The just-about-a-ghost-town left by a deluded gold rush.
2
The lodge of a disappointingly mundane secret society.
3
The cloister of a middling wizard and their mediocre apprentices.
4
A cluster of hermitages, the hermits of which have put
off isolation temporarily for the sake of convincing the rest of their
crazed philosophical views.
5
The home of a single, enormous extended family which pursues strict blood-purity.
6
The site of an unyielding archeological expedition, home to a skeleton crew of the bored or incompetent.
7
A place where several beloved artists claim to have been inspired, so desperate hopefuls flock here for the same.
8
A place where the next world is said to verge on this
one, so the bereaved come to listen for whispers of the ones they mourn
on the wind.
9
A pilgrimage site for an obscure sect.
10
A sanitarium where the malaised seek comfort in natural surroundings, though it’s drifted out of favour in recent decades.
11
A haven for petty criminals evading the law.
12
Somewhere to keep exiles too popular to kill far from anywhere important.
13
A training ground for young nobles to toughen themselves up for conflicts to come.
14
A bohemian compound experimenting with an unconventional society.
15
A sanctuary for a mostly-benign cult to practice free from persecution.
16
A home for puritans fleeing the corruption of civilization.
17
An asylum for lepers, werewolves, or some similar sorts.
18
A military encampment too pathetic to call a fort.
19
A trapper’s den and trading ground for furs, feathers, and hides.
20
A monastic retreat for those who seek God in wild places.
D20
This Outpost Lies:
1
At the last ford on a river before raging rapids.
2
On the edge of a deep, dark forest.
3
In a shitty little natural harbour up the coast.
4
In the foothills of a rough mountain range.
5
In a soggy, foggy valley.
6
On stilts in a fly-plagued bog.
7
Among sheep-chewed moors.
8
Floating on reeds and logs atop a scum-covered lake.
9
Slanted on a terraced slope.
10
In the middle of a scraggly, blighted orchard.
11
Between two cliffs that rebound echoes with a menacing tone.
12
Hacked into the peat of a quagmire.
13
On a spur sticking into the bend of an oxbow lake.
14
Just offshore on a barren, briny island.
15
In a patch of rolling, dry scree.
16
On the lip of a cenote.
17
In wasteland unwanted by anyone else.
18
Soaking in a lagoon.
19
Halfway in the gaping mouth of a cave.
20
Along a machair tainted by toxic sediments.
D20
This Outpost Is Threatened By:
1
Starvation. The land’s gone bad and they can’t afford shipments from elsewhere.
2
Persistent, shared, insomnia-inducing nightmares.
3
Disciples of a demon-dog masquerading as common bandits.
4
An earth elemental the size of a landslide that’s slouching on a collision course with the outpost.
5
A sapient pterodactyl using trickery to pretend to be a dragon.
6
A sickness that’s nigh-undiagnosable until its fatal fruition.
7
A maimed revenant seeking vengeance on someone within, or perhaps even the whole outpost.
8
A scheming imp offering each inhabitant a damning bargain one after the other.
9
A false sun roasting the outpost under its heat.
10
A pack of ogres who see them as easy prey.
11
Harsh tariffs that will financially devastate it.
12
A prospecting company trying to buy up the land it’s on and kicking them off.
13
Deserting soldiers extracting a protection racket from its inhabitants.
14
A troll that sees itself as a lord and the outpost as its fief.
15
An order of rangers who want to take it over as their base of operations.
16
A ritualistic murderer hiding among them, killing off the population in ones and twos.
17
A plague of bogeyman and other things that go bump in
the night, slipping through from the realm of nightmares with the help
of the undisciplined psychic potential of one of its inhabitants.
18
A psychotic preacher and their zealous flock, attempting to convert the inhabitants to their faith, by the sword if need be.
19
Encroaching civilization which will entangle it in a societal web they’d prefer to remain distant from.
20
Militant dryads marshalling the forces of nature to convert the place back to pure wilderness.
D20
This Outpost Could Be Used As A Staging Ground For An Expedition To:
1
The remote laboratory of a famed alchemist who cut all
contact with the outside world soon after announcing their discovery of
the lapis exilis.
2
The eruption of a sentient fungal ecosystem from the chthonic depths.
3
A prison that holds the undying hostages of an ancient war between lich-lords.
4
A city lost among the roots of a giant tree that sups on the timestream itself.
5
A half-sunken temple where a clan of creatures like
humanoid lungfish are attempting to capture a vessel for their dead
god’s rebirth.
6
A barren hill where djinn and airy spirits are said to convene for a grand bazaar.
7
The place where an unholy behemoth was entombed alive when it was found to be unkillable.
8
A blizzard-shrouded glacial engine, one of many war-machines left from an elemental struggle that changed the face of the world.
9
A crater left by an angel falling from heaven, said to be littered with pearls, gold, and other empyrean delights.
10
The cavern where an infamous brigand-prince is said to have hidden their treasure.
11
A venerable library razed by a barbarian horde. Its
scrolls might now be ashes, but its oldest, most precious records,
scratched into clay tablets, might have survived.
12
The hoard of a dragon who commissioned a kobold tribe
to trap its lair like nothing the world had ever seen. Rumours say the
dragon was betrayed, killed by treacherous mechanisms, but not before
killing its killers in turn. That hoard might be ripe for the taking by
the careful and ingenious, or the very lucky.
13
The spot where a mage-knight was struck down at the climax of their quest, and where their enchanted armaments might still lie.
14
The last known location of a mind-bogglingly valuable merchant shipment.
15
A migratory chokepoint of the monoceroses, whose horns, oil, meat, and hides are all fabulous status symbols.
16
A geomorphic tumour, a bubbling, stony Gaian womb which births monsters as she once did.
17
A once-sealed dwarf-hold, recently cracked open to the surface by tectonic activity.
18
The crypt of a demigod and their heroic companions.
19
The spire of a dying sorcerer who has promised their greatest secret to anyone able to reach the top before their end.
20
A circle of standing stones where it’s said that
reality-warping rites and transitions to other worlds can be performed
when the stars are right.
D20
The People Of This Outpost:
1
Are all drunks. Today they’re (1d4): 1, happy drunks; 2, sad drunks; 3, angry drunks; 4, dull drunks.
2
Mask desperation with dark humour.
3
Are prone to getting into fistfights over small disagreements then forgetting about it the next morning.
4
Are entirely too fond of outsiders.
5
Venomously distrust any authority figures.
6
Are talented musicians, though their song selection tends to the depressing.
7
Are all missing the little finger off their left hand.
8
Won’t take gold or silver in trade.
9
Know every natural poison of the surrounding area, and don’t take much provocation to use them.
10
Vent their stress through idiosyncratic, brutal contact sports.
11
Participate in weekly masked mystery plays to promote virtue and castigate vice.
12
Have constructed a communal fantasy world to avoid the troubles of their lives.
13
Won’t refer to anyone else by their true name name, only by title or nickname.
14
Follow the strict list of rules carved into the pillar in the center of it.
15
Harbour plans to violently turn on each other if things slip even further towards the worse.
16
Have a taste for food so spicy outsiders find it hard to bear.
17
Know all of each other’s secrets and would kill to
protect them, if only to prevent their own secrets from being
retributively revealed.
18
Turned to cannibalism to make it through lean times a
while back. Most live in deep, unspoken shame of it, a scant few were
broken by it and feel compelled to eat human flesh again.
19
Are fluent in an endemic variant of flower language
that uses poisonous plants. Entire conversations can be had through pots
left on sills without outsiders realizing a thing.
20
Live much longer than they should, and are loathe to reveal why.
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