Could I have D10 space-traveller superstitions/tall tales?
A shower is a must when you come in from the void. Preferably in holy water, but sterilized water will do. You have to keep the demons at bay.
Bringing planetside dirt on board is bad luck.
A wish for luck in the direction of your home star will ensure you never get lost.
A red dwarf spotted before warp is an omen of blood.
A ship lost in an odd radio circle is sent to a mirror galaxy.
They say a creature of massive proportion is the cause of solar tsunami - but few who have seen such a beast live to tell the tale.
Some humans think the first man to die in space never died at all. He still roams the stars in his relic of a spacecraft, flung from orbit into the black.
A handprint of moondust on the hull keeps life support intact.
The pinpricks of light that linger in your vision after a supernova aren't the afterimage; rather, they are a star's first or last words.
Anyone buried in space finds their way back to their home orbit.
Hit the streets! The air may be choked with acrid smoke, the roads unmarked and dangerous, and the local denizens less than friendly, but this is a place of business, and business doesn’t need to be pretty. What manufactured output flows from these insalubrious halls of industry – food products, machinery, weapons, or goods far more pernicious still? Perhaps the local dive where exhausted workers and disenfranchised locals linger might hold the answers. Available in two variants, the streets at night and by day without vehicles, this fully animated map is sure not to meet the slightest environmental guideline!
Animated Battle maps for TTRPGs: D&D/Pathfinder/FGU/FVTT
Explore the reef or dive deeper into the dark depths of the water. Here is a map for your underwater fight needs, be it a tangle with an aggressive lobster or a deadly kraken.
Animated Battle maps for TTRPGs: D&D/Pathfinder/FGU/FVTT
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Animated Battle maps for TTRPGs: D&D/Pathfinder/FGU/FVTT
Overlooking the dirt road that crosses this thick forest, rises a small hill, perfect to set up camp for the night, but beware of ambushes or other mysteries hidden among the trees… 🌲🛣️🌳
Is this a crater on an alien world? Did that orb crash into your neighborhood and cause strange things to start happening? What happens if you… touch it? Actually, maybe don’t.
Animated Battle maps for TTRPGs: D&D/Pathfinder/FGU/FVTT
Hello adventurers!! 😊
The shortest way across the long mountain ranges could be a cold and treacherous pass among tall cliffs and a desolate rocky landscape… 🏔️🚶⛰️
Once the proud guildhall of the Simic Combine, Novijen was a vast floating laboratory where the Simic perfected their genetic experiments—a womb of stone and living tissue suspended above Ravnica by thick cables. But when Project Kraj was unleashed, the guild’s greatest creation became its downfall: the twenty-foot monstrosity of writhing cytoplasts absorbed Novijen itself, turning the guildhall into its grotesque head. As Kraj rampaged across the city, it tore every cytoplast from its host, slaughtering all who bore Simic augmentations. Its rampage ended only after a cataclysmic clash with the demon Rakdos, which left both creatures broken and motionless. In the aftermath, the Simic “quietmen” returned to dismantle the remains of both Novijen and the abomination that had consumed it.
In the years following Kraj’s destruction, fragments of its colossal body were secretly recovered from the ruins of Novijen. These remnants—shards of pulsating cytoplasts and strands of living tissue that refused to die—still hum with traces of the original experiment’s power. Hidden deep within the new Simic research sanctuaries, scholars and biomancers study these remains, believing that within Kraj’s corrupted essence lies the key to a higher form of evolution. Though they whisper of restraint and caution, the same ambition that once birthed Kraj stirs again among the Combine—quiet, patient, and waiting to grow.
Hello adventurers!! 😊
Hiking up the mountain is only part of the challenge and the danger. At the highest peak in this mountain range await you countless adventures and possibilities… ⛰️🐉
Patron: Viscountess Nazzaphine Zain, The Skyward Eye
“Cease all this dancing about, you wish to know who planted the knife and penned the letter don’t you? Good. I am old, and while I may have a reputation for intrigue my patience for insinuation and melodrama declines along with my years. Now, come take a turn with me in the gardens: I tire of this luncheon and there are likely to be less agents there that report back to the man who wants you dead. “
Setup: Despite possessing little in the way of land or fortune, the influence wielded by this venerable member of the court cannot be overstated. Information is the source of Lady Zain’s authority, and there is no whisper in the halls of power, no country baron’s scheming, or maneuver of the kingdom’s enemies beyond the borders that she is not in some way aware of.
No petty gossip or information dealer, the Vicountess uses her insight for what she feels to be the good of the realm: quashing instability while facilitating secret justices, keeping her fellow courtiers honest, and providing council to the current ruler.
While those in polite society would never utter the phrase “Royal Spymaster”, its an all but official position that the Viscountess has occupied for the past forty-so years, while maintaining the polite pretense of being a lady of the court, everyone’s third least hated spinster aunt.
Adventure Hooks:
The current royal heir is, to put it plainly, hopeless. The wastrel grandson of the proud and wise monarchs to whom Zain pledged her heart and her service, the old spymaster has already pulled the youth out of a dozen or more assassination attempts and scandals. The latest of these follies begins with the heir traveling “in disguise” and attempting to hire a band of adventurers to go questing with, which is how the party gets tangled up in this mess. If the party turns down the youth throwing money around like it’s nothing, they may later receive a surreptitious request to rescue the same youth from a band of sellswords who decided to moonlight as kidnappers when they realized just how much this oblivious tourist might be worth in ransom.
Nazzaphine has dealt with many competing schemers in her career as royal spymaster, and has met each one with a brutal efficiency that’s ensured the kingdom’s secrets remained hers and hers alone. The most recent challenger to this throne is a network of forign agents fronted by a high-class gambling den and backed by the criminals who stand to benifit by skimming off the top. They operate by attracting the realm’s wealthy and foolish, driving them into debt through high stakes game, and then offering them the chance to buy their way out through various favors. Lady Zane is unsure if this is a ploy by foreign merchants to subvert the realm’s economy, or something more sinister.
While she maintains a network of trusted, highly skilled agents, Lady Zain is looking for someone with the right combination of big picture thinking and loyalty to instruct as her successor. If one of the party shows the correct moral character and smarts to match, they may find themselves taking tea with the Viscountess on the regular.
Adventure prompt for my CoS group who have turned into helping this big bad vampire in doing some tasks for him.
Dungeon: The Crooked House
There was a crooked man, and he walked a crooked mile/
He found a crooked penny, and gave a crooked smile/
He bought a crooked cat, to hunt a crooked mouse/
and they all lived together in a little crooked house/
Setup: As nightmare dimensions go, The Crooked House is a relatively small one, a hungry sliver of the shadowfell that takes the form of a ramshackle cottage bent in on itself in odd, spiraling angles.
The Crooked House might appear anywhere fallen into shadow, but unlike its country cousin, prefers rural or semi-urban environments, just close enough to haunt the dreams of passers by and insinuate itself into local folklore.
This domain is ruled over by “The Crooked Man” , a rambling, shrouded figure that goes about on various “errands” in the most sinister way possible, seemingly with no other purpose than to creep his neighbors out. Such errands include:
Chopping firewood in someone else’s back yard in the middle of the night, leaving before they have a chance to come out and question him
Following behind a group of travelers on a lonely road for hours at a time, never answering any hails, wandering off if approached, only to appear at a later juncture
Circling through the market with a sack laden over his shoulder, alternatively wriggling, rattling, or dripping ominously. Never stopping to trade.
Gently rapping at the windows of children who are up past their bed time, sometimes climbing walls or dangling down from rooves to do so if the window is hard to reach.
Those that disturb the crooked man in these tasks face little consequence, though may be overwhelmed by a sensation of fear. Everyone knows rumors however of those that tested the crooked man’s patience, and ended up hacked along with the kindling, or stuffed into his bag and taken back to the crooked house. Every community that hosts the house develops such tales, almost as a necessity of dealing with this nightmarish neighbor.
Adventure Hooks:
While none actually want the crooked house around, there are a limited few with the powers to do anything about it: Religious authorities, concerned town councils, rival dark powers. Any of these groups may send the party in as their catspaw, looking to evict the crooked man or raise the structure to its shadowy foundations before his dark influence spreads any further.
While the crooked man himself may pose only a minor threat, other strange creatures that live within the dark domicile can manifest as more of an active threat. Infestations of moonrats are known to spread from the building’s cellars into neighboring homesteads, and dire, predatory creatures with great black wings sometimes nest in its gutters or dangle from its eaves. While these threats can be contained, actually exterminating them may require some brave souls to venture into the house itself.
Outlaws are well aware that those that enter the house seldom come back, and have given up on trying to steal from the place and turned this to their advantage. A party that runs afoul of the local rogue’s gallery may find themselves knocked out, only to awaken to the sound of squeaking wheels, the rumble of an unsteady road, and the rasp of burlap. Tied into sacks and left out for the crooked man to collect and load into a rickety cart, the party only has a limited amount of time to escape their bindings before their driver makes it back to his home.
Its happened, a child has gone missing. Sick for weeks and bedridden, the youngster was apparently taken after days of the crooked man leaving noxious, unknown “medicines” at the family’s doorstep. Whatever treatment this fiend has in mind... it can’t be good.
Challenges & Complications
For actual stats for the Crooked Man, may I recommend using this excellent “snatcher” statblock by the ever amazing @dm-tuz ?
The interior of the crooked house is of course, larger than the exterior would allow, and seems to be constructed entirely of uneven stairs, cluttered dusty attics, and dank cavernous basements. Many of these chambers are thematically “locked’, requiring some kind of solution before the party may progress onwards. Examples include the sooty sitting room that keeps increasing in temperature until the hearth is quenched, or the hallway full of glass eyes that need to be matched to the brooding taxidermy that overlooks the door.
Transitioning between rooms may require more climbing equipment than your average county hovel as the house seems to favor a vertical design. This is the perfect opportunity for flying creatures or drifting shadows to attack the party, potentially causing them to slip and hurdle into some unknown darkness.
Doors within the Crooked house lead out to all manner of places, including previous haunts, ruins scattered across the land, and even the shadowfell itself. The only safe way to traverse many of these portals ( and to keep the house in some semblance of order) are a series of esoteric keys scattered about the structure, Each one forcing the doors they fit in ( though not all do) to a predetermined location. Collection, trial, and error will lead the party back to their destination...or drop them in some lightless wilderness and force them to hike back to the house itself.
I don't care about Dungeon Meshi otherwise but "Tallmen" is SUCH an elegant solution to placing humans in a fantasy setting that it's still blowing my mind. Just the term itself is enough to instantly recontextualize humans. They're no longer the default race. They're those big goobers with long legs, striding about all the time. I can so easily envision much more interesting relationships between humans and non-humans because of it. Like perhaps "tallmen" are stereotyped as shepherds by other races because they can watch over their flocks better, or as vagabonds because they are better suited to long travel on foot. And of course, they don't *literally* have to be taller than everybody else, they were just the tallest around whenever the label became the norm, or something like that. I just feel like it's so much better than what I've seen in settings like D&D that go "and humans are the... adaptable, generalist people :)!"
Also, Dungeon Meshi heavily implies directly states in the Adventure’s Bible that the myth of trolls is how half-foots once viewed tallmen and told stories about them.
EDIT: I have been corrected by @nat-wa, it is directly stated, not simply implied that tallmen are the source of troll myths.
“once you cross the language barrier, he’s actually one of the most reasonable mages I’ve ever had dealings with. Undoubtedly his soul’s as black and twisted as licorice but the fellow’s so nice you really can’t hold that against him. “
- Lord Dresly Pole, former werewolf
Setup: This Kenku Scholar was long ago warped while researching dark magics and the nature of the curse of mimicry that besets all of the crow-folk. This avian occultist is liable to show up in any dungeon, derelict estate, or desecrated temple the party may happen to be exploring, introducing himself as “Father Bell” by indicating the tattered priest’s vestments he wears and jingling accessory charms.
Using pantomime and snippets of stolen conversations, Father Bell will communicate his interest in any curses or forbidden texts the party will have stumbled across in their travels, gleefully trading these scraps of dark power as a tailor would scraps of fine fabric. His interest in jinxes, maledictions, and other baleful forms of magic have made Bell a champion cursebreaker, capable of unweaving the most devilish of bedevilments if given enough payment for his troubles.
Correspondingly, Father Bell also sells the curses he breaks, using the kenku knack for forgery to reproduce long dead afflictions and redirect them onto unsuspecting targets.
Adventure Hooks:
While father bell pursues his dark endeavors alone, his identity has a breaker and maker of curses has attracted the attention of other dabblers and would be acolytes. The hexmonger employs these individuals as mouthpieces and gobetweens, obscuring his activities and using them to evade the secular and spiritual authorities that would seek an end to his practice. It is likely the players will encounter these acolytes if they need to get a cursed removed,or if word gets around that they were adventuring in a traditionally haunted or otherwise forbidden place.
Hired to exorcise the haunting presence besetting an isolated manorhouse, the party encounters Father Bell when he saves them by banishing a terribly powerful spirit that had them backed into a corner. While initially helpful, it becomes increasingly obvious that the Kenku aims to bottle the haunting, rather than destroying it. Can the party trust their supposed savior with such dark power, or can they risk offending someone with the power to subdue the dead so easily?
Seeking to break the sleeping curse placed on her son by a rival family, a countess has kidnapped father bell, forcing him to perform cruel experiments in hopes of finding a solution. These experiments contaminate the local water supply, causing entire villages to sleepwalk, or collapse into an unending dream.
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