Fit For A King (50 Magical Wizard Robes)

This is an extensive list of magical robes. For how much the wizard's whole thing is wielding lots of magical knicks and knacks, I feel that robes are rarely on lists of magical items. Let's change that.

Three assumptions about robes first:

• They are flashy. No matter what form they come in, they make a bold statement - it's obvious that you are a Wizard. +1 to reaction rolls with other wizardly types and those of high society.
  
• They are worn over other clothing or lighter armors. This means that they are not concealable while worn in a way other worn items may be. 
• They are large, as such they take up an inventory slot but do not provide armor. They can be used as a full blanket in a pinch and can completely obscure your figure if you cover yourself.
  

Cloaks are for Thieves, who must blend with the shadows and pick people off with subtlety. Robes are for Wizards, who float five feet off the ground and shoot lightning out of their eyeballs. I tried to make most of these robes with this sort of very active and odd approach to problem-solving that Wizards tend to have.

One Could Argue Wizards Are Demons...
(By Jun Suemi)

1. Mauve with a leathery black winged pattern. Cover yourself and turn into a swarm of bats until you next touch sunlight.
2. Off-white with chalky red botanical patterns. Cover yourself and you will be disguised as a patch of mushrooms until you move.
   
3. Pure silver sheen, makes a sound like nails on chalkboard while touching the ground. The edges are serrated, whip the robes around and you can damage all nearby enemies (and allies, including yourself) with damage as a shortsword.
   
4. White with hideous brown blotches. Continually flap it for a minute and take flight - you look exceedingly strange while doing this.
   
5. Like a fabric mirror. Reflects any magic that hits its exterior.
   
6. Blue with a black tentacle pattern. While wrapped firmly over someone's head (successful grapple), you have control over their arms.
   
7. Black with glowing yellow fractures. Whip it at someone to shoot a lightning bolt at them. 1d6 charges, the last charge will hit you, let the player know the effect but keep the charge count hidden from them.
   
8. Countless shades of off-brown, pocket-laden and ugly. Store things in the pockets, whip the robe and all objects stored in the pockets will be launched in that direction at exceedingly high speeds.
   
9. Red with moving orange blotches. The exterior side of this robe is the temperature of a wildfire - heatwaves and ashes roll off your shoulders like dandruff.
   
10. A pale skin tone freckled with brown spots. The faces of anybody you kill with this robe on will appear on its inside, still conscious and able to talk.
    
11. Black with yellow stripes, vibrates uncomfortably. Tear these robes to unleash 10d100 angry bees from its threads and seams. The robes can be sewn back together and torn again for the same effect.
    
12. A pleasant blue with white blotches, inconveniently large. These robes always float to the top of water and can steadily support the weight of up to two people while resting on the water.
    
13. A finely woven tapestry fitted into robe form. The tapestry will rearrange itself to show the wearer's greatest achievements.
    
14. White, pocked with woven red mouths. The inside of these robes emanate a frightening choral scream, temporarily deafening anyone who witnesses its interior layer.
    
15. Bedsheet white with two circular holes round the shoulders. Throw it in the air and it animates, floating and causing as much mischief as it can. It does not listen to your commands but will fall back to the ground as an inanimate robe if you shout "ENOUGH!"
    
16. A scintillating blue interior and orange exterior. Lay it flat against a surface, step through, and you will arrive at the other side.
    
17. Gold with intricate silver floral patterns. This robe and its wearer are incapable of getting dirty - all filth within an arm's reach retreats.
    
18. Luxurious velvet with silver food patterns. The inside of these robes are lined with teeth that devour anybody and anything that dares wear it.
    
19. White with bronze clockwork patterns. Snap and the robe freezes in space and time, unable to be moved or damaged in any way until you snap again or let it out of your sight.
    
20. Yellow with orange sunbeam patterns. The inside of these robes shed natural sunlight with such intensity that anybody who peers at its interior layer is temporarily blinded.
    
21. Blue with pale swirling patterns. Whip the robes and produce a strong directional gust of wind that could blow down a wooden door.
    
22. Orange with brown hexagons. Lie down and cover yourself, the robes will harden like iron until you next move. The robes do not allow any harm or air inside.
    
23. Aggressive poison-frog red. Throw these robes and shout "BEGONE!" - the robes will turn into a high-level Fireball aimed at the direction you threw them. The robes are incinerated in the process.
    
24. Grey with spots of orange, black, and white. Shake the robes and 1d6 cats fall out - they do not have any affection toward you whatsoever. Tear the robes and a lion claws its way out of the seams.
    
25. Brown with dripping golden yellow streaks, a patchwork pelt hood. When the hood is up, your head becomes that of a random animal sewn into the hood.
    
26. Blue with shifting black splotches. Limbs that these robes are wrapped firmly around fall asleep. Wrap it around a head and the entire person falls asleep.
    
27. Solid silver sheen. The exterior is VERY magnetically attractive, the interior layer is VERY repellent.
    
28. Disgusting - a tan skintone with a large mouth on the exterior and a large mouth on the inside. The robes are sentient and very knowledgeable in topics arcane - one side always lies and one side always tells the truth. The robes cannot see and have little patience for trivial questions.
    
29. A pleasant green with verdant blue blotches. If you are knocked unconscious while wearing these robes, the robes will control your body and clumsily try to flee any danger.
    
30. Silver like tinfoil. These robes and their wearer are unaffected by gravity. Secure the robes to something lest they float away unsupervised.
    
31. Rich purple with smirking cherubic faces. Sleep with these robes on and you shall perish. The next person who wears these robes will be possessed by you. If the robes are ever removed from them, they perish too.
    
32. Imperial blue with golden cornucopia patterns. Soak the robes in something and wring them out. The robes will never dry, continually producing whatever material you soaked them in. Wringing is slightly disgusting and extremely physically taxing.
    
33. Tan with frayed white threads. With a whistle the robes will tie themselves into whatever configuration you desire.
    
34. Pale red with tan stripes. While the sleeves are rolled up, your hands turn to hammers. It is hard to roll them back down with hammers-for-hands.
    
35. Pale white with cloudy purple blotches. The insides of these robes pour out a slow but constant stream of fog, a minor hallucinogen. When torn, produce a massive cloud of fog, all inside save or hallucinate.
    
36. Blue with pleasant brown swirls. Twirl in these robes and disappear, arriving back home (wherever that may be). The robes do not travel with you.
    
37. Jet black. While wearing the robes you are invisible - the robes are not.
    
38. Green with thorny brown patterns. When thrown to the floor these robes instantly turn into a patch of thick grasping vines. When it touches its owner it reverts back to its original state.
    
39. Baby blue with ridiculously long 6' sleeves. While wearing the robes, your arms temporarily grow to fit the length of the sleeves.
    
40. Crimson with silver wineglass patterns. The insides of these robes leak a constant trail of blood. Besides the blood type being O negative, no other magical properties.
    
41. Orange with red triangles. Attempt to smother a fire with this and it will grow twice the size and intensity. The robes are flameproof.
    
42. Black with white accents. While the hood is up all noises you make are magnified ten times. While the hood is down they are reduced by the same amount.
43. Extraordinarily plain white, extraordinarily comfy. Sleeping in these grants advantage to all tests of willpower the following day. Sleep in these three times and you will become a copy of the robes.
44. Purple with blue hand patterns. While laying back and lounging, you float 5' off the ground. Any violent or quick action sends you plummeting down.
    
45. Purple with yellow gradient. Anyone who wears this can disguise themselves at will as anybody else who has ever worn these robes in the past.
    
46. Green with off-white diamonds. Wring the robes and they turn into a large snake under your control. Wring the snake and it turns back into robes.
    
47. Green with vomit grey-yellow blotches. Shouting "SUFFER!" shall make the robes turn into highly corrosive acid. Shouting "RISE!" shall make them re-materialize back into robes.
    
48. Purple with black snake-tongue patterns, many pockets. On command all stored liquids in the robes pockets will shoot out of the cuffs as solidified darts.
49. Black and white zigzags. Lay these robes across a wall - you and the robes shall become two-dimensional as if painted on the wall.
50. Black with a strange red emblem. Cover a body with the robes and wait - in one night the body will disappear, robes still present over the site of disappearance. Nobody knows where this goes, only one way to find out.

Human After All (20 Ways To Achieve Immortality)

This is a list of ways to become immortal. Not in real life (probably) just ones that you can nab for your games that may spark some adventure hooks or characters.

By Daniel Martin Diaz

Instead of Lichdom, this wizard has achieved immortality by:

1. Cuting their skin from their bones, their bones from their organs, and their organs from their nervous system - then animating them all to act under their will and separating far from each other. Death cannot effectively locate all layers of the wizard's body before one animates the other again.
2. Carving intricate grooves into their throat and airways then turning themself into a statue. Gusts of wind passing through the grooves sounds like their voice and communicates their will.
3. Minting themself. They cast a spell that allows them to speak and see through all visual depictions of themself.
4. Inventing True Darkness. This comes in the form of paint a shade of very intense black - cover a room with it and not even Death can see you. They intend to cover the world with it.
5. Bribing the Ferryman to Hell with an indescribably lavish boat. This has soured relationships between the Ferryman and Death.
6. Eating a body part of a God. Death registers them as immortal as long as the body part is inside of them.
   
7. Keeping their entire home in a time loop. Their schedule consists of waking up, reading for a few hours, and then conducting an incredibly unstable experiment that breaks them out of the time loop so they have control for the rest of the day.
8. Forming a fertility cult and transferring their soul and spirit into a pregnant cultist's child. The child will grow up to become the wizard .
9. Cheating on Death with a succubus. Out of petty revenge, Death will not claim the wizard - for if Death does then the two lovers may be reunited.
10. Being so repulsive that not even Death wants to be in the same room as them. They hate how filthy they've gotten, but the wizard does not clean themself for it is their only shield against Death.
11. Becoming a fate vampire. They suck the fates out of people and leaves the victims as wandering husks. When they suck a fate out of a person, they discard the old way they were going to die for a new one that will likely happen later than their previous fate.
12. Stealing children from local villages and intensively training them to be exactly like themself. If the children grow older and show insubordination, the wizard turns them into goblins to serve in stealing more children.
13. Turning themself into a summoning spell with a hivemind. There are many copies of the wizard out there - all of their summoned copies waiting for the moment to turn on their unsuspecting masters.
14. Animating their house to walk when they were still living. Now a ghost, despite being stuck to haunting the house they can still have the house travel where they wish.
    
15. Turning themself into an alchemic ooze. With various molds they built, they are able to assume different forms for a time before they collapses into shapelessness again.
16. Freezing themselves in a block of ice. They mentally command a pair of golems to slide them around and follow other orders.
17. Being an incredibly competent duelist. They have won every single duel they've been in, including one against Death. Death does not wish to return to claim them.
18. Reversing their magic polarity. Damaging magic heals them and vice versa. They get into many fights with unsuspecting wizards to keep their health.
19. Trapping themselves in their reflection. Their body is gone, but they can travel between mirrors where Death cannot get them and interact with objects shown in mirrors.
    
20. Creating a catchy song - secretly a ritual. When sung, it increases the wizard's lifespan by a negligible amount - with many people singing it this turns into a massive increase in life.

This was massively inspired by Archons March On's post about alternative methods of immortality. I find many of the scenarios and dungeons I create center on immortality in some way - so it's useful to have alternative methods for it - even if it's just for flavor.

We Evaporate (30 Spells & Designing Interesting Spells)

This is a collection of many spells from different thematic schools, along with some notes about spell design. First, a bold statement that leads into some context for how the upcoming spells are designed:

Eldritch Blast is the worst spell. Ever.

Since many here (including myself) do not play 5th Edition, here's a refresher - "a beam of crackling energy streaks toward a creature within range (120 ft). On hit, the target takes 1d10 force damage," Its lack of description other than these two primary sentences give it no wiggle-room to be used in any capacity outside of combat. Its only redeeming quality is that it is a cantrip, meaning it can be used an unlimited number of times - but this just serves to make it a better tool in combat and nothing more. It arguably makes combat less interesting since its unlimited use will mean that your warlocks and whatnot will be encouraged to immediately use this every turn. Arguably a greater sin, it has no thematic trappings. When I hear the name "Eldritch Blast" I expect it to make people's head explode with forbidden knowledge or shoot a ball of tentacles from your hand or something, literally anything that connects to the thematic spring of the eldritch. Instead we get just a crackling beam of energy - apparently the poor souls who pay for the 5th Edition books do not even deserve a color for their d10 damage beams of energy. 

A good spell should be everything that Eldritch Blast is not - thematic and interactive.

Thinking about Eldritch Blast
By Gigi Cavenago

 

To make a thematic spell, I make spells in groups consisting of a primary, secondary, and tertiary theme.  An obvious example of this would be the School of Pyromancy - with the themes fire, ash, and revenge. For extra credit, I typically like to include a taste (I allow players to identify if something is magical by tasting it), founder, and who uses each spell group. These "schools" of spells can instantly say magnitudes about your world and serve as a jumping-off point for more spells (by pulling from any of the themes). They can also serve as sort of a guide to who should be typically wielding these spells. The list in this post is split up by 5 schools of 6 spells each. Additionally, do not underestimate the ability of a great title to a spell. "Fire Grant Me Strength!" is far better than "Fire Protection", even if both have the same effect.

To make a more interactive spell, I often add a physical element to the spell where there is none. For instance, a spell that sends a single target into a state of bloodlust is already pretty interactive, but it can have a more interesting texture if it summoned a physical shield that, let's say all that struck it will be affected by bloodlust. You can now hand the shield to an ally or make a shield wall of this if you are a particularly strong wizard, it opens up many more possibilities. Eldritch Blast fails in its intractability but can easily be expanded upon if it defined what energy it blasts. If it were, say, electric energy (despite not fitting to the theme it is already too cowardly to stick to) it opens itself to more use cases like electrifying a pool of water, a weapon, etc. Generally if you can think of more than two use cases for a spell than it is interactive enough. Often times theme will enhance interactivity, do not be afraid to expand spells you find boring by tapping into its theme.

There is additionally an element of GM interpretation to making spells more interesting as well. I try to be generous when players come up with ideas for how to use spells in ways I hadn't thought of. If it's a risky gambit they're trying to pull off, I'll warn them that there is a risk (perhaps not the exact nature of it) as well if it's all in the name of experimentation.

I didn't know Vivisection would do that, I swear.
By Gigi Cavenago

House of Flames

Fire, Blood, Vengeance. Their magic tastes of cinnamon. Founded by Rishloo IV the Bookburner. Practiced by vigilantes of an incestuous royal bloodline.

1. Bloodflame Jelly. Leave a [LEVEL] * 10 sq-ft puddle of gelatinous blood that ignites and dissipates on your command.
   
2. Beginning Of The End. Conjure a talisman that stinks of magic and stick it on a building or other manmade structure. In exactly one week it shall be devastated by a great fire.
   
3. Brothers By Blood. Knight a target - their blood turns to fire as soon as it leaves their body for the next [LEVEL] hours. From now on all will recognize the target as noble blood, for better or worse.
   
4. Fire In The Mind. Enchant and item and give it as a gift to a target. As long as they keep it, their dreams are haunted by horrible nightmares of your choosing. They cannot benefit from a full night's rest.
   
5. Bloody Aegis. Conjure a shield that turns to bloody slush in [LEVEL] * 10 minutes. Whoever views it must save or be driven to insatiable bloodlust.
   
6. Flickering Form. Swap places with a source of fire that you can see. Whatever fire you swap with grows to your size briefly. 

---

Circle of Spiders

Spiders, Grace, and Moonlight. Their magic tastes of bile. Founded by the heretic Indigo Dubois. Practiced by a circle of witches who live in the attics and basements of unsuspecting nobles.

1. Behold, Me. Conjure a cloak that turns to spiders in [LEVEL] * 10 minutes. The wearer's bottom half turns into a spider the size of a horse.
2. Join Me In Song. Scream. Everybody in earshot vomits spiders and screams as long as you hold the scream, including yourself. 
3. My Eyes, For You. Conjure an eyeglass that turns to spiders in [LEVEL] * 10 minutes. Whoever looks through it sees through the moon's eyes and anything the moonlight touches with perfect accuracy.
4. My Bond, Unbreakable. Shoot [LEVEL] ropes of webbing. These form knots on your command and can only be destroyed by magical weaponry or fire.
   
5. Join Me In Dance. Touch something and dance. It will mimic you as long as you are touching. Nonliving things will animate clumsily and attempt to copy your dance as well.
   
6. My Light, My Beloved. Every inch of your skin glows with moonlight for [LEVEL] * 10 minutes. During this time, all who view you must save or begin sobbing uncontrollably.

---

Scholars of the Grounding Flesh

Anatomy, Death, Relief. Their magic tastes of everclear. Founded by the disgraced Doctor Nygarde. Practiced by medical school dropouts and war criminals.

1. Munchausen By Proxy. Name a disease you know and conjure a ring that turns to bile in [LEVEL] * 10 minutes. The wearer will display all superficial signs of this disease to a dramatic extent.
   
2. Marfan Syndrome. Conjure a bracelet that turns to bile in [LEVEL] * 10 minutes. Whatever limb the bracelet is put on grows to quadruple its normal size.
3. Locked-In Syndrome. Touch someone. As long as you are touching them, both you and the target cannot willingly move.
   
4. Post-Mortem Eruption. Conjure a satchel that turns to bile in [LEVEL] days and place it on something dead. If removed, the dead thing (whether human or otherwise) explodes.
5. Pica. Conjure a tapestry that turns to bile in [LEVEL] days. Whoever gazes upon it feels the overwhelming need to eat anything they can put in their mouth for [LEVEL] * 10 minutes.
6. Stoneman Syndrome.Wave your hand over [LEVEL] * 2 sq-ft of living matter. It turns to bone for [LEVEL] * 10 minutes.
   

---

School of the Ancestors

Spirits, Lineage, Honor. Their magic tastes of bourbon. Founded by nobody in particular. Practiced by a loose collection of oracles and occultists who call upon the same magical spirits.

1. Catherine. A ghost in aristocrat's garb appears for [LEVEL] * 10 minutes. She obeys the requests of the most polite person in the room. Nonviolent and extremely knowledgeable in etiquette, politics, and poisons.
   
2. Takeshi. A ghost in warrior's garb with a long spectral sword appears for [LEVEL] * 10 minutes. He obeys the requests of the most masculine person in the room. Extremely violent and justifiably brave given his status as a dead man.
3. Cristobal. The ghost of a horse appears for [LEVEL] * 10 minutes. It obeys the requests of the most sinful person in the room. Stubborn, no matter where it is it knows the lay of the land.
   
4. Robin. A naked ghost appears for [LEVEL] * 10 minutes. They do not obey anybody, simply floating around and making small talk about ancient art. They are exceedingly beautiful - anybody in their presence cannot be roused to violence.
   
5. Tim. The ghost of a child appears for [LEVEL] * 10 minutes. He does not obey anybody and will cause as much mischief as he can in the time he has. Horrible, dreadful, completely unreasonable demon child.
6. It. An indescribable ghost appears for [LEVEL] * 10 minutes. It is clingy toward a random person in the room. Nobody can bring themselves to view it willingly, and take mental damage for each minute they stare.
   

---

Table of Dolls

Dolls, Wood, Silence. Their magic tastes of sawdust. Founded by Nagel the Craftsman, maker of the first automaton. Practiced by his Nagel's loyal apprentices, and the lonely who have gotten hold of his magic from his less loyal apprentices for a price.

1. Magnum Opus. A [LEVEL] * 10 foot tall idol of wood rises from the ground. You decide on its appearance.
2. Muse's Tongue. Conjure a horn that turns to mulch in [LEVEL] hours. If you speak through the horn, plants and wood will understand you. If you listen through the horn, you can understand them.
   
3. A Small Gift. Conjure a ring that turns to mulch in [LEVEL] hours. Whatever vaguely humanoid thing wears the ring is given sentience and the ability to ambulate as long as it wears the ring. It is aware of its own mortality, roll reaction.
4. Mine Own Form. Create a wooden doll clone of yourself at any point you can see, at any size up to twice as big or small as you. It turns to mulch in [LEVEL] * 10 minutes. It copies your exact movements and your voice.
5. Ideal Form. Become a primitive wooden form (sphere, box, pyramid, cone, cylinder, torus) of [LEVEL] * 5 sq-ft for up to [LEVEL] * 10 minutes. 
6. Magician's Flute. Come up with a sound and conjure a horn that turns to mulch in [LEVEL] * 10 minutes. The horn blares this sound at the volume of a scream on command.

Asking The Right Questions (Worldbuilding By Bibliomancy)

This is an intuitive method of building a setting based off asking questions and interpolating answers with the help of literature. First, something I suspect many of us suffer from - the need to be utterly unique. I often find myself being overly precious in the planning phase when making a setting, be it a smaller dungeon or a wider world. I fear that if I were to carry out the thoughts that come to my head on first instinct they would be trite garbage not worth the labor of execution.

When I sit here and type it out, it all becomes quite silly. Ideas are cheap, especially if you have nothing to show for it because you spent all your time mulling over new, better ideas. But as children of a culture that puts so much weight on the value of ideas the fear still persists and can be paralyzing. As a person building a world, this paralysis becomes worse when you can visualize what may be the starts of a good idea but cannot justify it in a way that has a level of verisimilitude or connection to other things within the world. There is no greater disappointment than coming up with something you think would be iconic, having no clue how to slot it into the setting, and then casting it aside. There's the initial rush and passion of an idea, but then the logistics anxiety sets in on if it will work or be worth it.

Often I've combated this feeling by worldbuilding with friends with systems like The Quiet Year and Microscope. The collaboration between multiple minds can really affirm that an idea stands on solid ground, and the prompting of one person may take the world in a direction that reinvigorates your interest in the world and makes you feel that everybody at the table is a genius. Of course, this comes with three primary disadvantages:

• You need friends. I am lucky enough to have them, but all of us are students with very little time to spend.
• These systems have rules that every player must understand. You can only really depend on yourself to arrive knowing the rules and what you want to get out of this experience.
  
• It is often done in one session. It is quite hard to pick up where you left off in a worldbuilding game. When I worldbuild it tends to come in inspired sprints, it's not like I can call up my friends to play Microscope at 1 AM. The ability to worldbuild with prompting while on a bus or in insomnia-riddled fits is incredibly valuable but hard to achieve.
  

The question remains, how do we handle this irrational but still very influential feeling of idea paralysis?

Art by Alariko

Despite being too busy to worldbuild with friends, I've been suffering from this feeling less and less. A month ago I got my issue of KNOCK #4 (check it out, I'm in it) and read a post by Jens Turesson at The Acorn Afloat that changed the way I approach building settings almost entirely. It's an older post, but I did the digging for you and you can find it here. I will sum it up in a simple and generalized manner:

1. Start with what elements you want in the setting. Jens does this in the form of a map, but you can describe it as well. Statues of a strange God looming over the horizon, a glowing lake, spider-dogs, etc. Go crazy, go wild.
   Visual thinkers will shine here. For those who are less attuned to visualizing, come up with a main element (a lake, for instance) and then place something that doesn't belong within that element (it's glowing, it's made of blood, there's a cabin in the middle of it, etc.)
   
2. Pick an element of the world and ask yourself, "Why is X there?/Why is X this way?"
3. Take a book and flip to a random page, read the first sentence that catches your eye.
4. Use the sentence as a prompt for an answer.
5. Repeat until satisfied.
   

This method is brilliant for multiple reasons. Mostly, you can focus far more easily on establishing iconic encounters and elements without having to immediately worry about how these fit into the world. Also, through asking enough why's you can easily establish more ideas that aren't necessarily thematically related to the idea that made you start this method of worldbuilding in the first place but are still related diegetically.

Art by Alariko

This being said, rules as written the method can produce underwhelming results sometimes because you are trapped into asking "why". Sometimes "why" is not the question. The full potential of an idea can more easily be tapped by knowing the right questions to ask. So, I have changed the process with some notes that have worked in my time using this:

1. Start with what elements you want in the setting.
   Be sure to arrange elements with contrast in mind to give yourself enough questions to ask about these elements (i.e. "Why is this lake made of blood" is a far more easy question to answer (and therefore has less potential as an idea) if the lake is located in Hell or wherever else you may reasonably find a lake of blood)
2. Pick an element and ask yourself one of the following:
   
   • Why, if you're looking for a reason or motive behind why an element is there or the way it is.
     
   • How, if you're looking for the logistics behind an element or what means it may have.
     
   • Who, if you're looking to add an NPC related to the element.
   • What, if you're looking to add another element related to this current element.
   • When, if you're looking to mention the past or a prophesied future, and add that time as a new element (this question is not often used)
   • Where, if a part of the element is present somewhere other than here, and add that place as a new element (also rarely used)
     
3. Take a book and flip to a random page, read the first sentence that catches your eye.
   
4. Use the sentence as a prompt for the answer. One to two sentences is often a good length. Do not be afraid of reaching or using an answer that you feel is unrelated to the prompt. This is not a standard to hold your world to, simply a method to help you build a world in an intuitive way.
   
5. Note down any new elements established through this line of questioning. These will come in handy to remind you of where you left off and further possible elements to develop.
   
6. Repeat on new elements or this element until satisfied. I find that three questions asked about one element is often enough to define it pretty well before moving onto an element related to it - but play to your taste.
   

And, some design notes: 

• Avoid asking Do/Does/Are/Is questions. These can often be answered with a simple yes or no. They are still important to define, but a coin is the correct tool for that, not a book. Yes is typically the correct answer.
  
• Books don't need to be the only media used in this exercise. Song lyrics work as well as long as your taste isn't limited to ambience. For books, I recommend poetry, but I've had a friend who got good use out of a coding textbook as well - so anything will do. If you do use a book, the best ones for this are those not heavy in short bursts of dialogue.
  
• Limiting yourself to one book or similar songs can help in getting a more consistent tone of answers if that is what you seek. 
• This method can also be tried on defining NPCs! This does not need to just be reserved for spaces and settings. Ask questions on why they wear certain clothes or how they got their weird gear.
  
• This does not completely replace the usefulness of a friend's help. I frequently vent ideas to Archon of Archon's Court, who aside from being an excellent writer is lovely for listening to my ramblings. This is a good method for still maintaining the surprise of your world to your friends, but I think any GM would go insane if they couldn't talk about what they were working on to somebody.
  

Art by Alariko

And finally, an example with a few more notes: 

A RUINED CABIN IN THE WOODS, A DRIED RIVER RUNS CLOSE TO IT.

• Why did someone build this cabin here?
  
• "Like winged stars the fire-flies flash and glance, / Pale in the open moonshine, but each one..." - Letter to Maria Gisborne, Percy Bysshe Shelley
  
• This cabin was built to harvest firefly-liquor, also known as Sunshine. The low trees and fertile insect-breeding grounds make this a good place to collect the mass amount of fireflies needed for this.
  
• What caused the cabin's destruction?
  
• "Close by the waterfall, the column slants, / And feels its ceaseless breeze. But what is this?" - The Picture, Samuel Taylor Coleridge
  
• A water elemental ruined the shack.
  Hm, a fine start. Perhaps it's a liquor elemental! Yeah, that's fun, it's a liquor elemental. Never be afraid to reach if another answer that comes from this questioning seems more fun or thematically appropriate!
  A barrel of firefly-liquor became an elemental and trashed the place, causing its previous inhabitants to flee.
  
• Who lived here before the cabin's destruction?
  
• "Titan! to whose immortal eyes / The sufferings of mortality," - Prometheus, Lord Byron
  
• A 12 foot tall immortal man, with the red puffy face of an alcoholic - locals report his name was Noryb.
  If you're out of ideas for NPC names, use the author's one scrambled or backwards!
  
• Where does the dried river start?
  
• "Can Ariel ever find his own. / From Prospero's enchanted cell, [...]" - With a Guitar, to Jane, Percy Bysshe Shelley
  
• An abandoned prison.
  Another fine start, but with the prompt "enchanted" and the information we have, we can easily attach this to more context. You may start to see how the order in which you ask certain questions can play out in forming a location!
   An abandoned prison for immortals, meant to keep them from committing crimes out of disdain for mortal men.
  
• How did Noryb the Immortal defend himself from the nearby prison?
  
• "But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet / Wherewith the seasonable month endows." - Ode to a Nightingale, John Keats
  
• The shadows within the cabin's confines are magical. If you slip into one, you turn invisible - which allowed Noryb to hide from prison patrols and scare off intruders.
  I could have easily said that Noryb is able to turn invisible in shadows, but tying this effect to the location instead of just one NPC makes it more interesting and allows you to use it as a springboard for more questions.
  
• When did the cabin become abandoned?
  
• "Ten thousand saw I at a glance, / Tossing their heads in sprightly dance." - I wandered Lonely as a Cloud, William Wordsworth
  
• During the Ousting Of The Immortals, when peasants from hamlets all round came to burn anybody accused of Immortal Practices.
  Giving anything a proper name is an easy way to establish it as a new element you can explore later!
  

Look at that - just by asking a few questions we have got a place with a fun background and connection to the world around it while still having more elements to prod at if we so desire! I could easily see this all as a hexcrawl or something similar. Let's list those elements established in this line of questioning so we may prod at them later if we ever want to pick this back up:

• The Dried River
  
• Firefly-liquor (Known as Sunshine)
• The Sunshine Elemental
• Noryb the Immortal
  
• Abandoned Immortal Prison
• Magical Shadows
• Ousting Of The Immortals
• Nearby Hamlets
• Immortal Practices
  

For the sake of example I relied pretty heavily on using every different type of question and using the books quite often. Typically I'd do around 3 questions before feeling satisfied instead of 6, and use duplicate questions if need be (I really wanted to ask Why did the elemental destroy the cabin but I restrained myself). I'm also completely fine with leaving some questions unanswered - not everything needs to be detailed out.

But remember that your instincts are not as bad as you think they are. If you are confident you know the answer to a question, you don't need a book to tell you otherwise. The goal of this procedure is to reinvigorate your surprise and wonder in creating a setting. To get you more excited and confident in your own ideas because now they are shared between you and an author of the past. To encourage some healthy spontaneity and make you take guided steps toward making the damn thing!

Beginning Of The End (How To Finish A Campaign)

These are a few methods to help end a campaign in a way that satisfactory toward everybody at the table. If you've been a player or a GM in more than one long-running campaign, you've likely experienced the fizzle. Simply, the game dies with a whimper and not the bang we all envision when we picture a game's climactic end. The fizzle happens most commonly in three different ways:

• Things are going well, then slowly scheduling problems occur. Nobody seems able to remedy them. The game dies in stasis with empty promises to pick it up again before it is abandoned.
• The players meander around for a few sessions. Player interest begins to die down. The GM's interest dies down as well. The game is abandoned to move onto the next great thing while this world and its characters are left to be forgotten.
• The GM cannot bear the weight of their own ambition when they started this game. They put it on hiatus. It never starts again. It becomes a sore point of conversation.

The Tower by Ferenc Pinter

These are largely symptoms that come from the intersection of wildly overestimating the mortality of your game and not having a clear objective for the players to fulfill. As much as we in the OSR community tote the phrase "run situations, not stories" (or variations thereof), as a storytelling species we naturally crave a narrative and it's disheartening to see the fizzle rid a game of a fulfilling ending. But, there is a principle we as GMs can apply to prevent the fizzle:

When beginning a game, have a planned end condition. This can be anything from "this game will end when the semester ends" to "this game will end when you have collected a certain object in the dungeon or die trying". Choose a timeframe or objective that works best for you and your group's circumstances. Discuss it openly with them.

Tie the end condition into the world. "This game will end when the semester ends" is not exactly a graceful way to end a story and does not complete the objectives we are looking for. Try to tie this timeframe into the world. For instance, spinning it as "The dragonfire bomb will consume the world in flame when the semester ends" immediately says a lot about your world and gets players interested. It does not always have to be the end of the world, though, even if that is the easiest way to tie the timeframe of the campaign into the world. "The last boat leaves off this island by semester's end" and "your debtees will have your kneecaps come semester end" are lower stakes but equally as valid. All that matters is that it ties into the world and affects the players to where it'd feasibly be an end.

Be very transparent with players about this end condition. Don't keep the end condition a secret from them, even if it feels like it should be because of how it is tied to the world. Knowledge of the game's mortality will make players act in more brave ways that leads to more interesting gaming and storytelling.

Have the player's starting conditions be influenced by the end condition. If the game ends when the players escape the megadungeon-prison of Cath-Dunn, it makes no sense to have them roll 3d6x10 gp and buy their gear from the equipment list. Once the players are informed of the end condition and are comfortable with it, be unafraid to throw them into their situation with nothing but rags, loose manacles, and a skewer of cooked rats. Specificity like this adds flavor to the game and verisimilitude to the world and the situation your players are in.

Foreshadow the end condition through the world, give it a focus. The dragonfire bomb ticking deep beneath the earth, increasing in volume as the end approaches. Ships slowly leaving port, the town becomes less populated until it is just you and the last boat. Increasingly threatening letters from your debtees. Remind the players of the game's mortality from time to time to increase pressure, remind them of their circumstances, or add a grim ambiance.

Let the players define their own victory. Listen to their plans and encourage their own exploration of the world in the time they have. If their original goal was to pay off their debts but now they want a final confrontation with their powerful debtees, let them have it, even if it was not in your original vision. This tip is more for games that end over a timeframe rather than games that end when a certain objective is met (i.e. retrieve the Sword Of The Holy Wyrm from the dungeon or die trying). Games that end on an objective already have a defined victory condition - completing the objective. As a note, generally objective-based end conditions require more talk between players and GM beforehand to confirm that everybody is okay with the premise.

I have personally been using these principles for a long while and I've found them to be successful. There's been a significant drop in the amount of times the fizzle occurs. Scheduling problems still happen, gathering three to six adults in one room for several hours is a surprisingly difficult task as any GM knows - but the knowledge of the game's end motivates people to schedule more purposefully, encourages player exploration in the limited time they have, and limits the GM's scope. All of this leads to a more smooth and complete game experience.

Before utilizing these principles, I have found myself being influenced by the expectation that is rampant in Fifth Edition circles (despite not even using 5e), that a campaign should last until players naturally wander into the climactic encounter the GM was planning all along. This expectation is nigh-impossible to live up to, as herding players toward a planned climax and having them believe that this was actually what they wanted all along leads to the player's choices feeling obsolete and the world being flattened. This expectation often requires a lot of scope creep, as players naturally want to explore the world and waltz away from your climactic encounter or are simply not ready to handle it yet. The limiting of scope creep has helped me become a happier GM and get more restful hours of sleep.

Acknowledging the mortality of a campaign is uncomfortable and strange, but ultimately beneficial to how the game pans out. The times you have with your friends are limited - the times you spend together in worlds of collective imagination even more so - it is best to spend these times in a way that offers closure and completeness to you, your friends, the characters, and your world so you may speak of them with fondness instead of regret.

The Fool by Ferenc Pinter

Now for some informal additions to this post. I got carried away writing this post and wrote a small table of example end conditions, some I've even used in the past. Remember if you use these that the end conditions should influence the player's starting conditions. I hope you enjoy these:

1. When the semester is over, the dragonfire bomb deep beneath the earth will explode bathing the world in spectral green fire.
   
2. When Spring is over, your mage-debtees will come to take your organs as payment.
   
3. When the sunlight touches your flesh and you are free from the labyrinth, the game will end.
4. When the weekend is over, the archpriest shall leave the county and the heist shall have to be called off.
5. When Winter is over, Immortal Deustresses will cast judgement upon you and either smite you or make you living saints.
6. When you have found a way to the moon, the game will end.
7. When we return to campus, the Golden Rot will turn your bodies to brilliant golden statues.
8. When Fall is over, the dungeon will collapse.
9. When Summer is over, all magic loses its potency, and as mages your legacies will end.
10. When tax season arrives, if you have not paid 1,000,000 gp to the King you will be beheaded. If successfully paid, you will be freed from your knightly servitude and retire. Either way the game will end.
    

Additionally, some final design notes:

• End-conditions set within a timeframe are FAR easier to pull off than ones based around an objective. I recommend you start with timeframes if you are unfamiliar with these principles. It immediately adds pressure to the players to act in interesting ways in a way that pursuing an objective does not. Although, objective-based and timeframe-based end conditions can be mixed for fun and profit. Number 10 on the example table is a fine example of this.
  
• I cannot stress enough the importance of being transparent about your end conditions with your players. A game can be something that people get incredibly emotionally invested in, and to rob invested players of the game with an end they did not see coming can cause even more sour feelings than the fizzle. Additionally, you must remember that you can only make meaningful decisions as a player when given enough information about your situation. I believe that the game's end conditions fall into that set of information that is critical to decision-making.
  
• Remember that these are end-conditions. Start them with When, not If. The game's end will always come, this post is about ending it on terms everybody is happy with.
  

Knots (A Procedure For Elegant Jaquaysing)

This is an approach to automatically Jaquays your dungeons while building them. For those unfamiliar - Jaquaysing is a term popularized by Justin Alexander, named after the late Jennell Jaquays. It refers to a specific set of tricks you can use to make your dungeon (or any space, really) have a greater sense of interconnectivity and nonlinearity. Jaquaysing is important because to Jaquays your dungeon is to make it a more playable space that allows for player freedom.

Labyrinth II by Erik Desmazières

The principles of Jaquaysing are generally to:

• Add loops to your dungeon. Loops provide the players multiple options to tackle their problems, and the ability to approach problems from behind. For instance, rooms 14 through 17 in the imaginary Loathsome Frog Caverns form a loop (14 connects to 15, which connects to 16, which connects to 17, and 17 connects to 14). 17 has a Frog-Curse Blade in a glass display case, but the way between 14 and 17 is blocked by a punji pit. Meanwhile 15 is home to a Froghemoth. Here players who enter 14 are presented with two different problems - but because 15 leads to 16 leads to 17, players can still get the Frog-Curse Blade if they are feeling down to fight the Froghemoth instead of traverse the punji pit.
  
• Add multiple entrances/exits to your dungeon. Each entrance/exit can have its own difficulties and level of obviousness. For instance, the main entrance to the Loathsome Frog Caverns is well known but is frequented by bandit patrols looking to shake up adventurers for taxes. There is a secret tunnel a half mile away but it is only known by guides and slime harvesters, but it can also be discovered in a strange side-path within the dungeon.
  
• Add multiple ways to traverse the levels within your dungeon. Most dungeons of a considerable size to be Jaquaysed have multiple levels of increasing danger - and just the same way that multiple entrances helps players find easier (or just different) paths to approach new environments, so to does having multiple paths between levels. For instance, the most obvious way to Level 2 of the Loathsome Frog Caverns is by a grand stairwell guarded by a council of Croaking Ghosts who demand tribute. If players do not have appropriate tribute (or enchanted weapons), room 21 is host to a large snail-pit that descends to room 49 on Level 3.
  

Now that the basics are out of the way: among writers in the OSR space, this topic has been talked about a lot - although I always have a problem with the way it is talked about. Good tips, talk, and examples from other modules are often given, but I am a big fan of procedure, which these posts often lack. The ways to execute upon these ideas requires very active thought or renovating a dungeon you already have made - and sometimes I just want to spontaneously make a dungeon and have it work well in play.

Jaquaysing may sound easy to do in the moment - just add more exits to rooms. This pitfall leads to a few issues:

• The players get analysis paralysis and spend hard-scheduled game hours arguing in the 10-exit room you made about which door to go through rather than doing anything fun or exciting. Choice is great and integral to impactful play, but giving too many choices in a constricted environment (like the dungeon where Jaquaysing is most commonly applied) can be meaningless if it leads to  paralysis that makes players freeze or just pick a random door because they feel that they are all the same and they should keep the game moving.
• It confuses systems which are integral to dungeon travel. Things like torch usage and dungeon turns rely on the traversal of many rooms instead of just two rooms (the 10-exit monstrosity and one of its branches). By making your room 2 connect to rooms 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9, you've pinched travel that could have happened if you instead had room 2 connect to rooms 3 and 4, and 3 connect to 5, and etc.
• It's harder to get players to care for where in the dungeon to go next. This may be my own personal preference, but I find that describing what may come in the next room via sounds, sights, and smells at a room's exit is just as important as the upcoming room itself because sensory information like this allows for players to make informed decisions about their travel. For instance, the way between rooms 2 and 3 is described as having "an overwhelmingly earthy scent, audible noise of squelching footsteps frolicking." Clues like this both reward players for immersing themselves and investigating the world while giving them some things to suspect about the upcoming room without giving the game away. If you have a 10-exit monstrosity and you're taking this sensory approach, you've both put much more work onto yourself and more information to process for the players, which they may get exhausted from.
  

Needless to say - we don't want these issues. We want to Jaquays elegantly. 

With this in mind, I've made a procedure that you can use in the process of creating your dungeon to ensure that it is Jaquaysed without running into the issues above. This procedure is purely for dungeon layout and composition, and assumes that you already have themes/trappings decided for your dungeon (as any good dungeon ought to have).

The procedure is a series of questions you should ask yourself with each room placed on the map. The questions are as follows:

1. Does this room connect to more than three other rooms? If so, remove exits until you have two or three. For the purposes of this procedure, entrances/exits to the dungeon itself count as a room as well, and will be the only valid dead-ends on the map.
   
2. Does this room only connect to one other room? If so, add another exit until you have two or three. If you cannot think of an exit to the room, you can always add an exit to the dungeon. Additionally, you can add a more obscure way of traversal (a secret door that loops back to another room, a pit that leads down a level, etc)
3. Does this room have more than one exit on any given wall? If so, rearrange exits until there is a maximum of one exit per wall. This is for the sake of clarity for both yourself and the players. Having three exits on the north wall can quickly get confusing if players return to the room (which they will often do at least once if the dungeon is Jaquaysed properly). 
4. Define each connection this room has as either obvious or obscure.
   Obvious connections are things players will immediately see as a simple, safe way to exit this room. For example, a wooden door, an archway, a stairwell, etc. These will likely be most exits in the dungeon. The only interaction they often offer is passing through them or forcing them open.
   Obscure connections are where you can get creative with travel and cater to different player styles. They can be exits that players don't immediately see and reward investigation (i.e., a secret door, a sliding bookshelf, etc.) They can be exits that are dangerous (i.e., a wall of fire, a trapped door, etc.) They can just be exits that are thematic to the dungeon (i.e. vents, sewers, chutes, a pit, etc) Whatever the obscure connection is, have fun with it and allow for interesting player interaction with it.
   

I typically make the map in this fashion before I define the contents of the rooms, because a critical advantage of this procedure is that it lets you know what rooms will be important to further exploration of the dungeon. Players are likely to return to rooms with three obvious connections if they want to explore the full dungeon. These junctions are ripe opportunities for you to place visually striking, or setting significant room contents - because the players will more likely than not return to this room to explore the other branch the dungeon has to offer at this point. This is not to say that all rooms should have three obvious connections - use your better judgement.

 I have been using this procedure for a while now and it has quite a few benefits:

• It guarantees a Jaquaysed dungeon. Because the only dead-ends on the map are entrances and exits to the dungeon complex itself, if you use this procedure to its full potential the connections between rooms form large loops and junctions that always present the players somewhere to go without having to rely on rooms with too many exits. Even if you get criminally lazy and make a dungeon that is a straight line with entrances at both ends, it still follows one principle of Jaquaysing.
• It's simple and allows for spontaneous creation that can lead to pleasant surprises. When using this procedure I've occasionally had to abandon obvious design conventions that first come to mind in favor of something more interesting. For instance, there's been a few times I've had to add exits to the dungeon complex near the center of the map because the only valid dead-ends are exits and the dungeon geometry won't allow for me to expand further in one direction or another
• When you break the rules, it heightens the significance or weirdness of a specific room.
  

La Tour De Babel by Erik Desmazières

With the notes about the procedure done, I can't lie, I got a bit carried away with the examples and made a table of obscure connections. I hope you enjoy them.

D12 Obscure Connections:

1. A sewer - a slimy cramped crawl into the next room.
2. An electrified metal gate - hums threateningly.
   
3. A mouth - if you taste too good it may close after you enter.
4. A metal door with a slot - requires appropriate offerings in the slot to be opened.
5. Cracked glass - easily broken and allows vision into the next room.
6. A hidden door behind torture implements - smells awful.
7. A trapped staircase that has already been activated - its stairs now a slope downward.
8. A sheer drop downward into darkness.
   
9. A well - bucket and rope still intact.
10. Wind tunnels - industrial fans still spin and threaten to bisect those who aren't careful.
11. A blabbering wall of flesh - must be bargained with for entry and exit.
12. A sheer ascent - with only overgrown vines and the occasional foothold to assist your way to the next room. 

Edit After Post:

I mention it only briefly, but knowing when to break the rules of the procedure deserves a little more talk. The procedure definitely makes dungeon layouts have a few quirks, most notably that there are no dead-ends outside of entrances/exits to the dungeon complex itself. This is not always a good thing, as this kind of layout can be at odds with the themes or setting of your dungeon. I like to use the procedure listed above as a way to sort of lay out a map before I know its specifics - with the layout and themes in mind then I find ways to break rules where it would benefit the dungeon. Use your best artistic judgement when breaking the rules, but I find that these are cases where you may want to ignore parts of the procedure:

• If the verisimilitude of the dungeon would not benefit from the procedure. For instance, a prison cell is not likely to have at least two ways to exit it, otherwise that would be a poorly crafted prison. A dead end in a room like this would benefit how believable the space in your dungeon is, and your players' immersion. The procedure is still good to use as a baseline to generate a map - but once you figure out the exact identity of an area in the dungeon (for instance, rooms 20-32 of the Loathsome Frog Caverns are a prison for the human sacrifices) remember that your first draft is not your final draft and you can always edit the layout to support these themes.
  
• If you want to keep your players on their toes. While on a zoomed out level the procedure generates organic structures, there's a certain order to the whole procedure. When you insert a carefully crafted room that has many exits or a complete dead end, it highlights the weirdness of that room and serves to throw off player navigation if they are getting used to the order of the dungeon's layout. Rooms like these should be done with a purpose, though - as too many rooms like these can threaten the Jaquaysing of the dungeon or mess with player navigation too much and run into the issues of analysis paralysis.
  
• If you feel like it deep down. At the end of the day, dungeons are an artform - from mapping to keying to the table. The procedure is here to serve as a nice default way to guarantee a well-Jaquaysed space, but don't let that get in the way of your own vision or satisfaction. While not true of real life, in art, rules like these are made to be broken.
  

Of Men, You Make Beasts

 This is a table of horrible beasts for the more grisly parts of your games. Largely inspired by Loch's Ashes to Ashes game and PRIMEUMATON's GLOGtober prompt "Cool things to replace your eyes, teeth, and fingernails with,"

Obvious content warning - body horror.

(Cursed Wolf (2012) by Morgan Allen)

1. A man. Its jaw distends to its knees and is brimming with snakes. It has the eyes of a cat and bear paws instead of feet. Every snake is venomous - roll for a random poison on your nastiest table when bitten.
   
   
2. A woman. It has the head of a star-nosed mole - the size of a human ribcage. It has antlers instead of arms and rooster combs instead of nipples. When threatened or curious it makes a horrible gurgling sound and then begins to spray acid from its nose like a garden sprinkler.
   
   
3. An old woman. Its skin sags so much that it trails behind like a long robe. Beneath the sags it has the legs of a spider and an arm-length proboscis. Anyone stung ages 1d10 years.
   
   
4. A baby boy. Its head is a giant flea and it has the legs of a frog. It can mimic any voice it hears perfectly. If it can smell you - it gains knowledge of your greatest deeds, worst failures, parent's names, where you were born, and the names of the people you've killed.
   
   
5. A man. Every inch of its skin is covered in ears. It has two pairs of bat wings which grow from its back and buttocks. If a spell is cast in earshot of it, the ears begin to scream and cast the spell back at the caster.
   
   
6. A gibbon. Instead of a head, it has two human legs which it uses to walk. Ten beaks from different birds sprout from its chest. As long as its beaks chirp, everyone within earshot is deafened and moves as if intoxicated.
   
   
7. A bull. It has horse legs for horns and hooves for teeth. Twenty infant arms dangle uselessly from its underside and clap when it charges. Its mere presence is supernaturally unnerving. Every round save vs fear or flee. Gain one sleep paralysis demon per save made.
   
   
8. A hyena. Its neck is 7 feet long and frilled with human nipples. Its shoulders are covered in bleeding barnacles. The nipples persistently leak fire oil, leaving a puddle wherever this creature goes.
   
   
9. A rat the size of a wolf. Its head is weighed down by a large crown of sharpened phalanges. Its tail is replaced with an elephant's trunk. In its presence all currency becomes white-hot.
   
   
10. Twenty-eight tigers grafted together with human gums - collectively the size of a cabin. Somehow it can still sprint at the speed of a man. No supernatural abilities - but who needs those when you have the sheer force of twenty-eight tigers piled atop one another.
    
    
11. A snapping turtle the size of a wolf. Its shell is replaced with a giant mound of gums dotted with ingrown teeth. Staring at it makes any recent wounds open and bleed profusely.
    
    
12. An anaconda. It has six meaty frog-legs protruding out of its eye sockets. Human canines cover its underside. The grip of its frog legs is equivalent to an industrial vice.
    
    
13. A shark. It has two massive sloth arms growing from the sides of its head which allow for clumsy movement on land. Instead of teeth it has barbed human tongues and a goat's eye at the end of its throat. If it can see you, it can attack you. The tongues extend to unnatural lengths to rip into your flesh.
    
    
14. A knotted mass of moray eels, collectively the size of a boulder. Instead of a face, each eel has a human hand with a bony spike sticking out of the palm. If disturbed the bony spikes fire in all directions like a volley of arrows. They take an hour to regrow.
    
    
15. A wasp the size of a human head. Instead of wings it has a pair of beating human lungs. Growing beside its abdomen is the bulging abdomens of a spider and ant. On death it releases a small cloud of purple gas that quickly combusts.
    
    
16. A beetle the size of a wolf. Its horns are replaced with the biting heads of caiman. Its carapace is replaced with matted human hair. If you get close to it, human arms will emerge from the hair and try to grab your weapons.
    
    
17. A hummingbird. Eight large spider legs jut from its sides. It has the large bulging eyes of a tarsier drooping off its head. Its pecks lay eggs. Over the course of three days a fist-sized pimple will grow on the pecking site and burst, releasing 1d6 identical hummingbird-beasts.
    
    
18. An owl the size of an aircraft. Instead of feathers it has luxurious locks of human hair. Giant gibbering mouths reveal themselves from beneath its wingspan. Areas it flies over experience brief showers of acid rain, increased crime rates, and visceral apocalyptic visions.
    
    
19. A mass of dog legs, collectively the size of a man. Rolls across the landscape like a tumbleweed in the wind. As harmless as it is useless.
    
    
20. A sluggish mass of sclera and vitreous fluid - its surface pockmarked with the irises of hundreds of different animals. Anyone who touches it with bare skin goes blind for an hour. A copy of their iris is added to the growing mass.

Design Notes

This table is obviously not exhaustive. If I have learned anything from Loch's Ashes to Ashes - it's that there's an infinite number of ways to fuck a living creature up. Use this table as a jumping off point - run wild. In the age of beasts, nothing is too absurd to walk the Earth.

Bullfighter Jacket (D100 Fantasy Cloak Patches)

 This is a collection of d100 patches to be sewn onto your adventurer's cloak.

For those unfamiliar, in the sci-fi TTRPG Mothership every PC is given a patch sewn onto their coveralls. It does not have any explicit mechanical benefit but it adds so much flavor to your PC and how they present themselves to the world.

I want to have a fantasy equivalent of this, and from observing many character designs I have found a coverall's fantasy equal appears to be a nice cloak. I recommend you roll these at the beginning of character creation as Mothership does - as this allows players to speculate why their characters have these patches and what it says about their personality, past, occupation, etc.

If a cloak doesn't work, patches can always be sewn onto the pack your adventurers carry their beloved loot or used as tattoos for those who like commitment.

Without further ado:

D100 Patches
(Art by the brilliant Dominik Mayer)

1. "Not A Mimic" (Arrow Pointing Up)
2. "FIRST" (Hand Clenching Gold Coins)
3. "Tread Lightly" (10 Foot Pole)
4. "Flrghlrghhud" ("Fuck Off" In Goblin)
   
5. "Stand Clear" (Fireball)
6. Dark Shape With Three Red Eyes
7. "Too Young To Die" (Cherub)
8. "Manifesting" (Pile Of Gems)
9. "Designated Lantern Boy"
10. "GREETINGS, I AM:" (Character's Name)
11. "We Come In Peace" (Praying Hands)
12. "Chin Up, Soldier" (Torch With Halo)
13. Goblin (Horribly Drawn)
14. Grinning Moon
15. "I'm Parched" (Potion)
16. "Open Up" (Hand With Lockpicks For Fingers)
17. "Approaching Rock Bottom" (Unlit Torch)
18. "SEEK PHYSICAL PERFECTION" (Crossed Scimitars)
    
19. "HAVE YOU SEEN THIS MAN?" (Person's Face)
20. "No Rest For The Wicked"
    
21. Plowshares (Crossed)
22. Elf Ear (Bite Taken Out Of It)
23. "Knock Knock" (Warhammer)
24. "All Is Fair In Love And War" (Red Coins)
25. Knotted Dwarven Beard, Shaped Into A Fist
26. Rope Shaped Into Infinity
27. "Halt!" (Tower Shield)
28. "Don't Talk To Me Before I've Had My Ale"
29. "Sticks And Stones / May Break My Bones / But Words Will Never Hurt Me"
30. "KINGKILLER" (Flamberge)
31. Symbol To An Obscure Deity
32. Chess Pawn Carrying Banner
33. "Zzz" (Shut Eye)
34. Pinup Model (Barmaid)
35. "Lucky Patch / DO NOT REMOVE"
36. Knife Wedged Into A Human Spine
37. Snake Eyes On Dice
38. Ace Of Spades
39. "Guide My Hand" (Constellation)
40. A Fine-Print Description Of What To Do With Your Remains
41. "Goo-Drinker" (Open Mouth)
42. "First One In / Last One Out"
43. Grocery List
44. Jester Tripping
45. "Dirty Worker" (Hand, Shovel, Heart)
46. Self Portrait
47. "Strength Is The Only Virtue" (A Dog Eating A Dog)
48. Three Sunflowers
49. "I'm Fine" (Face Wearing Mask)
50. "The Gods Are Our Greatest Teachers" (Bruised Face Smiling)
51. "Angel Of Death" (Halo Of Teeth)
52. "Trust No One" (Deformed Human Figure)
53. Hand With Six Curled Fingers
54. Pinup Model (Dwarf)
55. "Once Upon A Time..." (Blackletter)
56. "Love Thy Brother" (Two Fawns Sleeping)
57. "Live Free Die Young" (Dancing Skeleton)
58. "Hardly Broke A Sweat" (Dragon Skull)
59. "Too Old For This Shit"
60. "All Mine!" (Hissing Cat)
61. "Don't Bother Me, I'm Pondering" (Orb)
62. "Take Me Away From Here" (Boat)
63. Pinup Model (Holding Knife Behind Back)
64. "All Shall Be Revealed In Time" (Open Spellbook)
65. Portrait (Player Character's Mother)
66. "In Need Of Repair"
67. "Omens Abound" (Ravens)
68. "Keep Talking And Nobody Dies"
69. "I Want To Have Fuck With You"
70. "Never Forget" (Person's Portrait)
71. "Upstart Hero" (Knight Helm)
72. Ship In A Bottle
73. Portrait (Indescribably Grotesque)
74. "Give Me Money / Give Me Love"
75. Pinup Model (Blushing Noble)
76. "Don't Die On Me"
77. "DRINK / DELVE / DINNER"
78. Horse (Horribly Drawn)
79. "Think Outside The Box" (Gelatinous Cube)
80. Three Names (One Crossed Off)
81. "Death Comes Faster Than The Realization"
82. "Stay Alive At All Costs" (Amputee Adventurer)
83. "BEND BARS / LIFT GATES"
84. A Folkloric Hero
85. Crown Atop A Throne
86. "Powered By Ale"
87. "The Dungeon IS My Home" (Sad Adventurer)
88. "NOPE."
89. "Out Of My Sight, Insect"
90. "Sorry, Mom / Sorry, Dad"
91. "MEAT SHIELD" (Scarred Muscles)
92. Obscure Country's Flag
93. "PROPERTY OF:" (Another Character's Name)
94. "Made You Look" (Laughing Man)
95. "It's The Thought That Counts" (Lit Lantern)
96. "If You Are Reading This / I Love You"
97. "Stop Touching My Shit"
98. "Help Wanted"
99. "Next One's On Me" (Raised Tankard)
100. "Victory Is Ours!" (Merry Band Of Adventurers)

Closing Thoughts

You can always roll these up for rival adventuring parties to get a better hold of their personalities or just have an identifying feature that is a little more strange.

Obviously using patches will immediately give your game a bit more of a "punk" flavoring and make your PCs view themselves as more scrappy. Many of these are a little goofy because adventurers are an weird lot and patches are often made to be quirky. If you're running a campaign for more dignified folks, you can always use banners or family crests instead.

Additionally, put enough of the same patch on people of similar beliefs and you may have a guild or secret society forming. Perhaps "Designated Lantern Boy" patch is something given by the Lantern Boy Union - premium dungeon fodder who demand pesky things like worker's rights. Let the free association flow - run wild.

Eyes of the Hidden

 This is a table of d6 x d20 sixth senses all adventurers may have.

As a reminder to potential aliens or gelatinous cubes in the audience, all senses give information, just through different ways. With this in mind, this table is divided into two pieces. Roll 1d6 on the first table to get the way something is sensed, and 1d20 on the second table to get the information sensed. Combine the two results for fun and profit:

5/6ths Of The Way To True Attunement
(Art by the wonderful Konstantin Vavilov)

If you...

1. See something very closely
2. Smell something
3. Taste something
4. Touch something
5. Hear something
6. Read about something

... you can intuitively determine...

1. Who created it
2. Its exact weight and height
3. Its name (not true name) and any nicknames
4. Its purpose and its thoughts on the meaning of life
5. If it is magical (not how, just if)
6. If it is cursed or blessed
7. What diseases it carries
8. Its greatest deed
9. Its most shameful secret
10. How many lives it has taken
11. Its closest friend
12. Its worst enemy
13. Its strongest desire
14. Its worst fear
15. Any languages it speaks
16. Where and when it was created
17. Everything it has done in the past hour in chronological order
18. Its recurring dreams
19. Its exact monetary value
20. Its emotional value to its owner (if it has an owner)

Closing Thoughts

I find that gifting these senses to adventurers can be done in three fun ways:

• Through magical or alchemic mutation. This is obvious but also a tried and true classic.
• Through birth. Perhaps if you have these senses, you are bound for the grim gold-laden path of being an adventurer. This obviously has implications on your setting.
• After your first successful adventure. Perhaps the dungeon changes you and you leave with a piece of the Mythic Underworld with you. If you want to go real crazy, roll a new sense each level-up.

Odd scenarios will arise when your player asks you "I lick the mushroom, who is its closest friend?" Feel free to give an odd response back like "Sarro Fogmoon, Druid of the Stonewood, Ally of All Things Fungal and Creeping". Giving information like this is a great way to plant adventure seeds and give information about the mechanics and places of your world at large.

Although, you don't need to give some groundbreaking information through these senses all the time. Perhaps the answer to "I lick the mushroom, who is its closest friend?" is "I don't know, it's a mushroom, most mushrooms don't have friends,"

To cut the work on yourself, you don't need to describe every instance of when something is tasted, touched, smelled, etc. Only give out this information when a player asks for it and takes the appropriate action with the appropriate sense deliberately. Additionally, make sure that the players know that you will not be automatically describing whether every meal they eat is magical and whatnot and that they must explicitly ask if they wish to receive information.

Feel free to add to the list. Nothing is stopping you from putting "Kill something", "Kiss something" or even "Prank something" on the d6 list, or "Its response to the trolley problem", "Who it has romantic feelings for" or "The last lie it told" on the d20 list as well. Just be aware that these will often be more specific than the classic few senses listed up there and it will also encourage your players to interact with the world in certain ways.

Fifteen Blows (Five Duelist Styles)

 I couldn't resist. Required reading, Loch's excellent Duelist - a fighter that's actually kinda fun.

A Duelist's Halo
Art By Konstantin Vavilov

Ψ - Mercy
The style of the warrior nuns on the Northern frontier, where the sun bleaches all. Requires a blunt weapon.
You might have learned it from one of their fold, or in a near-death experience

1. Technique: Liturgical Waltz - When you would make two successful attacks on a target, you may shove them up to 20' for free.
2. Stance: Divine Repose - Brace your arms in prayer and fall to your knees. You cannot cause any harm to others in any way and you move at a crawl. But you cannot die and you cannot be dismembered.
3. Technique: Make Them See God - When you could riposte, you can instead make the opponent go into Divine Repose for a round by beating them into that position.
4. Stance: Deathtrap Enlightenment - Your eyes glow a yellow weirdlight. Murderers of the first degree cannot make eye contact with you. Cursed items quiver under your gaze.

Ψ - Hadal
The style of unknowable things come to rise from the ocean and cynic's nightmares.
You might have learned it from an indescribable fish in your dreams, or etched on the ocean floor.

1. Technique: We All Float Down Here - Upon a successful attack, you may change the opponent's gravity. They move and fight as if they were swimming in water. Fighters get a save.
2. Technique: Abyss On Earth - Forgo one of your attacks to vomit a vantablack fog. It covers a 20' by 20' area and lingers for 3 rounds. It is impossible by any means mundane or magical to see through it or dispel it.
3. Stance: Flight Of The Fish - If in darkness, you can move in the air as if you were swimming in water.
4. Stance: Trench Fighting - Your extra AC from panache isn't lost when you're submerged in water.

Ψ - School Of Flight
The style of the Students of Flight in their fortress-academy high in the mountains.
You might have learned it from the lessons of the school, or in the entrails of a roc.

1. Technique: Rising Action - When you would riposte, you instead launch yourself off the opponent's weapon up to 20' in the air.
2. Technique: Falling Action - If you are above someone's head, you can make an extra attack with advantage for free.
3. Stance: Airborne Fighting - Your extra AC from panache isn't lost when you're in air. You always fall on your feet and take no damage from falls you prepared for.
4. Stance: Stolen Flight - You can jump up to 10' in the air given you have an arm's length of space to move.

Ψ - Ultraviolent
The style of imperceptible light. Needless to say, its students are elusive.
You might have learned it from an invisible mentor, or on a blank notebook reeking of lemon juice.

1. Technique: Blinding Blood - When you would take damage, your wounds bleed a strong purple weirdlight. Everybody who can see you hurt must make a save or be blinded.
2. Technique: Speed Of Light - If you can see a strong light source you can teleport on top of it in the blink of an eye. Using this to teleport to the sun is an inadvisable, but possible decision.
3. Stance: UV Cloak - Your body becomes invisible. Your equipment does not benefit from this invisibility.
4. Stance: Light's Witness - You can see invisible foes. They glow a strange fluorescent pale and have trailing afterimages.

Ψ - Ook
The style of the primates in the West whose weaponry consists of sticks and stones. Requires a rock.
You might have learned it over tea by a wise orangutan chieftain, or by bonding with your own special rock in a way incomprehensible to others.

1. Technique: Skipping Stones - You can make melee attacks on anybody you see by skipping your stone across their heads. 
2. Technique: OOK OOK AAH - If you deal max damage, you may disable the opponent's ability to communicate in anything but ooks, aahs, and eeks.
3. Stance: Rollout - As long as you are rolling in one direction, you cannot be stopped or moved against your will.
4. Stance: Primal Respect - Take a posture ridiculous to civilized folk but revered by animals. Animals will not attack you unless you have attacked them first. If you are hostile to them, you are the sole focus of their attention.