Simple Card-Driven Personality Generation

I had need of a quick and simple personality generator that could produce lots of different results and be used procedurally during play. I remembered Tony Bath’s personality generation system from a book of his collected rules and advice for running Ancient (and Hyborian) Wargaming Campaigns. It’s a great book, an insight into early roleplaying and world building and continues to contain useful resources. Here is my altered and simplified rendition of his personality generation system. 

The System

Draw two cards from a standard deck of playing cards (jokers removed) and consult the table below. The first card drawn indicates the adjective - the second indicates the noun. Combine the words to form the character's personality type. 

Card	♦️ Red ♥	♠️ Black ♣️
King	Disloyal/Schemer	Loyal/Companion
Queen	Unhinged/Lunatic	Courageous/Trooper
Jack	Dishonest/Liar	Vengeful/Avenger
Ten	Decadent/Hedonist	Austere/Ascetic
Nine	Humble/Gentleman	Superior/Narcissist
Eight	Cruel/Misanthrope	Affable/Friend
Seven	Charismatic/Charmer	Chivalrous/Cavalier
Six	Lazy/Wastrel	Kind/Comrade
Five	Dithering/Fool	Sly/Rake
Four	Amoral/Rogue	Fearful/Coward
Three	Bad-Tempered/Brute	Calm/Scholar
Two	Zealous/Radical	Ambitious/Aspirant
Ace	Loud/Braggart	Reactionary/Traditionalist

What and Why?

The above table is my general purpose one. It is formed of character traits and types I’m generally more comfortable with. Therefore my table may be missing some personality types you might include instead. It is also slightly more likely to generate ‘negative’ traits and therefore; 'bad' characters. This is fine, the vaguely villainous are usually more interesting to me. Rewrite the table as you see fit. The personalities of your NPCs are very setting specific things and have a huge impact on campaign feel.

Using cards rather than dice means one can go through an entire deck, two cards at a time, to generate a whole host of different characters with less trait repetition.

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.