Secret Santicorn 2025 - 1d12 Odd "Medieval" Dragons

Sylvanas_iii asks for:

A dX table of medieval dragons that look nothing like any self-respecting dragon should (e.g. the original French tarrasque) 

And thus I have found a bunch of illustrations of various dragons, most medieval, which are admittedly pretty similar. Honestly the OG Tarrasque is the best of the lot so I'll save that for last!

ROLL 1d12

1. Linear Longfellow

2. Beast of the Last Apocalypse

3. Cooler S

4. Stone-Bound Midgard Knotwyrm

5. Tatzelwurm

6. Peluda

7. Dragonogard

8. Angelcatcher

9. Graoully-Wagon

10. Gargoyle Pipedrake

11. Well Knucker

12. French Tarrasque

1. Linear Longfellow

HD10 AC Plate ML 10
Flyby attack 2d6. On hit, snatches into jaws and flies upwards!
1/day Cloud Breath Attack leaves thick cloud of moist fog.

This dragon very rarely touches the ground. It lives in thick clouds and follows along with cold fronts.
If the clouds dissipate it becomes exposed, and in its shame and horror it skims down to the ground to hunt those who saw it up there!

In combat it is swift but finds it hard to turn quickly, preferring to dart at a soft target and fly swiftly into the sky to drop the foe as many storeys as possible to their doom!

2. Beast of the Last Apocalypse

HD16 HD Chain ML 8
3 two-horned heads deal 2d6 each. 4 one-horned heads deal 1d6 each. Can grab up to 11 foes with its tails and slap them together for 1d10 per time or toss them away for fall damage.
Each head can breathe Golgotha Fumes 1/day in a sphere that triggers any prophecies within 50'.

Emerged from the sea during a previous End Time, the Final Hero never made it, and now it's at a bit of a loose end. Refuses to return to the sea. Attacks heroic individuals in the hope that it can get in on a subsequent prophecy.

In combat just goes wild grabbing people, smashing them together, throwing them at others, and eviscerating whoever's foolish enough to get in front of it.

3. Cooler S

HD6 AC Leather ML5
Bite 1d8. When hit, releases a Starburst Flash blinding all who see it until they Save vs Stun.
1/day Torchburst Beam blinds in a line.

Chubby little fellow who flees from foes and hopes to lead them into a small space where they'll easily be blinded and easily eaten.
Dead foes become a new star on its skin.

4. Stone-Bound Midgard Knotwyrm
Rock Form:
HD20 AC Plate ML12.
Regen 1d10/rd.
Wyrm Form:
HD8 AC Chain ML6
Choke 1d10. At will, transform between rock form and wyrm form.
1/day Stonelock Breath traps victims as patterns on stone until they Save vs Stun.

Accidentally summoned to life when an unwitting cultist sacrificed a seventh son of a seventh son on a particularly cool rune stone. The carving swarmed to life and devoured all in attendance!

Can shift between its original stone form (resistant, hard to hurt) and a wiggly knotted wyrm form that loves to choke and strangle.

5. Tatzelwurm

HD8 AC Leather ML9
Two claws 1d6 each, bite 1d10 + instakill poison unless Save vs Doom.
1/day Avarice Cloud transforms all the treasure on the victim(s) into another Tatzelwurm.

Cat-faced and shrill dragon whose fangs drip a deadly poison. Forms from buried treasure that remained hidden beyond the owner's death. If killed, collapses into the treasure it was made from.

6. Peluda

HD6 AC16 ML7

Bite 1d10, Tail swipe 1d6 + Poison.
If hit by an unarmed strike, attacker is poisoned unless they Save vs Doom.
1/day breathe out a flood of water that destroys crops and sweeps away foes. Save vs Stun or be washed away and prone.

This hairy beast spends its life submerged just below the water, crawling along the muddy bottom of freshwater rivers on tortoise feet.
The long fur on its body breaks up its outline, making it look like a mass of sunken reeds in clear water and practically invisible in a muddy stream.

Poisonous spikes protrude from the fur, and the same poke out of its club-ended tail which it swings with clumsy vigour.

Luckily it is something of a coward, and if confronted by overwhelming force it with breathe out a flood and hide in the choppy water as it swims away to escape. This does, however, do a number on crops and infrastructure in the flood zone.

7. Dragonogard

HD8 AC14 ML10

Front Bite 1d10. Back Bite 2 attacks per round at 1d6 each with the range of a spear.

1/day Combination Ray targets 2 foes and merges them back-to-back. No save. If one merged victim is damaged, the other takes the same. Both victims have -4 to hit and can't move unless they move at the exact same time. Victims can Save vs Doom every 24 hours, and if both are successful they unmerge.

Double-ended dragon with the front face of a kangaroo and the back face of a monkey on a serpent neck. They have a brotherly but antagonistic relationship with each other.

Prefers to jump into the air with its powerful kangaroo legs and hover while its monkey-faced tail darts down to tear off faces.

It will use its Combination Ray on people who clearly don't get along, or else two people with wildly different skillsets like attaching a Fighter to a Magic-User. 

It finds this really funny, the heads will be laughing about it for days!

8. Angelcatcher

HD6 AC14 ML5

Bite 1d10 absorbs 1 Lawful magical effect, prepared Cleric spell, or holy weapon ability and applies it to the Angelcatcher.

Immune to damage from Lawful entities and effects.

A dull-coloured dragon covered in ratlike fur and the size of a large Alsatian. It desperately wishes to devour Gods. Large bat wings allow it to fly for miles, but not high enough to reach its prey in Heaven.

The crime it committed to become immune to Gods was so heinous that they sent the Great Flood to erase all knowledge of its existence. While the knowledge was scoured, the Angelcatcher remains, quietly drifting through the sky to drop down on innocent angels like a falcon.

9. Graoully-Wagon

HD10 AC16 ML12

Crushing bite 1d20. Those in front of the moving wagon choose: take 1d10 damage or be thrown backwards 1d6*10'
1/day Procession Breath forces all in a 50' cone to push the wagon wherever it wants. Those unwilling can Save vs Chaos every ten minutes to stop.

A wooden dragon mounted on a wooden wagon. It has enormous jaws, an iron tongue, crushing teeth, and moves inexorably forward at the hands of a bunch of mind-controlled peasants who are having a wonderful time.

The Graoully-Wagon moves from town to town picking up extra people to help push it onwards and onwards.

Anyone who gets in its way is munched, thrown backwards, or crushed under its wheels.

10. Gargoyle Pipedrake

HD5 AC18 ML6

Acid Spit 1d8 plus rusts armour (-2 AC cumulative)

1/day Acid Rain Spray deals 4d8 (Save vs Blast for half) to all in 20' blast zone and rots metal away to nothing unless the save is passed.

Sentient pipework infected by the verdegrised soul of a copper dragon. Attaches to drainpipes and forms a spout. It can convert rain running through it into acid, spitting it at lone passersby during rainy nights and drooping down to slurp up the soupy residue.

It can zap to other buildings in thunderstorms by riding the lightning up and down through the clouds. A big enough storm means that it can travel to any town under the thunderhead.

11.Knucker

HD6 AC14 ML5

Bite 1d10 + drags victim down at a rate of 10'/round.
At will, cause the well or shaft they are in to become infinitely deep. 

A serpentine drake that inhabits deep vertical holes filled with water. Their natural habitat is knuckerholes, deep vertical holes in the geology, but they now prefer wells.

They are ambush predators, preferably grabbing a single victim and holding them underwater until they drown.

They can supernaturally cause the bottom of the shaft to become infinitely deep. They use this ability to hide from hunters (since if they are in the pocket dimension beneath the bottom of the well, they cannot be found) and to murder their prey (since the prey in the pocket dimension cannot get out, and if it hasn't drowned already it will soon).

12. Tarrasque

HD12 AC20 ML12

Sword-Teeth Bite 2d10 + Swallow for ongoing 1d10, tail swipe 1d8 to all in 30' arc behind it, ocular flame beam 1d8 + sets on fire at range of shortbow.

Anybody in melee range at the start of their turn must Save vs Blast or take 1d8 damage from tortoise spikes.

Counterattacks with a claw for 1d8 if a melee attack misses it.

1/day Save or Die Poison Breath Cloud 30'

A horse-sized monster as fat a a bull. It has a lion's head with massive teeth, the shell of a tortoise which is covered in spines, a long snakey tail, and six legs with enormous claws.

However it is very pious and will refuse to attack anyone bearing a holy symbol unless they attack it first, and if sprinkled with holy water it will become unable to harm anyone at all. For this reason it usually stays near water and begrudgingly accepts that this makes people think it's half-fish.

Another Underclock

I've been using Arnold's Underclock since about 5 minutes after that blog post dropped. It's great!

Trouble is I do miss the "oh shit there's something here RIGHT NOW that we have to deal with!" aspect of random encounters. So, as is my way, I've decided to nest other peoples' ideas into one thing and pretend like it's a new thing.

This is my Underclock. There are many like it but this one is mine.

Fusion: Underclock AND Overload

I mean Arnold did say "I like overloaded encounter dice. I like the Underclock more".

In summary:

• The players roll a 1d6 Encounter Die each exploration turn and mark off that many squares on the Underclock (left to right).
• The Encounter Die is overloaded so it always does something, but it's usually some sort of Clue.
• If they land on a monster face it's a classic Random Encounter. The clock keeps ticking.
• If they reach the end they have an Encounter with the local faction. Reset the clock.

Simple enough right? 1 in 6 chance of a Random Encounter every time, plus it eventually builds up to a guaranteed encounter they can prepare for.

Alertness

But what is "Alertness", I hear you ask?

This represents the organised dungeon denizens seeking you out.

The DM rolls the Alertness Die if you did something to attract attention.
Cause a ruckus, let foes escape alive, blow up a door, set off an alarm, knock a skeleton down a big well even though a wizard told you not to, that sort of thing.

The Alertness Die result marks off squares back up the Underclock towards you, reducing the time horizon until you get that guaranteed encounter.

If this overtakes your position on the Underclock, they get the jump on you with a surprise round!

The Alertness Die starts at d2 and increases a die size per encumbrance tier. 
The highest encumbrance in the party counts, because stealthily slipping through shadows doesn't matter when Sir Stabbington is stomping close behind in heavy armour and carrying a sackful of jingling treasure.

There's also the fact that sleeping in a monster-infested cave is generally a bad move, but sometimes you've got no other choice.

The Alertness Die permanently increases by one step if you sleep (in modern parlance, take a Long Rest) in a dungeon.
This resets if you leave the dungeon and spend a night on the surface.

The DM can always bump it up a level or two if you're habitually going around making extra noise. Dragging a handcart full of loot around, escorting a gaggle of kids who think it's a museum trip, wielding a singing sword who won't shut up, etc.

Local Faction

As for what the "local faction" is, this is whatever organised foes are mostly likely to be around.

This will be the Goblins in the Goblin Lair, the Necromancers in the Skeletal Hoard, the Magnet Eaters in the Technodungeon, etc etc.

In a Megadungeon you might have different local factions across a dungeon level, like Goblins in the west and Ratmen in the east.
If there is no such group, like it's an abandoned wizard's tower or forgotten tomb, this is the Mythic Underworld itself trying to eject you by means of whatever the most defining beastie is inside it. In the Antediluvian Manse it's Cataclysm Ghosts. In the Cretan Labyrinth, it's the Minotaur.

The main thing is that the players should be able to make an educated guess at what's coming for them so if the Underclock is close to running out they can make plans for ambushes, fortifications, hiding places, or fun rooms to lure their enemies into. 

Of course if the PCs are on good terms with said local faction, this could be a perfectly charming little social encounter! Yet another good reason not to murder everyone you meet.

Mêlée à Trois

There is every possibility that the players can land on a square that has a monster face and has already been marked off by the local faction.

In this case there's a random encounter and a faction encounter simultaneously.
Get chaotic! Even the random encounter is Goblins and the faction is Goblins, make up a reason why these Goblins hate each other nearly as much as they hate intruders!

Overloaded Encounter Die

Finally, the Encounter Die itself.

The players always roll a d6 and it goes like so:

1. Clue: Spoor
2. Clue: Tracks
3. Clue: Traces
4. Noise
5. Special
6. Special

Clue

These are all ways of giving the players an idea of what sort of beasties live around here, as in the original overloaded "Percept (clue, spoor)" result or Shadowed encounters on the OG Underclock.

Clue: Spoor means the creature is very close. It could be stalking you. This will be growls, shadows rushing past at the corner of your eye, still-steaming shadow effluent.
Roll a random encounter, describe the spoor, and lock it in. Next time they hit a Random Encounter it will be with that creature. Lasts until they hit the random encounter or roll a different Clue.

Clue: Tracks means the creature isn't close, but it's been here recently. This will be footprints, slime trails, clawmarks, dropped scraps, a recently devoured corpse.
Roll a random encounter, describe the tracks (and decide where it is, within a few rooms). If the players follow the tracks they can find the creature and surprise it! If they ignore the tracks, no further effect.

Clue: Traces is just evidence of the creature being around here somewhere. This will be shed fur, graffiti, a molted exoskeleton, an old nest.

Roll the encounter die and describe the traces. No further effect.

Noise

An errant sneeze, an accidental clang of the shield against a wall, an unseen femur cracked beneath your tread. Whatever it is, you've made enough noise to attract attention.

Everyone checks their current Encumbrance (in case someone has been mysteriously lax), then the DM rolls the Alertness Die.

Special

These are dungeon-specific results to give a pinch of dungeon-specific flavour.

By default (ie. common dungeon and/or if I haven't prepared something in time) these are:

5. Doors: Open doors swing closed, and closed doors become stuck this turn.

6. Lights: Light sources flicker and dim, you can barely see this turn.

In a spoopy dungeon they could be:

5. Fear! Save or drop everything and run screaming back the way you came - Save again in each room, you stop running when you finally succeed.

6. Bats! Swarm of bats puts out all light sources, those without a light Save or take 1d6 damage.

In a crashed spaceship they could be:

5. Magnetic Pulse! All metal objects (including you, if you're in metal armour) are stuck to the ground this turn.

6. Null Gravity! Everyone's floating in zero-G this turn.

Add a couple of fun effects and the dungeon will hopefully be memorable! Especially if you are...

A Victim of a Series of Accidents

If I roll a Special result that triggers an encounter, do both happen?
Can I land on a random encounter and roll a clue simultaneously?
If the Encounter Die hits a random encounter AND a Noise result, resulting in the local faction surprising me, am I fucked?

Yes.
Very very much yes.

It's up to the DM to work out this particular admixture. The more chaotic the better!

Discussion, However Brief

So basically this sub-system retains the time pressure "oh shit let's plan ahead"-ness of the Underclock with the surprising "oh shit ITS HERE!"-ness of the random encounter roll.

When the Underclock is getting close to finishing, it's probably a good idea to be extra super quiet (so they don't get the drop on you) and prepare for whatever's going to turn up (by setting up your ambush and waiting out the last few dots on the Underclock).
This won't always work of course, there's always the risk of a Noise result giving the baddies an ambush opportunity, but most of the time it's reliable...

The intelligent monsters being a guaranteed eventuality and the wandering monsters being an occasional occurrence should give each dungeon its own special flavour and its own sense-memory for my poor benighted players. After all, what's the point of invading the Goblin Caves if you never actually see a Goblin?

Most importantly the systems interlock in a way that will surprise me too!

Plus I get to update my Marching Order sheet to make the Underclock a bigger deal.

I even updated the Fleeing Table! Find it here.

Speech Impediments - For When PCs Remember a Language They've Never Spoken

We've all been there.

The party is confronted with an otherworldly horror uttering guttural chants, or behold a mysterious elven monolith covered in curling runes that twist before their eyes, or stand enraptured before the song of an ancient angel from a forgotten heaven, or receive an email from the marketing department.

Then one of your players hits you with the "oh wait that's one of my languages!" and you have to let them speak to whatever it is.

In regular D&D where you pick Languages during char gen, this happens when it turns out someone has been able to speak Gnomish or Celestial the whole time.

In my game this happens because my players insist on rolling Languages any time they come across a new creature that shows even the tiniest glimmer of sentience. This is why several characters apparently speak fluent Eastern Lowland Gorillese.
This is really very silly but it's fun enough to keep (a la the secret fourth option in this post).

What's the "solution" to this "problem"?
They obviously know the language, but given the fact that they've never even mentioned that they can speak it in months of adventuring it must have been quite a while since they did that exchange trip to the eighth circle of hell.
But they're totally fluent of course, but uhhh... how do you say...

I'm a Bit Rusty

The first time your character speaks a language that they haven't previously spoken in-game, they're rusty.

Roll 1d30:

Roll	Result
1	Can only speak in single syllables
2	Tourist phrasebook content only - "two beers please", "which way to museum?" etc.
3	They understand you but are always offended.
4	Words that start with a vowel only.
5	One word sentences only.
6	Absolutely always alliterate.
7	Words that start with a plosive only
8	Must "speak" by describing emojis.
9	Swear words only.
10	Must speak way too loudly.
11	Can only speak in quotations and metaphor.
12	Sentences must be spoken in reverse order
13	"Snake Snanguage" - all words start with the first two sounds of that language.
14	Unable to use pronouns (I/you/he/her/it/etc)
15	Unable to speak in present tense
16	No verbs
17	Speak in Haiku
18	Can only write it, not speak it.
19	Only know numbers
20	"G" and "J" must be pronounced with a soft "zh" sound, as in treasure or casual
21	No nouns
22	Last letter of one word must begin the next word.
23	One must refer to oneself as one, and instead of "we" or "they" must state the number of people in the group (eg. "One was with Four when someone robbed Two house")
24	No adjectives
25	All phrases must be an innuendo, if you know what I mean
26	All sentences must be noun-verb-object
27	Must stand on one leg while speaking
28	Overly formal, everyone must have a title, no contractions, etc etc
29	Every noun must be described by an incongruous and/or false adjective.
30	Can speak the language but only in a cartoonish over the top accent.

When you speak that language you must abide by the rolled limitation.
This represents your character pausing to think, forgetting words, getting tones wrong, using the wrong conjugations, and other such issues with dredging up the language you haven't used in a long time.
Failing to do so means you've said complete gobbledegook and nobody understands what you just said.

In subsequent sessions it's all come back to you and you are completely fluent.
Presumably you quickly brushed up on some refresher notes, or beseeched the Horrible Green Owl to reinstate your streak.

Specialists, of course, are always fluent from the get-go. Skills are their whole deal after all.

Inspired by the meta-diseases over at Beneath Foreign Planets.

Bad Weather after Judgment Day

The world has ended and the weather is fucking terrible.

Oh it's not as bad as a decade ago, when the poison storm of a Gas Front would sweep through and turn your body into even more poison, but you still don't want to be caught out in this new weather. It sucks.

These are 6D weather tables a la WWCD.
Roll a d6 and move the weather in that direction. If it would go back, go forward.
If you reach the edge, stop if you hit an X. Otherwise reverse course.

Weather can have Outfield effects (ie. what happens during each 4 hour Watch of travel) and/or Encounter effects that kick in during smaller timescale activities like chats or fights.

And so -

There's very little white Clear weather in the Spring, so you're usually looking at green Haze or purple Rain with a chance of intermittent brown Sporestorms.

Spring

Clear: Rare but occasionally occurs after the rains. Clear skies and clear sinuses. A mercy.
Outfield: Travel +1 Hex and remove any Exhaustion.

Hayfever Haze: Sneezing and coughing and trying not to rub your tired red eyes because the pollen is everywhere. Nevertheless this is generally the best you've got for travelling weather.

Outfield: Gain 1 Exhaustion

Metamorphic Rain: Like a nice warm shower which is lovely until you see what it's doing to your skin and your clothes. Absolutely do not get it in your eyes. Whorls in your flesh where the droplets pulled your skin with them, your axe-haft is growing leaves, your axe-head is looking at you.

Outfield: Exposed equipment gains a Notch.

Spore Storm: Fat chunks of fungal matter bloom across the landscape, soon bursting to release a choking fog thick with spores. You can barely see through the smog, but that's ok because the hallucinogenic visions are really starting to kick in.

Outfield: Gain 1 Exhaustion and Save vs Doom to avoid taking 1 Wisdom damage.

Encounter: Slowed, and crit/fumble range increased by +4.

Thorn Warning: The air fizzes with static and the sky is covered with a low ceiling of unbroken cloud. The Growth is coming. Animals flee only to be snatched into the sky by the thing (things?) that live up there.

Encounter: Within a few minutes of killing something it's lifted into the clouds by sticky threads. If you stop to loot or butcher a corpse, 1d10 Cloudfinger tendrils soon follow.

The Growth: Feel the soil, feel the loam, let yourself go to heal the world with the blood that is turning to sap inside your veins. Kneel down and kiss the Earth and take it into you. Heal the world with your soft embrace.
Outfield: Take 1 Constitution damage per Watch as your body converts to plant life.

Goblins are not immune, but they become big mushrooms instead and retain their consciousness within the fungal mycelia.

Real life example! The weather was Clear then went through the Warning and a brief Summer Storm. Luckily for them, they were in a dungeon when The Hive occurred.
Summer has plenty of white Clear hexes, which leads to cloudless summer skies which can last for days at a time..

Summer

Clear: Warm and bright, silver clouds covering the worst of the sun. In the summer these warm days can stretch for weeks.
Outfield: Travel +1 Hex and remove any Exhaustion

Insect Heat: Hot days buzzing with lazy insects and bumbling bees. Comfortable long days of sunshine and joy and strolling by the hedgerows and falling asleep only to find that you've got a whole day left. Too hot for heavy armour though, I'll tell you that much.

Outfield: Gain 1 Exhaustion if wearing Heavy gear.

Encounter: Clouds of biting flies are attracted to any bloodshed. Dead creatures attract a cloud of flies that Slows anybody nearby. Take Bleed damage even if you Stay Down.

Summer Storm: After the sticky days, a smell of petrichor followed by the lashing rain. Cool and fresh and so very beloved by plants, you could swear that the grass is growing high and lush before your very eyes.

Outfield: Half Overland speed.
Encounter: Ranged attacks at -4

Heatwave: Absolutely stinking hot. Too hot to think, practically too hot to breathe. A real bastard of a day, but the bugs don't seem to mind.

Outfield: Gain 1 Exhaustion, 2 if wearing Heavy gear.

Encounter: Anyone in Medium or Heavy gear is Slowed.

Swarm Warning: Wispy cirrus clouds high overhead and a subtle crackle as metal zaps against metal. Flying insects fizz and pop, flash-fried by the electricity that makes your hair stand on end, only to be devoured by the smarter kind of beetle who knows to stay in contact with the ground.

Encounter: Hitting metal with metal causes a spasm of static, making the victim(s) Dazed for a round and making them drop held objects.

The Hive: They're inside you you can see them under the skin crawling inside you where did they come from why are your pores getting larger and larger and the glimmer inside is shiny and they're all so shiny and crawling and scuttling and they are nice they are friends they are part of you this is how it should be

Outfield: Take 1 Strength damage per Watch as your flesh becomes home to thousands of insects.

Goblins become hollowed out with seeds, and beloved by pollinating birds.

Autumn is very changeable and very rarely Clear, but at least the red doom weather is always preceded by a Warning, and so often swings away.

Autumn

Special: In Autumn the weather brings abundant Forage, trivially gathered. Every traveller gets one ration of the appropriate Forage per Watch if they want it, and falls deeper into the dreary malaise of Autumn if they eat it.

Clear: Damp moist air and clear bright skies. Rare but beloved. A welcome but short-lived respite.

Outfield: Travel +1 Hex and remove any Exhaustion

Melancholy Mists: You sigh and you yearn for purpose. There are better things beyond the mists. Lives lived with meaning. Unlike yours. Your goals and dreams are a bit silly really, not the sort of things that other people would care about. Still, travelling weather if you care to try.

Outfield: Gain 1 Exhaustion.

Forage: Fat berries grow on the thorny bushes, eating them sustains you but makes you lose yourself in painful memories. Eating them deals 1 Cha damage.

Forgetful Rain:  A sustained drizzle that falls with a white noise susurration that makes your mind wander. At least the rain-fruits are out, withered but tasty, and they make you think about other things.

Outfield: Double chance of getting lost and/or crashing your vehicle.
Encounter: Ranged attacks at -4. Those in the rain are Slowed.

Forage: Trees bear withered fruits, which fill your belly and fill your mind with fog. Eating them deals 1 Int damage.

Unmaking Rain: Proper rain, this. Sheeting down with a wild wind that tears at clothes and hair and rips the seams and unties the bindings and shivers the nails out of the shingles. Get caught out in this and you'll get home naked, your clothes in rags.

Outfield: Half overland speed. Exposed equipment gains 1 Notch.

Tired Warning: The sort of sustained drizzle that doesn't get you wet but somehow soaks through your clothes. The grey sky overhead flickers with cloud lightning, the low rumbling warning of what's to come.

Encounter: All creatures are Slowed.
Forage: Tubers and ground fruit swell from the soil, which fill you up yet leave you hollow. Eating them deals 1 Wis damage.

The Soft: The clouds are soft and inviting. Childhood home. A parent's arms. Skin like crepe paper. Older better times. Crinkling fingers. Times before. No worries at all. You wobble. Bones like cartilage. A soft fall. So much to be done. What were you doing? Oh yes, that.

Outfield: Take 1 Dexterity damage per Watch as your body becomes unmoored from your mind. Eventually your body moves on its own, your skin feels soft and crinkles like paper, your joints bend strangely around your rubbery bones. You will spend the Autumn tending the plants in calm harmony, until your body softly shuffs to the floor, a bag of loam. Goblins instead merge onto the side of a tree, and tend the area with tentacle-vines with goblin minds.

Winter has snowfall broken up by Mushroom Slush or Clear days.
It's very possible to get caught in an interminable Blizzard at the bottom of the table though.

Winter

Special: Snow builds up over time, so several types of weather only affect you if the previous weather was marked as Snow.
You also need Cold Weather Gear, which counts as an Oversized item and can be broken like a splintered shield to cancel damage from one attack. If you don't have it, take the Frostbite effect.

Clear: Bright and cold, the air cool in your lungs without stealing your breath. Clean and fresh and sparkling, you can see for miles.

Outfield: Travel +1 Hex and remove any Exhaustion

Snowfall: Long nights leading to little days of calm white snowdrifts. By the time you leave your house it's starting to get dark, snowflakes following behind to fill your footsteps.

Snow.
Outfield: Gain 1 Exhaustion if the last weather was Snow.
Frostbite: Take 1 Dex damage.

Mushroom Slush: Sleet that melts the snow to black ice and cakes you with a thin layer of slush, not soaking in so much as piling on, making you feel shivery and clammy at once. Worse, the fungus. A hardy strain of swift-growing mycelium lives under the warm snowy blanket. Exposed by the sleet, it will try to evade the slush by climbing the closest tall warm thing and making a home there, filling pockets and bags with uninvited slime.
Outfield: Gain 1 Exhaustion if the last weather was Snow. Gain an Oversized item called "Slush Fungus" - getting rid of it requires a wash in warm water or chucking affected gear out into Snow to kill the slime.

Frostbite: Take 1 Dex damage.

Blizzard: Complete whiteout. A death sentence to travel through.
Snow.
Outfield: Gain 2 Exhaustion if you're not resting in Comfortable conditions. Food cannot heal you or remove Exhaustion during the Blizzard.

Encounter: Slowed. Ranged attacks at -8.
Frostbite: Take 1 Dex damage and Save vs Doom or freeze to death.

Thundersnow: Hail and snow, flickering with flashbulb lightning. The dense white blanket surrounds you and gently softens the faint sounds of thunder.

Snow.
Outfield: Gain 1 Exhaustion if the last weather was Snow.
Encounter: Hitting metal on metal causes a lightning strike! Victim(s) must Save vs Blast or be blasted back and take 1d6 lightning damage.
Frostbite: Take 1 Dex damage.

Mirror-Vine Sunshine: The winter snow tamps down the growth waves and the warnings, allowing the most tenacious mutant plants to shoot up over the winter. Foremost of these are the Mirror Vines which emerge from the snow covered in their searingly bright silver-leaved new growth, reflecting extra light onto their leaves while they've got the chance.

Outfield: Double chance of getting lost/crashing in daylight.

Encounter: Increase fumble range by +2.
Frostbite: Take 1 Dex damage.

Mechanics

How to use:
At noon and midnight, roll 1d6 and move the weather in that direction. If it would go backwards, go forwards instead.
If you're at the edge, stop if you hit an X. Otherwise reverse course.

Simple right?

If you've got a Ranger equivalent, let them roll weather in advance so they can be all "hmm the rain will turn to fog by midday". In my game this can be a group Bushcraft roll.

The main penalty for walking around in the nasty weather is Exhaustion.
Each point of Exhaustion gives you -1 AC and +1 Encumbrance, but you can get rid of it all by having a break with food. An army marches on its stomach after all!

Sometimes the weather rots your gear, giving a Notch.
A Notch decreases a weapon's damage die, or reduces AC by 1. This generally only affects armour when hiking around because I assume weapons are sheathed.
Notching other gear is on a case by case basis but I assume that most stuff is in a bag if you're not using it.

Weather effects are on this spreadsheet too -
Post-Apoc Weather

Daylight:

One last thing - daylight is based on season, which is another reason why winter travel is grueling.

A day is 6 Watches long, with each Watch being 4 hours.
In Spring and Autumn there are 3 Watches of Day, 3 of Night.
In Summer there are 4 Watches of Day, 2 of Night.

In Winter there are only 2 Watches of Day, 4 of Night.

I absolutely cannot be bothered to make it more granular.

At night you'll want torches or something because you can't see very far and could get lost or crash your wagon.
For more, see -
Hexcrawl Rules

And a minor aside to that one last thing -
Initiative is side-by-side: At the start of each round, both sides roll initiative, highest goes first. Reroll each round.
If the PCs have enough light they win ties.
If they have not enough light they lose ties.
If they have no light they always lose.

So they'll always win ties in the day, but at night it's down to torchlight.

Weather-Based Encounters

And of course a last important thing - Encounters!

Each weather type has its own kind of monster that only shows up when it rains or whatever, hopefully setting up some foreshadowing from a wizened old crone saying "watch out when the summer storms sheet down, my boy, or the clicking eels will getcha..."

Example here:
Scoured Lands Overland Encounter Table

Roll 2d6 down and 1d6 across for a result.
You'll notice that it's the classic (?) array of Encounter - Lair - Spoor - etc.

Number 8 is a Weather Special which gives an Encounter with the relevant beastie, or more often some unique weather-based effect.
Number 5 is Weather Effect which is generic, but has a chance to change the weather! Woe betide the party who thought they could travel through the Warning and finds themselves caught in thorn weather.

What mysteries lie in the Drudge Wastes??

Discussion

The only change I've made to the gimmick since its inception is to make it player-facing and make the "forward" direction a bit more likely, to add a little more consistency and predictability for players looking at the weather sheet.

Mechanically I want weather to be a consideration but not onerous. Atmospheric in both senses of the word. Interesting but not a gotcha. But still, if you get caught out in it unprepared you'll have a bad time.

Same with predicting the weather - have it out on the table and let people plan for what's coming (although they will have to work out the colours, of course).

Originally I was all "he he he, they will have to learn that Doom Weather is guarded by a Warning" but honestly it's better to be player-facing when possible, especially since they can see the red next to the blue and go "hmm.. In wonder if red is bad".

Materially it also has to consider the fact that I'm always going to have PCs cycling in and out of the game each session, so it isn't going to be satisfying if you only missed a session and now you're taking 1d4 Drip damage per round because you missed your chance to buy an Umbrella from the Brollymen or whatever.

Plus I cycle to work every day and always have my wet weather gear on me just in case, so I imagine that someone whose only job is adventuring would at least have some sort of medieval festival poncho on them at all times.

Generally per season - 
Green is the Standard Weather, travelling weather but probably sucks shit.
Purple is Rain of various horrible sorts. Can you tell I'm a Brit?
Brown is the seasons's Storm, awful to be in but you can push through if you desperately need to.
Blue is an electrical Warning, heralding the arrival of the worst kind of weather. Tends to be good travel weather if you're willing to risk it.
Red is Thorn Weather. In the past this killed you instantly, today it merely takes your mind.
White is Clear. The only Good weather with a capital G. Straight up clear skies and far horizons.

One Last Thing

Don't forget to vote for Barkeep on the Borderlands!

Spherical Angels and the Gods They Serve

Angels are an enemy that my players have fought quite a few times over the years.

These angels are nakedly technological - basically Modrons with a slice of Evangelion - and they're sent down by the ASE-inspired orbital gods which orbit the planet.

Here are some facts about Angels.
- They are spherical with a single central eye, and roll around in ball form when they're not in combat mode. 
- They sing to each other in Angelic Binary so fighting them sounds like fighting a choir. 
- If you kill a higher-ranked angel, one of the lesser angels upgrades to replace them.

- A full choir of them numbers exactly 21, since they are arranged with a leader Ophanim who commands four Tacticians each of whom commands four Baseline angels.
- They are part of an ancient failsafe designed to prevent the end of the world, a task they only partially succeeded at back during the Apocalypse.
- The angels are ultimately controlled by whichever God is overhead that week, and each God has their own agenda and grants the angels a different special ability.

In gameplay terms they've got a fair few gimmicks, all ultimately predictable because Law is predictable.

Mostly they scare my players because they've got good armour, magic immunity, the ranged ones have armour piercing beam cannons, and killing the leader first is a bad idea because their minions just upgrade to take their place.
That plus they usually go for Chaotic characters first, so wizards feel very victimised.

Might as well start with the stats!

I have other drawings saved somewhere but can't find them so enjoy this quick scrawl!

Stats

Angels in General

Abilities
- Immunities: Immune to Chaotic magic and stasis weaponry.
- Patrol Mode: Roll around in spherical form, mostly used when on patrol or on standby.
- Flight Mode: Can transform into a ball with wings and fly around. Can't attack in this form.
- Scan: Detect Alignment at will.

Angel - Baseline

Baseline angels are the rank and file. Four Baselines are commanded by a single Tactician.
Baselines obey orders blindly, and have no executive function of their own.
They have little skinny legs and little skinny arms and little skinny wings and basically look just like a Modron.

Stats:

HD2. AC Chain. Morale 12.
Unarmed attack: 1d6.

Abilities:

- Weapon Swap: When commanded by their Tactician, they immediately generate any kind of melee weapon. (See "Weapon Types" in the house rules)
- Upgrade: When their commanding Tactician is destroyed or upgraded, one of its subsidiary Baseline angels transforms into a Tactician. It gains +2 HD immediately.

Angel - Tactician

Tactician Angels are a real-time calculating node in the angel network. Four Tacticians are commanded by a single Ophanim. 
They have some tactical reasoning but these are strictly limited to the present moment, they have no ability for long term strategy. Mostly this is calculating stuff like "enemies are in heavy armour, use hammers" and telling their Baselines to swap to hammers.

Stats:

HD 4. AC Chain. Morale 12.
Unarmed ram attack: 1d6
or 2 armour-piercing stasis beam cannons: 1d6 each

Abilities:
- Switch Up: As an action, can order their Baseline minions to swap weapons.
- Upgrade: When their commanding Ophanim is destroyed or upgraded, one of its subsidiary Tactician angels transforms into an Ophanim. It gains +4 HD immediately.

Angel - Ophanim

Ophanim angels are the commanders of their group. One Ophanim commands 4 Tacticians that each command 4 Baselines, for a total of 21 angels per Choir.
They have the capacity for longer term strategy and are hubs for the wider angel network.
They are ultimately overseen by the Seraphim dropship that hovers at the edge of the Stratosphere.
This plus they're a whirling array of metal and high-powered beam weapons that can encase a large area within an impenetrable stasis barrier.

Stats:

HD 8. AC Plate. Morale 12.

Whirling shard attack: Attack all in 10' for 1d6 damage.
or 2 armour-piercing stasis beam cannons: 1d12 each.

Abilities:
- Reactive Movement: If hit by an attack, may take a free move without triggering Opportunity Attacks.
- Stasis Shell: As an action, create a 50' diameter shell of frozen time impenetrable to almost all non-angels. Takes a round to spin up and lasts until the Ophanim stops maintaining it. Things can still move inside the barrier, but they can't cross out and any projectiles crossing the barrier get stuck. The Ophanim itself can't act while maintaining the field, so needs to rely on its minions to destroy anything that's in there with it.

One of my players rendered one of them!

Tactics

First off, Angels hate Chaos.
They'll always attack Chaotic entities first, and will abandon their other goals until they've chased down and destroyed Chaotic targets.
They attack Neutral entities if they get too close or get in the way of their goals, but won't chase too far.
Lawful entities are ignored unless they physically attack an Angel.

Secondly, Angels upgrade.
Each Ophanim controls 4 Tacticians.
Each Tactician controls 4 Baselines.
If an angel higher in the hierarchy dies, one of their underlings upgrades at the end of the round to take their place.

Thirdly, Angels don't care about firing into combat.
All angels are immune to Stasis Beam attacks, so they'll try to get the Baselines in to tie up foes, then blast the melee with beam-fire.

Fourthly, Ophanim can use their stasis bubble for offence and defense.
If it calculates that its Choir is unlikely to survive, it can put up its Stasis Shell to prevent further action. Angels can roll through Stasis zones unhindered, so they can roll back into the field until danger has passed.
On the other hand, if it can trap a lone foe inside the field and have the rest of the angels come murder it, so much the better! This is a potentially dangerous tactic since the Ophanim can't defend itself with the field up, but mobbing one poor fool with a bunch of angels is usually a winning technique.

Gods Above

A fun extra thing about Angels is that they have different abilities depending on which God is above that week.
I track this because I have a game calendar (so cool, I know) and each week the God closest to the zenith in the skies above influences the Angels below.

You could always roll a 1d9 if you don't care about calendars.

Name	Angel Mood	Angel Special
Dispater of the Subtle Knife	Elusive	All Angels gain a free move when hit. Baselines equip reach weapons.
Oberon of the Green Branch	Wary	Baselines can use 1d6 ranged bow
Minerva of the Burnished Shield	Defensive	Baselines equip shields
The Scorned of the Rusted Blade	Resolute	Tacticians can command a weapon swap as a free action
The Dead God of the Brittle Bone	Murderous	Mob individuals. 4 in 6 Backstab.
Alaunus of the Mailed Fist	Efficient	Target lowest HP first.
The Lady of the Silver Coin	Fickle	Immune to opportunity attacks, retarget foes every round.
The Allfather of the Filled Cup	Hard-hitting	Baselines deal +1 die size for damage.
Eris of the Spinning Wheel	Hateful	Reverse priorities - kill Lawful first.

God Lore

There are, or were, Nine High Gods orbiting the Earth.
Massive mechanical minds born from aeons-ancient ingenuity, long sent into space to allow them to grow beyond all earthly proportion.
Immortal, impossible space golems, each orbit another turn of the prayer wheel.

If the Gods need to affect the world they send forth their angels.
The Seraphim, huge brass spheres, descend from above and blossom forth, the lower hemisphere opening up into six huge wing-petals covered with eyes.
Each eye is an angel, deployed from the wings according to the unknowable yet fairly obvious tactics of the Gods.

One of the Nine, Eris, was shot down in an earlier age. This has the unfortunate effect of putting angels into their failsafe "scorched earth" mode when they detect no gods overhead.

Some Faiths claim that she lies below Dwimmermount even now. Some call her Queen Satan, others believe her a fallen God unjustly wrenched from the heavens, others still say she never entered heaven at all...