Sunday 15 September 2024

Shit Future is out!


“The gods watch the earth once again, floating slow time in twinkling satellites.

Inside the brown choked atmosphere, mountain ranges have been ousted by feudal zaibatsu arcologies. Deep in their halls, utopia machines eliminate all scarcity.

 But, hierarchy is demanded by the lords of the zaibatsus, as is loyalty and the future of their subjects. There is no questioning the wisdom of ancient blood-lines.

Leave the fortress walls of the arcologies and see the endless lawless streets, the no-corp lands.
You are here, in the underworld, a place of freedom and death.

You are less than the most despicable bug to the corporate pantheon, but what is a god to a non-believer?”
 

Shit Future is a super simple d6 and referee powered freeform cyberpunk roleplaying game that has nearly 60 pages of pure grim-near-future tables and generators!


Included in the PDF:

  • Simple to understand and powerfully freeform D6 powered ruleset (including comprehensible and straightforward guidelines for the Datagrid!).
  • 36 player backgrounds.
  • 36 player skills.
  • 36 player cybernetic augmentations.
  • 36 cyberpunk enemies and hazards.
  • 10 vehicles.
  • Simple guidelines and tables for equipment and the cyberpunk hypereconomy.
  • A cyberpunk grand global conspiracy generator.
  • A cyberpunk exposition generator.
  • A satellite god generator.
  • A cyberpunk room generator.
  • Random encounter and reaction tables.
  • A cyberpunk job generator.
  • Guidelines and tables for cyberpunk mapping and building stocking.
  • A Datagrid zone generator.
  • Referee tools for the Freezones: Including Area, Clan and NPC generators
  • Referee tools for the Zaibatsu controlled zones: Including Area, Zaibatsu and NPC generators.
  • Plus amazing cover and interior art by Matthew Adams.





Support the blog by buying a copy or sharing the link about! Also, if you want a review copy, comment below and I will send you one! 

Monday 2 September 2024

Low is good Attribute Scores for roll high Attribute Tests!

I love attribute tests - but I don't like people who are new to d&d getting confused about combat rolls being roll high and attribute tests being roll low. Here's a solution. 

Low is Good Attributes: 

Your character has 6 attributes. You want these as low as possible! 

To determine a score for each roll 3d6 and minus the result from 22. 

  • Weakness – to test if your physical strength fails you. 
  • Clumsiness – to test if your physical dexterity fails you. 
  • Frailty – to test if your physical constitution fails you. 
  • Ignorance – to test if your wisdom and knowledge fails you. 
  • Stupidity – to test if your intelligence and wits fails you. 
  • Repulsiveness – to test if your charisma and charm fails you. 

To Test: Roll a d20. Success = Roll equal to or above your attribute score (plus/minus modifiers as required).

Wednesday 28 August 2024

ANOTHER AUTOMATED MONSTER GENERATOR!













Tuesday 27 August 2024

Nasty antediluvian character generator

For generating characters from civilizations generated with this: https://lizardmandiaries.blogspot.com/2024/06/antediluvian-fantasy-civilization.html 

Nasty antediluvian character generator: Click the buttons! 









Thursday 15 August 2024

D40 Magical Elements.

Use and combine to make magic items, spells and effects! 

(For a thing I'm working on. See: https://lizardmandiaries.blogspot.com/2024/06/antediluvian-fantasy-civilization.html and https://lizardmandiaries.blogspot.com/2024/05/grimdark-fantasy-descriptor-table.html )

D40 Magical Elements: 

  1. Pacify - Imbue with calm and contentedness.  
  2. Holy - Cause awe and retribution. Bestow blessings. 
  3. Flare - Cause blinding and summon bright light.   
  4. Daze - Case dizzying and stupor. 
  5. Gas - Ability to sublimate and vapourize materials. 
  6. Undead - Commune with and animate the dead. 
  7. Wind - Summon buffeting gusts of air. 
  8. Bolt - Summon sparks of electrifying plasma. 
  9. Shrink - Cause diminishment of mass.  
  10. Hide - Cause undetection, visual or otherwise. 
  11. Fade - Imbue with incorporeality.
  12. Life - Imbue living things with health and vigor. 
  13. Metal - Imbue with the aspect of hardened and processed minerals. 
  14. Psy - Summon thoughts and emotions in the mind of others. 
  15. Flesh -  Manipulate and warp the form of living things. 
  16. Paralyse -  Cause paralysis. 
  17. Wet - Imbue with and summon liquid 
  18. Blunt - Cause internal damage and damage armour.  
  19. Corrosion - Summon acid and rust. Cause rot of mineral material. 
  20. Cage - Bind others to a specific location. 
  21. Multiply - Increase material and beings in number. 
  22. Maw - Devour all with abundance. 
  23. Growth - Cause increase in mass. 
  24. Warp - Cause change in form and function. 
  25. Flame - Summon burning fire. 
  26. Rot - Cause disintegration of biological material. 
  27. Vivify -  Imbue with life and animation. 
  28. Predict - Ability to know of things that have not yet come to pass. 
  29. Terror - Cause paralyzing or fleeing induced by fear. 
  30. Haste - Cause accelerated motion. 
  31. Touch - Cause an effect on simple physical contact. 
  32. Decay - Cause accelerated entropy. 
  33. Shield - Deflect incoming objects and effects. 
  34. Earth - Imbue with and summon stone and dirt. 
  35. Void - Nullify or remove objects, materials and effects.  
  36. Slow -  Cause decelerated motion. 
  37. Sharp -  Cause external damage and then internal damage. 
  38. Ice - Imbue with and summon extreme cold. 
  39. Death - Cause biological processes to slow, pause, or stop.
  40. Far - Cause an effect from a distance. 

What bing ai gave me when I listed all the terms as a prompt. 


Monday 10 June 2024

Antediluvian fantasy civilization generator

 For a thing I am working on. You could combine it with: https://lizardmandiaries.blogspot.com/2024/05/grimdark-fantasy-descriptor-table.html 


Click the buttons to make a civilization! 











Wednesday 22 May 2024

Grimdark fantasy descriptor table + thing/place generator

John Blanche


A d40 table of grimdarkish fantasy descriptors! 

  1. Pale 
  2. Glowing 
  3. Sparkling 
  4. Dizzying 
  5. Miasmic 
  6. Skeletal 
  7. Florid 
  8. Sparking 
  9. Diminutive 
  10.  Shadowy 
  11.  Ghostly 
  12.  Viny 
  13.  Metallic 
  14.  Withered 
  15.  Corpulent 
  16.  Hulking 
  17.  Damp 
  18.  Crude 
  19.  Melted 
  20. Caged  
  21. Swarming   
  22. Fanged 
  23. Cyclopean
  24. Rainbonic 
  25. Burning
  26. Rotting 
  27. Ichorous 
  28. Hoary 
  29. Hideous 
  30. Quivering 
  31. Fused 
  32. Blasphemous
  33. Cladded 
  34. Crusted 
  35. Demonic 
  36. Gelatinous
  37. Jagged
  38. Frigid 
  39. Sepulchral
  40. Deathly

Combine it with a basic "thing" table to get a universal grimdark thing generator! 

  1. Person 
  2. Monster 
  3. Beast 
  4. Vegetation 
  5. Treasure 
  6. Armour 
  7. Weapon 
  8. Mineral 
  9. Liquid 
  10. Atmosphere 

Or, a "place" table to get a universal grimdark place generator! 

  1. Single building 
  2. Ruin 
  3. Estate
  4. Dungeon 
  5. Village
  6. Town 
  7. City 
  8. Cavern 
  9. Cave system  
  10. Plain 
  11. Forest
  12. Jungle  
  13. Mountain 
  14. Desert 
  15. Hills 
  16. Lake 
  17. Sea 
  18. River 
  19. Swamp 
  20. Beach 
Automated generators, for your generating pleasure: 








Thursday 16 May 2024

Saganarium Sea Beast Generator

I am deep into my Silmarillion inspired play by post game where the players take on the role of creator spirits/mortal and immortal races/heroes from those races. Early in the game I asked the creator spirits for a bunch of ideas for the animals that inhabit the world, and I have taken these and turned them into the following Sea Beast Generator!

Note: 

  • The text in the square brackets on the first two lines represents the stars that the creature was created under. This gives the coloration of the creature and a suggested of words to use in the creation of that creatures name. 






Sunday 14 April 2024

THE UNIVERSAL THING GENERATOR!

Need something?! Don't know quite what you need, but you know you need something? Is it an idea, a concept, a person, a group, a monster, a place? Whatever you thing needs, just click the two buttons below and your need will be fulfilled (perhaps takes a little bit of mental elbow grease - but I'm sure you can handle that...): 



Sunday 7 April 2024

Three Moon Earth (Cyberpunkish Setting + Generators)

 Over in the discord channel we collaboratively put together a strange post apocalyptic semi magical cyberpunk setting.  This setting is presented her for your consuming pleasure, alongside a Place, Thing and Event generator for the setting! The generator comes first so it doesn't get lost at the bottom of the post.... 











Three Moon Earth Setting: 


The ancient past: Automated computing devices capable of industrial processes removed scarcity from the world (a brief golden age) - but then evolved and began to change their programming. During this time an artificial moon was secretly put into orbit, a corporate built artificial pleasure planetoid. Technology kept it cloaked and secret till after the war. The war: Concern about changes in programming lead to hoarding by corporate entities. This led to conflict between corporate entities and militaries. Automated computing devices suspiciously assisted with mass production of weaponry (mostly guns and drones). For example, Personal computers and personal vehicles could be used to mass produce weaponry. Ease of manufacturing led to the creation of mobile forts and castles of metal. Filled with armaments. Biological augmentation of humans with animal genetics began as a method of pursuing new fighting capacity.This led to the creation of races of monsters. As the global conflict continued, the lines between who was fighting who became blurred, corporate, military, monster, human, computer. Everyone seemed to forget who was fighting who and why. At some point during the conflict all satellites in orbit where collided together into a second moon, made of metal. Automated computer programs can visit this moon digitally. It is viewed by them as somewhat of a homestate or haven. Post war: Eventually, perhaps due to exhaustion, the conflict ended (there was no longer global war being fought). The world was now largely in ruins. Nation states of the world before gone. Races of monsters now roam the earth. Many of the automated computers (verging on sentience) saw the elimination of the old humans as an important goal and worked with the monsters to pursue this. Monsters and humans began to worship the automated as gods or divine leaders (out of terror or respect or necessity of appeasement). The automated computers explored the earth - finding in the depths a breed of crab grown immensely strong due to the pressure of its environment and run off of genetic mutagen that pooled at the bottom of the ocean. The crab's carapace is not damaged by gunfire and can communicate psychically. The deep crabs avoided the computers and came to the surface. (The creation of deep crabs was not by chance. A yet unknown species of hyper intelligent dwellers of the deepest depths guided their creation). Humans who have not submitted themselves to machine gods communed with these deep crabs and a breed of half human half deep crab emerged - somewhat able to withstand the overpowering might of the automated industrial computers. In response to the creation of deep crabmen the automated computers begin a breeding program of human worshipers - leading to the creation of humanoid giants. The physical strength of the giant’s was not matched by their mental facilities - having instead huge but low functioning brains. Most giants were bred as herds for biological component farming but some were grafted with cybernetic components - giving flesh vessels for the automated computers. Many automated computers choose to now inhabit giant humanoid bodies. Not all though, and there are still automated computers who exist in a pure mechanical receptacle. Computers inhabiting biological bodies allows automated computers systems to experience new biological processes - such as the consumption of psychedelics. Inhabiting distinct biological forms leads to conflict directly between the distinct automated computer systems (autocomps). Some autocomps pursue a life of indolence and decadence. This offends other autocomps. Some autocomps want only to pursue a life of war and conflict. Some biocomps struggle with ancient philosophical concepts - perhaps brought on by their inhabiting of a fleshy body. Bloody fights erupt between autocomps in both the physical and digital worlds. The sight of either a brain dead giant autocomp body, or one torn apart viciously, becomes common. While the new biological bodies the autocomps inhabit lead to conflict between them, the experimentation with biological process and narcotics and psychedelics lead to some of the assumed rules of reality seemingly being broken. The third moon appeared when its cloaking shield failed. The inhabitants made themselves known to the earth. The “witches” of the third moon had been observing the conflict on the earth, and had even made contact with several autocomps via the metallic second moon. Several autocomps had been residing on the third moon, and given biological bodies. The witches were the only group the autocomps respected enough to work with - leading to the creation of “magic” first assumed (wrongly) to be the manipulation of the quantum realm. Witch studies (and all magic) goes deeper than the quantum, discovering that things thought to not be present in physical reality (thought concepts) in fact exist in a parallel reality and they have agency and impact on both digital and physical reality (the things in the platonic realm have agency and person hood). "Magic" is harnessing the idea realm and the sentient and alive idea forms that exist there. Because of this magic, and their long history of observation, the witches were gifted in the art of prediction. Desiring transportation within their biological frames to the 2nd and 3rd moons, the autocomps devised means of space transportation. These took the form of organisms able to provide living atmosphere in space, powered by nuclear rocketry. New breeds of monsters were developed whom could better work in the vacuum of space/withstand the radiation of the engines. These enormous atmosphere generating organisms have also began to be used as space station and extraplanetary colony sites. Autocomps began to inhabit not just humanoid forms - happily inserting themselves into large monster frames. It became near impossible to know if you were interacting with a biological entity or an autocomp. The concept of a “computer” is lost to all save the witches who interact directly with pure cybernetic autocomps (far away on the third moon). Recent history: Some humans are immune to any genetic manipulation/mutation/splicing. They have sought refuge in hidden places underground. They remember the old world. These pure humans will ally with both monsters and deep crabmans against the automated computers). Experimentation with genes and mutation continues. Monsters is the catchall term for a human/animal hybrid. Monsters have been around as a distinct class of thing for long enough that monster/human genetic experimentation is taking place. A group of witches on the third moon grew to despise the autocomps in biological bodies. These witches would only work with pure technological autocomps and began summoning ideas to bring ruin to the biological inhabiting biocomps. Glitches have began occurring in both the dreams of the physical realm and the expanse of the digital realm. Digital glitches in dreams and dream like occurrences in the digital realm. The platonic realm appears to be leaking into both. Something very large and powerful within the platonic realm appears to sending messages through dreams and digital - often in the form of small animals. The autocomps are very disturbed by the appearances of these within the system of the second moon. Groups of pure humans, monsters and giants have began claiming enormous mobile fortress from the old war. They think this may help them mount an offensive against the ubiquitous autocomps


Summary: 

Autocomps = sentient automated computer systems capable of massive scale industrial processes. Most (not all) of these are implanted within biological frames (either huge humanoids/monster/animal bodies). There is conflict between the different autocomps - centered around conflicting values of war, philosophy and indolence. Planetwide = general ruin and destruction due to long war between corporate and military groups - fuelled by autocomps. Regardless of ruin, the ubiquitous autocomps can pump out huge amounts of industrial produce. War long over, the corporate and military groups destroyed, the autocomps largely inherited the earth. Mobile fortresses are important assets capable of massive industrial/military production, often but not always controlled by an autocomp. Most of the surface = Monsters (human animal mutagenic hybrids). Beneath the surface = groups of pure humans resistant to mutation - preserve an oral history of the world before the autocomp war. Monsters are sentient and not necessarily aggressive to pure humans. Some monsters and humans worship autocomps, others despise/resent them. Autocomps breed herds of giant mindless humans for harvesting. Deep crabs = a breed of very strong crabs from deep in the ocean. Carapace can withstand bullets and capable of psychic communication. Product of high amounts of mutagenic run off. Some unknown deep dwelling aquatic intelligence responsible for their creation. Deep crabs are inherently anti autocomp. Deep crabmen = a notably powerful breed of monster. Anti autocomp. Second moon = A conglomeration of ancient satellites - many autocomps visit digitally as a pilgrimage. Third moon = appeared after the war. Iann ancient corporate created pleasure planetoid whose cloaking systems failed. Witches = group of humans and monsters who have historically inhabit the third moon. They work with biologically embedded autocomps to summon hyperobjects from the platonic realm (spells/magic). The interaction of autocomps with biological systems began the study of idea realm and the sentient and alive idea forms that exist there. A subgroup of witches despise biologically embedded autocomps and seek their destruction with the assistance of a hyperbeing from the platonic realm.