Friday, May 24, 2019

D20x5 Hedge-Knights

Still got some words left



Automatic generator used to automate this generator here: https://meanderingbanter.blogspot.com/2018/10/automatic-list-to-html-translator-v2.html

D20This hedge-knight appears
1with beauty gone and flesh wasted.
2decrepit and grey.
3wrapped hand and face with moldering bandages.
4scarred and tattooed such that the original tint of their skin can’t be told beneath them all.
5haggard and drawn.
6leathery and weather-beaten.
7languorous, half-closed eyes dreaming of a place far from here.
8to always be baring their cracked brown teeth.
9smeared with mud, leaves and grasses stuck among their hair.
10with one eye milky white, the other so bloodshot it looks a solid red.
11wearing a horse’s steel barding, crudely modified to somewhat fit a human shape.
12with a wooden nose carved to cover the hole left by the loss of their own.
13in rags held together by accumulated filth as much as by stitching.
14much too young to fight, kill, die.
15shaken, always shaking.
16ephemerally waifish.
17stripped of fat and extraneous flesh, every muscle and tendon standing out in tension straining for release.
18limping and leaning, greatly favouring a less injured side.
19thick and bristly.
20to never raise their voice above a hoarse whisper.
D20This hedge-knight wields
1a cudgel run through with rusty nails.
2a longsword broken off halfway down the blade.
3fists wrapped in leather, and wrapped again with inch-long thorns to make spiny cestuses (cestii?).
4a pair of notched kitchen cleavers.
5a woodsman’s axe, scabbed over like an old wound.
6a stack of horseshoes tied at the end of a rope to make a flail.
7a pitchfork with the side tines snapped off to make something almost like a spear.
8a blade of old, corroded bronze, stolen from a barrow-mound.
9a bow and flint-knapped arrows, made with their own hands by the oldest ways.
10a lance, cut down to be usable on foot, a soiled favour still dangling from its tip.
11a whaler’s harpoon.
12a cavalryman’s sabre, bent in too many places.
13anything they can lay their hands on. They consider being able to murder a man with a wooden spoon a point of pride.
14a sledgehammer, with brutal simplicity.
15a stiletto and a meathook.
16a cut-down blunderbuss loaded with rocks and caltrops.
17a miner’s pick.
18a war scythe.
19a stout walking stick with rock-hard knobs of fungus sprouting along it.
20a fine sword, well-kept despite everything, the last remnant of their once-noble house.
D20This hedge-knight would fight for nothing more than
1the promise of revenge against the one who orchestrated their fall from fortune.
2some lively livestock.
3love, to be loved despite their sorry state.
4a bottle of stiff drink, and fight better for a dose of a stranger drug.
5the chance that they might be remembered in song as better than they’ve lived.
6good company and trustworthy fellows to guard them while they sleep.
7a title, any title, a taste of their former prestige.
8news of their family.
9the gift of better gear.
10the guarantee of a death that wins some glory.
11bargain mercenary wages.
12a warm, perfumed bath with soap.
13getting to go somewhere nobody knows them.
14a bed somewhere with four walls and a roof.
15charitable donations made in their name.
16the opportunity to lead others into battle.
17a squire willing to train in their techniques and code.
18a tabard stitched with their sigil.
19protection from the local law enforcement they’ve offended.
20some land decent enough to farm.
D20A bad habit this hedge-knight has picked up in their penury is
1banditry, waylaying fellow travellers for pennies.
2drunkenness, chugging any moonshine, hooch, or swill they can get their trembling mitts on.
3sleeplessness, long stretches of insomnia pierced by shrieking nightmares.
4coarseness, crudeness, and general inability to manage in polite society.
5hoarding, of food and fleas and anything else they can get and keep.
6fanaticism, the zealotry of one with nothing left but faith.
7paranoia, watchfulness soured to endless suspicion.
8gambling to their last coin, and then some.
9a prickly, duel-hungry defensiveness of their last scraps of honour.
10blasphemy, constant cursing of the higher power they blame for their misery.
11utter contempt for the wretched few in the world they can consider beneath themself.
12halfway-enlightened self-interest, selfishness when it suits their interests and too often when it doesn’t.
13a voracious hunger for luxuries and the pampered life.
14obsessive superstition, considering every sight a portent and every action a potential taboo.
15hollowed fatalism, a bone-deep acceptance of this life as their lot.
16bilious hatred for weakness, for comfort, for comforting.
17a desperate urge to please and serve.
18morbid fascination with death, the dead, and the dying.
19universal schadenfreude, a creeping edge of sadism.
20kleptomania.
D20This hedge-knight carries
1their master’s bones (what could be found of them, they were splintered so...) in a wicker bundle upon their back.
2a pan-flute of unsettling timbre, taken from a faun they claim.
3every tooth they ever knocked from a jaw, strung on twine about their neck.
4a banner atop a broken pole, stained such that its heraldry seems to have changed entirely in colour and character.
5a cheersome, motley-patched mask, used to win bread as a mummer when a sword-hand wouldn’t do.
6a tarnished, exquisite silver spoon, which they insist on eating all their meals with.
7a reeking wheel of cheese, mostly uneaten. They’re saving it for a good day.
8a war medal, dented and dirty and honestly won.
9a crutch with a sharpened and fire-hardened end. They don’t need it, yet.
10a pouch of wooden dice.
11a warhorn made from a wild boar’s tusk.
12the leash of a three-legged hound.
13a bag of foraged medicinal herbs.
14a sealed letter they failed to deliver on time.
15a fishing rod.
16boards nailed together into a shield.
17a pair of silk shoes with curled tips, too delicate to march in.
18a clay lantern painted with scenes of warriors being devoured by beasts.
19a vial of poison with two doses: one intended for another, and then themself.
20a black iron helm shaped like a weeping face.

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