FIVE ON FRIDAY - LIBRARY OF BABEL V

I'll start with [what is to become] a regular shout-out to Froth's Humpday Blog-o-rama and Dragons Never Forget's Great Blog Roll Call.

20th November was Teacher's Day (here in Vietnam at least). This was a gift from one of my students.

More weekly recommendations from the Library of Babel listed below, now re-formatted so as to be contiguous with the first two post in this series. Emphasis this week, as with last week, is on gameable content.

I fucking hate the word content (noun... the adjective is nice).

BOX FULL OF BOXES

SO WHAT DO WE DO 'TIL THE STARS ARE RIGHT?
https://boxfullofboxes.blogspot.com/2019/11/so-what-do-we-do-til-stars-are-right.html

This blog has only been up and running since March, but already it has featured in not ONE but TWO editions of The Library of Babel. What higher praise is there in the OSR'O'SPHERE? That is a trick question, please do not comment below. Anyway, I digress (how uncharacteristic of me!): last time Box full of Boxes got a shout it was for their ongoing Dying Earth bestiary This time, it's for a superb cult generator.

This post includes a series of tables to enabling you to randomly generate the cult's aesthetic, goals, membership and methods (a veritable how, who, what and why: the when and where are up to you).  Each table has eight entries, so with enough time and four d8s you could create up to 4,096 distinct cults.

For a taste, here's one I just rolled up: (5, 7, 3, 6) a cult that keeps to the Old Ones, it supports the enrichment of its working class membership through legal or illegal means, and though they recruit openly their true home is faraway and hidden (there's a where so there). They can get much weirder than that, I assure you, but go and have a look for yourself.

ELF MAIDS & OCTOPI
FACTIONS LOCATIONS IN RUINS OF BROKEN HILL
http://elfmaidsandoctopi.blogspot.com/2019/11/factions-locations-in-ruins-of-broken.html

Yes, yes: I know the plural of octopus is octopuses (or, if you are especially pedantic, octopodes, although google chucks a red line under that shit), but I have already experienced being condescended to in such a manner so I won't subject the site author to similar tedium. Indeed, perhaps they already know the correct plural and have titled their blog in such a manner merely to flush pedants LIKE YOU out of the woodwork for the tedious bores (also boors also boars) that they are! Ha!

(and anyway, octopi is used commonly so who are you to state the correct way to pluralised English loan words?) 

Anyway, that was a long and unnecessary diatribe. The post above details the locations (and nature) of ten factions present in Christopher Tamm's Broken Hill setting. I had not visited this blog for a little while, so was somewhat clueless regarding the nature of the setting, but these d10 entries grant an immediate overview of a post-apocalyptic world of mutants, tribalism and reptilian cultists. Definite sword-and-planet-meets-gamma-world-meets-warriors vibes. I like it a lot.

ARCHONS MARCH ON 
D100 ANSWERS TO THE QUESTION: WHAT’S THE DEAL WITH THIS TOWN?
ttps://archonsmarchon.blogspot.com/2019/11/d100-answers-to-question-whats-deal.html

I included Archon's post about randomised class features in last week's post and now Semiurge is back with an even bigger table, this week giving special characteristics/plot-hooks/flavour to those otherwise nondescript toens scattered around the sandbox. I've got Huong Thuy and Thuan An not far from my present locale, let's find out what their deal is:

I can tell you that (rolls 1d100, gets 23) Huong Thuy's...."inhabitants are being extorted by a bandit gang, which has made them desperate for protection and training." Whereas in Thuan An  "Everyone in it is secretly a ghost. They were killed by {a recent disaster|the one remaining living person in the town|a rampaging monster}. The ghosts are not aware they are dead but will subconsciously try to warn travellers of the thing that killed them."

THE MANSE
20 DWARVEN LIGHT SOURCES 
https://themansegaming.blogspot.com/2019/11/20-dwarven-light-sources.html

 Do you like dwarfs? How about dwarves? I'm not sure, I only have them in my campaign world because one of the players wanted to be one, and I ended up writing a really boring post all about them. This is still a good list: combined with Patrick's weirder Veins of the Earth light sources and you'll never be in the dark again. Not willingly, anyway. My favourites are glowsteel (because it's fuelled by hatred) and fossilised sunlight.

GOBLIN PUNCH
MONSTERS WITH TRIGGERED ABILITIES
http://goblinpunch.blogspot.com/2019/11/triggered.html

I really wanted to go a week without sharing a Goblin Punch post, but I couldn't do it. As with most of Arnold's best posts, this one a) gives you something weird that you can drop into your next session with minimal prep b) outlines some possibilities as to what might come from that and c) gets you thinking about other ways in which you might develop the theme... in this case #triggered monsters.

The special abilities these creatures possess are not immediately obvious, and only manifest as a consequence of particular in-game triggers, making for interesting and varied encounters. 

I'm still writing a novel, by the way, which is why I've only been sharing other people's stuff and not my own. Just over a week left. It is fucking horrible.

 - Sofinho