DREAMS of a Crown, Part 3: Princes (part 1)

Part 3 of my continuing hackage of Renegade Crowns. This time: The Princes (part 1). This part will cover the basic stuff of the prince and their realm. The Princes (part 2) will have a bunch of tables for generating more details about the prince. The Princes (part 3) will cover relationships between princes.

Okay, now we start actually generating princes, who are the actually interesting part of this. This is also where I've started to diverge more overtly from the base rules in Renegade Crowns. One of my personal pet peeves in a lot of generation sets is that the results aren't often very applicable at the table or communicable to the player. Stuff should be gameable, should be levers that the players can pull to make things happen.

Also I added some extra tables for standards and aesthetic that were fun to write just for their own sake.

Oh, also also. Some of the tables have two different rolls you can make on them. One option has a curve or asymmetrical spread. The other option is a flat spread. The first one is based on my gut feeling for how frequent or prevalent some results should be. Use the other if you dgaf about that. You'll probably end up with more interesting results, honestly.

If you need to know the pronouns and age of a character, use these:

Pronouns
d8      d6
1-3    1-2    She/her
4-6    3-4    He/him
7-8    5-6    They/them

Age
2d6    d6
  2       1    Late teens (16+d4)
3-4      2    Twenties (20+d8)
5-6      3    Thirties (30+d8)
7-8      4    Forties (40+d8)
9-10    5    Fifties (50+d8)
11-12  6    Old (60+d20)

The Princes

First step: how many princes? Pick one of these options based on plans or gut feel. Or choose one randomly?

• d10 princes
• 2d4 princes
• 6 princes

At the end of the process you can always add more in if you feel there's gaps that should be filled or you've got a cool idea or w/e.

Type of Prince

Figure out the Prince's archetype. Roll a d20+d4.

1-2 Outlaw (1 Bandit, 2 Noble Robber, 3 Revolutionary, 4 Exile)

3-4 Chieftain (1 Elder, 2 Oracle, 3 Warleader, 4 Chosen One) 

5-6 Lord (1 Heir, 2 Usurper, 3 Acclaimed, 4 Regent)

7-8 Knight (1 Warlord, 2 Sworn Knight, 3 Peasant General, 4 Crusader)

9-10 Priest (1 Bishop, 2 Abbot, 3 Cult Leader, 4 Saint)

11-12 Wizard (1 Ivory Tower, 2 God-King, 3 Archdruid, 4 Mad Scientist)

13-14 Merchant (1 Oligarch, 2 Landlord, 3 Gangster, 4 Caravaneer)

15-16 Mercenary (1 General, 2 Peasant, 3 Renegade, 4 Sergeant)

17-18 Adventurer (1 Fighter, 2 Rogue, 3 Cleric, 4 Magic-User)

19 Monster (1 Rakshasa, 2 Construct, 3 Medusa, 4 Sphinx)

20 Free State (1 Democratic, 2 League, 3 Post-Revolution, 4 Communist)

Outlaws are princes who built their power base outside the law or society. Their hold on power is likely to be based on personal charisma and direct force, and they do not present as a legitimate authority. Given time, and assuming they survive, they will likely become one of the other archetypes. Outlaw courts are rougher and more openly antagonistic than others, as the courtiers jockey for position and influence, and still behave in ways more appropriate to their former ways.

• Bandits were outright criminals, violent and lawless. They likely still behave like a gang boss.
• Noble Robbers were criminals with a cause, or the very least a code. Robin Hood, Kuni Garu, etc. Likely to be popular with the people, but may not be any better at administration than a Bandit.
• Revolutionary. This is an individual who let a revolution or uprising against the previous prince. Like the other Outlaws, this Prince's hold on power is still tenuous and directly applied.
• Exile. This prince was once exiled from their home realm (whether this one or another) with a band of followers and has since taken over or created this princedom.

Chieftains are the leaders of a group related by family or culture. Might be a large clan, part of an entire culture in migration, a people driven from their original home, or the like. Personal charisma and fitness are important to maintaining position for a Chieftain, but they are also supported by tradition and familiar bonds. Consensus and broad agreement are likely important to these leaders.

• Elder. A respected, uh, elder. Someone with age and experience. May not be literally the oldest, but definitely old and respected. May come from a significant family, or may be elected/nominated.
• Oracle. A person whose oracle powers of insight and foresight have been upheld as good leadership. This might be a generational manifestation, a specific occupation, or an individual granted power by acclaim.
• Warleader. This person has been placed in charge specifically for their ability to triumph in armed conflict. This may be a permanent appointment, or until the resolution of a specific crisis.
• Chosen One. Leadership was conferred on this prince because of destiny or prophecy or divine intervention. Such things rarely confer any actual skill at ruling, but they can make one popular... for a while.

A Lord is a prince whose power is autocratic and not dependent on the consent of the ruled and are focused on rulership. This includes traditional feudalistic princes. These princes tend to assume the trappings of a 'real' court, and act as though they are a prince (or king, or emperor) of more than just a handful of towns and poor farms.

• Heir. This prince inherited their position from the previous prince, by birth, adoption, or marriage. This is highly unusual (a prince's holdings rarely last past their death), and the prince is either exceptional enough to have kept power through the transition or in very precarious position.
• Usurper. This prince took the throne from the previous prince by force or guile, but kept the power structure around them mostly the same. They almost certainly have enemies loyal to the previous prince, and courtiers who believe the usurper's survival is tied to their own.
• Acclaimed. This prince was actually chosen by the people of the area, likely for doing something heroic like killing a dragon or the previous prince. Power has almost certainly gone to their head.
• Regent. This prince isn't actually a prince. Instead they are holding power in the stead of another - an absent prince, an underaged heir, etc. Just about everyone will assume they are using the regency as a way to take power, and they probably are.

A Knight is a prince who wields power as a military leader and to military ends. Their courts and a government tend to be organized along military lines. They may have come to power by conquest, coup, or even by request of the ruled - in a land of chaos, an iron fist may bring peace of mind. At least for a while.

• A Warlord is a conqueror. A former military officer who has claimed land for themselves as a military governor, perhaps after being disgraced or banished. Runs their princedom in military fashion and with military justice. Courtiers are officers, with increasingly grandiose titles.
• A Sworn Knight has a code of chivalry and conduct they adhere to (in name more likely than in practice). Combines the military dictatorship of a Warlord with the superiority complex of a Lord.
• A Peasant General was once a commoner, who formed an army out of other commoners and lead it to conquest. Now they are stuck between the worlds of commoner and ruler. Their courts are likely to be chaotic, and the prince themselves ill-at-ease with being a noble.
• The only thing less cooperative than a Knight is a Knight with religion. That's the Crusader, a military leader backed by fanaticism and usually a complete absence of critical thinking skills.

Priest. This leader is a religious figure, and derives their power from that status. How willing they are to treat with nonbelievers varies, but attaining any sort of status in the court or realm of all but the most tolerant of such leaders is impossible if you're a heathen.

• Bishop. This Prince wields both secular and religious power, being based at a central church or temple (usually a big expensive one) and holding temporal control over their lands. Church and state as one.
• Abbot. An Abbot is the leader of a monastic order. Their princedom may be the lands held by that order, or they may have taken the lay people under their protection.
• Cult Leader. This Prince is regarded as next to divine, and is the centre of a specific cult or sect. Their court and realm is likely disorganized and runs more on personal charisma and intimidation as anything else.
• Saint. This Prince is actually divine, or considered a messenger thereof. Devotion to this Prince is likely to be quite sincere, or at least a recognition of which way the wind is blowing.

Wizard. A powerful spellcaster could be a good Prince as they tend to be studious, experienced, and dangerous enough to scare off most threats. This is somewhat outweighed by the fact that wizards are, as a rule, bent as fuck.

• Ivory Tower. It may be difficult to tell if this wizard is actually aware they are a Prince, as they spend all their time in their wizard lair doing wizardy things. Their "subjects" may be simply pay the wizard for protection and "foreign affairs", or the wizard might have representatives that do the day-to-day governing for them.
• God-King. This wizard is extremely aware that they are a Prince and is planning on making everyone else aware of it, too. Magical megalomania is the word of the day, with probably a dash of personal cult mixed in.
• Archdruid. This wizard is actually a druid. Their domain is likely to be aggressively wilderness'd, and the subjects living in harmony of said nature, or in thrall to it. Strong possibility that courtiers are awakened animals/plants.
• Mad Scientist. A catch-all term for necromancers, golemists, mutators, hybridizers, and various other sorts of "I'm going to bend the laws of nature now, they'll see THEY'LL ALL SEE" mad cackling type wizard. The populace are probably cowed into submission for now, but the weather is always cloud with a chance of pitchforks and torches.

Merchant. Princes whose power derives from gold and treasure. They don't bring knives to a gun fight, they're selling them. Merchant princes tend to be more organized than other sorts, as business demands hierarchy and good record keeping, but they are just as prone to corruption and venality.

• Oligarch. This Prince is in power literally just because they are the richest bastard around. People want, need their money, and that gives them power. Plus they probably hire mercenaries.
• Landlord. This Prince is in power because they own all the land the people live on, and demand rents. There is a zero percent chance they came to own all that land in a benign or legitimate fashion.
• Gangster. This Prince is a straight-up mafioso. They rule through fear, instilled 'family' loyalty, graft, and grants of 'protection'.
• Caravaneer. This Prince built a trading empire, and conveyed that influence and wealth into temporal power. It may not even have been intentional. Caravans need protecting, which requires strong walls and sharp swords, and people look kindly on people who have them.

Mercenary. This Prince was once a soldier for hire. Assuming they don't become brutal tyrants (which is most of the time) a Mercenary prince can have success in these lands as they combine military prowess with organization and business sense.

• General. This Prince was head of their own mercenary army, an army they used to secure their princedom. They may have marched into these lands to take a princedom, turned on an employer, or simply wanted to be their own boss.
• Peasant. When common folk start defending themselves, or get driven from their homes, becoming sellswords might be preferable to becoming bandits. This prince is probably much more rough around the edges than a General.
• Renegade. This Prince was once a notable commander in a nation's army, before striking off on their own. They might have left for ambition, been banished, gotten cut off from the main army.
• Sergeant. This Prince was never a proper officer nor a nob, but a sergeant (or centurion, or whatever is setting appropriate). Their organizational and motivational skills will probably be good, if they haven't turned into a tin-pot tyrant, but their sense of the big picture may be lacking.

Adventurer. A wandering fighter or thief, who gets a crown through personal daring and sheer bloody luck. You know the type. Their court is likely a mix of old adventuring buddies and henchfolk with whatever civilian experts were still around to handle the boring, non-adventure-y stuff. This type of Prince tends to solve problems personally, directly, and in as few steps as possible.

• Fighter. The classic underclad, overmuscled type with a big sword and a short temper.
• Rogue. They definitely killed someone to get that crown. That or backed up a wagonload of gold to buy it.
• Cleric. The difference between this Prince and a Bishop or Abbot is likely to be the personal interaction. Clerics are used to laying on hand themselves.
• Magic-User. As with Clerics, Magic-User princes differ from Wizard Princes in that they still do things themselves, and haven't yet gone full wizard.

Monster. Okay, look, you can totally do sexy vampire or sexy lich or whatever. I just wanted to present a couple other options, too.

• Rakshasa. Look, who doesn't love a revere-handed tiger demon with a penchant for disproportionate revenge? The real question is whether the rakshasa is masquerading as someone else (if so roll another prince to see what their disguise is), or doing so openly.
• Construct.  An advanced construct is the nominal prince of this domain. This might be a hyper-intelligent computer (able to be talked to death at your discretion), a brain-in-a-jar situation, or a proper construction. Roll again to see the fate of the creator: 1-Overthrown. 2-Dead and nobody knows. 3-Still around, retired or hidden. 4-Dead and everybody except the construct knows, the locals just think it's doing a good job.
• Medusa. Sure she's got a lot of exotic statuary, but you can say she doesn't have an eye for the job. Plus she's probably gotten good at this what with the immortality.
• Sphinx. Wise, powerful, long-lived, not to be fucked with. All good traits for a ruler. Dinner conversation can be a bit tricky, though.

Free State. This Princedom has decided to do away with Princes all together. Good for them.

• Democratic. This domain has elected leaders. Franchise might be universal, restricted to social class, bought, or some other arbitrary restriction. Roll again: 1-Single leader, short terms. 2-Single leader, for life. 3-Group, short term. 4-Group, for life.
• League. This domain is actually a union of several smaller domains (typically towns and their outlying villages). One town likely has preeminence, but the leadership is at least on paper a matter of consensus of all the member towns.
• Post-Revolution. This domain has only recently thrown off the shackles of a landed lordship, and things are still a bit chaotic. Leadership is probably a provisional council of the rebellion's leadership until things settle down a bit and they can figure out what the new government should look like.
• Communist. This domain has gone full communist. Good for them.

Princely Ends and Means

Okay so we know the very basics of this Prince. But what do they want, and how do they go about getting it?

Goal (d6)

1. Consolidate Power. This prince wants to tighten their grip on what they already have. Strengthen the borders, ensure loyalty, deepen the treasury. That sort of thing.
2. Be Remembered. This prince wants their name to echo in eternity, and is probably going to do all manner of unsavoury things in the present to make it happen. Expect monuments. This sort love monuments.
3. Luxury and Vice. This prince just wants to indulge the flesh, to experience the now, to soak in all the perks of privilege and power.
4. Conqueror. This prince has dreams of empire, and seeks to expand their holdings by any means (but mostly violent ones).
5. Dynasty. This prince is focused on founding a dynasty - having and/or adopting children (or creating them, in some cases) who will carry on a family legacy. Ensuring that said children are also in a position to inherit power is also a major concern.
6. Prosperity. This prince wants to enrich their domain, not just for themselves but for every (but also definitely for themselves). Trade, industry, tribute, outright theft, these are all good options.

Methods (d6)

1. Might Makes Right. This prince freely wields direct power, both personally and militarily, to get what they want. They are likely to judge threats and allies alike by the power they project.
2. Consent of the People. This prince rules with an eye to pleasing the people and caring for their needs. At least in public. There's a decent chance it's an elaborate cover.
3. Skullduggery. This prince gets what they want with poison and plots, malice and manipulation.
4. Diplomat. This prince believes the pen is mightier than the sword, and will attempt to resolve things with negotiation and treaty before resorting to more base tactics.
5. Money Talks. This prince gets what they want by buying it.
6. Deus Vult. This prince's only concern is the will of the gods, the glorification of their own religion, and probably the destruction of everyone else's.

DREAMS of a Crown Part 2: Major Ruins

Part 2 of my continuing hackage of Renegade Crowns. This time: Major Ruins.

Major Ruins are significant dungeons or other ruins that have the potential to have a wide impact on the world around them. They might not be the biggest or baddest dungeon in the region, but something inside them can do a lot more than eat adventurers.

Major Ruins have an Origin, which is who and when it was built. Inside them is a Menace, whatever evil power could threaten the world if it got out. There's a Status, which speaks to what the Menace is doing right now. There's the Purpose, which is the original, well, purpose of this Ruin. And there's the Reason for Ruination. I feel like that one's self-explanatory.

PART TWO: MAJOR RUINS

There are d10 ruins per GIGAHEX. For each one, roll on the tables below to figure out what it is and what's going on. If you've got favourite megadungeons, you could use those instead.

MAJOR RUIN ORIGIN (d6)

1. Pre-Apocalyptic Human. Like buried malls, and fallout shelters, and missile silos, and megachurches.
2. Ancient. d4: 1-2 Neolithic Human. 3 - Cyclopean. 4 - Fairy.
3. Outsider. d4: 1 - Weird Magitech. 2 - Gonzo Underworld. 3 - Demonic. 4 - Alien.
4. Druidic humans.
5. Imperial humans.
6. Recent human.

MENACE (d6)

1. Plague. d6: 1 - Natural. 2 - Techno-Engineered. 3 - Alien. 4 - Eldritch. 5 - Mutagen. 6 - Intelligence.
2. Lair. d6: 1 - Dragon. 2 - Monstrosity. 3 - Intelligence. 4 - Undead. 5 - Demon. 6 - Fairy.
3. Weapon. d4: 1 - Construct. 2 - Destroyer. 3 - Wielded. 4 - Materiel.
4. Sleeper. d6: 1 - Elder Thing. 2 - Undead. 3 - Intelligence. 4 - Outsider. 5 - Cryo. 6 - Alien.
5. Army. d6: 1 - Swarm. 2 - Horde. 3 - Praetorians. 4 - Cursed. 5 - Outsider. 6 - Revival.
6. Portal. d6: 1 - Hell. 2 - Space. 3 - Dimension X. 4 - Far Past. 5 - Fast Travel. 6 - Roll twice.

STATUS (d8)

                        Plague    Lair    Weapon    Sleeper    Army    Portal

Contained         1-6         1           1-3           1-4          1-5        1-4

Passive              -            2-4        4-6           5-6          6-7        5-6

Threatening      7-8         5-6         7               -              8         7-8

Scheming.         -            7-8         8             7-8            -            -

PURPOSE (d10)

                     Pre-Apoc    Ancient    Outsider    Druidic    Imperial    Recent

Fortress           1-3              1-3            1-2           1-3             1               1-2

Outpost           4-5                -              3-5             4             2-3             3-5

Settlement       6-7               4               -                -               4                 6

Temple            8-9              5-7            5-8           5-7           5-7              7-9 

Tomb                10             8-10          9-10         8-10         8-10              10

REASON FOR RUINATION (d8)

1. Internal Conflict
2. Disappearances/Abductions
3. Famine
4. Magic
5. Attack
6. Natural Disaster
7. Plague
8. Abandoned

Ruin Origins

Pre-Apocalyptic Human

The buried remains of human civilization before the bombs fell, the comet hit, the Elder Things awoke, or whatever poorly defined and incomprehensible calamity befell. Loot from modern location maps, video games, or whatever. The contents of these places should be recognizable to the players, but not the PCs.

Ancient

Pre-historic remnants.  

• Neolithic are human. The ruins are likely to be little more than empty rock walls and simple construction. 
• Cyclopean are built by giants, huge block construction and oversized buildings. 
• Fairy is, well, stuff built by faeries when they were still common and slightly less asshole-ish.

Outsider

This is stuff constructed by minds beyond the understand of PCs and maybe players as well. 

• Weird Magitech is left behind by forgotten, advanced civilizations. Deep Carbon Observatory, for example.
• Gonzo Underworld. The weird and wacky that lives under the world. Giant talking centipedes and ray-gun wielding cockroaches and frothing cultists sacrificing to albino fish-gods.
• Demonic. Temples dedicated to the powers of great evil, hellish incursions into our realm, junk like that.
• Alien. This might be fantasy alien, like tentacle-faced brain eaters that travel space in nautiloid ships, or, like alien aliens with saucers and probing. Or, uh. those other aliens with the bursting of chests.

Druidic

The original inhabitants of this land. A druidic, clannish Bronze Age people with heroes and gods and sweet tattoos. They built stone circles and hill forts and raided cattle.

Imperial

Some bunch of jerks followed a bigger jerk and conquered the known world into one big empire. The head jerk died, but the empire stuck around for several centuries and did a decent job of making everyone talk and worship like them. Until they couldn't any more, and collapsed into chaos.

Recent Human

The last hundred years or so. Imperials who stuck around after the empire collapsed and have been creating a new identity. Outsiders who came to settle and took up the empire's god for their own. The remaining druidic people, though they've mostly taken up the imperial god, too. Newer invaders, the ones who come from a land of ice and snow and hotsprings and are quite happy with their own gods, thanks.

Menaces

These are the big scary things lurking in the ruins, waiting for dumbass adventurers to come and let them loose.

Plague

A virus or other pandemic-level infectious threat.

• Natural. Just a regular ol' plague. It might have magical interactions, but it's natural in nature. There may be a known cure for it, or at least a way of containing it.
• Techno-Engineered. Either a relic of pre-apocalyptic technology, or magitech. This might be a bio-weapon, a retrovirus that converts the infected into rage zombies, or something else. Point is, it was created by someone to do something specific and that creator likely had some form of controlling it.
• Alien. This plague is extra-terrestrial in origin. It might render the infected down to their composite goo, convert them into the alien lifeform, or mind-control them into constructing a portal. The protomolecule from The Expanse, or the weird sperm stuff from Prometheus.
• Eldritch. A plague of madness and cosmic horror. Annihilation or Color Out of Space. Yes I know both of those are technically alien but they've got the Eldritch vibe.
• Mutagen. Mutates the infected into something else. This might be intended as a beneficial change, like turning them into 10-foot-tall super-muscled green dudes - or it might just be a zombie virus. The FEV virus from Fallout, or the T-virus from Resident Evil.
• Intelligence. This virus is alive, and it thinks. It might be an artificial intelligence, like a computer virus that's gained sentience and learned to infect more than just silicon, or a living spell, or an alien lifeform. Unlike the others, it has wants and can reason.

Lair

This ruin is something's home, and that something may have plans of its own.

• Dragon. It's a dragon. You know the drill.
• Monstrosity. This is some horrible, gribbly monster. It might not be as intelligent or scheming as a dragon, but it can and will wreak terrible destruction if provoked and/or freed.
• Intelligence. Some form of disembodied intelligence. An artificial intelligence that has survived the long millennia since it was first programmed, an alien life-form, a living spell, etc.
• Undead. Lich, vampire, mummy lord, wight king, etc.
• Demon. A thing from hell, manifest in our world. It might have been trapped or imprisoned here, summoned as guardian, caught by wards, or trying to kick-start a wider demonic incursion.
• Fairy. A power sidhe resident in the mortal realms. Maybe a prisoner, maybe an exile, or a recluse. Maybe an infiltrator. Or maybe all of the above. Hard to tell with fairies.

Weapon

Something that can cause havoc, but not on its own.

• Construct. A war machine with some level of autonomous function. A war-golem. A battlemech. A magic hybrid-beast. An unthinking entity that may or may not respond to new masters.
• Destroyer. This weapon can cause destruction on an unheard of level. An unexploded atom bomb. A world-cracking spell. A captured black hole.
• Wielded. This weapon must be picked up and used. Excalibur, the One Ring, a really really big gun. May or may not be intelligent.
• Materiel. This is not a single weapon, but all the gear needed to equip an army. A pre-apocalyptic army depot, the collected arms and armour of a thousand conquered armies, twelves cases of rayguns.

Sleeper

A powerful entity of uncertain motives that is currently asleep, in stasis, or otherwise not-dead-but-dreaming.

• Elder Thing. Great Cthulhu. The Kraken. An immensely powerful, ancient, and probably deeply hostile life-form that has spent eons in slumber.
• Undead. Much like the Undead listed in Lair, but asleep. The mummy lord is still in his sarcophagus. The lich has been astral projected for twelve centuries. Somebody dusted the vampire queen, and her ashes are just waiting for that single drop of blood.
• Intelligence. Push that big red button and Skynet turns back on. Tap the crystal and the unknowable frequency entity will wake.
• Outsider. An entity from another plane is held here. An angel, a demon, an incomprehensible thing of pure chaos. Good luck telling the difference before you wake it up.
• Cryo. Someone's been frozen. Survivors of global war, waiting out the nuclear winter. Psychic dinosaurs caught in sudden ice age. A shape-shifting alien crashed into a glacier.
• Alien. Ten wrong-looking mummies on ten crystal thrones. A leathery egg in a bricked-up chamber. An impossible saucer buried under mud and time.

Army

A large group of individuals that can fuck shit up and probably will if they have their way.

• Swarm. A vast number of unthinking, violent creatures. Zombies, demonic wolves, killer drones, terracotta soldiers, giant ants.
• Horde. A large number of thinking, violent creatures. Omnicidal robots, army of wights and ghouls, a regiment of British redcoats thrown through time, the degenerate and mutated descendants of the ruin's builders.
• Praetorians. A small group of elite, disciplined fighters. Typically the dedicated guard of a place or person. An order of knights or warrior-monks, the retinue of an emperor, that kind of thing.
• Cursed. An army under a curse. Maybe they stole treasure and become skeletons if they leave the ruin. Ghosts trapped in eternal battle. Soldiers infected with a techno-virus that constantly rebuilds their bodies even as their minds fracture.
• Outsider. A choir of angels, a manifold of weird robots from a plane of pure law, a clutch of minor demons.
• Revival. These are the descendants of a now-fallen culture and they're planning to bring it back with great fire and furious force. They're probably assholes, too. Or maybe they think they're benevolent, but they'll still need to bulldoze your house to build their paradise.

Portal

A gateway between worlds, or times. Might not be dangerous on its own, but who knows what could come through if you open it, or where you might end up.

• Hell. A gate straight to the hot place.
• Space. Might go to the moon, or another planet if you're lucky. Deep dark space if you're unlucky. The place between the stars where the twelve crystallized gods of chaos sleep if you're really unlucky.
• Dimension X. A portal to another layer of reality. Might be a fantasy plane, an alternate reality or timeline, or someplace where the laws of reality are different entirely.
• Far Past. A gateway to before the apocalypse, the time of dinosaurs, when the druids roam, primeval earth, or something else.
• Fast Travel. Connects to somewhere else in this time and this reality.
• Roll twice. Maybe it connects to two different places, or the destination has features of two things, or whatever else you can think of.

Status

The current, er, status of the menace. What it's up to, and what adventurers will find when they poke their noses in.

Contained

Whatever the menace is, it's trapped within the ruin. Either by accident, or because the ruin was designed or altered to become a containment facility, a prison, or a trap. The menace may not be aware of the world outside the ruins, or it may chafe at its bars.

Passive

The menace is not confined to the ruin, but remains there of its own volition. It may simply be inwardly-focused, uninterested in the wider world, or it maybe be unaware that there is a wider world to be interested in.

Threatening

The menace poses a threat to the world outside the ruin. An army might be raiding nearby settlements, or a plague might be infecting passers-by.

Scheming

The menace has plans, and those plans do not bode well for people leaving in the region. Its plots and actions may not be noticeable yet, but that does not make it less dangerous. Alien dopplegangers infiltrate society, the dreams of an elder-thing draw cultists who prepare sacrifices, scouts of an awakened army plot sabotage.

Purpose

This is the original reason the ruins were built, or possibly what they were converted into before they became ruins.

Fortress

This ruin was a fortification, intended to protect and defend and generally be military. Generally these types of ruins are hidden, isolated, or otherwise unusable as defensible locations and strong walls just keep getting used and built on top of. Imperial fortresses in particular are prime candidates for continuing use.

Outpost

This ruin was a small, self-contained location in a (then) outlying area. Border forts, remote steadings, isolated vaults. Because of their smaller size, these ruins tend to be either more recent, very well-hidden, or very well-constructed.

Settlement

This was once a place where people lived. Like fortresses, places conducive to settlement tend to see continual occupation unless they are truly remote or become dangerous or otherwise undesirable.

Temple

A place of worship and/or contemplation. This might be a literal temple, or it might have an adjacent function, like a library or an observatory or an arena. These ruins can persist even quite near to inhabited places if they are regarded with sufficient fear or reverance.

Tomb

A place where the dead are laid to rest, or a figurative tomb where things were hidden away from sight and memory - such as a vault, depot, or laboratory.

Reason for Ruination

Why the ruin became a ruin in the first place. The Menace can sometimes suggest this, or the Menace may be unrelated to the ruination entirely.

Internal Conflict

Civil war, rebellion, oppression, factions and internecine fighting. The inhabitants of this ruin killed each other and any survivors fled. There may be significant damage from the fighting, if it was violent enough, and a great deal left behind (assuming looters haven't gotten to it since then). 

Disappearances and Abductions

The inhabitants just... disappeared. This might have been all at once, or by ones and twos until the survivors fled. The ruins may have suffered little to no damage by the ruination itself, and it's possible that almost everything was left behind.

Famine

The food and/or water and/or air ran out. This may have been rapid, and may have devolved into violence and cannibalism. Or it may have been slow and predicted enough that the inhabitants were able to pack up and leave - and take most of their stuff with them.

Magic

A wizard did it. A magic calamity beset this place. Maybe it killed everyone, or caused rock to melt like butter, or turned everyone into green-goo-oozing blob people. Shit got weird.

Attack

An external hostile force attacked the ruin, and ruined it. Whether the defends won or lost, there will have been extensive damage, and likely looting and/or scavenging. Or maybe both sides were wiped out to the last fighter.

Natural Disaster

Flood, fire, earthquake, hurricane. The elements conspired to ruin this place, to burn away the inhabitants or sink it beneath the waves or drop it into the veins of the earth.

Plague

Everybody got sick. Maybe they all died, or maybe some were able to flee. 

Abandoned

Everybody packed up and left. This may have been to avoid a coming disaster, because a retreat was ordered, or because the location was simply no longer habitable.

Example

I rolled up Major Ruins for the same region I was working on last time.  I got:

A Druidic outpost ruined by natural disaster. Inside is a contained portal to space.

A Druidic tomb ruined by disappearances. A plague is contained within.

An Alien tomb, ruined by magic. A techno-engineered plague is contained within.

A pre-apocalyptic outpost, ruined by military attack. Lair of a scheming undead.

An Ancient temple, abandoned. A mutagenic virus is contained within.

A Recent outpost, ruined by plague. Now the lair of a passive Fairy.

A Recent outpost, ruined by famine. A revivalist army is contained within.

A Recent Tomb, ruined by famine. A revivalist army is contained within.

That's a lot of plagues.  So connecting all these ruins can suggest some details of the major historical events of the region.

The Pre-Apocalyptic Ruin is an old seed vault that was supposed to help survivors of the apocalypse, but it cracked and everything inside was scoured out. A lich moved in a few centuries ago. It has schemes but I don't really need to worry what they are just yet.

The Druidic outpost with the portal was originally a major stellar observatory, complete with complex stone circles and barrows. The portal brought through aliens, before an earthquake buried the whole complex.

The Alien Tomb is the last refuge of the aliens who came through the portal. They attempted to use bioweapons on the locals, but the Druids banded together and destroyed them. The techno-plague the aliens were using is still in the tomb.

The Druidic tomb is where the Druids buried those who died fighting the aliens. Originally a sacred site, it was abandoned when the techno-virus started messing with the buried dead.

The Ancient temple also contains a plague, but a metagenic one. I'll say it's a very old Fairy construction, and they left it behind when they returned to Fairy. Inside is a plague that warps the bodies of mortals, Annihilation-style.

The three Recent ruins are all from the post-Imperial period when things started to turn anarchic. A mundane plague wiped out one outpost, which is now avoided because of the Fae Lord that's taken up residence there. The other two were reoccupied by the last knights loyal to the last Imperial general who tried to unite this land. Their descendants have elevated the general to a religious figure, convinced she'll resurrect and lead them on a glorious crusade of reconquest. The two branches hate each other, though.

DREAMs of a Crown, Pt1: Landscaping

tl;dr I hacked up Renegade Crowns from WFRP with my own setting nonsense to create a similar kind of "petty kingdom chaos" generator that leans more to OSR style of scenario design and sandbox play, with (I hope) more concise tables. This is Part 1, generating the landscape.

Whole series here

Okay honestly the tl;dr pretty much captures it. I like making settings and maps and regions as an activity unto itself, and I've been noodling on various methods and systems for generating them for a while. Renegade Crowns provides a good structure for me to bolt my own nonsense and preferences onto. I also wanted to rebuild the tables to be more concise and compact. There's more dice than d100s, y'know. I also replaced Renegade Crown's weirdly patchwork set of biomes with a more consistent array that's based on northern Canada where I grew up because I do what I want.

If you're not familiar with Renegade Crowns, the idea is: there's a big patch of land between larger polities that no-one owns, no-one controls, and no-one really wants too much. So every man-who-would-be-king, exiled noble, jumped up bandit, ambitious adventurer, and pernicious priest comes down to carve out a little princedom of their own. It's a land of chaos, conflict, and opportunity, and there's a whole bunch of tables and advice for creating your own patch of perilous petty princelings.

My own tastes in setting are baked into these tables, but it wouldn't be hard to replace them with your own. I draw (incredibly inaccurately and with gleeful anachronism) from post-Roman Britain with a dash of the Late Bronze Age Collapse in the eastern Mediterranean. Point is, empires have fallen and there's lots of little people scrambling for land and power and safety. And then on top of that is the fantasy weirdness like fairies and demons and UFOs and occasional nuclear waste dumps and buried shopping malls. Normal stuff.

The idea at the end of all this to have a system that can generate big chunks of this chaotic land on the fly, complete with basic history, adventuring sites, settlements, and the jerks trying to make themselves king jerk, and then take all that big picture and run it as a hex crawl and domain game. There should be loads for players to do, even if they don't decide to make themselves Princes, too. The first part, down below, is about generating the landscape and some special features that make up the region.

Here's some assumptions I make. You can skip this section entirely if you don't care.

The World is in Flux. It is a time between empires. This part of the world is sliding into a dark age. There are places, beyond the reach of the common folk, that are ticking along just fine or having their own golden age (see: most of the world during the Dark Ages in western Europe). Nobody knows if a new power will be forged out of the chaos, or who it will be. Power is rarely transferred smoothly between generations. Whole populations are on the move, driven from their own lands and seeking to take someone else's.

Religion is a Big Deal. Religion is how people make sense of the world, seek surety in a chaotic time, and defines their identities versus the other. And religions are in conflict. New, organized religion seeks to wipe away the old faiths. Migrating peoples bring their gods with them, and are both horrified and fascinated by the practices they encounter. And, because this is fantasy, there's demons and gribbly Elder Things and shit looking for their chance to reach into our reality.

Change is Possible, but Hard. Unlike that game that bills itself as perilous and grim I'm not gonna say all your works will crumble and lasting creation is impossible, but it is hard. A bunch of jerks with swords and spells and the will to use them might weld together a patch of land and call it a kingdom, but creating a true nation is the work of an entire people acting together. And not everyone thinks that putting another jerk with a sword on a throne is the best long-term plan...

Magic is Heckin' Scary. Magic and mages are dangerous, to themselves as much as anyone else, and most people never see actual magic. There's no oddly modern academia out there organizing mages with a sorting hat saying whether they're good at illusions or blowing shit up, there's just some bent mf'ers who warp reality and are more likely to kill each other for formulas than invent tenure.

Layers of Civilization. The history breaks down like this:

• Pre-Apocalyptic. The (mostly) buried remains of a world that looks a lot like ours, ended in fire and calamity. Think Adventure Time but more buried & hidden.
• Ancient. Neolithic times. Humans in stone huts and living side-by-side with giants and fairies.
• Druidic. The original inhabitants of this land. A druidic, clannish Bronze Age people with heroes and gods and sweet tattoos. They built stone circles and hill forts and raided cattle.
• Imperial. Some bunch of jerks followed a bigger jerk and conquered the known world into one big empire. The head jerk died, but the empire stuck around for several centuries and did a decent job of making everyone talk and worship like them. Until they couldn't any more, and collapsed into chaos.
• Recent Human means the last hundred years or so. Imperials who stuck around after the empire collapsed and have been creating a new identity. Outsiders who came to settle and took up the empire's god for their own. The remaining druidic people, though they've mostly taken up the imperial god, too. Newer invaders, the ones who come from a land of ice and snow and hotsprings and are quite happy with their own gods, thanks.

PART ONE: LANDSCAPING

Okay so first we'll need some hexes to fill. A single HEX is 4 miles across - thus in a day you can cross two hexes in open terrain, three on a road, or one in difficult terrain (assuming your elfgame of choice doesn't say otherwise). A hex of hexes, five across and nineteen total is a MEGAHEX.  Nineteen of those in a matching five-across arrangement is a GIGAHEX. That's a total of 361 hexes, for a total area of just over 5000 square miles (or just shy of thirteen thousand square kilometers, for those of us free of imperial measurements in normal daily life and yet shackled to them by the conventions of elfgames).

The first step is to fill in the biomes and any special natural features.  Roll on the BIOME table to fill in the hexes, then roll on the sub-table for how many hexes to fill..  If you want to randomize where a biome starts or a special feature is located, roll a d20 to pick a MEGAHEX. If you want the specific hex, repeat the d20 roll within the MEGAHEX.

Roll a d12 & d4 on BIOMES. The d12 is which biome, the d4 is for the sub-table of how many hexes that biome will fill.

BIOMES (d12 & d4)

1 - HILLS (1-2 3d20, 3 d100, 4 d20x10) (1-3 Rocky, 4-6 Forested)

2 - MOUNTAINS (1-2 3d20, 3 d100, 4 d20x10) (1-3 Low, 4-6 High)

3 - FOREST  (1-2 3d20, 3 d100, 4 d20x10)

4 - PLAIN  (1-2 3d20, 3 d100, 4 d20x10)

5 - WETLAND (1-2 d20, 3 2d12, 4 3d12)

6 - RIVER

7 - LAKE (1-2 d4, 3 d6, 4 d10)

8 - CLIFF (1 d4, 2 d6, 3 d8, 4 d10)

9 - FERTILE VALLEY (1-2 d12, 3 d20, 4 3d10)

10 - HAZARD ZONE (1-2 d12, 3 d20, 4 3d10)

11+ - SPECIAL

SPECIALS (d12)

1 - CAVES

2 - BUTTE

3 - VOLCANO

4 - WATERFALL

5 - RAPIDS

6 - HOTSPRINGS

7 - CRATER

8 - EPIC PEAK
9 - ROAD (d20 long) (1-2 Imperial, 3-4 Druidic, 5 Ancient, 6 Pre-Apoc)
10 - BRIDGE (1-2 Imperial, 3 Druidic, 4-5 Ancient, 6 Pre-Apoc)
11 - CANYON (d12 long, with side branches d4 long for every 5 full hexes)
12 - NECROPOLIS (d4 layers: Recent, Imperial, Druidic, Ancient)

HILLS

• Steep-sided hills that tend to form long, parallel ridge-lines.  
• Forested hills are low and gently sloped  enough to have tree coverage on the top, typically boreal spruce forest.  Hills that have been tended or terraced may be able to support orchards (apples, pears, and berries in particular) or vegetable and gourd farming.
• Rocky hills are higher and steeper and have a defined tree-line part way up or at the base and often have boulder-strewn approaches, rockslides, and steep escarpments. The soil on top is rarely thick enough to support much more than hardy grasses, but they can provide grazing land for goats, sheep, and ponies.

MOUNTAINS

• Steep, jagged mountains. Glacier-scraped and volcanic rock.
• Low mountains have a squat appearance, with a broad profile and a low, wide peak. The tree line is defined, though it may reach most of the way up. These mountains have thin soil, supporting only stunted spruce trees. The thin grass on the summits is unlike to support anything but the hardiest of goats.
• High mountains are steep and have sharp ridge-lines. The tree line reaches only to the foot of these mountains, and the peaks are snow-capped year round.

FOREST

• There are two primary types of forest in the region. Neither support the giants of more southern lands, and a tree that survives fifty winters might not top twenty feet.
• In valleys, lowlands, and other areas with water and fertile soil grow primarily aspen and poplar forests. These trees grow quickly (relatively, for the region) and are commonly used for building material. These types of forest, if cleared and irrigated, can support farming - mostly cold-tolerant crops like bere and rye, with oats and some wheat near the coast, though the short growing season and thin soil limit harvest size.
• In higher elevations and where the coastal rains are blocked by mountains the forests are dominated by spruce trees.  These forests are unsuited for grain farming, as the soil is thin, rain is scarce, and permafrost is not far below the surface. Vegetables, roots, and gourds can be grown, as can berries and flowers.

PLAIN

• Plains in low-lying areas exist only as a result of deforestation by human hands. The Druidic and Imperial people both engaged in land clearing for agriculture, though many of those areas are slowly returning to forest without active maintenance and farming. If they can be worked (and defended) these plains can become productive farmland.
• Plains at higher elevations are tablelands, high plateaux swept by bitter winds and receiving little water beside snow. They may be dotted with small, twisted spruce or small groves of aspen around springs and streams, but are mostly tough grass, lichens, and rocks. In spring and summer these areas explode with colour as the wildflowers bloom.

WETLAND

• Near the coast and along rivers wetlands are marshes - dominated by grasses, reeds, bushes, shallow ponds, and few trees. Crossing marshland is difficult, as the shallow pools and soft ground cannot be crossed with boats, while also being dangerous to walk through.
• Inland and at higher elevations, wetlands are muskeg bogs. These peat bogs form when groundwater can't drain due to permafrost and the weather is too cold for major evaporation. The wet ground and plant life decay and form thick peat deposits. Grasses and stunted spruce trees dot the surface of a muskeg bog, along with moss and shallow water. Muskegs can be extremely difficult to cross and deceptively dangerous. What looks like a moist, grassy field may actually be peat and moss mats floating atop standing water and thick mud, ready to suck the unwary down into the mire.

RIVER

• When placing a river, remember that rivers flow from high ground to low, join but do not split (except in deltas) and all flow in roughly the same direction - to the sea.
• If you need a random hex within a MEGAHEX for a river to start or exit, roll d20.
• At high elevations, rivers are fast, narrow, and straight. Rapids are common.
• At low elevations, and around wetlands, rivers may be wider, slower, and wind more. Oxbow lakes sometimes form in broad valleys where the river has meandered.

LAKE

• Freshwater lakes, cold and still. Refreshed by snowmelt and freeze solid in the winter. Home to trout, pike. May fill a narrow valley between mountains, be created by a beaver dam, or be the confluence of several rivers. With limited evaporation, and bedrock and permafrost keeping water on the surface, lakes can grown immense - especially at the foot of mountains that shed snowmelt every spring.
• Moose frequent the shallows and marshy ground around lakes, and the wolves follow them. 
• Control of a lake means control of traffic along it. Princes have fought sea battles with canoes and skiffs.

CLIFF

• Cliffs, typically formed by erosion and subsidence, form long boundaries between biomes. They might bound a flat river valley between mountains, form the edge of a high plateau, or separate coastal plains from inland hills.
• Cliffs bordering mountainous areas are typically sheer rock walls. The average height of such cliffs is 100+(d6x50) feet.
• Cliffs among hills and valleys are usually a long escarpment of exposed clay and softer soil and rock and as such may be scalable (with difficulty) without special equipment or training if one can find a lower section or a defile. The average height of such cliffs is 50+(d3x50) feet.
• A long cliff or escarpment is a significant barrier to movement, and ravines eroded by rivers, ancient roadways cut into the cliffs, or other places where the heights are easily traversable become significant military and commercial locations.

FERTILE VALLEY

• These vales are rare in the region, but they do exist. Often warmed by geothermal activity and with soil enriched by silt, volcanic ash, or perhaps a stranger force altogether, these small oases are capable of supporting life and agriculture like no other area in the land. As such they are some of the most densely populated, and most hotly contested.

HAZARD ZONE

• These are areas that are hostile to life, dangerous to enter, and often beyond contemporary understanding. Nuclear waste pollution, magic gone amok, alien terraforming, eldritch invasion, dimensional collision, mega-haunting, generational super-curse. Needless to say, no two are alike, and there is always sweet loot to those who can brave (and survive) them.

SPECIAL

These are single-hex special features that are significant enough to be widely known and even serve as landmarks. Smaller and less significant versions of all of these may exist in the region, but aren't important enough to affect the big picture.

• Caves. There is a large cave complex in this area, with multiple entrances and likely uncharted depths. Such large complexes are inevitably used as lairs for bandits, monsters, fugitives, renegades, devil worshipers, necromancers, and worse. They also typically connect to the Underworld. Usually found in rocky or raised terrain such as hills, mountains, and cliffs.
• Butte. Also known as a tor. A large, usually flat-topped outcropping of rock that projects out from a ridge or stands alone in lower terrain. Highly defensible and almost invariably occupied by a fortification or settlement. Or ruin.
• Volcano. An active cone. May not be erupting or even smoking, but absolutely has lava pools in the caldera and fresh magma in its veins.
• Waterfall. A significant waterfall. 100+d100 feet high. Place it on a cliff or mountain border, either on an existing river or add one.
• Rapids. A particularly savage and long stretch of treacherous waters in a river. The rapids are dangerous enough to prevent normal river travel, requiring portages or overland travel. If the river is a significant enough travel or trade route there may be one or more settlements built next to the rapids.
• Hotsprings. A large region of geothermal activity. Hotsprings, heated pools. geysers. Such locations often have healing properties and religious significance attached to them, but can also be a hazard crossing. Lava tubes and underground springs may connect this location to the Underworld.
• Crater. A large crater, broad enough to build a town in or be filled by a (poison) lake. Extinct caldera, meteor impact, bomb blast, alien crash site.
• Epic Peak. A singularly tall mountain peak.  10,000 + 100xd100 feet high. Upper slopes are likely impassable or unexplored. Almost always has mythic and religious significance.
• Road. No current Prince has the time, resources, or reach to build or even maintain proper roads. However, some roads from previous ages have withstood the test of time and remain usable. Commerce, people, and warbands all make use of them and they can be strategic hotspots. Imperial roads are graded and paved with slabs of stone. Druidic roads are of packed earth and stone, where the lingering magics have kept them free of root and weather. Ancient roads are lingering traces of neolithic times, raised causeways of cyclopean stone bricks. Pre-apocalyptic roads are asphalt and pavement with occasional remains of overpasses and off-ramps.
• Bridge. These bridge rivers, gap ravines, cross wetland. They remain vitally important to travel and commerce, as no Prince is capable of constructing new ones. Imperial bridges are arched brick and concrete marvels. Druidic bridges are petrified and shaped wood, living trees molded into spans and sturdy enough to defy time. Ancient bridges are simple, great cyclopean slabs sunk in the riverbed and spanned by further slabs. Locals now replace missing slabs with wooden planks in pale imitation. Pre-apocalyptic bridges are suspension bridges of rusted iron girders and crumbling asphalt.
• Canyon. Deep, steep-sided. Might be a river valley, a tectonic rift, caused by a vast collapse of part of the Underworld, the scar of an orbital laser, or the product of some magical calamity.
• Necropolis. A valley of the dead. A field of barrows. A tomb complex. Dozens or even hundreds of tombs, sepulchers, burial grounds, barrows, kurgans, and other large burial structures fill this area. It has been in use for a long, long time, may still be in use, and likely by more than one group. Looters are common, as are deadly traps and curses and guardians.

EXAMPLE

1. Cliffs, 4 long
2. Canyon, 6 long with a single 1-long branch
3. Forest, 17 hexes
4. River. The canyon seemed a logical choice.
5. Cliffs, 8 long. The existing canyon and cliffs suggest a raised area, so these cliffs complete that.
6. Mountains, 17. I put these in the centre, along the canyon. The river flows out of mountains, swollen with snow-melt.
7. Special - Necropolis. Had two Ancient layers and one Imperial. Placed it on the western edge of the mountains. A valley of the dead.
8. Forest, 81 hexes. Filled in the western edge of the area. Upcountry forests.
9. Hills, 69 hexes. Connected the mountains down to the bottom of the region.
10. Hills, 45 hexes. Put them along the top cliffs to complete the elevated area.
11. Mountains. Didn't roll for hexes, just filled in the gap between the new mountains and the large western forest.
12. Fertile Valley, 14 hexes. Put this in the lowland to the north-east, fed by the river coming down out of the mountains.
13. Special - Caves. Put it at the base of the cliffs. Maybe it connects through the Underworld to the necropolis.
14. Special - Butte. Put this on the western forest. Probably going to be the capital of whichever prince claims that area.
15. Forest, 46 hexes. I reduced it to 29 and filled the top hexes but left a gap between this forest and the fertile valley.
16. Special - Canyon. 12 long, with two branches 1 and 3 long. I put this through the western forest and hills to the northern cliffs, then put another river in it.
17. Lake, 3 hexes. Put this at the base of the southern hills, then connected it by river to the canyon.
18. Lake, 10 hexes. A big lake. Placed it on the east, next to the fertile valley.
19. River. Added a river coming down out of the hills to feed the big lake, then connecting to the first river.
20. Cliff, 5 hexes long. Put them between the big lake and the hills. That lake is probably going to be an important waterway for traffic getting around the cliffs.
21. Wetland, 12 hexes. Put them south of the big lake and added another river coming from the south-east to feed the lake.
22. Fertile Valley, 4 hexes. Upped to six and put them around the south-west lake in the hills. Secluded and remote, but valuable territory for princelings to fight over.
23. Mountains, 27 hexes. Dropped it down to five and filled in the area east of the big lake.
24. Special - Waterfall. The lake coming down out of the hills to feed the big lake seemed logical. There's obviously caves behind it.
25. Special - Caves. Convenient. Put these next to the small lake in teh southern hills. Definitely connect to the caves behind the waterfall.
26. Forest. Didn't roll for size, just filled in the last ten hexes south of the wetlands.

And that's the terrain and special features for this region. I could add another few special features, but I think the terrain is dense enough as it is  Next step is placing Major ruins.