Friday, October 24, 2014

Roll 1d100: Plot Twists, or rather, Revelations

I had a poll for what this list would contain, and the voters selected "plot twists."  Since "plot" is what happens to the player characters, I interpreted that as "revelations"- the moments of realization that could come as players pursue their activities.


It turns out that...
  1. The werewolf of Wyden forest is the local hunter leading the tracking party.
  2. Members of the nobility have adopted a fashion of extreme paleness and lethargy because the Queen has only been draining noble volunteers she favors.
  3. Ravik the Sublime is only a half-wit vat-clone. The original Ravik died years ago.
  4. The prophecy was forged by the previous regime to quell fear and discontent.
  5. The army of undead was just an inadvertent byproduct of a trapped wizard's attempts to prolong his life.
  6. The amorphous creature below was once the left hand of Ullsk, the warrior-king drawn, quartered, and burned for his crimes.
  7. The rings cause perpetual happiness, but only by siphoning negative thought and emotion into a vessel locked away below.
  8. The vessel is a blind, deaf child, raised in darkness, fed only the milk of the allspider.
  9. The gallows tree is a polymorphed ancient wyrm named Sear, feeding the deaths from his branches through his roots to something deep underground.
  10. The nine missing children each share a birthmark with Westrus, the first paladin
  11. The Gyrpriest is an impostor, who is draining the lymph from the original to feed to a slakeworm.
  12. A corpulent slakeworm rests beneath the city, draining the faith of inhabitants above.
  13. The 10,017 stipulations of Angorok the Hedonist purify the spirit when followed, leading to great spiritual clarity.
  14. The popular drug Somnolescence is crafted from the distillation of holy water filtered through the brain tissue of slain ghouls.
  15. The daggers of the remembrancers are crafted of mithril, coldforged in the frost of Vaelik the Unsheathed.
  16. Even shattered, a remembrancer's dagger recalls every creature it touched or touches.
  17. When the crystal goblets of Er touch each other, they emit so pure a chime that all who hear have prophetic visions for three nights, each more terrible than the last.
  18. There are only three things High Sommelier Wadrun fears; the glaives of High Tomek, the accounting of Jom the Flameless, and his attachée's favorite solarithe hair pin.
  19. The deadly hounds of Pruring Moors have long hunted an even deadlier prey.
  20. Once clasped, the Flame of Tzan can only be extinguished in the heartsblood of the wielder's spirit twin.
  21. Reconciling the Nihilites restored the proper function of chaos within 7.18 miles.
  22. In addition to Anima and Ego, certain individuals retain a third spirit, known as Tendril.
  23. Tendril binds an individual to her surroundings in unexpected ways, and a change in the state of the owner can cause dramatic change in her surroundings.
  24. Bucharest the Quintessential was sentenced to death by scaphism for crimes against the city state Velara.
  25. Bucharest the Quintessential did not die, but rather changed.
  26. Tersival's Timepiece has no inherent magical properties at all, and is only minimally valuable as a historical curiosity.
  27. The endless winter was keeping a great man eating bear in perpetual hibernation.
  28. Though nobody has been able to exert the craftsmanship required to create a Ring of Unseeming for centuries, this specimen was created quite a good deal more recently.
  29. The friendly priest was actually a puppet-revenant controlled by an itch demon living in its chest cavity.
  30. The duke was in possession of Itak's 51 Iterations on the Exquisite Flame all along, and his mastery is nearly complete.
  31. The high fishmonger of Cropula's 'exotic' cat, an expensive gift, is actually an animated haemonculus that's been spying on state secrets.
  32. The lovers on the run from the totalitarian garpriests are also siblings.
  33. Porphyra's Seclusium was hastily abandoned some months ago, and a number of the doors have been magically welded.
  34. The tortoises of Wyerly Rock shed three scales every 87 years, each of which bears a single puissant runic sigil.
  35. The Duc de Lancet wears a full length evening glove on his left arm at all times due to a disaster stemming from his experiments with portal magic.
  36. The Durset royal lineage retains their power through a single wish spell purchased by their great great uncle at the cost of a peculiarly shaped parcel of land in the highlands, now forbidden to all.
  37. The Wall of Jaraskar was constructed with hundreds of hollow chambers inside its length. Into each of these were sealed two items; the corpse of a recently deceased child, and a slow-boring charm.
  38. The Book of Nine Winds is worthless pseudoscience at best. But its binding is crafted from the hide of the last great wyrm, and this alone grants the bearer nearly unrivaled puissance.
  39. Flakes, shavings, and dust from magical metal artifacts retain tiny amounts of unpredictable power.
  40. The Vesters Gang has acquired or built a magical still that allows them to create a suspension of magically imbued metal shavings in liquid for injection. The results are... unpredictable.
  41. Malvole the Eververdant was birthed through an alchemical accident involving a spell of greater healing infused into a vial of quicksilver.
  42. The ooze incursion of 473 has its roots in a petty squabble between the three assistants of the Second Purchaser and their differing opinion over the purity of ore from various suppliers.
  43. The Tailor-King's Static Portal replaced a number of high profile banquet guests with doppelgangers, leading to extreme destabilization in competing regions.
  44. The disease commonly known as the 'sloughing fade' originates from the Vessel Priests, who successfully weaponized the popular Mantra of Rightfulness and Castigation.
  45. The sumptuous narang fruit is carefully cultivated by anointing the unfertilized blossoms of the jessum bush with ichor drawn from a coruscating sea snail, fermented by moonlight for 21 days.
  46. Crystal jellies, a treat enjoyed by many among the nobility, are the candied glands of juvenile yellow-stripe river leeches. While vile, the decline in their numbers does correspond unsettlingly with a rise in the river's voracious curhound spawn.
  47. The Onyx Spire is not actually a tower but a magical drill slowly descending into the agarrock of the Uprim mountains.
  48. The trees of forest Masticant appear to be dropping dead branches on unwary travelers intentionally. The incidents seem more frequent near Lake Taureau.
  49. The manse of Orphar is actually a wicked maze trap, cunningly designed to entice and ensnare relic hunters like yourself. Nobody knows where he actually keeps the good stuff.
  50. The abandoned lair of Khadarast the Putrescent is not abandoned.
  51. The sound of a skullhound's howl is one of the most blood-chilling sounds in the known world, but it doesn't compare with the sight of the creature.
  52. Firedrake blood has incredible properties when drunk, if you can find a way around the fact that it melts holes in granite.
  53. The Lance of Iovea is not, as advertised, the only weapon that can destroy the clockwork heart of Earalisk. In fact, the device seems to have restarted.
  54. Killing First Imbiber Solimquist has shattered the Imbibers' Guild into anywhere from 5 to 12 competing, cutthroat organizations.
  55. The Ember from the forge of Phandrial imbues each item created with a sliver of intent.
  56. Father Lukas of Bennetville held a charm that could quell the Beast of Boar Bay.
  57. Jack the Knife is actually a hive-creature which forms multiple “Jacks” out of a primordial fungal ooze and unleashes them on the city above.
  58. The Boiling Plague is a magical illness spread on the sound from the cries of the afflicted.
  59. The statue guardians of Manos Lusk have long dissolved into the sands. They are, however, still incredibly effective guardians.
  60. Theadrim the Culler's false prophecies only exist to force action to cause the fulfillment of the true prophecies.
  61. Simon the chandler's long illness has actually been a cover for a curse of necrophagia laid on him by a passing hedge witch.
  62. The Veiled Queen has not a head, but a multi-eyed, slug-like creature replacing it that has fused with her body and controls affairs of state through gesture and ritual.
  63. The haruspex of Volor Arath has been lying. However, she has been steering the city-state through her false augury in order to depose the questing king's opulent son.
  64. The inhabitants of the village are kept happy through an annual ritual that involves nominating a villager, lavishing them with food and drink for a year, and then slaughtering them bloodily in the Tower of Decanting. Plus some spells, of course.
  65. It's the town's spell-directed thrallguards who are murdering the children due to faulty algorithm construction.
  66. The Graven Forest houses a mated pair of nightingales who sing a uniquely melodic song. The nobility has taken to it as a popular tourist attraction because any who hear the song are cursed to lose a relative within the year.
  67. The queen's daughter is unable to navigate the Labyrinthine Chancel, which only trueblooded members of the royal line can navigate.
  68. The town's chapel is cloaked in illusion disguising its true allegiance to Dynis, goddess of lust and vengeance.
  69. The owners of the five Amulets of Keordia's keep dying under mysterious circumstances. Rather than leading the owner to wealth, these appear to lead a greedy Barrowwraith to the owner.
  70. The family's pet is a shape-shifted wizard with an unsavory preference for intimate moments.
  71. There are actually three axes of alignment- in addition to Law/Chaos and Good/Evil, sentient creatures also have a detectable axis identified as Fire/Dark.
  72. The inn's feather blankets are creatures that drain blood from their victims while keeping them subdued for easy robbery.
  73. The letters the duke has been receiving from his courtesan were not sent by his courtesan.
  74. The Portent Star is a comet, which the Brotherhood Iudicis was formed to misdirect every time it appeared in the sky.
  75. The last of the Brotherhood Iudicis was just executed for heresy against the royal oozes.
  76. The smoke of the telulah leaf, while usually calming and mildly habit-forming, causes individuals bearing the vermiform curse to rapidly incubate, violently expelling their payload.
  77. The bile of a lambent ghoul treated with eldritch strongwine, transitions from an acid to a unique and rare spell component.
  78. An individual may dedicate themselves to an apex force of the natural or supernatural. At extremes of dedication, the individual may inherit the position they once worshiped, altering it slightly.
  79. The death of an individual in the advanced states of dedication tends to linger an an area, pushing events and perception towards the apex force represented.
  80. Languid Maulers have been slipping out of the ruins of Khadorghast to the west- but they get into the ruins through crypts connected to the Duchess's Arcanarium.
  81. The forest has fallen into rot and the trees turned malevolent as a side effect of the stag lord's sorrow at the loss of his consort.
  82. The thirteen magic-users of Shirre were turned to salt not by a malevolent entity but through a poor thauchemical reaction with a low quality spell component.
  83. The dragon Kkathrisst has been dead for centuries; a cult of worshipers has consolidated power by using the threat of the dragon as political leverage.
  84. Jared the Scrivener cannot actually write; he purchased an enchanted quill from a wizard who has grown exceedingly extortionist in recent years.
  85. Liliana did not leave her husband; a jealous rival woodcarver had her stolen away and sealed into a tree, which he then carved in her likeness as a gift to the Countess.
  86. The Pearl of Liquescence causes its rightful owner to have pleasant dreams by emanating a soporific vapor through a tether to the opioid plane.
  87. A god that has been killed does not die.
  88. The treasurer has been draining funds due to the slight done to Weyermarch the Supplicant of Velana through his living entombment in the walls of the Sealant Tower.
  89. The West Marches have become a location of interest due to the brilliant explosion of a meteor over its landscape last winter.
  90. Starmetal remembers its origin and very rarely will seek to return.
  91. The cyan pool of Phyrriac is guarded by three revenants, each of whom grew so dependent on it they could not die.
  92. A dreamcatcher made of unicorn bone will trap the dreams it catches. When broken, they all instantly disperse into the aether.
  93. A dream-walker's tether can be cut simply by pricking a drop of blood with a bone spindle, folding it into a small clay tablet, and feeding it to the sleeping body.
  94. Where a slakewulf has died, a small smooth pebble will drop. If buried on that spot and fertilized with pulverized bone, it will grow into a nightshade that does not kill but rather causes a deep and lasting sleep.
  95. The rise and fall of powerful civilizations occasionally abandons the more eccentric and powerful individuals amongst the detritus of history. The Sentience of Whelm is one such individual.
  96. Lunar cycles control the mood of the Arch Executioner in Chief of Hildebrad due to a powerful blessing from the shrine of Ylara.
  97. Draining Faefen has drastically reduced the number of wheedling niblets, which has had an ecological waterfall effect leading to the mass starvation of Middenheim's prized lynx population.
  98. Porphyrin from the saolus rat is an accumulative toxin, leading to the eventual madness and cannibalistic tendencies of its harvesters.
  99. Most hobgoblins worship Strelba, a naked mole rat deity of reclusiveness and hiding. It's just that those who don't tend towards violence and expansionism.
  100. The most eccentric citizens have been throwing themselves into an old well outside the city walls every 4th Lunday under the influence of an exiled mind-flayer.

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