Hallowe'en (Promptober 2025 #31)

Dead guy? Ho hum.

Most sages agree that the veil between the living world and the land of the dead is thinnest on Hallowe'en. Expect to see spirits and ghosts haunting the places they lived and died in life as you wander around. Haunted places show the most activity, but maybe that's because people seek out haunted places on that one specific night.

But what if Hallowe'en thinned the veils between all the planes?

We would still get ghosts, sure, but what about devils? Almond-eyed and long-fingered fey creatures? Shadowy forms intent on stealing the warmth and strength of living people? Dust devils and floating candle flames as tiny elementals escape their home planes and wander?

What makes Death so special?

Harvest Festival (Promptober 2025 #30)

Many cultures celebrate the end of the harvest season with festivals. Ionians have Meditrinalia, a wine-soaked party and feast dedicated to Meditrina, the recently-named goddess of wine and longevity. Dunhill still celebrates Samhain, a more sober festival featuring spirits walking the waking world and ushering in the darker half of the year. The Cappadocia region in Okular boasts many varieties of grapes, so their Üzüm Hasadı Festivali lasts for a week slightly earlier in the fall. The Alfinwald holds their Amaro Emel'glir, literally the Festival of Singing Hearts, raising their voices to thank nature for providing for the elves' needs, and as a promise to protect and nurture plant life, especially as the plants slumber the winter away.

But what about Fellport?

The city proper has some green space, primarily Highgarden, the meditation gardens and labyrinths surrounding the Divinity Sanctum, the quad at the heart of the College, the gardens in the public square near the Council House, the Penny Chestnut, and the smaller Brinemist Preserve closer to the harbor. Some homes have smaller gardens growing in containers or in their tiny yards, and a few abandoned houses in Talltown have been overrun with weeds. But you need to leave the city proper to find any large-scale agriculture.

Fey Flowers (Promptober 2025 #29)

Foxglove in the wild.

Foxglove's purple, bell-shaped flowers remind people of tiny hats worn by fey creatures. Some think they denote where fairies have rested, doffing their hats and flying off in the morning without them. Wizards have taken this folklore to heart and enchanted foxglove flowers to step between the worlds for a moment.

Fey Flower

Wondrous Item, uncommon

Commonly found in groups of 2-12 in a cloth pouch, these still-fresh purple flowers prove surprisingly resistant to jostling. When held between a finger and thumb and snapped as a bonus action, they briefly tear the fabric of reality into the Fey Realm, allowing the snapper to misty step to a location they can see within 30 feet. The flower explodes in a puff of purple mist when used.

Gods (Promptober 2025 #28)

Detail of the Divinty Sanctum

An outside observer's view of Fellport's attitude toward the gods. Excerpted from the merchant wizard Katelyn Durgin's expansive letter to Lord Gavin Stewart, the 37th Secretary of the Runlorg Society at the Bochord in Occam, the southernmost city in Dunhill, written during her extended stay in Fellport in the spring of 793 AUC.

You bemoan the Bochord's haphazard organization scheme? Try cataloguing entire faiths the same way. I don't know how the people of Fellport don't go mad deciding which gods to worship, as they seem to worship every god that's ever shone the very hint of a divine face over land or sea.

Dunhill's got the Tuatha for everyone, and that runs like a chaotic fief with cousins fighting everywhere you look, plus a local god for every house. Ionia does the same thing, though their list of gods is shorter than ours. Fellport seemed to open up the Divinity Sanctum and let servants of every last one of the gods set up a stall to proselytize anyone who comes in. Tiny island gods of deep waters rub shoulders with Tengri, the Okulari Sky Father. The Goddess of Spiders spins calmly next to Surtur's fiery chosen. It's madness.

Dreams/Nightmares (Promptober 2025 #27)

Everlight City

He last worked at the job he loved seven months and ten days ago. Fat, dumb, and happy pushing research data around the institution, he had plans of retiring from there in another decade or so. The new administration decided to throw a wrench into human health research, and he was one of several casualties that fateful Monday in April. The institution furloughed him for six months, as if continuing to have a job that he could not legally work on and would not get paid for was anything other than a cruel joke meant to crush hope.

The weeks since then stretched long with application after application sent to an uncaring employment shredder whose output got piped to /dev/null. His long career of figuring out how to move sensitive data efficiently to where it would do the most good apparently doesn't matter when he thinks he's near the end of his usefulness. The pandemic that kept coming back and kept carving away pieces focus from him every time it infected him didn't help matters.

Found Footage (Promptober 2025 #26)

FT Espresso Addiction

Text transcript and video analysis of the free trader Espresso Addiction's video log, flagged by Captain Vivek "V" Valdez with the note "TROUBLE SOURCE FOUND?" Transcription by Elysium System Defense Lt. Octavia Drusus serving on board the patrol boat Interdictor during the mandatory post-boarding quarantine period of a derelict craft, currently orbiting Elysium-7, aka Stygia.

Main Cargo Bay camera, stationary, wide angle. Regular flashing power lights on cargo containers and door controls provide the only illumination. Audio consists of the background hum of life support systems during a jump.

Door to Central Corridor slides open. Lights come on. Two sophonts, one human (ID: Valdez, Vivek; Role: Captain and Navigator), one aslan (ID: Raka'oh; Role: Security Chief and Gunner) enter.

Valdez: -why I pay you, Raka! You need to at least look at the cargo before it's loaded. It's a ship security thing, right? Can't have hijackers hiding in a crate and smothering us in our sleep, right?

Promptober's On Hold

Current Mental State

I have 6 prompts left to go for the month, and 2 days to get them done. I'm knee deep in an editing gig, I'm driving my mother to surgery and a follow-up appointment over the next 2 days, and it's Halloween. Suffice to say I'm not finishing before the end of the month unless I really phone it in. And I'd rather wait to produce something decent than hit an arbitrary deadline with creations that fall short of my own expectations.

Cranking out 25 of 31 prompts isn't a bad thing, but it's not the full challenge. Still, that's 25 things that didn't exist before I signed on. I'm mostly sticking with a fantasy setting, which makes some of the prompts more challenging. I'm probably going with another piece of futuristic fiction for Found Footage, though. Stay tuned.

Cryptid - Not-Deer (Promptober 2025 #25)

Artist Rendering of Not-Deer

Appalachia holds a whole host of mysteries, but I find stories about the Not-Deer most disturbing.

It has no fear of humans and will approach them. It moves strangely, as if it's still learning to walk on its deer legs. Its eyes point forward like a predator and not to the sides like an actual deer. Its limbs stretch longer than a deer's should. Its body rounds out in a barrel shape. It has the air of intelligence about it.

True to form for cryptids, sightings usually occur at night in solitary situations by people too freaked out to open the camera on their phone. Some report being chased up a tree after they tried to scare the Not-Deer away. It stood on its hind legs attempting to gore the person in the tree, but couldn't quite reach.

So what is this creature?

Colossal Beast - Ti'an the Celestial Dragon (Promptober 2025 #24)

Ti'an, Celestial Dragon
Mythical creator of Beneterra

One ancient myth from the Yamagura Empire tells of an ancient and massive dragon sacrificing itself to create the world of Beneterra. The myth gives the dragon a name, Ti'an, literally meaning "heaven" or "sky" (though modern translations break the name into two characters roughly meaning "bloody paste". Linguistic evolution. Go figure.). The myth refers to Ti'an as a Celestial Dragon from that point on. Ti'an supposedly has scales made of the purest metals: platinum, mithril, and adamantine, and its body glows with starlight and holy fire.

The myth starts with the Celestial Dragon flying across the universe, creating life in its wake as it travels. It weeps comets and breathes dust and fire to ignite the stars in the heavens. Sometimes it hovers and watches what it created, and most times its creations die out in short order, but mostly it moves on to the next patch of sky that craves more than emptiness. Ti'an eventually tired of its journey after millennia of seeding the heavens, and it decided to sacrifice itself in a final concentrated burst of creative energy. It found a warm, welcoming, yellowish sun, then curled up and slept until it expired, laying the seeds of life and intelligence in its own corpse.

Aliens (Promptober 2025 #23)

Fantasy Aliens Within?

In a fantasy setting, we rarely see instances of extraplanetary high-tech aliens. Early on in TSR's history we have Metamorphosis Alpha, set aboard a generational ship gone haywire, with mutated creatures and forgotten technology. We also find the classic module S3 Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, where the party discovers a crashed alien ship containing robots, odd life forms, and laser weaponry to find and use. After that, things get a little more limited in the classic D&D canon: UK4 When A Star Falls has the party recovering a meteorite for a deep gnome sage, but no actual life forms.

I tried aliens once, back in my Adris campaign. (Good gravy, that game ended about 20 years ago now.)

Summoning Circles (Promptober 2025 #22)

A common protective circle

Summoning circles (and protective circles generally) come in many forms. Circles made of quickly-spread holy water, rock salt, or silver dust can do in a pinch, but something a little more permanent will provide more power and durability, so a simple gust of wind won't break the circle and let your powerful summoned entity free. How can the everyday wizard or temple cleric set up a more permanent circle?

To start, take some time to design the circle. What form will it take? Do you want a simple pentagram, or an elaborate concentric collection of arcane iconography or divine sigils? What materials will you use to make the circle? Will it be crushed lapis lazuli surrounded by white marble, or worked mithril inlaid in mahogany? How big do you need it? Should you go larger than the standard 10 foot diameter in case you want to summon a demon lord or Archduke of Hell and provide some small amount of comfort?

Sword In The Forest - Forest Blade (Promptober 2025 #21)

Forest Blade

Forest Blade (Glad'sigil)

Weapon (scimitar), rare (requires attunement)

This short, sturdy blade of ancient design looks like a cross between a short sword and a machete. Forged primarily as a forestry tool and secondarily as a slashing weapon, the blade's enchantments provide boons to anyone operating in wilderness environments.

You gain a +1 bonus to attack and damage rolls made with this magic weapon. Once attuned, add your proficiency bonus to Survival rolls to forage food, gather firewood, build shelters, follow tracks, blaze trails, and navigate the wilderness. If you are already proficient with or have expertise in Survival, simply add your proficiency bonus again.

Lost Knowledge - Beneterra's History (Promptober 2025 #20)

Past and Future in One

How do we even know what knowledge we've lost over the past several millennia? The characters in my Fellport game have a vague idea of recent history, but some of the deep, dark secrets and stories elude nearly everyone living in Beneterra today. Even the stories and myths that nearly everyone knows have been altered after the centuries of telling and retelling.

Let's talk about a few major things from Beneterra's distant past.

Beneterra's Creation

During the party's time in Krugheim, capital city of the dwarven Clan Stormhammer, they found a pillar that flashed random colors with no discernible pattern. An artist colony grew in the cave around the pillar, and dwarven scientists set up a lab to study it.

And of course, the party went up and licked it. The party's psionic tried to gather psychic echoes from the pillar using Psionic Investigation and rolled a natural 20.

Wizard's Tower (Promptober 2025 #19)

Arcane Forces Gather

Why do wizards build towers? Do they need thinner air to interact less with their experiments? Are they concerned about explosions and hope to minimize the area of damage? Do they want to be closer to heaven and further from the mud and dust of earth? Or does tradition simply demand that wizards must occupy a tall, unstable structure?

Maybe wizards think a few steps ahead about the third dimension.

Consider the magic circle spell. It creates a 10-foot radius effect with a 20-foot height. If we assume a standard modern floor height of 10 feet, we end up with two floors of the tower completely within the circle. So instead of casting one circle on every floor to ward an area and contain summoned creatures as a safeguard for experimentation, the wizard can conserve spell slots and cover more of the tower in a single casting.

Efficiency!

Sorcery (Promptover 2025 #18)

Thrice Spoken, Once Fulfilled

Back in my youth, I read Master of the Five Magics by Lyndon Hardy as part of my quest to read every fantasy book I could. The world involves plenty of handwaving, but most of the worldbuilding went into the 5 systems of magic. Perhaps I'll explore more forms of magic in future posts, since each set of rules provides some great flavor and interesting drawbacks.

Since today's prompt is Sorcery, let's take a look at that particular flavor of magic and see if we can adapt it in a useful manner.

Sorcery in Hardy's book focuses on manipulating other minds by making eye contact with your target and reciting a charm three times. Sorcery is governed by the Rule of Three: Thrice spoken, once fulfilled. Reciting a charm in the exact same way three times seems a little cumbersome in a game with fast combat rounds, but maybe we can think about using the Rule of Three for slower magic and ritual use.

Blood - Bloodward Vial (Promptover 2025 #17)

Just 3 drops...

Thankfully we've moved beyond the days where everyday magic requires a living power source. But some older items still require a blood sacrifice to function. One of the most well-documented is the Bloodward Vial.

Bloodward Vial

Wondrous item, uncommon to very rare (requires attunement)

This old cylindrical pendant consists of woven strands of gold around a small glass or crystal vial. Its red metal cap has a loop for a leather cord or metal chain, and it unscrews to expose the inside of the vial. It may contain blackened dust when found.

Many varieties of the Bloodward Vial exist, each offering a different defensive spell that activates automatically just as an appropriate effect lands. Anyone who attunes to the item will know which spell the vial contains, and that the vial requires 3 drops of the wearer's blood and a short ritual to activate.

Hauntings (Promptober 2025 #16)

What Vibes Haunt Here?

When thinking about hauntings, images of ghosts, poltergeists, and imps spring to mind. Those are all echoes of beings of one sort or another. What if we start with something less tangible like emotions or actions? What happens when emotions haunt a place instead of beings?

Anyone with telepathy or psionics can sense an area of intense emotional haunting, but others will just have a weird feeling when entering the area. Effects can vary wildly, from simple spookiness or a feeling that someone watches your every move, to overwhelming emotions or even suffering the effects of an enchantment spell cast upon you.

Every emotional haunting is different, as is each character it influences, so reactions will vary widely. Generally, some sort of willpower resistance roll should negate the effects, like a Wisdom saving throw in D&D. If they fail, apply effects as they feel right, so let your GM intuition guide your decisions here.

Do Whatever - Information (Promptober 2025 #15)

Sunset in Cyberspace

Much of a tabletop role-playing game involves the gaining, transfer, uncovering, and restriction of information. Players always need more information about a scene, or where people move during combat, or what a spell does, or what effect keeps them stuck in one place, or where the next piece of the MacGuffin hides. GMs typically hide information until the characters find a way to unlock it, or make up interesting new bits of information on the fly to deepen the players' experiences.

In many ways, information provides the lifeblood of society. If a town can't communicate with its neighbors in a reasonable amount of time, they stand alone against any faster threat that arrives. And if the PCs can't communicate with each other, they each must act independently and waste effort in redundant actions.

Let's stick with the GM/Player dynamic for now.

How can GMs transfer information about the game to players more effectively?

Stars (Promptober 2025 #14)

Comet at Sunset.

People look up and see a sky full of stars at night all the time. But how do people react to a star growing hair? How about one with a long tail?

Hairy stars or comets on Earth were treated as anomalies sent from the gods as some sort of omen, either good or ill. With science and observation, we now know that comets appear with regular frequency in predictable parts of the sky. But in a fantasy world, maybe it has a more direct effect on anyone who observe it.

I seem to be on a random table kick lately, so let's make another one for mystical effects of observing a comet. You can use this in several ways:

1. Roll once per comet, and the effects persist for 2d4 days.
2. Roll every night the comet is visible in the sky. Effects fade the next morning.
3. Roll every time someone sees the comet. Effects last for 1d4 hours.

Similarly, you can vary the area of effect from individual characters to everyone who sees it. These minor effects shouldn't break your game, except perhaps the Royal Death result for PCs with noble backgrounds or titles. Alternatively, you can use these as quick fortune telling or other omen results when appropriate.

Abandoned Locations - Derelicts (Promptober 2025 #13)

A roadside derelict.

What happens when you roll a random encounter while your party travels? Do you just wing something? Do you want a little more meat for your idea generation? What about exploring a derelict?

As long as other people have passed this way before, derelicts are surprisingly common in rarely-traveled areas. They work in all genres and all settings, from ruined carts on a roadside to hollowed-out buildings in the aftermath of war, and from abandoned caves used by hunters to hulking starships floating powerless through space.

But what will your party find when they explore this derelict?