Some GMs may be wary of random encounter tables, worried that they will throw up something that makes no sense within the developing story. I hope this shared experience will convince you to try creating story entirely at random. It’s what I did last November. Which was an emergency situation: I had not been planning to run Forbidden Lands for a while, but after our one-off (which we released last year as the Ravenland Tales Actual Play) the party wanted to continue, and more than that they wanted me to run an extra game at our gaming retreat.
At first I thought that I could simply use a Ravens Purge adventure, but the party had already decided to head to the ruins of Wailers Hold, and I did’t think any of the published adventures really fitted that place. Of course my first error had been that I had not fed the party any legends which maybe would have tempted them to one of the published adventures. Now they were headed to somewhere I hadn’t planned, so I needed to work out what they would find.
Still feeling the chagrin of not givin them a legend or two, I started with the legends generator, to see what it might say about Wailers Hold. So I turned to page 26 and started rolling dice
“A long time ago, (roll … 32) during the Alder Wars, there was a (roll …44) beautiful (roll … 21) Druid (I immediately decided it was a Elven Druid) who sought (roll … 33) an enemy (hmmmm who I wonder) because of (roll … 24) a promise (made to a dwarf I thought, given that once Wailers Hold was a Dwarven city) and travelled to (I chose all of the following as I knew where they were going, and where they had got to, last time they played): a hill a days march away in the ruins north east ,
And the legend goes she (roll … 24 again) was never seen again, and that there is (roll 65!) an Elven ruby (which is cool because my Druid is an elf … this all fits!), but also (roll … 24 AGAIN!) cruel (roll… 66… ooh, roll again, just one dice … 3…oh just one) a cruel Demon. Aha! The enemy my elven Druid was searching for.
So a demon is my big bad. I went straight to the Demons section of the Gamemasters’ Guide to create one. But I am NOT going to tell you about that, as my players have not yet met him, and they, especially my co-host Dave, might read this.
Instead, let’s move to the village. I had decided, given the size of the ruins on the map, to make two adventure sites, I rolled the d6 twice and discovered that a there would be a village among the ruins, and a dungeon. I must admit I had hoped for a castle, but rather than ignore the rolls (which I could have done), I decided to run with it and see what developed.
I started by rolling a d6 to see what type (how large) the settlement is. A six – the village in the ruins of Wailers Hold is large. It was populated (d66, a 43) during the bloodmist. It’s is worth noting here that “during the bloodmist” is the most common result in this table, which gives me an insight into how the authors envision the world – very few of the settlements that existed before the bloodmist survived the demon invasion.
The ruler of the village is a (roll… 54) stern (roll… 43) oh, there is no ruler. It must be the people of the village who are stern.
The village problem is (roll… double one) Nightwargs… aha, probably because of that Demon the legend refers to. It’s famous for (roll … 56) worshiping demons. Aha, the villagers worship that demon in the legend! No wonder the Nightwargs prowl around. The village oddity is (roll … 14) an incomprehensible accent … hmmm, they must get that from communing with the demon. Now, I note here there is nothing to help you choose the kin. The assumption must be that villages are human, I guess, but or maybe I should refer to the map on page 46. Anyhow, I selected Alderlanders.
The village generator includes between zero and eleven “institutions”, larger villages get 1d6+5, which, for me, was Eight. They included two taverns, one inn (they drink a lot here), a mill, stables, smith, trading post (aha, I thought, this is one that buys and trades in stuff people manage to find in the ruins), and a militia. Quite how the milita is organised, given no system of civic government, I am not sure. I imagine them as a sort of “neighbourhood warg watch”.
Now here, I think I made a mistake. You can get some colourful detail for your Inn, but I used the same tables for the taverns too. The first had Barrels instead of chairs, planks instead of tables (15) served stewed turnips (24) and was frequented by old war veteran (37 – but I curious about this, surely the blood mist prevented most Wars for the last 300 years.) it was called (roll … 32)The Happy (roll … 35)Dog.
The second, The Old (16) Boar (32) Tavern was almost exactly the same, but instead of the … modest… furniture, it had a (roll …47) grumpy owner.
The place our adventurers actually went to, though, was the inn. Having had two places that randomly served stewed parsnips, I just assumed that the village grew only parsnips, so the inn served that too. I did roll (18) for its special guest and that turned out to be a “Scarred Treasure Hunter”. I had a name for him already, Wynchcliffe (no idea where that came from), and thought he would be the person who offered the location of the dungeon to the party (in return for a cut of what they found), having been scarred by whatever defended it. The inn’s oddity (63) was a birthday party, which I didn’t actually use when we played. The journey to Wailers Hold had taken enough play time, and I thought I would reserve it for the next session. The inn’s name was good though – 65 and 41, the Boisterous Girl.
Next, the dungeon. It is (roll … 4) an average dungeon with (roll … 9) ‘rooms’. It’s a (roll …61) tomb, built by Dwarves (I didn’t roll for this, as Wailer’s Hold was a Dwarven city). Neither did I roll for its history. I was having an idea, “it’s a tomb for the elven druid from the legend”, I thought, “built by her Dwarven lover, to whom she had made the promise… or maybe its HIS tomb. He was killed by the demon, and she came to avenge him… yes that’s it!” I did roll for the current inhabitants though, and got a 46 – Nightwargs. That fits with Nightwargs being a problem for the village, this is obviously where they are coming from. Is the demon trapped in the dungeon by the Nightwargs I wondered? But if it was, how do the villagers get to worship it? Still I did think then that our heroes might discover the demon as a big bad in the dungeon. That’s not how it panned out in the end though.
The entrance to the dungeon is (roll… 26) down a hole. Right, so the scarred treasure hunter dug the hole. Its not the “proper” entrance to the tomb. It’s fresh, there may even be a rope dangling down. In my head I was already thinking he might have left one or two dead companions down there.
I won’t take you though all the rolls for the rooms. The hole led down through the ceiling of a corridor. At one end of which was a room with a creature, which I decided had a Nightwarg in it. And a valuable silver altar. This was (it would turn out) the most valuable treasure in the whole dungeon, in the (likely) first room the party would explore. I went off on some idle speculation that dwarves maybe built their tombs close to the surface because they live deeper underground and were tasking with building the world bigger to reach Huge’s hearth.
At the other end of the corridor was a stairway – a roll of six on the random room chart, which I rolled four times in a row… so it was a VERY long deep spiral staircase. That left only three more rooms in my dungeon. Thankfully they were all actual rooms, (well two rooms and a hall) not more staircase. But I was worried that this dungeon would not be big enough. Two of the rooms had multiple doors though. One had had two, one blocked and one trapped (I had the body of the scarred treasure hunters companion in this one to give my players a clue). The other had room three doors, I made one of those connect to the Hall but decided that, I could extend the dungeon through the other two, or deeper down the staircase, in play by rolling dice as the players explored. To do that though, they would have to defeat the two night wargs I put in that room. Actually I should be honest. I wrote “x? Nightwargs”. I’d decide how many exactly when I saw the challenge that the one upstairs gave the players.
The hall no items or traps in it. Just a creature. I rolled a 37. Undead. Not good enough. By now I had a story in my head about the elf who came to avenge the death of the dwarf and was cursed by the demon that killed him and now inhabited his tomb. I imagined the elf dancing for centuries with the cadaver of her Dwarven lover – and that’s what the players found.
As it turns out, by this time we were playing late into the night, so I had no need to extend the dungeon through those doors. Indeed I edited one encounter out … the Players were meant to discover the demon in that hall too, watching the cursed elf dance. But I decided the elf herself was threat enough for my players’ injured characters. The demon was … elsewhere. Perhaps they’ll meet it the next time we play…
fictionsuit.org 