Gonzo Sci-fantasy Village Generator
Though it's been over a month since I posted an update on my Antarctic hexcrawl, the work continues. I've mostly been making piecemeal improvements to my stocking tables. This week I wrote a script to export my tables to Paper Elemental's HTML generator, so I'll probably post some of my better generators over the coming weeks.
I want the villages of Antibor to be very weird and gonzo; since they're a less obvious driver of gameplay than lairs & dungeons, they should be vivid and memorable landmarks and give me as GM a few good hooks for role-playing. The vibe I'm going for draws on:
- The insane & often infuriating hamlets in Vance's Dying Earth Books, especially their bizarre clothing choices.
- The tersely described settlements in Carcosa -- I especially love the pompous titles of Carcosan rulers so I made my own Carcosa-esque name generator and embedded it in here.
- Every example I could think of for odd housing materials and village shapes: the crabshell yurts in Morrowind, Moebius, weird 60's 70's sci-fi art from my Instagram feed, stuff about real-world village organization I vaguely remember reading in Graeber & Wengrow's The Dawn of Everything, etc.
Anyways, it's pretty ridiculous but I'm happy with how it has turned out so far.
Here are a few of my favorite test results:
Lower Stasis Spring: Village of 427 ruled by an Alzabo who consumed The Invincible Intellect, a Master Thief. The houses are giant beetle shells, they subsist through hunting, and the people wear floor-length veils. Also, they wear intense and floral perfumes.
Tungsten Rise: Village of 50 ruled by Albania Blavatsky, a Thief. The houses are octagonal thatched huts stacked into a single rickety tower, they subsist through raiding neighbors for food, and the warriors wear skintight bodysuits. Also, they have telepathic powers.
The Empire of Forests: Village of 124 ruled by The Most Liminal One, a Lyricist. The houses are treehouses in the branches of an enormous tree, they subsist through beekeeping, and the people wear powdered wigs.
Well-groomed Ridge: Village of 98 ruled by The Polychromatic Pontiff, a Sonnetteer. The houses are giant crab shells, they subsist through photosynthetic symbiotes, and the men wear roughspun wool gowns. Also, they consider it bad luck to sleep on a horizontal surface.