T is for Tower… of the Elementalist
T is for Tower. Of the Elementalist. Of plaster, green and swirled, round, and four stories high.
That’s from James Pacek’s The Wilderness Alphabet. From Archway to Ziggurat, it’s a collection of tables of things to find in the wilderness when randomness is useful.
Next, add a stout round altar with a trapezoidal base, and written on it… and epitaph.
The altar comes from Richard J. LeBlanc Jr.’s A-to-Z d30 tables, and the epitaph from Risus Monkey’s DungeonWords.
LeBlanc is into the d30, and while he just started his A-to-Z series he has several other d30 tables already done, including a dinosaur table! Need a random dinosaur? How about number 17, the ornithomimus! “Very intelligent: surprises on 1-2 (on 1d6)”.
The d30 tables and DungeonWords are free; The Wilderness Alphabet is available on Lulu.com in a nice 6x9 paperback with illustrations. For his cover, he uses the very appropriate Knight at the Crossroads by Russian folklorist painter Victor Vasnetsov.
All of these tables will, of course, work very handily with the random item Python script described in Programming for Gamers: Choosing a random item and included with the The World of Highland Guidebook resources archive. The wilderness letter choice is a percentile-based breakout table, and almost everything else is a simple list.
These tables are the kinds of things I might use on or just before game day when I need a new adventure and don’t even have the nut ready. A random roll, and sure enough, a tower is a good place to start, and an elementalist a good way to theme it. And then at the center of the tower, an altar? I can run with that pretty quickly. And the altar contains an epitaph? Oh, my, who died, and why is their epitaph on the altar at the center of this green tower? Oh yes, that’s making me want to stop writing this blog post and start writing that adventure!
- DungeonWords!: Tim Ballew at Risus Monkey
- “Inside, you will find 240 evocative words distributed among 12 tables on a handy PocketMod. The final page contains Artificer's Lament, an example microdungeon inspired by a handful of random words from the tables.”
- Programming for Gamers: Choosing a random item
- If you can understand a roleplaying game’s rules, you can understand programming. Programming is a lot easier.
- A to Z Challenge: Richard J. LeBlanc, Jr. at Save vs. Dragon
- A d30 table for every letter of the alphabet… or at least, that’s the challenge!
- The Wilderness Alphabet: Jim Pacek (paperback)
- “A Collection of Random Charts, Tables and Ideas for use with various Games of Imagination.”
- The World of Highland Guidebook
- Highland provides a context for Gods & Monsters adventures. Highland is designed for the rural adventurer, where characters begin in small villages or remote areas and move in towards civilization as they learn more and more about their world’s past. It was designed as a version of the standard fantasy world imprinted on the American old west.
More Lulu.com recommendation
- Do not miss Petty Gods!
- This is a tome worthy of the gods—and that’s what it is. A tome of gods usable much as a tome of monsters, placing these petty gods—what Gods & Monsters would call spirit gods—around your sandbox’s map.
- Knee deep in monster frogs: A Judges Guild history
- Bill Owen, one of the early members/employees of Judges Guild, has created an amazing color collection of old Judges Guild artifacts: maps, designs, and more from the early days of JG.
- Revised Lost Castle of the Astronomers in print!
- I’ve just re-opened my Lulu store with a 9x7 Lost Castle of the Astronomers.
- Villains and Vigilantes at Monkey House Games
- The best superhero game of the old-school, and possibly still, V&V is an easy game to read and play.
- Fight On! old-school gaming zine
- An amazing new resource for old school games—and that includes Gods & Monsters.
- One more page with the topic Lulu.com recommendation, and other related pages