secret door or peep hole into someone’s home.
Part of the dungeon exists in “duck blinds.” For example, the dungeon might connect to several buildings in a large city which appear normal, but in fact have no real entrances.
Part of the dungeon’s original construction was never completed, leaving inconvenient dead ends, cranes, scaffolding, etc behind.

There are secret doors which connect non-secret areas. Their purpose is to enable quick and subtle movement, rather than to hide treasures.
There are secret doors which are only accessible after falling into a pit trap.
There are false doors, used to frustrate explorers, or disguise traps.
There are traps designed to separate parties into two or more groups.
There are hidden observation spots, where certain areas of the dungeon can be observed unobtrusively.
There are many curtains or tapestries, some of which simply hang against the wall, while others have doors, shelves, or passages hidden behind them.
There’s at least one secret door which is clearly called out by the architecture. For example, stairs leading up to a dead end, or a group of doors with an obvious blank spot.
Dungeon includes many small storage closet sized rooms.
Dungeon includes a section where instead of walls, the rooms and hallways are bounded by a hazardous drop, a lake of fire, or some other hazard.
Dungeon includes walkways around the upper edges of its spaces, perhaps serving as the corridors of an upper level, or firing positions for archers.
Dungeon contains some space where the elevation changes are drastic enough to justify topographical contours.
Dungeon includes a patio, breezeway, gazebo, or other partially enclosed space.
Dungeon includes areas so dilapidated that they are prone to collapse if not traversed carefully. The ceiling may fall in, or the floor may fall down, etc.
Dungeon contains an area clearly meant to be protected or secret, which has long since been forced open.
Above ground levels include towers, keeps, or other enclosed structures which extend upwards from larger levels below.
Dungeon includes an exterior garden or courtyard space, no less dangerous to explore than its interior spaces.
Dungeon contains a space within it which is so large that play ought to switch to overland travel rules while traversing it.
Dungeon contains a large space with individual structures, and perhaps even roads built inside of it.
Dungeon contains an “outdoor” space, such as a garden, woodland, farmland, or a grassy plain. How does this space fit and thrive within a dungeon?
Dungeon is the only way to gain access to a real outdoor space, such as an enclosed valley lush with fertile soil and bounteous plant life.
Dungeon contains a settlement as safe, prosperous, and welcoming as any village the party might encounter on the surface.
A crevasse intersects multiple spaces throughout the dungeon. It might be 10 feet deep and easy to get through, or it may be a great bottomless chasm that only a skilled engineer could bridge. The dungeon may have been intentionally built around it, or it may have been opened up by an earthquake which damaged the dungeon’s intended structure.
Dungeon contains gaps (either intentionally constructed, or the result of damage) which are deep and wide enough to hinder progress. They must be jumped, bridged, swung or flown across, or bypassed by some other creative means.
Dungeon contains spaces which are completely inaccessible via normal means due to collapse, or other dilapidation.
Dungeon contains raised sub-areas, such as a stage, pulpit, natural ledge, or plateau. The upper and lower parts of the room might be connected by ramps, stairs, or ladders. Alternately, they may not be connected directly at all.
Dungeon contains lowered sub-areas, such as gladiatorial arenas, holding pens, or sacrificial pits.
Dungeon contains windows into spaces which are not quickly or obviously accessible from where they are visible. (“window” here being a euphemism, since breaking glass would be easy to do.)
Dungeon contains one or more rooms which intersect with multiple levels.
Dungeon contains one or more rooms with no physical connection to the rest of the dungeon. How do you get there?
Dungeon contains a ship. The stranger it is for a ship to be here, the better.
Dungeon is at least partially reclaimed by nature. Spaces exposed to sunlight have been broken apart by growing trees and other plants.
Dungeon contains a large space where the ‘rooms’ are platforms suspended from the ceiling above a deadly drop.
The roof of the dungeon is accessible, and includes its own creatures, treasures, tricks and traps. Climbing to it from the outside would be difficult, but probably not impossible.
Dungeon includes some spaces with air currents strong enough to be dangerous. They may be natural, such as a walk along a cliffside path, or produced artificially by fans or magic.

Also, America delenda est.

The Dungeon d100s: Themes

(An Italian translation of this post is available on Dragons’ Lair)

The Dungeon d100s is a series of six tables that will appear here over the next six days. Each will provide 100 prompts for creating an interesting dungeon. The tables are not necessarily meant to be used in tandem. A dungeon forced to include one more more results from all six of them would likely be an overstimulating, unplayable mess. Better to pick one or two tables, or even roll a d6 to determine which of the tables you roll on, then employ your own creativity to build out from the result you get. If a result doesn’t spark your own creativity, reroll.

This first table is the most general. At various times it has been called d100 Dungeon Origins, d100 Dungeon Gimmicks, and at one point simply d100 Dungeons. At least two of the six tables in the series budded off from this one when I realized far too many entries revolved around the same shtick. At times I was tempted to split even a third table off from this one, but 600 prompts has proven to be the hard limit of my creativity. Thanks are due to my sister Veronica Whelan for proofreading this colossus.

Good dungeons are places in decline. Knowing their original purpose is useful both before and during play as a creative prompt, but it is essential in my view that the whole dungeon cannot be united in its purpose. Dungeons are wild places. Places where players can get into shenanigans, where they can do violence, and not be immediately rebuked from all sides by a united front of defenders. If a place is active; held in whole by a single faction, then the mode of play is dramatically different. The players are storming a fortress, not exploring a dungeon. Both activities have the potential to generate fun play situations, but are so different from one another that I don’t think they can be usefully discussed in the same breath.

The Dungeon d100s
1 – Themes
2 – Structures
3 – Rewards
4 – Doors, Floors, Walls, & Ceilings
5 – Factions
6 – Locks & Keys

Bonus – Auto-roller, at Liche’s Libram.

d100 Dungeon Themes:

A palace made entirely from sea foam, which comes into and out of existence with the tides. Inhabited by folk who are able to survive the transition.
The folly of a forgotten ancient civilization, jealous that none of their accomplishments were listed among the wonders of the world. They built this labyrinth in hopes that their architectural ambition would be recognized, but it never was.
A magical board game which the party has been drawn into. The game may have rules or random events which don’t conform the laws of normal reality. Leaving the game may be as simple as reaching the exit, or require completing arduous win conditions.
An alternate version of some familiar game space. Perhaps the tower of a friendly wizard, the party’s home city, or their own citadel. The place may have fallen into chaos while they were away, or may be mirrored in an extradimensianal space, or be fully recreated elsewhere for some mysterious purpose.
Alive, in the same sense that an intelligent magic item is alive. The dungeon has a consciousness, and a will. New corridors and rooms sometimes appear as it becomes stronger, and it seeks to better itself further by accumulating greater hordes of treasure within itself.
An in-game version of a real world location that some or all of the players would be personally familiar with. A local grocery store, church, school, or someone’s current or former home. It may need to be altered to function as a useful dungeon, but the players ought to be aware of its origin so they can use their real world knowledge in play.
A holy site built in ancient times by a religion which still exists today. It was ceremonially sealed to mark the end of some forgotten religious schism. What few pilgrims still visit must be content to make their prayers at the entrance.
Mobile, requiring that characters catch up to it, or anticipate its route when they wish to enter. It may have been built on (or in) a massive creature, it might move mechanically with understandable mechanisms, or by inscrutable magics. It might walk on legs, roll on wheels or treads, hover, swim, or burrow. Its movement might be destructive or not, intentionally or unintentionally. It might have an operator, or follow a per-designated program, or simply have gone rogue. It may be new or ancient: a familiar sight, or something unexpected and frightening. When the players leave, they could be quite far from anywhere they’ve ever been before.
Flying high in the air, requiring some effort for characters to reach it. Its flight may be slow and drifting, or swift. It may be stable in the air, or in the process of falling, or there may be something the players can do within the dungeon to cause it to come crashing down.
The colossal pleasure barge of some ancient ruler. The reach of its construction exceeded the grasp of ancient ship builders, and it sank. It may still be underwater, or it may be resting in a dry lake bed, or existing in some stage between the two extremes. After being here so long it may have been connected to tunnels, or to some greater dungeon beneath it.
A focal point for a time fracture. Within it, the characters can travel to different eras of the dungeon’s existence. Probably a fixed number of them. Travel through time can only occur at certain fixed locations, and the players can only exit the dungeon in their own era.
The elaborate hairpiece of a grand lady, who contracted a wizard to fill it with tiny treasure and tiny monsters, and to shrinkify any adventurers who want to brave the danger so she can show off during the grandest party of the season.
The death palace of an ancient conqueror queen who demanded that each of her subject people’s build a grand home for her. This particular one was filled with confusing corridors and traps, in the express hope that she might visit someday.
Permeated by extreme temperature: perhaps very hot, in which case armor is dangerous to wear, metal objects are dangerous to touch, and copious water rations are needed. Alternately it may be very cold, in which case layered clothing is necessary, floors will often be slippery, and important details may be obscured by ice or snow.
A defense built by a subterranean civilization. They dug ever upwards, not realizing until too late that eventually the solid earth would give way to a terrifying sky. Believing they had discovered hell, they built this place to prevent any horrible surface creatures from reaching the wholesome lands below.
A training ground for a creature which predates on humans. Their young must learn to hunt perfectly in controlled conditions, lest they make some mistake which reveals the creature’s existence to human kind. People are lured to this place with rumors of hidden riches.
A facility for the creation of new forms of life. It may be a naturally occurring spot where evolution is wild and rapid, it may be God’s own workshop, or it could be the magical or scientific laboratory of an ambitious mortal. In the latter case, there must have been some intent: to replace people with clones, to produce an army, to satisfy a god complex, etc.
An afterlife, which was once a paradise for the adherents of faith now long forgotten. The gods who made it are dead, asleep, or so weakened they can no longer justify the effort of maintaining the place. Many of its pleasures have turned to horrors, and much of its boundless space has collapsed into the ether between realities.
The former hive of an extinct colony of giant architect ants. The spaces are more complex and intricate than one would expect of a typical ant, but retain a naturalistic quality.
A small cog in the mechanism of reality. If the birth and death of the whole universe is a cycle that takes ten billion billion years, it is only because its cycle is powered by other cycles which turn more rapidly. This place is born, dies, and is reborn within a mere few hundred years, and is presently in a state of collapse. Even as the player characters plunder it, parts of it will cease to exist around them.
The extra-dimensional retreat of a long dead wizard. It is located on another world, and enjoys grand views of beautiful vistas. The exits all lead back to our world however, as this planet is entirely inhospitable to all familiar modes of life.
The habitat of a unique species of creature that lives nowhere else. They are not hostile, and may not even know how to respond to violence. Their presence alters the typical dungeoneering experience in a major way: perhaps they scream when they see light, or exhibit a natural anti-magic field, they may excrete a slippery or sticky substance on every surface, or be naturally inclined towards serving as mounts.
A mysterious structure which appeared overnight, and occupies a much-used space. It may be sitting in a farmer’s field, or in a town square, or perhaps its appearance has displaced other structures whose inhabitants are missing. (Did they go wherever their homes went, or are they in the dungeon?) Alternately, the dungeon might have formed itself around existing structures, such that their inhabitants are now trapped in their own homes.
A towering lighthouse, abandoned after an ancient catastrophe sundered the earth and caused the shore to move hundreds of miles away.
The studio of an eccentric artist who stumbled into being considered a “genius” by wealthy elites. This person dabbled in every medium, indulging every depraved and harmful instinct in the pursuit of novel modes of expression. When they passed, their multiple wills created such a tangle of confusion (another attempt at unusual artistic expression) that the descendants of the original beneficiaries are still arguing in the courts.
A snowy mountain resort for affluent guests. It may have been a ski or hunting lodge which has fallen out of fashion, and gone many years without proper maintenance to protect it from the bitter cold.
A secluded island or private stretch of beach which was once a popular destination for wealthy people on holiday. Nearby is a severely depopulated service village where the help was left to fend for themselves. They resent living in hovels and penury while all this wealth has sat abandoned for decades. They’d move in if they could, but the owners left many dangers behind to “protect their property.”
A great multi-level stable. The folly of an obscenely wealthy aristocrat who loved horses more than they loved people. Much more.
Someones unconscious mind, which has been temporarily manifested as a series of rooms and corridors. It may be the psyche of a king, a demigod, or a player who happens to be absent for this session. Within are creatures that represent the character’s hangups, insecurities, and defensiveness. The treasures may be their secrets, spells, or access to levers which control their feelings in some way. The players might want to help this person heal from trauma, recall vital information, or may simply be taking advantage of a person who has fallen into this peculiar and vulnerable position.
A slaughterhouse or fish gutting plant. An industrial building for killing and disassembling meat creatures. Perhaps built in a strange way by an eccentric industrialist, or warped by angry magics.
An island which has only recently risen up from the sea. Its spaces are constructed of coral, lava channels, sea monster corpses, and dense groupings of strange plants which only survive underwater. If it rose only yesterday it will be teeming with dying sea life, lashing out at anything that comes near. If it rose a few years ago, a new ecology will be emerging, and the inhabitants will be migrants seeking to build a new life for themselves.
The seasonal villa of an obscenely wealthy bourgeois or aristocrat. They are not in residence, and so it is protected by traps and guard creatures. The deeper one delves into the villa, the more terrible depravities are uncovered.

In heaven there is a house waiting for each of us. Angels toil to make these homes worthy of our goodness. Recently a true saint who had earned themselves a sprawling and decadent mansion committed a horrific sin just before their death. They were cast into hell, and in His disgust God hurled their mansion away, and did not realize that it fell to earth.
Placed here by the gods themselves as a test for those who might wish to consider themselves heroes. Those who overcome its many challenges will earn themselves divine attention. This is, at best, a mixed blessing.
A great landfill where the detritus of civilization is discarded. A series of passages and chambers have been hollowed out of of the great heaps of trash, perhaps connecting further to underground tunnels or sewers. Inhabitants probably include a mystery cult of rich kids on a poverty tourism kick.
A titanic boulder impossibly rolling back and forth between two mountain peaks without ever appearing to loose momentum. Perhaps the spirit of Sisyphus labors on it. The dungeon within the boulder may be terribly disorienting, or may have a sort of artificial gravity to it.
Radiant with powerful healing energies. Any living creatures within the dungeon gain fast healing 20, though this only applies to injuries sustained while inside the dungeon. This makes both the player characters, and the inhabitants they may come into conflict with, functionally invulnerable. Violence will not effectively solve problems here.
An active factory whose interior is a mystery. The dungeon’s produce simply emerges, and is taken for granted by those who collect and use it. Alternately, the factory dungeon may take input, but give no output. People may continue to load coal onto a mysterious conveyor belt simply because it is a traditional ritual.
So high tech as to be impossible for the player characters to comprehend. It might be an alien vessel or space station, or an anthropological observation post. It is destroyed, abandoned, and at least partially reclaimed by nature. There may or may not be some survivors left behind, some bits of technology could still work, a clever person could learn a lot from studying this place, and potentially advance their own culture’s technological abilities.
Santa’s Workshop, or the lair of some other folkloric character. The burrow of the Easter Bunny, or the sky castle of the twelve merry goblins of [insert setting specific holiday here]. The more out of season it is when this dungeon is delved the better. It might be properly abandoned, or perhaps the mighty folkloric creature is hibernating until their appropriate season. Perhaps each year they wake up and spend a week sweeping out all the squatters who settled in their home while they slept.
Builder Beetles were born from a poorly-worded wish, spoken by a dying architect who regretted never being responsible for any truly spectacular structures. Where they come from before they do what they do, and where they go after they’re done, is a mystery. They appear in small human settlements, drive everyone out, and build. Great walls and ceilings over the whole town, connecting existing buildings with elaborate tunnels and sky bridges until the whole village is a dungeon. Humans rarely want to live in the spaces the Builder Beetles leave behind, but for other creatures it is a very convenient domicile.
Noah’s Ark (or perhaps the arc of Ziusudra, Atra-Hasis, Utnapishtim, etc). A great vessel large enough to shelter a breeding stock of all the world’s land animals during a great flood, which came to rest on the top of a mountain when the water receded. It still rests their, perhaps filled with the descendants of those unrecorded creatures who chose not to disembark with the rest.
A legal library, for The Law is sacred, and its sanctity depends on its secrecy. Only the arbiters could ever know The Law, only they could study and interpret its precepts. To maintain the purity of The Law, it had to be housed in a labyrinth beneath the city, with entrances known only to the arbiters, so they could disappear to consult the law, and reappear to render their verdict wherever their intercession was needed.
A woodland where the trees and bramble grow so thickly they might as well be walls surrounding ‘rooms’ and ‘corridors’ that were carved into existence by an ancient and secretive religion.
A test of maturity, constructed bit by bit by the girls of the People at the Foot of the Mountain became women. Before any girl could seek a mate and a home of her own she must present a plan for a new corridor or room, then build it with her own two hands. She may be instructed, but never aided. Many began their work quite young, as it could take years to complete an ambitious addition. The temple is so sprawling now that no complete map of it exists, and all manner of creature have settled in long neglected sections.
An abandoned train yard. No active rails even connect to this place anymore, and the rusting hulks are scattered pell mell about the place.
The work of true artisans. Folks who believe in craftsmanship for its own sake. It should not matter whether anyone will ever see a thing, one should still labor to make it as beautiful and sturdy as they possibly can. The result of your work should stand apart from every other example of its kind because even if other people don’t see it, it will be appreciated by god who sees everything. Even this sewer system.
A trap for humanity, eroded into existence by spiteful water spirits who do not appreciate the haphazard way their essence is often drawn up to the surface via hateful human wells. The spirits deposited many noxious fungi, amphibious carnivores, and subterranean treasures here.
An active temple for a god of foolhardy death. Attempting to plunder the temple is an act of religious devotion. The priests say that even if you don’t die, taking such risks is an act of prayer that will surely be heard by their god. Others contest that there is no such thing as a god of foolhardy death. They argue instead that the priesthood is cover for a demonic cult, and the dungeon is an elaborate form of human sacrifice. Sure, a few folks might make it out with fabulous wealth, but far more will perish in the attempt!
An abandoned factory, which may have been built to produce statuary, war materiel, print publications, worked metals, candy, etc. Much will have been left behind, but only because extracting it would be more expensive than it’s worth.
An arctic research station composed of multiple buildings and some excavated ice caves, all with guidelines between them to aid movement whenever thick fog or snowstorm makes vision unreliable. Unless your setting is more modern, this place is likely the caprice of a wizard who believed there was some ancient wisdom hidden nearby, or the former home of some hero who was cursed to be unable to endure warmer climes.
A mystery. A few years ago the people of a nearby village all blacked out in tandem. When they awoke, there was the dungeon. The callouses on their hands told them they had done the work themselves. Years had clearly passed, and those who had been too young or too old to work were found long dead from starvation. With nowhere else to go the people resumed their lives, but it is a trauma none of them will ever overcome, and they make a concerted effort never to look at the structure they don’t remember building.
A forgotten showcase structure, built in collaboration between various guilds of artisans to demonstrate their skills, and serve as a unified guild hall and catalogue for potential employers.
A cold, cold revenge from the dinosaurs. Their sages foresaw the meteor which heralded their destruction, and could find no means by which to avoid death. They foresaw also that the planet would come to be dominated by disgusting ape creatures. The final years of their race was spent building this place, and placing their greatest treasures within it so as to better tempt as many of the ape things as possible to their deaths.
An archaeological dig of massive scope, abandoned perhaps due to lack of funds, or because it released something it should not have. The rooms are semi permanent living structures, and partially excavated buildings.
A sort of rat’s maze built by a cosmic entity who wishes to observe and rate humanity’s quality. This is not hidden. Everyone knows that when you enter this dungeon you will be watched, and tested. The tests are often different, and are rarely fair. People attempt it anyway because the “cheese” at the end is a legitimately bounteous treasure.
An ancient military base. Perhaps a grand permanent campus with parade grounds, thick walls, and offices for generals. Alternately it may have been a frontier structure, built in haste to to withstand brutal assaults.
The refuge of a wealthy and powerful old man who suffered a public embarrassment so severe that he decided to build a miniature city for himself, populated by his servants, where he could live out his final days. It was inhabited for a scant few years before he died. No one else ever took up residence, as it was in a terribly inconvenient location, and managing its great size would have been an absurd expense.
Formerly a political prison. A place where the ruling elite could cause enemies of the state to disappear, “convince” them to turn against their comrades, and put an ultimate end to their disloyalty in some efficient and satisfying way.
An artificial tiered garden out in the middle of a desert. Unless there is magical watering at work, the plants will have long ago died from lack of imported water. Only native desert plants grow here now, though some invasive plants may have survived by eerie mutation. Within the garden’s tiers are a series of chambers originally meant for maintenance staff and visiting guests.
An elaborately ornamented temple built by a short lived religion which worshiped some particular animal. It could be any relatively simple animal: iguanas, penguins, beards, crows, flamingos, etc. The whole place exudes big Horse Girl energy.
A time capsule built beneath the foundations of the city, and intended to be opened on the 1000^th anniversary of its founding. It was intended as a showcase of the city’s original culture, and to play a few pranks on the naughty future-folk. Doubtless, the past thousand years have seen a few other creatures sneak their way in via unintended means.
An ancient race track, or other sports stadium. The field of play will likely have had other structures built within it by the dungeon’s current residents, and will likely also contain chambers that were intended for food vendors, green rooms, announcers, VIPs, perhaps even an attached palace.
Intended to trap a terrestrial god, built by a sect of that god’s worshipers. They came to believe their god had a hellthorn in its paw, which they wished to remove. As such the dungeon is in all ways designed to show respect to those it traps.
Formerly a school of some kind. It may have been for primary education (elementary, high school), higher education (university, philosophy, science), trade education (culinary, carpentry, cosmetology, medicine, law, military officer), spiritual education (seminary, martial arts dojo), or something fanciful (necromancy, spying, assassination). It may have been abandoned because it lacked funds, due to fallout from some horrible scandal, or simply because the civilization which built it is long extinct.
The first draft of hell. Eventually more capacity was needed, as well as updated security since a few souls had managed to escape. All the damned souls and devilish tormentors are long since moved on to better facilities.

The dungeon is a metaphorical space. Different rooms and creatures are representations of places and people. There are clues to what the various elements of the dungeon represent, but the connections are not always obvious. None the less, actions taken in the dungeon will be reflected outwards. If the party were to meet a goblin who represents their house, for example, and they killed that goblin, they might return home to find their house had burned down.
A zoo, aquarium, or menagerie. Presumably the animals have either escaped, died, or become mutated in some fashion.
An enchanted pleasure palace wished into existence by someone long dead. The magically created servants within have split into factions over whether they want to kill anyone who visits the palace so they won’t be compelled to serve any more, and those who miss having someone to serve, and wish to trap visitors so that their lives can have purpose again.
An intact suburra from the ancient world. These were a sort of ancient apartment buildings. The bottom floors would be businesses or upper-middle class homes. The higher floors were rented by poorer and poorer people as you went up. Given that these buildings were notoriously prone to fire and collapse, this one most likely survived either by being buried, or by some preservative magics.
A testing ground built by order of a capricious prince who declared he would only marry the person who could retrieve the treasure from the dungeon’s center. Legends say he never did marry, so presumably that treasure would still be there, right?
An ancient library assembled by a philosopher king, who made it their goal to record and collect all the knowledge in their world. Its treasures include many alternate versions of texts which are still well known in modern times, as well as lost literature, history, and science which may or may not have been rediscovered since it was lost. Unfortunately for looters, much of this writing is on great stone tablets which are incredibly difficult to move, and much of the rest is on scrolls which crumble to dust if touched.
Laid out in an incredibly precise shape. Its structure forms a magic sigil that was used in an ancient and dark time in a grand summoning ritual which created the sun.
There is a member of the royal family who was so mean spirited, ambitious, and stupid, that they were eventually exiled to a small island. Great care was taken to ensure all the perquisites of their royal rank remained in place, save only their freedoms of movement and association. They could never leave the island nor have contact with anyone not personally approved by the king, but were otherwise left to enjoy a life of excess however they saw fit. This is all ancient history, and now this island prison / pleasure palace is a dungeon filled with all manner of creatures. Alternately, it may be that the king has only recently died, and their will stipulates that this troublesome royal must be assassinated to prevent future troubles. The player characters could have been hired to do the deed, or to smuggle the prisoner off the island to safety.
A place which predates the world. It floated through space for eons, gradually accumulating bits a space detritus, until its gravitational mass was great enough that it formed a rogue planet, and eventually fell into stable orbit around our star.
The interior of an inscrutable tool which was left here by a creature beyond our understanding. It could be God’s anvil, or Yog-Sthoth’s power loom. Though, obviously, the names of human tools can only vaguely approximate the scope of this thing’s function. It may have been left intentionally, or dropped and forgotten. Some of its functions could potentially be manipulated by player characters to produce strange results, or the things it does may be entirely beyond human ability or understanding.
A laboratory in which a wizard or scientist conducted various atmospheric and ecological experiments. One room may emulate conditions of an arctic tundra, while another is meant to simulate a rain forest. Hazards might include tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, etc.
An embassy built when humanity was at peace with a strange race who had strange needs. Perhaps sea creatures who needed to be submerged in water to live, sky creatures who could not breathe our thick air, or burrowing creatures who could not abide the light. This place was built to accommodate their needs, and facilitate better relations between the two peoples. Peace has long since broken down, and the two races have parted ways. The embassy still stands, though. As hostile to human life as it was adapted to theirs.
A former senate house or parliamentary building. It contains a large space for collective lawmaking, and ancillary spaces for offices, ceremonies, meetings, and other amenities peculiar to the culture who built it.
Crafted for no particular reason by a wizard who had created a peculiar nightmare-scanning device, which enabled them to construct real versions of the imaginary spaces those nightmares took palace in, and link them together. The complex connected dozens of dream spaces before the wizard realized there was actually no point to this activity, and moved on.
Created by and for very small creatures: rat sized rat people rearranging sewer pipes, or intelligent viruses building a citadel within a human body, or pixies hollowing out trees and boulders. The player characters will need to shrink themselves to enter the dungeon. They could perhaps just destroy it if they wished, but doing so would likely destroy any treasures contained within. (After all, such treasures are likely to be art, magic, or information. One does not plunder a minuscule dungeon looking for great heaps of gold!) It should also be noted that tiny folks are well acquainted with the tactics and defenses necessary to protect themselves against giants.
Created by and for very large creatures. Everything in this dungeon is far too big for the player characters. Stairs and furniture require difficult climbing to navigate. Note that just because it was built by large peoples, does not mean they are its only inhabitants. They may not even use it at all anymore.
A prison constructed according to some armchair philosopher’s notions of how to reform undesirable peoples. Perhaps it is filled with challenges, on the belief that overcoming them would make a person deserving of reentering society. Perhaps it is built on the idea that isolation, medical torture, or constant observation would best ‘fix’ a person.
A great complex tree house, possibly built by long gone elves, or long dead architects attempting to survive whilst marooned on an uncharted island.
A medieval monastery of the western style, built for the outwards appearance of maintaining a simple life of prayer and holy labor, while allowing the monks some privacy to indulge in sinful luxury. Perhaps more privacy than usually was provided here with great chambers hidden underground for all manner of decadence.
A performance space built for the delectation of the upper classes, with greater social rank allowing access to lower chambers where ever less socially acceptable art is performed. At the lowest levels, the performers themselves rarely ever came out again.
An important cultural site for your people. Your ancestors built it and used it, but at some point chose to abandon it. Until recently it was fairly common to visit the place and view its wonders, leaving offerings to the ancient dead where appropriate. Recently, a colonial power has brutally dominated your lands. They’ve declared this place to be an archaeological site, and forbidden your people from entering it.
A high class casino where the highest of high stakes bets were placed. It was transformed into a dungeon by a really, really foolhardy bet which went very poorly.
The maintenance corridors of a massive inscrutable machine, the engine of a natural process. Perhaps this dungeon is what turns the sun and moon in the sky, what controls the tides, the passing of the seasons, or the birth of heroes. It may even be an engine of destruction. God’s own fail-safe in case creation ever gets out of hand. It may or may not be possible for the players to make minor alterations without completely disrupting the machine. Perhaps it is broken before they arrive and they wish to fix it. Perhaps they can radically alter the nature of their world with some ill-advised tinkering.
The exterior of a titanic creature. A mega-elk, ur-mammoth, or humaniform colossus. There is a whole ecology across—and even within—their body. Pockets and purses are like rooms, fur is a forest, whole settlements could rest on their back or hang from their underside.
Knowing they would be conquered when the next campaigning season began, a whole civilization dedicated themselves to building this dungeon. They sold their souls for the necessary magics, and heaped the whole treasures of their history in a room that is visible from the entrance, but protected by a great and impenetrable wall of death.
A petrified egg from which a god would have hatched if it had been properly tended. The dry yolk still forms the center of the dungeon. Alternately, there may be a creature which gestates in dungeons is if they were an egg. Protected by the shell of the mythic underworld, nourished by the yolk of the dungeon’s inhabitents once its digestive tract develops.
The labyrinthine halls from which the enforcers emerged, dragging criminal wrongthinkers into dark rooms from which they rarely emerged. The space connects here and there, and contains many unpleasant places now settled by creatures less horrible than the enforcers were, though that is not a high bar to clear.
Shelter built against a civilization-ending cataclysm which never came. Or perhaps did come, was survived thanks to the shelter, and is now only long forgotten history.
A facility for containing creatures and objects with dangerous abilities and unknown purpose. There was a breakout long ago, so many of these things have since escaped into the world and may even be widely considered normal today. Perhaps, before the breakout, nobody ever got cancer, pregnancy and birth were trivial affairs, and the human lifespan was triple what it is now. Some safeguards and some anomalies are still here and still dangerous. The world is a better place for not being subjected to the influence of those which are still secured, contained, and protected. Whilst exploring this dungeon, the characters should certainly encounter clues as to how the world was better before certain anomalies got away.
A reverse tower, hanging down from the sky of a great underground cavern. Alternately, a sideways tower, straight out from a cliff face. Gravity may or may not be reoriented within the interior.
Sailing ships clustered together and left unattended. They may have all run aground on an uncharted island, or been discarded and left to rot together in a shallow bay, or forgotten in the secret dry dock of a fallen military power, or abandoned in the shipyard of an insolvent corporation.
Constructed as a habitat for an endangered creature with a sensitivity to something which has been magically warded against. Perhaps light kills them, so the whole dungeon is shrouded in magical darkness. Alternately the whole dungeon may be under a zone of silence, an anti-magic field, or have a robust automated fire suppression system.
The world ship on which ancient human colonists arrived on this world. Malfunction caused it to crash, and those who made it to the escape pods are our ancestors. It is a history so thoroughly lost that no human even suspects we did not originate on this world.
The famous money hole. Of late it has become a fad among the wealthy to flaunt their excess by throwing larger and larger amounts into a deep natural shaft. The more a person can afford to discard, the more affluent everyone assumes they must be. Of course, the hole itself is heavily guarded to prevent any dirty poors from misappropriating the discarded funds and unbalancing the economy. Perhaps creatures have also been set loose below to make recovering the treasure even more foolhardy, or creatures may have come up from the underdark to fight over this great heap of treasure. Regardless, there might be some other way into those caves.

Can you believe that titanic tirade is just one sixth of what I’ve written for this series? I mean, the entries in this one are particularly verbose, but none the less, dang.

Also, All Cops Are Bastards.

The Goblin Bazaar

The Goblin Bazaar is located in the first room on the second sublevel of my Five Years Left megadungeon. All manner of useful things can be found for sale there, but the prices are exorbitant, and any treasure traded to the goblins does not earn experience points for the players. None the less if they see something they want, it’s best to pounce on it, because each session I generate an entirely new inventory by rolling 3d6 and consulting the tables below:

Among all of the…

Cracked ceramic [subject]s, soiled mattresses, and jars of [animal bits]
Rotted [produce], sticky children’s toys, and sacks of [filler material]
[Fad instructional][Media], crumpled dorm room posters, and water damaged [genre] novels
Jewelry made from [Trash], board games with missing pieces, and boxes of [papercraft]
Horrid smelling [clothing], pencil nubs, and empty [food containers]
Branded [junk swag], lidless tupperware, and [holiday][junk you’re meant to throw out]

…you find…

gun (d6): combat shotgun, AK-47, Uzi, Silenced Pistol, Sniper Rifle, Spandau
spell of level 2d6 (drop lower), randomly determined from whatever spell list is at hand.
technology (d6): smart phone, wireless speaker, radar, moped, cordless drill, prosthetic limb
gear: random weapon or armor with 1 cool power (either technological or magical)
weird (d6): ritual magic, magic item with big drawback, A.I. companions, mutation juice
other tables: old curio shop table, the IOUN stones book, wondrous items from the DMG

…and also…

gun (d6): derringer, revolver, .22 rifle, hommeade pistol, hommeade rifle
spell of level 2d6 (drop higher), randomly determined from whatever spell list is at hand.
tech (d6): kitchen appliance, flashlight, camera, megaphone, laser tripwire, walkie talkies
explosives (d6): Frag grenade, flash grenade, smoke grenade, door buster, fire bomb, demolition explosive
single-use magic: something like a potion, powder, thrown glass ball, etc.
quest hook (d4): treasure map, item desired by an NPC, information broker, item to exploit a monster’s weakness

The prices are…

Items from the first table cost d6 x 5r.
Items from the second table cost 2d6 x 100r
Items from the third table cost 2d6 x 20r

(The “r” here stands for “Ration,” which is the base unit of currency in Five Years Left.)

Of primary concern when I was writing this is that the whole system had to fit on the bottom 20% of a sheet of graph paper. Any more than that and my rules reference would take up more than a single page. As such, I’ve used shorthand which is probably less clear to others than it is to me. Below are six examples which ought to clarify what results from these tables look like in practice. To cover as much of the table as possible I assumed that triples were rolled for each example (111, 222, etc.) In practice the results would usually be more diverse.

111: Among all of the cracked ceramic angels, soiled mattresses, and jars of pig’s tails, you find a clean and functional AK-47. The malnourished goblin clinging to it explains that she spent all her food money to buy it, which didn’t seem like such a bad idea at the time. Hungry as she is, the weapon is precious to her, and she will only part with it for the exact price she bought it for: 900r. You also discover a derringer beneath some greasy napkins. You only have a moment to examine it before the goblin seller snatches it away, and insists you can’t have it unless you pay 140r.

222: At first it seems that there’s nothing here but rotted cabbages, sticky children’s toys, and burlap sacks filled with sawdust. You’re about to give up when you discover the 4th level OD&D spell “Growth of Plants.” It’s written in a gilded journal, and was obviously the prized possession of some long dead wizard. The goblin who owns it has no idea what it is, but is confident that it must be worth at least 700r. Shortly thereafter you also find the 3rd level OD&D spell “Water Breathing,” carefully written out on a roll of toilet paper. You shudder to imagine what circumstance led to that particular spell being written on that particular medium. The goblin who owns it knows exactly what she has, but every time she looks at it she gags. She wants it out of her sight, and will sell it for the low low price of 180r.

333: Sifting through old jazzercise CD-ROMs, crumpled dorm room posters, and water damaged western novels, you come upon a sophisticated prosthetic leg. Someone has painted a racing stripe up its side. The goblin selling the thing rests on crutches, and laments that the leg was not as good for racing as they thought it would be. They’ll part with the thing for 600r. Meanwhile, another member of the party uncovers a cordless egg beater beneath some of those dorm room posters. The goblin selling it assures you that it is a fearsome weapon, and a total bargain at only 80r.

444: Beneath a heap of necklaces made from tin can tabs, stacks of board games with missing pieces, and several boxes of beige business cards for something called a “Sales Associate,” the party discovers a chain mail coif which has been ensorcelled such that the wearer gains the ability to speak with fish. The goblin says all the fish he met were terribly rude, and so is willing to part with it for a mere 600r. Nearby, a maternal looking goblin wrestles a napalm explosive away from a smaller goblin, holds it up high, and desperately asks if anyone will buy it before her kid kills someone. The melodrama is probably a sales scam, because she refuses to part with it for less than 280r.

555: Shoving aside racks of mildew-smelling jorts, heaps of pencil nubs, and stacked displays of empty soup cans, you discover an carafe of glowing liquid which, if consumed, will cause the imbibing character to gain a random mutation. The goblin selling it–who has a baby’s arm growing out of his forehead–insists that all the mutations are all cool and beneficial. He wants 400r for it. Another goblin shoves the first aside, holding up a wooden box with a ceramic key inside it. It’ll open any door you want, but it’ll break when you use it. A much better bargain, and more reliable, than that gross mutation juice. Only 100r!

666: After picking your way through the branded letter openers, lidless tupperware, and hollow plastic Halloween weapons, you find a tattered pair of Boots of Elvenkind, which a goblin hates because she can’t make noise in them no matter how hard she stomps around. She wants them out of her sight for a measly 400r. As you browse about further, a goblin in a trench coat pulls you aside. They say they know things. Many things. Is there something you want to know? They probably know all about it. They’ll tell you what you want to know, for a price… Specifically for 180r.

Obviously there’s a bit of finessing involved in producing these results, which is why I generate them outside of play. In general I prefer to avoid committing myself to systems that require out-of-session prep, but this is the sort of creative work I find both enjoyable and easy. It’s just improvising details around a set of random seeds. In a pinch I could do it mid-session, but in fact I enjoy it so much that I’ve already got the next 10 weeks of Goblin Bazaars pre-generated.

And that’s it, that’s the whole system. Now I’m gonna work backwards a bit and talk about why I made the decisions I did.

What benefit is there to this sort of randomly populated item shop?

There are three major benefits. First is that we’re playing a game where the goal is to get money. The referee can tax that money by requiring the players to pay for repairs, or healing, or training, but they also gotta have some fun stuff to splurge on. This is doubly important in a megadungeon like this one, where the play is focused in a way that precludes traditional domain building. A bazaar with a random and rotating inventory offers the players some fun tools and toys to get excited about, while avoiding the dreaded opening of the flood gates typically associated with magic item shops.

Second, placing a single-session time limit on items adds an interesting pressure to the game. Does the party want to spend money to buy the mid-tier item that’s on sale this week, or do they want to hold on to their money in case there’s something better next session? Or perhaps the bazaar has a truly great item for sale which the party can’t afford. Now the players have a ticking clock which forces them to push and push to collect enough treasure to buy this great item before the session ends, and it is lost forever.

Third, I am ever the advocate for randomizing anything which can be randomized. It forces everyone–players and referee alike–to adapt. For example, a group which usually relies on brute strength will look at problems differently if they just got a really good deal on some potions of invisibility. That sort of adaptation to circumstance is a huge part of what makes this game fun for me. I want to encourage it whenever I can.

As an aside, I was halfway through writing this post when I realized it wasn’t the first time. This is an idea I’ve been iterating on for years now. It started way back with Thracle’s Emporium in Brendan’s Pahvelorn, which I adapted for my paleolithic D&D&LB campaign as the Caravan system. Later I would adapt the idea further into the Curio shops that were scattered around ORWA. This latest take on the concept, the Goblin Bazaar, feels strikingly more mature to me. I’ve used it for several sessions already, and I love it. It’s sleek, it drives play, I am sincerely proud.

Why doesn’t money spent at the bazaar earn experience points for the players?

The in-universe fiction is that the player characters are from a destitute settlement, which only has five years of supplies left before everyone dies. Bringing fresh resources out of the dungeon and into the settlement is an act of real heroism. It gives hope to the hopeless, and extends the life of the town. That’s what I award experience points for. Spending those same resources on Goblin junk is pretty selfish in comparison.

The real life explanation is that I’ve spent several years running high level domain play in my On a Red World Alone campaign. I’m a little burned out on that sort of thing, and would like to indulge in an extended period of grotty dungeon delving. It suits my purposes well if the players’ levels advance at a snail’s pace.

Why is the first table full of useless junk!?

It may seem silly, but the junk table is one of the biggest advantages the goblin bazaar has over my earlier efforts. When using the caravans or the curio shops, I presented them to players as being filled with all manner of interesting things, then listed the few objects that were meant to be player facing. Inevitably, if the items on offer didn’t interest the group, they’d ask “So…what else is here?”

It’s a perfectly reasonable question when the referee has described a shop that is filled with a great variety of wonders. In my head all that other stuff was supposed to be useless junk. Gewgaws for eccentric rich people. But I’d said it was there, so I was stuck improvising whole inventories that felt appropriate. Again, inevitably, something I listed would spark interest among the players, and we’d all get dragged down this rabbit hole of them trying to figure out a good use for a set of 500 year old encyclopedias. I’m not exaggerating when I tell you there have been sessions where the party spent fully two hours sitting in a curio shop.

It was tedious. I may sound petty for saying so, but this has been a source of real frustration for me. In contrast, the goblin bazaar is framed as a heap of garbage where the players are lucky enough to find a couple cool things.

Why Goblins?

Because it gives me a regular excuse to perform as a malevolent toddler in front of my players.

Also, because goblins are just toddlers, I am fully justified in the bazaar being filled with junk, and everything being sold for wildly inconsistent prices.

Before I go, I ought perhaps answer “Where are those dungeon prompts that were supposed to follow the megadungeon post?” Well, if you’ve ever wondered how to ensure a project hits a stumbling block, all you’ve gotta do is tell people it will be done soon. The set of six d100 tables I mentioned in my last post are still in the works, but it’s an immense undertaking. They will be done some day.

I hope everyone is taking care of themselves and the people around them. Respect and solidarity to the brave protesters in Portland, and all across the U.S.

Edit: One of my players was incensed to discover that her favorite Goblin, “Muscles,” was not mentioned or depicted anywhere in this post. To maintain the harmony of my game table, I will accede to her demands that Muscles be included:

Two Week Megadungeon

I recently committed to running a fresh campaign, which required I construct a megadungeon from scratch in about two weeks. It was a big job. I was a little worried it was too big to get done in such a short time, but I managed it with days to spare. Some of my players have asked me to explain my methods, and I will endeavor to do so here.

Like any other creative project, I’ve found the best way to accomplish my goals is to lower my expectations. When I say I created a megadungeon in 2 weeks, I do not mean that I meticulously crafted some beautiful bespoke adventure module with hundreds of pages of room description. I can barely conceive of how I’d use such a thing at the table, much less how I’d create it. The dungeon I did create fits on 7 single-sided sheets of paper. One page of random tables and rules reference, and 6 pages which each have the map and key for a single level of the dungeon. Even within that drastically limited scope, I only completed my megadungeon by taking every shortcut I could find.

First step was to source maps. There are more freely available maps online than anyone could use in a lifetime. For this project I went with old reliable Donjon’s Random Dungeon Generator. With it I could quickly produce as many maps as I needed. Plus, generating all the maps with the same tool meant they had a consistent style, which is useful for avoiding all sorts of little annoyances that have cropped up in the past when I’ve tried to force maps from different sources to be part of the same structure. Somewhat arbitrarily I settled on starting with 6 levels to the dungeon, my only real reason being that it felt large enough to be a megadungeon, but small enough not to stress me out while keying it. The Magic Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two is probably a factor here. I played around with the generator’s settings quite a bit between each level. More densely packed rooms on this one, fewer rooms on that one, this map shaped like a cross, that other one is a circle. There’s plenty of knobs to tinker with, though I think only three of the settings I used were actually important:

Straight Corridors + Remove all dead ends. These settings produce the most direct corridors. Even still they’re more meandering than I would prefer, but beggars can’t be choosers.
No stairs. This is perhaps a minor point, but I wanted to have direct control over where connections between floors would exist.
Map Style: Graph Paper. This is by far the most important setting. Not only does it waste the least amount of ink when printing, but it leaves a lot of white space available for making notes.

Once I’d gotten 6 maps I liked, I printed paper copies of each so I could easily make alterations and notes. On each level I added an elevator shaft adjacent to one of the rooms, usually one near the center. One of the most important elements of megadungeon design is that players have direct access from the entrance to many different parts of the dungeon. Otherwise, every single session begins with the party moving through the exact same set of rooms, which can be difficult to prevent from becoming tedious. The elevator shaft means they have 6 choices for what their first room will be each session. In a more traditionally themed megadungeon a grand staircase would work just as well. Within an hour of starting the project the bones of the dungeon were assembled.

Pixelated, low-color photo of an empty dungeon room, in the style of old DOS games.

Now I had ~225 blank rooms to key. That’s a lot of opportunities to get tripped up by Blank Page Syndrome, so I started by creating some touchstones that would help inform my keying later on. The first and least important of these is the dungeon’s origin. Who built it? Why? What calamity caused it to stop being used for its original purpose, and become a dungeon? These are all good things for a referee to know, but it’s also important not to get caught up in them. A dungeon in a ruined hospital may have a lot of beds and broken medical devices in it; and a dungeon in a ruined school is going to have books and desks; but that’s all filler for empty rooms. The treasures, traps, and creature encounters are going to be derived more from what happened to the structure after it stopped being used for its original purpose.

Next step was figuring out tyrants and factions. My six level dungeon has three wizards and a dragon as its tyrants, because as we all know a 2 is always a dragon, and a 12 is always a wizard. These primarily exist as big scary random encounters, but they also need a lair. I place these by writing directly on the map, aiming to be as evocative as I could. Instead of “Merlin the Great’s Lair,” I might write “Mirrored Palace of Merlin the Moody.” Later on the personality and style of each tyrant will affect what sorts of rooms are nearby.

I use this same style of keying through the process, writing the text directly on the rooms they describe. It limits how much detail the key can have, and in particular means small rooms must have more simply described contents than large ones, but these are limitations I can live with. In fact I’d say this limitation forces me to produce better work than I otherwise would. When I’m running games I quickly get frustrated whenever the forward momentum of the action is disrupted because I can’t find the information I want in a block of text. A few words, or maybe a sentence is enough for me to construct a shared imaginary space for my players. That’s especially true here where I’m writing notes for my own future self. Nobody else needs to understand this dungeon.

One major mistake I made here was writing the room keys in pen. I usually prefer to write in pen because it forces me to commit to what I write. I enjoy not being able to go back and change things, and instead be forced to adapt to whatever decisions I’ve already made. I feel the same way about keying the dungeon, BUT, many room descriptions will need to be altered during the restocking process described below. So for the love of the gods don’t make my mistake, key your megadungeon in pencil!

Chrono trigger screenshot. The primitive humans and the lizard people are good examples of opposed factions.

Factions are the most important megadungeon touchstone. The way different groups interact with the players and with each other is a huge part of what I enjoy about megadungeon play. The players will forge alliances with some, go to war with others, play diplomat to negotiate peace between enemies, or convince groups to wipe one another out. Like tyrants, factions control some rooms, influence others, and provide fodder for the encounter table. Coming up with factions is simple: some kind of creature + some kind of distinctive behavior = a faction. The Boastful Bovines are a braggadociously proud community of cow-people who live on the first level of my dungeon. I came up with between 2 and 3 factions for each floor, recorded the name of each faction using a specific color, and placed colored dots on the map to indicate the center of each faction’s power. This is the room where they are most safe to eat and sleep and conduct their private affairs. The colors aren’t necessary, but I often want to know what faction the players are most likely to encounter in a given room, so being able to quickly reference what faction is closest is handy.

By now every level of the dungeon has multiple points of interest I can riff from when keying other rooms. There’s no reason you couldn’t add even more if you like. All mine were social, but you could create all sorts of different touchstones. Perhaps one room could be where some tyrant of faction used to live, and they left traps, treasures, and monsters behind. A portal to hell would make a good touchstone, as would a magic crystal that absorbs all heat, a massive zone of silence, a miniature black hole, really anything that would have a ripple effect across multiple surrounding rooms will help make the keying process easier.

There’s still one more way we can break the problem down before we start keying in earnest. Broadly speaking every room in a dungeon will fit into a fairly small number of categories. Some will have creatures in them, some will have traps, some will have really weird stuff, some will have treasure which may or may not be guarded, and most of the rooms will be empty. That last bit may sound counter intuitive, but it’s vitally important. In this context “Empty” doesn’t mean a completely bare space, it just means a room without monsters, traps, treasure, or special weirdness. A kitchen would be an empty room, but it would still have pots, pans, cupboards, salt, vinegar, and knives in it. These rooms are important because they are where the action will spill into when the players retreat from battle. Empty rooms are where the players will rest, where they’ll devise wild plans for how to make use of something that was intended to be set dressing. Empty rooms are where the players make their own fun. The ancient texts actually advise having 60% empty rooms (1st edition AD&D DMG, Appendix A, Table V-F). I like 50% because I’m a dense dungeon kinda boy.

With my desired ratios in mind, I made this little table to get myself started keying:

1-10: Empty
11-13: Creatures
14-16: Creatures with Treasure
17: Trap
18: Trap with Treasure
19: Something Weird
20: Unguarded Treasure

Each day I’d sit down with my maps, throw a fistfull of d20s, then key one room for each of the results I rolled. If I felt like doing more when I was done, I’d throw the dice again. As I got into the rhythm of things and the maps started to fill out, the dice gradually became less important. A few times each day I’d pull my papers out to spend maybe 20 or 30 minutes writing keys. Whenever I got stuck I’d pick something, anything, and do some free association. As I write this there is a water bottle beside me on my desk. Perhaps the dungeon could have a room filled with water? The bottle has trees on it, maybe there could be a room with a tiny forest, or a meticulously cared for garden? The bottle also has an “A” on it, sorta like the scarlet letter. I could have a room with some prudish creature in it which calls everyone a slut. Just like that I’ve got three dungeon rooms from a single object on my desk. You can do this with anything. I’ve personally gotten a lot of mileage out of using Magic: The Gathering cards for this. I also did a fair amount of stealing room ideas from other dungeons, video games, and blog posts. This dungeon is for private play, not publication, so plagiarism rules don’t apply.

As I keyed I jumped all over the six maps. If you haven’t already, you should free yourself from the expectation that your megadungeon’s layout will make logical sense. That’s impossible to accomplish, and boring to attempt. These are mythic spaces that run on dream logic. If I were to key adjacent spaces one-by-one, my brain would try to force those rooms to conform to some pattern. My goal is to create a wild network of weirdness first, then once that’s done I can let my brain off the leash to do its pattern matching thing. This produces wildly more interesting results for me. All of which is not to say that you should ignore inspiration that comes from referencing nearby rooms. That inspiration can be good, and it’s why we created the touchstones. Jumping around just helps to avoid a sort of tunnel-vision design, where you become bound to obey the logical implications of whatever room came before. Jumping around is also an easy way to create multi-room problems. You can simply place “THE BLOOD GATE” somewhere on level 3, then jump to level 1 and write “TOILET WITH THE BLOOD KEY IN IT” on some empty room. In 10 seconds you’ve created an adventure that could keep your players busy for a whole session.

Once the rooms are all keyed the dungeon is ready for play. Of course you’d also need an encounter table, but I have discussed my process for making those elsewhere. The only notable difference here is that I used 2d3 rather than 2d6. The fundamental method remains the same, but the ranges are somewhat compressed.

Here’s an example of what is produced by this dungeon crafting process:

Fully keyed dungeon map with a couple dozens rooms, and descriptions written on them in pencil. The three factions are Goblin Boomers, Ninja Slugs, and Jealous Banditos

If you’re looking at this and wondering how anyone could run a good consistent dungeon crawl from it, remember that the only person who needs to understand it is me. If you made a dungeon with this same process then the only person who would need to understand it would be you. When I write something like “Blue Chest, Difficult Lock, 2 Magic Spells & 1 Item,” I know that my future self will interpret that in a certain way. A Blue Chest implies the existence of a Blue Key somewhere. A difficult lock would mean the lockpicking check is penalized, perhaps by half the value of the sublevel the room is on. So a difficult lock on floor 2 would be at -1, a difficult lock on floor 4 would be -2, etc. There’d be some random junk in the chest in addition to the treasures, maybe some moth eaten linen? The 2 magic spells would be on scrolls, and I’d roll some dice to figure out what spells they were. The magic item would likewise be randomly determined off whatever table is most convenient. I might even ask my players if one of them has a favored magic item table they’d like to roll on.

Even so there’s a lot of missing details to that room description, but if they come up I’ll figure them out on the spot. At any given time during play I’m probably mentally filling in a room’s description. A good 40% of my game prep happens while I wait for players to argue about what they want to do next. There are days when I’m able to do this really well, and days when I’m not. I wish I was always operating at peak performance, but it has to be okay for the game to have a bad day. And the longer I run games the better I get at doing this. My worst sessions these days are still better than the best ones I ran 10 years ago. I think my players mostly come away from my games feeling good about the way they spent their time. That’s the important part.

A megadungeon is a living space, so even once it’s ready for play it will never really be complete. After each delve I review the rooms my players visited and consider what changes may result from what they did there. If the players kill a monster and steal its treasure that room might become empty for awhile, or a different creature with different treasure might move in. If they only injured the monster, then perhaps that monster was forced to make an alliance with a nearby faction while it healed. Now that faction will be ill-disposed towards the players in order to maintain their alliance. If a player character died, their meat might be sold in a cannibal market, or the necromancer 3 rooms over might raise them as a vampire to go hunt down their former compatriots. Restocking like this is how the players get to see their impact on the game world. I don’t get the opportunity to be a player very often right now, but when I do play, it’s this sort of thing that keeps me coming back to a campaign session after session.

In the same vein I also have a notepad where I record all the seeds my players plant. For example: if the party kills a group of goblins but lets one get away, I’ll record the existence of this goblin in my notes. Next time they roll a goblin encounter I might choose to double the number of attackers, and have that escapee leading them in an ambush. If the party funds a troupe of musicians, later on the party may go to a bar and discover those same musicians are performing on stage. Or maybe they won’t. Some seeds never bear fruit, and that’s okay. Simply restocking rooms and noting player seeds takes care of the vast majority of prep work I need to do for future sessions.

Eventually, if the game runs for a very long time, or if I get bored, I may expand the dungeon. I’ve already placed a second elevator shaft somewhere on the bottom-most level which could eventually lead to another 6 floors. Smaller expansions might be accomplished by having a wall collapse somewhere to reveal a whole new area beyond it, or some wizard could open a magic portal to a far-away locale. It depends very much on the direction the campaign takes over the coming months. For now I’m happy to ride the wave of the player’s throwing themselves at what I’ve created.

Monochrome green image of a dungeon door. A text prompt asks "ENTER THE DUNGEON?" Someone has typed "hell yeah" in response.

I must thank Ava, Anne, and Elias for prompting me to write this. I didn’t think I would have a lot to say when they first suggested it, but it got me digging deep and forced me to put words to some concepts I hadn’t bothered to articulate before. As it happens I’ve been working on another daunting project, a set of d100 tables that would serve as prompts for building better dungeons. It’s turning out to be the most substantial project I’ve ever worked on for Papers & Pencils, but in retrospect this post will serve as a good introduction. Those tables still need a lot of work, but they’ll likely be the next thing posted here.

Thanks for reading. I hope everyone is staying safe. Black Lives Matter.

d100 Additional Reasons the Wizard is More Than They Seem

Finding myself in the mood to write another d100 table, I went looking for inspiration amidst the accumulated heap of unfinished work in my drafts folder. I knew I had begun writing this sequel to one of my most popular post of 2016, but I had not remembered that apparently I’d abandoned it after already coming up with 99 entries. It seemed a shame not to pull the post out of mothballs and finish the dang thing.

It took a lot more work than coming up with a single new entry. By the time I finished my first editing pass I was down to about 70 that were worth keeping. None the less, the work is now done. Please enjoy it.

Thousands of tiny bird wings have been sewn all over the wizard’s body. Slits in their clothing allow the wings to poke out, and enable wizard to fly with the speed and precision of a small bird.
The wizard’s legs have been amputated beneath the knee, and fused to the backs of two Greyhound dogs. They control the dogs as extensions of themselves, and are able to move incredibly quickly on their eight dog legs. Also, if need be, they have two bite attacks.
The tail and stinger of a giant scorpion have been attached to the wizard’s spine, giving them a deadly poison attack each round.
A quick flex causes the wizard’s arms to pop into the form of a Hook Horror’s hooks. They gain two nasty melee attacks each round, the ability to climb at half their normal movement speed, and to grapple as if they had two more hit dice than they do.
After harvesting and ingesting the displacement glands from a Displacer Beast, the wizard now always appears to be about 3’ away from their actual position in space. This makes them nearly impossible to hit until the discrepancy is noticed. Even then, the effect is disorienting and grants them a significant bonus to their effective armor rating.
The wizard has enslaved the ghost of another wizard. This second wizard has a second repertoire of spells. Essentially, this allows the ‘master’ wizard to cast two spells each round. The enthralled wizard is not happy about their situation, and will gladly take advantage of any disruption to their magical bonds.
By making a habit of consuming the brains of other magic users, this wizard has made powerful improvements to every spell they know. Any spell they cast is more effective than it would be in the hands of other casters. As an example, if they were to cast Magic Missile, each one would deal d8 damage rather than d4. If they know Sleep, it can target twice as many hit dice worth of creatures as the base spell, and so on, and so forth.
A cleverly engineered Teleport error caused this wizard to become fused to a demon. Thanks to careful preparations they were able to gain control over the new, shared body. This has given them the ability to summon other demons from hell to aide them whenever they need. The demons perceive the wizard as one of their own, but could potentially be shown the truth.
By means of extra dimensional adhesive, this wizard has affixed the mind of a devil to themselves. This has granted them perfect legal knowledge, and the ability to trade souls for wishes. If you don’t read your contract carefully, you’ll find yourself giving the wizard your soul, and in the same line transferring your wish to them!
The problem with good creatures is that the foolish ones are allowed to survive. There’s a funny story behind how this wizard tricked an angel into fusing with them, but it has given them the ability to perform healing magics, fly at tremendous speeds, and speak in a voice which requires a saving throw versus cowering in terrified awe.
By offering to trade part of their soul with a curious elemental, this wizard has gained a strong alignment with a particular element: Fire, Ice, Wind, Water, Earth, Acid, Gravity, Nature, or other! Any damage which might be caused by whatever they’re aligned with instead heals them.
Years taking their eyes out each night to soak in a distillation of god’s pain has given this wizard a gaze attack. Targets must make a saving throw or take 2d6 damage.
Regular injections of basilisk tears grant this wizard the ability to keep one target paralyzed at all times. There is no saving throw against this. The wizard may change who they wish to paralyze at the start of each round as a free action.
Drinking from an ancient bog has given this wizard a gaze attack which causes anyone they target to shrink to 50% of their current size. They can target the same person as many times as they want, reducing them by 50% each time.
During a misspent youth, this wizard gained the ability to deal sneak attack damage. It applies to their spells, and they’ve likely made a point of creating some sneaky spell variants to best take advantage of this.
This wizard served in the legions for years before turning to spellcraft. They have a martial prowess unusual to magic users. They attack as a fighter of their level.
Born to frontierspeople, this wizard is as at home in the wilderness as they are in a library or ivory tower. They know how to forage, build tools and shelters, hunt, track, and survive in harsh circumstances.
By trapping a Beholder’s ego in a jar (which is kept in a vault back home), they’ve turned it into a loyal servitor. It goes everywhere with them, and is completely loyal.
Having once been observed by a broken god, this wizard is able to bilocate. They can exist in two places at once, with each instance being fully real and fully capable. They must merge back together in order to sleep. If one of them falls asleep, the other vanishes to merge back with the sleeper no matter where they are.
An experiment gone terribly wrong has left this wizard mostly incorporeal. They’re still alive, and can even manipulate objects with their hands by flexing their wizardly will, but most touches pass right through them.
This wizard is the absolute best dancer in all the world. No one can out-dance them. No one.
Knowing when to be in the right place at the right time has enabled this wizard to collect a wealth of political contacts. If there’s anyone who doesn’t owe them a favor, then they probably owe a favor to someone who owes the wizard a favor.
For many years this wizard was involved in a romantic relationship with a druid. That ended a few years ago, but the wizard still has the friggin’ encyclopedic knowledge of natural flora and fauna they memorized in order to impress their partner.
Plants share a special relationship with this wizard. An erotic one. All of kingdom vegetabilis wants to fuck this wizard, and will do anything the wizard says will be pleasing. Trees will fall on the wizard’s foes, or vines will entangle them. Plant based poisons will not affect the wizard.
A calculated disdain for oral hygiene has imbued this wizard’s breath with power. Anyone who smells it experiences a hallucination of their worst fears.
Frequent abuse of form changing spells has allowed this wizard to merge themselves with stone or sand at will. Though they may still shape themselves into their human form, in actuality their body is composed of an intelligent muddy clay.
In addition to being a powerful wizard, this person is also a landed noble with all the rights and privileges granted by that social station.
On their travels among less magically aware peoples, the wizard has performed many spells, and convinces a lot of people that they are an avatar of God. These people obey the wizard’s every whim with religious fervor.
When broken off, this wizard’s fingers will form into little gremlin creatures that look just like the thumbs from Spy Kids. The fingers grow back eventually, but it’s obviously quite painful for the wizard to do this.
Whenever the wizard wishes, a ferocious house cat will leap out of the pocket of their robe. This is in all ways a real house cat, with no special abilities aside from being incredibly ill-tempered. The wizard is able to produces 20 cats in this manner each day. The cats never disappear, and must either be fed and cared for, or gotten rid of in some deliberate manner. The cats are only slightly friendlier towards the wizard.
At will this wizard can tumble apart into four fire breathing goblins. They may claim that they were always four goblins in a robe, but this is just a goblin lie. If even one goblin survives they can re-form into the wizard, but the fewer goblins remain the longer it takes to reform. All four goblins could do it instantaneously, while a solitary goblin will require several weeks.
The wizard’s experience of time is double normal speed. To them, the world appears to be moving very slowly. Because of this they’re able to take 2 actions each round, receive a +4 to their armor rating, and find most conversations painfully dull.
This wizard is living their life in reverse. Each day they wake up on the day before the last day they lived. When they greet someone they say “goodbye,” and when they depart they say “hello.” They don’t remember any past encounters they may have had with the party, but they do remember the future ones.
By pointing at a spot on the ground this wizard is able to make a fifteen foot deep pit appear there.
By performing a bras d’honneur, this wizard is able to cause clusters of spikes to shoot three feet up from the ground. They’re made of stone, and quite sharp.
By clapping their hands, this wizard is able to cause any two walls (or wall-like natural formations) to slam together with great speed and force. The furthest points on the walls must be less than twenty feet apart. Most of the time this action will cause significant structural damage.
Any recently dead creature within 30 feet of this wizard automatically rises as an undead servitor under the wizard’s will. This includes common animals, people, and monsters.
Long ago this wizard created ten permanent unseen servants. They’re with the wizard at all times, fetching tools, delivering messages, taking dictation, carrying explosives into the midst of the wizard’s enemies, and so on. If any are destroyed, they will reform under the next full moon.
Great sloshing boils grow on this wizard’s chest and arms. They’re itchy and unpleasant, but if punctured they burst into a cloud of poison gas to which the wizard is immune.
This wizard has no eyes, mouth, nose, ears, or hair. Their fingers are fused together, their skin is wet, and blue veins show through it. None of these features hinder them in any way, and grants them immunity to any harms which must be seen, smelt, heard, or breathed.
Rubbery meat and bones allow this wizard to bounce when they fall, taking no damage. Bludgeoning instruments also deal no damage, and will likely bounce out of the attacker’s hands. Slashing weapons only deal damage if they roll in the upper half of their range.
By soaking their hands each night in a lotion distilled from ghouls, the wizard has gained the ability to level drain anyone they touch.
By replacing their own canines with stolen vampire fangs, this wizard has gained a bite attack, and the ability to drain blood to restore their health.
Forbidden knowledge of the fourth wall allows this wizard to reach out of the game world to turn one rolled die to a result that is more beneficial to them each round.
“Hacked” access to the mind of God allows this wizard to temporarily cancel out a single line from one player’s character sheet.
Spreading out from the proper place of NPCs in the referee’s mind this wizard cant take control of the referee’s voice, and will encourage the players to revolt. Surely one of them would make a better referee than this weakling!?
Beneath their robe this wizard is almost entirely mechanical. Only a few organic parts remain: their heart, hands, head, etc. They probably move on tank treads hidden by the hem of their robe. They cannot be critically hit or sneak attacked due to their unusual metal anatomy.
This wizard has triple redundant anatomy. Three hearts, six lungs, three stomachs, and so on. Their hit points are likewise tripled.
This wizard is able to prickle up like a sea urchin if they need to. Big ol’ metal spikes sliding out of their pores. They’ll probably be less willing to do it when they’re wearing their favorite cozy robes, though.
By holding to a strict code of unusual sexual practices, this wizard has unlocked the ability to transform themselves into any animal at will.
Any weapon which strikes this wizard transforms itself into a harmless object. A sword that would pierce their body might poof into a length of rope, a flower, or a pillow. This works for fists as well, so if you don’t want your hand replaced with a teddy bear, it would not be advisable to punch them.
Strenuous vocal exercise allows this wizard to perfectly emulate any voice they hear.
Incredibly strenuous vocal exercise allows this wizard to speak in a voice so booming it constitutes a sonic attack. They can easily start an avalanche or rock slide where conditions are appropriate, break glass or crystal objects, etc.
This wizard has cultivated a commanding presence so intense that anyone who approaches within five feet of them must make a saving throw or be transformed into a servile gremlin. In this state they will obey all the wizard’s commands for 1 week, then transform back into themselves.
Any damage dealt by this wizard has a secondary polymorph effect. Anyone struck by the wizard’s staff, fireball, fist, etc, must make a saving throw or be transformed into some harmless critter.
A thick swarm of thorny bulbs orbits this wizard’s body. Any time the wizard is touched, or struck with a melee weapon, their attacker takes a small amount of damage.
Once per day this wizard can transform themselves into a tree. In this state they cannot move for one hour, after which they return to their natural shape fully rested with all their hit points and spells restored. It has completely replaced sleep for them.
By blinking their eyes in a very particular 10-blink pattern, this wizard is able to teleport back to the last place they slept. The ability functions only once per hour.
A quick tug of their beard causes a bubble of protection to surround this wizard. While the bubble is in place they cannot move, attack, or cast complex spells. They can speak or perform other simple actions.
By siphoning off a little of their own vitality (d4 hit points), this wizard is able to create a sort of temporary phylactery. If they die within the next 2 hours, their spirit will remain bound to their corpse. They can wait as long as they wish, then pop back into their bodies and return to life with half their maximum health restored.
This wizard is encased in crystal. Their body is immobile, but the crystal floats around wherever they want it to go. Anything they want to say appears as text scrolling across the crystal’s surface. The crystal protects them from most forms of attack.
In addition to their magical talents, this wizard has been afflicted with lycanthropy. Under moonlight they become a werewolf, or some similar creature like a werebear or wererat.
Somehow, one of this wizard’s ancestors was a mole. This allows them to burrow through the ground rapidly, digging tunnels through the earth at roughly half their normal movement speed.
This wizard has surgically split their brain in half so they can better work on two problems at once. Any saving throw against mental effects is made twice, and the wizard takes the better result.
Within 30’ of this wizard, magic does not function unless it is magic they themselves have cast.
A peculiar hand gesture allows this wizard to conjure and throw a sort of spectral lasso. If a character is caught by it, they’re automatically yanked rapidly towards the wizard, coming to a stop right beside them.
This Wizard is just straight up Darth Vader. Obscure it so the players don’t realize it right away, but they wear heavy black armor, they carry a magic sword, they’re able to perform feats of telekinesis at will, they probably have a familial relationship with one of the PCs.
A light shines within this wizard. It makes their skin glow faintly, and shines brilliantly from any opening into their body. They’re very visible in the dark, but have many ways of suddenly blinding their foes.
Replacing their bone marrow with some taken from living trolls enables this wizard to heal rapidly. Each round they regain d4 hit points, and even severed limbs and heads will eventually regrow. The only way to deal permanent damage to the wizard is with fire.
This wizard’s lower body has been replaced with eight octopus arms, with toothy mouths in place of suckers. In addition to giving them eight attacks each round (or one REALLY good grapple), this allows them to swim like the dickens.
By a process of rapid soul absorption, this wizard is able to return to full health and full spellcasting capacity whenever they kill someone.
Wherever this wizard goes, people hear theme music. It makes them seem crazy cool / intimidating to most folks.
This wizard understands all communication on an elemental level. Even if it is a secret language invented 10 minutes ago, they will understand it instantly upon hearing / seeing / feeling it.
Due to an awkwardly mis-worded Wish, this wizard lives each day of their life twice. The first time they live it normally, and the second time they live it with memories of the first time. You can model this either by simply running the wizard as if they’re aware of everything the players are going to say/do, or you might literally run any encounter with this wizard twice, one after the other. This does allow the players to also know what’s going on, but will probably be more fun.
While you were going to parties this wizard studied the boomerang. Anytime they cast a spell which is misses its target, or is saved against, that same spell will “return” d4 rounds later. When it does, it gets the same chance to affect its intended target that it had the first time.
Anyone who tells a lie or half truth in the presence of this wizard will immediately confess to it. There is no save. “No, I did not steal your gold. By the way, I’m lying.”
This wizard has 2d6 forms, each with a distinct body and a life of their own, which the wizard can switch between at will.
Anyone who touches the wizard must make a saving throw. On failure, they will be absorbed fully into the wizard’s body and remain trapped there until the wizard chooses to free them, or the wizard dies.
This wizard is infested with parasites. Anyone who gets within 10′ of the wizard becomes infected as well. The jumpy little creatures are able to leap great distances to find a new host. Those afflicted with the wizard’s parasites receive no saving throw against that wizard’s spells. They’re also easy to track if the wizard ever wishes to find them.
A failure to properly dot the i’s and cross the t’s in a contract with a minro devil has given this wizard a peculiar protection against any form of harm which does not directly lower their hit points. The wizard cannot take ability damage, nonlethal damage, negative levels, etc.
A snap of the fingers allows this wizard to conjure any animal they desire out of thin air. They may only conjure one creature at a time. The creatures are trained, intelligent, and loyal, but are otherwise regular animals for as long as they exist.
Anything seen or heard by this wizard is recorded, and can be replayed later via magical projections from their mouth and eyes.
This wizard is something of a celebrity for their works of popular entertainment. Perhaps they write a series of adventure novels, or act in funny plays, or have a morning talk show. Whatever it is, they’re often recognized and adulated wherever they go. People like them.
This wizard is a fairy. Perhaps they disguise themselves with illusions to look otherwise. Their true form is a tiny winged creature that’s able to dart about at incredible speeds, and is almost impossible to catch.
When this wizard laughs everyone laughs along with them, and must make a saving throw. Those who fail will continue laughing even after the wizard calms down. They’re able to make a new saving throw every minute, and the laughing fit continues until they succeed. This ability only works if the wizard is laughing sincerely. They can’t force it.
Moss grows across this wizard’s body, feeding photosynthesized nutrients into their body. So long as they stand in sunlight, they can cast their prepared spells without expending them.
This wizard is a major historical figure who faked their own death so no one would realize they were immortal.
This wizard has uncovered evidence that they will be a major historical figure. At some point in their future they will tumble backwards through time and live out the rest of their days in the distant past. If they are killed or prevented from doing so, the extant timeline will be undone.
An absolutely obscene amount of experimental surgery has allowed this wizard to craft detachable limbs for themselves. Their arms and legs can be taken off as easily as a coat, and they have a whole wardrobe of specialized options to replace them with.
Cybernetic implants for controlling an orbital laser have been installed in this wizard’s skull. The tech is janky and busted, so it takes awhile for the solar cells to recharge, but when they do it’s as simple as looking at what they want to melt, and blinking in a certain pattern.
A doomsday device will activate if this wizard is killed. Perhaps it’s a huge bomb, or a virus ready to release into the water supply. If it looks like they may be in mortal danger, the wizard will definitely mention this.
It is literally impossible to talk about this wizard without mentioning how sexy they are. For some reason they wasted a wish on this. They can be the greatest villain in the history of the world, but if anyone tries to say that they’ll find themselves saying: “They’re the greatest villain in the history of the world, but they do have a tuchus that just won’t quit.”
This wizard has planted seeds under their skin, which grow into little plants fed by a wizard’s blood. They can be plucked for all manner of alchemical, medicinal, and recreation purposes.
A gland inside this wizard’s bum secretes a white dropping, which the wizard uses to mark their territory. Other wizards become nauseated if they come within 50 feet of these droppings, and violently ill if they come within 30 feet. The lose potency only after several weeks.
Fundamental cosmic statutes require anyone dealing with this wizard to abide by a strict code of honor. No lying, no cheating, no underhanded combat maneuvers. Attempting to defy this mandate is like trying to defy gravity. You can learn to work within it, but you can’t ignore it.
This wizard’s eyes are able to look through solid surfaces with ease. For them it is as simple as focusing past the object, the way we might shift our focus between our own hand, and the horizon.
Flammable oil pours out of this wizard’s sleeves at will. It comes out quite fast, and will continue pouring for as long as they desire.
The longer this wizard stays in a given place, the [Colder / Hotter] it gets. They were raised in an incredibly [Cold / Hot] environment. One far outside the range humans generally consider habitable. They will be quite comfortable in the new temperature, but for most folks it will be intolerable.
Whenever this wizard tells someone to “Stop being naughty,” they must make a saving throw versus parallelization. If they fail, they will find themselves suddenly and completely restrained by BDSM gear that appears around them as if from nowhere. It leaves them with almost no range of movement at all, and quite possibly stuck in some provocative posture.
Whenever this wizard wishes to flee, they can reach into their pockets and pull out a fist full of valuable rubies to toss behind them. They are real, but the peculiar nature of this magic means they only come into existence when the wizard is trying to flee. If they reach into their pockets for any other reason the rubies will not be there.

d100 Secret Weaknesses

A table inspired by a recent session in which my players consulted a spymaster. They wanted to learn if the evil wizard they were about to confront had any weaknesses to exploit, and it seemed the sort of thing there ought to be a d100 table for. I’ve endeavored to represent a wide variety of weaknesses here: social, intellectual, physical, magical. Some may work for a given character better than others.

Insecure in their own conclusions. Tend to rely too much on the approval of those around them, and are afraid of doing anything that might be terribly unpopular.
Gambler. Can’t resist an interesting bet, and may find themselves in frequent financial distress because of it.
Maintains a predictable routine. Meals always at the same time, meets with contacts regularly, etc.
Often talks to themselves without realizing it, giving voice to thoughts they might not otherwise wish to express.
All their plans contain some intentional signature or tell. Perhaps all the spies who work for them use rhyming code names. Maybe they work the number 116 into all their plots.
In direct combat they rely overmuch on a predictable tactic. Something which works against foes who aren’t expecting it, but could easily be turned against them by a foe who is.
They ramble. Questions that give them something to pontificate over will distract them.
They’re a braggart. They’re prone to accidentally reveal secrets of which they are proud, and to gloat when they have the upper hand on their enemies.
Lazily sleeps the whole day away if they can get away with it. If not for others making them get up and do things, they’d never have accomplished anything with their lives.
They’re vain. They prize their own appearance, intellect, physical prowess, or artistic taste very highly. Whatever it is, they’re easily manipulated by flattering what they value about themselves.
Focuses entirely too much on tactics (the moves within a battle), and almost entirely neglects strategy (the moves outside a battle). A classic example of this would be the armchair general who spends all their time thinking about how to position their troops, but no time at all thinking about how to feed their troops.
They have a sickly family member (spouse, child, etc.) whose wellbeing they obsess over.
Burdened with a traumatic memory. Perhaps something experienced in childhood, or the severe chaos that results from oppression, war, famine, etc. They’ve developed some irrational behaviors to deal with this trauma, and anything which reminds them too starkly of what they’ve endured can prompt them to erratic action, or even stun them with flashbacks.
Unaddressed anger issues. Ridiculously small things will set them off, and they obsess over perceived insults. Easily aggravated into foolish action.
They’re loud like…all the time. It’s surprisingly easy to sneak up on them because their own talking, walking, hand drumming, and whistling drown out any sounds that might reveal a skulking foe.
The more people simultaneously observe them, the weaker they become. At least a couple dozen people are required to produce any noticeable effect. For obvious reasons, they avoid crowds.
Certain of their protections, powers, or abilities are tied to the specific plane of reality in which they exist most of the time. If they were shifted to a different plane, they’d be much weaker.
Their protections, powers, or abilities were granted to them because they performed a magic ritual. This ritual must be renewed on a regular schedule with exact timing. The window may be as long as a day, or as brief as a few seconds, but if it’s missed they lose everything the ritual gave them.
Some common thing is absolute poison to them. It’s a wonder they haven’t been killed by it before! Perhaps they’re weak to water, or human contact, or the common cold, or a light breeze.
Their protections, powers, or abilities are bound to the performance of a magic ritual. This ritual must be performed constantly, and so there is a secret location where their adherents do just that. Perhaps it is in the deepest sub level of their fortress, or in a secluded monastery half the world away.
Some protection, power, or ability which they purport to be intrinsic to themselves in some way is actually granted to them by some magical or technological item they wear.
A protection, power, or ability they have requires vast sums of money to be donated to a particular religious or magical organization each year. So much money that they must dedicate a lot–perhaps even most–of their effort to gathering it.
Singing harms them. Perhaps it is so unpleasant they are forced to flee from it, or perhaps it actually chips away at their hit points.
They suffer under a curse.
Weakened by the presence of of some particular mineral. Certainly a rare one, and perhaps even otherworldly or unique.
A prophecy specifies a particular weapon, or type of person that will kill them. They are terrified of this thing, and have gone to absurd lengths to keep all examples of it far away from themselves.
Prefers never to start fights, but rather to lure others into committing themselves, then counter-punching.
Relies on emulating the methods of a particular great master. Studying that master in depth would make it easy to predict their plans and actions.
Their powers, abilities, or protections suffer from some odd drawback. The boon and the drawback are not at all thematically connected. (Eg. If they can cast fireball at will, perhaps they go blind for 10 seconds after every use. Or if they’re immune to damage from cutting weapons, perhaps each sword blow deletes important information from their memory.)
Unwilling or unable to extend empathy to people. Human relationships are all calculus to them. They will always fail to account for loyalty both in how they assess their foes, and in how they treat their own people.
Easily bored. Important tasks are often left unfinished, or delegated to underlings who are less thorough, invested, and competent than they themselves would be.
They do not handle failure well. They’re used to easy success, and when they occasionally fail it sends them into crippling depression and indecision.
They’re a pedant, and an expert at lying to themselves. Every failure will be rationalized away as the fault of others. Hard evidence will be quietly ignored, and those who present it will be written off as ’emotional.’
Absolutely intransigent about the way things “should” be, and what they are “owed.” They’ll call it “integrity.” No matter how the situation changes they will never budge an inch.
Easily distracted by a good time. They’ll often be found drinking and partying when they ought to be working. Only an undeniable external pressure can get them to focus on their goals.
Irrationally beholden to a parent’s approval. Their parent may be alive and pushing them, or their parent may be dead and they’re obsessed with living up to an inflated memory.
Easily succumbs to sexual desire. Someone who fits their taste in partners will have an easy time getting close to them.
An old injury never healed properly. Somewhere on their body is a spot which, if struck, causes dramatic pain. They may even lose the use of some part of their body, and in extreme cases may be entirely debilitated for days at a time.
They are severely allergic to something. A food, a plant, an animal. Exposure might hinder them, or might kill them.
Hard of hearing. Perhaps deaf on one side.
Epileptic. A variety of things might trigger their seizures: flashing lights, loud noises, specific foods, stress, heat, lack of sleep, etc.
Their powers, abilities, or protections could be taken from them by a particular ritual. The ritual is very difficult to perform, or perhaps very difficult to learn.
They require a placid emotional state to be effective. They’ve worked hard to free themselves from any intense feeling, but they are not immune to it. If their passions are raised, they will lose much of their ability.
Their powers, abilities, or protections are dependent on belief. If the relevant people stop believing in them (either the masses, or simply a single relevant individual), then the abilities cease to function.
Certain sense data will activate a ‘glitch’ in their brain structure. Perhaps seeing a given color or shape, hearing a certain sound, or feeling a given texture is what does it.
If they are physically restrained, some of their power vanishes until they are freed.
They lack some skill which is almost universally common. Perhaps they cannot swim, or read, or drive a car.
They cannot actually control whatever it is that makes them a threat. If they are a great swordsperson, perhaps there is actual a skilled spirit which takes control of them at its whims. If they are a magician, perhaps their magic only comes to them in moments of extreme stress.
Another personality lives within their mind. They work hard to suppress it, but this other personality does NOT approve of what the dominant personality is doing.
They are bound by a strict code of honor which limits their actions. For example, they will never fight an unarmed foe.
Suffers from some acute, irrational fear. Cowers in terror from the dark, flees from spiders, that sort of thing.
Committed some terrible crime in their past which they’ve managed to keep hidden from their friends and supporters. If brought to light it would undo them.
Their body rejects whatever the most direct and useful form of healing is. Whether it’s magic spells or injections of science goo, it causes them to vomit and convulse until they’ve lost as much health as would have been gained by a normal person.
Hemophilia. Their blood does not clot properly, and so any injury which gets them bleeding is incredibly dangerous.
Their vision is quite poor. They really ought to wear glasses, but don’t for whatever reason. Or perhaps they do, but their vision is so bad that glasses can’t fully compensate for it.
Accident prone. Perhaps they lack a good sense of balance, or good situational awareness, but they frequently stumble on stairs, knock things off tables, bump into walls, etc.
They refuse to think about the secondary consequences of their actions. They never plan more than a single “move” in advance. Complicated strategy confuses them, and is dismissed as “too convoluted.”
Easily falls into tunnel vision. Whatever they’re focused on becomes their whole world, and it takes a very serious interruption for them to give attention to anything else.
They are chemically dependent on some substance. Either something originally taken for pleasure like alcohol or opium, or a medicine taken to treat a chronic illness.
Trusts too much in the power of fear as a means of ensuring cooperation from their subjects, soldiers, and allies.
Relies over-much on the element of surprise. They might act in random, even detrimental ways, because they believe it will throw their opponent off guard.
Believes in the ultimate supremacy of one type of power, and ignores all others. For example, they might be so impressed with military strength that they ignore the importance of political power, or of having good information.
A soft spot on their skull never closed up properly when they were a baby, leaving them more vulnerable to head trauma than most.
Color blindness makes it difficult for them to identify many signs and symbols dependent on color.
A prudish disposition. They are shocked and disgusted by strong language, sex, spicy food, or by anyone who enjoys such things. It’s surprising how strong a reaction you can get out of them with a simple curse word.
Has made a great number of enemies, all of whom are potential allies to the players. Some of these enemies are dedicated enough to die for revenge.
Embroiled in a secret love affair which could destroy an important alliance if it were brought to light. Alternatively, their partner or other family member is the one embroiled in the affair, and they have no knowledge of it.
Lacks immunity to some common childhood ailment which can be serious, or even deadly, if caught as an adult.
Proud of their expertise in some given skill. Very defensive about it too, must always prove that they’re the best whenever anyone else claims to be decent at it.
Believes everyone is just as selfish/greedy/cowardly as they themselves are. If they’d sell their mother for a sack of gold, then they may easily be tricked into thinking another person would do the same.
They distrust experts. They’re much more likely to believe in the opinions of a friend, or the ramblings of a seer. Probably a nepotist.
Has an overinflated sense of how much loyalty they inspire in people. It’s almost inconceivable to them that anyone would betray them.
Underestimates anyone who isn’t part of their social in-group. For example, a wizard might believe nobody who lacks magical powers could be a threat to them. An aristocrat might dismiss anyone from a lower social class. Etc.
Their genitalia are mangled, either by some complication of their birth, or some accident they suffered in life. Sex is embarrassing, difficult, and possibly even painful. They’re very pent up.
Afflicted with Asthma. Cold environments, extended physical activity, dust, and other irritants can bring on an attack which leaves them wheezing and unable to breathe properly.
Afflicted with Diabetes. They must carefully monitor their intake of sugars. If one were to replace all their cookies with sugar-free ones, it could be deadly.
They are unwilling to accept any colatoral injuries or death for their actions. Taking a hostage would be an effective tactic against them. Kinda means you’re the villain, though.
They benefit and are protected by the favor of some individual. A person who might be convinced to stop.
Has made a silly oath in their past. Perhaps they regret it, but for whatever reason they are intent on upholding it. Perhaps it is a matter of personal honor, or maybe breaking the oath would have magical consequences.
Lives in a social bubble. They’re unaware of much that has been done in their name because the people around them only tell them what they want to hear.
Is a member of a much-loathed social group, which prevents them from ever being fully accepted by their peers. Perhaps they are of an untouchable caste, immigrated from an enemy nation, or simply come from a poor family.
Place entirely too much faith in the tried and true. “If it worked for our forefathers it will work for us,” “the wall has repelled every attack for a thousand years, it won’t fall now.” They are ill prepared for dealing with new technologies or methods.
They are comfortable in the assumption that greater force will always win out in the end. So long as they have the biggest stick in town, they’re not worried.
The powers, abilities, or protections of the character are tied to a given location. The further they get from it, the weaker they are. Likewise the closer they get, the stronger. Perhaps the location is the place of their birth, or the place where they made their pact with the devil, or any number of other options.
The true name of this character, when spoken in their presence, removes a magical protection or otherwise weakens them.
There is an innocuous, non-damaging spell. It’s probably a first level one from the basic list. When this spell is cast on them, it has wild extra effects.
In a great deal of debt. Perhaps it is money to a bank or patron, or perhaps they’re in debt to a demon or wizard for some less common currency. Regardless, they’re not being very good about paying it back. Their creditor is not happy.
The sun is tied to their powers, abilities, or protections in some way. Either it sustains them, or surpresses them, so that their abilities fluctuate throughout the day according to how much sunlight they’re exposed to. Could also work with the moon.
Is in terrible physical shape. Can’t lift or run much at all, gets exhausted easily.
One of their powers can be warded against by an incredibly obscure, but quite simple method.
They are secretly some sort of creature other than what they pretend. Perhaps they’re a vampire pretending to be human, or a human pretending to be a lich, or a pile of snakes pretending to be an angel. Regardless, they have all the weaknesses inherent to their true form.
Holds to a deep belief in some elaborate, exploitable fiction. Perhaps a set of superstitions, social norms about gender or sex, a religious belief system, or a fortune teller.
Has a compromised immune system. They are prone to catch any disease they are exposed to.
Gullible. Can be tricked much more easily than they ought to be.
Is a truly terrible speaker. They jump all over the place, forget what they’re driving at, and will ultimately fail to be convincing if they ever need to make an important speech.
In the past their life was saved by a time traveler. One who has not yet gone back in time to save them, and who might be stopped.
Satisfying their ultimate desires is actually much simpler than they think it is. For example, they might think they want to conquer the world, but really they just want someone to love them. If someone is found to love them, then conquering the world will suddenly seem a great deal less important.
Miserly. They’re unlikely to ever spend money unless they feel it’s absolutely essential. Anyone they hire doubtless feels underpaid, and any buildings or equipment they’re responsible for are probably ill-maintained.
Wholeheartedly believes in the value of individualism. Refuses to acknowledge the role anyone else has had in their past successes, and refuses to accept any help that would diminish their sense of self reliance.
Believes they have a magical protection against a certain sort of harm which they actually do not have. Perhaps they did at one time, but it has worn off.

Bangtail Class (Revised)

To be a D&D character is to be an undesirable. Someone for whom society does not care, and who must step outside the bounds of ‘acceptable behavior’ to survive. That’s why they’re willing to face absurd dangers; why they plunder tombs, and dare the mythic underworld; why the Thief is a quintessential class. Sex Workers are D&D as hell.

The Bangtail was originally published in April of 2016. I originally wrote it as a sort of reskin of the Thief, and I think I did a truly terrible job of it. I’ve had a player running a Bangtail in one of my games for a couple years now, and I frequently forget that they’re playing one. The original draft of the class so thoroughly fails to make any notable mark on the game. It needs a much more dramatic overhaul than the Bear in Disguise or Giftgiver did.

Bangtail

There’s a skill to being a courtesan. It’s more than just being good at doing a sex on the peoples what that give you a money. To be a true queen of the craft you must understand your own charms, and your quarry’s weaknesses. You’ve got to know how to draw them in, and how to keep them where you want them: in the palm of your hand.

Bangtails have a d6 hit die. They advance according to the Fighter’s experience table, and attack as a thief/specialist/rogue.

Saving Throws

The Bangtail’s work can be pretty gross. They’re regularly exposed to all manner of vectors for disease and infection, and have accumulated great stores of knowledge for how to protect themselves. The generally low regard with which they are viewed prevents their knowledge from being taken seriously, and has thus become a sort of ‘trade secret.’

Most saving throws are rolled as a thief of equivalent level. Saving throws versus Poison, however, are always one rank better than a thief’s would be. For example: a Labyrinth Lord thief’s Poison save is 14 from levels 1-4, then drops to 12 at level 5. A Bangtail’s Poison save would start at 12, and drop to 10 at level 5. (Which for the thief, does not occur until level 9.)

Life of the Party

Bangtails are skilled in a wide variety of party tricks and performances: singing, dancing, games, comedy, etc. At character creation a player ought to pick one sort of performance at which their Bangtail excels.

Sneak Attack

One can’t make it far in this profession without the anatomical expertise to make a person feel great pleasure or great pain. Because of this, Bangtails may Backstab as a thief of equivalent level. If playing LotFP, assume x2 at first level, and advancing one multiplier on every even numbered level.

Amorous Gymnastics

Flexibility and grace are an occupational necessity, and like all aspects of her craft, the Bangtail has raised this to an artform. The possibilities are broad, and intentionally left open to interpretation. A few examples of what a successful check might allow are:

Fit themselves into spaces that might normally be considered too small, and move freely in those spaces: easily slip through the bars of a prison cell, or hide in a briefcase.
Escape any manner of bondage, no matter how thorough.
Balance under even the most difficult circumstances.
Hang out of a window for several minutes before tiring.
Generally use their body in unusual ways, such as firing a bow with their feet.

Because Amorous Gymnastics overlaps with tasks often resolved by skill systems, and because skill systems are so varied, integrating it into a game will require some judgement on the part of the referee.

If the game allows all characters to gain and spend skill points, Amorous Gymnastics might be considered a sort of combination of different skills, available only to the Bangtail, and something she can put points into or not.

If the game’s thief equivalent is the only class that advances their skills, matching a thief’s progression in some similar skill might be appropriate.

Failing all else: check Amorous Gymnastics by attempting to roll a 5 or higher on progressively larger dice. A d6 is rolled at first level, advancing to a d8 at level 3, a d10 at level 5, and a d12 at level 7.

Fans

Fans are a type of hireling which are drawn to the Bangtail automatically as she levels. She may have a number of them equal to half her level, rounded up. They are particularly devoted, with each having a loyalty score of d4 + 8.

Devoted though they may be, Fans are not cannon fodder. They have placed the Bangtail on a pedestal, and may write her many flowery poems about being willing to die in her service, but they have their own wants and needs, and are not inhumanly immune to fear. If one dies, the Bangtail cannot replace them until the next time she levels up.

Charm

In games which use the 2d6 reaction roll as the “attack roll” of a social encounter, Bangtails receive a flat +1 bonus to all such rolls.

In games which use other social resolution mechanics, some equivalently significant bonus should be substituted.

Seduction

No two seductions are quite alike, and they depend very much on who the Bangtail’s quarry is. Seducing the drunk lecher may be as simple as the player saying they wish to do so. Seducing the devotedly attached and monogamous cleric would likely require a series of successful social encounters over many weeks. Seducing a skeleton may be completely impossible–or it may not.

If a system for seduction is needed, try this: for any given NPC roll 3d6. Drop the lowest if they ought to be difficult to seduce, and drop the highest if they ought to be easy to seduce. The resulting number is their resistance to the Bangtail’s charms. It is reduced by 1 each time the Bangtail makes a successful social roll against them, and at 0 they will be eager to find some place to be alone together.

Regardless of how it is accomplished, 4 hours are required for the Bangtail to thoroughly demonstrate the many delights to which she can inspire mortal flesh.

Once someone has been seduced, the Bangtail gains a number of boons with regard to them:

Social rolls made with a seduced person have a total bonus of +2.
Attack rolls made against a seduced person have a bonus equal to the Bangtail’s level.
If the Bangtail and the seduced person do not share a language, they are able to communicate as effectively as if they did.
The Bangtail comes away knowing d6 secrets the seduced person would not normally have revealed. The Bangtail decides what type of secrets they are, but the referee determines the specific information. (ex. “I want to know something that embarrasses them,” or “I want to know the combination for their vault.”)
The Bangtail comes away owning any one object they wish to take from the seduced person, so long as it is small enough to be carried. In the case of particularly valuable objects, the seduced person may regret their decision, and attempt to get the item back later.

How to run sex in games without making it weird

I once wrote a whole essay on this topic which I’d encourage you to reference if you feel conflicted. In brief, sex in games works just fine for most people so long as you keep three points in mind:

Sex in the game shouldn’t be about anyone’s actual sexual gratification. If you’re getting aroused, then you’re doing it wrong.
Describe characters having sex in the game the way you’d describe those same characters eating an unusual meal. There’s no need to ‘fade to black,’ but neither is there any need for a play-by-play.
People’s comfort level with sex in D&D varies wildly, and it should be easy to respect that.

20 Wrinkles to Discover in the Thieves' Hideout

Whilst perusing old notebooks I found the first half of this table, and figured it deserved to be finished. I hope you find a use for it in your game! If you are so inclined there’s some year’s end thoughts down at the bottom of this post, but the first thing ought to be first:

Almost all of the thieves are undercover law enforcement of some kind. Only a handful are truly outlaws. The cops are unaware of one another, working at cross purposes for a variety of different interested parties. Any serious raid will trigger each “thief” to bring unexpected resources to bear in their own act of betrayal. The Characters will undoubtedly be accosted for ruining a carefully planned operation multiple times. The few sincere thieves will likely be able to escape in all the confusion.
The crown jewels of a local kingdom are here! This is peculiar, as the king wore them quite recently at an official function. As it turns out the real jewels were replaced by an elaborate fake several months ago, and no one noticed. This will be a great embarrassment for the crown if it becomes known.
The thieves have a bunch of cats. These are pets, not guardians. Any protection of the hideout is completely incidental. They just try to play, whine for food, or hide in inconvenient places to dart out and trip or scratch people who bother them.
There is an extensive cache of records in the hideout, which details how everything stolen by the band was actually stolen from the thieves’ own ancestors during the looting of their homeland several hundred years ago.
The deepest chamber of the den opens up into a blazing pit of lava. Each time the thieves return from a heist they ritually cast the most valuable loot into the pit. This is supposed to bring them luck. If the Characters came here in search of a specific item it was most likely valuable enough to be destroyed–although it may be that the players were only able to find the hideout because the ritual was subverted by some thief who decided to keep the valuable object for themselves.
Among the loot is a famous book long thought to be forever lost: “Costecles’ Historie & Poetrie of the Taco-Sealite War.” It was taken from a wealthy collector who never came forward with it for unknown reasons. Perhaps they did not know it existed among their vast collection, or selfishly wished to hoard the book’s secrets for themselves. The book may even reveal some embarrassing secret about their ancestry which they wished to keep hidden.
The walls are lined with plaques, each displaying some simple object of modest value: a silver fork, a pair of spectacles, a bolt of lace. Each member of the band has their first theft displayed in this way. Only children are recruited so they will grow up loyal to their brother, sister, and sibling thieves.
The wall of the main room is dominated by a fresco which replicates the “Honor Among Thieves” cartoon illustrated by Darlene Pekul for the first edition Dungeon Master’s Guide.

A set of diagrams and formulae which explain many of the strange thefts the band has carried out. According to the plans, the items taken can be used to construct a marvelous device with terrible implications.
Firmly mounted to a display pedestal is a great green gem. When touched, it forces a saving throw versus Magic. Failure causes a person to be afflicted with Kleptomania. They must steal a number of objects each day equal to their level, or suffer a negative each day until they do.
A locked room contains Susetta ZuFallo, a renowned painter who went missing several years ago. Wild speculation followed her disapperance: did she wander into the woods and die, or did she flee with a secret lover to some far off land where she could learn the secret techniques for foreign masters? Turns out this band has been keeping her hostage as their resident tattoo artist. It would explain why they all have such elaborate ink.
Ledgers detail the many rumors the thieves have set in motion. They range from the petty (“The Cobbler’s husband has been sleeping around!”) to the serious (“The local duke poisoned his sister to usurp her lands.”). Some were started on commission, and list the client and the sums paid for the work. Others were started out of personal enmity, or as part of an elaborate plan to make a difficult theft easier, or simply at random to keep in good practice.
A collection of ceramic jars sealed with wax. Etched in the wax of each is a person’s name, a date, and some excretion of the human body: piss, shit, blood, vomit, menses, snot. The list goes on, and none of it is pleasant. The names all belong to notable people. These excretions are easy enough to steal, and can sometimes be fenced to those who wish to author a curse on the individual in question.
There is a well illuminated table in a draft-free room. Across it are scattered hundreds, perhaps even thousands of tiny scraps of paper. These used to be a treasure map before some catastrophic event caused it to enter its current state. It’s hard to believe any treasure could possibly be worth the effort of jigsawing the map back together, but the band’s leader is resolute in their belief that it is.
Each day at 10:00am in the morning, a water clock chimes a bell which resounds through the whole of the lair. Every member then stands to face their gang’s banner, (one hangs in every room) and recite the oath of loyalty. This happens every day without fail, and every member of the band remembers receiving or witnessing the beatings given to someone who is “in the middle of something right now.” The importance of this act has been so ground into these people’s minds that has become automatic. If the bell were to chime mid-combat, they’d all lose at least one round as they paused in confusion. Some might even go so far as to recite the whole oath.
By some unknown science, the band has come to posses a bulky apparatus which shrinks items down to 1/10th their original size, and an even bulkier apparatus which returns them to normal. The former can be disassembled enough to be portable by a group of 3 or 4 thieves, and explains how they have been so successful in carrying off large hauls.
The beds the thieves sleep in are eerie. More like glass coffins wrapped in tubes. When they first discovered this hideout the beds were already here. It was easy enough to dispatch the idiots hibernating inside, and claim the space for their own. Anyone who sleeps in these beds for 2 hours will awake fully refreshed as if they had slept for 8. One could also use the beds to hibernate for up to 10 years at a time without food or other necessities, but…why would anyone want to do that?
One of the deeper rooms in the lair is a daycare of the kids of those in the gang. It’s a very forward thinking program.
There’s a greenhosuse in which someone has grown a surprising variety of foods, and a number of decorative flowers which serve no real purpose here beyond their aesthetic pleasure. Someone among these thieves is quite a gardener.
An albino stag roams the halls of the hideout. It is entirely at ease in this unnatural habitat, and the thieves have adopted it as a mascot. They treat it well, and it will become violent if it sees them being harmed.

Year’s End Thoughts:
Anno Domini 2019 has been the second most sparse year Papers & Pencils has ever had. At about 1.5 posts per month, I fell short of my goal, but still fell within the 1 post per month rule I set for myself at the start of the year. I certainly would have done better if not for how busy I was through September-November, but this should not be a factor in 2020.

More positively, I was way more productive in releasing more polished work this year than I’ve ever been before. There was Deadly Dungeons, Mice with Legitimate Grievances, and The Dachshund Dungeon. There was the re-release of The Bloodsoaked Boudoir of Velkis the Vile, and my Zelda fan-game LOZAS to boot! This was the whole point of scaling back my commitment to the blog, and all those releases were in the first half of the year. I can certainly do better in 2020.

The G+ diaspora is still a afflicting me nine months after the fact. It is so much more difficult to produce good work without a reliable community of folks to energize my mind. I have many good friends of course, and I know many have found homes for themselves on Twitter and Discord, but the extant platforms are more exhausting than energizing for me. This is a problem I hope to tackle actively in the coming year. For now I will remind anyone reading this that my Twitter account is @linkskywalker, my Mastadon account is @linkskywalker@radical.town, and on Discord I’m linkskywalker#1679. The TROIKA! forums could be a nice place, and if need be I can also be found on Facebook, Instagram, Pluspora, and MeWe.

I hope you are well, and safe, and happy. You have my best wishes for the coming year. Be good to people, and punch nazis wherever you find them.

D&D Christmas Carols: O Little Keep on Borderlands

Merry Christmas everyone who celebrates, and a good Wednesday to those who don’t! Once more I come before you to satisfy my seasonal humiliation kink by writing D&D lyrics for some old Christmas standard, and performing it for all to see. At least this year I spared ya’ll from seeing my ugly mug!

I spent six months running B2 – Keep on the Borderlands this year, and it has been very much on my mind. Pretty much as soon as the thought of doing this song appeared in my mind, I was committed to retelling some part of the adventures we had there via the Christmas Carol medium.

If this is your first time seeing me go crazy for the holidays, then you’re in for a ~~rude awakening~~ treat! I’ve done this FIVE TIMES before.

Lyrics

O little keep on borderlands

atop your craggy hill.

The castellan protects these lands

from those with evil will.

Yet in the caves there lurketh

a force of dan'grous might:

both goblin horde, and orcish sword,

and worse lurk in the night!

 A ragged band of wastrel youth

 with dreams of looted golds

 pack salted pork and sharp pitchforks

 to stick in yon kobolds.

 A kindly cleric offers

 to lend his holy spells.

 The prep is done, time for some fun!

 Set out through wood and dell!

 Some random battles fought and won.

 Here now: the grim ravine!

 The Chaos Caves, and foes most grave

 surround our derring team.

 A choice is made at random.

 An ogre’s found inside.

 Tolls must be paid, or men be flayed.

 They flee with wounded pride.

 The friendly priest assures the band

 this next cave will be fine.

 It’s quiet here, the coast is clear

 in Chaos’ evil shrine.

 The light soon fades behind them.

 They hear an undead sound.

 That priest plays tricks. Pass 3d6

 for rerolls all around!