Raising snakes for their hides and venom. The slithering things are more common than squirrels here.
4
Selling rough textiles woven from the hair of hardy goats.
5
By waging annual war with the bears over incoming anadromous fish.
6
Picking through an old, forgotten, enormous scrap dump.
7
Cooking up and trading inferior drugs in bulk.
8
Farming a sort of huge, carnivorous tuber that surfaces
in the autumn and must be speared to death. It’s about the only crop
that’ll grow in this town’s shitty dirt.
9
Acting as a vacation spot for the wealthy, where they may indulge in their worst impulses consequence-free.
10
Living in sod-heap bunkers, farming earthen grubs and fungal crops deep below the surface.
11
By cultivating a reputation for grotesque xenophobic violence.
12
By pathetically toadying to the bandits that lurk nearby.
13
Scraping out the last dregs of a mine.
14
Hunting and trapping scrawny animals, selling the hides to passing traders.
15
Skimming the surfaces of grotty ponds for mosquitoes and algae.
16
Working in a manufactory under slave-like conditions.
17
On remittances sent back by townsfolk working as mercenaries far afield.
18
On the alms handed out by a nearby monastery.
19
Only as a ghost town, with a few inhabitants too stubborn or old to go elsewhere.
20
On the dwindling fortune of its founder.
D20
This Town’s Population...
1
All share the same family name.
2
Have about a dozen teeth between them all.
3
Speak a unique and nigh-incomprehensible dialect.
4
Would take about any job if it meant they could leave.
5
Overcharge for even the barest hospitality.
6
Know the area around their town downright instinctually.
7
Have more fleas than their dogs do.
8
Take great pride in the swill they distil.
9
Claim descent from an unlikely variety of folkloric heroes.
10
Maintain a complex network of petty feuds, conducted through pranks and thefts more often than violence.
11
Practice a borderline heretical version of the region’s dominant religion.
12
Have a bloody rivalry with the next town over.
13
Gamble on damn near everything.
14
Will always support one of their own against an outsider.
15
Celebrate pain tolerance and ritual scarification.
16
Share the same dream when they sleep.
17
Is nocturnal, for some reason.
18
Own all the town’s property in common.
19
Train rigourously as a militia.
20
Are fond of trapping their homes to deter intruders.
D20
This Town’s History...
1
Is that it was once bigger and more prosperous, but has shrivelled over time.
2
Is known by heart by every inhabitant. Newcomers will
find themselves suddenly remembering bits of this history the longer
they stay.
3
Is recorded in paintings on the side of a ruined barn.
4
Is told differently by each family in it.
5
Stretches way back.
6
Was deliberately and thoroughly censored by the town’s elders.
7
Attributes the town’s founding to an outrageous farce.
8
Claims that it was the origin of a popular sport.
9
Places it as the birthplace of a surprising number of important cultural figures.
10
Holds that it was once the location of a ferocious
battle. Selling fake trinkets allegedly from this battle is a side
business for the town.
11
States that a plague nearly wiped out the town a while back. The key to its continued existence is closely guarded.
12
Has been rewritten to portray the town in a hyperbolically better light.
13
Doesn’t go back that far.
14
Has some significant holes, as do the memories of the townsfolk who lived in those forgotten times.
15
Says its founding was divinely inspired.
16
Makes it prejudiced against city folk.
17
Contains a rich culinary tradition.
18
Is weirdly similar to a well-known mythic cycle, only much more low-key and grimy.
19
Records it as being ethnically unique in the region.
20
Seems to repeat itself in broad strokes every few generations.
D20
This Town’s Layout...
1
Is like a wheel centred around a massive barbecue pit.
2
Is scattered, with weedy fields and dirt paths between homesteads.
3
Trails along a main road.
4
Is grid-like.
5
Places it mostly within the walls of an old hill fort.
6
Winds around cyclopean menhirs and dolmens.
7
Puts it nestled at the base of a cliff that it’s halfway built into.
8
Fords a river like a big shoddy bridge.
9
Indicates it was built atop the foundations of long-razed structures.
10
Is half-sunken yet still inhabited, built on too-soft ground but used up too many resources to abandon.
11
Expresses stark yet infinitesimal class divides.
12
Outlines an occult symbol.
13
Segregates men and women, as well as children and adults.
14
Was copied from a nearby city in miniature.
15
Was built up chaotically. Nothing about it makes sense.
16
Follows a spiral.
17
Funnels passing travellers into a chokepoint.
18
Mimics a cluster of constellations in the sky above it.
19
Is concentrated in a few ramshackle towers and the pathways between them, built up rather than out over time for some reason.
20
Is split down the middle based on a forgotten cultural division.
D20
This Town’s Dark Secret Is That...
1
It was founded by a vampire and its blood-cult. By some
forgotten sequence of events the vampire was staked and laid to rest in
the walls of the town’s brewery, but its citizens still know and adore
the powers of blood.
2
All its people are something else, just playing at being human.
3
They’re sworn to serve the grim wizard whose tower is
hidden just out of town. If they don’t heed the wizard’s commands, a
heavy curse will fall on all their heads.
4
They bribe the things in a nearby cave to leave the village alone with plump babies.
5
Their headsman hasn’t changed since the village’s founding. If anybody knows why, they’re not saying.
6
It shelters a band of failed revolutionaries, still burning with the desire to see the current government overthrown.
7
Is that it serves as the source of recruits for a secretive organization of fanatical assassins.
8
It was used as the testing ground for esoteric weapons. The town’s population still suffer the marks left by them.
9
Everyone who lives there is eventually struck by
infertility. The town only maintains its population by kidnaping and
indoctrinating travellers.
10
They engage in trade and relations with inhuman creatures.
11
Something deep beneath it called to its founders, and
they’ve been digging down ever since. They’re so very close to
unearthing it now.
12
Something’s gotten into their heads. A memetic
parasite. It’s making them build a dungeon which will serve as a psychic
broadcast array when completed.
13
Someone in the village is transforming into something dangerous. They’d rather find a cure than kill the person outright.
14
They lynched a prophet after mistakenly believing the
prophet’s predictions to be false. Now they see every odd occurrence as
an omen, and seek to avert it through sacrifice.
15
They conspire to avoid paying taxes.
16
The trees in their graveyard grow with the faces of the dead. At night these faces moan their regrets.
17
They’ve fallen under the spell of a snake-oil salesman who stumbled upon the recipe for a subtly flawed love potion.
18
They abused a wandering priest, who called on their god to curse the town.
19
They waylaid a noble passing through the town and
covered it up as a monster attack. Investigators and hunters have been
snooping around.
20
It’s caught in a time loop, replaying the same traumatic event time and again.
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