Tag Archive | pen and paper
August 27, 2023  

What’s the Story With Your…?

Swords and horses… 

Knights have them. Knights love them. Knights won’t stop talking about them. Don’t be left out when your knight friends bring up their swords and horses. Here are 20 bits of lore for your sword and horse. 

And be sure to name them!

Your sword was…

  1. Forged from meteoric steel.
  2. A gift from the Fey Realm.
  3. Forged from the dreams of a holy hermit.
  4. Forged in a burning lake of fire.
  5. Forged with a hatred for some creature.
  6. Once owned by a legendary ancient hero.
  7. Retrieved from a slain dragon’s hoard.
  8. Forged with a hatred for the sword of another knight.
  9. Forged to love its owner and will shatter rather than see them suffer a killing blow.
  10. Once a piece of a celestial/infernal machine.
  11. Used to bind a dragon or elemental’s soul.
  12. Forged so sharp it cuts steel like it was paper.
  13. Pulled from an ancient giant’s skull.
  14. Once used by an ancestor who saved the kingdom.
  15. Forged to always return to its owner’s hand.
  16. Forged in a furnace powered by an elemental.
  17. Forged from a sliver of solid moonlight.
  18. Forged as a gift to your family by the reclusive grimfolk.
  19. Forged so sharp it can cut through stone.
  20. Won by an ancestor from another knight’s ancestor.

Your horse is…

  1. Descended from the wind.
  2. Descended from a shapeshifting fey, angel, or demon.
  3. Descended from a herd raised on human flesh.
  4. Smart enough to understand human speech.
  5. Able to turn itself and its rider invisible once a day.
  6. Actually some other creature trapped in horse form.
  7. Descended from sea foam and can walk on water.
  8. So shiny and lustrous it glows in the dark.
  9. Made from carved stone.
  10. Descended from the herd of the sun and doesn’t need food or water.
  11. Can walk on moonbeams.
  12. Will always return to you when called for.
  13. Fearless.
  14. Able to balance an walk along a roof peak or rope.
  15. Always able to find acceptable food and water for you.
  16. Able to teleport up to 30’ once per day.
  17. Able to leap over buildings and trees.
  18. Able to fly. It has wings.
  19. A cousin. Magic was involved. It’s weird.
  20. Blessed and can find healing herbs when needed.

You can download a free PDF of these lists on my itch page.

It’s likely these and future D20 generators will get compiled into a zine of some kind, probably one based on Orlando Furioso. Stay tuned!

May 28, 2023  

100 Dubious Philosophies & Esoteric Aesthetic Movements

This is a list of dubious philosophies and aesthetic movements partially inspired by the novel Odile by Raymond Queneau. A free PDF of this list can be found on my itch.io page. May it provide you with some amusement.

001 The Polysystematizers
002 The Phenomenophile Co-Materialists
003 The Dialetical Telepathicans
004 The Unreformed Piatiletkian Fellow Travelers
005 The Revisionist Anthroposophists
006 The Discordant Anthroposophists
007 The Plurivalent Dyshamonists
008 The Contraceptual Believers
009 The Paralyrical Mediumists
010 The Unresolved Pro-Ultra-Gray Fanatic Front
011 The Incubophile Spiritualists
012 The Unadulterated Asymmetric Revolutionaries
013 The Intolerant League of Polypsychists
014 The Pro-Mayhem Anti-Violence Pacifist Brigade
015 The Contracorp Fruitarians
016 The Uncoordinated Metaphychists
017 The Disseminated Parachists
018 The Barbiturates League
019 The Psychoanalysis by Correspondence League
020 The Salty Eggs Luncheon Group
021 The Dissident Socio-Messiahs
022 The Non-Active Nihilistic Periphery
023 The Revolutionary Anti-Intellectuals
024 The Revolving Integral Nullifiers
025 The Initiated Anti-Esoteric Trade Unionists
026 The Thirty-One Deep Country Groups
027 The Non-Conforming Sycophantic Faction
028 The Three Times Removed
029 The Nullfidian Collectivists
030 The Choplogic Bloc
031 The Followers of Whannt
032 The Shrouded Brethren
033 The Exemplary Forward
034 The Walkers Beneath the Sea
035 The Esteemed Combobulators
036 The Mnenomancers League
037 The Fragmentary Sporadicists
038 The Wayward Syndicate
039 The Peripatetic Harmonizers
040 The Inscrutable Academics
041 The Polarizing Disassociaters
042 The Zoological Concrete
043 The Non-Technical Sublime
044 The Air Loom Operators
045 The Shaver Host
046 The Active Worriers
047 The Repeating Premagnetizers
048 The Grosbanal Insertion
049 The Lyrical Minimalists
050 The Linear Vorticists
051 The Anti-Clerical Papacy
052 The Bicamarel Psychoanalysts
053 The Aerial Expansionists
054 The Order of Erudite Metaphysicians
055 The Infernal Grammarians
056 The Consolidated Puzzlers
057 The Gaxmold Liberation Front
058 The Gary Moldvay Group
059 The Re-Incorporated Etheric Arrangers
060 The Variable Harmonists
061 The Coalition of Heretical Choirs
062 The Twelve Unorthodox Adherents
063 The Manifold Diligence
064 The Raving Urbanologists
065 The Arch Royal Brotherhood
066 The Driven Word
067 The Abernathy Wormwold Descriptivist Agenda
068 The Celestial Builders Connection
069 The Tuesday Night Climbers
070 The Osmosis Steel Circle
071 The Oneironautic Initiative
072 The Duoshulginist Tendency
073 The Button Club
074 The Left-Handed Chess Players
075 The Goldminer’s Children
076 The Underdwellers
077 The Raskrogan Realtors
078 The Sand Counters
079 The Erasmus Brigade
080 The Beyond Team
081 The Outsividisismists
082 The Scattered Seeds of the Exiled Regents
083 The Optimate International
084 The Perspicacious Exegetes
085 The Antediluvian Peoples Faction
086 The Resurrected Pyromantic Gang
087 The Smokewrights Order
088 The Stargazer Pie Supper Club
089 The Ascendant Bibliomaniacs
090 The Morganwig Shoutsmiths
091 The Pastel Winged Seraphim
092 The Free Shepherds
093 The Near-Sighted Sharpshooters
094 The Occluded Shadowers
095 The Occasional Witnesses
096 The League of the Long Afternoon
097 The 842 Club
098 The Sky Lighters Co-Dependency
099 The Twilight Minsters
100 The Mistaken

February 28, 2023  

Balloon Tomb of the Ancient Aeronaut

Remember all those UFO and “spy” balloon shenanigans from a month or so ago?

They got me imagining a whole upper atmosphere region populated with lost kites, desiccated corpses of early aviation pioneers, and strange creatures like in that old Arthur Conan Doyle story “The Horror of the Heights”:

“A visitor might descend upon this planet a thousand times and never see a tiger. Yet if he chanced to come down into a jungle he might be devoured. There are jungles of the upper air, and worse things than tigers inhabit them.”

Anyway…dare you enter the Balloon Tomb of the Ancient Aeronaut?

Balloon Tomb of the Ancient Aeronaut is a brochure adventure for Chris McDowall’s Into the Odd and similar games. In it you will explore an ancient airborne bouncy dungeon tomb. The price tag is 3USD, but you should feel free to download a community copy.

Find it here: https://yesterweird.itch.io/the-balloon-tomb

Some GM tips from the playtest:

  • Don’t sweat the getting there. An experimental Researchery airship dropped the party off and would pick them up when they wanted to leave.
  • To describe the tomb builder’s culture I said: “Imagine the ancient Egyptians except all their jewelery is made from balloons.” “Inflatable ancient Egyptian stuff” went a long way when giving descriptions.
  • I didn’t require any movement checks to move inside the tomb, but I maximized the bouncing. For this I used a d8 to determine direction then rerolling if they hit something before moving the full amount. Maximize the bounce!
  • The first encounter was turbulence. This bounced characters apart and split the party. I recommend throwing that at them right away. It’s likely you won’t have to contrive things to do this because if they land at the top they will definitely be tempted to investigate the pilot balloons, thereby disturbing them, and making the whole tomb veer towards turbulence.
  • The monsters might or might not be tough, but the fear of falling out of the tomb was a lot stronger.