Friday 30 July 2021

The Automated Past and Present - Atomic Cosmology for Game World Creation

Many years ago I constructed a d40 table of "Aspects", these being what I thought was the basic thematic building blocks of a game world. Here it is: 

  1. Good, peaceful, kind
  2. Holy, ordered, right
  3. Light, illumination, enlightenment
  4. Floating, peace, meditation
  5. Air, empty, vacuum
  6. Ethereal, wispy, ghostly
  7. Wind, blowing, unseen mover
  8. Storm,  rapid movement, speed
  9. Tiny, shrinking, wasting away
  10. Invisible, translucent, clear
  11. Intangible, non corporeal, fading 
  12. Life, regrowth, rejuvenation
  13. Value, gems, gold
  14. Thought, philosophy, intellect
  15. Internal organs, viscera, blood 
  16. Reflection, mirror, stillness
  17. Water, cycles, karma
  18. Equalization, law, justice
  19. Cleansing, alkalizing, evaporation
  20. Procrustean, rigidity, incarceration 
  21. Wildness, out of place, overgrown
  22. Bestial, savageness, feeding
  23. Nature, grove, peace
  24. Chaos, disorder, mutation
  25. Fire, explosions, heat
  26. Destruction, rubble, ruin
  27. Limbs, appendages, grasping locomotion
  28. External action, destiny, prophecy
  29. Monstrous, terrifying, abomination
  30. Gargantuan, giant, enormous 
  31. Enveloping, enclosed, soft embrace
  32. Straining, breaking, cracks
  33. Deep, below, underground
  34. Earth, soil, stone
  35. Solid, mass, black holes
  36. Time, dust, history
  37. Evil, hate, pain
  38. Profane, cruelty, desecration 
  39. Darkness, shadows, loss
  40. Death, rot, decay
I've used that list as a seed for many tables. Applying those terms to categories of things to get a wide range of potential results. 

Today I decided to use this combine that process with some recent experimentation with automated generators to get a set of generators that could tell you what had happened in the past of a game world, and also in the present of that game world (on reflection you could use it to generate what happens in the future too but I personally think that is the purview of the players). 

What do I mean by "Atomic Cosmology"? 

I used a very specific set of terms to write out each of the d40 tables contained within each of the following automated generators. These were the terms in the original "Aspects" table. As such I see this as a kind periodic table of the game world that follows. The essential building blocks of any game world the generators here create. What I find interesting is that you can keep the framing the same (the generator buttons) and use different baseline "Aspects" to create a whole different set of game worlds.  Game worlds with their own, different, atomic cosmology (http://meanderingbanter.blogspot.com/2018/09/automatic-list-to-html-translator.html). 

But enough pontificating, here are the generators! 

Decide if you want to know about the past or present of the game world, then generate it! 

The specific details for People, Monsters, Beasts, Events, Places, Items, etc, are below the original generators. The generators are oracles of sorts - you will have to fill in some of the details yourself (there is an example at the bottom of the post).

The Past: 









The Present: 










Details: 

People: 







Beasts







Monsters







Events







Man Made Objects





Natural Objects





Man Made Places









Natural Places









Wednesday 28 July 2021

Infinigrad: The Weird City Toolkit

Here's a new release on DriveThru RPG from me, its mostly stuff that's been seen on this blog at one point or another - so if you've enjoyed that consider picking up a copy! 

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/365147/Infinigrad-The-Weird-City-Toolkit

Infinigrad roils over a corrupted and mutated plane of intersecting multiverses, a situation brought on by wanton abuse of magically weaponry during the Alleyway Conflagration.

After long eons of fighting, The Law was introduced. The Law is a curse that prevents any of The Guilds directly raising arms against one another.

Only The Adventurers, those vagabonds who exist outside the normal strata of The City's social spheres, and its infinite network of shady alliances, can truly claim non-affiliation with any of The Guilds. Only they can keep the century long conflict going.


Infinigrad: The Weird City Toolkit is a bundle of automated tools for quickly generating endless details for fantasy urban environments. From generating unique suburb descriptions to the professions and inner desires of NPCs on the street, the largest to the smallest details are only a click away! Designed to be used at the table, Infinigrad: The Weird City Toolkit will ensure you always have the answer when your players ask, “What’s in that building?”, “What’s down that alleyway?” or, “What’s on the other side of the canal?”.

Includes fully automated HTML generators for:

  • Suburb overviews, including appearance, purpose, dangers and weirdness.
  • Building stocking.
  • Building appearance.
  • NPC professions, desires, and weaponry.
  • Merchants.
  • Items small and large for stores and workshops.
  • Magical items.
  • Ornamentation.
  • Mental pursuits.
  • Entertainment venues.
  • Gangs, including leaders, appearances, cultures, and desires.
  • Order Keepers, including leaders, appearances, cultures, and desires.
  • Temples and Gods.
  • Monsters.
  • Dungeons.
  • Guilds, including areas of expertise, operating procedure, and appearance.
  • Augmentations.  
  • Jobs and missions.
  • Room stocking, atmosphere and ornamentation.
  • Inhabitant reaction.
  • Devices.
  • Traps.

Infinigrad: The Weird City Toolkit also includes a fully automated HTML generator for creating unique Guild Dogs for players to pick up and play in seconds (or to use as dangerous and interesting NPCs).

A PDF with visual tables for generating Suburb and Building Maps is also included.

Infinigrad: The Weird City Toolkit is completely system neutral.

Visit Infinigrad today! 

Monday 26 July 2021

Plow the Cunning (Solo adventure in The Frozen Meatmarket)

Wanting to explore Infinigrad using automated generators I tried out using my protocols for solo gaming and freeform FKR rules. I've always been a little unsure how to keep a record of solo play so here I tried writing the events down as they happen as if I was writing a story (which I guess I was). Having an ongoing narrative seems to be more satisfying to me than constantly jotting notes down (which has been my approach in the past and I've found it a little frustrating). I'm a very sloppy writer, sorry about that if you end up reading the game log. A few times I had to put generated random results in to the text (The Smoke Blades Gang for example) as a record, even if it maybe reads a bit clunky. Regardless it was a fun experiment. 

The first few paragraphs are all exposition from the results of random automated tables from the Infingrad toolkit. Once Plow approaches the door and finds out it is locked I was "playing" rolling for success or failure or checking in with the d6 demiurge oracle for answers to details.  Anything that changed in the game world (crowds thinning, ghouls appearing) was derived from the d6 demiurge. The freeform rules seemed to make much more sense to me for solo play - allowing interpretation heavy context reliant gameplay and meaning making. 

I stopped writing when Plow unlocks the door to the armour store as any longer seems to excessive for a blog post. I shall continue Plow's adventure at my leisure though! 

I used the following to play: 

Suburb Generated: 

Map



3: Replic The Fence’s Armour Store: The main purpose of the building is an armour store. The building Has Large amounts of stolen goods, treasure or contraband hidden away And Residents who are incredibly and bluntly honest. The prominent ornamentations here are flasks that are leaking gas in pairings of twins.

4a: Alleyway. Frozen puddles of ancient murky water. Several unfortunate beasts and men frozen in craggy iceblocks against the backside of buildings. Icicles dripping from buildings. 

Guild Dog: 

Desire (generated from NPC desire in Infinigrad Automated Suburb Generator): Pay back a debt owed to someone dangerous

Plow the Cunning stands in the freezing alley behind “Replic’s Arms” (Replic was a fence who cheerfully and open bought and sold stolen armour and weaponry). He pulls his massive, somewhat stained, white cloak tight around him. The gilded trim was cracked and fraying. Beneath the cloak Rhino clung tight to his torso, his tiny feet tucked into Plow’s belt. Rhino was a baby sized flesh golem with skin studded with stones. A rubble homunculus. Plow had saved Rhino from the disintegration vat of a golemsmith. Plow was not sure why he had risked the golemsmiths ire for this act, as Rhino was essentially useless (other than being somewhat cute in a rotted, disgusting, warped kind of way). 

Plow looks at the frozen chunks of men, beasts and monsters locked away in the ice mounds in the alleyway. Unsold organs from the nearby meat market. That could be him in a night or two if he didn’t pay back The Smoke Blades the nails he owed them. The Smoke Blades were a gathering of dust addicts that operated supplying dust in the frozen suburb. The lostlings in the gang celebrated their addiction, encouraged and supported by the shadowy chemist who led them. This wild abandon led to them being rather gruesomely heavy handed with their customers who didn’t pay back their debts. 

Plow had been supplied a parcel of their dust on the understanding he would pay for it within the next few days. The ensuing dust fuelled days of pleasure had led to Plow forgetting that fact. Now he was sober it was time to gather the nails together to pay back the blades before they chopped him up for organ meat. This brought him to the back of “Replic’s Arms”. He would break in, steal some of the ill begotten nails within and pay back The Smoke Blades before the evening was up. 

The back door was locked. Around it glass vials bolted to the ice-covered stone wall burned with green flames. An alchemical liquid bubbled away in the vials, both lighting and heating the door – keeping it from becoming covered in ice and trapping those within. Plow notices that the fur wearing crowds of the meat market had thinned, the streets empty beyond each entryway into the T junction alley. Plow knew how to pick a lock – he was quite good at it. Unfortunately, he had no lock picks in his possession. An oversight perhaps derived from still fading dust fugue.  He did have his club though – if the door was padlocked Plow might be able to smash it open – using his knowledge of lock mechanics to land a more precise blow. 

When he approaches it, Plow sees that the green lit doors had no pad lock. Just a brass keylock inset in the wooden door. Plow doubted he had the strength to bash the door open. He would have to find some tool to pick the lock with. He peers around the dark frozen alleyway...and doesn’t see anything that could help him open the door. He does see the spindly figure of an embric ghoul stalk into the darkness of the alleyway from the northern entry though.  Plow sinks low to the ground and moves out of the green light of the chemical flames. The colour of his cloak darkens – sensing its wearer’s need for camouflage. 

The embric ghoul is the height of a man, but much thinner. Shards of razor-sharp ice calcified over tubing of amalgamated offcut organs. Plow assumes it must have climbed out of one of the central cooling vents of the suburb, maws of ice that blasted out frigid air from some long lost sorceric factory beneath the earth. It picks its way, shuddering, along the side of the alley, poking with its ice needle arms at the mounds of ice. Plow watches the creature pierce thick ice and shudder as it sups the blood and flesh beneath. It occurs to him that one of those deadly, rock hard ice needles might make an excellent lock pick. 

The embric ghoul pulls its thin arm free of ice, and clatters towards Plow. Beneath the layers of animated ice the ghoul was just old, dead re-animated organs. Embric ghouls crawled out from beneath the suburb to fuel themselves with the blood that was always splashed across the icy streets of the meat market – and grow themselves with any unsold organs they could scavenge.  There were rumours of enormous spider like embric ghouls – so huge they were too large to climb back out of the vents. The ghouls were a pest and dealt with easy enough by melting their ice armour – at which point they generally sloped onto the ground like a thrown bucket of offal. The sight of the undead organs wriggling to escape the ongoing flames and boots of the pest removers was always disturbing. Plow couldn’t completely melt this ghoul though – he needed its arm intact. 

Plow’s cloak shimmers a shade of green as he edges back towards the chemical canisters lighting the rear entrance to Replic’s Arms. The ghoul had found a fresh batch of organs in the ice at the other end of the alleyway and was focusing on sucking up the red goo with its needle straw. Plow plucks free the lowest chemical canister – it immediately warms his thick gloved hands. He would not be able to hold the green canister long without burning himself. With his other hand he pulls Rhino, the rubble homunculus, out from his cloak and places him on the icy ground. The pink, stone studded, creature stares up at him blankly – seemingly unperturbed by the cold. 

Plow slowly, quietly, and carefully, explains to Rhino that he needs him to catch the attention of the ghoul, then run off down the eastern alley way and hide as fast as possible. Plow hopes Rhino’s little legs will be fast enough to keep distance between the embric ghoul. The cost of repairs to the little homunculus would be rather exorbitant if the ghoul was to catch up to him. 

Rhino looks up at Plow, with his bubbly, wonky, black eyes. The folds of his face do not move, there is no change in his expression. But he turns,  and totters off towards the feeding ghoul. When he gets to the T junction, Rhino lets out a garbled, wet scream. The ghoul stops its feeding, extracting its needle from the ice. The homunculus stumble sprints as fast as its little, pink, stone embedded leg will carry it down the east alleyway. The ghoul, red drool leaking from its needle claws, lopes after Rhino – its unsymmetrical legs spindling forward with an uneven gait. Plow waits for the flesh sucking creature to move past him – then creeps out behind it. 

His thick leather slippers, and darkening cloak ensue the distracted ghoul doesn’t notice Plow sneaking up behind it. It is increasing its speed, spider like uneven step galloping forward towards Rhino. The homunculus has decided to hide on top of a particularly well lit mound of ice. He is curled into a warped pink and stone ball, quite obvious to see. 

Plow hustles forward and deftly splashes the burning hot green liquid on to the ghouls uneven, ice covered legs. A sizzling puff of green steam wafts into the air. The ghoul’s legs quickly melt – its movements suddenly pained and erratic as its bottom half is reduced to water and foul red mush. 

The half melted embric ghoul clatters to the ground, its spine head and needle arms spinning to face Plow. He deftly steps back from the, piercing needles as it clambers towards him – watching in disgust as the ancient organs of its bottom half melt in a green puddle of boiling green goo. The ghoul is undeterred in missing half its body. It scratch pulls towards Plow.  In response he tries to crack the thin icy body in half, but the creature is too swift and scrabbling to get a blow in. The ghoul rears its two needle arms up to pierce Plow, launches, and misses. It digs an ice needle into a lumpy pile of ice behind Plow. Plow quickly kicks down on the thin shoulder of the ice lodged ghoul. There is a crack and the needle arm is removed from the body. With its free arm the embric ghoul spins and sinks its still attached arm deep into Plow’s side. Plow feels blood being pulled out of him through the needle. He kicks again, the half-destroyed ghoul falling away from him – taking the blood sucking needle with it. Plow rushes over to the ice mound where Rhino continues to do his best at hiding. Plow scoops the homunculus up and it grips on to his side beneath his cloak – feet tucked into his belt again. 

Giving the scrabbling, dying, insect like ghoul of ice a wide berth, Plow quietly jogs back to rear entrance of Replic’s Arms, hoping Rhinos bizarre scream hadn’t alarmed any one inside. Detached from its host, the needle shard of ice will begin to melt – so he had to be quick using it as a lock pick. He crouches down next to the lock, slides in the needle and is relived to feel that it’s a relatively simple lock. A few moments later there was a “click” and the door was open.


Thursday 22 July 2021

The Crab Temple

I used the Generic Room Stocker (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/362688/Generic-Room-Stocker) to quickly sketch out a dungeon. The Generic Room Stocker now includes a HTML file that made the job incredibly quick. I got lucky and a nautical theme emerged - making this location perfect to place on the shores of The White Sea. The dungeon is presented in a very barebones, impressionistic manner that will hopefully be fun to run as more details reveal themselves through play! (Perhaps using a FKR ruleset such as Kontext Spiel d6: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/363342/Kontext-Spiel-d6

I used Donjon for a randomly generated map (https://donjon.bin.sh/fantasy/dungeon/



The Crab Temple. 

  • Assume a thick layer of sand – sometimes piling up into dunes, chunks of limestone and mounds of seaweed over walls, floors and ceilings of shimmering obsidian. 
  • Assume all doors are a seaweed curtain. 

1. Coral thrones that are bladed and poisoned. A Sacred Lizard Dragoon is friendly and gregariously eager to assist and is searching for known of treasure.

2. Driftwood arches crackling with fey energy. Barnacles. An Overgrown Watching Puss Octopus is conducting ritual worship of the arches and is friendly and gregariously wanting to attack. 

3. Precious coral, incredibly old and in the shape of cephalopods. They hide a deadly trap of shimmering fog that target the mind with massive gusts of wind.

4. Sacred huge, rusted hooks hang from the ceiling on chains, they are infused with eyes and covered in tiny white crabs. 

5. Hundreds of burnt treasure chests, decorated with suns and moons. Some are covered in stinking gas leaking barnacles. 

6. Walls covered in tiny, bladed crabs, fish and octopi made of scavenged metal and driftwood. These are locked in place. 

7. Minuscule Corrupting Sludge Octopi are transporting huge salt crystals that are seeping shadows. The crystals cause pustules to erupt on the skin of those that touch them. The octopi are violently and furiously preparing to attack. The Salt crystals are dredged from a salty pool in the room. 

8. A Wily Corrupting Beast Crab is cooly and aloofly pickling and preserving jumble of people parts and pieces in salt crystals. Pile of people parts and another salty pool are in the room. The crab will attack if disturbed. 

9. Swirling vines of seaweed on walls. Crawling with crabs sizzling with acid. Traps are hidden in areas that are conspicuously clean and tidy. The traps target the victim’s Head with Chemicals of blinding and stunning.

10. Necklaces hang on the wall they are made of preserved organs and are covered in bugs. The necklaces emanate calming energy. Wearing them transforms the wearer into crab person and slowly consumes them. 

11. Shelves of bulbous glowing canisters filled with eyes. These are harnesses for people and beasts. 

12. Mounds of human bones/skulls and white crab exoskeletons. Laced with pipes that are Bubbling with rot and crackling with fey energy. The pipes vaporise flesh and emit pleasure. 

13. A Doomed Worm Archer is trapped in swirling vines of seaweed. The vines are crawling with huge white ghost crabs. The archer is mockingly and derisively looking for an argument.

14. Sea salt cages covered in amazingly attractive and crumbling brooches of coral. The cages house humanoids that are abominations of people, crabs and octopi. 




Friday 9 July 2021

The White Sea

I am once again attempting to put together a dungeon for my much neglected patrons (https://www.patreon.com/LizardManDiaries). This time around I am using the newly released Generic Room Stocker (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/362688/Generic-Room-Stocker?src=newest) to put together a dungeon to use with my FKR freeform ruleset Kontext Spiel d6 (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/363342/Kontext-Spiel-d6?src=newest)! Links out of the way, here is the surrounding area of the dungeon I am working on...The White Sea! 


The White Sea: This flat rotten sea slimily laps its shores. Surges of white light flash intermittently deep below (a low mist of sparks is visible in the evenings). The water stinks, tingles the flesh on touch and tastes of iron and rotted meat. Flesh submerged in the white sea will begin to burn after a few moments - the deeper the flesh goes the stronger the burn (the feeling is like thousands of worms attempting to eat their way out of the interior of the body). Somehow descending to the floor of the sea (by nullifying the burning effects of electricity)  reveals a sloughed soup of grey meat. Forests of bones gouge through the soup layer. Towering above these are huge copper columns sparking massive gouts of lighting.   

The following may be encountered while sailing on The White Sea: 

Bloated Leviathan Corpse: Enormous, white, rotting, upturned fish belly (several people could easily stand and walk upon its floating blubber). Drippy and slimy with puss and mucus. d6 dog sized mantises, pick stalk over the corpse - feasting on flesh. The mantises are bone white and studded with milky gems the size of eyeballs. Their scythes are incredibly sharp. They are capable of short bursts of flight. The mantises are jealous of sharing their meat and will spring at any sailors approaching their floating fleshisland. Chunks of ambergris and other exoitc leviathan parts are ripe for picking aboard the corpse. 

Electrical Storms: A forest of ever sparking Inverted lightning bolts, fanning out from the water towards the heavens. Localised to an area about the size of a small wood. Incredibly dangerous but a great supply of lightning (if needed).  

Worm Pirates: Yellow sailed sloops manned by d6 blood sucking worm headed pirates. The worm pirates are dressed gaudily and are equipped with curved swords (though their fang filled, blood sucking tendrilmaws cause just as much damage as their weapons). The hideously long necks emerging from their frilled collars are lined with gills. The worm pirates seem to have some form of unspoken communication between one another - but only shriek and scream incoherently banshee-like at outsiders. Their yellow sails will stalk other vessels, gauging their defences and potential loot. Worm pirates desire fresh flesh above all else, but are partial to gems and (which they keep in sacks of salt). A worm pirate sloop will have a stock of rotting flesh, ambergris, interesting bones, salted gems and moist mounds of dirt.

Sea Vulture: A huge black feathered bird, each wing the length of a person. Gore and blood dripping hook beak, sharp and tearing. Finger long claws of near metal hardness (also blood stained). Blood is its main source of water - and a sea vulture is always thirsty! Leaves behind a stringy carcass - but arm length feathers are a trade worthy curio. 



Thursday 1 July 2021

Generic Room Stocker, Part 2: Additional Details

 To celebrate the release of the PDF version of the Generic Room Stocker (and for my own personal convenience), I have automated some additional tables/generators for the stocking of rooms. I also couldn't work out how to modify the original post without destroying the html! Regardless: 

Generic Room Stocker, Part 2: Additional Details: 
















The Generic Room Stocker PDF


A collection of tables, generators and tools for creating weird and wonderful rooms for tabletop adventure games. Art and writing by me! 

Generic Room Stocker uses the tables from this: https://lizardmandiaries.blogspot.com/2021/03/generic-room-stocker.html automated post plus a few others from the "FKR" and "Infinigrad" collections. It's stuff from the blog that I've put out over the years but in a nice little package for convivence. If you like the blog consider purchasing a copy to support me. Or, you can always hit me up and I will happily send you a free/review copy. Go buy it here: 

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/362688/Generic-Room-Stocker


Contains: 


• Place Generator
• Basic Room Stocking
• Room Atmosphere
• Prominent Room Ornamentations
• Neutral Inhabitant Generator
• Dangerous Inhabitant Generator
• Inhabitants Reaction to Interlopers
• Device Generator
• Trap Generator, Page
• Treasure Generator
• Smaller Items for Room Stocking
• Larger Items for Room Stocking

+ Weird collage art by me!