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Friday, September 21, 2012

Random Jeweled Thrones Upon Which Your Barbarian Can Tread

Whenever I'm writing a hex crawl and I it's time to describe some royal ugly dude's throne, I have to take a pause. How do I make this interesting? In literary terms, the throne is an extension of the person sitting on it - and in game terms, thrones are one of those things that players should remember - they give an encounter a bit of color and flash - something to fire the imagination.

With that in mind, I present a few tables for randomly generating hopefully interesting thrones.

First things first, you need to know whose butt is going to be planted in it, because their rank will provide a modifier (or no modifier) to the dice rolls:

Knight/Baron: +0
Viscount/Count: +5
Duke: +10
Grand Duke/Prince: +15
King/Queen: +20
Pope/Emperor: +25

For monster monarchs, let their hit dice be your guide:

0 to 5 HD: +0
6 to 9 HD: +5
10 to 14 HD: +10
15 to 19 HD: +20
20+ HD: +25

THRONE MATERIAL (D%)

01-010 - Pine*
11-17 - Elm*
18-24 - Maple
25-31 - Cedar
32-38 - Oak
39-45 - Walnut
46-52 - Cherry
53-59 - Teak
60-64 - Limestone (or granite or basalt)
65-69 - Bone (re-roll if this is too bad ass for you)
70-74 - Iron/Steel (re-roll if this is too metal for you)
75-79 - Kingwood
80-84 - Tulipwood
85-89 - Ebony
90-94 - Blackwood
95-99 - Marble
100-104 - Porphyry
105-109 - Malachite
110-116 - Brass
117-120 - Silver
121-122 - Gold
123 - Platinum
124 - Mithril
125 - Adamantine

* 10% chance that the wood is covered by silver foil or gold leaf

ORNAMENTS (D%)

01-08 - None
09-16 - Carvings (animals, plants, monsters, geometric designs, etc.)
17-23 - Feathers (peacock, griffon, roc, angel, etc.)
24-30 - Fixtures, brass (knobs, spikes, figurines, medallions)
31-36 - Fixtures, silver
37-43 - Inlay, wood (rosewood, zebrawood, holly, cocobo, ziricote, blackwood, ebony, kingwood)
44-48 - Inlay, shells
49-55 - Pillows of silk
56-60 - Pillows of velvet
61-65 - Pillows of damask
66-70 - Inlay, alabaster
71-75 - Inlay, ivory or tusks (elephant, narwhal, catoblepas)
76-79 - Inlay, mother-of-pearl
80-85 - Pietra dure - marble
86-90 - Pillows of leather (monster hide)
91-94 - Fixtures, gold
95-98 - Fixtures, platinum
99-103 - Pietra dure - fancy stones (see Blood & Treasure)
104-106 - Fixtures, mithril
107-109 - Fixtures, adamantine
110 - 114 - Slaves (servants, dancers, musicians) - chained to throne
115-118 - Guard animals (wolves, cheetahs, lions, tigers) - chained to throne
119-122 - Gems (1d12; see Blood & Treasure)
123-125 - Jewels (1d12; see Blood & Treasure)

FOUNDATION (D%)

There is a 1 in 4 chance of the throne being situated on an interesting foundation

01-50 - Dais (1d4+1 steps)
51-75 - Moat - water
76-85 - Moat - perfumed water
86-95 - Moat - wine
96-99 - Moat - flaming oil
100-109 - Statue (i.e. throne atop a statue of a bearer, either an animal or people)
110-114 - Monster (throne actually on the back of a large, subdued monster)
115-125 - Slaves (throne on the back of human or demi-human or non-human slaves)

SPECIAL POWERS (D%)

Chance of special powers equal to 1 + rank modifier on percentile dice

01-06 - Augury (1/day)
07-12 - Charm person (1/day)
13-18 - Command (1/day)
19-27 - Detect evil or good (1/day)
28-33 - ESP (1/day)
34-37 - Summon monster III (1/day)
38-40 - Summon monster IV (1/day)
41-42 - Summon monster V (1/day)
43-46 - Augury (3/day)
47-50 - Charm person (3/day)
51-53 - Command (3/day)
54-58 - Detect evil or good (3/day)
59-62 - Break enchantment (1/day)
63-66 - Cure disease (1/day)
67-70 - Divination (1/day)
71-74 - Remove curse (1/day)
75-78 - ESP (3/day)
79-84 - Magic resistance 5%
85-87 - Detect evil or good (at will)
88-90 - ESP (at will)
91-94 - Magic resistance 10%
95-96 - Contact other plane (1/week)
97-98 - Gate (1/week)
99-101 - Protection from evil or good (constant)
102-104 - See invisibility (constant)
105-106 - Tongues (constant)
107-108 - True seeing (constant)
109-110 - Control weather (1/day)
111-112 - Flame strike (1/day)
113-114 - Insect plague (1/day)
115-116 - Lightning bolt (1/day)
117-118 - Slow (1/day)
119-120 - Magic resistance 20%
121-122 - Summon Monster VI (1/day)
123-124 - Summon Monster VII (1/day)
125 - Wish (1/lifetime)

3 comments:

  1. Yeah, it's always nice to see some badass thrones :)

    (also, the first index should be done this week, maybe the next, depending on how lazy I'm gonna be)

    ReplyDelete