Welcome to Whispershire: 2d20 Encounter Tables

Whispershire is the anachronistically Victorian yet medieval fortress-city out of which the Adventuring Guild for my Weird Marches game is based. It is one of the many such walled cities of the Commonwealth, situated on the frontier. Beyond are lands unknown and dangerous, full of treasure and peril in equal measure.

1d20 Day Encounters:

1. Children poke at a beaver corpse in a gutter. It is covered in motes of pure darkness.
2. Advertisements for Figarus Cornswallow’s show: “Phantoms and Phantasmagoria” are plastered all over the street. The flyers depict a top hat wearing man, raising his had commandingly towards an ethereal cloaked figure.
3. From a dirty alcove on Termagant Street, a cackling mad man cries out: “The music! The music! Can you not hear the terrible music from below?!?”
4. A boarded up shop. Passersby look on the shuttered windows with concern.
5. On Parson's Square, a gentleman in an Eldenmoorish mask gesticulates dramatically as a tiny line of sparkling blue hops from one small pylon to another in a glass-covered apparatus.
6. A gray parade of women in dour wispy dresses lurches on through the street. Each one bears a bell with a mournful tone. They ring their grim instruments and incant: "Weep! Weep! For she is dead! Weep for your Empress is dead! These are the days of Sorrowfeast!"
7. The blue, white, and silver flag of the Commonwealth, depicting a rising condor, flies from every doorway. It might be Founding Day or an election. Of course, no one really knows much about elections or who is running or even who wins. Such matters are not for commoners.
8. With a swish of black cloaks, white-beaked shadows march in procession through the streets, wicked swords at their hips. The Chant of the Merciful Flame echoes about them. The march towards the quarantine zone.
9. A portly woman in an apron stands, hand on her bulging hip, a finger pointed in accusation at a thin woman carrying a wooden washtub. "I've 'ad two 'o mah stockings gone missing this week! Mrs Umberveil 'as lost three 'o her man's shirts and some long johns! If it weren't you, Miss Tumblelilie, then who is it?"
10. Posters hang about, announcing auditions for a production of "The Odius Oligarch," a controversial satire of the life of Sir Anthony Todwick, one of the Commonwealth’s founding fathers.
11. On Parsons' Square children cluster around a puppet show, laughing uproariously whenever Angry Anne beats Japing Jack over the head.
12. 1d6 colorfully dressed Mountebanks wander about looking for "donations for the honorable Church of Saint Pockets." They flash menacing truncheons and gaudy knives.
13. A pair of Town Guards patrol the streets. They are looking for people to fill up their arrest and fine quotas and will make up laws willy nilly to ensure that they are successful.
14. A funeral procession headed up by the black-robed priests of Mortarus. Bells clang. The priests rattle keys and chant the Canticle of the Gate. The noble corpse is escorted to the catacombs below the city.
15. Near a Curry House on the corner of Parson's Square and Termagant Street lies a horned, red-skinned woman in a dirty yellow-robed, sat cross-legged next to spiked club leaning on the wall: "A proverb for you: should you find God upon the road, kill Him and steal His shit."
16. 1d6+1 dower-dressed Poet-Ruffians roam the streets. They will assault you with their awful poetry and expect you to compliment them. Any kind of criticism will result in their murderous rebuke.
17. A colorfully-dressed Mountebank offers you the chance to win coin at his cup game. Simply follow the stone! It is obviously a scam, but if the Mountebank is called out on it, he will throw a smoke bomb and run away.
18. A hoard of 3d6+3 dirty children rushes past you. Everyone in the party should make Luck Saves or find that they have been robbed.
19. A street preacher cries warnings of oncoming doom! "Turn back! Turn back to the divine sorrow of our Fallen Empress! Otherwise, the world shall unravel! Can you not feel it? The world unravels from below!"
20. 1d4 Bandaged Quarantine Escapees flee from 1d4 Brothers of Mercy with their wicked swords and plague doctor masks. If they see you, they will beg for your help.

Dan's character: Ayo by Oddsbod

1d20 Night Encounters:

1. 1d6+1 Hooded and masked strangers quietly make their way towards the catacombs.
2. 1d4+1 Haruspexes of Mortarus fish corpses from the gutter, taking them back to their temple for their divination.
3. A masked vigilante sneaks up on 1d6+1 hoodlums cornering a woman on Wheelrite Lane.
4. You can hear grunts as people from within the quarantine zone attempt to climb the wall without ringing any of the bells which signal the ever-watchful archers.
5. 1d6+1 Porceline Masked Automata harvest organs from corpses. There are human eyes behind their masks. If they catch sight of you, they will follow until they are in a weakened position and then attack.
6. From an alley, you can hear violins and laughter and see golden light. Beyond, you find yourself in a faerie ball, attended by various humanoids with inhuman characteristics. Among them, there is a shorter elf with goat hooves and a vaguely feline appearance. A tall man with spiky fiery red hair will tell you that there are pleasures without number to be found if you only come to Wonder Lost. Then you will wake up is a dirty alleyway.
7. 1d6+1 Mountebanks have created a deadly trap for those passing beneath Allsorrow's Bridge. The bridge's shadow is known for being a place where no light seems to pass and it is said that a terrible troll dwells there. The Mountebanks have hidden in the supports of the bridge a net that will fall on passersby. One Mountebank will hide beneath the bridge and cry out for help, saying: "The Troll! Oh gods, the Troll has come for me!" If the party goes beneath the bridge, the net will fall and the Mountebankes will attack.
8. Passing by Allsorrow's Bridge, gaudy knives and colorful clothes lie in tattered bloody rags at the edge of the impenetrable shadow. A satisfied grumble can be heard from the utter blackness.
9. Flamboyant colorful garbs and drunken laughter parade down the street. This Bar Parade wanders from alehouse to tavern to bar, increasing in mass as it goes. People are actually paid by the bars to start these up, but the participants don't complain. You must make a Reflex Save (DC: 10) or be caught up bodily in the mass, unable to escape until they have reached their drinking establishment of choice.
10. A false Bar Parade made up of 3d6 Mountebanks. There is an abundance of hairy men and a suspicious lack of the usual attractive people that start up these Parades. They will rob you blind and toss you by the side of the road in your undergarments.
11.  Passing by Bailey's Way, you hear a noise by the Adventuring Guild. Suddenly a golden sphere appears, floating about ten feet above the cobblestones. A breach appears in the sphere and a ladder falls down, allowing egress for four short, hairy creatures somewhere between a cat, raccoon, and a lemur. They are seemingly augmented by various mechanical parts and the one that is apparently their leader says: "Kowalski, identify the nearest source of alcoholic libations!" "Skipper, I hear there's a great place off of Buther's Lane called Madam Val's." "Oooo, he he." "I also find that suggestion exciting, Rico! Private, stay with the ship!" "Aww, but Skipper I want to go!" "No buts! You're too young anyway!" The smallest creature sadly ascends back into the vessel as the others scamper away.
12. A bargoer is ejected from a nearby tavern. "NO ONE TALKS ABOUT LADY PENELOPE THAT WAY!!" A large bandaged man roars as he pursues his foe into the street, determined to beat the shit out of him.
13. All of the sudden, the world is changed. One minute you were walking along Baker's Avenue in the shady lower city when you found the city is no longer as it was. Faintly glowing brassy pipes seem to come out of every angle. The architecture has become even more hodge-podge as if even more generations have built upon, torn down, and built upon again the city's foundations. Finding a vantage point over the wall, you find that the world beyond is a wasteland of ash and piles of ruins, stretching out to the horizon. Above, there is a pale dying star, and behind it... what is that? That terrible darkness that seems to consume all the sky beyond? You wake up slumped on Baker's Avenue, a strange tuneless song like pipes and drums gently playing in your head.
14. You hear shuffling footsteps and the rattling of metal. 1d6+1 rotting men in blue and white uniforms with the torn crest of the Commonwealth on their shoulders carry strange tubes with blades affixed to their ends. One lifts the strange weapon as if aiming at you.
15. 1d4+1 Arbitrators, the hulking badass enforcers of the noble houses, clank down the street in their full plate armor, heading for a dingy dive on the edge of town where a fugitive is expected to be hiding out.
16. A few Whispershire Theological University students eat some hot pork dumplings as a midnight snack at the curry place on Termagant street. A black cat eyes the dumpling as they move from plate to waiting mouth.
17. A barrel of discarded fishheads rattles, a chittering sound coming from within. 1d4+1 Void Beaver Pups are inside.
18. 1d6+2 Undead Bandits start stalking the party. They are cruel and tend to play with their food. They cannot die and are vicious fighters. If they are cut down, they will rise again in 1d4 hours. Fire and sunlight can destroy them.
19. A puddle of Void spurts up from the ground, its corruption sticking to the walls and cobbles.
20. From an alley on Mourning Way, comes the sound of a baby crying. If any should wander down that darkened passage, they will find themselves face to face with hulking, pale, twisted flesh, a crying baby's face, overflowing with midnight-black void-stuff. This Orphan of Saint Catherine's has escaped the quarantine zone and will attack any that fall for their trap.