Sunday 4 February 2024

d100 Ways for villagers to react to armed adventurers






































When travelling far from home there is in civilised lands a village at least every days travel and there are too many to name or remember. (I do have a village book on patreon somewhere but i have lots of tables for villages to spice them up - also see my angry mob generator). 


Maybe next time they can choose 2 roads they might ask about villages before they pass through them. Should be roleplaying opportunities.

Maybe the village has had murder hobos visit and they stabbed an innkeeper who turned out to be a spy for the Barron and got locals into lots of trouble.


d12 What would villagers do with captives
1 Send to prison
2 Sell to slavers
3 Sell to humanoids or demihumans
4 Sell to a cult to sacrifice
5 Rob them and feed corpses to pigs
6 Kill them and claim bounties on wanted posters with them
7 Perform bloody ritual torture and sacrifice
8 Marry them and make them join the local cult
9 Give local monsters a charming local custom
10 Eat them in a glorious feast thanking the cannibal gods for the bounty
11 Send them on a mission with followers or items as hostages
12 Build a wicker man with local druids and burn them

d12 Why would villagers hate adventurers
1 Spend time around inhuman beings and cursed folk
2 All murder hobos who may kill in a moment without remorse
3 All are witches who use magic to make people thrall and cursed
4 Local adventurer drunks killed everyone in tavern once
5 Deadbeat parents were adventurers who abandoned them here
6 All adventurers are members of evil cults its common knowledge
7 Adventurers are really faerie folk in disguise here to kidnap, steal and play tricks
8 All adventurers are members of brutal guilds and worse than mercenaries and theives
9 Adventurers will rob your graves and steal anything of value
10 Adventurers came here and killed lots of family members
11 Adventurers are corrupted by demons through touching forbidden things
12 Adventurers carry cursed weapons that make them mad killers

d12 Why would villagers love adventurers
1 Saved by a hero and band years ago and many remember
2 Adventurers spend good coin here and help the local economy
3 Adventurers help colonise the frontier and fight the good fight
4 Long ago adventurers saved the village from a monster, you can see artworks of this event and they know the creature's lair a few miles away
5 Adventurers are so fabulous if only we were related to them somehow, gosh i love them
6 Beleive adventurers will keep away bandits, crime and troubles from the area
7 Hopeful adventurers can deal with a local supernatural mystery
8 They have been attacked by humanoids and bandits often so adventurers seem better
9 Some of the founding villagers were adventurers and a few have trinkets and memorabilia and old maps and books
10 Adventurers stopped a wicked cult a few years back and it was better than an inquisitor visit
11 Villagers discovered caves under the village and drove away monsters, now we use as storehouses and have sealed-off tunnels
12 A cursed evil noble ruled us but adventurers came and killed them and we don't have problems now. Some day the king will send a new one i guess 

d10 Quick Ways
1 Overjoyed & welcoming
2 Friendly & kind
3 Indiferent & bored
4 Needy & desperate
Caution & alarm
6 Hustle & grift
7 Suspicious & alert
8 Lie & decieve
9 Abusive & mean 
10 Hostility & anger

d100 Ways for villagers to react to armed adventurers
01 Welcome visitors with flowers and cookies and singing
02 Offer them a barn or abandoned house to stay in
03 Villagers perform a celebratory traditional dance
04 Mayor presents them with a wreath of peace and welcomes
05 Sherrif (and deputies close) welcomes and offer directions
06 Locals all gather in the street to cheer the arrival and wave
07 Children follow adventurers with great excitement growing in numbers
08 Ecstatic villagers scream with delight on all fours about the arrival of saviours
09 Enthusiastic thirsty unwed youths appear to squeal and follow adventurers
10 Villagers keep offering their children as servants or to marry
11 Exited gossips get active speculating on adventurers and mutterings spread
12 Friendly local offers welcome and direction
13 Pleased local tells you to see local sheriff for available bounties on lawbreakers
14 Sherrif welcomes and asks if you would join as deputies for a raid on a gang
15 Pushcart trader wheels up to uo to offer bargains for visitors 
16 Saucy attractive mature person hanging out a window wolf whistles strangers
17 Giggling gaggle of youths come to look at outsiders and their fashion styles
18 Farmer walking his pig says hello and offers discount produce from his farm
19 Maid with a bucket of water and a cup offers you all a drink
20 Local bard appears and offers to take you to the pub
21 Surley locals look bored and barley move to acknowledge your indifference
22 A farmer looks up at you but then goes back to attending his flatulent donkey
23 A three legged dog runs up with excitement but stops when it sees strangers and walks away
24 Several drunks on a porch belch loudly
25 A black cat walks across the road
26 Grazing goats chewing cud seem more interested in newcomers than locals
27 Villagers look away grimacing and go back to chores to avoid looking
28 Drunken elderly lovers laughing and cuddling on a porch gets more attention
29 Locals are busy talking and don't want strangers to interrupt
30 Boy from tavern sees travellers, he stops then flees to get tavernkeeper out of bed
31 Beggers asking for food or money or grog swarm at new arrivals
32 Exited villagers gather and the mayor requests help with a local monster
33 Nervous villager passes a note that says the village is under the control of a cult
34 Humanoids in town are abusing people who look pleadingly at adventurers
35 Sherrif asks for assistance with local bandits who have kidnapped victims
36 Weeping parents beg for help for children taken by slavers or humanoids
37 Come across sheriff and men whipping bound peasants
38 Villager warns of an angry mob started by a local that has been killing people the leader slanders
39 Robed cultists and soldiers are collecting babies from locals for sacrifice
40 Horrible drooling monsters and humanoid followers are demanding food from the village
41 Peasants close windows, go inside and lock doors
42 Sherriff, bailiffs and beadles gather to warn adventurers to behave
43 Millitia gather and surrounds adventurers demanding to know why they are 
44 Villagers watch party suspiciously and a mob gathers 
45 Villagers make religious hand gestures and secure children
46 Villagers seem to not be about then a mob with burning torches appears to demand your reason to visit
47 Locals start to pick up weapons and look wary
48 Villagers grab holy symbols, icons and lucky charms and look terrified
49 Villagers come out in the street and glare sternly and encourage strangers to leave 
50 Hungry skinny villagers in rags come out and look with desire on visitors' rich goods and plumb bodies
51 Villager offers local dungeon maps all real!
52 Offer to mind your animals and take care of them and will run to a bigger town market
53 Villager offers cheap second-hand adventurer gear in a trunk
54 Local offers cheap potions packaged very prettily and in lots of colours
55 Local offers drugs and forbidden naughty parchments
56 Man offers to clean all your weapons properly and will flee town if gets any
57 Offer to read your fortune inside a shack close by
58 A villager who wants to stir up trouble tells a lie to encourage strangers to beat up someone 
59 Villager gives map to a monster lair but really they serve a dungeon boss and it is really a vast murder maze of monsters
60 Villagers offering cheap magic items (all fake or with a temporary spell on them to detect as magic or even cursed if they are evil)
61 Villagers scream and scatter in fear mistaking the party for local bandits or a band of adventurers who came recently
62 VIllagers sure outsiders are demon cultist perverts up to no good
63 Locals are all wary any adventurer might start stabbing people at the slightest provocation
64 Concerned visitors are plague carriers like a recent band they drove away
65 Suspicious party work for some local villain or evil boss
66 Villagers throw rotten turnips and eggs and warn that your kind not welcome
67 VIllagers look alarmed, old woman with pitchfork tells "your kind should git outta here"!
68 Angry villagers hurl abuse and slander
69 Villager spits on a traveller and walks away, other locals look furious at the party
70 Villagers cower and expect violence to break out, some sob in fear
71 Pretend to be charming and announce a festival with the party as honoured feast guests who they will drugged, tortured and sacrificed, the rest of the year they are lovely people
72 Villgaers tell of a nearby dungeon in hopes adventurers enter. Once inside doors the villagers shit the doors trapping them inside. It is just an old cold store under a hill
73 Villagers welcome them and offer cheap grog. Later the monsters who rule the town with villager assistance try to capture the party
74 Villagers try to be friendly and encourage visitors to stay while someone contacts the local evil lord who sends riders and a carriage to fetch them
75 Villagers warn of a supernatural evil and advise adventurers to stay here several days or a great beast or evil spirit rampaging the area may stop them. The villagers are really sure it cant be killed. Its just a tourist scam for money
76 Villagers tell stories of local ruins hoping adventurers are curious and stay a few days
77 Villagers declare a festival feast and travellers are invited as guests of honour. At the party climax, robed cultists arrive demanding sacrifices. Maybe villagers just wanted someone to kill the cult or maybe they were the cult, whatever story stops you from getting killed is fine
78 Welcomed in and villagers keep buying drinks and hearing adventurer stories. After light out cultists and monsters use secret doors to capture guests
79 Villagers claim to have amazing bargains and have lots of adventurer supplies second hand maybe they recognise some
80 Invited to the temple by priest for a meal and once inside doors are shut and strange black knights of a mystery order command adventurers surrender
81 Villager yells as approaches and locals scramble to get weapons and even grab rocks to defend their village
82 Angry villagers block the path and declare adventurers are not welcome
83 Angry mob gathers in response to one party member of a type they all hate and get ready to riot
84 Villagers bring out illegitimate children and demand payment from male adventurers, locals start gossiping and gather as a mob forms. An elder demands someone get married or hanged
85 Villagers have barricaded roads with carts and erected a thicker fence. Angry locals from over the fence demand strangers state their purpose
86 Villagers insist a priest evaluate newcomers to see if they are evil witches who must be burned
87 Signs leading up to the village say no adventurers. They had problems and militia or sheriff or angry mob would form quickly
88 Gibbets hanging with rotten corpses of the last adventurers who caused trouble. Locals all glare suspiciously and are ready to form an angry mob to refresh the gibbets
89 Locals look unhappy and worried and if adventurers stop local authorities want to put them in stocks for a d4 days for being adventurers. They will also rob travellers and turf them from town when finished mistreating them in stocks. The local mob will have mob support from any locals
90 Villagers assemble banging pots and pans and present effigies of adventurers that they burn while screaming abuse
91 Villagers and local authorities surround and capture adventurers 
92 Villagers commanded to aid bandits to capture the party with a trap
93 Villagers need sacrifices or else tonight so are happy to see travellers. Will be welcoming and invite them in to be served by attractive youths and drugged or poisoned. Perhaps they are being coerced or perhaps it's just the old ways or a monster 
94 Village flee then later militia, local sheriff and bailiffs and beadles return with a shield wall and slings or bows with an irregular mob of angry villagers behind them. They are sure adventurers are wanted criminals because an enemy who came here to slander the party
95 Priest and some templars lead a mob with holy symbols demanding they test party for signs of evil and that they surrender themselves for investigation or be outlawed 
96 An angry local was harmed by adventurers and will try and poison adventurers with a free beer and if they get a chance stab them. Everybody else is normal but may side with the locals they know who will lie about party and invent crimes
97 A knight staying here leads a mob and he offers a duel with armed travellers. The mob love the entertainment of watching rich people fight but wont let the knight die
98 Locals all hide in ambush with slings, rocks and bows awaiting the signal to attack
99 Locals dressed in frightening bestial costumes and stay in character refusing to speak normally and managing to make do best they can
100 Villagers are infiltrated by shapeshifters like lycanthrope or spirit folk wh as humans bully locals into forming a mob to capture adventurers. Villagers believe adventurers to be baby eating cultists and outlaws who must be stopped

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