Friday 31 January 2020

Necrovirus and You


I've used this as a term for my alien plague that creates undead in my various SF settings - my road war and planet psychon games. My whole idea for this came to writing a comic book series bible intending to do something 2000ad over the top with tech and zombies and cyberpunk and rival alien terraforming attacks. On Psychon undead are part of experimental future warfare when manpower was diminishing that went wrong.  Most of what is here were as used in my Murder Highway setting.

A massive plague wiped out half the human race leaving infested survivors and uncontaminated peoples.

When in contact with plague by bite or scratch or aerosol there a chance of being infected
Severe contact such as infected blood transfusion or filling in a pit of rotten zombies is harder to resist. Surviving the plague even just a mild case results in you becoming a zombie. Various strains appeared later and someone may carry multiple types.

The first few cases appeared as the mars mission lost contact.
The early form just killed people dead leaving survivors possibly scarred or cosmetic effects.
It was later the dead arose and contact from these proved to be a more virile strain.
Necrotech incorporated operated massive mausoleums cryogenic facilities where patients in decline were frozen in some state of decline to be cured in the future. The company was supposed to invest in cures and longevity treatments but the freezers and private army and undead research proved too profitable. Various cults emerged also celebrating the apocalypse.

So in the wastelands as climate change and war and labour shortages gripped the world. New types of undead emerged while elites hid in quarantined VIP zones and used airship to link walled cities. Other bioplagues and mutations emerged too some interacting with the necrovirus. Then there was technology and undead leap that no one expected. When cyborgs were infected something new happened. The virus changed again and acted more intelligently and a nanotech carrier was developed and let loose. Machines and even structures became infected. Terrorists and rogue AIs resulted in numerous strains of hostile machine minds which were a further distraction. Lots of new security protocols kept human technology mostly human. As monsters, mutants, undead and rogue AI emerge more strange overlaps and phenomena occur as the world becomes more alien.

d12 Basic Undead

1 Standard Zombie - slow and stupid and silent
2 Fast Zombie - sneaky and faster, improved senses and door opening skills, noisy

3 Ghoul - screaming with teeth and claws and toxic venom, intelligent hunters
4 Glow Ghoul - radioactive ghouls, glow green and emit toxic rays
5 Revenant - regenerating with some memory and intellect, talk, use machines 

6 Mutant Zombies already mutated then became zombies
7 Cyborg Zombied - animated cyborg soldiers and gang members, more resilient 
8 Wight - more intelligent and cunning with soul draining chilling claws, scream with rage
9 Cyber Wight - as wights but they can interface into tech and jack into cars, focused
10 Ghast - more intelligent ghouls that reek of decay often quite a bit larger
11 Zombie Hulk - huge swollen monstrosity of a zombie
12 Ghoul Hulk - huge swollen monstrous brutal ghoul

Vampires and Lich are mostly rumours and speculation but later in war when aliens fighting get worse and more obvious, new stranger creatures appear. Numerous AI becomes aware of and debating what to do next.

When I had this stuff as part of a failed comic treatment for a bunch of corporate zombie hunters out to find why zombies are massing to attack corporate cryonics labs. I wrote this in about 91 and lots of the tech I thought up creeping into film FX now. Necrotech Elite Special Ops were sent to find the control source of zombies and have various bloodthirsty adventures with more and more alien weirdness. There were cybertech alien and mutant versions of various classic monsters. I never got to publish it or use as an RPG setting as I'm not a huge zombie fan but my murder highway BRP game and Psychon I kinda use these.

In my roadwar it's more like part of alien warfare but the human race has no ideas. As the campaign went on the team learned more and picked up clues and met new things. The setting was a slow apocalypse. There was massive depopulation, ruins, incredible wealth gulfs, AI, cyborgs, car murder motorsports, massive walled urban zones, corps. So undead was one of many problems including environmental change. aliens, mutants, triffids, cthulhu, satan and really anything else in the mix. These undead guys were a good setting element to cause trouble of make areas worse on death races and missions.

My original notes files on cd rom seem to not be readable by modern machines or files were possible from my amiga which I used through uni. Might be hardcopies with sketches.

   

Thursday 30 January 2020

Tragic backgrounds for urchin hirelings

Adventurers are keen to help employ young people and possibly homeless drunks or prison parolees or lepers into dungeons for minimal wages. Adventurers put the high priority of helping their hirelings survive as they need to maintain reputations as good employers. So all kinds of vagrants and kids who nobody wanted as apprentices end up working for peanuts for adventurers and hang out near the adventurer noticeboards. Some only go once, they die or are crippled or made enough to get away or just chose a less deadly lifestyle. Unfortunately some of those brats you hire to help the cause of child employment have secrets and if they die in a hole or even employ you might attract trouble. And no adventurers ever wanted surprises or complications or enemies.

d10 Mysterious backgrounds for urchin hireling types

01 Escaped confinement
02 Refugee
03 Church
04 Previous Job
05 Nobility
06 Cult member
07 Lowlife
08
 Fugitive criminal
09 Nonhuman links
10 Magical


d10 Mysterious backgrounds for urchin hireling
01 Escaped from children's prison for petty crimes
02 Escaped from children's home for some industry like sailors or miners
03 Escaped from a child slave sweatshop
04 Escaped from a home run by sadistic old monks or nuns or boys or girls
05 Escaped from a military school, treated brutally for years 
06 Escaped a apprenticeship with a cruel master
07 Escaped slavery as a labourer (or house servant if CHA 13+) 
08 Escaped having been raised in a isolated place in ignorance by a cult
09 Escaped a labouring job bound by contract to service to rich man
10 Escaped a privileged boarding school for nobles children
11 Family killed in plague run here hungry and desperate
12 Escaped massacre by military in homeland still learning local dialect
13 Escaped forced recruitment into military during war and has fled a massacre
14 Homeless from starvation, learned to eat in woods from hermits
15 During famine several of his siblings were eaten so fled here for work
16 Family home and clan burned by arsonist gang with wrong address
17 Family member offended a powerful rich man and carried away as slaves
18 Family murdered by assassins from a cult or some crime family
19 Family killed by raiders while child hid and saw everything
20 Nobility overtaxed and claimed new privileges and child told to flee
21 Fled a church school that was corrupt and brutal
22 Fled a church orphanage that was mostly a work hall
23 Member of a order of monks or nuns but fled
24 Member of a city choir in a temple and fled creepy clery
25 Made personal servant of a priest which was terrible
26 Sent on a mission but others eaten and this survivor over missions now
27 Taken on by a profesional undead hunting cleric which was very unsafe
28 Worked with an inquisitor hunting cultists and beating up old people without kin
29
 Was taken on a crusade which was pretty horrible and fled rather than return
30 Was recruited into templars as a orphan and expected to be a warrior order cleric
31 Worked in a seedy brothel and taver cleaning slops and sleeping in stables for porridge
32 Worked in a scriptorium copying texts more like a prison sweatshop

33 Worked cleaning up slops in abattoir and saw crime syndicate murder an official
34 Worked in a mill pulling out things stuck in dangerous machines
35 Worked as assistant gongfarmer in a sewer while small enough for some pipes
36 Worked sweeping chimneys and slowly dying so now here instead
37 Worked in beggars guild but master wanted to cripple the kid so fled
38 Worked in stables and spreading manure now hates horses smell
39 Worked in a mine with blind pit ponies until escaped chains
40 Worked collecting dropped coal in a huge boiler   

41 Bastard of a bloodline, new family head wants all rival claimants killed
42 Escaped minor child of nobles who want returned to be married
43 Escaped minor noble child from a coup and family slaughtered
44 Escaped minor noble family accused of treason all have been killed or hidden
45 Sent to serve noble wizard who was terrible
46 Sent to serve a knight as a squire who had a deathwish to fight monsters
47 Was a kidnapped heir who escaped and wants to get home without anybody noticing
48 Escaped assassination hopes to get home in disguise
49 Family killed seeks to learn adventuring, get power then avenge them
50 Locked in a multi clan death struggle and in hiding waiting to return home
51 Escaped sect of kidnappers sold to another cult to sacrifice far from home
52 Member of a cult on a quest to collect human faces or something awful
53 Cultist wants monster body parts to sell to wizards and alchemists
54 Cultist looking for evil relics can snatch off other cults or peoples
55 Cultist seeking documents and lost lore to report to masters
56 Cultist seeks money or contacts to find hidden black school of magic
57 Cultist wannabe looking for a cult to join but murder hobo work will do
58 Cultist seeks a certain ruin and secret room and needs to see several dungeons
59 Cultists looking for a lost idol
60 Cultist want to convert other hirelings to murder cult and learn from party
61
 Used to work for drug smugglers, likes to smoke and get high in dungeons
62 Parents arrested and sent away to a convict colony
63 Parents killed by mob over gambling and drug debts, mob wanted child
64 Parents were mobsters killed by rival crime clan
65 Abandoned, found and sold to a crime syndicate to learn crime
65 Informant for secret police until discovered was on a kill list by accident
66 Parents were foreign spies executed but child escaped
67 Family murdered by mob cos someone squealed to the law about thieves guild
68 Served bandits for years growing up living rough with criminals
69 Served on a pirate ship, caught, spared execution and escaped convict transport
70 Family killed by spies for forging official documents and coin clipping
71 Child was a trained assassin getting away after killing a important person
72 Child stole a important letter and on the run after noble want letter destroyed
73 Child was a royal servant who fled stealing silver and clothes
74 Witch child hunted by inquisition who survived burning
75 Child wanted for stealing poor box and blew it on horse racing and out to rob adventurers
76 Child is a witness of terrible crime and has had to flee home or die
77 Child witnessed knights murdering a crown official and now they hunt witness
78 Child stole stash from a gang haul and ran ever since after hiding the 300gp treasure
79 Child stole treasure looted from distant natives after 4 years on a ship and in strange land, explorers want the strange pagan idol as does foreign native cult
80 Child stabbed a corrupt priest and fled with gold and wine and has hidden stash
81
 Is a mutant but hides it for now
82 Child was raised by demihumans and wants to return to human ways but shy

83 Child was bitten by a lycanthrope like a were rat or were wolf or hyena
84 Child raised as slave of monsers in a cave for years
85 Child raised by talking animals and faeries
86 Child raised by witches or a hag
97 Child raised by spirits
88 Child raised by beast folk in winderness
89 Child raised by mermaids in underwater fairy land in sea or lake
90 Child raised by dragons in secret dragon sanctuary
91 Child was used as experiment by alchemist and wants to dissect kid
92 Child served a wizard who wants kid dead for knowing wizard secrets
93 Child of a famous wizard on run from parents wants adventurers life
94 Child of a wizard who's parents were killed by a former student and wants the child
95 Child was sent to posh wizard school to get a proper wizard job but
96 Child raised on another plane kidnapped as a baby to be a slave
97 Child is really a ogre magi
98 Child is a young doppelganger
99 Child is really an imp is disguise
100 Really a petty god in disguise

Wednesday 29 January 2020

White Plume Mountain Funhouse Dungeon



White Plume Mountain Funhouse Dungeon

This and Ghost tower are both extremely short gonzo funhouses. We are assured wizards could make this crazy stuff up but not with rules given but a few wishes a day would help. I've seldom made mad wizard dungeons this crazy and maybe I should. ASE1-3 my favourite OSR-ish thing Is also a funhouse dungeon and fitted my planet Psychon quite well. I'm going to continue to do my thing of running old modules into Psychon adventures and I could literally just ad some control panels here and maybe cyborg or mutate a few inhabitants. But really not much. This literally is the best funhouse dungeon. Even the rotating stripe patterned tunnel with lube leading to an ambush is as on genre as you can get.

Mad wizards justify anything. The artefacts you loot here for the patron are too cool for NPCs. Id say having those weapons are part of a prophecy that warns the world making everybody give party attention and dread some apocalypse. The patron will send assassins and adventurers. Some cults will pursue them. Kings will be unhappy. Taking these Items will be a huge burden. Say the black sword will destroy the universe when it's true owner gets in back. Have party find book illustrating the heroes with weapons destroying civilisation. Perhaps they get to kill a king on a battlefield and cause a domino effect of chaos. Could be big fun. Having party rivals they met in a pub go in first and not return and have them inside the dungeon. Having a character has a personal grudge against sir Bluto might be good drama too. The ancient evil wizard is pretty flexible and could easily be a demon or a god or a self aware complex.

The classic area map is great and implies an interesting adventure. That Dragthoa guy is possibly less of a setup but might be a good powerful lair to raid later. One of the newer maps even has a Tolkien style and fans have redrawn the dungeon map too. The above classic recreation shows off some of the interesting features and the sideways maps are good too. Its quite video gamish level of puzzle solving game with plenty of combat and interesting environments. the reverse ziggurat room is amazing. The weird magic river is very strange i guess wizard liked kayaking. Maybe more dungeons should have features requiring wishes or hobbies. I mean if your immortal and cast wish you can make some crazy stuff especially if you are a nerd wizard or a lich with thousands of years.

I will probably give this a go and won't change much really. If the characters want to be the centrepoint of a continent wide war killing tens of thousands let them keep those awesome items. Sounds cool to me.

Has great art of era illustrating some of the crazier rooms which is good. The npcs with personality are fine and easy to run. The layout is interesting and not on all one plane and the puzzles are not really too awful but can avoid fights which is ok. It is slim but has lots of content and art and is pretty inspiring. Later adventures where you explore ruins of this place as a spin off was kind sad to look in what was once a cool dungeon room. Perhaps some more trashed magic rooms destroyed already should be a thing. The poem and history are quite fun too. I wonder what happened to the evil gnomes mentioned as wizards minions. A gnome stronghold or secret maintenance sub level might be cool. Perhaps the induction section Nix and Nox take you too could be added to the map. I get impression wizard might still be alive or sleeping or busy..

Would make a good vol to do as one of those hardcovers.

Tuesday 28 January 2020

Dreamlands






































Dreamlands are interesting to explore in many settings. In my fantasy game characters would occasionally enter dreamlands of a ruin they explored making it seem pristine or in the past. A world inside a painting or a strange manor place. Dreamlands can be chaotic places that spawn strange creatures or nightmare monsters. You can enter dreamlands that are echoes of a lost mythic past or prehuman times. You could enter the collective dream of a kingdom or place. Meditation, those born with talent or drugs are used most frequently. Magic may allow goods and creatures to pass through releasing magic and demons into the world. There is a bit of this style going at Through Ultan's Door and a few retroclone products.

Other settings like modern or SF have their place also and Call of Cthulhu has HPL's Dreamlands but there are lots of opportunities in horror for other dreamlands. Visiting Mars and then contacting the ancient martian prehuman dreamlands and even their god. Flashbacks to past disasters or warp accidents might affect the waking world. Robert Holdstock Mythago woods is a good example of an sf mechanic of a dreamlike reality of ancient myths and modern humans who deal with it. WW1 nomans land as a dreamland with haunting effects for poor bastards caught inside. Wizards might travel to and through these worlds. A dreamland might operate like cyberspace or shaman trips to the spirit world.

I've used dreamlands encounter in sf Horror and superhero games. Several characters had dreamlands based abilities like a pocket nightmare kingdom populated by imps or another who conjured animals and fire and things but they came from another dimension. When he went there it was the start of him getting dreamlands powers and conjuring nightmare monsters from enemies dreams.

The overlap of the dreamland might vary triggering minor phenomena, supernatural events or encounters. Might be interesting. The hyper reality of both might disrupt mobile phones and signals or make people vanish temporarily. Ghost like haunting effects might increase also and possibly won't be recorded on cameras. Stranger Things upside down world might be a nightmare world. Robert Holdstock Mythago Woods series is great with a machine to simulate human interaction with the other world. Faerie stories might have similar properties. Even echoes of hell or other planes might be possible through dreamlands.

The intruding reality has a kind of super intelligence but not a human one. There are patterns within that behave like intelligent beings but actually are trapped in loops of limited behaviour. Death is not a problem in such a world as you might return again but will be part of the dream reality or just awaken. Some extraordinary intelligence wants to break through to the waking world and create or occupy a body. It might be possible to create things and bring them back for an experienced wizard.

Cyclopedia and later dnd had mention of nightmare land in several monster descriptions and in the illusionist school in Glantri lets mighty illusionists just move to dreamlands to create their own reality and create dream monsters. So in old basic dnd has hints of a nightmare land of monsters with reality warping weirdness that is much stranger than Ravenloft but it could overlap. You could do a weird dnd modern and mythic reality setting using this stuff.

There are many dreamlands many nightmare lands. Like All have the illusion of being complete universes fully populated mostly form as needed. Time doesn't flow the same here either but past civilisations or eras might still exist. It is a good alternative to time travel or gates. Sometimes the waking world and other worlds are overlapping allowing strange things to enter the world, unreal phenomena or cosmetic changes in the area. Some haunted houses might be especially affected. Certain places might let you interact with dream versions of gods (use deities and demigods stats right so you can kill that form). Temples might also overlap with dreamland or graveyards.

Will try to formalise a bunch of this into some mechanics

Dreamlands - borders with waking world, bright faerieland, giantland, positive material plane, arcadia. paradise, heavens. Worlds are fanciful, whimsical, mythic, heroic

Nightmare kingdom - borders with waking world, 
shadow plane, dark faerieland, negative plane, the void, underworld, hell, abyss. Worlds are desolate, dystopian, horrible, in decay  


I have a bunch of dream spells in my setting but a few extra ones might be handy. I really like the ideas in Glantri sourcebook for basic dnd on dream magic too.

d12 Common Intruding Dream Realities

1 Faerieland bright or dark
2 Giant Land
3 Arcadia
4 Abyss
5 Hell
6 Outer void
7 Shadow world
8 Spiritworld
9 Cloud Land
10 Underworld

11 Mythic Epoch
12 Primordial Past


d12 Gateways Locations

1 Mirror
2 Wardrobe
3 Doorway
4 Crack in a rock you can squeeze through
5 Hole in a wall
6 Well
7 Haunted house or ruin
8 A crumbling old archway
9 Between trees or branches
10 Barrel or container
11 Between stone pillars
12 Under the surface of water from lake to puddle

d12 Signs

1 Locals saw strange creatures
2 Stories of a hero killing a monster
3 Stories of creature chasing someone
4 Stories of someone fleeing haunted place
5 Locals say beware strange voices
6 Lights seen from here once
7 Horrible massacre was here once
8 Burial ground or temple here once
9 Cult used to visit here till exposed
10 Great tragedy happened here
11 Some primordial being strode here once
12 Children in area know a creepy rhyme about strange sightings


d6 World Link
1 Worlds separate unless ritual performed
2 Worlds separate unless planar entity has been here recently
3 Sleeping, meditating or abusing drugs here opens the veil
4 Worlds subtly overlap, certain stars make links stronger
5 Worlds frequently cross over allowing passage to another world
6 Gate open freely but changes where it links to

Faerielands have thriving life, magic animals, faerie folk might be present, everything glistens, dark faerie favour fungus and darkness and ore creepy. Vegetation, magic animals and servitors are encounter first like sprites or goblins or birds. Elves are the most militant defenders and frequently enslave humans coming here

Giantlands is the mythic dreamworld of the giants with fuses into the infinite ruins of a sprawling giant city. Humanoids and orcs come to plunder these places for magic and secrets but some wizards and human giant worshippers might come too. Ruins and creeping vine begin to over take it too. Includes area of the great fallen troll civilisation before the mindless cancerous man eaters we know now

Arcadia is a mythical abundant wilderness with plenty of food and wine for all, vines and vegetation appear first like grapevines then nymphs, satyrs and centaurs and magic animals appear even revellers in praise of certain pleasure gods. Minor nature divinities and animal spirits live here in between incarnations. The ruins of the tower of heaven are remaining on some planes of arcadia

Abyssal planes vary but most are harsh, unpleasant and difficult to survive on. Toxic odours take over and scream and explosions and storms can be heard. Each fragment of the abyss is a leftover fragment from creation occupied by demons eager to have land and power and dominion here. Some evil wizards and chaos champions might hold one for a demon who holds many. Demons keen to torment and abuse dwell here but some are mindless. They enjoy contact with the world for real or through dreams. Mostly they are concerned with own power and cruelty but some do mercenary work for hell like getting escapees or those avoiding death.

Hell is a series of linked planes a great prison where gods decree sinners go to be tormented and possibly might rise to become devils. Demons are failed unlawful devils who cannot abide by rules. Devils have treaties with demons and angels and devas and archons. A hellish stench comes through first with imps and damned souls moaning to follow. Hell houses, in particular, have diabolic decor that becomes more extreme and animated.

Outer Void is a universe existing before and outside of reality, it is the emptiness reality occupies and is hostile to the nature of reality. Entities that live here are alien and mostly hostile to life. When you can see the beings of the great beyond the first ones are small, glassy fish like creatures. Serene at first they often become hostile and attack when they sense flesh or souls.  The larger ones are tentacled or wormlike or like deep sea creatures or cave dwelling horrors with alien intellect and some are wizards. 

Shadow Wold is a shadow of the reality, a black and white world, a noir land of smoke, mirrors and darkness. Shadow beings here hunger for life energy and are attracted to gates or living. Creatures here shun light and lurk in edges of darkness. Echoes of normal life and places but twisted into a twilight world of hunger and madness. Everything becomes increasingly abstract and nightmarish and you might meet your own shadow self seeking to replace you.

Spirit World is a domain of spirits living close to the waking world often affiliated with nature, gardens, temples, graveyards, hills, trees, forests, bodies of water, artworks and other sites. Spirits in cities are very different to ones on farms or wilderness. Some spirits are friendly some are not, many are witnesses and know local information. As spirit world overlaps mist often forms.

Cloudland is a series of other worlds in clouds reachable through tallest mountains or trees or other means. The lands vary quite a bit many are quite sweet and attractive worlds of child like simplicity, giants, goblins, faeiries, spirits, talking animals and golems living together. Walking into such a world can take you far away as the cloud moves from its location around the world. Some humans used this to explore the world. Children have had adventures here or some worlds might change humans into children.

Underworld a gloomy afterlife place where the souls of the dead eat dust and excrement forever unless their kin sacrifice to them. The better class souls and shades here dwell in cities in comfort but without sacrifices, they might be cast into the gutter if their line dies out. Spirits and shades from the underworld are often hungry and can be distracted with blood or wine poured for them on the ground. Deaths reapers and devils and undead roam here frequently. Some come to save loved ones or plunder treasure. Some caves operate as gateways.

Mythic Epochs are alive and well in dreamlands and can be visited such as when giants and gods waged war or the monster kings ruled or the fist city states of bronze. Some of these replay certain events and some are allegorical or seen as modern peoples saw past not as it was and other distortions. Often overlapping worlds makes things look more old fashioned as they were in that era.


Primordial Times when life first walked on the surface, when various alien beings walked the wastes of the earth in darkness. Gibbering alien titans of the void walked the world. When primordial dragons created first gods and giants and beast lords then tried to gobble them up, when creation began and the later generations of gods were just born. Certain beings in these times do not sense time normally and my hunt you and follow you home to eat your soul.

I did a game where most magic and weird stuff happened in a mist-shrouded dream world by night that overlapped in some places like ruins or graveyards. Faerieland was like this too in wilderness mostly. Caves had own dream underland. This let game be gritty and historical then do moments with magic more possible.

Monday 27 January 2020

Marine Folk Revised




































Revision of item I spat the dummy on so last few added here
https://elfmaidsandoctopi.blogspot.com/2019/01/return-of-beastfolk-marine-peoples.html

Marine Folk

1 Oyster 
2 Anemone 
3 Starfish 
4 Walrus
5 Urchin 
6 Dolphin 
7 Octopus 
8 Penguin
9 Pelican 
10 Stingray 
11 Seahorse 
12 Manatee

Oyster Folk

Are thick stone like shelled folk with squishy grey flesh and mucous within. While well armoured they peek from an opening in their shell but will seal themselves if threatened. They are kin with an array of sea mollusc folk like clam, muscle and others. Some have bristly hair like cilia that move tiny marine plankton into their mouths. While their bodies and faces are armoured while using their thick muscular limbs the have to extend them from their shells to act as a humanoid. Some have quite colourful flesh but most are green-grey. Shy and peaceful humans have killed them for millennium to eat, for pearls or shells. Oyster folk are wary and suspicious, especially of humans. Humans often kill and eat their children unaware they are in fact humanoid and intelligent. They often aided other marine races war against humans as they were easily convinced of the hairless ape menace. They often swell in reef villages living simple lives in coral huts, gathering small crustaceans and seaweed they require as they are larger than their tiny kin and need more substantial food. But they often wallow in rock pools filter feeding if they cant do better. They can be hard to see among marine rocks, many have barnacles and weed or algae growing on them. Occasionally some can get along with humans but they are melancholic curmudgeons. They often use shells of fallen kin as shields or to make weapons. These are brittle but sharp and might incorporate driftwood hafts. Such weapons also blend with the marine matter on coasts.

d12 Oyster Folk Troubles

1 An evil band of elderly retired scurvy sailors have been daily scrounging on the reef and have eaten many oyster children. If not stopped the oysters will raid the fishing villagers to steal their children warns a sea-druid
2 Oyster folk live in a shipwreck that greedy adventurers want to sack, little do they know there are more oysters than they expect, after a defeat and retreat they seek young gullible adventurers as cannon fodder to help them
3 A former fish folk sunken temple has been disturbed in a storm releasing a sea demon forcing oysters to move into a river mouth where human fishermen are horrified by them. If spoken too oysters will help adventurers destroy the demon and loot the temple
4 An evil wizard has oyster children kidnapped to make pearls which torments them. Oysters want their children back
5 A famous gourmet hires adventurers to catch young oysters for a royal feast. Some rich believe they are aphrodisiacs and demand them. Oysters want revenge
6 Walrus folk and Oyster folk have been battling on a stretch of coast and fishermen are now avoiding it and going hungry
7 Oyster folk pirates have been attacking ships on the rocky coast and have even seized a lighthouse to misuse and wreck ships. Merchants offer a reward to stop them
8 Smugglers had a secret coast cliff base but something has taken it over and they will pay to find out who. Cave full pf contraband the state would love to seize
9 A gang of wreckers preying on the coast disappeared. All kinds of locals secretly in the gang are missing as are many ship survivors. A reward has been offered for their return and capture
10 Someone is trading weapons for pearls with oyster folk who now have become bold and aggressive when ships pass their coral reef castle
11 Fisherman gathering worms by night on beach for bait seen lights on the reef and heard music
12 A village of pearl divers has disappeared, all of them. Find out why.

Anemone Folk

These brightly coloured fleshy humanoids have thick tentacle hair and live on rocky coastlines and reefs. Some are ethereally beautiful. Their mouth is used to eat and excrete. As they can live on land they no longer depend on stinger cells to catch prey. Some older ones will affix themselves to a reef and develop stingers and become a giant anemone. Some happily cohabit with crab folk and some breeds of fish folk. They often domesticate other giant sea creatures like giant hermit crabs as mounts and use to raid coastal dwellers. They trade with many great undersea kingdoms and are famous for their great balls. Many live in great reef coral castles where they dwell and dance serenely. Mostly they avoid humans and thus seem very exotic to them. In ancient times they used their giant anemone gardens and pets to form great defences for the fish folk empire. Occasionally adventurers stumble across some ancient coastal or undersea ruin anemone folk still guard. As most do not move far from their birthplace they are very stubborn to move and might conflict with humans causing pollution or building on reefs. Anenome folk seem to not just be good at domesticating sea life they seem to be able to alter life at some basic cellular level with their alien science. They used to create giant sea monsters under commission to sea kings and fish cults

d12 Anemone Folk Troubles

1 A lighthouse building crew are being attacked by strange beautiful humanoid creatures riding war crabs and they require adventurers to talk or drive the beings away
2 City garbage scows are being sunk by night and swollen mutilated corpses of their crews are found floating in the water. Nobody knows who or why
3 Sailors have seen strange beautiful women dancing by the reef and want to capture some. Alas some sailors died but others are curious
4 A wizard runs a marine menagerie to study and has a sad anemone person prisoner. Anemone kin know and want to rescue them, kill the wizard and free all the creatures creating havoc in the harbour
5 Fish folk killed a colony of anemone people and now a gigantic anemone has blocked the harbour. Anemone will move it if the killers are brought to them as prisoners
6 A wizard has been spying on nude anemone folk with a crystal ball and wants adventurer guards to escort him as he tries to contact them
7 A colony of clownfish folk have been killed by human authorities enraging anemone allies who choke the harbour with giant anemones and giant kelp
8 A giant kelp barrier has choked an area of the sea and explorers have tried to cross the sargassum. Ancient wrecked ships have been raised by the giant kelp attracting treasure hunters. Anemone folk have been using the area to create some colossal sea beast
9 A major settlement drained the swamp where their sewerage was absorbed and now the waste goes into the sea. Increasing plagues of giant sea lice, stinging jellyfish and wood eating marine termites have been attacking the docklands and some think intelligent beings are behind the plagues
10 Pirates attacked and enslaved anemone folk and in retaliation, a merchant ship has been lifted above the sea by giant kelp. The crew and passengers are trapped aboard and adventurers are sent to free them or negotiate with the anemone folk
11 A foolish noble youth of a sea merchant clan has gone out to the reef to marry a beautiful anemone woman and the family want him back
12 A great sea monster attacked a coastal village and investigators are sent to assess the threat. A cult has paid sea anemone folk to make them a living god to let them take over the coast and sea trade

Starfish Folk

Minions of the ancient marine empire, these creatures can breed rapidly and regenerate wounds making them ideal troops and workers. They also eat anything even living coral. Many varieties exist in various colours and textures of skin. Some are smooth some are covered in spiny thorns. Even if killed and dismembered the separate parts may grow into separate starfish and may even share memories. They are not clever and often are pawns of other races especially evil fish folk clans. Fish folk know their minions are often terrible at following orders and require guidance. The various tribes often act as specialist units with varying skills and weapons. As each tribe is so distinctive they stand out on battlefields. Their demon starfish ancestor is a greedy god and some human cults even worship it keeping starfish folk in pits of sacrifice. The god offers healing for servants which attracts some desperate humans. Terrible wars in ancient times featured hordes of starfish invading the land but it was fire and burning their dead that stopped them Most humans don't know this history. Some say starfish came from the stars, banished for their evil deeds by their celestial kin to the depths of the sea

d12 Starfish Folk Troubles

1 Years ago starfish folk marched from the sea and attacked. Locals defeated them and chopped them up and threw them into the sea. Now there are even more attacking!
2 A fish folk warlock has amassed an army of starfish. Working with a local cult they wish to seize a temple now landlocked in human lands
3 A pirate crew recruited some starfish in their crew. A few years later the whole crew are starfish and menacing the coast with no restraint killing, robbing and eating humans
4 A cult has been breeding starfish in a secret cave, ready for a night they will murder the local people for the demon starfish cult
5 Something by night is coming ashore and breaking into the dried fish sores and smokehouses in the harbour
6 Fishermen drying their nets all disappeared, only a star shaped sign in the sand remained
7 A strange stone spire erupted from a reef. It seems to have star symbols on it and windows. Locals are curious
8 The local reef fisherfolk are dependent on is covered in starfish folk devouring everything. Warriors are needed to kill them when fisher folk can scoop them up
9 Cultists have been seen going to the reef by night and nobody knows what they are up to. The cult wear strange star symbols with a maw in the centre on their purple robes
10 After the last starfish folk cull in the region, alone surviving starfish priest has been raiding the graveyards of the fisherfolk by night to reanimate the dead as zombies.out of revenge. Someone must kill the zombies and catch the priest in the act
11 After the last storm, a stone ruin on the beach was exposed with strange star symbols. Some beachcombers went inside and did not come out. locals are afraid
12 Locals regularly comb the beach after the storms but this year many searchers vanished. Starfish folk have been laying under the sand to grapple and eat people

Walrus Folk
This doughy folk swim in the frozen north on rocky coasts and islands and ice flows. Feed off fish, penguins and shellfish they also hunt whales, act as pirates and adventure in the pre human ruins of the frozen north. They often battle polar bear, penguin, seal and fish folk for supremacy. They also conflict with humans who dare trespass on their territory. Many males driven from their homes wander into human lands. Some end up slaves or pit fighters, but many become pirates, adventurers or mercenaries. They make the best guides in the frozen lands. They also practise handy crafts such as scrimshaw, weaving, leatherwork and carpentry they require to survive. Long ago they helped humankind repel the fish folk conquerors and helped fight necromancers who fled into the frozen wastes. Their ships and sleds are infamous and they value imported wood and metal from the south for whale ivory. Some go viking, raiding south lands for goods they crave like grain and beer. Walrus ivory highly offends them and they claim all as theirs to bury in a funeral rite. Some call them tusk folk. They often laugh at weak and skinny peoples of the sunlit lands. They infamously stoic and tough and can swing from jolly drunks to violent berserkers in moments.

d12 Walrus Folk Trouble

1 A walrus crime lord controls drug smuggling in a town and a rival gang want him gone. Adventurers are hired as extra muscle in a hit using a midnight docklands meeting as a ruse
2 A ship of walrus viking berserks is seen on the horizon, locals in panic
3 A diary and map of a pre human ruined city in the north describing great treasure is found, walrus guides are required to find it
4 Explorers found a block of ice with a thing inside. Returning it to civilisation it thaws out a walrus cursed by his berserker axe, if free and cursed axe removed he will be grateful and helpful
5 A villain robbed a walrus burial ground of ivory offending the walrus spirits and the tribe gather to hunt and kill the criminal and any aiding them
6 A hunter has been selling walrus blubber, skins and ivory actually from murdered walrus folk. Most of the good users are outraged and want hunter punished
7 Walrus folk have guarded a stone age black citadel trapped in the ice for millennia but now they are inviting adventurers and helping them
8 A walrus shaman has found a cursed fur trapper shack in the tundra and says it is a human responsibility to cleanse the haunted place of evil
9 A walrus wizard with crystal tusks has a cursed local area with freezing blizzard winds and undead walrus warriors
10 Walrus warrior maids are having a beauty contest and will force strangers they find to judge, they are vindictive and lusty
11 A great mound of a walrus warrior king has been disturbed by looters, now an angry walrus wight stalks the night murdering locals
12 Nobody had seen walrus folk for generations till a vindictive shaman planted rune encrusted tusks which grew into a band of walrus berserks who now are on a murder spree

Urchin Folk

These hard chitinous skinned folk are covered in spiny and spikes and their frightful five toothed sphincters like orifices disgust most onlookers. They are omnivorous eating seaweed, vegetable matter and any dead flesh they can scavenge. They dwell in fortified reef forts and have aggressive defensive mindsets forming phalanx walls if threatened. Every tribe has vastly different colours, spine appearance and personalities. Some with larger blunt spines may have sponges or algae growing on them. Smaller tentacles around their mouths with suckers feed off tiny often water born organisms. The very young lack spines and many do not recognise as urchins. Some develop stinging spines or might have colonies of smaller creatures living in between their spines and might defend their host.
Many served the undersea empire of the fish folk as heavy infantry and helped invade the surface world. Some tribes still raid ashore seeking food when their numbers every few generations grow and their colonies need to expand. They do tend to feud with crab folk who delight in eating them. Otter folk and starfish folk are ancient enemies also. Colonies build coral reef forts but smaller groups and lovers find a crevice or dig a hole to lair inside. Those that use magic favour protective spells. The often herd giant amphibious urchins as pets and for defence. They will trade but humans find them hideous and often fear them

d12 Urchin Folk Trouble

1 Clan of urchin warriors march ashore and terrorise fisher folk and docklands for some reason
2 Horrible humanoids from the deep come from the sea and make strange gestures alarming locals. Someone needs to meet them and determine if they are friend or foe
3 A fish folk wizard with his urchin warriors have taken over a lighthouse and people have heard strange chants from their since
4 Crab men and urchins have been battling over the reef scaring fisher folk. Both species have made crude alien attempts to seek aid from humans who don't like either breed
5 Urchin pirates have been raiding the coast and recently took a small human village and took prisoners as slaves to gather algae and seaweed from rock pools while urchins get drunk
6 A friendly sea otter merchant seeks help capturing hideous urchin folk to take to otter land
7 A wounded sea elf washed ashore tells of how a fish folk warlock with his urchin warriors has been waging war on the undersea peoples of the area and the surface will be raided next
8 A cowardly tako octopus fairy seeks adventurers to help her rob a lair of urchin folk of their pearls from their giant oyster garden. She also likes to eat their children but won't mention that
9 Dead urchin folk wash ashore, dozens of them, locals are alarmed at the hideous corpses
10 After a storm where a ship was lost bodies and survivors wash ashore where hungry urchins try to eat dead and wounded unable to move, locals want to help but are afraid
11 An urchin merchant comes ashore seeking humans to help round up his sea goblin slaves who escaped. He offers exotic fish folk gold jewellery to any who help
12 A sea urchin princess has been kidnapped by crab folk who plans to feast on her next full moon. Her page servant seeks helpers to rescue the beautiful princess and the urchin king surely will reward them. The crabs live in a coral reef fortified tower

Dolphin Folk

These folk are often well regarded by humans and some come ashore to work on ships and coastlines. Colours can vary from grey to blue or green or even pink. River breeds can be quite small and are known as dolphinlings. They tend to live in nomadic clans who hunt together. They are cheeky, playful and can be friendly. Some of the loners that come ashore are dangerous and insane, sexually assaulting and murdering for fun. Some are charlatans playing on how humans think well of them. Some claim they have healing abilities or lead cults of gullible humans. The more useful ones often work as pilots to guide ships through reefs and other marine hazards. Compared to many beast folk dolphins are acceptable and non threatening. Dolphins adapt well to trade and money making and are willing to cheat, hustle and lie to make more. It is hard to tell if their squeaks for joy are just from being happy or laughter at human fools. While they are excellent liars they can be good friends with humans. Many live on islands hunting and fishing. some human fishermen fear the competence of dolphins and some have massacred them out of rivalry. Dolphins remember this and remain wary of humans even friendly ones. Most of all they hate shark and fish folk and they aided humans fighting them long ago.

d12 Dolphin Folk Troubles

1 A dolphin peddler comes to town in a rowboat and is selling unicorn horns, cursed fish folk gold, colourful fake healing potions and treasure maps, quick to move on as has more suckers customers to visit
2 Dolphins come seeking help as viking fishermen came to their village and murdered half their tribe
3 A peg-legged dolphin pirate needs help finding his treasure he buried on skeleton island or was it mermaid island or seahag island? One of those anyway
4 A dolphin is pretending to drop treasure maps in adventurer taverns, actually lead to lairs of his people's enemies
5 A dolphin wants revenge on a sailor who ate his dead brother's corpse. The man is now a church leader who tells of how the gods sent him the corpse when he was starving
6 Dolphins have set up a seaside carnival with gambling, sideshows, freaks from the sea in cages and athletic diving feats to amaze the crowd
7 A dolphin seeks help as fish folk with shark folk mercenaries have reoccupied a ruin on the coast for some evil purpose
8 The fine finny friends are a dolphin brotherhood who offers eternal friendship to any who aid them in destroying a fish cult rampant on the coastline. Many of the cult are respectable civic leaders and dolphins don't want to get blamed if things go wrong
9 Dolphins have come demanding sea tax from a local village and threaten to sink any fishing boats launched unless they get 10% of the catch
10 A scarred dolphin warrior wants to die gloriously on one more heist. He knows where a fish folk fortress is hidden on a reef and wants humans to help him sack the place and kill the fishy bastards
11 Dolphins have come to shore to warn of a cult of manta ray folk who worship a sea demon have moved into the area and seek to sacrifice dolphins and humans like the old days
12 A dolphin wizard offers magical seaweed of water breathing if they help him plunder the garden of a sea nymph

Octopus Folk

These humanoids octopus folk are feared by coastal folk and even disliked by tako octopus fairies. They are voracious servants of chaos with octopus heads and tentacle arms, the greater ones have more arms. While tako are civilized and cautious, these brutes are fearless savages who worship sea demons and chaos gods. Long ago they serve fish god cults but they turned on fish folk when their empire collapsed. They work with squid cults too. Octopus folk live in caves on coasts or reefs and raid enemies on land or the sea. Ever hungry and greedy for treasure and slaves they are constantly at war. Some evil powers employ them but must not show the weakness of the cunning octopus folk will turn on their masters. Often the ambush ships and sacrifice most of the crew and eat them. The unlucky ones are taken to their caves as servants and playthings. They often fight naked to intimidate their foes and often stop in the battle to eat a fallen enemy rather than chase any who flee. Most undersea races fear and mistrust them.

d12 Octopus Folk Troubles

1 A pirate had his crew eaten and his treasure stolen and seeks adventurers to help recover the remains
2 A chaos octopus gladiator has been eating mutants thrown into his fighting pit by humans and has gained new mutations. Using her new abilities she escapes into the markets to kill as many as possible and escape if she can into the sea
3 Octopus warriors have raided a village seizing all the women while the fishermen were at sea. A church offers funds to rescue the women before they are eaten or worse
4 A man covered in sucker wounds washes up on the shore and when revived tells of an offshore cave where octopus folk force human slaves to mine gold from the seafloor using strange apparatus made by fish folk wizards long ago. The man dies of the bends shortly after.
5 An octopus cult has been sacrificing gold and victims to a sea linked sinkhole for generations. Locals want the cult stopped and their false god killed. In the tidal flooded sinkhole, a kraken and his octopus minions come every full moon for treasure and victims
6 An octopus wizard keeps sending a water elemental to kidnap victims from a coastal town daily and a huge reward is offered for the fiend
7 A village troubled by octopus folk have caught an innocent tako they caught visiting fisherman's wives while washing clothes on the rocks by the sea. The villages plan to cook and eat him but he claims to know where the octopus folk lair is and tells of a great treasure hidden there from the old fish folk kingdom
8 A great octopus warrior with obsidian weapons has come ashore and will not let fishermen enter the sea unless they defeat him or give him a dozen human babies to eat
9 Sea elves come ashore seeking humans to fight octopus folk servants of an evil sea hag who wants their handsome prince to marry her
10 Strange chanting from the reef by night has been alarming locals and the tide has been rising higher than ever before. Next full moon high tide approaches and locals dread what will happen next
11 A fisherman killed a selkie who would not be his lover and now the sea king sends octopus folk to punish the humans until the villain is surrendered to him. The culprit knows why the fiend's attack but the village has no idea
12 An evil fish folk sorcerer has been kidnapping humans to turn into octopus folk servants. Predictably they have begun to attack humans when the master is not watching them, drawing attention to his evil schemes against the sea king

Penguin FolkOily flightless bird folk often living in frozen sea islands or rocky coasts. The smallest breeds are penguinlings and most think they are harmless and inoffensive other than their fishy smell. The larger breeds are often sailors and explorers joining human crews and working docks for fish. They have colonies worldwide and trade exotic seafood their preferred currency. Fish folk hate them with a passion for eating their children in their sacred spawning grounds. Some penguin folk seasonally live deeper inland to breed and some came to dwell in ruined prehuman fortresses of alien gods from pre human times. These have become dangerous albino cultists who now guard these ruins from humans. Some penguin magicians have learned the art of making iceberg citadels that wander the world and never melt. Some bring chilling blizzards with them to keep intruders away.

d12 Penguin Folk Troubles

1 A iceberg citadel of penguin folk ruled by a prehuman sorcerer in service to the evil elemental cold demon lords has been attacking coastal shipping and destroying villagers. The kingdom has offered a reward for stopping the frozen juggernaut 
2 A penguin pirate knows the way to the prehuman ruins of Ultima Thule and offers humans join him in his quest for money and forbidden lore that wizards will pay for gladly
3 A penguinling colony has grown and the curious pests now wander the streets, stinking up the place and bringing their odd customs. Locals want someone to drive off the pint sized penguin folk. If bothered they are shocked they are unwelcome and call their larger cousins to aid them
4 A penguin offer maps of far off lands unknown to humans in return for helping her get revenge on shark folk who ate her family
5 A penguin hero in magical ice armour with snow golem minions demands all fishing rights in the area belong to their race, not humans. Locals hire adventures and lie to make this penguin paladin seem less sympathetic
6 A demon whale has been eating penguins fishing in their island waters and they seek humans to kill the weird beast
7 A penguin family had children eaten by walrus folk and they want revenge. Calling on an evil relic from the deep they call a tsunami to hit the walrus colony. A minor sea deity learns of the plan and warns the local humans
8 Savage penguin chaos pirates have been seen off coast spreading mass panic
9 A penguin long lost from home has become a well liked local, somebody has kidnapped it and locals worried
10 Slavers captured the local penguin colony preventing them, from performing ancient rituals that kept a chaos kraken away from the region, now it is tearing up villages and ships
11 Penguinlings were brutally set on by dogs and rendered for oil by horrible humans. They seek killers to avenge their tribe offering to pay with pearls and treasure maps
12 A penguin islander hero comes to civilised port to find athletes for island games and they seek human contestants. Offer gold and pearls to come. The events include kraken hunting, fighting demons and avoiding the deathtraps on their island while seeking a great relic for the natives

Pelican Folk
These gruff but admirable sea folk travel seas and are experts at fishing and smuggling. Many come from Island tribes and join ship crews where they excel in all climates. Many prate crews also have them as crewmen. Occasionally get up to tricks with beaks like hiding goods, snatch severed hands on a battlefield or trip someone up with hook on the beak. Pelican corsairs roam some coastlines living like pirates, some also taken as slaves or conscripted by visiting ships. Pelicans have aided several undersea civilisations for better or for worse of various alignments. There are smaller pelicanlings too but they are more like fish scroungers or sidekicks.

1 A crew of pelicans have adopted a tavern and the owner cant dislodge them. Will pay you in free beer if you can get rid of them
2 A rocky outcrop is a base for smugglers some say but they are working with a huge network of pelican folk and a few fight with them
3 An elderly pelican man with a wooden leg tells stories and sings shanties for beer knows of lots of strange treasure islands to the south. Longs to go back with explorers and speaks islander folk languages
4 A local pelican fisher comes into market warning all about signs of the fish cult in town, almost immediately some fishy fellows follow him
5 A pelican offers a ride for hire on his golem powered tug boat he found in distant ruins on an island
6 Pelicans erected idol where they conjure a sea elemental and talk to mermaids, locals suspicious of their cult and want pelicans gone and to grab their property
7 A pelican fishing boat captain saw strange haunted treasure ship exposed on the reef in a storm in full moon and he is sure conditions will be same tonight for a fee
8 Pelican fisherman has seen a strange stone barge underwater and some stuff that looks like ruins
9 Old pelican in pub gossips about local criminal gangs and their activities around the harbour, for a few coins will name names but if the mob find out the pelican will be found dead next day
10 A gang of pelican folk have been hunting for fish men cults earnestly. Will inspect visitors to town to check for fishy friends or their finny friends. Occupationally are convinced by some trivia some poor person is a fish cultist who needs interrogating and possibly burning
11 A wicked chaos pelican sect have been holding rituals on the reef at night summoning fish to eat and ancient sea demon minions
12 A pelican wizard has erected a coral tower and has declared keep out to all locals and the law. Local tax man wants him issued with a legal summons by hand

Stingray Folk
These sinister folk from the deep served greater armies of fish folk long ago. They are notorious necromancers and evil priests dedicated to marine devils which there are plenty. They often build an underwater entrance to a reef based hidden fort or temple. Many also live in the seas of hell and thus many are called devil-rays. They are reluctant to talk o humans who killed many of their greatest tribes long ago. Some live in marine districts of cities but they often end up working as bounty hunters, smugglers, kidnappers and assassins. Sometimes they start bloodthirsty cults and try to restore the ancient terror days when all gave them offerings out of fear. They like to use spike clubs often with poison, tridents and nets. Smaller ones are shy and hide on distant islands who often don't survive meeting other races. Some are seen gliding over the sea

1 Robed cultists are seen making for the coast with a screaming person, when they reach the beach stingray folk carry them across the low tide to a rocky island with a hidden stingray tentacle to their vampire demon god
2 Missing beachcombers had local search revealing strange rock carvings of stingray folk receiving human captives from humans
3 Recently local smugglers disappeared making quality grog hard to find but then an armed band of taxmen disappeared on patrol too, nobody knows how or why
4 Lighthouse keepers report cloaked creatures running about the lighthouse rocks by night
5 Travellers near the sea find cowled creature hiding in the water peeking and following them
6 On rainy nights some cult has been seen on coast holding strange ceremonies. Once a body was found swollen and purple, punctured with thousands of tiny puncture wounds and broken bones but no blood
7 A man saw ghost like figures swimming in and out of flooded caves
8 A ship came ashore with all crew gone and the hand of a strange creature was found
9 Lights from a rock at sea have been spotted and town elders want adventurers to lead night watch to find out what is going on. Some heard some strange sounds like stone working
10 A stone circle half submerged on the coast has been seen since a big storm and some say sinister robed figures were wading around the rocks
11 Local art in the temple shows long ago strange folk from the sea lived here but were driven off into coastal caves. Stingray folk tribe are very angry and will call on their evil god and fight to the death with everything
12 A dried up devil-ray hangs from shop ceiling and owner comments they used to live here but all were killed. Mentions a bay with an underwater cave. There is a sea devil idol onshore

Seahorse FolkThese creatures are flighty and wary of strangers but are also boastful and like to sound noble and important. They like to think they are more like dragons than horses and some breeds resemble vegetation they live amongst. Some are covered in algae making them hard to see. Other are more colourful and vain holding parties and courtly games. They invite other fish to show how much better they are. Male seahorse folk mostly care for and protect babies while women go exploring and have adventures. When they gather to discus various things they fled from heroically. Smaller breeds were hunted for dried ornaments

1 Seahorse folk are being eaten by a marine dinosaur and need help or they will always perish
3 Someone is catching baby seahorse folk as pets in the city where most die, seahorse elders, need help
4 A sea druid has a location of a secret seahorse dancing place and seeks helpers to meet them. They all sobbed about a giant chaos sea turtle which the tearful druids announce you will fight it
5 A seahorse tattoo artist working on docks has been forced to ally with a thieves guild. Needs some adventurers he can dupe into starting a fight with a rival gang
6 A seahorse bard wishes to study surface adventure then go tour the undersea faerie land with new songs about funny landlubbers
7 A seahorse huckster with his burly lobster folk guards is offering money to who can beat his slave crab man in a fight. He would sell the slave for a good offer
8 A seahorse wizard has come to study the unnatural child rearing practices of the feckless surface folk
9 A seahorse man stranded with a bunch of his children living in an overturned fishing boat need food and help
10 Dazed seahorse children wash up on shore and locals grab them and put them in cages to sell to freak shows and menageries. Under the sea seahorse, villagers are preparing to attack bu night
11 A band of seahorse women adventurers would like to see some monsters up close and offer pearls for safe confrontation with monsters of the surface. They will scream in shrill voices and heroically flee until they are exhausted
12  A seahorse gladiator wants freedom and asks if adventurers could buy him and he could earn cash faster, he desperately wants to get home to his babies separated from him years ago

Manatee FolkThese placid grazers of seaweed are kin to dugongs and sea cows and other similar mammals, some now rare. They are peaceful and kind and happy grazing on weed, some labour in underwater fairyland pulling ploughs for nymphs or seagrass spirit folk. Some come ashore and work on docks using great strength and endurance. Some try and sell milk but with less success but do get be wet nurses for orphan sailors. Deluded humans sometimes mistake them for mermaids or try and eat them or worse so they avoid places humans live mostly. They are quite friendly, calm and jolly when fed and content but produce huge tears when they cry. Manatee make good sailors and wharf crew but don't really like violence mostly

1 A noble wizard likes to run down manatee in his magical boat then has his servants collect the body and spitroast them. Some locals think this could be wrong
2 A peaceful islander knows of a dugong temple where local tribe threw pearls in the sea
3 A great floating raft populated by manatee folk has been seen offshore and they trade goods and welcome strangers
4 A matinee wizard from the underwater fairyland comes to trade drugs with the surface world, offers free sea wine and kelp beer drinks to new customers, locals shocked
5 A giant castle of kelp has grown in the harbour. An evil manatee wizard and his royal guards defend it from intruders while a manatee princess in the top tower calls out for help
6 A slaver has manatees gathering pearls by holding babies hostage, boasts about it in town
7 Manatee folk are swimming around having a sing and humans with harpoons are sneaking up to them
8 A manatee barbarian is hunting humans that killed his family but in meantime needs beer money and fights
9 Sailors have found an island rocky outcrop sea castle of a manatee clan and seek warriors to help them rob the magic brutes
10 A manatee wizard uses illusions to make her sea cow gang seem like attractive maidens. They kidnap people and polymorph the most charismatic into manatee folk to be husbands forever in undersea faerie land
11 A thieves guild of manatee drug smugglers have been crashing drug prices and local guilds need someone to find who. Manatee mostly lay about with hookahs and eating seagrass and dancing
12 Manatee offers magic seagrass that lets surface folk breathe water and a chance to explore a shark infested wreck full of a treasure chest from far away

Sunday 26 January 2020

Creepy Dungeon Dreams





































These are some horrible dream tables like previous ones I have done. i guess you could be extra mean and combine say three of them. If some kind of of magic waking nightmare world you might actually get to make some rolls before the player knows its just a dream. These dreams are meant to be at least 80s horror film bad so don't read while eating a grilled cheese sandwich.

d10 Quick Types
1 Monsters of unreason
2 Bodily ruination
3 Home is where harm is

4 Elemental terrors
5 Vermin and filth
6 Haunting visions
7 Deaths horrors
8 Demonic assaults
9 Evil visions of hellish torment
10 Outre torments from beyond

d100 
Creepy Dreams
01 Goblins are creeping around you and you are paralysed, they begin to devour you
02 You take shelter in the rain under a bridge, a giant troll stirs and grabs you, slurping its lips and tearing off your clothes 
03 You are covered in dripping green slime, as your flesh is painfully consumed you try to scrape and cut it off hastening your demise
04 A hole opens under your feet and you fall into the mandibles of a giant burrowing insect monster
05 Savage orcs catch you in forest and tie you to a pole, they ritually torture you and scourge you with ordeals and gauntlets before finally devouring you 
06 Whilst on a horrible tavern privy a fetid column of filth rises like a serpent and forces itself into your mouth choking, blinding and drowning you, nobody hears you gurgling screams
07 A savage black giant wolf peruses you through a dark primal forest, eventually it catches you knocking you down and taking huge gouging bites from your flesh
08 Someone in your group is really a monster and murderer in secret but your friends think it is you and believe the beast
09 A dragon burning your home, people you knew burned and dead, places you knew now just ashen mounds 
10 Become a lycanthrope and murder people as a beast by night 
11 Your limbs go numb and begin to rot off leaving you helpless
12 You are making love to your one true love, then you are covered in blood as you crushed them and destroyed parts of your body
13 Your gums bleed, worms in your teeth squirm agonisingly, your hair falls out
14 You are in agony and coughing blood. Your stomach explodes and a imp born from you tries to kill your remaining ruined body
15 Eyeballs open all over your body disorientated and horrified by naked reflection
16 Worms under your skin writhing around, start bursting free from hands, eyes, ears, etc
17 Thing from underground swallows you and your trapped squirming through its body
18 Heart beats louder then glows and chest swells before exploding from some other worldly parasite being born
19 Skin shreds away leaving you a horrific monster and in agony craving new skin
20 Mutations bubble and boil from your flesh each step then you devolve into a tentacled slime
21 People in the street are coughing and falling, their faces discoloured, plague comes
22 People you knew growing up are part of a angry mob and you are tied to a stake and burned alive
23 Elderly people surround you dressed as a child and hungrily pursue you through a distorted world where sizes change
24 There is a terrible famine, cannibalism breaks out, many succumb, a mob chase you
25 A dream lover is really a succubi or inccubi and and reveals it's demonic form
26 Your deceased elders are being tortured by demons in hell 
27 You awake in palace full of undead who make you dine with them and drink their food and drink or be eaten
28 Common people you know start to mutate and and morph into a huge fused mass of flesh who want you to join them
29 Dragons and demons overrun and destroy everything in horrible massacre
30 Awaken in your home or most recent inn or house full of killer mimics and so is whole house and they have eaten your friends
31 You are in a haunted dark place, the air pressure increases and your nose bleeds, you feel your insides squirm in pain, you fall, your eyeballs burst, your flesh and organs rupture
32 Everything is icy cold and you sit cold blue and shaking, your skin becomes frost bitten
33 Fire is burning around you and you are choking in smoke, someone is with you
34 It is terribly cold and it is dark, something in the wind screams for you
35 You slip and are falling, you don't understand as you plummet to the ground
36 Underwater, you don't know which way is up, something watches as you run out of air
37 Funeral pyre forms a column of burning flames and flying burned bones absorbing humans and buildings into it and coming after you
38 Mass of elemental earth full of rotten corpses bursts out of ground to attack smothering you
39 You slaughter lots of monsters but their blood forls into a water elemental which crushes and drowns you
40 An electrical jolt arcs from ground forming a ball of lightning that strikes you again cooking your flesh 
41 A swarm of stinging insects menace you and you call for help and try to escape but your swollen blistered body fails you as people pass by
42   Everything is black, it is a swarm of flies. They start to land on you crawling in your mouth, nose, eyes in your clothes smothering you
43 You are a worm crawling in the earth blindly eating some rotten flesh and feel content
44 Worms under your skin are bulging and you start to burst open
45 Rats swarm from sewers, windows and doors. Flow over streets smothering you
46 Awake in bed swarming with fleas you try to get them off more jump everywhere blinding, chocking and smothering you
47 A parasite in you is starting to control you, it crawls under your skin and part of it comes out of your bodily openings occasionally. The thing makes you sacrifice victims chanting to the worm gods then eating the victim
48 Naked and muddy in the underworld of beasts and the lord of the hunt has brought every animal you ate to tear you to pieces for not saying prayers to beast gods properly
49 Beetles under your skin erupt and devour you
50 You awake wrapped in a spider silk cocoon suspended in a dark web filled pit, A giant spider demon approaches to suck your flesh dry
51 Girl from a painting you saw in a inn keeps appearing in your dreams
52 Dark figure chases you in crawlspace between walls of some complex
53 Trees in the dark forest creek, watching you, herding you, breathing slowly
54 A horrid nightmare dream creature stalks you and perhaps slew people you knew
55  Lost in a cave but something lurks inside stalking you
56 Cult summon a mass of eyes and tentacles from beyond which eats cultists then becomes aware of you
57 Strapped to a altar, cultists dance and chant mutilating you until a shambling tree sized horror tears you apart and devours you
58 Trapped in a complex dungeon trap, scorpions climb all over you stinging you until a owlbear comes and begins devouring you while paralysed
59 Climbing over the beams in the dark in a house attack hearing noises of party below, you fall through into a orgy with devils and undead present
60 Running on moonlit moors at night from some beast in pursuit 
61 Ghostly figure with face seems familiar, tries to strangle you
62 Your spirit leaves your body and dark claws fend you away from the light
63 Your friends are at your funeral and after they leave you arise undead and hungrily stalk them
64 Your dead loved ones call you from beyond the grave warning you about being betrayed by fellow adventurers
65 Phantoms of your parents appear, blame you for their deaths and tell you everything wrong with you, more ancestor spirits arrive from underworld to complain too 
66 Spirits from graves pour out tormenting you, drag you to see hell and the underworld
67 See spirits rising into night sky where a vast faceless being in the sky consumes them, it becomes aware of you
68 A shadowy creature comes in your room and your spirit flees, is chased through a dungeon full of murdered torture victims
69 A shadowy phantom is in your bed stroking you and whispering evil utterances to you sweetly
70 Child phantoms follow you giggling as they touch your skin you see visions of their tragic lives and murders 
71 naked demon noble comes to greet you, inviting you into their palace, if you resist they violently beat you for defying them
72 Demons drag you to some shattered planar remnant world where demonic life threatens to devour or torment you at every turn, creatures chase you while you grow desperate for food, sleep and shelter
73 Demons have cut off your limbs and tongue then treat you like a baby and try to get you to suckle on ichor filled boils and sores on their bodies
74 Tiny demons are everywhere in your food and drink, in every shadow, then you see everything is made of tiny demons  
75 Demons chase you then beat you with sticks and drag you to hell past tormented souls and collect a bounty from devil goalkeepers 
76 A dream lover comes to you to make love, at the point of climax you see they are a demon that chokes you and draws out your soul
77 A demon prince has you naked in chains, a plaything at it's feet. Its attentions are loathsome and it's cruelties dehumanising, as you awake the demon says you belong to them forever
78 A demon sits on your chest stopping you breathing, you awake gasping for air
79 A smiling demon watches and whispers, even awake it seems near
80 Had feverish visions of demons around your bed, normally invisible but always there
81 Devils drag you to hell and force feed you coins and treasures painfully and then you painfully pass them while devils kick and beat you and call you names forever
82 Devils drag you to hell and throw you in a pit of venomous serpents that crawl inside you
83 Devils drag you to hell and throw you in a pit of venomous toads that crawl inside you
84 Devils drag you into a pit of live poison toads, rear your clothes off and shove toads int you, then a pit of vipers a pit of rats and a pit of lampreys etc
85 You are dragged into the underworld in chains and the judge of the dead recites your sins and vile acts and the punishments that awaits
86 Angels come to you and hold your arms, then they look grim and bend you to your knees then strikes you with a burning holy blade that ignites your body from within and it crumbles to glowing charcoal
87 You are in chains, naked and a devil is laughing and drinking and begins to flay your skin away revealing your damned soul
88 The gates of hell open and devils march forth to conquer and destroy creation, before them they unleash disasters and legions of evil damned dead, everybody dies as world burns
89 Imps swarm around you wrapping around you and giggling gleefully
90 A duke of hell has you in chains and shows you his cruel torments but offers you freedom and power as hell's agent if you sell your soul
91 You lie in bed paralysed by night, strange lights and noises beset you and you can do nothing, then strange grey smallish naked figures begin to assemble around your bed. They probe your mind and feel inside your body using their alien science
92 An alien entity is in your mind feeling around your worst memories then its sinister psychic shadow strikes you with fear paralysing you. Then the thing draws you into itself in overspace to devour your souls over millennia
93 You fall into a pit of slime full of eyeballs, it swallows you up dissolving your flesh and soul
94 A tentacled horror of the deep grasps you pulling you into the darkness to devour you or worse
95 A figure stalks you in the dark foggy streets, a stumbling bloated white thing that always knows where you are like you are cursed
96 You are lost in a great underworld cave lit by unatural light, a squat sleepy elder god awakens and looks at you with lust
97 Black fluid flows through the floor and into your body, you scream as it invades your body and consumes your mind and soul
98 Revolting fungal beings snatch you at night flying you into the night to their far away lab on the moon, there they extract your brain placing it in a barrel like contraption and you are aware of your horrible condition like a pickle 
99 You are swallowed up by some being from the void and your soul is devoured over thousands of years of torment
100 The black sun rises again and monsters are awakened around the world to feed and sacrifice the human vermin scuttling under their shambling titan feet