Random Caravan Encounter Table

Enjoying all the comfort on the road

This is a random table for encountering caravans on the road or at locations. Roll d6 for type. Optionally roll another d6 for size.

Type: 1 Trading, 2 Religious, 3 Explorers, 4 Foragers, 5 Patrol, 6 Raiders

Size: 1 – 2 small (1- 5), 3 – 4 medium (6 - 20), 5 big (21 - 100), 6 huge (100+) 

Attitude: 1 hostile, 2 unfriendly and cautious, 3 - 4 neutral and indifferent, 5 helpful, 6 ally on the road

1 Trading Caravan

1 Copper Wire Nomads (L3, ancient laser rifles)

Trading Goods: 50 Antlered Horses (€150 each),

Transport: Horned Horses

NPC: Rabbitpaw Saltat (booming)

2 Great Folk (L2, piercings) 

Trading Goods: Bone Work (€200 per sack)

Transport: Bone Autowagon, Sculpted Skeleton Horses

NPC: Orbit Tahd (deliberate)

3 Spectrum Satraps (L4, far-out)

Trading Goods: Crystal eyes (€6,000/sack),

Transport: Great six-footer

NPC: Satrap 33 "Whitemoth" (confused)

4 Z.I.P. Zwaar Ijzer Patronaat: Redlander Dwarves (L5, organized)

Trading Goods: Printing press (€10,000)

Transport: Solid wagon, 4 mechanically enhanced oxen

NPC: Annemieke Oordveld (short breathed)

5 Third-Lings (L5, Veils hide jeweled eyes)

Trading Goods: Vats of psychedelic toads (€5,000), spider silk (€2,000)

Transport: Two-legged burden beasts, Third-lings ride on howdah carrying, extra long-legged Velblod 

NPC: Szczepan Lazar (whispering)

6 Half-Elf Theatre company or orchestra (L3, hollow eyed) 

Trading Goods: n/a (entertainment)

Transport: Tall wagon drawn by Monitor Lizards  

NPC: Conductor Delfina Laguna (monotone), Director Ramón Menorca (lisps)

A  Black City Church Dignitary

2 Religious Caravan

1 Cogflower Procession (L2)

Transport: Palanquin-carrying slaves

Destination: Travelling to the Vicar’s Ear (Gall Grass, p.85)

NPC: Executive Susa Marduk (intense stare)


2 Ascetic Chrome Druid Commune (L3)

Transport: Gargantuan Tortoise

Destination: Following a daily oracle

NPC: Moonface Bilded (ripped)


3 Blue God Cultists (L4)

Transport: On foot / Dragging a giant bust on a sled

Destination: Nexus of Cables (Dark Light Path, p. 113)

NPC: GeeGee Marina (insidious)


4 Radiant Wizard Aurelia Materazzi (L5, prickly)

Transport: Speed Demon

Destination: Cave of the Iron Worm (Ribs of the Father, p. 95)


5 Half-Elven Vile Cultists (L4)

Transport: Two-legged lizards

Destination: Three Sticks soul mill (The Gall Grass, p. 84)

NPC: Paloma Alcantara (silky smile)


6 Black City Priests (L4)

Transport: Ostrich drawn Chariot

Destination: Returning to the Black City with a Vile liver

NPC: Father Ruberg (lofty)

Botanical Exploration

3 Explorers

1 Electro Wizard Giovanni de Udine (L4, exalted)

Transport: Huge Electric Mono-wheel

Destination: Red River (Three Sticks Lake, p. 80)


2 Lime Nomad Astro-Shamans (L3)

Transport: Broken Wicker & Bone Sky Chariot drawn by donkeys

Destination: The Solar Dragon Roads (Terranova, p. 99)

NPC: Rattle Sorbet (bedazzled)


3 Redland Golem Engineers (L3)

Transport: Steam-powered steel autowagon

Destination: Porcelain Citadel

NPC: Henk van de Vliet (touchy-feely)


4 Spectrum Satrap Anthropologists (L4) 

Transport: Clockwork Autowagon shaped like a Disco Ball

Destination: Iridescent Mushroom Hall (Fractal Trees, p. 93)

NPC: Satrap 86 “Feinstoff” (curious)


5 Greenland Aristocratic Vome Hunters (L4)

Transport: Harpoon Mounted War Rig

Destination: Waystone (hunting the Machine Wyrm, p. 42)

NPC: Lady Aurelie de Bourbonne (brusque)


6 Extra-dimensional Armadilloid Structural Linguists (L5)

Transport: Solar powered Felt Autowagon

Destination: recording language samples wherever they go

NPC: Niniks (creative sentence structure)

Electro Wizard Giovanni de Udine on his Mono-Wheel

4 Prospectors

1 Yellowlander Fungus Foragers (L1, diligent)

2 Great Folk Bone Farmers (L2, taciturn)

3 Civilized Porcelain Prospectors (L2, well mannered)

4 Lime Nomad Radiothermal Rod Dowsers (L3, hyperactive)

5 Dwarven Black Goo Drillers (L3, industrious)

6 Ultra-Possessed Karma Dust Collectors (L4, obscure)

In crosshairs

5 Patrol

Attitude: 1 - 2 hostile, 3 - 4 unfriendly and cautious, 5 neutral and indifferent, 6 helpful 

1 Spectrum Satraps (L2)

Transport: Six legged Prismatic Walker w/ Laser Guns

Looking for: Contraband

NPC: Satrap 42  "Fulcrum" (aloof)


2 Porcelain Princes (L3)

Transport: Two legged Security Walker w/ mounted Flamethrower

Looking for: Rebels

NPC: Gilt Lacquer 17-Corpus (nitpicking)


3 Cogflower Inquisition (L3)

Transport: Armored autowagon w/Railgun

Looking for: Ultra-possession

NPC: Witch Hunter General Sabbettai (tired of your bullshit)


4 Great Folk (L3)

Transport: Bone Wagon

Looking for: Trouble-makers

NPC: Fibia Fifte (distrustful)


5 Ashwhite Lime Nomads (L4)

Transport: Wild mono-horn horses

Looking for: Illegal viddy crystals, alcohol

NPC: Searcher Nikdat (austere)


6 Half-Lings (L4)

Transport: Swift Snails

Looking for: Collecting taxes, bribes, food

NPC: Toll Master Jossip (glutinous)

Fierce Raiders

6 Raiders

Attitude: Roll 3d12 on the generic encounter table (UVG p. 151)

1 Translucent Scavengers (L1, luminescent), Lightspear d6

Transport: Crystal floating discs

Intention: Collecting shiny things


2 Cannibal Nomad Connoisseurs (L2, salivating), Butcher knife d6

Transport: Armored antelopes

Intention: Fresh meat


3 Dwarven Motorcycle Centaurs (L3, ), Bolt thrower d6+2

Transport: n/a

Intention: Rob them blind


4 Flickering Void Riders (L4, enigmatic), Antimatter Blade d6+2 (+necrotic)

Transport: Trained Bat-Lions

Intention: Demand a Sacrifice


5 Screaming Phosphor Ghosts (L5, unnerving), Phosphor Touch d6 (+burning)

Transport: n/a

Intention: Revenge on the living


6 Vome-infected Machine Humans (L6, relentless), Wand Gun 2d6+2,

Transport: Faceless metal snakes

Intention: Extinction protocol 

Vome infected Machine Humans

Lurid Pines V: The Magical Testing Site

Hamish collapses the crack in the cave wall from where the cannibal hamsters emerged with a well-placed bone grenade. Down in the ballroom a wave of Ka-Zombies washes over the heroes’ henchmen, killing Eyetooth Ten and Eyetooth Ven – brave but foolish Great Folk bone farmers  - while Katusha drags the critically injured Amberto to safety, luring the Zombies into the line of fire from the Gatling gun.

Saffron sniffs out the last remaining hamster in the ballroom. Grenades are thrown, mirrors are shattered and a precious organ destroyed before their foe is finally slain.

They explore the magical testing site: giant alembics and pipes ooze neon green goo, two hazard protection suits hang from the ceiling, a mysterious machine on wheels sits in the middle of the room. There are two summoning circles one of which has a stone slab at its center, the other – protected by a force field – holds a fractal sword on a pedestal.

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Saffron and Naida feel weakened and dizzy and climb into the suits. They decide to overcharge the machine to blow up the force field. Saffron grabs the stone slabs that are inscribed with binary code (that executes the program Astral Projection when read) and Hamish snatches the sword.

Back at the Behemoth Shell they bury the dead: The grieving relatives are personally compensated by our Greenland Folk Hero. Naida visits Shiver Urbert who dreamwalks the stories Naida wrote to Mencia, the shock peddler. Saffron studies their cybernetic shell to learn about a safe way to transfer “Mother” to a new body.

They leave the Behemoth Shell. After two uneventful weeks they arrive at the Moon Facing Ford. From the banks of the river they can see for the first time the mysterious Near Moon hanging low over the horizon. Two other caravans wait to cross the river: Tangerine Nomads in bronze masks herding mono-horned horses and monks in robes dragging a covered statue on a sled. Their enigmatic leader GeeGee Marine speaks of the Nexus of Cables, the pilgrim’s destination. In the middle of the Moon River is the Pylon Kraal, a colorful dryland coral Toll-House between two crumbling pylons that once held a bridge. They cross the river and enter the Pylon Kraal.

After a week of talking and dining Hamish seemingly strikes a deal with Post-Satrap 48 but the deal falls through after a party that went out of hand. Hamish has a new friend, though: Satrap 48, a network of interlocking symbiotic eels in a triple-sealed suit of Naples yellow.

Actual Play: https://youtu.be/f6hZdDgKZYM

Lurid Pines IV: Saffron’s Return

Johnny-7 tries to impose himself on Saffron in a battle of will to become dominant in the new emerging personality but when Saffron wakes up in the circuits of the autofac they are almost entirely themselves with only fragments of Johnny-7 still lingering. They search the hard drives for useful information about the autofac’s purpose: The only available blueprint produces cybernetic prairie dogs. Naida suggests to assemble a cybernetic prairie dog in order to transfer Saffon onto its positronic brain.

Saffron's new body

A young sessile fern is trained to clean the outward facing cameras of the factory while the cyberbody is wielded together. It is equipped with a double brain in a transparent dome, laser eyes and extendible limbs. Before Saffron personality is transferred they get a glimpse of a room full of dancing rats and a door reading “Magical Testing Site”.

Sessile Ferns (artist impression)

Saffron is soon welcomed by the other dogs. They broker a mutually beneficial deal between the prairie dogs and the Great Folk of the Behemoth Shell.

They decide to venture deeper into the caves lead by Aphra the smartest of the prairie dogs. In the ballroom down the stairs they are approached by sophisticated rats dressed in feathers and foil. Azure checks out the carved wooden door that supposedly leads to the magical testing site but gets distracted by a Zombie before it is killed by Naida. Saffron returns to the fern cave and spots a hamster trying to jump Aina who operates the Gatling gun. Others emerge from a crack in the tunnel wall. Firing laser and throwing bone grenades they withstand the first wave of the cannibal hamsters but Katusha shouts from downstairs: “They are coming!”

Ominous figures emerging from cracks in the wall

Actual Play: https://youtu.be/XhYiO1NQPZ8

Lurid Pines III: Revenge on the Cannibal Hamsters

They decide to take revenge on the cannibal hamsters. Naida hires half a dozen henchmen: Amberto Azul, a flamboyant Greenlander, Katusha, a fellow Yellowlander with spikey armor, Aina, the Great Folk city guard, and Ten, Twed and Ven, all of them Great Folk bone farmers, seduced by the prospect of getting rich. 

 

The Lurid Pines

While the Great Folk farmers carry the Gatling gun up the mountain, Azul scouts out the cave and stumbles upon bloated Zombies standing eerily still between the ferns. Azul draws them out into the open where they are cut down by a hail of bullets and explode in a shower of blue goo. The bone farmers start carrying the crates of Biomantic gear out of the cave when suddenly three hamsters rise swiftly from the ferns and attack. Ven gets killed by friendly fire and Azure severely wounded before the heroes decide to retreat. In their murderous frenzy the hamsters pursue them almost catching up to Hamish who in the last moment dives and exposes the cannibals to another barrage of gunfire. The last surviving hamster manages to flee back into the cave but fails to hide behind the ferns who part and expose him to the swift justice of more bullets. Clearly Naida had made some friends among the motile ferns.

 

Just add Diesel

They take out the heat ray nodule in the maintenance tunnel by throwing bone grenades and send Azul to explore. He finds an old diesel engine down a shaft and another way out of the cave. Ajax reconnoiters the other tunnel and makes contact with cybernetic prairie dogs who would rather be left alone. Following Ajax the heroes find the Autofacs production floor where Naida strikes a deal with the prairie dogs: They will tolerate their presence if in return the diesel engine is refuelled. 

 

Schematics of a cybernetically enhanced dog 

In the control room Azure - desperate to revive Saffron - connects the crystal snail via Cataract to the motherboard. Who will emerge from the undeath of stored data: Saffron, Johnny-7 ... or something else? They switch on the machine. 

 

 Actual Play: https://youtu.be/M1Tkmop7pYA

 

x

A Shock Peddler

The Wonders of the West

Edited by Mencia di Giallo

All stories written by Naida

Issue 7

Midnight In The Deathlands

The Vanishing Vome

We had reached the Caravansery at the Steppe of the Lime Nomads when the horror attacked - a vome, taller than anything you have ever feared, larger than anything you have ever had nightmares about, dripping putrefaction and death as it lumbered toward us, a doom in filth and vile secretions approaching. A group of hateful, murderous Redlander thieves sought glory in dying in trying to wound it while the rest of us hastily packed our wagons and carts, hoping to flee before we too became corrupted and diseased. However, the strangest and most curious thing happened - as the lethal Redlandlander bandits closed in on this unimaginably huge vome, it vanished as suddenly as it had appeared. The Redlanders milled about in confusion, wondering why the death they sought had escaped them. The rest of us continued packing and left swiftly. We could wonder what happened as we traveled and put distance between us and that disappearing biomechanical dreadnought.

The Ash White Hellgazers

There are many tribes you may encounter in the Deathlands, but few are as terrifying as the Ash White Hellgazers who paint their faces with bleached bone dust and engage in strange rituals to speak with the dead. If you see one of their fetishes, your only chance to survive is to immediately stop, make camp, and offer to share your food with them. If they accept, you are safe for one day - no more. And the next time they see you, it may be in the Circle Of Blood, and the dust of your bones may be adorning their faces.

The Claws That Dig Graves

We saw them in the distance, dirt exploding around them as they savaged the earth with their wickedly long and horrifying sharp talons that could cleave a humanoid in half with no effort at all. They saw us coming and before we had time to prepare, these savage, heavily armored beasts were upon us, reeking of ash and cinnabar, old dried blood the color of rust staining their scaled paws! We fought desperately but in no time at all, they had overwhelmed us, leaving us no choice but to parlay; we surrendered one of our traveling party to them in marriage to secure safe passage through their terrifying lands. This is not a place for the weak of body, mind, or spirit. Moments like these will haunt me for the rest of my days.

The Death That Stalks From The Underworld

After losing one of our party to those horrible, clawed beasts who defy description in their disgusting savagery, we were all somber, lost in our thoughts. That is the only explanation I have for why we missed several dozen revolting vomish snakes with metallic fangs still moist from whatever unholy seepage they leave on each other as they attend to themselves. They attacked us from underground, striking up through the roadway in an attempt to claim our souls for whatever demons they serve, gnashing through the soil and grievously wounding one of our party as the rest of us set about with whatever we had at hand to beat these monsters back to whatever fiery hell they called home. We gasped for breath, covered in their oily, black, infectious blood, knowing that we were wounded as well and might soon discover how it felt to become a vome. Each morning, we nervously check each other to ensure that there is, as yet, no sign of contagion, knowing full well that if there is, it falls to us to spare the poor afflicted wretch the suffering of becoming one of those appalling creatures that make us all recoil in terror. We travel on, fearing the worst.

I Would Rather Become A Vome ...

Than A Porcelain Prince!

By this point in our travels, we had seen no end of the horrors the Deathlands have to offer travelers. Death in so many varieties - slow, sudden, painless and painful … it is easy to look through the gates of The Violet City and imagine this to be a pleasant, tranquil place. After all, what danger could grasslands offer? And then travelers reach the deceptively welcoming gates of the Porcelain Citadel, where all of the previous nightmare fuel burns in the abattoir engine of The Broken Line. Somewhere between an oubliette and charnel house, The Broken Line is most charitably described as a body farm for the Porcelain Princes, providing them with an eternal supply of meat, bodies stripped of souls and minds flensed of consciousness, ready to be inhabited by the consciousness of one of those easily broken squanderers concerned solely with delicacies and damask. Of all the atrocity exhibitions I have seen in wandering these wastes, the hours I spent dragging the finally deceased bodies to the pit for final disposal in The Broken Line are the ones I will never be able to escape. Whenever you see a Porcelain Prince, now you know what lies beyond the youth and beauty, the staggering human cost of their privilege and power. And when you do see a Porcelain Prince? End them. The dead will bless you a thousandfold.

Printed by Het Vrije Combinaat v/d Letterzetters and Drukkerij, Rode Landen

Lurid Pines II

Naida realizes that the heat rays shoot out of the tunnel every 30 seconds. Apok spots a nodule inside the tunnel that has some kind of movement tracking sensor. They keep clear of the tunnel for now and shift their attention to the sessile fern-rodents. Naida manages to tame one and Apok ponders the biomantic properties they might have. Naida persuades Apok not to take one with them for experimentation.

They haul some crates of Biomantic gear out of the cave. Hamish kicks one of the crates down the mountain to see if survives the fall. It does not. In horror Apok identifies the broken machinery inside as one of the machine parts they so desperately seek. The symbiont whispers of bloody revenge.

Buxom and ornate trees

 

Back in the cave Hamish hears moaning and the chattering of teeth coming from the concrete stairway. He spots bloated walking corpses followed by vicious looking child-sized hamsters wielding sickles. He kills one of the zombies. When the hamsters - wearing skulls and ear necklaces - rush upstairs Hamish retreats. Naida tries to lure them into the path of the heat ray but the hamsters are cunning and too quick. The heroes flee.

Cannibal hamsters (artist impression)

They return to the Behemoth Shell where Apok unsuccessfully tries to sell the gear to a Bonemancer and decides to put together a Biomancy experimentation kit instead. Hamish meats Fina di Mesa, a fellow Redlander travelling back to the Violet City. They share fermented goat milk and stories. Impressed by Hamish's reputation as a folk hero Fina reveals that Biomantic gear is in high demand at the Spectrum Run.

Shiver Urbert - Goat Milk Vendor and Dreamwalker extraordinaire

Knowing that the cave under the Lurid Pines hold many more crates of the dense commodity the heroes show remarkable entrepreneurial prowess and buy two massive autowagons mounted with turrets and a "handful" (two sacks!) of bone splinter grenades. They decide to take revenge on the cannibal hamsters.

65 tons of Soviet Pride

Actual Play: https://youtu.be/TiFjLBCrWH4

Lurid Pines

New Character: Apok, a Wise Doghead Purplefolk Anarchist, skilled in Biomancy. They carry a silver book proclaiming revolution and a brainhook. A blood symbiont madly whispers in their ears.

The heroes celebrate their victory in Shiver Urburt’s Yoghurt Bar with fermented goat milk. Azure notices that her body is changing and consults the shaman: she bulked up, her armor doesn’t fit and her skin is strangely knotted. Shiver Urburt advises her to visit the Pylon Kraal where she might get proper medical attention.

Hamish proposes to donate the slightly dented autowagon of the Redlanders to the Great Folk community but is voted down. Instead they decide to keep the wagon and give it a test drive to the cave Azure had seen in her vision.

Lurid "Pines"

Naida spots the entrance to the cave through the scope of her rifle: a solid vault door. Hamish “picks” it by jamming his sword into the lock’s machinery. A musky smell wafts out of the cave as they descend into the darkness. Motile ferns scurry away from the beam of Hamish’s flash light. Apok finds a crate with a familiar symbol -interlocking wheels – that indicates it once housed the machine parts they are looking for. But the crate is empty. Other crates are discovered, full of ancient Biomancy gear.

An ancient Biomancy Company

If the heroes listen closely they can hear organ music from deeper within the mountain. Nada sends Ajax down a concrete stair case to investigate. Azure explores the cave. The lichen covered cave walls are irregular metal plates reminiscent of Johnny-7’s hull. There is a crawlspace leading deeper into what might be another autofac. Within the tunnel half a dozen pairs of eyes stare back at Azure. Naida joins and is quickly tackled to the ground by Azure as a heat ray shoots out of the tunnel. Naida readies her shotgun.

Deeper within the Mountain

Hamish, waiting for Ajax at the top of the stairs, picks up soft conversations over the organ music: Distinguished voices with an oddly squeaky undertone. Listening closely Hamish realizes that the conversation phrases repeat themselves frequently. Ajax returns unimpressed but complains loudly to Naida that “the rats are fucked up!”. He refuses to elaborate.

Actual Play: https://youtu.be/jqlVGNuYNEI