Sourdoughing: part 0 and 1, introduction and the jars

Introduction

Something stuck in me after reading Bryce's latest review, that doesn't have anything to do with the reviewed adventure. No it was more along the lines of: instead of providing a bunch of tables, why not use them to provide something concrete instead (I'm paraphrasing and misremembering and all that, you should just read the review).

So I started to think about all the generators and tables and stuff I've written over the years, both here and on the old blog, and wondered if I couldn't try and create something with them.

I'm thinking it's like sourdoughs; you could fill up the entire fridge with them, jar after jar, but if you never use bits of them to bake something, they just sit there, idle.

(There are probably millions of better analogies than this, but you get the picture, and I'm currently making a sourdough bread, so...)

The plan

1. Compile a list of generators/tables/etc that I've written that I may use (e.g. this post), from this blog and the old
   
2. Start small and create something using one of these generators (I have this one in mind)
3. Place whatever I create in step 2 "somewhere", and see what thematic things I got going from that, and find a generator/table for that for the surroundings
4. Like 3, but keep expanding outwards
5. Like 4 - no actually, exactly like 4

The goal

To have generated something "finished" entirely out of the generators/tables I've written previously. By finished I mean maybe an adventure, or a small hexmap, or a PDF/website, or I don't know - anything that doesn't contain "...and roll 1d4 for this".

 

The jars (resources)

So these are the resources I have at hand:

 

You know what, screw that. It's much easier to search for a table/generator when I need it, instead of catalogue it here beforehand.

Alright, I guess for next post I'll create a wizard's tower. Stay tuned.

Plot twist: worm is a Silent Image

 

Wizard

 

Face monster(s)

• Hunt in packs, but not necessarily 2 eyes + 1 mouth
• Can temporarily form a head to gain some thinking capabilities
• The result of embarressed giants, who have lost their face in battle

A very tall tower

 

(Maybe it was built with this?)

My daughter's dungeon

My six year old daughter drew this dungeon a week or so ago, after watching me doing something similar. I think it's a killer dungeon, and I think it shows that she's a great fan of monsters (e.g. she always runs the monsters when we play Castle Ravenloft, and had this to say when she saw an image of Jabba the Hutt: "He looks kind.") And she's apparently a big fan of - plumbing!

Annotated version below the map, with her own descriptions.

Sejten, a dungeon map, with some hooks

Have a vanilla dungeon map I did over the last two days, including the two smaller mountain range pictures showing the area around the lair/dungeon/slightly evil place.

(And my six year old daughter named it. No I don't think she knows who Satan is.)

Adventure hooks, or maybe rather just things I make up as I watch the image above that you may find useful to get your creativity going

1. The bear skin rugs becomes animated for 2d6 minutes whenever someone mentions anything related to either food or weapons
2. The rats are highly intelligent and will sell for huge amount of coins. They understand human speech but can only squeak
3. Each painting holds a piece of a larger map on the backside, marking the birthplace of whoever built this place
4. While sitting on any chair, time passes twice as fast
5. Each rug acts as a time portal if the right word is spoken while standing on it (each rug has it its own word); anyone standing on the rug will travel in time but not in space for 1d6 minutes, and then return to the present:
1. (the past) When the lair was being constructed
2. (the past) One minute ago
3. (the past) When the lair was controlled by a very jolly queen who loved all and everyone
4. (the past) When the lair was controlled by a very gloomy necromancer who hated everyone, but rats most of all
5. (the past) The very moment when the To-Be-High-Lord-Snake-King and its troops invaded the lair (then controlled by a never-to-be-seen-again tribe of very friendly, human-sized rats)
6. (the very far future) Faulty, malfunctioning robots patrolling the halls, trying to shoot laser beams at any intruder (but not succeeding because a future dungeon party nicked all guns just days prior to our time travellers, replacing the guns with regular LED pen lights)
6. The egg is not an egg