Nephomancy to Molybdomancy - two fun methods of player divination

Two spells players can use to tell the future and answer questions. The principles behind these spells can be used for other methods of divination such as tasseography, automatic writing or haruspicy.

The Flase Mirror, Rene Magritte

Nephomancy:

- The practice of divining the future through interpreting the formation of clouds.

The player character casts the spell, asks a question to the sky and lays back to stare at the clouds. A cloud - obvious to the spell-caster begins to form into a rorschachian representation of an answer. The DM thinks how to answer the player's question with an image. Upside-down, with their non-dominant hand, their eyes closed and without lifting pen from paper - the DM will attempt to draw this answer-image. The resultant 'drawing' is the shape of the divinatory cloud that forms above the spellcaster. The players must then interpret this cloud shape to find the answer to their question.

It takes 10 minutes for the cloud to form and can only be cast if the sky is visible to the caster. For each level of the caster above 1, the DM can return to the drawing to add a small detail or correct a line of their choice.    

Molybdomancy:

- The practice of interpreting the future via the hardened metal shapes that form when molten lead is poured into water. 

The player character mutters their question into a bubbling crucible of lead before pouring the molten metal into a bowl of water. The lead hardens into the shape of an answer for the character to interpret. With a timer, the DM has 30 seconds to scrunch, rip and shape a piece of paper into a form resembling the answer to the player's question. For each level above 1, the DM has an additional 10 seconds of sculpting time. The caster requires a crucible, heat-source, bar of lead and a bowl of water to cast the spell. The entire process takes 10 minutes.  

 

The Well of Blood - a one page dungeon

You have heard worrying news about your friend Bolster the Giant. He is trying to fill a well with his own blood! He says he's doing it for his true love - and that he needs your help. The well isn't filling up properly. There must be a leak that needs to be plugged. That has to be the reason, right? Go down there and have a look.

Here is my entry to the 2021 One Page Dungeon Contest. It features a twist, creatures both strange and familiar, tricks, traps, toys, magic-items, villains, a boat on a lake of blood, newfound allies, enemies who can become allies, a big jewel and more. The dungeon comes with a simple hook for one-shot games but can easily be inserted into campaign play with rumours of a blood-soaked and love-crazed giant offering gold for the assistance of adventurers. If you are a player, don't spoil this dungeon for yourself, close the page now.  

Get the dungeon HERE

If you liked this dungeon check out my other bigger, more gruesome dungeon; 'Sulphur and Snuff' which is available on my blog. If you want to get more use out of the alchemy station featured in the dungeon, I recommend my 'Naively Simple Alchemy System'. 

Special thanks to aseigo of the OSR discord and SquigBoss of Caput Caprae for their invaluable feedback and layout advice. 

A truly fantastic piece of art sent to me by Slappy74, who said "I really enjoyed this. Here is a gift - not much. I wanted to depict Anne as a corrupt noble (poor giant) and as how a fantasy royal lady may look in funerary. Your dungeon is wonderfully peppered with solutions, problems, the absurd and the dark. It's whimsically dark!". I'm honoured. 

Fantasy Names from Scrabble and Other Word Games

There’s nothing clever or original about this blogpost but it might help you to be clever and original. 

What is his name?

Sometimes I lose games of Scrabble because I’m making up fantasy names instead of playing the game properly. I’ve used Scrabble, Upwords, Bananagrams and Bananagrams Duel (which uses letter-dice rather than tiles) to make names for characters, places, creatures - anything nameable for my campaign. You should do it also. Using actual game pieces works better than using purely random letters rolled up online as these word games are cleverly designed to have an interesting and useful distribution of letters as well as being much more manipulable + tactile. This fun little name-game is good because it forces you to create names you wouldn’t normally think of; names that are often outside the familiar linguistic phonemes and cultural naming conventions that you might be used to (especially if you get an unusual combination of letters). This cognitive jolt is good, an unforeseen prompt in a game of guided daydreaming. And a self-imposed 7 letter limit restrains your syllable count and helps ensure the name's memorability too - never use apostrophes. 

I have used names generated using this method in my campaign. Names include Atzorig - a well-traveled, would-be conqueror leading the scant survivors of a rootless barbarian-folk, Yuban Yu - a red-white clad dignitary from the Southern Continent and the Tone-Men - a militant, copy-cat faction of martially inclined colour-cultists.