Random Encounter Template Generator (From the Dungeon of Signs Blog)

Dungeon of Signs made a very useful post that provides a nice middle-ground between using a pre-made bestiary for your encounter table and just making something up entirely from scratch. He made a table for generating just the mechanical elements for each monster, leaving the theme and specifics of each monster for the GM to decide afterward.

I was starting to use the table and decided I'd rather automatically roll it with a generator since I was working at a computer instead of at a table with dice and paper. Here it is:

Black Soots

You might have noticed that most of my monsters are Ghibli-esque. That's on purpose. I think that sort of monster suits OSR play very well and is highly adaptable to styles and ages of play. This one is much more directly inspired.

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Black soots usually only occur in groups of 3d6+10 or more.

Black soots are sprites. The average black soot is the size of a lemon. They're fuzzy, hairy balls with stick-like limbs that extend, retract, and hold objects, eyes, and mouths that are only noticeable when they're expressing emotion or eating. They float in the air in the general direction they want to go in, but cannot float with precision. A black soot can lift about 1/4th the weight that an average adult human can each and can push and pull things just as easily. They cannot speak any language but their own which sounds like low squeaks.

At the moment at which great physical harm might occur, they become a spot of black, powdery soot until they feel safe, often fooling their would-be killer into believing they've successfully killed them. (Do this when a PC successfully removes their HP.) They can be alchemically destroyed or used in the creation of magical objects, potions, and whatnot. This ability lends them a certain lack of fear - they rarely run from danger, though they will flee hard work if they don't see an opportunity to not do it.

They're stupid. They will obey simple commands if intimidated or impressed but like small, mostly harmless bits of mischief when left to their own devices. Their emotions show very easily.

Summary and Stats

3d6+10 Black Soots are in a typical group.

Attacks: 1 × Grapple. On success, they will carry their target to whatever object they want them to interact with or they will carry their target away from whatever location/object they do not wish to be disturbed.

(Ascending) AC: 14 HD: 0 (1hp)

Move:60’ Morale: 10

Details: lemon-sized, fuzzy, hairy, stick-limbs that extend and retract, can lift 1/4th the weight that a human can, no human language, changes to soot powder instead of death

Wants: food (seeds, small insects), good work, to please a master and inspire gratefulness.

Doesn't want: boring work, unappreciated work, to be stomped, .

Flavor: coal dust.

Effect of consuming: roll 1d6. 1-2: Only works once. Increase STR by 1. Your clothes become sooty every 12 hours. 6: Permanent asthma. -1 Inventory Slot when near flowering plants and for 1 hour following intense exertion.

Alchemical uses: sootiness, unnatural strength, fill lungs with soot.

Aureks

Aureks are good "attack-the-sheet" creatures. They don't want to hurt players. They just want to eat their clothing, especially leather.

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Aureks are shy, rotund, eyeless, golden moles who swim through the earth with paddle-like paws as if the dirt was made of thick water. They move at a speed faster than an average human walks but slower than a run. The largest is the size of a large man's hand. Their triangular teeth cut like sawtooth scissors.

Their thin coat of hair glisters, catching the eyes of those who lust after gold and helping them to blend into treasure hoards, which they sometimes use as homes, building structures made of clay or a combination of mud and a lattice of sticks (called wattle and daub.)

Aureks are blind. When an Aurek puts its head to the ground, it can hear the words you speak and detect the rate at which you're breathing if other noises aren't too distracting. It can detect your general direction if it has its feet touching the same ground that you cause to vibrate when you move. It can sense the shape of you if it has its head to the ground and you move within 100 feet of it, if other vibrations and sounds aren't creating too much noise.

Aureks consider leather a delicacy but will eat nearly any fabric. They stalk any who possess such "food" except when they await their prey in hiding.

They have no particular interest in hurting any living creature except the worms and small insects they have to eat whenever fabric and leather aren't available. They prefer to mind their own business but are always ready to trade services, goods, and information once a conversation is started. They only ever speak in a nearly silent whisper and will gesture a request for those they wish to speak with to move close enough to hear them.

Its fur coat may be used as an ingredient in items that employ vibratory amplification.

Summary, Stats and Miscellany

Attacks: 1 × grapple (save or leather armor is broken. Clothing instead if no leather armor is present), 1 × bite (1d4 DMG) Automatic hit if inside player's clothing/grappling.

(Ascending) AC: 12 (15 in dirt, 16 in player's own clothing) HD: 0 (2hp)

Move:140’ Morale: 5

● Gilded: shiny golden fur creates appearance of gold.

● Vibration sense: "see" via ground touch. Blind eyes.

● Swim on/just beneath surface of dirt: Move at full speed if ground isn't too hard.

● A la Mode Diet: eats clothing, especially leather.

● Whisperer: nearly inaudible.

"Wants: to eat "good food,"" to avoid detection, to store "food."

Doesn't want: violence, to miss out on deliciousness

Flavor: stringy, tough, hint of leather.Effect of consuming: roll 1d6. 1-2: you can sense the location of things by vibration as if you were an aurek. 3-6: when in the presence of extraneous, unused leather, you must save or eat it. One full set of leather armor counts as a ration, but you move at half speed the rest of the day and fail all saves that depend on quick movement due to a very full gut. (Or apply fatigue/exhaustion if appropriate in your system.) Any article of soft clothing also counts as 1/4th it's mass in food.

Brownie

Brownies look like people, but are only the size of a hand and have sharply pointed ears. They dress in tights, ruffles, and billows which always match the colors of their immediate surroundings.

Brownies are shy of humans and rarely speak with them, though they socialize with each other every night just before dawn. They only use clichés, metaphors, similes, stories, riddles, and sayings (old and new) to communicate. Their speech might sound like babble at first, but it is mostly understandable by anyone who understands local culture.

A brownie will usually hide in unused parts of a house such as an attic, hole in the wall, or under floorboards. Some households leave a room, often small and impractical for a human, empty in order to attract a brownie for their home.

Brownies like to help with chores, but only when they're certain they won't be seen, usually late at night. They get rid of pests, clean shoes, sharpen blades, patch clothing, and the like. Brownies occasionally move things around in a room so they can secretly watch the search for them and silently laugh.

A brownie will leave her home for another if she is not given gifts of food. They only eat rich, sweet, or dairy foods. If the food is referred to as a payment instead of as a gift, the house's brownie will leave.

Any who live in a house that does not have a brownie will be plagued by mean pranks by other brownies who live nearby.

Brownies can be convinced to join the party to care for gear, if given a place to hide and reason to vacate their current home.

AC 13 HD 1 Attacks: 1 (Bite 1) Move at normal speed.

Bogey Owl

The Bogey Owl is sometimes summoned when a person awakes in surprise but does not immediately discover what caused the awakening. It is also summoned when a person is startled awake by a nightmare.

It is a shadow, but it's also feathers and eyes and a beak walking on humanoid feet. It travels alongside the one who summoned it, like a normal shadow, but it is actually a second shadow, in a different place, not properly adjusted for light, not perfectly connected to the host.

The owl will be banished when there is no light to give it form. It won't disappear until the person who summoned it is in complete darkness.

The Bogey Owl is harmless except its malevolent appearance which may lead to dangerous behavior in those who fear it or seek to harm it. Causing fear is its favorite thing to do in the same way that doing heroin is a heroin addict's favorite thing to do. It's like a need, but it isn't actually necessary for the Bogey Owl's survival.

It has no stats because it's not corporeal.

White Horses

White horses are carved in chalk into some hills throughout the land. The carvings are older than anyone's memory or any book's documentation of them. Most of them are silhouettes.

One white horse on Uffing hill, possibly just outside of Village City, sits alongside 8 others. This one, however is more of a line drawing. Rumors say that standing on its eye and spinning three times, clockwise will compel the horse to grant a wish.

It actually just compels the real white horse that is magically attached to this chalk horse to attempt to grant a wish. It can't do anything a normal horse can't do except speak the most common local language.

The Uffing White Horse abhors wish-robbers, partly because it's tired of trying to grant impossible wishes, but even more because its chalky eyes are blind and sore from all of the wishes. It is as intelligent (and innocent, and as subject to tantrums) as a child, but is very old, tired, and world-weary, despite it's youthful body. It would like to die, but it hasn't noticed that yet.

Uffing White Horse2HD10HPMovement rate: as a mountattack 1d4-1to-hit -3

Uffing Horse

Village City

Every citizen of the village believes it is a village. They're right. In every respect except size, the village is a village. Nothing is expensive, nothing is well made. No one is cultured and local culture is strange and backward.

However, the village is one of the larger cities in the area, if measured by population. If measured by geographical size, it is the largest city in the country, if not the world. This is because buildings aren't often near each other and because it's rare to see a structure much taller than one man standing on another man's shoulders. Farms are more common than buildings.

Rot Monsters

Village energy emanates from them, keeping everyone who remains nearby more than a week under the impression that they live in a village despite knowing how big it is. (This includes player characters.) This is to prevent them from building a plumbing system in its underground home, where its family lives.

The monsters are symbiotic.

They care for plants from below, making the farms and gardens above flourish. This keeps the villagers fed and able to export the best produce in great quantity. They build tunnels to outhouse pits so they can gather fertilizer. They dig underground irrigation. Deep rooted plants (including grapes, the main crop) need no water.

The monsters eat only waste and rotten things. They're very intelligent but not educated or scholarly. They like the simple life.

They look like radish humanoids. The radish is the head and leaves and roots are the body.

Church of Rot

The only local church is the church of rot. Members collect compostable material and toss it down well-like structures at the front of each church, where other churches might have an altar.

Members believe they are making offerings to an evil rot god underground that will blight everything, including people, if angered.

Some church elders know that the compost donation is for a practical purpose, but they don't know about the Village-ness magic.