1d6 Weird Americana Scenarios (Weirdways)

The road is full of old dreams, discarded fantasies, and plans gone wrong and rotten. The thing about old dreams is that they are not content to stay forgotten. They will take hold of you, crawl inside you, and dream themselves inside your head. They will consume you slowly and steadily after luring you in with the sweet fruits of nostalgia and misbegotten belonging. They feed on forgotten people like you, left to wander the road searching for something they can't provide, but they'll claim to. "Just stay here. Stay with me and you will have what you want most: a place to call home." It's a lie, but, hey, sometimes lies are sweeter than truth.

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A note on notation: In my notes, I often just wrote a monster name and in parentheses how much Harm they can take before dying or being incapacitated like Auto Gobbler (3H). Most regular humanoids just can take 1 Harm. I will use this notation sometimes, but for most of these creatures I have written out how much Harm they can take and a series of Aspects that can help the GM run these creatures and decide appropriate difficulties and consequences for rolls against them.

1d6 Strange Scenarios on the Road

1) Not Lemons and Nobodies

I used this for my starting scenario. The van breaks down one night on the side of the road. By the light of an ominous billboard that just has a smiley face and says, "Something is Coming," anyone with engineering experience can tell that there is a hole in the gas tank that has emptied all the fuel. There was a gas station just a mile back.

Slumbering unseen near the van is a Grass Giant, blending in seamlessly with the hills. The van looks like a fun toy for him to bring back to his lair a mile into the hills where he has other cars and "toys" he has collected in addition to a Dire Hound he calls Fluffy.

1d6 "Toys" in the Grass Giant's lair:

1. A functional dwarf-built motorcycle, complete with magical sentience and a disgustingly racist attitude towards goblins.
2. A skeletal pimp in a broken down hot-rod covered in bling with some vintage cigars. 
3. A destroyed SWAT van containing riot gear, a shotgun, and tear gas.
4. The load of a semi-truck, containing a huge amount of Splorto Cola.
5. A terrified faerie in a jar. She will be incredibly grateful to anyone that can save her.
6. Some horses and a wagon with a family of terrified Amish people who have been trapped here. They will pay in hand-made butters and jams if you can save them.

Grass Giant: 6 Harm 

Childlike Mind / Collects "toys" / Hates fire / Ignores bullets / Can "swim" through grass / Big Fist

Fluffy the Dire Hound: 3 Harm

He Protecc / Loves a Steak / Sleeps A Lot / Claws and Teeth / Keen Nose

At the gas station, a Swift Kick, the automatic doors open and close stuck on a pile of lemons that strangely fills up the doorway. The gas station is dark save for a flickering neon light and a the light of a TV playing loudly from a back room. Behind the desk is another pile of lemons, seemingly wearing a red uniform and a pair of glasses. From the TV an ad plays: "Some customers have confused Alphamart Lemons with lemons. If you see any Alphamart Lemons call: 999-816-2323."

The Not Lemons open up a single eye on each of their sides as little appendages emerge from them as they swarm the party.

Not Lemon Swarm: 3 Harm

Swarm / Turns Covered Creatures into more Not Lemons

2) Columbian Catastrophe

In Columbia, MO or any college town, the crew finds a giant rampaging Tiger Deity (Insert proper Mascot as needed) is chasing a convertible of rival college hooligans (Goblin Party Animal Driver (1H), Geology Student (1H, Geomancy), Swole Jock (2H), Greek Life Cleric (1H, Hazing Magic). They have stolen the Jade Tiger Idol and so angered the Mascot Deity.

Mascot Deity: Basically Invulnerable

Very Angry / Wants Idol / Hungry / Wants Worship / Giant Claws and Teeth / Ritual Appeasement

The local college will reward the party for helping with some cash and a free lunch as well. The party might learn new skills at the library.

3) Haunted House

If you use some of the background questions I used, one of the PCs will have a cousin who went missing at around 13 years old. That PCs Aunt has called saying her house is haunted. The rooms are mixed up and strange and she can't bear to live there anymore. She is staying with a friend in town. She already sent in a priest but he never came out. 

The house itself has been replaced by an alien craft now possessed by the child they captured, whose imagination has turned the house into a bizarre world-hopping extrapolation of their own mind quite out of the control of their captors.

1d6 Things in the House:

1. A library of partially blurry books as if half-remembered. Paradise Lost and the Most Dangerous Game are here.
2. A jungle of alien plant-life with a gigantic snake, a deranged hunter, and a village of small cloaked creatures who speak in hand gestures and seem to know secret ways through the House.
3. A realm made of TV screens watched over by an enormous eye.
4. A thrift-shop full of strange do-dads, haunted by a tall creature with a large, round head and a painted on face.
5. A world of garbage and thrown-away things. A rag doll version of the vanished cousin lures the party into bad situations and there is a giant hybrid teddy bear/transformer guarding a mountain of trash.
6. A warped nursery, lit by a a globe light with stars and moons. Burbling crying comes from within a crib. A nightmare version of the missing cousin comes out of it.

4) World's Largest Rubber Band Ball

The Museum of the World's Largest Rubber Band Ball is a must-see sight according to their own signage. This rubber band ball is unique for a tunnel that goes down an impossible distance into the heart of the Ball, clearly making it bigger on the inside than on the outside. It is said some magical object formed the core of this Ball long ago and the party is welcome to use a rope to go down inside. 

This is a trap. The Museum is run by Cultists of the Rubber Band Demon (10 Cultists, 1H each, Rubber Band Magic). They will cut the rope as soon as the party descends a fair distance, then the party will have to escape the clutches of the Rubber Band Ball Demon in the labyrinthine alien ecosystem within the Ball. If the Demon is slain, the souls trapped in the Ball will turn on the cultists as the massive Ball rolls over them as its bands snap and fly apart with terrible force until nothing is left.

Rubber Band Ball Demon: 6 Harm

Flesh and Rubber / Bone Spike Mace Hand / Ensnaring Bands / Immune to Nonmagical Weapons

A Sword of Stretching is hidden in a part of the labyrinth within the Ball that allows the user to stretch their arms and deals 2 Harm to the Demon. It is in the web of the Junk Spider.

Junk Spider 4 Harm

Made of Garbage and Nostalgia / Chewed Gum Webs / Collector of Junk / Very Lonely and Insane

A rival demon to the Rubber Band Ball Demon is imprisoned in a Barbie doll marked with crayon runes in a pentagram like a childish Satanic altar. It could be convinced to help or attack the Demon.

1d6 Other Stuff in the Rubber Band Ball:

1. A vending machine full of potions.
2. A bunch of bowling ball sized rubber band balls that will tumble towards the party when they pass by.
3. Tangling alien plant-life that will entangle the party or drag them down into a pit that goes to the web of the Junk Spider.
4. Oversized flies with jewel-like eyes.
5. A village of small cloaked creatures who speak in hand gestures. They seems to now secret ways in and out of the band ball but maybe not into the world the party knows.
6. A bunch of knives suspended on the ceiling of a chamber. Beneath them is a glowing crystal that looks valuable. Removing it causes the knives to fall on those below.

5) Unicorn Meat

At a gas station the party stops at to use the bathroom or stock up on candy in the middle of the night, a bloody-eyed child stumbles into the light and starts convulsing. There is something writhing in her neck and a note in her hand: "Kill White Eyes." You can follow her train all the way back to Sunny Smiles Unicorn Farm and the nightmare than befell that place. This might be useful. 

6) Air D&D

Looking for a cheap place to spend the night and tired of the van, you find a super affordable AirB&B that has a single glowing review. It's a little bit of an older house but nice. There is no sign of the owner just a note to make yourself comfortable and a goody basket full of candy seemingly from another century.

Ghosts from another era want to possess your bodies and have flesh once more. They've come together in a kind of family although they all hail from different times. If thwarted, they will try to make a deal. Let them possess you just for a day, in exchange, they will lead you to some buried treasure.

Ghosts: 1 Harm but Immune to Most Attacks

Try Spiritual Warfare / Illusions and Trickery / Want your Bod / Phasing and Invisibility / Not to be Trusted

Allie Malice:

• Creepy little girl from the 19th century.
• Maybe is actually a demon
• Says she just wants to do arts and crafts.
• If the PCs let her do what she wants to do, she will perform a ritual and open a portal to hell,

Mary Smith:

• Pretends to be from the 18th century, but is actually a recently murdered woman.
• Says she wants to go pray for God to let her pass on.
• If the PCs let her do what she wants, she will go and murder the man who killed her.

Ben "Zippo" Rogers:

• 80s business guy.
• Says he wants to party and live it up.
• If the PCs let him do what he wants to do, he will do sooo much cocaine, get in a high stakes poker game and get in a stand off after trying to cheat.

If all the PCs give up their bodies, then they just suddenly wake up in the aftermath of the ghosts having gotten their way.

• The PC possessed by Allie Malice will see a hell portal open in front of them.
• The PCs possessed by Mary Smith will wake to a gun in one hand and a dead man on the ground in front of them, obviously shot.
• The PC possessed by Zippo will be covered in cocaine with two high rolling gangsters pointing guns at them over a poker table.

If only some of the PCs give up their bodies, their spirits get shoved out of their bodies and they become ghosts so they can help herd these life-happy ghosts in a spectral way.

When all of the PCs have helped the ghosts live for the night, even if the ghosts do not get their way, they will do as promised and lead the party to a treasure buried in the wilderness not far away. 

1d6 Treasures:

1. Way too much cocaine. Some cartel is definitely looking for this.
2. Guns, ammo, and spy equipment, along with video instructions for a spy's mission that self-destruct after being played.
3. A miniature house, glowing from within with lights and the shadows of little people moving around inside. 
4. Cursed gold doubloons buried here by pirates. Taking the gold will pass their curse onto you and disturb their spirits.
5. Copies of the Star Wars Holiday Special that escaped the fire's of George Lucas' fury. He will come for you and do anything to destroy those tapes. 
6. Just because it was buried doesn't mean it was treasure. This man-sized box is covered in chains and runic markings. Sometimes you can hear a knock coming from inside, as if politely asking you to open the door. Sometimes you can hear a gentle cooing from within when it rains. Do not open it.