1d6 Weird Things Around The Wizard's Tower (Plus 1d10 fish tanks)

I love wizards, they fuck everything up for everyone. Something about a high-level nerd who has abandoned all morality in the quest for arcane power strikes me as hilarious.And naturally, for my very gonzo style nothing gets me goin more than a wizard tower fulla random stupid shit. Here's a list of that. I went kinda over-board with the fish.

1. Floating fish tank- a ball of water floats around the room, with fish or other exotic sea creatures in them. Great for studies or other brooding spots. Not so great for parties (lots of dead fish).
There are a bunch floating around the room, wide circular arcs:

• Standard exotic fish, not harmful, but getting smashed into one hurts like hell (1d4 damage) and you have to live with the death of a fish on your hands. Unless otherwise noted, all glass bowls do this damage when either knocked into or used as a throwing weapon. 
• A razor fish  in just a floating sphere of water, no glass. Inside is a small island with a toy castle and some (real) gold pieces. Smashing the ball around won't pop it, the enchantment that holds the water is inside the castle, and must be dispelled. It would be difficult to hit the piranha  inside, as the dispersion of the water flows around strikes in unpredictable ways. No glass means being hit by it doesn't hurt, but sharing a square with it means taking 2d6 plus a chance to bleed, cutting yourself on the razor fish. 
• A bowl with a very poisonous jellyfish (fort save or slowly paralyze 'till suffocation), nearly invisible to the normal spectrum of light, making the bowl seem empty. There's a shiny diamond hidden in the sentiment of the bowl. 
• Waterless tank full of colorful hermit crabs. Each actually is a vessel for a potion, eating a crab will count as "drinking" the potion. Red is for Healing, Blue for Resistance to Cold, Green for Cure Disease, and purple for Hermit Crab Empathy (a turn for each crab eaten, doing nothing but sobbing loudly for your crimes)
• A wishing fish. The wizard caught the wishing fish and let it go, and then wished for it to stay in this bowl forever. This makes the bowl indestructible and immovable in its wide arc moving through the room. It stares at you knowingly, and pityingly. 
• Space Lobster. Its tank is a perfect square, and is full of acids essential to the creature's survival. (3d6 damage instead of normal on a contact smash). The lobster dissolves out of this dimension when the glass is broken. 
• Sentient Coral, there are a few of these things floating around, and if all removed and combined in a larger container, it becomes a powerful psychic being. Very polite but very evil. 
• Scroll Fish: Spell scrolls or a copy of the wizard's spellbook, written on thin white fish with long bodies. Impossible to read unless given a specific type of fish food, then form into the right order. The fish food is hidden somewhere else in the tower. 
• Angry water elemental - if glass is broken it will be freed. 50% of ally or enemy. 
• Mantis Shrimp - Glass is as tough as Adamantine. If broken or somehow opened, the Shrimp becomes giant. God help you. 

Put these in a room with a random encounter and hilarity should ensue. 

2. Chess Robots- Two large sophisticated robots (or golems if you wanna go that way) sit blocking the entire room with their large computational bodies and a small board game between them. They are equally brilliant and cannot beat each other.

A turn may take decades of computing and the robots will NOT tolerate any risk of the board pieces being jostled. This is reinforced with save-or-die death rays, which will be calmly explained to newcomers.  They are happy to provide passage across the room for knowledge of other games.

Additionally, they have not learned the concept of cheating, which they will be very thankful for, and use to break a dead-even, decade long tie. Return visits after teaching the bots cheating will result in the bots continuing on as normal, but with their death rays trained on each other as a deterrent.

3. Forgotten Experiment - Gnashing teeth on twitching hooves, its braying and pleading for death. It probably cannot die. It would happy to help you kill the wizard, but it breathes noxious gasses and words come out in a broken version of the spell tounges - making its speech always unrecognizable.

4. Vacuum Room - completely devoid of atmosphere, probably being used to assist with temperature control in some experiment somewhere in the tower. Or, as always, perhaps just for the hell of it. The doors are unlocked but sealed tight, with a sign that says "Warning Do Not Open" in a magical, understandable-by-all rune. Opening leads to a explosive decompression. Strength to grab on to something or get smashed for like, 5d6 damage or something. Put breakable shit in here if you want to be more mean.

5. The Thing in The Box - It is large and made of metal. There is something inside. It cannot speak, but it does tap from the inside of the box. Somewhere there is a book which can translate the morse code. It can answer questions and the first few will be very reliable and useful. The next few will be useful, believable lies. The ones after that will be lies spun so well that when they go horribly wrong, it won't seem The Thing's fault. It's a slippery slope after that. You'll probably wind up becoming a wizard.

6. Dusty Workout Room -  Abandoned and pathetic sets of weights litter the room. An animate training dummy weeps, for it has not known any living contact in a century. Fairly powerful magical melee weapons just lie around. If the wizard finds out you were in here, they will hunt you down out of shame.

Hirelings and Loot, Everyone Loves Random Tables

Ehh it's been awhile, i moved to philadelphia, i got some new jobs, but i also got some things coming up, promise.

1d4 Strange Hirelings
These fellows are all non-combatants, you pay them a flat fee, if they were to fight, they would want a share of the treasure.

1. Jerry "Packem Good" and his donkey, Stealin’ Dan.
 Teamster. Packs stuff really well, comes with one donkey supplies  Helps carry stuff, and does so much more efficiently. The exact benefits of this are up to you, but the guy is really, really good at his job. Can manage also a convoy of lifters.
Cost: 1 Silver a week, plus food expenses.

2. Chug the Mutant: Dumb idiot with large brow. Does basic lifting, shoveling, hard work stuff. Very cheap, does better if being managed.  Has two brothers, Thug and Rhug that can also be hired for the same price. (3 Copper a week)

3. Lemmy the Linkgirl: She's a sickly orphan with a bad cough. Lantern/Torch Bearer. Cannot do heavy labor or carry lots of equipment. Probably not contagious, but everyone seems really eager to send her out on an expedition.
 Cost: I dunno, just feed 'er.

4. PUZZLE WIZARD: Suicidal super genius. "Wants to kill himself but we talked him into solving one more puzzle before that."  Will not help in combat, will only solve one issue, puzzle or way around some trap before blowing his fucking brains out. If he is killed in a way that doesn’t involve a swift suicide he promises “I’ll fucking curse the fuck outtaya, and not in a fuckin good way everyone respects!” (He's not joking, come up with the most fucked curse you can think of)
Cost: Wants 300 platinum for his next of kin, a hardworking niece in a distant city..Can feed himself with FOOD MAGIC.

1d6 Loot Table:

1. Dimensional Slide Ring
A ring with an inset numbered slider, the farther you go up, the farther you are removed from this dimension, both you and enemies have a miss chance of up to  75%. The ring turns very slowly. Turning it past 75 gets you sucked into another parallel dimension forever. Turning it past 0 "grounds" you in this world more, probably as dimensional anchor. 

2. A Map to Two Relics of The Past
A an old map lead you to a dusty field deep in the desert. Excavation of this area will lead to the discovery of a strange metal box, with a vampire inside. The box is actually a well preserved  1957 Plymouth Belvedere, if not destroyed immediately, the vampire will demand to know if "gasoline has been invented yet" The mechanics of the car will be worth thousands, but let's be honest, your players are just gonna try to drive it.

3. Scroll of Summon Banana
Actually a scroll of Summon Hungry Gorilla. 

4. Small Box of Connections
Plastic Brick phone with a few numbers on the back, each a extrademensional advisor on the other end. 1 out of 6 chance of breaking for good after each call. Calling each number is as follows:

• Mancierge: Old sounding fella, knows good restaurants and spots in any populated area, but he takes a long time flipping through his notes. However once you go, within 1d6+2  weeks it will be filled with aging retirees and no longer cool ever again. 
• Lawyer: Lawful Evil, but contractually has your back. Perfect for selling your soul or wishes with suspicious genies, "*sigh* sir, just put satan on the phone please." 
• Crisis Negotiator, excellent negotiator in any situation, but put off if it's not really an emergency. 
• PUZZLE WIZARD's ghost from the afterlife. See above but he's super mad that he still has to do this shit now that he's dead, but that's the trouble with being the best. Will never solve puzzles at this state, only give one hint per call. 

 5. Letter from yourself
It's real, and it has some useful advice, particularly a warning about something to come. One free reroll that is available for 24 hours after reading.

6. Jet Black Teeth
These teeth have arcane writing all over them, and if a magic user replaces their teeth with them, they get a extra permanent spell slot. These were the teeth of an old, evil, but well known spellcaster, a few people may remember him, and may have mixed reactions to you wearing his teeth.

Speed of Light Moths.

I had this idea for a room in a dungeon while I was in the shower, I have no fucking clue what to do with it, but let's flesh it out.

Spooky

So it's a room, plain stone, with a door on the
opposite end. On the door, are some moths. Moths are the menacing cousin of the butterfly. They are formed up in the shape of an 8 or maybe in an infinity loop. Upon going through the room, the moths are disturbed, they flutter around the room in a panic. Exiting through the opposite door only leads to finding yourself back at the original entrance to the door. The moths once again in place, in the same shape, and any other changes to the room seem to have reset. However, before the players react, the moths fly off the door, a little quicker than when they were originally disturbed, the door flies open, all without any action from the party.

Following through the opposite door again leads to the same results, but with even more drastic results.

 What's going on in here?
 Each time the group heads through the other door, they return to the room, but any force that acted on anything in the room is repeated but with compounding multiplication. So the moths get disturbed once, and the force that disturbed them is still there the next time the room is entered (their little wings beating against the door, the door opening, etc.) Eventually, (and it only takes a few more passages through the door) the moths will rocket towards the players like tiny missiles, massive groves will appear in the ground where people walked, the door will likely smash itself off its hinges. God forbid they did something like hit a wall or use a bomb.

How do they escape? I'm not sure. Maybe they can just walk back out the door they came in from, at any point during the loop. Maybe there's a secret trap door that's hidden somewhere in the room. I kind of like it as just an interesting way to use a dead end in my next dungeon, maybe just a thing the players can experiment with, and then use on a monster or to help with a puzzle later on. Maybe chuck some coal in there, and with enough work and care, they can turn it into a diamond or something.

Maybe make the room larger, with multiple doors, and only a correct sequence through them lets you out, any other just compounds the force as above. Stick some mundane things in the room like a little stream, and within a few walks through the room, the river is now a massive canyon, or the water is moving at speed of a pressure washer.

The Sound and the

When The Church, on its 2nd Grand Crusade slew the Titan Bard Apology, the massive god being let out its voice in a long and low howl. This howl crossed the globe, passed by the Capital of The Dove and smashed The Burning Cathedral's western spire before disappearing forever. This was the first, and greatest, sound elemental.

It's cool because animals kinda give emotion to noise too. 

Sound Elementals are noise given emotion and basic "life" the same as other elementals. However what distinguishes a Sound Elemental from say, a Fire, is that the emotion which formed it can vary in far more drastic ways. We attribute feeling to fire and water and etc. Fire is warm, angry, passionate but it isn't intrinsically any of those things, we assign emotion to fire in our poetry and metaphors. Sound is really just another thing, a bunch of waves that vibrate our ear bones and shit. But we give it emotion, from a haunting tune, a warning growl, a love ballad.

So sound elementals are born with a variety of purpose, though often it is by accident. As I keep discussing magic is linked to everything in Oris, so sound elementals can come from thin air when the circumstances are right. Usually these circumstances are: get powerful quantities of magic and emotion, and expose those to sound of some kind. This births the sound elemental.

Sound Elemental
They don't look like anything, you can only hear them. A love based elemental may sound like a flowing beautiful song, or just a warm note, a elemental birthed from fear may just be a shriek, a war ballad elemental might be thundering footsteps, or a ball of insults. Stats are difficult, and vary on the situation, they don't have HP, never have particularly high INT, but strength, dexterity, and charisma would vary on the situation and type of elemental.

Movement: "Flight" 60ft, perfect.
Attacks: 
Too loud and too close
The simple art of making people deaf, when someone with eardrums or similar audio receptors is near a sound elemental, and the sound elemental is actively hostile to them, they take 1d12 damage. On a 12, fort save or have your eardrums burst.

Slam
Sound waves have very little control over the environment, but can manipulate small bits of matter, but unless the elemental is particularly strong, whipping this matter at people is going to do nothing. Let's say the slam is a 1d4 + STR (With the average elemental's strength usually being a -4)

Mass Embolism 
Powerful enough Sound Elementals (usually ones borne from hate and war)  can cause major organ damage with their sheer volume, fort save or 1d12 CON damage. On a twelve, roll a d20, if that crits, the target has a severe stroke and is dead.
Alternatively, special bred quiet assassins can achieve this same effect not through volume of sound, but through ultrasonic vibrations.

Naturally, bards are the biggest users and creators of sound elementals, they can be used as weapons, messengers, ambiance adjusters, and more. But more often than not, these elementals are made by accident. Big musical shows often spawn plenty small versions of the creature. Traumatic events associated with noise also can bring forth the elementals, sites of war or large explosions.

There are also plenty of incidents of magically powerful youth creating a sound elemental from a song or other passionate expression, and then it proceeds to blow the eardrums out of the local bully, or breaking every glass in the farmer's daughter's room with a romantic violin shrill.

In general, a rampaging sound elemental can be a good plot hook, they require some unconventional tactics to fight.

Fighting sound elementals
Can't be done in the usual sense, physical attacks simply have nothing to hit. No, not even magical ones. Nevertheless, they need to be dealt with occasionally. Locating them can be tricky, they're fast, invisible, and can blend in to background noise quiet easily, especially in crowded places. Players would do well to follow not a specific sound, but certain sounds that are associated with the feeling that is being searched for. The argument coming from nowhere in particular

Firstly, they can be tricked. The average elemental is not intelligent, it is emotion, not reason. They are fooled by disguises and play acting. A lusty sound elemental may be tricked by it target just telling it, "yes, I am very much in love with you now". A more violent elemental just needs an elaborate death scene by one of your party members in a wig with a bunch of pig's blood spread around.

Drowning: you gotta be loud, loud enough for the elemental to be unable to remember itself. Dilute it with white noise, scream, beat your shield. Got a elemental speeding around the city? Start ringing ALL church bells. The poor thing will just start imitating the bells and dissolve into them, like a cube of sugar into a pond.

Existentialism: A critical part of a sound elemental is being heard. Sound exists when we aren't around, obviously, but if a elemental is convinced it cannot be heard, it can break itself apart.

Bard Spell: Summon Sound Elemental (Level 1-5)
Summon a Sound Elemental which will perform a task until it is completed (Gm's discretion). The higher the level, the higher the intensity of the sound, the longer its duration, and the more complex commands it can be given.
Level 1: Emotion or verb ("Kill", "Defend", "Merriment", "Anger") Lasts for a minute or two, or a single action or attack.
Level 2: Emotion or verb + subject ("Protect me", "Seduce Jessica", "Calm dog") Lasts for a few rounds, or three or four actions
Level 3:Full sentences worth of commands, bonus points if in prose. Lasts until the end of combat, or about an hour, can perform multiple actions.
Level 4: Full sentences, lasts most of the day, can perform a complicated task with multiple steps.
Level 5: Any type of command, interpreted very well, basically just manifested will of the spellcaster. Extreme duration, can operate for a few days unless destroyed.

Alternatively a elemental can be given the name of a song at any level, while effectiveness and actions will be determined by the GM.

Most people assume the Bard Titan Apology's elemental was a sound of vengeance and fury against the church. After all, the Burning Cathedral was nearly destroyed when its spire collapsed, and to this day the harmonics in the building make your eyes water.  It was actually just a sound of primal fear, however, the emotion was "Escape death!" and the elemental just happened to knock over a bunch of stuff on its flight away. It still exists, on the southern primordial planes of the moon, a whimpering note recurring within the massive bones of his mother's womb.

Moon Post-Mortem

So I'm close to finishing a campaign, which is good. That doesn't really happen.

It was set on the moon of my usual group's setting, for the moon of Oris is quite special.

It's basically a big mirror. It reflects and interacts with both the the sun and the planet itself, but also the things on the planet, specifically magic. And moons are always magical, they transform werewolves, vampires can't cross a stream full of moonlight, chunks of astral debris are used in all kinds of magic shit, etc.

Many, many, years ago, in a more enlightened age, some wizards sought sanctuary on the moon, a place to practice their craft in peace. And they noticed these strange phenomenons, and utilized them. For every spell or magical act on Oris, a small portion of that was stolen, and reflected on the moon.

As I've said in other posts, magic is everywhere and in everything, so a few refugee wizards soon created a great and powerful society by using the moon as a siphon. They had infinite power, food, materials. Nobody went without and the grandest experiments could be conducted with ease. There were biomes, generations of culture and history, a shining city on a floating hill. It was rumored they could alter the fabric of reality itself, grant wishes like gods.

But something went wrong. Probably greed, that's what the elves would say (but there were wizard elves up there too). The civilization is all gone, some catastrophic event.

The devices of the moon still work, still suck up power. Even after all the cities and experiments have crumbled and fallen apart. There is nothing left but twisted experiments, overgrown ruins, and a metric fuckton of arcane radiation.

The moon is still taking a little share of magic. But as things go wrong, more than just the arcane energy is taken. People are taken, things and creatures are taken. Enter your party. Trapped on the moon in a variety of ways (magical mishaps, one-way portals, dimensional fuckery, random happenstance, you name it.) they must overcome the ravenous hordes of mutants, insane survivors, and dangerous leftovers of a civilization that advanced too far.

 And perhaps, if they venture far enough, they could unlock the Moon's power for themselves, and grant their own wish...

This was post 1 out of ??? and I kinda wanna set it up as a primer for a setting as well as a reflective. The moon became a sandbox where I could get a little more hardcore and weirder than normal. My group was ready for some greater risks and to bring the R to the OS. The lovely bit was is that pretty much anything could happen, so I sprinkled a bit of everything. I learned a lot, and  My main influences were games like LISA, Earthbound, and stuff like Mad Max and Fist of the North Star. Next time I'll get into the nitty-gritty of some places, items, treasure, and THE WARLORDS OF THE MOON.

Bards, HYPE, and More

Bards

have always intrigued me. Not necessarily as a class, but the idea that magic can come from music is a concept I feel can be played with. While it depends on the setting, magic coming from "the power of music" is strange. In Oris, magic is inherent in everything, music included, and Bards just draw from that. If the denizens of the planet are magical, all they do must be magical. How they talk to each other, how they create things, how they shit. If everything has an art to it, (and i believe that) therefore everything and therefore everything can be manipulated by magical means. Wizards spend their life mastering magic and how to manipulate the world, Bards spend their life mastering the world and thus manipulate magic.

Fuck the"bard who just toots a flute makes lightning come out"- that's boring.

Bards should bleed emotion through onto a miniature canvas, washing their foes out with a desire for death that the thunderclouds above cannot help but be overcome.

Pollack would be a very dangerous man

A Bard's song or oration should overcome a crowd with a hatred for the party's foes so crushing that spiders physically manifest ready to devour the foe.

I had a bard npc try to do this to my players. They crushed him with a boulder.

A bard's power comes from their passion, their audience (which is not always people), and their creations. To me, a bard can be anything that creates and puts emotion in what they make. The traditional lute playing bard is 100% fine, but if you wanted to make a bard who just really takes pride in how he lays a brick wall, I'm totally down with that. Get ready for some sweet wall based abilities, maybe graffiti summons? That's for another post.

The Hype Meter

I had a player who was having trouble playing a bard, a character who was far more a lover than a fighter, but still wanted to assist in combat. I had a lot of solutions, some of them were pretty bad. (One involved a rod of wonder, see the before mentioned boulder crushing incident). But for larger fights and big set piece moments, I came up with the Hype Meter, and I think it's pretty good. 

The Hype Meter is a measurement of how much the "crowd" is excited, pumped, full of bloodlust, horny, whatever. If there are people who are watching a barfight, the hype meter is how much they're cheering, drinking, and getting involved themselves. In a war situation, it's how inspired your fellow soldiers are. Whenever I do a big fight with a lot of people who can be watching, I employ a big hype meter. From a game sense, the higher the crowd's HYPE, the more stuff you roll on random tables. The random tables choose what events alter combat in some way, interfering with the enemies, changing the environment, or aiding the players. Depending on the crowd, the effects may not always be 100% good for the players.  A rowdy group of fish-men sailors may put a harpoon in your back as much as the drunks you're brawling with, for instance.

Players can act in certain ways to influence the HYPE, Bards especially. Manipulation of emotion, excitement, and entertainment should be what they do. 

I recommend having a physical representation for the hype meter somewhere everyone can see, it makes it fun. As the meter gets more and more full, the higher the frequency you roll on your random event table, or you expand the table outward, rolling a d20 instead of a d10, and so on. How often you want to roll is up to the intensity of the combat and the scenario.

I like this, the HYPE starts at one die, a d6, every round or so, on a 6, roll on the Random Table. The higher the HYPE, the more d6's you add.
In a situation where morale may tip in different directions, (ie, a battle of the bands with two opposing groups of fans versus a just a neutral bar fight) give the opponent their own HYPE meter and table.

Examples:
Location: A underground combat arena.
Crowd: Nobles and Criminals watching the fights for sport or betting, other fighters around the arena.
Ways to impact HYPE: Grandstanding to the crowd. Executing enemies in creative ways. General show-boating.

Random Combat Events:

1. Garbage is tossed at a random opponent, probably one who isn't contributing much to the HYPE. Reflex or be denied your dex bonus for the rest of the round.
2. Weapons get tossed into the arena.
3. Over excited noble hops down into the fray, with no weapons and no levels.
4. Some drunken reveler presses the "traps" button, spikes shoot out of everything, acid pits open up, etc.
5. The animal cages get opened, 1d4 Lions, Tooth Beasts, or Feral Zamboni's spill onto the stage.
6. Someone has gotten into the rigging over the arena, reflex saves to dodge sandbags, lighting equipment, and stagehands.

Location: A large scale military engagement on an open field.
Crowd: Your fellow soldiers.
Ways to Impact HYPE: Slaying commanders, playing bugles, waving banners, general rallying and goings on.

1. A few troops pause in the battlefield to suppress an opponent with crossbow bolts.
2. Siege weapon fires smack down into the middle of the player's fight.
3. Combat Mages, heal a party member, or get a downed ally out of the fray for ya.
4. Reinforcements push through to your part of the fight.
5. A battle cry or song rises up through the ranks. Panic sweeps the foe, enemy must will save or act cowardly for the next round.
6. A officer from your side joins the fray, or a important figure from the enemy side becomes vulnerable.

These are pretty basic, but you get the drill. I've had cows stampede through a small town, a big barrel of oil get knocked out of a rack and spill all over the inn, snipers set up on an opposing roof. All the works.

New Bard Spells/Items

Bottled Party Ghosts:  Party loving spirits who were contained in a special jar to keep the jams going forever. When smashed allow the Bard to utilize the hype meter in an area where a crowd may not be available. Rolls on the HYPE table will taken on more spectral and probably incorporeal motifs.
Once released will fly off and probably go bother the local villages for wine and party snacks.

Center Focus (Lvl 1???) Magically draws attention to the bard, and any successful performance checks they make add double the amount of dice to the HYPE meter.

Demand Focus (Lvl 3???) As above, but effects allies within 60ft.

Summon Crowd (Lvl 1-5) Calls out to the surroundings to draw a crowd able to get the HYPE meter going, or whatever else you'd need a crowd for. The crowd varies depending on location and DM discretion. If an area doesn't have anyone around, a crowd may not be able to form. The higher level the spell, bigger and crazier the crowd (and the cooler shit you can add to the HYPE table)
Examples:
Level 1: A few villagers/some interested woodland spirits/a few above-average intelligence birds/a squad from a nearby trench pokes their heads out of hiding
Level 5: The whole fucking village/A small army of wasted barbarians/a mass of spirits from the old battlefield awaken/Savage Party Demons from The Party Dimension

"But Mr. Apathy"
I can hear you saying. "This isn't very serious! How is any of this useful for my GRIM and DARK game?"
First of all , it's General Apathy to you, soldier.

I will admit to a certain amount of silliness to this system, but I like a bit of silly. Silly is never bad, even in the most depressing scenario, I always bring in a bit of brevity. It is a game after all.

Second, the Hype meter doesn't just have to turn every fight you use it into a wild college rager. If that was the case then historical cases of combat instrument players shouldn't exist. Sure, they were often used to send messages over long distances and over the roar of combat. But you can't deny the effectiveness as morale boosting and rallying weapon. The Hype meter can and should be used to represent the level of energy an army.

Horrendous colonialism aside, watch this

That's two opposing uses of hype.

What is the Hype Meter good for:

It makes combat more hectic.

That's not always a good thing, but when you need it, accept no substitutes. HYPE keeps things interesting for the bored DM, and makes the environment feel more real. There is a world moving and reacting to the players, so it grounds the story more.

It rewards descriptive players and interesting actions. 

If you have trouble with your players just saying, "i hit the bastard with my sword", you can create a tactile and fairly reasonable way to get them saying shit like "I cleave the bastard in two, and then spin around and chop his head off, then raise it up to the crowd, roaring out insults." That's a bit better, yeah?

It gives players something to do.

The cleric is out of spells or something? He can now start appealing, swinging a banner around or coming up with some kind of "Remember the Alamo" style catch phrase. Most fights have somebody shining through, this spreads the spotlight around a bit. 

That bard I made this gimmick for? He stopped playing pretty soon after. Nobody in my group has made a bard since.

Oh well. 

Quirky Dungeon Generator

Tables, tables are good, let's do some tables for a Dungeon. This is silly but my games are all kinda silly and abstract. I have an image to keep up.
You could roll these all together and have some really wack results, I might expand on my own rolls later. Feel free to pick and choose what you like, as I know that's what you'll do anyway.

The Dungeon Theme

1. Fire/Water/Earth/Sauce Elemental Gimmick: Predictable, but predictable can be good, having an obvious theme lets your players prepare.

2. Sound/Music Dungeon: Entire rooms are musical instruments (great idea for a giant bell trap). Sound Elementals, manic bards blasting avant-garde music, normal monsters but also screaming.

3. Wizard Brothel Dungeon: Clouds of perfume, pillows all over everything.Wizards can live a long time, get ready for very esoteric fetishes. Including your standard dungeon perils.

4. Living dungeon: Maybe it's trying to eat you, maybe it's a big magic snake that you need to cure of food poisoning. Lots of acid damage, shifting rooms, and parasites that serve as random encounters.

5. Advanced Technology Dungeon: Goblins have found plasma weapons, giant "strange iron golems" that are totally not robots, extremely valuable and fragile machinery lying about everywhere. Terrible super weapons are released on the world via tempting control consoles and buttons.

6. Manlove Dungeon: A chapel dedicated to all things physically fit and beautiful, in the Ancient Greek sense. Arm wrestling tournaments for loot, sentient mirror doors complement your built glutes. Animate muscular statues ignore the player with the most STR and CHA to motivate the others to get in shape. There's a post coming about The Church of Manlove, they deserve one.

7. A Vein To The Wood Mines: Deep roots of a massive tree or underground plant are harvested here. Fight the Shepard Dorfs and their metal flocks. St. C'thpert leads the wood mining orphans in prayers and stranger lynching. The rocks are saturated with life-essence, and they have needs. Weird, eldritch, unterdark stuff goes here.

8. Warehouse Dungeon: Storage for something, lots of crates full of basically anything. Go buck wild with random tables. Stored exotic foods have spoiled and created mini ecosystems in different aisles.

9. Prison Dungeon: Something's locked up here, the lame choice is demons. The cool choice is imprisoned ideas, or something strange like thousands of locked up pigeons. Who locked up all these pigeons? Why? Should they be released? No matter what, expect giant construct wardens and panopticons.

10. Lush and living forest-y dungeon. Massive trees, ferns, or mushrooms. Colorful megafauna or maybe just a bunch of weird flightless birds. Terrible, terrible diseases, rotting your flesh as soon as a wound opens. Ticks that bite through plate armor and dig in deep, towards the vital organs. Mind controlling fungus spores.

11. Flavor-cultist dungeon. Is it too early for me to be making call backs to earlier ideas? Probably. Mounds of leftovers come to life. Demons demand to know where you put the hell-lamb sauce. Enslaved interns need help with dishes, as their taste buds have been excised.

Salvador Dali

12.  Surrealist Dungeon: Every dimension has been twisted wrong, including the 4th. Walking on the floor feels like purple. Play with stuff like synesthesia: When your players enter a room, give them a flavor of something instead of a description. Perhaps time doesn't flow right here, start the party at the end of the dungeon, and make them trace their way back. Perhaps the entire dungeon is the psyche of the players, and they must fight their own existential dreads made malleable.

The Dungeon's Gimmick

1. It's relatively safe when you go in, just full of clues of what's going on. But when you find the treasure/ancient evil/terrible secret, escaping becomes super dangerous (all the traps/monsters/waterwheels activate)

2. There's a terrible nigh-invincible monstrosity roaming around, but there's probably a secret to beating it somewhere inside.

3. There's a power source running throughout the place, it can be dangerous (electrocution, magical radiation, burns) but manipulating it can open new areas or frag monsters.

4. The dungeon has a time limit. Maybe it floods during high tide, maybe it's slowly dissolving you, or the entrance/exit is only open during the total eclipse.

5. Environmental requirements on equipment. The laser traps won't activate if your head is covered, the ghosts accept anyone who is well dressed enough for their dinner party. Pacifism fields will not allow anyone to enter who is carrying a weapon.

6. Parts of the dungeon move, either as part of a puzzle, to help you progress, or just to make things really complicated.

7. There are competing factions, races, or ecosystems in the dungeon, that can be pitted against each other, or may have thing that are needed to fully explore.

8. Everything in the dungeon is some kind of imitation. If it's full of life, everything is actually mechanics or clockwork. Or the stone ruins are all fleshy and living underneath.


Dungeon Entrance:

1. The foot of a carved mountain. Ancient, blocky gods carved out of stone watch your passage. Ghosts speak violence through water filled gullies.

2. Underwater cavern, in a lake or ocean. I don't care which. Underwater caves scare the shit out of me.

3. A door on the flat side of a very high plateau. There are no stairs and very scarce footholds. Scaffolding, anyone?

4. There is a secret door into the dungeon via the wizard's bookshelf. The secret switch is in his bathtub.

5. The passage way into the dungeon only exists as a small drawing, which must be found and drawn accurately on a wall to form an actual door.

6. A trapdoor buried in the sand on a beach somewhere.

7. A door in the mouth of a sentient tree. It needs to be convinced of a good reason to let you into what it thinks is a home for someone (it's not sure who). Unless you give a good reason (door to door salesmen, traveling preachers of a nature god, an invitation etc.) it will loudly tell everyone in the dungeon you are arriving, what you look like, and some guess on what you'll do. The tree is a great judge of character and has a pretty sound understanding of adventurer tactics.

8. Bottom of a well in the middle of a small village. The townspeople know about it, and they don't want you fucking around with it. You could fuck up the water supply or bring what is ever down there, up here.

9. A cave inside a massive, floating iceberg. It can be used by the inhabitants as means of defense (for obvious reasons), or perhaps it acts like a giant floating fortress, raiding islands, ships, and coastal towns as it drifts by them.

10.The entrance is only made manifest after completing a list of strange and dangerous actions all across the city. Murder someone, leave a piece of fruit by the noble's bed table, carve a obscene gesture into the wall of the church, etc. etc. Once you are finished, there will be a building in town that was never there before, but nobody seems to notice.

11. They thirteenth grave in the unmarked beggar's lot holds the secret. Be buried inside and wake up inside the dungeon. After you suffocate to death first.

12. An eternal flame, as large as a bonfire, rests by an old road. It is a shrine to some nameless saint. Passing through the fire will teleport you inside.

Dungeon Shape:

1. Standard branched paths to explore, like tree roots or a mine.
2. Tessellating geometry.
3. A biiiig circle, or better yet, a Lemniscate (basically a long repeating hallway, perhaps it keeps generating encounters? )
4. A rough spiral. Perhaps it branches off into more spirals?
5. Open floor plan dungeon. Lots of non-permanent barriers to divide rooms. You can see bad stuff from far away, but they can usually see you. Fashionable.
6. Large, 3D shape, a floating globe to explore, or maybe a pyramid of some kind. Usually pretty big, but the shape usually helps with finding your direction.

Strange Rooms/Random Oddities:
1. The Living Paintings: Works of art come alive, landscapes change the terrain, portraits try to drag you in, abstract pieces pull and cut you apart, their lines becoming sharp. They want you to add a piece to the collection, an easy way to escape, but you've given them a new weapon to use against their next victims.
2. A shrine to the God of Cool Bugs. Offerings of rad bugs hiding throughout the place will yield boons and blessings.

3. The room of expectation. A massive black obelisk door sealed with chains. It will be locked shut, unless the door hears speculation on what is behind it. Whatever is speculated will be made true. Vague guesses like "great treasure" will come back to bite them in the ass. Forcing the door will only lead to more locked doors.

4. A large circular room or set of rooms, a trail of blood and conflict is rife throughout all of them. A talented investigator loops through this area, following the trail. It is his own trail however, he is stuck in an temporal loop. He is brilliant and a good conversationalist, but has no clue what is happening to him.

5. A vending machine which sells rations, refreshments, and some potions and other goodies. It doesn't take your coins, however, only a specific currency only found around the dungeon.

6.A simple stone controller panel attached to the wall. It lets you control a large metal golem somewhere else in the dungeon. But there's no way to see the golem from the room with the controller.

7. A pizza oven, lit, with an assortment of toppings to put on some ready made dough. No tricks to this one. Just pizza role-play, if the adventurers are hungry and trusting enough.

8. Stone portcullis that enchants those who cross it with color-blindness. The only way to break the spell is to rub a purple rose upon your eyes. The following room is full of different color roses.


Unique Treasure: 
1. Skin Needle, when you sew your clothes with it, it pulls your skin apart to use as thread. It deals 1d6 damage to you, leaving uncomfortable cuts around your fingers. However, clothing sewn with this will spring back with hot blood-wire the first time it is struck, dealing 1d6 to a melee attacker. If it is a ranged attacker, the torn skin sews up your own wound, healing for 1d4. You will need to re-sew the clothes after every use.

2. A revolver, loaded with 6 different bullets. They all look the same, and the only way to tell what each one does is to fire it:
[1] Where ever it hits creates a 30' square of noxious gas. Fort save or spend the next turn retching and puking. [2] A BANG flag comes out of the gun cartoon-style. [3] The bullet is alive, dealing normal damage on impact, but begins tearing into the flesh, doing an additional 1d6 every turn on  a living target until it is dug out. [4] The bullet is coated in an old, very deadly disease. It's so old people aren't really immune to it anymore, so it's probably gonna spread. [5] The bullet flops out of the gun, right in front of you. Inside is a small note with a encouraging message. [6] The bullet disappears after being fired, but will return in a moment of need for the owner of the gun, saving their life by hitting someone/or something relevant.

3. A large book, sections of stoneware bottles are hidden in cut out compartments inside. The bottles are filled with deadly poisons. Previously owned by a famous assassin.

5. Scroll of Make Bananas Immovable. (Ala immovable rod)

6. A drinking horn of "infinite wine", covered in painted pictures of thieves. The horn actually pulls wine from the stockades of the great barbarian warlord HAUL-THE-DEAD, and he will be very unhappy when he finds out about it.


Other Explorers:
1. Mike Windfield: a level 1 bard. Dirty clothes, dirty blond hair, dirty mind. Cheery and kind of an idiot, with an almost suicidal tendency to get in trouble. Wields a guitar with a very dangerous version of a rod of wonder attached to it. Carrying expensive food rations but precious little other survival gear. He's looking for babes. If you are kind to him at all he'll follow you around making too much noise and touching everything. If you are mean to him he'll do the same.

2. Benné Craywcth'ta: Level 2 fighter, leather armor, calm demeanor. Looking for work and a wife. Is very tall and wields a large long sword. He carries an old but technically advanced revolver, but it has no ammunition.  If he likes ya he'll share jokes and advice about the area, if you piss him off probably just tell you to "cool it".

3. Jebirdiah Zha: Level 1 wizard. Wears merchant class business clothes. Alcoholic. Came here looking for ancient secrets, lost her group, now just wants a drink. Always had more charisma than innate talent. Suave and friendly, but otherwise pretty useless now. Carries three random wands, and full bartender's set, with a few bottles of expensive liquor.

4. LOSE-THE-FRIENDS: Level 5 ork barbarian. Last of member of a very cruel tribe, but that tribe was wiped out, and LOSE-THE-FRIENDS was raised by decent people instead. Wears bear furs. Very friendly, but not too bright. Cries when he fights, and hates violence, though he is quiet good at it. Wields a massive stone table, treat as a great hammer in his hands. Is looking for another ork, as he has never seen one yet. Carries fresh meat, some javelins, and a stuffed animal.

5. Simiale, a sentient suit of armor, patrols these halls. It wields a matching sword and shield to its shiny brass armor. Very polite, and speaks in a manner that is hard to place. Distressed, and asks you to confirm if it really is a floating suit of armor (it already knows, but keeps asking people out of  desperate denial). Looking for a way to end its' curse, or even just answers about its past. It remembers a knight who wore the armor that it now is, but cannot remember if it was the knight put into the armor, or the armor itself come alive. Carries little but a locket with a portrait inside, but the face has been rubbed away.

6. Veddrick Balentine: Slick black hair, and noble robes. Insists on you calling him "Veddy". Terrible person who is looking to rob you as soon as he can. Carries a slick black knife of +1, a crossbow with 20 bolts, and a vial of paralyzing poison. Has little food or gold and is becoming desperate. Runs away after being hit once, but will guerilla you for the rest of the dungeon, and maybe even further after that, if you are wealthy enough.