Pressure-points for domain-level faction (GLoGmas 25 for Dom)

I got Dom of 'Infernal Pact' for GLoGmas; taking their own understanding of it as "writing something inspired by [someones blogpost] I think" I found something inspiring tucked on the back of their "adding in domain play after the fact" posts (parts 1 and 2).

The conclusions on Infernal Pact - that adding in a 'Domain play' layer has benefits and you can do that by thinking about factions - had a couple of questions that boil down to a checklist for gameable domain-scale factions:
- what factions?
- what resources are they using, where are their military assets deployed
- what are they worrying about?
- where are their weak-spots for a group of ne'er-do-wells to cause maximum damage

You can combine this with lots of other generators to help create the faction but you then need to confirm that you have those points of interaction clear as those are the handles on which the players will grab. Even if you do not nail them down to the map using An Echo, Resounding or Birthright or similar, you can get a good sense of who and what is in play.

This is also a good tool to re-tension a setting after maybe players have been off doing things for a while, checking who remains active, who may have been harmed or helped by the players actions and taking it from there. After the players have been in action for a while, they will have attention of some factions, have moved away from the spheres of concern of others, so an exercise like this is good for a mid-campaign check for where the adventures ahead might lie.

Another really good point made is how to see PC's - as a powerful asset across most of the spectrum who is much quicker than most other domain level actors - so they can stick their fingers in a lot of pies and put their thumbs on lots of scales.

Test Case

Using my Hexcrawl25 campaign as a template, let us run the slide-rule over that. I have been using 'dweller faction' as the hook for each hex, so let us see if these can be batched up along the lines of who gets

First we have some distant, stronger actors influencing the locality through a small fraction of their force, and then groups with local strength; the list below is first three 'big, far' factions and then three locals:
- the loyalist goliaths of the Hissing Valley
- the kirianshalee goliaths of the Meandering Mountains
- marchlords
- goblins
- nascent kingdom of Ashley
- harpy coven and their swamp-magician allies

The two goliath groups are head-to-head with each other and the Kingdom of Ashley is the players own faction so the three players in the region that are 'rivals/threats' are the goblins, the harpy coven and the marchlords.

Looking at these three big and small factions as a test of the Dom's questions;

Paladin of Gravity (GLÅUGUST 2025 #6)

Taking on The Nothic's Eye GLÅUGUST 2025, challenge #6 is from a list of their own - "Paladin of an unorthodox Law" - the law here is gravity, these paladins it's wardens.

Paladin of Gravity

A - Ripples in the gravity well
B - Gravitic Nudge
C - Slip the Grasp
D - Time lens

Increment Higgness +1 per template.

Should a Paladin of Gravity find themselves aboard a Spelljammer, any of the below can be applied to the ship if desired.

A Paladin of Gravity, if conscious, no longer takes fall damage if they choose not to. They still leave a crater if they fall far enough.

Ripples in the gravity well - gain awareness of the interplay of the local gravity plane - perceive all as it thrums against the gravity plane. The paladin gains tremorsense and true-sight to a range of Higgness * 30'. They can also take a minute to unerringly know direction relative to the planetary center and the local system gravity center.

Gravitic Nudge - Command local gravity. Summon meteors, slow foes or cause structural damage of d6 * Higgness per day. AC against missiles improves by Higgness.

Slip the Grasp - Gravity releases its most faithful servants. You can move Higgness * 30' per round, along, up or down any surface.

Time lens - Subtly scrunch gravity to warp time just when you need it; reroll any attack, save or ability check. Do this Higgness times per day.

Commission for the ethical sourcing of construct souls (GLÅUGUST 2025 #5)

Taking on The Nothic's Eye GLÅUGUST 2025, challenge #5 is from a list by Archon - "Minor social movement" - we discuss below the Comission for the Ethical Sourcing of Construct Souls.

The recent arrival of 'brassbones' - also known as warforged elsewhere in the multiverse - has caused some debate among the artificers and clergy of Krarland and other parts. Before them everything was clear.

Everyone knew that a wizards staff does not have a soul, that a homonculus was just an extension of a wizards self and that familiars were just sparks of the feywild, mirrors to a wizards will.

For the longest time everyone knew that constructs like enchanted broomsticks, talking clocks and dancing chairs and the like were just clever tools, extensions of the wizards hands.

But once the constructs grew more and more versatile, and clearly were be-souled as they could ask and care about questions like 'did they have souls' then the troubling question arose of where were these souls coming from?

Were souls from the great cycle now being incarnated in metal forms - the artificers workbench standing in for the mothers womb? Or were these new souls being drawn from some source attuned to metal, wood and stone? Were these dwarves in different forms?

A quiet sense of unease spread among the temples and workshops, a sense that while the need to know the answer to the question is not yet critically necessary, something of potentially great import was being meddled with blindly. With a feeling that it might become very important to be clear on the answer suddenly and without warning, the commission for the ethical sourcing of construct souls was founded.

The commission can be a vehicle for introducing NPCs with a specialty in information-gathering or any arcanist or clergy. It could also be a vehicle for NPCs to know one another if necessary - or a reason why given NPCs are distracted.

The first 6 of the below can be placed anywhere - such as a dungeon - the Commissioners were either seeking privacy to discuss the matter or gathering information in this out of the way place.

d8 Things Commissioners Might be Encountered Doing
1. Complicated auguries - a group of otherwise perfectly respectable and upstanding clerics acting really suspiciously because they are worried the very existence of brassbones is disrupting some natural cycle with terrible consequences but they do not want to start a panic. Yet.
2. Interrogation of summoned fiends - a masterclass in dread summoning by some morally-grey conjurers supported by every forbidden tome ever confiscated by the major temples. The fiends trying to figure out why they are being asked these questions, how rich could this new vein of souls be. Conjurers trying to find excuses to use and possibly memorize tricks from these books they never get access to. Clerics trying to block both but wring useful answers from the fiends.
3. Attempted necromancy on a smashed brassbones - necromancers with a grim group of death clerics carefully studying what kinds of things raise brassbone corpses and how different they might be.
4. Comparative soul analysis - brassbones and volunteer civilians being brought on a tour of spiritually null, isolated, hallowed and desecrated places to witness and record their relative reactions.
5. Crowd sourcing ancient legends in 'old folk' communities - sages touring dwellings of the long lived - elves, giants, dragons, etc - and asking them about their ancient legends for any similar happening before.
6. A mixed group of arcanists, clerics and other interested parties attempting to collate various notes from all the above efforts into some sort of order - currently it is a mess of chalk scribbles, tacked up notes and lengths of red string with people standing within it pointing and arguing.
(Outside the dungeon)
7. An incredibly over-engineered hospital offer free treatment for any injured brassbones - hugely overstaffed, with far too many high level clerics present for the small handful of damaged brassbones. The place is festooned with divination magics.
8. Incredibly over-engineered temple to craft gods - brassbones being assembled amidst an array of divination devices, meditating acolytes and other things meant to give some indication of where the soul entered the new form from.

2d12 Debutante Ball Encounters (GLÅUGUST 2025 #4)

Taking on The Nothic's Eye GLÅUGUST 2025, challenge #4 is from a list by Gokun - "Debutante ball encounter table".

Below a list of folk present at a debutante ball - could be another noble event - in standard fairy-tale high fantasy. Lifted straight from current events of my menagerie-world campaign. The below is light on the obvious villains because those will be specific to your game/campaign - the encounter list below gives you all the plausible background folk to make the world feel real, weighted for 2d12 probability curve.

Also - avoid my mistake - if there is someone who you need the players to meet then do not put them on the random encounter table, no matter how probable the placing. Decide a trigger and have them turn up otherwise you could end up with your players rolling like demons and getting everything except the one encounter you need. This is a variant of 'don't gate the vital clues behind a skill roll'. In particular because these are social encounters, there is a risk of time running away as people interact with these NPCs - which may be something you are happy to have happen, just be aware of it.

2d12 Attendees of the Ball
2. Very old 'elf' holding court, font of lore, arbiter of etiquette, has slightly strange bunch of hangers-on - very conservative in mannerisms but an otherwise diverse group, very pale, no reflection.
3. Lady in black, immaculate gown subtly dripping with jewelled embroidery, excellent listener, delighted to share gossip, only slightest hint of sulphur trailing them hints at infernal origin, here watching over investments
4. Uncomfortable looking outdoorsy type, fine but obviously unfamiliar outfit highlights astonishing physique, here as a reward for monster-slaying, wishing they got gold instead
5. Starry eyed youth, dazzled and delighted, here as reward for assassinating particularly nasty cult leader by infiltrating their fortress
6. Ancient court wizard, here from long tradition, has met or is aware of most people, here so their glamoured-up entourage can play at high society for a night
7. Distant arch-fey relative of the Duchess, patroness of one of the debutantes, here to make a big splash of granting her blessing
8. Proper, slightly stuffy monster-slayer heir to major noble house, here out of duty, wants to be out on the hunt earning a name of his own. Taciturn, unless about monsters and killing them
9. Scion of the smiths guildmaster, already an established reputation as a fashion setter, patron of crafts and advocate for trade. Bulldozer direct wrapped in perfect manners
10. Trailing end of the current generation of the ruling house, knows everyone, dislikes the spotlight, jittery because they are aware of the dangers here but not very dangerous themselves
11. Minor nobility in from the country, more people in this room than settlements she grew up in, overwhelmed, completely focussed on not causing a mess
12. Trade guild minor scion, has been to many of these for his siblings, excited to see long-absent cousins, viewing it all as a big family get-together
13. Scion of an old pre-conquest minor house, social butterfly, knows everyone including most servants, her people have lived here since time immemorial, this room was her families once
14. First generation of newly established mage-house, excellent student of magic, uncomfortable in crowds, trying to be what his parents hope
15. Almost too-old member of a ruined minor house recently restored to the Duchess favour and sponsored by her. Perfectly mannered, aware she is a single slip from social abyss
16. Bored younger sibling, thinks whole thing a waste of their time, they have a whole year until they do it themselves, mostly interested in brashly chasing pretty folk, adeptly avoids increasingly frustrated guardians
17. Last years debutante, returning to support sibling with charming spouse on their arm, judgemental of anything non traditional, keen to soak up the experience without the stress of being its focus
18. Sibling of the Duke, recently back from border skirmishes, renowned war-hero, very interested in potential useable talent, trailed by grim looking body-guard, long-suffering spouse
19. Duchess, graciously hosting, full fey-ancestry glamours on display, seeking a perfectly pleasant and orderly introduction to society for everyone, standards up-held and all, entourage of secretary, ladies in waiting, favoured companions
20. Perfectly dressed if understated thief, polite and mannerly, happy to take invitations to dance, excellent listener, all to prolong time scouting nice jewels
21. Immaculately turned out, suave seducer- seeking a romantic tryst they can lever to their advantage, quickly moves on from bad prospects
22. Somewhat battered but appropriately attired avenger, wary and watchful, seeks one who has wronged them, ready for violence
23. Ambassador from afar, smooth, like an excellent butler, will be fascinated with PCs stories, happy to direct them towards folk that might help
24. Duke master of spies, formally dressed as member of minor nobility, older society members get quiet around them, mostly watching for threats

Combine this table of people with my previous d20 Odd events at a nobles ball if you just want a handful of things to spice up a ball where you know the main 'plot' already or add the Masquerade as social depth-crawl structure to both of those to make it a whole thing in and of itself.

God-whale refinery (GLÅUGUST 2025 #3)

Taking on The Nothic's Eye GLÅUGUST 2025, challenge #3 is from a list by Vayra - "wizard tower dungeon (must have a gimmick)"

This is a wizards tower in a giant, animated hermit-crab-like nautilus shell. Stands on what looks like too-few legs above a miasma of crackling haze, more legs go in than it stands upon below. The surroundings are lit by irregular flares of burning discharge running down the shell. A dreadful smell of grease and offal surrounds it. Within a cabal of mid-tier wizards boot-strapping their artificer expertise and elbow grease to take down their old master.

All rooms are stages of a process and extraction chain for god-flesh wrenched from an colossal extradimensional being captured in some of the towers claws that protrude beyond sight. Everything shakes and shudders in its death-throes.

Everything here is hazardous, the crew/workers will freak out at people acting dangerously but are mostly too occupied with not dying themselves to actually care if people are moving through, as long as they are authorised. Authorisation checks can be as limited as a glance to confirm appropriate protective oil-skins and a purposeful walk.

Locations

Wells and Un-wells (GLÅUGUST 2025 #2)

Taking on The Nothic's Eye GLÅUGUST 2025, challenge #2 is from a list by deus ex parabola - "Selection of interesting wells, wishing or non-wishing". In the finest of tradition, these were drafted on the back of an envelope on a train with an odd guy staring at me.

Unusual water sources.

1. drawing on a cracked open insectfolk ruin - occassionally contaminated with honey-like nectars
2. runoff from an ice-elemental cooling system at the arcane university, inexplicable ice-chunks that look like melting scales
3. distillery condensate from a dwarven subterranean facility; mildly alcoholic
4. tapping a great root; faint taste of sap
5. well created by a giants blow - shattering the rocks below; brought water from tight rocks but now draw is exceeding inflow as people congregate
6. a bizarre system of a belt made of bear pelt running down into a filthy well with the rising, soaked pelt having water squeezed out with wringers. Tastes bad - both pelt and filth leaving trace tastes - but safe enough to drink
7. dwarven venturi jet pump - on a high wind day this dwarven windmill pumps water back down to a cunning venturi nozzle at the bottom of the well and lifts more water back out. Originally designed to combine with a now-missing wind-powered set of trip hammers and forge bellows, it is now a booster-pumped well that is dry (jammed with machinery) on a still day or a torrent on a windy day
8. furious air elemental imprisoned down-well throws off bubbles that reduce the density of the water column and allow the well to lift.
9. a pump operated by skeletons turning a windlass - incredibly squeaky, skeletons hiss and snarl at any who come close but only attack if the pump is interfered with
10. collosal archimedes screw descends huge distance down a 30 degree bore. Distant snarls and roars echoe up the bore and the screw occassionally shakes from impacts.
11. well is an opening into the top of a cavern containing under-sea. Buckets are lowered a very, very long way, sometimes come up with a fish
12. something lives down the well and trades water for things like feathers and leaves. Can be heard chirping happily when buckets with offerings are lowered.
13. beetle shell continuously sheened with condensate that drips into a pan beneath
14. well stands alone within a fetid swamp with a complex curved roof - a seethingly hot gem within the well sets steam rising that runs down the roof to a ring trough that surrounds the well. Gruesome smell of burning marsh mud surrounds it
15. shattered remnant of a wizards tower; twisted apparatus surround a borehole, blue flames leap continuously from the blackened stones of the tower but beneath the water is clear
16. partially buried giant ice-block, frozen around a trapped ice elemental. Hack off some ice.
17. well is a bowl where a salt-crystal thread is being constantly spun by invisible fingers; once all the salt is spun out, invisible hands toss the water and refill the bowl from the nearby sea - snatch the bowl before it is thrown to get the fresh water
18. barnacle encrusted artificers tower, the grumbling machine within sifting tiny grains of gold from huge volumes of seawater - sifts out everything in fact - with fresh water being dumped out by a pipe into what is now an anomalous garden
19. badly resealed portal to the elemental plane of water has flooded the basement of a wizards tower. Only slightly tastes of mold and reagents.
20. shattered tower of a once-mighty aboleth jitters between this reality and other times, occassionally passing through when this place was/is/will be a lake complete with thunderclap of displaced air/water and great splosh as the towers volume of water is displaced to here.

Big guns for big monsters (GLÅUGUST 2025 #1)

Taking on The Nothic's Eye GLÅUGUST 2025, challenge #1 is from a list by Halfalcon - "He Wields A Gun."

Here we talk about the three main schools of magical firearms extant in menagerie world:
- blunderbus-types
- masterworks
- enchantment-powered

All of these are generally in competition with 'cheap' bows and crossbows or 'easy' magic.

While all looking somewhat similar there are three different things happening
- first are the blunderbus or cannon types which are strongly built vessels for whatever magical explosives and shot you can get your hands on. The oomph comes from what you can stuff inside, not the vessel itself, though it may have some enchantments to keep it from exploding in your hands. This is the punt-gun stuffed full of dragonbone powder, casting a fistful of freshly enchanted magic stones at a foe.
- the second are weapons which are designed to be deadly even without magics - wonders of mastercraft, deploying such exotic metals and cunning techniques that to many they may as well be magical and then enhanced still further by precisely applied enchantments. One of these would be a long-rifle with optics of true-sight and carefully measured cartridges enchanted by obsesssive artificer mages. We include here things like railguns, bio-weapons like deathspitters or non-chemically propelled slug-throwers.
- lastly are things that produce similar effects of ruining your day at a distance when the thing is activated whether casting a shot at speed but do this through some fundamentally magical force such as a portal from a storm on the plane of air or through throwing balefire, encapsulated oozes or other such gruesomeness.

Examples of each to be found in the field:

#1 - Dwarven troll-gun (also known as a tunnel-gun); sturdy, typically octagonal stylings around the outside. Cunning grips make it intuitive to aim, adding +1 to hit out to 60'. This example is found in the hands of a minotaur who is using an extra-smoky black-powder that obscures a 30' cone for 3 rounds after firing and bone-chips and teeth from previous victims, which cause wounds that require a constitution save before healing.

#2 - First-ones dragon-rifle; big, large bore, breach-breaking, recoil-suppressed gun with a bipod - designed so a sturdy orc can fire it from (standing) wolf-back or a half dozen goblins can move it as a field team. Said orc wanting to show off will have bandoliers of hand-etched shells across their chest, roll-up carry-cases of charges, tools and optics slung from their saddle. Goblins operating this will likely have two to carry the weapon and another each for the shells, charges, tools and optics. Quick to reload in case the dragon fails to obligingly die with the first shot. Armour penetrating, stuns on impact. Each one a priceless masterwork, each cartridge the price of a good mount.

#3 Forge-clan lightning-thrower; looks like a crossbow with a hexagonal arrangement of rods pointing forward and a reel. Throws lightning from bottles of the stuff screwed onto the top. At short-range, against metallic things, just pull the trigger. For longer ranges or multiple targets, there is a small onboard harpoon that tows a cable to the target. Typically 6 flasks of lightning can be clipped in, choose how many to use with each shot using the insulated knob. Wear the insulated gloves while using. Do not let sweat drip onto it. Blinding to all present when it fires. Ignites flammables. Lightning bottles thrown into water will discharge affecting anyone touching the water. Do not bend the prongs. Do not tangle the reel. Recharging lightning bottles can be done by flying a kite in a storm.

Riftling (Beholder Bandwagon)

Observing the Beholder Bandwagon I was suddenly struck by inspiration - the bandwagon so far has Lantern Heads by Garamondia, Three "Beholders" from The Nothic's Eye or A New Direction by Occultronics.

What remains when you dissolve in proto-matter?

Beholders are horrifically dangerous, barely a form of life one can interact with, almost but not-quite a revenant - subject to ordeals that would drive others to claw back from the veil of death.

They are a coalescence of planar rifts, formed when a wizard that ventures beyond their talents into the deep ethereal partly dissolves into the corrosive ur-stuff there. Where such a thing happens the flailings for escape cause splits and rifts like a very large fly tearing itself loose from a spiders web and dragging web and all back out with them. Where those sufficiently strong-willed arcanists manage to struggle their way off the deep ethereal back to the material plane, they are warped beyond all recognition by the journey.

Said to be named from a famed declaration of 'behold!' where an archmage cast a rival into the deep ethereal to such a fate.

A beholder is a coruscating confluence of planar rifts around a central knot of proto-matter from the deep ethereal. Impressions of maw or eyes are just splits in the boundary of their hide that allow darker or brighter views of other planes to be seen. The core elemental planes are too solid and real to be caught up in such a creature so the writhing tentacle-like rifts that flail about it are typically fissures to the para- and quasi- elemental planes - salt, dust, ash, vacuum, ice, ooze, magma, smoke, lightning, radiance, steam and minerals - casting dreadful effects from those planes at things that annoy it.

Sometimes the struggles of a beholder wrench themselves in two, each half of the shattered entity becoming a beholder in its own right. Beholders who have been on the prime material for a while can settle down to merely very twitchy and paranoid; enough that they might converse before lashing out at someone they encounter. Mostly they assume everything is out to get them and act accordingly.

Beholder (Riftling)

Meeples for the Win (GLoGtober 7 '24)

Taking on Glass Candles GLoGtober '24, challenge #2 is from a list by TheFirstGokun - "Physical Game Pieces."

I do quite a lot of cafe gaming and my big space saver has been using meeples for combats - does not quite give the square-by-square tactical detail of standard grid combat but 4/5 times it does everything you need - where are the clusters of bad guys, who is on what bit of terrain, who is near who.

I got these four bags from the In-House Testing Team one winter and they have proved remarkably useful. I have settled in on the stars and little circular things (right side) as the usual NPCs/monsters, the middle-right bag of meeples and houses as PCs and allies, and the mid-left bag tended to be the ships for Spelljammer combat.

Given that these are smaller than most dice they work really well by letting you have a whole battle-space on a single sheet of A4 - which in turn means you can use a piece of stiff card in a plastic-pocket plus dry-erase markers as an easily portable reusable battlemat.

All of which then fits neatly into a bag.

This does not support people bringing their Heroforge 28mm minis to table and I fully recognise that there is a chunky wow-factor to being able to haul out your custom 3D-printed bad guys and have your players squinting trying to figure out is that a standard beholder or some sort of other tentacly horror. The wear and tear on my shoulder and pocket book implied by aquiring and hauling around such a collection is a sufficiently high threshold that I am going to stick with my faithful meeples.

Hardbitten veterans, every one of those little blocks, earned their place in Valhalla multiple times over by now.

Strange Stones from Weird Aeons (GLoGtober 6 '24)

Taking on Glass Candles GLoGtober '24, challenge #6 is from my own list - "Secrets of the Stones."

Inspired by Onion Souls idea of Magical accretion and the multiple OSR weird time epochs collected on Coins and Scrolls I was thinking about what kind of strange geology is lying around in the gameworld.

Things are plenty strange already in the real world - I have seen this burning earth with my own eyes.

So these strange deep time periods are all well and good but what actual remnants and extrusions from those times can be stumbled upon?

d10 strange rock formations from weird aeons
1. Shock planes - remnants of particularly outrageous continental drifting during the Turbozoic era, these incredibly hard, thin sheets rise high above the landscape and are extremely damage resistant
2. Fossil supercomputer - intricate circuitry from sublimbed organic supercomputers of the Svahbavan Glaciation - carefully transmutation spellwork might get you a tiny fragment of a once-godlike entity
3. Compacted stars - remnants of sloppy creationeering, discarded stars look like big geodes until they crack and suddenly you have a sun at your feet with all the problems that implies
4. Cathedral channels - remnants of holy mounds, allowing wind to blow through them will randomly cast a divine spell on a random valid target near by
5. Purging Sprite soot - a thin layer, scraped up can be blown or pasted onto things to shatter magical effects
6. Astrogenocene coal - coal-analogue from high energy biosphere - igniting, striking or otherwise disturbing in this lower-energy world causes it to chill, rust, rot and otherwise soak the energy from surrounds
7. World-eater seacucumber - looks like a fossil, is just biding its time, do not get it wet.
8. Serpentis Iradium layer - traces of the sorcerous war that made the God Serpent never have been. Exposure sickens lizard folk or other scaly-kind.
9. First necro-layer - limestone-like crushed bones of the first total victory by necromancers. Anyone foolish enough to carve or cast this into some mobile form will find they are still active
10. Rogue colours - a trapped pocket of colors from the early Great Funkadelican era, releasing long-gone hues on the world once more

Settlement morale check (GLoGtober 5 '24)

Taking on Glass Candles GLoGtober '24, challenge #2 is from a list by Phlox - "A procedure relating to a city."

Maybe useful as a mechanism to implement 'things fall apart' adventures like "Recruiters" from Well of Worlds or other siege or high tension situations.

You could use this with or linked to a chaos index or other kind of doom clock.

Proceedure
- roll morale check for the settlement
- apply any adjustments due to events
- apply consequences of morale check result

Intention is that people should be able to feel if the city is on edge and know if they spend their time causing chaos or calming things down will it likely achieve the desired effect

Initial morale score for a settlement should tie to scale - it is hard to shift the attitude of a big metropolis but easier to do it for a thorp.

Settlement	Pop	Morale
Thorp	50	5
Hamlet	240	6
Village	650	7
Small town	1450	8
Large town	3500	9
Small city	8500	10
Large city	18500	11
Metropolis	25000	12

Target is roll under on 2d6 - a little Thorp without anything to reassure it is going to be very jittery.

High morale just means cohesive, tending towards 'business as usual' - it does not mean nice, noble, or any other positive connotation.

Stuff getting weird imposes a morale check, nothing notable happens recently? No morale check. Sleepy thorp remains sleepy.

Where a settlement fails its morale check, cohesiveness breaks down temporarily, there may be panic, riots, looting and whatever response from authorities those warrant. Anything that requires processes or trade becomes hard as things shut and people are busy tending to their own affairs. Anything that prospers in chaos like heists, revolution or the like will go more easily.

Things that move the needle for a morale check at a settlement:

You get -1 to the roll for:
- Grand speeches or other crowd-interactions that were seen at least 10% of the population
- Nearby threats defeated of HD = 10% of population
- Recovery of treasure nearby equal to 100gp per population
- Arrival or emergence of popular public figure

You get +1 to the roll for:
- Sightings of threats of HD = 10% of population
- Death within the settlement of 5% of population
- Great magical workings, without clear benevolent intent
- Unexpected death of significant public figure (popular or notorious)
- Significant damage (e.g. fire)

You need to do a lot to shake a metropolis into chaos, conversely small settlements hang together only because nothing is threatening them - likely they will pack up and head for the hills if anything scary comes their way.

What dwells within the dwarf roads (GLoGtober 4 '24)

Taking on Glass Candles GLoGtober '24, challenge #4 is from a list by Shadowfray - "Infrastructure & Logistics." - with special thanks to Walfalcon for unsticking my writers block with their own post on the topic. For my contribution we return to the Dwarf Roads and the things you find down there.

Long ago, during the Membrane Wars, the dwarves retreated from the Last Star and built the under-roads in a frenzy to reconnect their scattered holdings as their previous airship-empire failed beneath the tainted light. Their alchemical-botanic mastery was turned to wringing fuels from the blood of the earth and they ground out the under-roads then fought the cult of the Last Star to a standstill in the dark.

The roads are now long abandoned, ancient defences still lurk and automata still roam but some things have made their home and some brave venturers traverse the paths once more. Few are good to meet.

Whatever else is found, there are usually dazzler walls - they make shadows leap and dance confusingly to the light of a normal flame but even unlit they are glaringly irritating to those with darkvision rapidly inducing headaches and making anything requiring vision exhausting and difficult.

Traps
1. Bulwark doors - Most renowned aspect of the Dwarf roads - known as Gnashing Doors for their fail-closed multiple redundancies
2. Darkness cascade - stinging chill showers of liquid darkness, typically matched with slopes and spiked pits
3. Lightning Arcs - discharging along dazzler walls in blinding torrents
4. Turret traps - throwing a variety of poisons, incendiaries, and caustics
5. Mellified beast release - honey-bottled monsters in arcane stasis, released. Basilisks a favourite
Hazards
6 - Maintenance golem - ever-burning elemental core heat the great rock-scrapers it has used to shore up the tunnels these past millenium
7 - Haunted train - a near intact war-borer train - too intact for the dead crew will rise to defend their charge
8 - Hypnotic archives - missing interface psychadelics might be found and information gleaned
9 - Unstable magazine - alchemical fire, night bombs, seeker swords - lethal things stored uncarefully by soldiers under pressure
10 - Breached fuel unit - dripping caustic and flamable pools, clouds of noxious gas fill the local area
Monstrous residents
11 - Weretoads - loners, often heard long before seen croaking low-wave messages along the roads
12 - Crocodile cultists - pale, trogoldyte forms, highly territorial of their glorious depths
13 - Dwarven shades - death has not released them from their dutiful defence
14 - Giant spiders - keeping the giant flies down
15 - Myconids - inheritors of the dwarves deep-botanical endowment
Intruders
16 - Humanoid raiding team - soldiers of one of the realms above, trying to outflank their foes from beneath
17 - Questing adventurers - pursuing something or someone that has fled here
18 - Blockade runners - smugglers trying to worm their way past surface hostilities and customs barriers
19 - Treasure Seekers - trying to search out some last forgotten coin
20 - Dwarven Reconquistadors - reclaiming their ancient birthright

We have visited these roads before with Small god: Lady Deephome (GLoGtober 2 '23).

Other references:
The Last Star - Bearded Devil
Jungle Dwarves of Forgotten Gorzu - Lizardman Diaries

Hidden depth of domain encounters (GLoGtober 3 '24)

Taking on Glass Candles GLoGtober '24, challenge #2 is from a list by Vivanter - "An encounter table for domain-level play."

So for this I thought of the many things that would crop up in domain play and thought I would have another go at a universal chart. For a domain level game, the problems scale up but the boons also change. For me domain level means 'so big, the king needs to send ...' either the cavalry or the tax wagons because it makes a difference on the scale of hundreds to thousands of people. The problems, if left unattended would threaten the viability of the realm itself. The type of stuff even high level adventurers would get out of bed for.

I blocked things out into a couple of groups
Catastrophes - big, rare things going very wrong in the deep wilds
Bad Times - things that hit 'civilization'
Critters - all the usual sorts of monsters but more of them or bigger.
Pesky Humans - people, either the neighbours or outlaws, being the nuisance
Civil Matters - things happening in the towns and cities
Stars Align - other peoples magical fantasy nonsense happening to you and your realm

Then blocked out a hidden depths table with the first four blocks and filled it out to a potential d30 roll with the last group.

You could run this as a chaos clock - switching 6d4 > 4d6 > 3d8 > 2d12 > d24 > d30 as things get weirder.

Score	Roll	Group	Event
2	d4d20	Stars Align	Treasure hoard uncovered
2	d4d20	Catastrophe	Major volcano
3	d4d20	Catastrophe	Fey incursion
4	d4d20	Catastrophe	Plague
5	2d12	Bad Times	Terrible Weather -
6	2d12	Bad Times	Crop Failures - peasants on the move
7	3d8	Critters	Minor monster tribe
8	3d8	Critters	Beast herds
9	3d8	Critters	Bountiful harvest
10	3d8	Critters	Insect swarms
11	4d6	Pesky Humans	Cult outbreak
12	4d6	Pesky Humans	Banditry
13	4d6	Pesky Humans	Herdbeast rustling
14	6d4	Civil Matters	Festival
15	6d4	Civil Matters	New construction
16	6d4	Civil Matters	Trade fair
17	6d4	Civil Matters	Crimewave
18	6d4	Civil Matters	Riots
19	4d6	Pesky Humans	Raiders
20	4d6	Pesky Humans	Siege
21	3d8	Critters	Big Scary Individual Monster
22	2d12	Bad Times	General Revolt
23	2d12	Bad Times	Plague
24	d4d20	Catastrophe	Divine incursion
25	d30	Stars Align	Lost secrets unearthed
26	d30	Stars Align	A mighty warrior arises
27	d30	Stars Align	Blood War Incursion
28	d30	Stars Align	A craft falls to earth
29	d30	Stars Align	Titans War breaks out (giants, dragons, etc)
30	d30	Stars Align	An archmage takes up a new goal

Patrons Seeking Adventurers (GLoGtober 2 '24)

Taking on Glass Candles GLoGtober '24, challenge #2 is from a list by CommonUse - "Patrons: their source of power/wealth and their goals in using the party."

Practical Patrons, their natures and what they seek from their hirelings
1. Sithulf - whiter-than-white, the clergy of Bahamut, support through the church, needs deniable catspaws but if things are done by the book, they can drop the hammer on anything proved
2. Mallory - keen long-haul traders, breathless explorer, demands good notes, provides good briefings, can find or fence anything
3. Master of University - classic wizard, wrong species, lots of weird help to hand out, bound imps, consumable magic
4. Ragnbjorl - delvers into beyond, hunters of eldritch monsters for profit, seek gutsy, ask-no-questions types, support subcontractors, tend towards wild victory parties
5. Rynskald - ancient house, guardian of hazards, dangerous deeds, well paid, good intel, operational support, bloody handed defenders of the realm, everything is expendable
6. Kalfyra - minor members of the ruling house, odd hobbyists, sketchy briefings, official support, shows appreciation through lands and titles.
7. Hentlebrock - minor lordly deeds, local political power, fixers for the common folk, often seek classic adventurers for typical quests
8. Pillars - bordermarch lords, monster expertise, local guides, often seek rescue assistance for lost travellers or cut off settlements
9. Mhysanor - glitteringly wealthy coastal lords, sleek and polished, seek spy-hunters and capables to stalk magical foes on their home terrain
10. Kordites - disorganised church, motivated, messianic, supported by living saint, temple network plus mythic overlap, has prophetic visions to be handled
11. Sellal - river-baron, trade-taxers, covert actors, connections to the seelie courts, seeks sneaks and spies
12. Crown - the realm, ultimate but distant authority, officially their writ is law, lots of support until there isn't, quests often wrong on the details
13. Mysmys - Orthodox Church of Tiamat, guided by oracles, seeks contract killers, ruin delvers and hoard plunderers
14. Alchemists Guild - makers of warforged, tomb-divers and tower-raiders, pay well, need deniable
15. Chiming Zam - smuggling boss, network everywhere, needs discrete, cunning folk to help shift cargos quietly
16. Drizero - looks like a dragon cult, is the local lord, sponsors ruin diving
17. Uncargicks - wealthy smiths guild, pays top coin, needs muscle for clearing mines, path-breaking, caravan escort
18. Thenya Palace - city rulers, the local law, lots of odds and ends the palace guard cannot deal with, mostly message runs or ruin exploration
19. Gray Wasp - sorcerers collective, continuous demand for wierd and exotic fetch errands
20. Garzidh - military stronghold, excellent equipment, henchmen support, steady mercenary work keeping supply routes open

Bonus Eldritch Patrons seen in-world
1. Queen of the Terror Birds - recently dug up after long aeons underground, gleefully seeks to restore avian dominion
2. Last Star - the Special light
3. Ezbotha - your local hag, runs a very charming bathhouse
4. Master of Tongues - gruesome plucker of the strands of fate

Dungeon Cities (GLoGtober 1 '24)

Taking on Glass Candles GLoGtober '24, challenge #1 is from a list by Walfalcon - "A city where you can dungeon crawl."

The key difference between a 'lost city' and a standard dungeon to my mind is that there are a bunch of factions/peoples present who are just living normal lives to a relatively sophisticated standard - it is just that the distance to very dangerous neighbours and deadly ruins is measured in minutes walking rather than days of hiking.

I am using 'Lost Conchordia' from my home campaign for my model here - the city of the Titans, predating giant-kind, from the time of Amman ruling supreme, before the Ordning. I had it lost beneath a glacier but this also works for buried under sand or silt, engulfed by volcanic ash or any other number of cataclysms that would fill the streets and spaces of a city with something solid.

Intent is that your standard urban location toolkit would be used, whatever that is, then layer on these tables below to capture the 'buried city' flavour.

Conchordia beneath ice.

d6 room types
1. dug out of ice
2. old room as was
3. adapted room
4. non-dwelling space but big enough to be room
5. rubble/ruin still navigable
6. bubble/crevasse or other naturally occuring gap

In Conchordia, the original inhabitants were mostly gone but for a very few remnants - automata, undead, moving statues, etc. Things of course had moved into the space over the long run of time - both beasts and people finding spaces to live within the old city. Finally there are other non-dwellers - both welcome visitors and unwelcome intruders that might happen to be there.

d20 things encountered
1-2. original inhabitant
3-8. beastie moved in
9-17. recent dweller
18-20. intruder/adventurer

My suggestion for cities where you dungeon crawl is to set the range on attitude tables as equivalent to cities, and have monsters encountered be both more savvy around humans - like urban bears, crows and coyotes - habituated to people, not man-eaters, and perhaps more of a nuisance, less of a direct threat. Going about your daily business is a little more risky however with things falling on you or out from under you and the poorly ventilated buried nature of the whole place.

d6 background hazards the locals cope with daily
1. rickety walk ways over plunges
2. low door lintels
3. bad food
4. sleep-ruining noise
5. random collapses
6. bad air
7. disease
8. getting lost and disorientation

This would also come into play during any chases.

The Great Wheel of the Far North (GLoGtober 7 '23)

Last of Glass Candles GLoGtober '23, challenge #7 is from their own list - "A post about a weird train." Here endeth my run at GLoGtober for 2023!

The technologies of the Forge clan are misunderstood. Outsiders think their discussions of agitating water and fire elementals by proximity to one another are their crude ways of describing steam technologies. In fact it is more like 'cats-in-a-sack' drive.

The pinnacle of their works is the Great Wheel. A towering framework, a pyramid on sleds with a roaring, spinning disk in the centre. Within the disk, an unlikely prize - a fire elemental that is fascinated by artifice and adores clambering around inside the labyrinth within the disk. The outside of the disk is grooved with treads that bites into the glaciers and tundra and hurls the train along.

Behind are great sleds with lesser sleds and wagons tied down under rickety frames on which catch dries, travellers loaf and sight-seers perch for the view. The Great Wheel grinds along throughout the year, shuttling nomadic communities around on the great ice-fields, bringing fishers from the rivers to the sea, herdsmen across the tundra and above all towing the workshops and stores of the clan in an endless trading circuit.

The Great Wheel itself is attended by a dedicated group of artificers from the Forge clan, some old conjuring hands who commune with the fire elemental, danger-addicts who maintain the ever-spinning parts, and apprentices come to learn from the others at this culmination of their craft.

The train is a perpetual nomads conclave, the default seat of government of the Forge clan since more likely than not the largest concentration of the clan elders will probably be on-board at any given time.

d6 groups onboard just now
1. forge mages with acolytes and arcane equipment
2. skimmer crews with their ice-sleds
3. herdsfolk with their herd
4. nomads with dwellings, packbeasts, families
5. workers and crafters, processing some of the cargo in transit
6. dungeon-divers with packs of equipment en route to a site

The Great Wheel descends on a location like an anteater come to a nest, disgorging tribesfolk and warrior bands, cracking open dungeons, uprooting wizard towers and breaching fortresses that what lies within can be hauled out and carried away back to the icefields.

d6 raw plunder being carried
1. raiders with hand-carried winnings from raids
2. a whole ship, dragged from the sea
3. a mine, dismantled
4. quarried materials, for a new fortress
5. a great beast, being butchered and rendered down on the move
6. a wizards tower, wrenched whole from it foundations

It is said with some encouragement the spirit of the wheel can do more than simply drive it. Witnesses say they have seen it form a great humanoid shape and fling things - barrels of pitch, rocks and even grappling hooks to drag things to it. Mostly those who witness this and live to tell the tale recall the unnerving joyful yells of the creature, cheery 'yaaahhhgs' ringing our across the tundra as it visits chaos wherever it has arrived.

d20 Puzzle boxes. (GLoGtober 6 '23)

Taking on Glass Candles GLoGtober '23, challenge #6 is from a list by metalsnail - "Puzzle boxes."

Taking a puzzle box as a thing that requires certain actions to unlock it that are more than just 'insert key'.

This puzzling box is...
1. A key itself - rotate it and a demi-planar structure opens up with many things stored within it.
2. A bioform larvae - effectively a seed; this box unlocks into different forms depending on what it is planted in. Rich soil begets a bush that delivers nourishing fruit. Sands and gravels gives a woody vine that provides spices. Precious metals yields a geode-like tuber that can be cracked open for semi-precious gems. Blood or corpses sprout a fearsome hunting beast.
3. covered with tiny sockets. If the gems that once were there are replaced with similar tiny diamonds (400gp worth) and left out under the stars that match the constellation formed, it opens.
4. A memory palace - touching this puzzle box dumps someone elses memory palace into your mind; finding their knowledge is easy, understanding it is harder and finding yourself again at the end might be very tricky.
5. A grimoire - unfolding each panel of this puzzle box reveals magical texts and minor trials of arcane knowledge to unlock further panels. This is an elaborate tutorial from a bygone era.
6. A labyrinth - correctly triggering the 'lock' transports anyone nearby into the intricately carved folds of the box. The things stored within are magically shrunken.
7. Covered with tiny pins - pushing them in or out to form the likeness of someone animates it into their behaviours, aiding in attempts to impersonate that person
8. Very faintly carved along its faces - inking and printing off the faces will reveal a riddle that must be solved to open the box
9. An engine - unlocking it reveals some gears that deliver a low revolution, effectively infinite torque. The 'lock' is just a safety mechanism.
10. Covered with intricate patterns with a number of tiny flaws that must be very carefully pushed back into place to unlock it.
11. Faced with hollow chimes that must be rung to play the creators favourite tune. It remains a popular ditty, you will get earwormed.
12. Made with sides that must be pried off and formed into keys. These fit together to unlock other sides and unfold the box into a large extradimensional space.
13. Wrapped about with a very long, fragile string that must be carefully unwound in just the right way or it breaks and you must start again. Some find it soothing.
14. Carved with channels down which strong liquor must be poured and then ignited before the box will open. A flaw in the design means you can just sit it in a bowl of flaming alcohol also.
15. Etched with lines from various poems, some obvious, some obscure. All the poems must be recited in full to the box before it opens.
16. Openable only when breathed upon after you have eaten something painfully spicy.
17. Made with a single white side that must be coloured in with a new colour to open. It has been around a while and finding a new unique colour has been tricky for some time.
18. Carved with lines of qualith and has grasping tentacles carved along the edges. You must hold it to your forehead and sacrifice a memory to open it. You get the last memory sacrificed.
19. Stamped with the icon of a solar god and opens after being left in view of the sun for a full dawn-to-dusk cycle. Any shadow during this time resets it.
20. Clearly marked with instructions to solve the complex push-button problem but is very hard to read and operate alone. Easily done with assistance.

Treasure routes & vessels. (GLoGtober 5 '23)

Taking on Glass Candles GLoGtober '23, challenge #5 I did to myself - Glass Candles roped me into this back at the start of September and I was thinking of how sunken treasure galleons provide adventure even today. Vast amounts of adventure in our world was driven by lucrative trade and people trying to get a slice of the action.

A classic trope of dungeon-delving is going after the buried riches of a time before - one key source of this can be lost shipments of wealth - which begs the question of wealth from where to where and by whom. They key rule of "trade routes will form along the easiest, safest, cheapest path between two trade hubs" gets a little odd in our fantasy world. Let us talk about two things - first the things being transported and second how they were being transported.

First, the stuff, the cargo, the treasure. To get down to brass tacks, a merchant caravan on a trade route will carry only as much as a given merchant would have amassed through trade, for the real treasures you want the fruits of a treasure route.

Cartoon by Tom Gauld

In the least bloody case, this is where the amassed wealth of a long-dead realm is being excavated and transported away by newcomers. More likely this is treasure being pried from cooling fingers or worse being acquired through slaves and strip-mining. In our fantasy realm this could be the discovered ruins, hoards of some great magical beasts or potentially the exploitation of some magical anomaly. Whatever the exact source, a treasure route implies that a land far-away found something valuable and is looting it for all it is worth to haul all the wealth back home.

Assume for a treasure route that the vessels are over-loaded, as these are abnormal volumes being moved, and that time at site after discovery is going to be limited because people know the legends and once they get a sniff that you actually *found* the lost golden sky-whale, you will have cut-throat competition for the site. Also assume that conditions can get volatile around the treasure site - something went wrong to leave this treasure here in the first place and further prevented it from being found and recovered by its original transporters at the time.

d6 What went wrong the first time?

Appendix N: sources of inspiration from beyond RPGs (GLoGtober 4 '23)

Taking on Glass Candles GLoGtober '23, challenge #1 is from a list by SunderedWorldDM - "Essential, non-RPG reading for any GM."

In case you have not yet seen it Kill 6 Billion Demons is magnificent. The planar wierdness, the cosmic powers, fabulous grist to the mill if you are a DM looking for ideas. Gaze upon some of the giant illustrations of Throne and let the muse whisper in your ear...

As a grand theme anything that asks how did the sinews of medieval times work is great source material. Histories of pretty much anything are always good. Online, the magnificent 'Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry' is a gold mine for world-building and just getting a reasonable understanding of how most of typical fantasy-land might be thought to work. Works over Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings, Dune and other good sources for great examples.

For strange digital lands to wander through to inspire your own settings:

The Seed Of Worlds (GLoGtober 3 '23)

Taking on Glass Candles GLoGtober '23, challenge #1 is from a list by semiurge - "Adventure, location, character, item, class, or whatever else based on the name of your blog."

The Seed of Worlds is a demi-plane extruder. It looks like a polished rock with a metal mesh around it that makes a very ergonomic, obvious way to hold it. It is typically found in a sealed box with multiple broken seals, new seals applied over them and large 'do not open' messages chalked on it.

To bust this fourth wall wide open - if a player at your table triggers the Seed of Worlds, roll a d100, count that number of books into your gamebook collection starting at the leftmost lowest book near the door you entered through and going right, then up. Take that book and have the players generate new characters appropriate to that gamebook. Subtract the smallest digit of the two d10s in your d100 from the largest, this is the number of hours you must play the new gamebook before this world implodes and you resume your previous game. The characters retain all memories.

Lets see how this would work at home...

First roll was 06 - which leads me to WH40K Dark Heresy Codex Anathema. This triggering of the Seed of Worlds leads us to six hours of bug-hunting in the grimdark future.

Second test was 28 - 3.5e Magic of Faerun; we are going on a jaunt to pre-sundering Faerun, also for six (8-2) hours.

If you find you have a lot of shelves to get through, roll a d6 first and count in that number of shelves before you start going book by book.

Inspired by the Inner Light Star Trek TNG episode and shelfies.