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| by Odd Nerdrum |
d30 Weirder Weather-Months:
This is part two of my weather trilogy. In Part One I made up a yearly calendar of weather with each month being composed of a single unchanging type of weather. I explain my reasoning for this in the post. Each weather type had some simple, yet concrete and impactful, mechanical effects - like campaign level status effects. Check it out here. This Weather-Calendar kept it quite straight - a fairly generic seasonal year with a few flourishes but you (🫵) could be much more creative. You've read the title, we're doing weird weather today. I owe thanks to Mikesmix of Sheep and Sorcery, Whisper of Glass Ziggurat and maxcan7 of Weird and Wonderful Worlds for their creative contributions to this list.
While it is of my opinion that one should use ‘weirdness’ carefully, one can’t always be mundane. THAT’S BORING! Here are d30 other monthly options, they range from reasonable to gonzo. I tried to consider gameplay first, I broke some of the rules I proposed in part one but if you have ideas for better implementation, please suggest! I think weather 11 is my favourite but there are plenty of mechanics in here you can mine and use for other things.
d30 Weird Months of Weather
1. Pollen: The realm is wreathed in a ruffle-petalled raiment of gaudy, blooming flowers. The air is clouded with yellow fragrant spores that settle and form drifts and banks in the spring grass. On character creation roll a d10, on a 1 your character has hayfever and suffers a -1 to all rolls during this sneezesome month, otherwise you are ok. Plant creatures always have maximum HP.
2. Battle: The seasonal struggle between Law and Chaos. The night sky scintillates with the sparks of cosmic battle, the earth rattles and multitudinous rainbows jaggedly streak the sky fading to black and white and back to colour again. All magic cast by Chaotic beings is treated as if cast 1 level higher but Lawful entities’ saves vs all magical phenomena are at +2.
3. The Big Bustard Hunt: Around this time of year, strong and warm westerly squalls blow over desert dust and huge flocks of plump and juicy bustards. While fewer of these dumb, delicious birds get blown over each year, I wouldn't worry about it, get hunting! - the most common encounter on your encounter table is replaced by small flocks of 2d12 Bustards. By the way, each bustard is worth a ludicrous amount of XP.
4. The Haze: Velvety purple vapours cloud the skies and valleys with their cloying, narcotic scent, the grass turns plump, succulent and soft - everyone is high for the whole month as if on a random drug. You can ‘reroll’ your drug by immersing yourself in cold water. Upon resurfacing a new drug is rolled for. This ‘reroll’ can only be done once per day.
5. Steroid Rain: It rains steroids - everyone is considered to have a Strength score of 18 for the month. Neutral results on reaction rolls (6-8) have a grumpy, macho tone. These heavenly steroids are not potable.
6. Feeding Season: This annual pseudo-weather event occurs when the man-eating Yateveo plants release their prey hormone - all mammals are considered to have a Wisdom score of 3 for the month and automatically fail saves Vs Paralysis.
7. Portalmas: The air tastes metallic, hairs stand on end. The landscape is littered with vantablack portals - wherever one is, there is a 5-6 chance that one of these portals is within the immediate vicinity. If entered teleport to a random campaign hex. Once entered both ends of the portal collapse within 10 minutes. Criminals love this season.
8. Vampiric Fog: A thin terracotta coloured mist thirsts for blood - damage rolls of 1 deal max die-size damage instead (ie 6 for a d6 weapon) as the drawn blood spins out into the hungry, sucking fog + Death and Dismemberment rolls are one deviation worse.
9. The Boiling: All unadulterated water boils - rivers, lakes, oceans, the water in your canteen. The month prior all non-immune water-life, sensing the approaching danger fled. The air is filled with steam. Folk prize milk, beer and other such drinks which are oddly unaffected. The effects - splashed boiling water does 1 point of damage, submersion = 1d6 damage per round. Torrid, you must consume one inventory slot worth of some kind of drink to benefit from any kind of healing, magical or otherwise. The steam purifies, +2 saves vs disease.
10. Drutefall: The long dormant drute plant's fruit pods burst forth from the soil and, geyser-like, expel their stinking gases and saprogenic fruit. The land is carpeted with foul, purple sweating puck-shaped fruit and thick green clouds vein the sky. The effects: the drute’s green gasses rapidly rot all other food stuffs (and corpses) to mush (ten minutes for corpse mushification, regular food stuffs - almost instantly). Only the drute (and canned goods, quickly gulped down) can be eaten. While omni-abundant, drute has no nutritional value and the body can only extract so much calorific value from it. Drute heals only 0-1 HP regardless of how much is eaten during the day. Additionally, all one can smell is the stench of Drute, the DM cannot describe any other smell. Drute tastes like hog-fat fried rubber tires with a citrus twist.
11. The Aggressively Pacifistic Murmuration of Paradoxical Utungo: For the month, the sky is clouded with one vast murmuration of philosophical finches. They’re engaging in their seasonal stratospheric debate. They argue in the language of birds about all things but there is one belief they all agree on… their beady little eyes and black-gold plumage conceal a soul violently dedicated to pacifism. Whenever combat takes place the murmuration reacts! The murmuration takes part in the combat attacking one participant (per 4 combatants) for d12 damage each round of combat. This swarm attack cannot be blocked meaningfully by an unprepared individual and automatically deals this damage. Likewise, the finch swarm is so vast it cannot be meaningfully damaged or repelled. When combat ends, so do the finch’s attacks. Human disputes are settled via ritualised ‘dueling caves’ where they are safe from the murmuration.
12. The Fizz: The air carbonates, a reverse rain of pinkish bubbles percolate up from the buzzing earth and into the hazy, salmon-coloured sky. Likewise, leaves, dust and detritus are carried, floating up, into the air. The rich recline on marble slabs or are carried in sealed sedans as the bubbles do itch. However, for the month, one can jump twice as far/high and falling damage is halved. The bubbles cannot pass through thick non-porous materials, so this effect does not work inside of most stone-floored buildings, dungeons or stoney caves. If sleeping on or above bare earth, one only gains half the usual healing from sleep.
13. The Sweating: Slick green beads of moisture bud up on all things. The sky goes blotchy, bruised - all chartreuse and plum-coloured. All creatures are unsteady, sweaty and irritable. Critical failure ranges extend by one, average reaction rolls (6-8) in miserly, disgusted or sick moods. Academics are still unsure as to whether this phenomenon is extracting the green ectoplasm from matter or merely depositing it upon things.
14. Black Sun, Bright Moon: The Month in which (as legends tell us) Lord Sun and Lady Moon agree to swap roles, swap clothes, swap souls but retain their minions. The Sun turns black and plunges the land into a shivering, quivering pseudo-night and the Moon radiates a brilliant white light that bathes the world in a sterile glow. Day and Night have swapped illumination! Day/Night encounters remain the same but suffer -2 to their encounter roles as they resent the unnatural light. Dreams now occur during waking hours so the DM is free to add individualised hallucinations when and wherever they see fit.
15. Month of the Living Dead: A silvery mist descents upon the land and curls, coiling tendril-wise along the ground (ranged attacks cannot be made beyond 60ft). The sun turns dim and the moon glows a blood red. The tree's bare black branches knot themselves and no wild game can be hunted, for it has all fled the unnatural, necrotic stillness of the air. Any slain creature rises from the dead as a zombie after 1 round unless its brain is destroyed.
16. Acid Rain!: Acid rain. You know what it is. But how does one protect against it? Alkaline grease pots! They cost 1 gp and grease 1 item. Pots can be stacked 10 to an inventory slot. Greased items are protected for one entire journey through the acid rain (only). Any unprotected items receive the ‘acid-etched’ descriptor (or just an X on your character sheet), if any ‘acid-etched’ items are damaged again by the acid rain they become ‘corroded’ (or XX), if a ‘corroded’ weapon is unprotected/ungreased in the acid rain it is destroyed. ‘Acid-etched’ items can be repaired, ‘corroded’ weapons cannot. If a ‘corroded’ weapon receives a notch it is instantly destroyed. Some cheapskate players will try to hide things in greased bags, sure, just don’t take their contents out in the rain.
17. Radioactive Death Cloud: The southern wind blows down nuclear fallout from the ruined and wasted northern hemisphere around this time of year - big comically green clouds of the stuff with its geiger-counteresque clicking - you’d better put your gasmask on. At character creation, roll your character’s maximum age, perhaps 50+2d20 years. Everytime a player whose character does not have a gasmask (with filter) rolls a dice, their character loses 1 year off their maximum lifespan. Filters cost 1 GP, take up one inventory slot and last one day once removed from their protective seal. Filters are destroyed by water, falling damage and damage rolls of 1. Characters die should their current age exceed their maximum age. During this month, each Death and Dismemberment roll is supplemented by an additional roll on your mutation table. An expensive RadAway equivalent might be able to restore lost lifespan.
18. The Death-Defying Breath of the Green G-d: The sky turns a clear and vivid cyan. The Green G-d exhales, its breath - a hot, dewy murmuring wind that flows through all living things, filling them to the brim with vitality and health. New growth whips and tangles, beasts are born big and bellowing. Effects: saves vs death and dismemberment are one deviation better, sleep heals double the usual amount, forest hexes and similar are treated as very difficult terrain as they swell densely with thorns, tangled branches and berried thickets. Monsters have as a minimum their average HD’s worth of HP.
19. The Not At All Horrifying and Actually Quite Delicious Gravy Drizzle: The sky turns the deepest brown (vantabrown), black shapes dart between the cloudbound rivulets of ‘gravy’. A mysterious beefy mist buffets the landscape and those who dare walk in its salty, fatty slickness. It’s warm. The plant world dislikes this moisture and most vegetation shrivels considerably. Water tastes bad. Animalia loves it as the meaty dew is very nutritious. Food stuffs coated in the brown translucent spray heal an extra +2 HP. Predators, satiated, have +2 to their reaction rolls - they’re not hungry. However, if the PCs are coated with gravy, bite attacks performed against them deal damage equal to one die size higher than normal (as the characters have become tastier).
20. The Greyful Hum of Taos: In this dry month of winter, having burrowed up from their grey trackless dunes on the far side of the earth, come the Achromicidae - a cacophonous swirl of swarming locust-like insects, vast as to dim the sky. It is not crops the swarms will devour but colour itself. For this month the DM cannot describe colour at all beyond black, white and shades of grey. Additionally, the hum-chittering of the swarm is almost unbearable, so overpowering in fact that the DM cannot describe the sound of things beyond sight of the party. Elves are not so affected by these effects they can still see colour, albeit somewhat desaturated and noises, while audible are muffled and indistinct. Characters cannot gain the full benefits of sleep without earplugs.
Extra Weird Weather Submissions:
Here are submissions from my creative friends, Mikesmix of Sheep and Sorcery (entries 21-26), Whisper of Glass Ziggurat (entries 27-28) and maxcan7 of Weird and Wonderful Worlds (entries 29-30). The bracketed mechanics are of my own devisal.
21. Anti-Rain: Moisture is drawn out of living things and back into the sky. (Drink fluids to heal as with Scorch in part 1)
22. Oobleck: Black goop. Drowns everything in sticky inedible goop. A curse left behind by a king who refused to accept the world on its own terms. (Increase a Saving Throw of your choice by 1 for each hour spent in the Oobleck. Should a saving throw reach 20 you start to drown. It takes 1 hour of cleaning to recover 2 points of your Saving Throws. High is bad for Saving Throws remember)
23. Chaos Storm: Magic is broken. The world is angry. It rages for the injury done to it by reckless mages who bent the world until it broke. Now magic pure, chaotic and furious rages over the surface. It could do anything to you, anything bad that is. (All characters roll a random curse from your curse table. They are afflicted by this curse for the day. A new curse rolled the following dawn. Likewise, random encounters are also burdened with a random curse. One can purchase lucky talismans that when crushed allow the one doing the crushing to 'reroll' their curse)
24. Fog of War: With the fog comes the ghosts of those who died in an ancient war. They continue to fight their war again anywhere the fog appears. (Whenever combat occurs either side is aided by 1d6 1HD semi-spectral soldiers (or a detachment in ItO style games). Ranged combat has a maximum of 30ft. The chance of getting lost increases by 1 deviation)
25. Vengeful Cloud: You offended this cloud somehow and now it's following you and hitting you with the worst kind of storms it can. (This sentient, rancorous cloud only targets players that perform or act in certain predetermined behaviours that the cloud dislikes such as impoliteness/impiety/bad taste etc. Targeted characters are affected as in Rain in part one. Whenever a player exhibits a certain disliked trait, displeased thunder is heard. They can seek reprieve from the storm by apologising to the cloud. If they apologize for the wrong behaviour they are struck by lightning for 2d12 damage. The cloud's whims change per week)
26. Cloud Giant War: Enormous weapons and gore come crashing down from overhead as cloud giants duke it out. (Every turn of combat drop a number of dice of two types/colours onto the battle map equal to the number of players. The first type of die represents giant's blood, should the dice land on a player/NPC token they must pass a save Vs Death or be knocked prone. If the other die type lands on a player/NPC they are squashed by a shard of the giant's weapon/armour and must save Vs Paralysis or suffer 1d6 damage. Not sure about this one, any other suggestions?)
27. Hypergravity: Mother Earth becomes envious. For the duration of the month, fall damage is increased and nothing can lift itself from the ground.
28. Radio: Metal objects act as receivers for extraterrestrial pop songs, ads, and talk shows. Stealth is impossible if you have any metal on your person, but once per rest you can learn the answer to one question about 1d6: 1) local politics 2) automobile maintenance 3) insurance products 4) romance 5) medication side effects 6) Taylor Swift. (or any 6 topics of your choosing. Obviously)
29. Humboldt Fog: When Pan and his orgiastic party ascend Cypress Grove, their orgone energy summons the blue ribbon bridge to the moon. The milk of their orgy floods the moon and ferments, then melts like fondue back down to the world. The gamey goat cheese flows with abundance and many cultures engage in festivities around the vent akin to a debauched Christmas. (Characters move and hex-crawl at half speed as they wade through the celestial cheese-stuff. Fall prone and become trapped until a save Vs Paralysis is passed. Engaging in hedonistic activities heals a minimum of 1d6 HP. Cheese rations are infinitely available but appear disgusting once the month is over)
30. Gray Goo Greenhouse: Gray goo particles permeate the sky, augmenting and entrapping echoes of ideas that expand like heat through glass. Reality comes apart like a frog boiled in increasingly warming water. Those trapped within a Gray Goo Greenhouse rarely realize what's happening to them. The goo like microplastics, slowly congealing within their brains and minds. (All players, NPC's, monsters, random encounters, items, all inanimate objects infact and some concepts - all roll a random insanity for the month. That or all your players must smoke/inject a nasty and synthetic drug of your choice for sessions that take place during this weird weather month)
Try playing in a game with this as the calendar!
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| Odd Nerdrum |
Another Rambling Postscript:
Again, as I rambled about in Part 1, the benefit of the month-long weather format over the random roll is that it gives players time to internalize the weirdness of the world rather than being constantly shaken about by dozens of short, weird phenomena (that even the world itself barely has time to react to). If that kind of play persists, the players will eventually become inured to the world’s fantasy and any future high strangeness might lose its charm.
Stay tuned for Part Three, Weather Festivals!
