A prompt a day for 30 days? Let’s DO this!
And, yeah, we’re behind, or at least I am… but my first piece is done! On patrons…
Feel free to post links to your work in here if I can entice you to participate!
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New day, new work. 
You got it! No rest for the weary!
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Day 2, on prompts:
A quick set of prompts for your random encounters
When a wandering creature appears, it often doesn’t come with any sort of context. It falls to the Referee to decide what it’s doing and why. Here are a handful of tables to help flesh out ordinary encounters in which a creature appears and we want to know something about what they’re doing and why they’re doing it.
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Day 3, on taverns:
Alternatives to the tavern
The tavern is a ubiquitous site in fantasy tabletop roleplaying games. It is where adventurers eat, drink, sleep, seek out adventures, advertise services, and host meet & greets. For most campaigns, the tavern is a vital institution. In my setting, I’m getting rid of many of them. Let me explain why and present a couple of alternatives.
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Following along, should I post my entries here? Otherwise I can post a link at the end of the month.
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Post ‘em if you got ‘em!
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Will do, tomorrow when I’m caught up hopefully!
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Day 4, on messages:
Fantastic Medieval Mail Call
How are messages sent over distance in your game world? Game of Thrones popularized ravens. Pigeons were used from ancient times all the way through WWI. The image of the rider on a horse with a bag full of letters slung over their shoulder is a classic image of the Old West and beyond. Magic adds even more options into the mix through spells and artifacts.
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I’m creating a table each day, filling it with whatever I first come up with as a practice of creativity. So probably on the more flavourful side and not that useful. Sort of keeping it in tone with my vague setting in progress.
01.08.
Patron: People of influence who are doing things that the players can take part in.
| Roll | Result |
|---|---|
| 1 | A shady merchant organizing caravans to the northern wastes to unearth ancient ruins. Is actually a creature of chaos. |
| 2 | The new ruler of a bandit city, a powerful sorcerer. Pays anyone willing to put a final end to the previous ruler who fled into the city’s catacombs. |
| 3 | An imperial general holding the trade routes through the central desert. Has trouble with a dragon burning down parts of his army and is planning on doing something about it. |
| 4 | The cult of an emerging wannabe godling. Offers minor miracles for cheap, but their proselytisation efforts are unwelcome by the local rulers. |
| 5 | A lich who has gathered hundreds of legendary artifacts. Lends them to anyone who undertakes quests in return, mostly finding other, sought-after artifacts. |
| 6 | A demi god plucking people from the material plane to put into a newly created demi-plane serving as a capricious playground. Favours amusing people. |
02.08.
Prompt: Situations to describe to the players, followed by “What do you do?”
| Roll | Result |
|---|---|
| 1 | “A camel rushes out of a nearby dune, collapsing near you. Its body starts warping and contorting unnaturally.” |
| 2 | “A dust cloud appears on the horizon, spanning several miles in width. It rapidly gets closer.” |
| 3 | “A demonic creature steps out from under a small rock that could not possibly have concealed it. It starts walking toward you with a rank smile.” |
| 4 | “The ground is ripped open as several hundred decayed corpses dig themselves out in a moaning cacophony.” |
| 5 | “A man dressed like a local villager stands in the dark of the forest, barely visible. He waves at you to follow him.” |
| 6 | “A group of robed humans, all utterly beauteous, are dancing around a pyre and burning life animals. They ask you to join them.” |
| 7 | “A dog lazily skulks across the street of the village. There are no people around, though the doors of the houses hang open. Birds sing cheerfully and insects are chirping.” |
| 8 | “The day suddenly turns to night. A streak of fire across the sky is followed by an ear-piercing screech as something crashes into the field next to you.” |
03.08.
Tavern: Gathering places of common and uncommon people. Likely to be strange.
| Roll | Result |
|---|---|
| 1 | Hidden away and sparsely visited. Most commonly frequented by all manner of assassins, who know better than to antagonize the establishment’s owner. |
| 2 | A common tavern as can be found in any town. The tavern keep, staff and visitors are all the fearless, overconfident and irascible kind. 100% chance of tavern brawl. |
| 3 | Well-maintained roadside house in the wilderness. Run and staffed by one utterly unremarkable man. Anyone splitting from the group is in danger of getting murdered. |
| 4 | A rundown shack in the harbor district. Full of thieves and the thieves guild has a secret entrance to their lair in the cellar. |
| 5 | Looks like a grand temple and is truly enormous. All visitors are required to wear masks and are forbidden from telling their name or station. Chance to get lost if not keeping to the well-trodden rooms and hallways. |
| 6 | A lone door standing in the wilderness opens to a well-furnished tavern. Owned by a wizard of old and frequented by stranger people and creatures. High chance of death for the impolite. |
04.08.
Message: Found on signs, letters, carved on walls and so on. Can also be unintentional.
| Roll | Result |
|---|---|
| 1 | Written on a dirty paper nailed to a locked door in a dungeon: “There’s no gold here. Turn back.” |
| 2 | Written in dried blood on a tree, a pile of corpses before it: “Visitors not welcome” |
| 3 | On a scroll in a bottle: A map indicating a dead tree next to a curved mountain, separated a curving line from a city with a prominent tower. |
| 4 | Carved on a skull: “Light!” |
| 5 | De-leafed trees hold the corpses of large animals impaled on their branches. |
| 6 | A glowing message appearing on a wall near the party: “I’m here” |
05.08.
Ancient: Old things found in the world.
| Roll | Result |
|---|---|
| 1 | On an unknown continent, there are two ancient races at war. Each was created by a different godling respectively. |
| 2 | The last remnants of a now destroyed people, sealed in a terrible dungeon at the end of the world by a most powerful sorcerer. |
| 3 | The creatures of chaos wandering the material plane. They are spawn of the first being. |
| 4 | A grand tree. No one knows it is not a tree at all, least of all its worshippers. |
| 5 | An island of demons, never found in the same place. It appears and disappears in the fog. |
| 6 | A beautiful flower said to make whoever eats it immune to harm. The rumor was spread by a capricious god who created the flower to turn anyone eating it into a monstrosity. |
| 7 | A sword of legendary might. The sword is sentient, arrogant and hard to impress. |
| 8 | A hidden valley of prosperity. Anyone living there will never again know the drudgery of life. No one lives there for long. |
06.08.
Motive: What inspires people to do things. great and terrible.
| Roll | Result |
|---|---|
| 1 | Arrogance, pride or pettiness |
| 2 | Rage or wrath |
| 3 | Curiosity, obsession or madness |
| 4 | Ignorance, indifference or a devil-may-care attitude |
| 5 | A great longing or great passion |
| 6 | Sadism |
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Day 5, “ancient”:
Into the Depths of the Earth
If archaeology has taught us anything it’s that the deeper you go underground, the older the things you find are. If D&D has taught us anything, it’s that the deeper you go underground, the more dangerous but more rewarding (literally) it gets. Why not combine the two concepts?
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Interesting idea! It’s sort of a dichotomy of devolution (era) and evolution (PCs power).
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07.08.
Journey: What are possible destinations of epic journeys.
| Roll | Result |
|---|---|
| 1 | The monasteries on the high mountains along the north-western coast. |
| 2 | The chaos wastes to the north-east. Full of ancient ruins and dangerous creatures. |
| 3 | The eastern islands. The origin of humanity, according to rumors among sages. |
| 4 | The southern lands beyond the deserts of impossible heat, bizarre and wondrous. |
| 5 | The glaciers far up north. Secret pockets of life are whispered to exist there. |
| 6 | The grand caves beneath the land, said to lead to a civilization of long lost peoples. |
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Day 6, motives:
Motives for Mischief
A d66 table: roll 2d6, using the leftmost die as the tens digit and the right die as the ones digit, and consult the table…
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Day 7, journeys:
Where does this path lead?
A d66 table: roll 2d6, using the leftmost die as the tens digit and the right die as the ones digit, and consult the table.
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Exploring the landscape
Let’s look at exploration as a wilderness activity, apart from searching or traveling. When exploring a hex, there is no preset goal, as there is when searching . When the party elects to explore a hex, follow the procedure below to determine what they find…
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08.08.
Explore: Dangerous dungeons that can be delved.
| Roll | Result |
|---|---|
| 1 | The pillar that fell from the sky. As wide as a valley and higher than the mountains. |
| 2 | The underworld of the largest city on the continent. Nobody knows what waits in its true depths. |
| 3 | The illogical labyrinth located near some unimportant village. Nobody goes in, and those who do never return. |
| 4 | The abode of a master of sorcery. Full of planar shenanigans. |
| 5 | The ruins of a glorious city in the central desert. Fools beware, for ghouls thread there. |
| 6 | The dungeon that a king and his order of knights sought to conquer, but evidently failed. |
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Day 9, inspire:
The Breath of the Gods
The term, “inspire,” comes to English from Latin via French, meaning to fill or breath into. The original context was religion, inspiration being the influence of the divine. How do the divine powers inspire in your campaign world?
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09.08.
Inspire: Various things inspiring the inhuman to action.
| Roll | Result |
|---|---|
| 1 | Dragons: Freedom in isolation |
| 2 | Hordes: Higher glory |
| 3 | Undead: Abject horror of life |
| 4 | Demoniacs: Dreams and lofty goals |
| 5 | Beasts of Chaos: Retrieval of their destined magic |
| 6 | Sorcerers: Power over the self |
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10.08.
Origin: Places in the world a human PC can originate from.
| Roll | Result |
|---|---|
| 1 | The heartland, which includes the empire, two kingdoms, feudal lands and unaligned city states. Always in conflict. |
| 2 | The north-western mountain chain, consisting of mountain people, traders and a sacral kingdom. Rough climate and terrain makes for hardy folk. |
| 3 | The eastern isle, made up of small kingdoms and merchant states. Relatively peaceful. |
| 4 | The northern wastes, full of nomadic tribes. No long term power establishment is possible there due to monster influx from the north-eastern chaos wastes. |
| 5 | The far north. Icy cold, but dotted with lone cities of sophisticated clans. Few in number, but made up for in individual strength. |
| 6 | The southern desert. Survival is only possible due to the wondrous water of the oases found there, keeping its inhabitants safe from the heat, which in turn deters invaders. |
| 7 | The far south. Large city states nest here, relatively cut off from the rest of the world due to the desert above shielding it. A strange land. |
| 8 | From a different continent. No other landmasses are known to the general populace of the main continent. How’d they get there? |
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