d100 Crazy Things Washed Up On The Beach

Volume 2 of Secret Santicore 2013 has been released, and I'm ultra proud to be in it. It's friggin' huge, so I've got a lot more reading to do. I like what I've seen so far. Mad thanks to Joey Lindsay for herding all of the cats. Extra thanks to Logan Knight at Last Gasp Grimoire for personally ensuring that my particular cat made the deadline. And here it is:

The delicious request I was permitted to gobble up was, "Dear Santicore, I would like...
A d100 table with random items that occasionally wash up along a stretch of shoreline that is infamous for
shipwrecks, restless souls of the drowned and aquatic ghoul attacks."

So, if your game world happens to have an ocean, I humbly submit this reply for your use-

What The Hell Did The Ocean Barf Up This Time?

1) A boot. You rolled a damn 1, what did you expect?   

2) An ornate, yet completely seamless, metal box that the player characters couldn’t open even if they had access to a nuclear blowtorch. The good thing about it is that the WORST villain in your campaign is willing to forgive all past wrongs, and pay the PC’s handsomely in exchange for the box.  Gee, I wonder what’s inside it?

  

3) A beautiful, wheezing mermaid who’s hopelessly tangled in a fishing net, and slowly suffocating to death. Oh, and she’s also a chaotic-evil, human-hating, high-level magic-user who will regain full access  to her spells as soon as she’s back in the water, so good luck with that.

  

4) A treasure chest full of a non-gamebreaking amount of loot just lying about all “la-dee-da.” One or more of the coins/gems/state secrets/etc. inside of it is haunted as a mother, though. Roll a d6 for each PC who touches a part of the treasure. A result of 1 means that they have  a new ghost “friend” until randomquestcruelty is completed. Multiple ones means multiple funs!   

5) The first mate of a ship that’s currently wrecked on a nearby reef. He’s grateful for any PC help, and offers to lead them to the riches on his former vessel before someone else can lay claim to them. Of course, he’s actually a murderous fuck who killed everyone aboard, and he doesn’t plan on sharing anything with the PC’s once they’ve helped him  recover what he wants.

  

6) A hundred billion bottles washed up on the shore. Watch your feet, bitch.   

7) A trail made of large, flat stones which extends out into the ocean past the horizon. They lead to the Far Lands, and only appear once every seven years.

  

8) A bloated corpse lying face down in the sand with a reasonably valuable weapon on it. He doesn’t need it anymore, though. His maw full of razor- sharp shark teeth is all he needs to gnaw the faces off of unsuspecting travellers...

  

9) A famous painting, rolled up and stored in a waterproof cylinder. Many interested parties, both legitimate, as well as legitimate bastards, would like to get their hands on it.

10) The diary of a time-traveller. MOST of the entries are all boring like, “Breakfast was instructive. Must get used to chewing food instead of absorbilating it”, but there are occasionally useful bits of info. 

Roll a d10 every time a PC spends an hour reading the journal. Treat a result of 10 like the PC has read the same  information that they could have gleaned with a successful casting of one of the following spells: 

    1.) Identify --on something cool in their possession, or that they’ll run across in the near future-- 

    2.) Clairaudience 

    3.) Clairvoyance 

    4.) Foresight 

    5.) Know Alignment --of a being or object the reader has already come into contact with-- 

    6.)  Locate Object.

   

11) Hallucination-inducing kelp. Y’know, the good stuff. Any PC who ingests/touches/smokes it gets to go on an “adventure” in their own psyche. I guess you could let ‘em roll a save or whatever. Locals in the know might pay a decent price for the stuff.

  

12) An incredibly rich and powerful noble who is suffering from total amnesia.

  

13) A severed human foot with a VERY distinctive toe-ring (or anklet, or whatever) still attached to it.

14) A giant egg. It hatches in d100  hours. Roll on your  favorite “All-Of-The-Things” table to determine what’s inside it.

  

15) An astonishingly ripped rowing-slave. Well, a former rowing-slave, unless his former masters catch up with him...  

  

16) A barrel of highly flammable oil.

  

17) One of the PC’s siblings, alive or dead. Your  call.

  

18) A lifeboat. Has a false bottom that’s secretly lined with glistening abalone and exotic pelts. And you thought secret door checks were just for dungeons.

  

19) A mysteriously undamaged and fully functional grand piano.

  

20) A full-blown Ghost Ship. Like if One-Eyed Willie and his crew had  the balls to fight their way out of hell to ratchet up the action at their old place of business.

  

21) A super-creepy and ridiculously ornate masthead. It looks like Satan fucked a meth-addicted Valkyrie, and this thing is what popped out. A hidden compartment in one of the left breasts contains the crown jewels of a foreign land.

22) A wine cask emblazoned with the label of a well- respected vineyard. The contents are actually vinegary swill, but no one’s going to know that until AFTER the sale, right?

23) A tiny, wooden chest. Inside is a mutton, lettuce and tomato sandwich. The mutton is, surprisingly, still nice and lean.

24 A huge, bioluminescent jellyfish, full of ghosts and  venom.

25 Aqua-Stirges!

26) A marooned group of pirate philosophers. They seek enlightenment, and booty.

27) Poltergeist plus a huge, rusty anchor and plenty of splintered wood. Go!

28) Bizarrely-colored people in search of their queen.

29) Murder victim, PC’s implicated. Anyone dumb enough to actually touch the body is immediately arrested by nearby investigators. Time to Scooby it up, and find the real killer. Or, y’know, just a good, old-fashioned jailbreak.

30) A vehicle from another world. Came through a portal that’s located deep under the water nearby.

31) Debris and some  radio equipment from a 20th century luxury ship. It doesn’t matter where or when your game is set. Seems like that strange, metal box is talking, too.

32) A chest full of dried rations.

33) A genie in a bottle. That always works out well.

34) Driftwood.

35) An ornery, giant clam. It has a perfect, massive pearl inside of it, but doesn’t seem to be forthcoming.

36) Squid-puke.

37) Formal invitations to a raging kegger at Poseidon’s palace.

38) A magnificent Nereid who desperately desires to make contact with a randomly determined PC due to nebulous motivations. You should totally have John Paul White’s cover of “Can’t Get it Out of My Head” playing in the background.

39) A giant sea-snail with a jaunty outlook on life, and an entire other world inside its shell.

40) A five-pound block of Ambergris. Perfumers will pay a handsome sum for this chunk of whale-poop. Pretty much just looks like a weird, lightweight rock.

41) BLOOD! As far as the eye can see, an ocean of blood...

42) A massive tidal wave that would surely destroy the nearest town/caravan of strippers/city...  if the wave weren’t mysteriously frozen in time. The wave isn’t moving, for now. What stopped it, and for how long?

  

43) Medieval Michael Phelps, outswimming a shark for shits and giggles.

  

44) Refugees from the nearest war-torn land in your game. You do have a war going on somewhere in your  game, right?

  

45) An aquatic ghoul, desperately making for land, despite being chained to another aquatic ghoul, and another, and so on all the way down to the anchor the last one is chained to at the bottom of the sea. Rubes.

46) Some  poor schmoe who’s cursed to count every grain of sand on that beach. You didn’t step on the pile he was just working on, did you?

  

47) Remember the Sirens from the Odyssey? Looks like someone finally gave them a lift off of that island.

48) A floating flower, from which springs a tiny deity with a major case of “small man” syndrome. He’s all, “What are you lookin’ at, mortals?” I’m picturing him with a minuscule cigar stub and a scruffy five o’clock shadow, but you should run with what works for you.

49) It’s not so much that the waves washed something up, as it is that the ocean has turned into a raging inferno. Is the water on fire, or has the water itself become fire? *shrug* I just write the tables; implementation is your  problem.
  

50) Thousands of blackbirds, uncharacteristic for this area, are standing eerily stock-still along the shoreline, almost daring anyone to come near the water.

51) It’s just a fucking seagull... Or IS it? ... Yeah, it’s just a damn seagull.

52) A jet-ski! Full tank of gas, too.

53) It turns out that this whole “haunted beach” thing is just a big illusion. Who would go to that kind of trouble, and what are they trying to hide?

54) A pleasure-barge making landfall to unleash its boorish and inebriated passengers on a shore excursion in your neck of the woods. On the bright side, you might be able to catch the tail end of an orgyfeast if you hop aboard.

55) Garbage. Tons of it. It seems that the kingdom/country/Republican across the way is dumping their junk into your pristine waters.

56) Just like, really a lot of chalk. Maybe a container ship full of chalk wrecked nearby, or maybe it’s some kind of art installation?  Either way, free chalk.

57) Moldy rope, and plenty of it.

58) Barnacle-covered remnants of a pier from somewheresville.

59) An invading military force. Could be a full armada, could be a saucy  little expeditionary crew. Whatever’s clever.

60) You know those seashells that sound like the ocean when you hold them up to your ear? This one sounds exactly like whatever’s currently being said at that shadowy, private table in your local tavern. Go figure.

61) An immortal, all-seeing tortoise oracle. Doesn’t matter how wise it is though, because you know the PC’s are just gonna try to kill it, or use it as a mount.

62) A baby. No, not an orc baby, just the regular kind.

63) A barrel of ale! Huzzah!

64 ) A lodestone.

65) The BEST pebble ever for skipping across the top of the water. Seriously, this bad boy is sleek.

66) The Atlantean/Lemurean ambassador. Try to channel Namor.

67) A fishing net.

68) A sea-demon. You’d think it would go all monster-attack, but nah. Smooth, sophisticated stealer of souls. With gills. Who smells like tuna. Okay, it sounds bad on paper, but he makes it work.

69) Two lovers having sexy time in the ocean-foam.

70) Two drunken assholes beating the tar out of each other in the ocean-foam.

71) Yeah, it’s a wizard’s tower. A frickin’ floating wizard’s tower.

72) A trident.

73) A bard’s gear. So, it’s basically useless crap. Keep right on walking.

74) The manifest of a famous ship that went missing twenty years ago, and a set of footprints leading away from it. It looks brand-spanking new...

75) A box of imported chocolates. Go ahead, treat yourself.

76) A Sea-Chariot meant to be pulled by: 

        1.) A school of swordfish 

        2.) Dolphins 

        3.) Electric eels 

        4.) A giant seahorse.

77) An orange. That’s sure to come in handy at sea.

78) A talking, beached whale. His name’s Alistair, and he’s soooooo embarrassed by this faux pas.

79) Incandescent sea-slime that will continue glowing in a 20-foot radius as long as it’s kept in seawater.

80) Three ladies stirring a bubbling cauldron. One of them’s young and hot, but the other two are pretty “meh.”

  

81) A big, addictive Air-Bubble. Once inside it, a character can move at their normal speed on or under the water, and breathe normally, but there’s a cumulative 1% chance every hour that they’ll become addicted to the sensation, and never leave the ocean. They know this is coming; they can feel it. If the PC succumbs to the bubble’s charms, I guess they just become a very interesting NPC.

  

82) A totally bitchin’ dog. Super hardcore, and clearly a good  swimmer.   

83) Wooden shoes.  

84) The world’s chillest sea serpent. Imagine your favorite stoner sunning themselves on a rock.

  

85) An overweight selkie with something to prove.

  

86) A randomly determined PC’s favorite bag/ backpack. Wait, what?!  How did that get there? Did  someone snag their shit?!   

87) A crystal ball. It’s not magical or anything. Just a lovely tchotchke.

  

88) It’s a sea cucumber. If you touch it, save vs. magic or swap minds with the sea cucumber. That’s right, you just unleashed the soul of a sea cucumber in the body of a wizard, or, like, a hulking barbarian or something. What the hell would THAT be like? Oh, yeah, and you’re a big ole water-caterpillar-thing now.    

89) A cute, li’l baby seal. Awwwww!

  

90) A tricorne hat.   

91) Cloak of the Manta Ray! Fuck yeah!!!

  

92) A half-buried metric fuck-ton of rum. Also, some pirates currently in the process of burying it.

  

93) A randomly determined PC’s greatest flaw, embodied in physical form. Don’t know your characters well enough to decide what that is? Laaaaaaaaame GM. Lame.  

  

94) A boat oar.

  

95) A burial at sea that the waves objected to.  

  

96) A viking-ish raiding party, and they look pretty pumped! Locking up the valuables and hiding your  daughters isn’t gonna cut it this time. The smart move would be to get waaaaaaay the hell out of Dodge.

97) A LoveBomb: 

It’s disguised as an incredibly powerful weapon capable of utmost destruction, and no warmonger could possibly resist its charms. It can sense the approach of sentient beings, and will detonate as soon as there are 3 or more of them near it. Everyone within 30 feet of the device must make a save vs. magic when it goes off. Success means that they’re just -1 to any attempt to harm others for the next hour due to a marginally increased respect for life. Failure results in them becoming completely enamored of the first person they lay eyes on after the blast. (“Charm Person” or something similar.) The charm effect is permanent, unless someone removes the curse, or the person they’re infatuated with tries to murderize them. Make love, not war, man.

98) A truly world-shattering horror. Not Cthulhu, because let’s be a little more original here. If you can’t think of anything, just go with a twenty-story, snake-headed demon whose secret motivation is to enact the most twisted possible interpretations of Burl Ives’ songs. Whatever it is, it’s totally above the PC’s paygrade though, so taking it on by themselves would equal a quick TPK. Spotting it, and escaping with their lives is the best they can hope for during the initial encounter. If they want to get out ahead of this one, they’re going to need to pull out all the stops. They’ll need to Machiavelli together an ingenious plan, and schmooze as many monarchs/archmages/etc. as possible into helping them either defeat this thing, or turn it into their pet.

99) An advanced, floating city that has run aground. They should have made that left turn at Albuquerque.

100) A message in a bottle: Roll a d6

     1.) A letter from some dude trapped on a desert island, with rough directions on how to get there.

     2.) A blood-spattered letter from the future version of one of the PC’s that warns the group of treachery from within their own ranks. The handwriting is a perfect match, and any magic or science used to identify the blood will confirm that it belongs to the PC in question.

     3.) A love letter written years ago by a soldier for a now-middle-agey NPC woman who the PC’s have actually met before. Should they take it upon themselves to reunite the old lovebirds, they’ll be pleasantly surprised to find out that Romeo is a wealthy and generous general now.

     4.) A desperate plea for help, and/or offer of wealth to anyone who can save the main NPC from that adventure you’ve been wanting to run, but couldn’t seem to get the players interested in.

     5.) The deed  to that creepy, dilapidated castle on yon barren, remote island. Legally sound, and it might net you a title, but I smell a megadungeon under that sonofabitch.

     6.) A treasure map which leads to the Island of the Kooky Kabuki Girls. Genre be damned!