Books Completed in January 2022

 I have never done this before. Let's see how it goes.

Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse - Epic fantasy in a world inspired by Native American legends and lands. There was a lot of world-building in the first half that landed kind of hard, but this is the first in a series and now that the setting is established I'm going to check out the rest. It's heavily about political intrigue, which I'm not used to reading, and has a huge cast, which I always kind of get lost in, but that's all on me and reading more stories like this is a good exercise. It'd be fun to play an RPG campaign in this setting for sure.

The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum - I've read this a few times before, but wanted to get a fresh read in to compare with Wicked. The scene I'd forgotten entirely is the land of porcelain people. There's a part where the Cowardly Lion leaps over a wall, but knocks over a church in the process. I don't know, it felt like someone was describing a black and white inscrutable political cartoon but I couldn't figure out what it would be about.

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke - An otherworldly excursion and mystery, with beautiful, evocative writing. It's needed if you're describing statues for pages and pages. The ending kind of went awry for me on a few points, but I thought the way the main character's internal conflicts were reconciled was a different take than I'd ever seen before.

Ring Shout by P. Djèlí Clark - Presenting the KKK as literal monsters is fantastic. I've read a couple other stories by Clark before but this has been my favorite. So many scenes and characters that popped clearly in my mind, and three women protagonists written well by a male author, which is refreshing. Would love to see the mythos presented here explored further, it's a rich vein. 

Wicked by Gregory Maguire - My friend Jen mailed me this. I had never thought to read it before because the snippets of the musical I'd heard were ear-rendingly awful, but this was some of the best fan fiction I've read. Jen and I talk about world-building sometimes, and we both though this handled the task deftly, never forcing characters to speak about things in a stilted way for the sake of the reader. And we all know what's coming at the end, basically, but that short chapter is a real fine death scene.

The Drac by Felice Holman and Nanine Valen - A small collection of short stories inspired by French folklore. The authors appear to be scholars of the subject. Gameable.

The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow - This was an interesting one to read in the same month as Piranesi. Not much I can say without spoilers, but this was an intricate story, and I usually have trouble following those, but I sailed right along with this. Another masterclass in world-building here.

The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo - More fantasy intrigue. A delicately crafted little setting, much implied by what's not said, and a clever titular character who is met only through many layers of memory and mementos. A tidy novelette that uses its form well. 

Our Oldest Companions by Pat Shipman - A popular history of the domestication of dogs. The author must be interesting at certain dinner parties. I could not at first figure why she was making some of the points she was making, but it all sort of came together in the last chapter. She's clearly passionate about the subject. I also learned a truly horrifying method of hunting polar bears!

The Bright Ages by David M. Perry and Matthew Gabriele - A broad study of medieval history with a focus on dispelling popular conceptions of nations in the past as static and insular. The afterward states the authors were at least partially focused on tearing down myths used to support nationalism and white supremacy - I would have liked that stated up front, it made the text clearer in retrospect. What I learned from this book is that I have not read enough history books.

d666 Quirky 5e Magic Items

Expanding on this post of magic item features and quirks by using each as inspiration to tweak six randomly chosen 5e magic items.

Note some of the scrolls are replaced with other physical objects - they should still work like single-use magic items who learned casters can study and pry secrets from.

11 - Command Jewel. The item has a corresponding piece of jewelry of similar make which must be worn for it to function.

1. Potion of Healing. Inert until touched by someone wearing a bloody iron crown. Favored by marauders and tyrants to help ensure loyalty, and prevent succor from being seized by their enemies or victims.
2. Wand of Web. Has an attendant wand which must be used to shape the strands as the spell is being cast, like a conductor's wand. Takes a hand, but could be wielded by someone else.
3. Spell Scroll, 2nd Level (Magic Weapon). Can only be cast from the scroll by being wrapped around a mace head, but this effect does not require concentration.
4. Figurine of Wondrous Power, Bronze Griffon. Can be activated by anyone, but the summoned gryphon only obeys the one wearing the matching electrum ring shaped like an odd bridle.
5. Cloak of the Bat. Can only be used to fly while wearing a pair of matching (non-magical) bone rings with egregious, extended prongs to support the wings.
6. Goggles of Night. Attached to a small cage worn atop the head, these only function while a night-going animal is imprisoned within.

12 - Crawling. At a command word, the item will sprout dozens of tiny legs and begin moving at speed 5 towards the speaker. It can climb walls easily.

1. Dagger of Venom. Shaped like an outlandish insect. Can creep to deliver its venom to a sleeping or helpless target (Speed 10, climb 10, Stealth +5).
2. Potion of Climbing. Actually a tiny gray ooze in a thick glass bottle with containment runes around the lip. Drinking it is """safe""", but breaking the bottle releases the ooze.
3. Spell Scroll, 1st Level (Longstrider). Constantly inch-worming about. Must be carefully contained and will actively try to pull away while being cast.
4. +1 Shield. Thick insectoid carapace. Loves being thrown. It will skitter back to its owner on a hundred tiny legs at a frisky pace afterward.
5. Wand of Polymorph. Any shape imposed by this petrified stick insect has numerous extra antenna, twitching vestigial legs, and/or pedipalps.
6. Headband of Intellect. Preserved giant centipede wound into a tiara. The wearer's head is crawling with ideas. Pick them out and send them crawling to someone else, like message but moves 5' a round.

13 - Dormant. This item isn't sentient, but roll on the sentient magic items "special purpose" table. Its powers won't awaken until some action towards that purpose is taken.

1. Potion of Youth. This floral liquor won't even register as magic until it's quaffed by a dying gnome, at which point it's also a potion of extra healing.
2. Staff of the Python. Won't convert to a snake until you've subjugated someone above your station.
3. Spell Scroll, 1st Level (Fog Cloud). Made of fluffy knitted wool, a bit like a small blanket. Will reform and be reusable if someone falls asleep within its vapors.
4. Staff of Swarming Insects. Has extra charges, but its giant insects don't obey you and its insect cloud doesn't move with you. Impressing a hivemother might help.
5. Ring of Jumping. Made of soapstone. Does nothing until you leap into the middle of a charged political situation.
6. +1 Maul. Gnarled and ceramic. It is originally nonmagical but gains a +1 enhancement (up to +3) every time it deals the killing blow to an elven wizard.

14 - Dousing. Use an action to know the direction to the nearest source of drinkable water within 1,000 feet.

1. Spell Scroll, Cantrip (Fire Bolt). When cast from this scroll, all water sources in 100' of the target briefly seethe and steam.
2. Potion of Storm Giant Strength. Cloud in a bottle that must be inhaled rather than drunk. Its effects also center all clouds within miles on you for the next day.
3. +1 Crossbow Bolts (20). These iron bolts veer towards water. Advantage on attacks against water elementals.
4. Potion of Healing. A thick and pungent sap. It inflicts the drinker with a terrible thirst.
5. Gauntlets of Ogre Power. Riveted steel with large shovel-like protrusions or claws. Can also be used to dig wells mightily.
6. Rod of Rulership. Imposes disadvantage on saves against its effects against any being which had drunk, in the past day, from a water source you control.

15 - Eye. A single milky eye glares prominently out of the item. It flicks about, focusing on subjects seemingly at random.

1. Potion of Healing. A rubbery, juicy yellow eye that pops in the mouth.
2. Horn of Valhalla (bronze). Studded with milky agates. The berserker spirits it summons are blinded with cataracts, and cagey as a dozen battlefield-led lives.
3. Cloak Of Arachnida. The clasp bears eight iridescent black-green stones. They tremble and flex slightly at all times.
4. Spell Scroll, 4th Level (Locate Creature). Conjures a hovering eye which glares in the direction of the spell's subject.
5. +2 Arrows (20). Fletched with gently shuddering eyelashes.
6. Sentinel Shield. Its otherwise abstract emblazonment focuses into an eye when a threat is detected.

16 - Fading. The magic of this item was not sealed properly, and it will only last for another 2d12 months.

1. Spell Scroll, 1st Level (Compelled Duel). Will only last for 6 more months. It is written with a specific romantic target in mind and won't work past their wedding day.
2. Wand of Secrets. Shimmering blue gas in a glass tube. It has 7 charges but cannot recharge or be recharged - the gas slowly fades until the last charge is used, when it goes dark.
3. Gauntlets of Ogre Power. They're made from real ogre skin. They'll die with the ogre that supplied it. Who'll only live another couple months without their hands.
4. Potion of Resistance (Psychic). Pallid amniotic fluid with an embryonic brain floating in it. It'll only be good for 9 months, and then the mind within will awaken.
5. +1 Blowgun Needles (50). Gain their magic from being harvested from a great living vine. They'll dry out and curl to worthlessness in a year.
6. Giant Slayer (Battleaxe). Hewn of solid ice, it will melt by next summer solstice.

21 - Fire Starter. Use an action to produce a tiny flame suitable for lighting a torch or candle.

1. Spell Scroll, 8th Level (Mind Blank). If rolled up and smoked like a cigar will allow the smoker to burn away a single memory.
2. Ring of Jumping. You leave a trail of sparks over wherever you jump using this bloodstone ring. They will ignite anything very flammable like leaves or paper.
3. Ioun Stone of Leadership. Trails faint sparks when active. With an action, light the torch or lantern of anyone who has sworn fealty to you, out to a mile radius.
4. Potion of Superior Healing. One drop burns like a pint of oil in a lantern, but each drop spent decreases the potion's healing done by 1.
5. +2 Rod of the Pact Keeper. Can also use an action to create a huge but harmless flame visible from up to a mile away in which can be seen a visage of your patron.
6. Wand of Web. The webs it creates automatically catch fire at the end of the caster's next turn. Small natural spider webs in a 10' radius singe away as the bearer travels.

22 - Folding. Use an action to fold this item to a tenth of its normal size and weight, or to unfold it.

1. Spell Scroll, Cantrip (Shillelagh). Can be rolled up impossibly small, would fit inside a hollow walking stick easily, and can be cast from the scroll while in such storage.
2. Eversmoking Bottle. Folds inside-out into a puff of smoke that can be gently guided along or kept in a bag.
3. Ring of Jumping. Copper and steel wire ring that folds up into a tiny animatronic cricket that can chirp just like the real thing.
4. +3 Wand of the War Mage. Can also be folded another way such that its small end extends into the border ethereal. In this shape its bonus drops to +1 but it can target ghosts and other beings on the border ethereal you can see.
5. Goggles of Night. Fold into a discrete pair of spectacles.
6. Potion of Healing. Dried fruit that has to be gently stewed to reconstitute and activate its healing effects.

23 - Holy Symbol. The item is, or heavily incorporates imagery of, a holy symbol, and can be used as such an implement.

1. Stone of Good Luck. Probably the symbol of a god of luck or fortune. People will have a hard time refusing a wager where this is offered as your stake.
2. Potion of Climbing. If smashed against a hard surface, this potion will scrawl itself into a holy image that lasts 10 minutes.
3. Ioun Stone, Leadership. Also an orbiting holy symbol. Doesn't take up a hand.
4. Spell Scroll, 2nd Level (Alter Self). If cast from the scroll, the form granted by this spell lean one towards the appearance of the dedicated deity's popular image.
5. Spell Scroll, 2nd Level (Enthrall). If the targets of the spell are of the symbol's faith, they automatically fail their saving throw.
6. Potion of Invulnerability. If the imbiber dies in the service of the deity while under this potions effects, its liquid will leak from their body. It can be gathered and used again.

24 - Hovering. When released in midair, the item will hover in place, gently wobbling, for a minute before sinking slowly to the floor.

1. Spell Scroll, 1st Level (Chromatic Orb). A glass bead which cycles through a rainbow of colors. This lesser ioun stone must be orbiting to be cast from.
2. Dimensional Shackles. These oily metal shackles wat to be about 3 feet off the ground, and so also resist mundane flight. Anything wearing them must make a DC 14 strength check each round of flight or have its flying speed halved.
3. Ring of Mind Shielding. Release to float like an ioun stone, with the same vulnerabilities. This tin ring cannot become invisible while doing so, but you gain resistance to psychic damage.
4. Potion of Healing. Can shatter the vial to create a 10' radius hazy pink mist that will heal 1 HP to each creature in it for 2d4 rounds.
5. Potion of Healing. Can be poured out into a floating red orb. Anyone passing through it (not just touching it) will trigger the potion's full effect.
6. Potion of Diminution. Potion bottle sporadically grows insect wings and tries to lazily bumble off. Anyone under its effects grows little wings and gains a slow, droning fly speed.

25 - Illustration. Appears to have been drawn rather than crafted.

1. Potion of Healing. An abstract figure drawn on vellum. Staring at it causes some of your wounds to fade and appear on it instead. The image remains once the magic is used.
2. Scimitar of Speed. The blade vanishes when swung, replaced by slicing speed line arcs. Much of the scimitar's efficacy comes from the wielder barely needing to move their hand to slash rapidly.
3. +2 Shield. Lines and shadows appear in the air around the bearer suggesting a 5'x5' crenelated stone tower.
4. Eyes of Charming. Gives you big ol' anime eyes.
5. Wand of Enemy Detection. The direction to the detected enemy is indicated by a large, red floating arrow. The ashes left when this wand runs out of charges are useful in crafting inks for detection scrolls.
6. Censer of Controlling Air Elementals. Swirled with a stylized roseate and cerulean sunset. The lambent elemental it summons appears the same.

26 - Insect-Repelling. Nonmagical, normal-sized insects will not approach the bearer.

1. Ring of Water Elemental Command. Small, non-magical fish, crabs, and such will not approach you while underwater.
2. Potion of Climbing. Catch a climbing insect and drown it in this potion. When you drink it, the effect is extended by 1dX minutes, where X is the number of legs it had.
3. Helm of Telepathy. Shaped like a wrought-iron spider, the legs burrow into your neck and temples when worn. It is traumatic to remove. Its detect thoughts and suggestion effects can affect spiders. Other vermin are too afraid to approach.
4. Spell Scroll, Cantrip (Sacred Flame). Can be burned like a torch, and repels small, non-magical insects while alight. Vermin have disadvantage on saving throws against the spell cast from this scroll.
5. Belt of Hill Giant Strength. Small, non-magical insects will not approach this belt woven from dozens of antennae. Double how far you can move or throw a grappled vermin.
6. Brooch of Shielding. Any small, nonmagical insects that approach you wear this copper spiral are zzzapped.

31 - Instrument. Despite its appearance, this item can be played like a specific instrument. Strumming, blowing, or beating in the general shape is sufficient.

1. Cloak of Elvenkind. Floats and flows around a dancing wearer, accompanying them and granting advantage on their performance check.
2. Spell Scroll, 4th Level (Freedom of Movement). Can be rolled up and played like a flute, allowing a large company easy movement through difficult terrain for a day. Doing so consumes the scroll.
3. Figurine of Wondrous Power, Ivory Goats. While none of the goats have any charges, their horns can be linked up into a shawm. It can be played, once per such linking, to force a creature to caper (as irresistible dance).
4. Potion of Growth. Can be poured into or smeared over a musical instrument to increase the volume of its music a hundred-fold.
5. Spell Scroll, 1st Level (Thunderous Smite). Plaster this onto a gong or a shield and the target of the smite has disadvantage on its saving throw.
6. Potion of Flying. Pluck strings of floating resin from this flask for a one-time, unforgettable performance.

32 - Journal. The item can hold a page's worth a day of writing, and can flip back and forth between previous entries. Use your finger or a twig to write.

1. Brooch of Shielding. Automatically records the source of any damage the bearer takes. The pin is the pen.
2. Boots of Striding and Springing. Remember every surface they've walked over, and can tactilely replay the journey in real time.
3. Ioun Stone, Strength. Blue runes trail the name of each creature you've bested in a wresting or grappling match.
4. Scroll of Protection. Blank when discovered. Write the name of something that's recently wronged you to activate it.
5. Slippers of Spider Climbing. Hold your feet out in front of you, and a web weaving the day's events will slowly form. From the perspective of the feet. Flick to older days with a bloody finger.
6. Spell Scroll, Cantrip (Minor Illusion). Write a description of something you've seen or heard today on this scroll, and observers have disadvantage on saving throws to disbelieve it.

33 - Lascivious. The item enhances feelings of desire or lust in its bearer.

1. Potion of Healing. Fizzes and jostles in its bottle. If drunk while the imbiber is already at full HP, they become substantially more virile for the next month.
2. +3 Trident. Each prong is activated for a day by having a sexy encounter with as many participants.
3. Dancing Sword. As an action, changes to a 10' pole or back. Another action can be used to anchor the pole vertically on any horizontal surface, where it can bear up to 500 pounds or a DC 12 Strength check. (It's a pole dancing sword, shut up.)
4. Potion of Climbing. Stored in a long test tube. If you're using this to get to an object of lust, double your speed.
5. Ring of the Ram. 4 charges, but every time you use the last, your ram horns grow a bit more. Also lady sheep love you.
6. Medallion of Thoughts. Oh. Oh ho ho ho. Hee hee.

34 - Lens. Some portion of or gap in the item magnifies small details when peered through, granting advantage on any ability check made to appraise or inspect an item that is small or highly detailed.

1. Wand of Paralysis. Peering through the forked lens in this wand grants advantage on medicine checks on creatures paralyzed by it.
2. Restorative Ointment. Once all the ointment has been used, peering through the convex bottom of the empty jar grants advantage on medicine checks made to diagnose disease or poison.
3. Staff of the Woodlands. Holds a large drop of water suspended in its boughs. Looking through it grants advantage on checks to identify insects, molds, and other such small things.
4. Oil of Sharpness. In addition to its regular use, may be smeared on glasses or a lens to let the viewer see really small things.
5. Rod of Alertness. A small crystal orb is mounted among the flanges. You have to lean in and look through it for any of the rod's spell effects to work.
6. Crystal Ball of Telepathy. Can zoom in on tiny details of those scryed, but the user gets more and more motion sick while doing so.

35 - Liquid. Use an action to turn the item into a liquid of the same volume or back. The liquid is mercury-like and will not separate easily.

1. Spell Scroll, 5th Level (Cloudkill). A gray egg oozing a perilous stench. Breaking it casts the spell. If it's studied and copied into a spellbook, the book becomes forever vile, but can also be used to cast stinking cloud once a day without spending a spell slot.
2. Elemental Gem (air). Becomes an emerald (water elemental gem) when wet, and turns back into a sapphire (air elemental gem) when dry.
3. Wind Fan. While this fan is liquid, it casts blur instead of gust of wind.
4. Potion of Healing. Use an action to turn this syrup into a striated putty or back. The putty can be molded into a small appendage such as a finger or ear and pressed to a scar to replace one missing.
5. Ioun Stone, Agility. While liquid, this stone leaves red streaks in the air around your head and its AC and DC of Dexterity checks against it increase by 2.
6. Figurine of Wondrous Power, Golden Lions. These only work when submerged in salt water, and transform into sea lions.

36 - Melancholy. Enhances the bearer's urges to brood, stare out the window, pose dramatically in the rain, and write bad poetry.

1. Sovereign Glue. Each bonded item becomes psionically heavier as well, harder to move telekinetically and dolorous.
2. +1 Shield. Dented, pitted, and scratched. Sobs when struck.
3. Dust of Dryness. Everything it affects is reduced to eye crusties.
4. Figurine of Wondrous Power, Onyx Dog. Summons instead a morose hound. Better tracker, worse combatant. Bays pitiably.
5. Spell Scroll, 4th Level (Divination). Even if beneficial, the answer is given in a long, Byronic poem.
6. Potion of Healing. Wounds healed by this potion will ache for a lifetime.

41 - Mirror. All or some part of this item is reflective enough to be used as a mirror.

1. Figurine of Wondrous Power, Serpentine Owl. While transformed, this owl reflects moonlight with a beautiful pearly glow, and can't hide in the night.
2. Eyes of Charming. If you see your own reflection while wearing these shiny lenses, you must pass a DC 13 Wisdom save or be stunned by your own beauty for an hour, until you lose sight of your reflection, or you take any damage.
3. Circlet of Blasting. An ostentatious flashing tiara. Instead of casting scorching ray, it automatically reflects the first casting of that spell that targets you each day.
4. Ring of Jumping. While airborne from the effects of this diamond-studded electrum ring, your sparkling body counts as a mirror.
5. +1 Sling Stones (20). Little disco balls.
6. Iron Flask. Lacquered to a sheen. Won't reflect an image of anything similar to what's captured in it.

42 - Mouldering. Always cold and slightly damp. Smells of niter and dirt. Any cloth or leather components are tattered; metal is varnished.

1. Dagger of Venom. Rusty iron. Victims of its poison also suffer lockjaw, and cannot speak while affected.
2. Spell Scroll, Cantrip (Mage Hand). Scroll barely holding together, conjured hand is half strength.
3. Dust of Disappearance. Magic mold spores. Attempts to track or locate the affected creatures by scent have advantage due to the musty, earthy odor they exude.
4. +1 Scale Mail Armor. Piteously rusted. Doesn't look like it should provide any protection at all, but does somehow. Immune to magical rusting effects.
5. Figurine of Wondrous Power, Bronze Griffon. The statue is pocked and verdigrised. The griffon that appears is in dire need of veterinary care, with half HP and a level of exhaustion. It can be treated but will be sickly when summoned again.
6. Potion of Resistance (Thunder). Feels and smells like aural static. The first time someone affected by this potion takes thunder damage, the rotting resistance applies to everyone in 10 feet and then collapses.

43 - Nip. One type of beast finds the object irresistible, and will seek to nuzzle, gnaw, or roll on it while not threatened.

1. Universal Solvent. Frogs can sense this sludge from miles away. Smaller ones will start to croak and swarm. Larger ones will become increasingly aggressive.
2. Dagger of Venom. Really more like a pincer. The victim of its poison will be preferentially attacked by crabs until the poison is passed.
3. Restorative Ointment. Anyone treated by this silky ointment is irresistible to cats for a week.
4. Shield of Missile Attraction. You can talk to missiles that have struck you for up to a minute afterward. They love you.
5. Manual of Gainful Exercise. The exercises in this tome are decidedly serpentine in nature; you realize this while studying. On completion of studying, you gain a reptilian musk that gives you advantage on Charisma checks versus bestial reptiles, and disadvantage on such checks against birds and their like. Mindful serpentine creatures are slightly inclined towards your stench, but not enough to affect a skill check.
6. Spell Scroll, 5th Level (Reincarnate). Anyone revived by this gnawed scroll also contracts lycanthropy in their new form, becoming a wererat.

44 - Photonic. The item requires light to work and will not function in darkness.

1. Horn of Valhalla, Iron. Can only be blown at daybreak, but summons the maximum number of warriors, who arrive out of the dawn.
2. Spell Scroll, 3rd Level (Gaseous Form). A small plaque of stained glass. The target transforms into shimmering light instead of mist. This variant can pass through liquid, but not darkness.
3. Spell Scroll, 4th Level (Staggering Smite). This scroll is cast by letting bright light pass through incisions in the vellum to lie upon the weapon that will deliver the smite. It requires a free hand and a light source, but no verbal component.
4. Spell Scroll, 4th Level (Aura of Purity). A collection of dozens of glass prisms that hover at the perimeter of the aura. Darkness suppresses but does not dispel their effect.
5. Spell Scroll, Cantrip (Blade Ward). The glowing sigil created by this variant protects against cold, force, and necrotic damage. It requires bright ambient light to fuel it, however.
6. Ioun Stone, Regeneration. If orbiting outdoors for a full reasonably sunny day, also nourishes its owner with absorbed light, feeding them for the day.

45 - Projector. Use an action to have the item create a specific, pre-established illusion effect in a 5-foot cube.

1. Portable Hole. While folded up, use an action to project a 3D snapshot of the hole's current contents.
2. Spell Scroll, 1st Level (Silent Image). This scroll is folded into a small shadowbox. Peering inside shows a miniature stone-walled room, with simple furnishings: a wooden table, a wicker chair, a plank door, a wool rug, an unlit lantern, and a small footlocker. Use an action to make an image of any piece of the room's furnishings appear for a minute. Casting the scroll consumes it and creates an illusion of the entire room.
3. Spell Scroll, 5th Level (Reincarnate). A creature reincarnated by this scroll gains the ability to project an illusion of their old body around their new one at will.
4. Spell Scroll, Cantrip (Sacred Flame). You can choose to have the spell's radiance deal no damage, merely illuminate the targeted creature briefly.
5. Tome of Leadership and Influence. The reader of this tome also gains the ability to cast silent image once a day, but only to robe themselves in finery.
6. Medallion of Thoughts. Can create the illusion of a hovering, dripping brain at will.

46 - Psychic Anchor. Cannot be moved via mage hand, telekinesis, or similar magic, and appears solid and fully colored in the ethereal plane.

1. Spell Scroll, 1st Level (Entangle). The plants conjured by this scroll are wispy and ethereal. Their restraint requires a Charisma saving throw to resist, and has no effect on constructs.
2. +2 Net. Woven from phase spider silk. Creatures with resistance to psychic damage have disadvantage on checks to escape from this net.
3. Figurine of Wondrous Power, Ivory Goats. These statues are carved from unknown ivory. The eyeless, bluish goats they conjure , in addition to the normal effects, are resistant to psychic damage and have blindsight 60'. They are at ease on the ethereal plane.
4. Potion of Climbing. Movement up and down on the ethereal plane doesn't cost extra while under the influence of this potion. Looks like liquid lead and is as heavy as such to psychic effects.
5. Potion of Healing. For as many rounds as HP regained by this thick, indigo potion, you gain advantage on any strength checks made to grapple while on the ethereal plane.
6. Rod of Absorption. Even when depleted, this warm lead rod can always absorb the telekinesis spell.

51 - Purring. Empathically communicates its want to be cradled and stroked. Emits a comforting sound when it is.

1. Marvelous Pigments. Anything painted from these pots will, despite any intent of the artist, contain a sweet little kitten. It's completely real and alive.
2. Lantern of Revealing. Wants to be hooded, and held close to the bearer's chest. Will jostle and wriggle when called to its task - actions to disarm the bearer of the wiggling lantern have advantage.
3. Potion of Invulnerability. Swirls and clambers in its bottle. Wants to be drunk. Feels amazing going down.
4. Staff of the Magi. Topped with a figure of a slumbering bear. When you sleep with the staff nearby, you know it's hungry for spells. Absorbing a spell grants temporary HP equal to the charges gained. This staff can't cast any overtly damaging spells, but can cast sleep (2 charges).
5. Spell Scroll, Cantrip (Druidcraft). This is just a very clever squirrel who can cast druidcraft once a week and understands a few words of Druidic.
6. Gloves of Missile Snaring. Once donned, create a pleasant, fuzzy sensation in the wearer when rubbed together. This quickly becomes a mild compulsion and the wearer tends to wring their hands when stressed.

52 - Shedding. Constantly dropping bits of fur, rust, scales, dust, or bark. Leaves a messy campsite.

1. Belt of Stone Giant Strength. If you left it alone for a week, it'd produce about a stoneweight of fine gravel. While worn, you at least have functionally infinite sling ammunition.
2. Lantern of Revealing. Works by throwing into sharp contrast the ephemera of the creatures in its light: footprints, breath, skin flecks, shed tears.
3. Rope of Climbing. Leaves an incredibly obvious trail of hemp fibers when used.
4. Medallion of Thoughts. You shed stray thoughts. The medallion works as normal, but you have disadvantage on saves against detect thoughts. Psychic creatures probably find you somewhat pathetic.
5. Instrument of the Bards, Canaith Mandolin. Drops stray notes everywhere. At the end of a rest, you can gather them up and cast a cure wounds (1st level) spell, but any musically inclined creature will have an easy time tracking you.
6. Sphere of Annihilation. Sheds tiny motes of nothingness. Doesn't increase its radius significantly, but looks menacing. Anyone who controls the sphere with an action can use a bonus action to make a ranged spell attack (range 10 x Int mod, d10 force damage).

53 - Smuggler's. A hidden interdimensional space the size of a belt pouch is accessible via a command word.

1. Crystal Ball of Mind Reading. The mundane-looking wooden hoop this ball rests on can be reached into to access a small extra-dimensional space.
2. Instrument of the Bards, Cli Lyre. Any of the walls produced by this instrument's magic have a single fist-sized opening visible and passable only by the caster.
3. Elixir of Health. You can dissolve a small item in this potion. If someone drinks it, the next time they're afflicted by any disease or poison they were suffering when the potion cured them, they'll immediately cough up the item.
4. Goggles of Night. Each eyepiece reaches into a separate extradimensional space, each about the size of a fist. They have separate command words, and can't be looked through while open. They will, however, open while worn, regardless of who speaks the word.
5. +1 Shield. There's a cabinet door on the inside of this wooden shield that opens to a small, shallow, shelved cabinet. It would hold a dozen potions or small jars easily, or a buckler if you wanted to rip the shelves out and keep a shield in a shield.
6. Belt of Cloud Giant Strength. This belt expands or contracts to fit its wearer by keeping 50' of leather in an extradimensional space in the buckle. It can be pulled out for various purposes as needed, and retracts like a tape measure, but not while being worn.

54 - Starry. Glints and glimmers. Its shadows and contours seem too deep, with hints of twinkling light within.

1. Spell Scroll, 1st Level (Bane). Cast from this scroll, the spell causes a dire constellation to appear briefly above the targets.
2. Spell Scroll, Cantrip (Druidcraft). This is a mote of starlight that hovers around the owner and can be doused to cast the druidcraft spell. It sheds dim light in a 1' diameter.
3. Helm of Comprehending Languages. While under the effects of this helm's spell, your eyes resemble black, starry pools, and your voice gains a cold timbre.
4. Potion of Climbing. This inky potion twinkles with shimmering specks. It lets you grab onto stars and climb through a clear night sky, but only while you hold your breath.
5. Chime of Opening. Made of a pale, opalescent metal which emits glimmering motes when struck. Its effects are not blocked by sound, but do require uninterrupted dim light to reach and affect their target.
6. Scimitar of Speed. Leaves really cool swaths of sparkling stars and dark sky behind its swings, like it's slicing the night into the world.

55 - Suspendable. Use an action to speak a command word which turns off all the item's abilities. This lasts for a minute, during which time the item does not radiate magic.

1. Figurine of Wondrous Power, Silver Raven. Suspending the figurine's magic also happens to turn it into an ordinary looking dead raven.
2. Spell Scroll, 3rd Level (Lightning Bolt). This scroll is a work of art in lapis lazuli pigments and gold leaf depicting a raging storm worth ten times its normal price. While suspended, the golden lightning fades and the scene calms.
3. Ring of Animal Influence. While this woven grass ring's magic is suspended, you have disadvantage on Charisma checks with animals. Its absence sucks your animal magnetism away.
4. Gem of Seeing. You can end the effect this gem's magic as a reaction. Which might be important, depending on what you accidentally just looked at.
5. Potion of Storm Giant Strength. Suspend this gelid potion's magic while it's active and you'll turn into an ice statue. You're effectively petrified, but require a DC 19 Strength (Athletics) check to move.
6. +1 Hide Armor. While the magic granting this armor's protection is suspended, so too is the magic preventing it from rotting. You'll water eyes an leave an unmissable scent trail for the duration.

56 - Tattoo. Use an action to transform the item into a life-sized tattoo representing it, or back into a real item.

1. Spell Scroll, 2nd Level (Alter Self). You can cast this scroll as a bonus action while it's in its tattoo form, but it's bound to one of the three options.
2. Cloak of Arachnida. While in a spider tattoo form, it will creep around your body trying to avoid detection. It'll try to hide from detect magic under your eyelid.
3. Figurine of Wondrous Power, Serpentine Owl. Rather than a tattoo, it becomes a great green strigine eye embedded in the forehead.
4. Horn of Valhalla, Bronze. Once per week, when this becomes an item after being a tattoo, a fatted goat comes with it. It's sleepy and blinking for a round then goes wild.
5. Bag of Tricks. Won't function until it's been etched on you. When you draw a ball out, it looks like a slack, boneless version of your head. The "animals" it summons are amalgams of your body parts.
6. Spell Scroll, Cantrip (Light). Vellum. Wraps itself around a tiny, held creature that can't resist. It glows like a torch until it dies. If you eat the scribed creature you'll puke up a fresh version of the scroll in a day or two.

61 - Thieves' Tools. Various odd protrusions are quickly realized to be functional thieves' tools.

1. Ioun Stone, Awareness. A tiny constellation of whirring blue threads and lenses. They can't be used as thieves' tools while in orbit. They give you advantage on saves against any traps triggered while using them as such, though.
2. Spell Scroll, Cantrip (True Strike). This ratty scroll is wrapped around an ordinary set of thieves' tools. If you pick a lock with them, you can cast the scroll (once) as a bonus action against the last person who locked the lock.
3. Boots of Levitation. While you're floating, you can spend an action to tease the laces out of these boots to act as squiggly thieves' tools. Putting them back in takes an action, too. Moving with unlaced boots reduces your speed by 10.
4. Spell Scroll, 8th Level (Mind Blank). Etched on the inside of a roll of fine thieves' tools. While the scroll is unused, anyone passing a trap or lock bypassed by the tools must pass a DC 15 Charisma saving throw to notice they've been sprung.
5. Staff of Fire. This flanged staff can also spend 1 charge to attempt to melt a lock. Make a spell attack roll against the DC thieves' tools would be required to pick it. On a success, the lock is bypassed, but very obviously ruined and cannot be relocked.
6. Rod of Absorption. The shaft of this rod is hollow and holds a set of thieves' tools. You can expend up to 5 levels of the rod's energy to get the same bonus to a check with those tools.

62 - Toothed. Rimmed with teeth of various species. Grates and grinds. If left alone with rations they always seem somewhat gnawed later.

1. Amulet of the Planes. A circle of teeth, whose center suggests a vague peristaltic pulse. If this portal would send you to a random plane, it instead sends you to The Gullet.
2. Oil of Slipperiness. Rattles when shaken. If a creature under the effects of freedom of movement from this oil escapes a grapple, the grappler takes d6 piercing damage. Same to anything that falls in the oil spilled by it.
3. Alchemy Jug. A eyeless skull with 10. Orifices. Uncomfortably round. Every quart of fluid it creates has a tooth in it.
4. Potion of Climbing. Rather than a potion, a tiny, grinning money skull full of spiders. That you eat.
5. Frost Brand. Carved from the jaw of a frost dragon, the extra damage it deals is piercing rather than frost. Also extremely evident it's a dragon jaw.
6. Boots of Levitation. Just a pair of flayed beholder larvae you're wearing like sandals.

63 - Trophy. Was crafted as a reward for a great competition. Bears the winner's name and the event's dates.

1. Spell Scroll, 3rd Level (Major Image). A law so momentous was passed that it embedded a memory of itself onto the court scribe's scroll. The spell can be cast from this scroll once per day without expending it to create a vision of that specific event. However it is cast, Intelligence checks to examine it have disadvantage, so long as the spell is recreating that court at that moment.
2. Helm of Brilliance. This looks new, but seems to have come from a land only referenced in children's' stories. The light it casts is tinged with green and gold, and the dedication is to a well-known folk hero. The opals cast sending instead of daylight, and their messages arrive as a nursery rhyme.
3. Crystal Ball of True Seeing. The final prize in a centuries-long trial between diviners to write the most perfect future. Similar to the philosopher's stone, it finally came into the possession only of the one who no longer needed it. It was etched with their name all along.
4. Spell Scroll, 7th Level (Conjure Celestial). A stone tablet etched with runes filled with gold. It dates back millennia, if anyone can even understand the archaic figures and ancient calendars referenced. The contest was for "the heart of the sun". This was granted to one of the judges.
5. Ioun Stone, Intellect. Only a decade or so old, this was awarded to a researcher who invented a new form of siege weapon. It wishes the bearer "future brilliance".
6. Spell Scroll, 1st Level (Bane). This certificate was a dummy prize, awarded to the last-place of a long-vanished village's seasonal games centuries past. Their shame and humiliation still soaks the parchment.

64 - Tuning. Use an action to strike the item and produce a single, specific note that can be heard clearly for 100 feet. The note continues for a minute or until another action is used to silence it.

1. Ring of Fire Elemental Command. This ring has a mote of sloshing magma set into a groove. While the ring's low note sounds, the magma orbits the ring at a slow pace, and small, nonmagical fires within 100' stream towards the wearer.
2. Mirror of Life Trapping. Each of the mirror's 12 cells corresponds to a note on a dissonant scale. The cell can be activated by playing that note. The creatures within the cells can also trigger the note, having it sound in any other cell, allowing a crude form of communication within the mirror.
3. Carpet of Flying. Fringed with tiny tinkling bells instead of tassels. It can't fly silently, but while its note is ringing the bells align, and the carpet glide on a wave of sound, increasing its speed by 10.
4. Wand of Lightning Bolts. The forked branch of a lightning-struck oak. Within the radius of its rumbling note, hair stands on end, dogs whine, and doorknobs and cutlery spark to the touch.
5. Potion of Hill Giant Strength. Ting the empty bottle of this potion with your fingernail to make any hill giant who can hear its piercing chime very, very angry.
6. Well of Many Worlds. Sensitive to the planar tuning forks older versions of the plane shift spell used. You can make a Charisma (Performance) check with the appropriate instrument to force the gate to open to the tuned plane.

65 - Twinned. Has a duplicate. Its bearer can use an action to learn the direction (but not the distance) to the twin.

1. Potion of Greater Healing. The twinning works on both the bearer of the potion and anyone who has been healed by in the past week. Also a powerful aphrodisiacal if both parties have imbibed.
2. Spell Scroll, 2nd Level (Flaming Sphere). One scroll summons a miniature sun. Its twin summons a miniature moon. The lunar version deals cold damage, and only sheds dim light in a 10-foot radius, but otherwise behaves the same.
3. +1 Arrows (20). Any of these arrows that retain their magic can be spun to point the way to the nearest of its set, even if the target's magic has been expended.
4. Potion of Healing. Drinking either causes the other to start to vibrate, regardless of the distance. If not consumed within a round after the vibrations start, it will explode for 2d4+2 piercing damage to all within 5 feet (DC 13 Dexterity saving throw for half).
5. Dwarven Thrower. Long ago owned by a pair of quarrelsome dwarven siblings. They are slightly intelligent magic items sworn to defeat giants, who will drive their bearers to greater and greater feats of one-upmanship to that end.
6. Spell Scroll, 7th Level (Divine Word). Each of these scrolls holds part of a divine chord. Effective by themselves, but if cast together (one caster triggers to the other) the hit point caps for all effects are doubled, and creatures that would be forced out of the plane have disadvantage on their saving throws.

66 - Verdant. Small living leaves sprout from the item, patches are woven of moss, or any wood is damp and sap-filled.

1. Animated Shield. A wooden shield. When activated it sprouts roots and branches to animate itself. It is fixed in place and will protect you or return to your hand only while you remain adjacent to it.
2. Figurine of Wondrous Power, Marble Elephant. Carved from ivory wood rather than a tusk. The elephant it becomes is a hollow wooden construct instead of a beast, with a hatch in its belly. Up to six medium creatures can fit inside, and the mouth slit lets one see outside with three-quarters cover. The elephant is vulnerable to fire damage.
3. Deck of Illusions. Printed on slips of bark. Any illusion summoned by one of the cards appears in a vegetable form, woven of vines instead of flesh, sprouting leaves instead of hair, bark instead of scales, and so on.
4. Spell Scroll, 1st Level (Hellish Rebuke). This spell is encoded in the the needle patterns of a prickly, potted cactus.
5. Robe of the Archmagi. Smells like generations of tobacco and soup. Loose bits of parchment poking out the sleeves and collar at all times. At the end of a long rest pull a random wizard scroll out. D6: 1-3, cantrip; 4-5, level 1; 6, level 2.
6. Spell Scroll, 2nd Level (Blur). A sash of rustling, varicolored autumn oak leaves with a bronze squirrel clasp.

20 Magic Beards

Method of Application

1. Hooks around the ears. Removable. Usually.
2. Pill or potion that grows the beard overnight.
3. Salve or oil that is rubbed into an existing beard, granting the effects immediately.
4. Enchanted mirror - gazing within reflects you with a magnificent beard, then shatters.
5. Attached to a mask that slightly limits perception.
6. Manual that prescribes esoteric diet and exercise. Growing the beard takes a month, but you know what you're getting into.

The Beards

1. Axed Beard - Long and oily, creeping up the face. Smells like yelling. Spend an action staring, screaming, and flexing, and a full on battle axe comes flying out like you'd thrown it wildly with two hands. After ricocheting around a bit it can be picked up and used like a normal battle axe but dissolves after an hour into fingernails, snail slime, and moans.
2. Beer Beard - Wispy about the mouth but long and full under the chin. Smells like hops. Once per day can be wrung out into d4 nourishing and highly intoxicating rations, which the wearer is as immune to as they'd like.
3. Bear Beard - Short and full and moustached. Smells like pine. The bearer of the bear beard is blessed in bouts of bare-knuckle brawling.
4. Deer Beard - Dozens of short antlers and prongs growing down from the chin and face. Smells like velvet. The wearer gets a short-sword like unarmed melee attack. Ungulates and many forest deities will see them as a threat to their virility.
5. Drear Beard - Insubstantial but heavy, climbs the face, and pulls the head down in idle moments. Smells like old wood. The wearer's personality becomes more dour, and they have advantage on saving throws to be frightened or charmed. They also have to pass a saving throw to enter states of heightened emotion like rage or heroism
6. Eerie Beard - Thin, wispy, and moves on its own - affects the eyebrows. Smells like your grandmother's shed. While the wearer holds their breath and shoves the beard into their mouth with both hands, they can see invisible and ethereal things.
7. Feared Beard - So black it's blue. Smells like cannon smoke. The wearer can become terribly present and intimidating in these scenarios, but they must do so in each before they can in another again: an intimate conversation; a battlefield; a council.
8. Geared Beard - Wires, sauter, steel wool, gears, and cogs - atwitch and clicking. Smells like machine oil. Works as a tinkerer's kit and can hold several small items within its coils. 
9. Missile Bristles - Literally a beard made of arrows and bolts, with arrowheads forming the moustache. Smells like flint. Bearer finds it hard to run out of ammunition. Once per day, shake them bristles to make an arrow attack against everything in swinging distance.
10. Queered Beard - Looks like whatever the bearer chooses each day. Smells like stardrops. The bearer is assured of who they are and has advantage on saving throws to be charmed or dominated.
11. Rubble Stubble - Rock climbs the bearer's face. Smells like dust. In addition to supplying nigh-infinite sling stones, this beard lets the bearer ruminate rocks as rations.
12. Seared Beard - Cinders and chars, extends to the head and body. Smells like burnt hair and flesh. The bearer cannot catch on fire but can easily choose to cause any held combustible to catch. Wild carnivores are more likely to follow their scent.
13. Sheared Beard (cursed) - SMOOTH. Smells like baby powder. This replaces any existing magic beards and prevents the bearer from either bearing a new one or growing a natural one. Some may not view this as a curse. It can only be removed by an experienced hirstutiomancer.
14. Smeared Beard - ?? Is that?? Are you? Smell? The face of the bearer (who?) becomes rough and forgettable in the minds of everyone who.. who... what?
15. Sphered Beard - Mathematically precise orb that follows the bearer's face on a short delay. Smells like pie. Once per day the bearer can turn the effect of a spell they cast into a sphere. Doing so destroys the beard, but it regrows while they sleep.
16. THE BEARD OF WORMS (cursed)  - Worms. Smells like worms. Is worms. This rare curse can only be bestowed by the Albatross Golem. Earthworms grow from the victim's face - they must be fed and tended like real earthworms, which usually means keeping your face buried in a bowl of dirt most of the day. If any die, they start to rot and stink and spread such infections to their host. Plucking them out is as about as pleasant as plucking out a fingernail, and they grow back much faster.
17. Thistle Bristles - A gnarl of weeds and thorns that clambers over the shoulders. Smells like late summer. The bearer is unappetizing and certainly unpleasant to grapple. They have extreme difficulty donning pullovers, however.
18. Weird Beard - Asymmetrical, but only after you've looked for a moment. Smells like apple leaf mold and leather and eggs. The bearer begins to favor outcasts and such more. Once per day, they may use an action while glaring at a target within close range and stroking the beard poignantly with one hand to (roll a d6):
1. Conjure a placebo flamingo into the target's space. This is an angry pink bird that will bluster around trying to fly away. If, however, it's caught and rubbed against someone who can by whatever means be convinced they're drinking a healing potion rather than being assaulted by an ornery bird, it will heal as a healing potion.
2. A fuzzy kitten appears in the target's space. They can't move past it, but they can move around it.
3. A sparrow of slaying builds a nest in the beard. If you don't shave or wash much for a month, it will lay an egg. Smear that egg over a missile weapon to make it a slaying weapon versus the stared creature's type. Or raise it up and see what happens!
4. The hairs of the beard weave themselves into 3 mawths. Each has the stats of a raven with moth wings and a rough, hairy approximation of the targeted creature's face and voice and a huge mouth. They hate you but they hate the targeted creature slightly more.
5. The hairs of the beard weave themselves into a convincing mask of the observed. It's permanent until you shave.
6. All the target's gold becomes hairy and heavy and woven together and awkward. It'll burn off in a fire, but it's basically impossible to pickpocket them.
19. Whistle Bristles - Like a bamboo wind chime dangling from your chin. Smells fresh and green. The bearer can accompany themselves on wind instruments, and always has a moment's worth of fresh air stored within their singing beard. They can spend their turn to make a saving throw to turn wind magic back on its caster. None of this works if they're prone or underwater.
20. Zyrd's Beard - A slab of dark wood carved in the shape of a luxurious beard. Smells like citrus and grain alcohol. Last remnant of a dwarven wizard gourmand, this inflexible beard readily floats to obscure any workings of the jaw (including speech). At will it will produce a small, sharply scented napkin from its mouth which can be used to clean the hands, lips, or whatever, to great efficacy.   

 

Some 5e "NOPE" spells

 Idle thought given too much time, but counterspells could be nicely handled by lower-level spells that cancel out their effects, and are only circumstantially useful the rest of the time. Here are some low-level ones.

Lead-Line

1st-level conjuration (ritual)
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: Touch
Components: SM (a pinch of lead dust)
Duration: 24 hours

An item that fits in a 5' cube, or suit of human-sized armor, becomes lined in a thin layer of lead, enough to block many divination spells.

Armor gets +1 AC, and is considered heavy armor. It gets +2 to its Strength requirement, or acquires a Strength requirement of 13 if it didn't have one.

Tracer Missile

Evocation Cantrip
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: 180 feet
Components: VS
Duration: Instantaneous

A glowing, pulsing dart of magical force streaks towards a creature within range. Make a ranged spell attack against the target. On a hit, the target takes 1d4+1 force damage, and the next magic missile spell that targets the target uses the tracer missile's range and ignores any effects of the shield spell.

This spell's range increases by 30' when you reach 5th level (210'), 11th level (240'), and 17th level (270').

Swallow Lie

Enchantment cantrip
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: Touch
Components: VSM
Duration: 1 hour

You touch the mouth of a willing creature and speak a phrase of up to 10 words, which it then swallows. Until the spell ends, the target can reply to any question with the swallowed phrase - doing so doesn't count as a lie to magic which detects such, if it was spoken outside its effect.

A human-sized target can only swallow one lie at a time, and can't eat while it has one swallowed.

Perilous Path

1st-level divination
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: Self
Components: VS
Duration: 8 hours

You and any party you travel with suffer a significant penalty to random encounter rolls for the spell's duration.

If you are trying to follow the path of someone trying to evade you, they rise to the top of your random encounter roll.

Vigilance

1st-level abjuration
Casting Time: 1 action (ritual)
Range: 30 feet
Components: VSM (a burning feather)
Duration: 8 hours

Any number of creatures you choose within range (including yourself) gain advantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks if standing watch for an hour or more. In addition, they have advantage on saving throws against spells or effects that would put them to sleep, and their HP counts as double when determining the effects of sleep spells.

Ghoul-Brained

1st-level necromancy
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: 30 feet
Components: VS
Duration: Concentration

You and up to two other creatures you can see within range become immune to paralysis. Affected creatures' natural attacks deal an extra d4 damage against living creatures.

Casting this spell at higher levels: Another target for each spell level.

Undead and constructs are not affected by this spell.

5th Edition Pit Fights

Some quick rules for a one-on-one pit fight tournament.

During a Bout

• One-on-one. No weapons. No armor. No magic.
• You lose if you leave the ring, submit, or fall to 0 HP.
• Unarmed strikes deal half your largest hit die as a damage die. (Barbarians deal d6; wizards, d3).
• Grappling is fine.
• Roll initiative each round.
• On the first turn, and the turn after neither fighter takes damage in a turn, each can do one of these actions. (Roll initiative normally during these turns.)
• Call to the crowd - Any Charisma check. DC 15 - the bout number. Succeed, get d6 temporary HP.  (Both you and your opponent can succeed. You "know" how many temp HP the other got.)
• Circle - Dexterity (Acrobatics), DC 10 + your opponent's HD. If you succeed, advantage on your next attack, or disadvantage on their next attack. If both succeed, cancel out.
• Rally - Spend a Hit Die (plus Con modifier).
• Rush - Attack anyway, and your opponent makes checks for these other actions with disadvantage. (Generally considered unsporting.)
  
• Size up - Wisdom (Insight), DC 10 + your opponent's HD. Succeed, get a d4 you can use add to or subtract from a roll (yours or theirs) after it is made (d20 or damage).

Between Bouts

• Entry stake is 50 GP. Basic brackets. (There are lots of bracket-making tools online.)
  
• Your pot doubles for every bout you win, and you lose it all if you lose. You can quit before you know your opponent to keep your current pot.
• There's opportunity for a short rest.
• If anyone forgoes a short rest to get drunk, in the next bout they have disadvantage on initiative checks, but start with d6 temporary HP.
• The DM rolls any NPC's HD at the start of each bout. Each that comes up lower than the bout number is expended.
  

Pit Fighters

Some opponents for the PCs (current players, spoilers if you click that):

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11n5a8wVdU28uvWuV_R7nf1PkOBsmtGHXKAjF4FPoTUM/edit?usp=sharing

Generating some ghost towns

This post on Elfmaids & Octopi was perfect for an upcoming Gothic game. I was able to quickly generate a couple of abandoned villages to add to the hex map. There was one bit of method that I added which might be useful, though.

After rolling up the number of buildings and any extra features, I grabbed that many d6s plus some other shapes for the features. Dropping them all onto a piece of paper, I then traced them, but didn't hold them down. As the pencil moved them a bit some nice organic/ruined shapes appeared, plus a door naturally suggested itself wherever the lines didn't match back up properly.

Recording the number on the die also notes the building's condition based on the second table.

I took some photos of the process the second time around. It made a perfectly serviceable creepy little hamlet with a single, well-telegraphed encounter (a screaming wight).

Five buildings and a graveyard (d12).

Traced and numbered.

Noting the other effects of the tables, and generated a name. 

The two houses flanking the graveyard were "Hidden crumbling ruins are overgrown with trees and creepers", so added some trees.

The cursed item is going to be a weirdly heavy and still-warm dead owl that drags down encounter table results.

Here's one more larger village that was generated the same way, but I didn't take photos. The generated name, Kilocthwaite, lined up really well with the existing features. Added the water, docks, and well afterwards just based on the position of the buildings.

This has a cannibal, Lucy Gaur, living in the distant southern house, probably aware of the dangers in the village proper. Some wild dogs have moved into the open smithy but are only there to sleep during the day, and hunt the woods around at night.

At night the toad-creature in the well emerges and creeps about town - this is the vengeance sent by the gods of the murdered woodwoses displaced by the village. What appears as draped spider webs everywhere is really its dried slime. (I'll probably just use a red slaad for stats.)

Anyway each of these took less than 10 minutes!

Settlement name and landmarks generator

This is a trimmed down and gamified version of the Wikipedia List of generic forms in place names in Ireland and the United Kingdom. It can generate names of towns and settlements while also suggesting their major landmarks. I'm using this to generate the names of the hamlets for a hexcrawl.

Roll d66 for prefix, root, and suffix. Many real names just use two of these, some even dropping the root and becoming just the prefix and suffix together. Munge as needed.

A couple examples!
41 + 13 + 31 = (king) + (axe, exe, usk, esk) + (field). Eskfield. A river flows through a forest clearing.
35 + 46 + 52 = (kil, Cil) + (knock, cnwc) + (stead). Kilnockstead. An old church perched on a rocky hill with an enclosed pasture nearby.

d66	Prefix	Meaning	Root	Meaning	Suffix	Meaning
11	aber	a meeting of waters	afon, avon	river	-hay, -hays, -hayes	enclosed by a hedge
12	auch(en)/(in)-, ach	field	ar, ard	high, height	ay, y, ey	island
13	auchter-	height, top of something	axe, exe, usk, esk	river	bost	farm
14	bal, balla, bally, ball	mouth, approach	beck, bach	stream	bury, borough, brough, burgh	fortified enclosure
15	brad	broad	berg, berry	hill (cf. 'iceberg')	by, bie	village
16	bre	hill	cheap, chipping	market	carden	thicket
21	caer, car	camp, fortification	coed	wood, forest	caster, chester, cester, ceter	camp, fortification
22	cul	narrow	combe, coombe	valley	cot, cott	cottage
23	cwm, cum	valley	Craig, crag, creag	a jutting rock	dale, dean, den, dene, don	valley
24	dal	low-lying area by river	ey, ea, eg, eig	island	thorp, thorpe	secondary settlement
25	din, dinas	fort	firth	fjord, inlet	don, den	hill, down
26	dol	meadow	ford, forth	ford, crossing, road	dubh, dow, dhu, duff	black
31	drum	ridge	foss, force	waterfall	field	open land, a forest clearing
32	dun, dum, don, doune	fort	gar(t)	enclosed field	firth, frith, fridd	refuge
33	fin	holy	gill, ghyll	ravine, narrow gully	ham	farm, homestead
34	inver, inner	a meeting of waters	glen, glyn	narrow valley, dale	gowt	Water outfall, sluice, drain
35	kil, Cil	old church	hithe, hythe	wharf	ing	small stream
36	kin	head	holm	holly, island	keth, cheth	wood
41	king	leader	hope	valley, enclosed area	lea, ley, leigh	woodland clearing
42	kyle, kyles	narrows	howe	mound, hill, knoll	mouth	bay
43	lan, lhan, llan	church	hurst, hirst	wooded hill	ness	promontory, headland
44	lang	long	inch	Island, dry area in marsh.	pool	harbour
45	lin, llyn, Lynn	lake	kirk	church	port	port, harbour
46	ling, lyng	heather	knock, cnwc	hill, rocky hillock	rigg, rig	ridge
51	mynydd	mountain	loch, lough	lake, a sea inlet	shaw	a thicket
52	nan, nans	valley	lyn, lynn, lin	lake, pond	stead	enclosed pasture
53	nant	ravine	magna	great	ster	farm
54	pen	far end of, end of	mere	lake, pool	thwaite, twatt	a forest clearing
55	pit	portion, share, farm	minster	large church, monastery	toft	homestead
56	pol, pwll	pool or lake	moss	swamp, bog	wick	bay
61	pont	bridge	stow	(holy) place (of assembly)	wick, wich, wych, wyke	settlement
62	porth	harbour	swin	pigs, swine	worth, worthy, wardine	enclosure
63	shep, ship	sheep	tarn	lake	law, low	rounded hill
64	stan	stone, stony	treath, traeth	beach	keld	spring
65	strath	wide valley, vale	weald, wold	high woodland	tun, ton	estate
66	tilly, tullie, tulloch	hillock	ynys	Island	gate	road