PDA

View Full Version : It's a device for creating worlds on the go



Grizl' Bjorn
2017-05-25, 12:48 AM
Create worlds or bits of worlds on the go! It's keyed for Ravenloft, but if you remove the domain lord bits you can also use it to create planes of existence- or parts thereof. This domain generator won’t work miracles, but it can give you a few fragments to begin a domain with. You can run it straight and play with whatever results, or you can remove bits as you please if you don't like anything you roll.

Population (1d10, then possibly roll another d10 as directed)

1- None. There are no sentient beings native to this place (with the exception of the domain lord, if sentient)

2- One. There is one sentient being living in this place. (Perhaps one sentient being in addition to the domain lord, should you prefer)

3- 1d10+1

4- 1d10*10

5- 1d10*100

6- 1d10*1000

7- 1d10*10,000

8- 1d10*100,000

9- 1d10*1,000,000

10- Practically limitless

Dominant or primary sentient species (1d100)

I’ve had to leave a number of salient possibilities off because they don’t fit all terrains. For example- Merfolk and variants. As for all tables, feel free to discard the roll and just use what you would prefer.

1-70 Humans

70-75 Dwarfs

76-80 Halfings

80-85 Elves

86-90 Gnomes

91 Goblins

92 Lizardfolk

93 Golems who make other golems

94 Minotaurs

95 Illithids

96 Djinn

97 Giants

98 Demons

99 Angels

00 Angels & demons

Technological level (1d10)

1. Stone age palaeolithic- no farming

2. Stone age neolithic- stone age but farming

3. Bronze age

4. Iron age

5. Classical

6. Early medieval

7. High medieval

8. Renaissance

9. Industrial revolution (but w/o gunpowder)

10. Mixed (roll twice, ignoring 10’s.)

Social organisation (1d12)

(Optional rule: This is a hard one to capture. the combinations of possible modes of government are deeply complex. You may wish to try rolling three times and trying to combine the results into a single cohesive narrative to represent this. Alternatively you may wish to choose not to roll for this particular variable, but to decide it yourself after you’ve seen the rest of the results.)

1. Anarchy, positive (no government, but people mostly get by)

2. Anarchy, negative (no government, “The war of all against all”)

3. Feudal

4. Pseudofeudal (all the trappings of feudalism, but none of the complex webs of mutual obligation)
5. Direct democracy

6. Representative democracy

7. Highly localised rulings cliques (For example, councils of village elders)

8. Plutocracy

9. Oligarchy

10. Dictatorial

11. In flux/not currently well defined

12. Theocracy

Domain lord’s role (1d4)

1. Negligible. The domain lord is little more than an observer except at very select times or places. In these select times and places the domain lord might be much, much more than an observer.

2. Selective. The domain lord controls, secretly or overtly, one aspect of the realm. That aspect could be geographical- a region, country or village, or more abstract, a particular trade, the worship of a particular god.

3. Broad. The domain lord is a major power-player in their realm. Perhaps the king’s chief advisor, the head of a major religion, or a merchant who owns most of the realm’s wealth or even a feudal king who is sometimes checked by his vassals, but is mostly lord and master.

4. Dominant. The domain lord controls the realm and exercises that control freely. There might be resistance, but if so it has its work cut out for it- indeed if there is resistance it might only exist because the domain lord finds it amusing or useful in some way.

Domain lord’s motives (1d8)

1. Evil for the sake of it, even while it renders itself hollow and pathetic.

2. Knowledge it can never quite find.

3. Transcendence that ever alludes it.

4. Love that it’s desire for power and control forever blocks.

5. Redemption that it perpetually withdraws from at the last moment.

6. The end of some physical torment that it cannot see it ultimately inflicts upon itself.

7. Power that it will never have, and that would not sate it even if it were to achieve it.

8. Purity and righteousness that it’s own tyranny destroys any possibility of.

Domain size (1d6)

I haven’t given absolute numbers here because it should be treated as relative to your other results. Suppose you rolled that the domain has 1,000,000 inhabitants ‘Tiny’ here would mean ‘much smaller than you would think given the population density. Precisely what this means in terms of an exact size is going to vary based on things like the primary terrain type.

1. Tiny

2. Small

3. Medium

4. Large

5. Huge

6. Gargantuan/incomprehensibly vast

Primary terrain (1d20)

1. Desert

2. Tundra

3. Jungle

4. Ocean

5. Under the ocean

6. Streets & Structures

7. Grasslands

8. Thick forests

9. Marshlands

10. High mountains and plateaus

11. Underdark

12. Arctic

13. Rolling hills

14. Blasted empty wasteland

15. Coastal

16. Sky-scape

17. The interior of a single building.

18-20. Roll twice, ignoring results 18-20

Primary horror note (1d4)

1. Gothic (mummies, wolfmen and vampires)

2. Eldritch (terrible beings and forces from beyond this reality regarding us with cold indifference)

3. Human (no greater beast than the one that walks on two legs)

4. Divine and/or demonic (We are the playthings of beings with all the follies of man, but with vastly more power)

Domain borders (1d4)

1. The domain borders are very open- even some magic works across them.

2. The domain borders are open.

3. The domain borders are closed most of the time, but are open at special places or time.

4. The domain borders are utterly closed.

Twenty Twists

This isn't a list for rolling on, it's a list for selecting from- though I guess you could roll on it?

So far we’ve generated little more than a world and a few details about its domain lord. If you want to take it from here feel free, but worlds need twists, especially in Ravenloft. No table can adequately provide twists, but I’ve provided twenty here- some inspired by existing Ravenloft settings, others from my own imagination. If you like you can select one or more, or just use them as inspiration.

A. Most of the inhabitants are slaves- slavery is the common state of things.

B. All or almost all inhabitants of the world are children.

C. The gods are visible, concrete facts. Many, perhaps a majority, of the inhabitants have met or seen one or more at some point.

D. All animals are sentient and capable of speech.

E. Spirits are commonplace. Every grove and every house has a genni loci, and many are easily accessible.

F. No one ever becomes hungry or thirsty. Eating and drinking while in this realm are unnecessary and perhaps impossible.

G. 1d10*10 percent of people do not have souls.

H. Day and night length vary randomly. Each day lasts for 1d20 hours, each night lasts for 1d20 hours.
I. The seasons vary randomly. At the end of each season roll a d4. If you roll a 1, the following season is Spring. 2, Summer, 3, Autumn, 4 Winter.

J. Evil is seen as a legitimate ideology or way of living. ‘Good’ and ‘Evil’ are much like political parties in our world.

K. Ruins are everywhere, either with a very different culture to current civilisation in the realm, or one eerily similar.

L. A particular society or village in the realm seems to be a utopia but little do the players know that underneath the surface… it really is a utopia.

M. Death in the realm is impossible. All wounds are eventually recovered from.

N. Writing is impossible. All books brought into the realm become blank (with the exception of illustrations) until removed. Writing used to work, but only failed recently. Religious wars and failing technology may be possible results.

O. Vast gardens criss-cross the realm, taking up at least one fifth of the total space. They are tended by robed figures with obscured faces who do not appear to be sentient.

P. Lying in the realm is impossible.

ComaVision
2017-05-25, 01:17 PM
Looks like you could build it in Google Sheets and save yourself a bunch of rolling.