Chapter 11 — The GM's Random Tables
This chapter is a working tool, not a reading. Roll on it when you need a body in the street, a name across the table, a reason for the next scene, or a twist to fire in the middle of one. It is built to be combinable: roll a Sulamiri from §2, drop them into an encounter from §1, hang a rumor from §3 on what they want, and spring a complication from §4 when the swords come out.
How to use these tables
Section titled “How to use these tables”The three tiers. Every encounter line is tagged for the party it fits, so you pull the right threat instead of the wrong one. Read the tag before you read the monster.
- L — Low tier (a first-season party, roughly levels 1–4). Fodder, single low-CR threats, mundane people on the other side of a drawn blade. This is where most city and frontier play lives.
- M — Mid tier (a seasoned party, roughly levels 5–10). Named threats, small mobs, Hollow-summoned things, most constructs and undead.
- H — High tier (a legendary party, 11+). Kaiju, greater summonings, apex Founding constructs, the sea’s true colossi. Always on its own clearly-marked line. Do not roll a Kaiju against a level-2 party by accident — the high lines are opt-in, not part of the random spread.
- — (dash) A non-combat event: a checkpoint, a procession, a hazard, a scene. Reach for these as often as the monsters; a region that is only ever teeth stops feeling like a place people live.
The origin rule, at the table. The bestiary’s one law (see Part Two and ): the origin, not the silhouette, decides what a thing is and what killing it costs. When a Hollow-origin creature (seepage, summoned, the Vokhraith kaiju) falls, killing it closes nothing — only a Binder sealing the seam ends the haunting, and another shape drifts through within days if the seam stands. Every other origin — native beasts, the Aldeken, sea-horrors, Founding constructs, and above all people — dies a real death and stays dead. Half your dread comes from the players learning which is which the hard way. Tag the Hollow lines in your head as “this fight was never the point.”
The Hollow lines and the Wound Track. When a Hollow encounter comes up, remember the number the players never see ( Part One). The omen table (§5) is what a character notices; the Track is what you’re spending. Pair them.
§1 — Random Encounters by Region
Section titled “§1 — Random Encounters by Region”Six regions, each its own table. Prefer the low-CR fodder for the city and frontier tables; the Kaiju and high Hollow live on their own marked lines and on the Deep, Waste, and Sea tables where the fiction supports them. Where a line offers a choice, pick the one that fits your party’s tier and the scene you want.
Sulamir Streets & the Dome (d20)
Section titled “Sulamir Streets & the Dome (d20)”The vertical city under the always-on Founding dome — magnerail platforms, guild processions, the eighteen districts, and the Seepwar the shield can’t reach.
| d20 | Encounter | Tier |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | A Tithe-Crow mob (CR 0) works the tithe-boxes at dusk; one lifts a shiny off a PC and flies. A chase, not a fight. | L / — |
| 2 | An Alley Cur pack (CR 1/8) trails the party for scraps; a strip of jerky buys the afternoon. | L |
| 3 | A Marshal checkpoint stops the magnerail platform — gate-papers and focus-licenses checked, an unlicensed reach one flash from manacles. | — |
| 4 | A Warrens Cutpurse (CR 1/4) works the crowd; a PC feels a hand at their pouch, focus stone, or sun-cell. | L |
| 5 | A guild procession floods the avenue (roll §6). Traffic halts an hour; you bow to the banners or you’re noticed. | — |
| 6 | An Ashen Penitent (CR 1/2) preaches the world is already Hollow, then throws himself into the party’s swings. He is wrong, and a someone anyway. | L |
| 7 | A Senate-Quarter House Guard patrol (CR 1/2, ×2–4) stops the party on a jurisdiction question; break the shield-line and they’re ordinary. | L / M |
| 8 | A Guild Knuckle (CR 1) leans on a frightened debtor cowering behind the party — Make an Example is built for that mark, not the heroes. | L |
| 9 | A Seep-Wisp (CR 1/4) drifts out of a gambling den’s back room; a Binder’s already been sent for. Confirms an active seam nearby. | L · Hollow |
| 10 | A Ledgerman (CR 2) reads a writ of distraint at a PC or a nearby debtor. Pure legal pressure — nothing to dispel. | L / M |
| 11 | A Licensed Bravo (CR 2) issues a Formal Challenge to a PC who slighted a House; onlookers of standing are watching. | L / M |
| 12 | A Half-Seen Child (CR 1/2) wears a dead child’s face outside a grieving tenement; the family won’t let a Binder near it. | L · Hollow |
| 13 | An OCTA Field Agent (CR 3) sweeps the block; anyone who cast unlicensed is manacled, correct and unstoppable. | M |
| 14 | A House Blade (CR 3) answers a challenge on the House’s behalf — a formal duel, one-on-one, to yield or the floor. | M |
| 15 | A Coinflip (CR 3) has settled under a card table; the house is bleeding luck one way all night (see §5, omen 4). | M · Hollow |
| 16 | A Street Firebrand (CR 3) — an angry low-ward kid with one real trick — flings fire, then runs before the manacles arrive. | M |
| 17 | Two guilds’ sponsored bravos brawl the avenue (Wharf Bravos + Guild Knuckles); the party can be pulled in on either side. | L / M |
| 18 | A Guild-Hall Watch-Sergeant (CR 4) and squad hold a hall against the party; drop the Sergeant and Chain of Command evaporates. | M |
| 19 | Grid-light flicker and a magnerail delay — the district dims for a breath (see §5, omen 2, and §6, roll 1); the Steam Workers are restless, or something under the works is. | — / Hollow-cue |
| 20 | HIGH TIER — Seepwar. A seam has opened in a shuttered upper-district manor: The Long Hush (CR 6) fills a ballroom, light halved and breath fogging; or a Hollow-Possessed practitioner (Hedge-Ward CR 4 / Binder CR 9) walks the avenue with voided black eyes. Call a Binder — killing closes nothing. | H · Hollow |
The Warrens (d12)
Section titled “The Warrens (d12)”The low city — heavy shade, footpads, strays, guild-debt enforced like law, and the grieving families a thin seam preys on.
| d12 | Encounter | Tier |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | A Cold Lamp Rat swarm (CR 1/8) boils out of a lamp-oil cellar; a torch and a closed door solve it. | L |
| 2 | A Warrens Cutpurse (CR 1/4) snatches a focus stone or sun-cell and Cuts and Runs; fights only to escape. | L |
| 3 | An Alley Cur pack (CR 1/8) owns the market-close and barks first; jerky buys their loyalty. | L |
| 4 | A Guild Knuckle (CR 1) collects a debt door to door; the mark hides behind the party, turning a debt-call into a fight. | L |
| 5 | An Ashen Penitent (CR 1/2) gathers a crowd on a rubbish-heap pulpit — the ash is a mercy, he says. | L |
| 6 | A Half-Seen Child (CR 1/2) at a tenement door; the family refuses to believe it isn’t him, come back. | L · Hollow |
| 7 | A Warrens-Runner Cutthroat (CR 2) shadows the party for an ambush. Reward the PC who called the Perception check. | M |
| 8 | A Sun-Cell Smuggler-Captain (CR 2) fences an uncased buried-sun cell — a fortune and a bomb in one coat pocket. | M |
| 9 | A Ledgerman (CR 2) with two Guild Knuckles works a whole tenement’s arrears; obstructing a lawful seizure makes you the criminal. | M |
| 10 | An Absence-Swarm (CR 2) pours through a crack where too many oaths have broken at the same address (a severance-fed seam; Part One). | M · Hollow |
| 11 | A Hollowmarked Pariah (CR 3) — a burn-scarred outcast the block spits on. Roll initiative and you kill a frightened person; talk, and you get a someone and maybe an ally. | M · the trap |
| 12 | A Gutter-Maw (CR 3) has nested in a flooded sub-cellar, its chorus of stolen voices leaking up the stairwell. This is the worst the Warrens hold — for true high-tier Hollow, go deeper (Deep table, lines 18–20). | M · Hollow |
The Deep & the Steam Tunnels (d20)
Section titled “The Deep & the Steam Tunnels (d20)”Below the street — the Steam Workers’ domain, the flooded cisterns, the dormant Founding machinery, the sealed Rhydin levels, and the book-one seepage breach.
| d20 | Encounter | Tier |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | A Steam-Tunnel Louse colony (CR 1/4) near an active vent — heat-seeking, nothing more. | L |
| 2 | A Cold Lamp Rat swarm (CR 1/8). | L |
| 3 | A Gloomhopper (CR 1/8) panic-launches off a wall in the dark — a bug more frightened than you are. | L / — |
| 4 | A Steam Worker crew asks the party’s business; the tunnels are theirs, not the Marshals’. Answer well or be escorted out. | — |
| 5 | A Seep-Wisp (CR 1/4) drifts the corridor — the laziest seepage, and proof of an active seam somewhere close. | L · Hollow |
| 6 | A Pale Cave-Fisher (CR 2) fires a gluey line from a ledge; the deep dark’s honest monster, teeth and appetite. | M |
| 7 | The Unseen (CR 2) — the type-specimen, invisible, in a section gone cold and wrong. Workers have vanished here two winters running. | M · Hollow |
| 8 | A Mudlark Husk (CR 2) — a stitched crow-carcass, someone’s summoned scout. Its cooling blood carries a traceable brand. | M · Hollow |
| 9 | A Latchwarden (CR 3) intercepts trespassers on a century-old patrol loop. Outrank its order and it stands down with zero rolls. | M · construct |
| 10 | A Steam-Wyrm Eel (CR 3) in a flooded cistern under the works — it thinks the tunnels are a lake. | M |
| 11 | A Gutter-Maw (CR 3) — a seam past coherence, its chorus every voice a true fragment soaked from someone nearby. | M · Hollow |
| 12 | A Hollow-Possessed Hedge-Ward (CR 4) thins the seam as she walks, eyes flat black. No rescue by the Heart; she can only be freed by Binding. | M · Hollow |
| 13 | A Stillpoint (CR 4) — a room where causality stutters. OCTA Class-3 temporal hazard; evacuate before Binding. | M · Hollow |
| 14 | A Vault-Sentinel Cataphract (CR 5) guards a Founding vault emptied generations ago; nobody told the guardian. | M · construct |
| 15 | A grid-conduit rupture floods the level with scalding steam — a skill-challenge and a race, not a fight. | — |
| 16 | A sealed Rhydin-level door stands ajar on a schedule no one mapped; older masonry, colder air, a wrongness that predates the Founding. | — · dread |
| 17 | A Latticework Marshal (CR 7) recites a dead Founding statute in Old Script before engaging; read the clause back correctly and it stands down mid-swing. | M / H · construct |
| 18 | HIGH TIER.The Long Hush (CR 6) has become a chamber — light halves, breath fogs, dread arrives as pressure. Win the fight and the room re-fills within a month unless Bound. | H · Hollow |
| 19 | HIGH TIER. A greater summoning loose in the deep: Vasktherion, the Called Maw (CR 9) destabilizing the whole district; or a Spire Choir-Engine (CR 9) waking every idle construct within a mile. | H · Hollow / construct |
| 20 | HIGH TIER — the Rhydin depths.The Adjudicator (CR 11) reads a three-centuries-dead writ and names the party guilty; or the Sovereign Cataloger (CR 13) at the foot of a Spire shaft. Destroy either and irreplaceable Founding lore burns with it. | H · construct |
The Waste-Lands Frontier (d12)
Section titled “The Waste-Lands Frontier (d12)”The eastern edge — Nolekkelon, Hakkar, and Tonja’s watchtower line, the Long Rent, the ash-canyons, and beyond them the compromised Azhandian Gate through which the Wound presses hardest.
| d12 | Encounter | Tier |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Waste-Land Raider scouts (CR 1/2, ×2–3) sight the party from watchtower scree — never fielded alone. | L |
| 2 | A Rent Jackal pack (CR 1/2) runs the switchbacks; loud, coordinated, and you hear them coming. | L |
| 3 | A Dune-Skitter (CR 1/2) comes up under a boot through the dune-skin. Venom is chemistry, not a curse. | L |
| 4 | An Ashfang Viper (CR 1) strikes from ash-canyon cover; antivenom and Restoration both work fine. | L |
| 5 | A Canyon Strider (CR 1) — a wary herd animal with a nasty kick that bolts from the smell of an open seam. | L |
| 6 | A Waste-Land Raider warband (CR 1/2, ×6) opens with a javelin volley from the scree, then closes to flank. | L / M |
| 7 | A Highland Stalker (CR 2) stalks the high scree — the apex cat, indifferent to anything cosmic. | M |
| 8 | A Hollowmarked Pariah (CR 3) exiled to the frontier; your table is trained to see a monster and about to kill a person. | M · the trap |
| 9 | The Remembered Boy (CR 3) — a summoned face-from-memory, loosed from a compromised seam, speaking only in a stolen voice. | M · Hollow |
| 10 | A Raid-Captain of the Waste (CR 4) fights from the middle of the pack, Rally upgrading javelin-fodder into a warband. Kill the captain first. | M |
| 11 | An Ashgrave Hound (CR 5) courses open ground — killing it closes nothing; the seam finds a new dead animal to wear three towns on. Or a Rent-Maw Bear (CR 5), the undisputed apex of the canyon floor. | M · Hollow / beast |
| 12 | HIGH TIER — the Gate. Through the failing Azhandian Gate comes Vasktherion, the Called Maw (CR 9); or, abroad in the deep waste, VOKHRAITH, the Cathedral Wound (CR 21) — a civilizational incident, not a monster-of-the-week. Only a Binding ritual into the seam-mouth ends it. | H · Hollow / Kaiju |
The West Sea & the Coast (d20)
Section titled “The West Sea & the Coast (d20)”The Great Harbor, the quays, Julin’s docks, the marsh flats, and out past them the Maw and drowned Aldasen.
| d20 | Encounter | Tier |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | A Brinegull Swarm (CR 1/4) mobs a dropped catch on the quay — a picnic hazard, not a portent. | L / — |
| 2 | A Saltmarsh Leech-Cluster (CR 1/8) in a stagnant channel past the coast road; salt or flame clears them. | L |
| 3 | A Reed-Stalker (CR 1/2) spears an unwary ankle from the shallows — a heron with reach. | L |
| 4 | A Wharf Bravo pair (CR 1/8) works the dock in twos; one alone is just a man with a stick. | L |
| 5 | An Aldeken Drudge (CR 1/2) shuffles from the tideline near Aldasen wreckage; a plain sword or Turn Undead ends it for good. | L · undead |
| 6 | A coast-guard militia cutter hails the party — the guilds officially discourage Maw expeditions, and privately fund them. | — |
| 7 | A Sun-Cell Smuggler-Captain (CR 2) runs contraband cells off a night quay; his oath is to the cargo, and the cargo can be bought. | M |
| 8 | A Tideclutch Swarm (CR 2) — a drowned market-crowd’s worth of hands, still reaching, moving as one mass. | M · undead |
| 9 | A Kravis (CR 3) — its false-stone lure glowing like a focus stone, drawing the trusting in close. | M · sea-horror |
| 10 | A Bloated Drowned (CR 3) fished up by accident; do not cut it open on the deck of your own boat. | M · undead |
| 11 | A Lucid Aldeken: the Archivist (CR 4) wants someone — anyone — to write down Aldasen before the Hunger takes her again. Talk, and you may leave with a sunken city’s only census. | M · undead / talk |
| 12 | An Aldeken Deep Warden (CR 5) holds a drowned harbor gate it was posted at the night the wards failed; it won’t chase you past its route. | M · undead |
| 13 | A Glass-Tooth Shoal (CR 5) rides a deep current into shallows; area effects beat any champion’s blade. | M · sea-horror |
| 14 | A toppled mountain-top surfaces on the tide, an old Sulamiri ruin scarred fresh — Maeruk has been circling the wreck. | — · dread |
| 15 | The Drowned Lantern (CR 7) — a false-stone built for solitary ambush; a light that doesn’t move and doesn’t flicker isn’t a person. | M / H · sea-horror |
| 16 | A Lucid Aldeken: the Drowned Magistrate (CR 7) still presides over a court that sank three centuries ago. Bring a genuine grievance to rule on, not a sword. | H · undead |
| 17 | Fire Snakes (Merged Form) (CR 8) bask on a warm wreck; a bucket of cold Maw seawater disperses them better than any glyph. | H · sea-horror |
| 18 | HIGH TIER. A Kravilith (CR 12) — the colony-form, a gargantuan mass of fused Kravis. | H |
| 19 | HIGH TIER. The Fathom-King (CR 14) rises under the keel — obscene mortal biology, older than Aldasen. A Heart practitioner can genuinely calm it, the way you’d gentle a spooked draft horse a thousand times too large. | H · Kaiju-adjacent |
| 20 | HIGH TIER.MAERUK, the Drowned Colossus (CR 18) — nine centuries of mass, and not Hollow at all: killing it is real killing, but The Weight of It reshapes the coastline. A coastal town may beg you to drive it to deep water, not finish it. | H · Kaiju |
Wilderness by Biome
Section titled “Wilderness by Biome”Roll on the sub-table for the ground you’re standing on. Each is a d6 — quick to reach for on the road. The frontier and the mundane fauna carry these; the true horrors live on the region tables above.
Sulamir Forest — unowned seam-ground older than the city, dense with House lodges and outlaw camps. (d6)
- A Thornhog (CR 1) roots the litter and charges anything that startles it. — L
- A House Blade (CR 3) or lodge-keeper warns the party off a great House’s private ground; whose forest is this? — M / —
- A hunting party from a rival House crosses yours on the trail. — —
- A Highland Stalker (CR 2) in the old growth. — M
- A Half-Seen Child (CR 1/2) — the forest is seam-ground, and a thin place breathes under an old lodge. — L · Hollow
- An outlaw camp (Iosan Serpents or Heralds of the Sunborn). Do not be seen. — — / M
The Long Rent & the ash-canyons — the older of the two continental scars, mineral-rich and lethal. (d6)
- A Rent Jackal pack (CR 1/2). — L
- An Ashfang Viper (CR 1) from the ash. — L
- A Canyon Strider (CR 1) herd on the scree. — L
- A Highland Stalker (CR 2). — M
- A Rent-Maw Bear (CR 5) — “do not summon, do not seal, do not go there without a reason.” — M
- An Iron Coin or Prodigus extraction crew hauling ore up the switchbacks. — —
The High Country — mountain passes and snow barrens of the northern and frontier provinces. (d6)
- A Crag-Nanny (CR 1/8) butts you off the ledge it wants. — L
- A Snow-Hare Warren (CR 0) erupts and bolts — supper, not a fight. — L
- A Highland Stalker (CR 2), snow-camouflaged. — M
- A Canyon Strider (CR 1) herd on a high pass. — L
- A homeland watchtower line signals a Kaiju alert two valleys over. — — · dread
- A Rent-Maw Bear (CR 5) at the tree-line. — M
The Grasslands & Plains — the ochre-and-green farm country, crossed by magnerail and caravan road. (d6)
- A Plains Courser (CR 1) herd — the hazard is the stampede, not the animal. — L
- A Drayw-beast (CR 1/4) and its teamsters camped by the road; freight on legs. — L / —
- A Dune-Skitter (CR 1/2) where the grass thins toward waste. — L
- A magnerail station-halt with news from the homelands. — —
- Waste-Land Raider outriders (CR 1/2) probing west of the frontier. — L
- An Ashgrave Hound (CR 5) coursing open ground, loosed from a frontier seam. — M · Hollow
The Marsh & River Country — the river system through Bolanbi, Antodinera, and the southern provinces. (d6)
- A Saltmarsh Leech-Cluster (CR 1/8). — L
- A Reed-Stalker (CR 1/2) motionless in the reeds. — L
- A Brinegull Swarm (CR 1/4) over a river-mouth. — L
- A Steam-Wyrm Eel (CR 3) strayed up a warm tributary. — M
- A river flood — the one weather the Cloud network doesn’t fully manage. — — · hazard
- A Hedge-Caster (CR 1) who keeps three farms alive; roll initiative on her green eyes and you’ve killed the wrong person. — L · the trap
The Deep Caves — the natural dark below the worked tunnels, before the Rhydin masonry. (d6)
- A Gloomhopper (CR 1/8) panic-leaps out of the black. — L
- A Cold Lamp Rat swarm (CR 1/8). — L
- A Pale Cave-Fisher (CR 2) — the deep dark’s honest monster. — M
- A Seep-Wisp (CR 1/4) — even here, a seam has reached. — L · Hollow
- Pre-Founding masonry, older than the tunnels above; a sealed Rhydin door. — — · dread
- The Unseen (CR 2) in a section gone cold and wrong. — M · Hollow
§2 — The Random Sulamiri (NPC Generator)
Section titled “§2 — The Random Sulamiri (NPC Generator)”Roll or pick one line from each of the five sub-tables and staple them together: a name-hook (which province they read as), an allegiance (whose oath they wear), a want (what drives them right now), a quirk (how they read at the table), and a secret (the leverage under it all). The five are fully combinable — an Udlimill-registered Order-of-the-Spider agent who wants to escape her own debt, ends every sentence with a beat of silence, and is being played by a second guild she doesn’t know about, builds herself. Lean on the debt/oath/guild culture: in Merretia, everyone owes someone, and every oath shadows an older one.
A. Given-Name Hook (d20)
Section titled “A. Given-Name Hook (d20)”Roll the province a Sulamiri reads as — their name and register are usually a clue to their origin. Sample names are illustrative; swap freely within the register.
| d20 | Reads as | Register & sample names |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Tonjani | Anglo-Saxon, kenning-named. Aldric, Wynn, Corveliss-kin. Oaths sworn aloud at the hearth. |
| 2 | Hakkari | Anglo-frontier, Highland tilt, tall folk. Kane, Callum, Tara, Stoneheart, Trapper. Plain speech, occupational pride. |
| 3 | Yiskii | Slavic-courtly, melancholy. Sergey, Vasilek-born, partial-Aldasen lineages. Performs its gloom. |
| 4 | Multani (Sahthan) | Persian merchant-prince. Fitran, Mihran, Ptolemy. Tea before any hard word. |
| 5 | Merjayan | South-Asian, Heart-devotional. Singh, Bathemel. Mantric repetition threads the speech. |
| 6 | Entoyan | Japanese, contemplative, curt syllabic. Alont, Niska. Quiet as a daily discipline. |
| 7 | Bolanbi | West-African, proverb-rich. Boahene, Asantewa, Sefa, Dru Danum. Drum-tower ceremony. |
| 8 | Crekoan | Roman, martial. Aurelia, Tiberian, Octavia, Quinton. Drill as daily life. |
| 9 | Lupanese | Italian-Renaissance banking. Bancaforte, di Lupan, Pershaun. Accounts always settling. |
| 10 | Julin | Norse, dockside, loud. Gren, Hauld, Skerry, Amber, Rolinda. Fights and fishing fleets. |
| 11 | Antodineran | Iberian, funereal, tender. Esteban, Mariella, Diego, Vaz. The work is dying well. |
| 12 | Pogusian | Hellenic, academic. Sosthenes, Phylo, Creven. Everything a well-formed question. |
| 13 | Udlimillan | Central-Asian, stealth-coded. Borjigid, Khorlan, Naran, Jinto Sien. Silence at sentence-ends. |
| 14 | Nolekkelon | Finnish-Uralic, archival, cold. Rhys-kin, library-house names. Being read is being heard. |
| 15 | Ockallakan | Polynesian, engineering. Mahina, Pekelo, Ali’ikai, Fidi’olliana. Resilience proverbs. |
| 16 | Frewnese | French-Provençal, theatrical. Elacole, opera-house lineages. Manufactures the sunset. |
| 17 | Ahlgenadin | Arabic-Andalusian, founding-style. Founding-Tongue-thick, Mal’akha lineages, mosaic-palace names. |
| 18 | Illibill | Korean, honorific-graded. Hanae, Suhyun, Joon, Skylar. Speech graded by age and relation. |
| 19 | Azhandian | Scottish-coded (Jukaggle) or low-British (Enwith); hard frontier register. Carries the wall’s wound and its argument. |
| 20 | Sulamir Standard | Dome-born polyglot — no clear province, a mutt of every register. The mediating city tongue. |
B. Allegiance — Guild or House (d20)
Section titled “B. Allegiance — Guild or House (d20)”Whose oath do they wear? Roll the guild; the tilt tells you how they carry it.
| d20 | Allegiance (tilt) |
|---|---|
| 1 | Alum-sidek Alliance — magnerail arterial (shrewdness / terrifying). |
| 2 | The Masons — construction, Great-War memory (wisdom / vengeful). |
| 3 | Emphemere — high-noble society (ambition / ruthless). |
| 4 | Torrus Ectos (Red Octopus) — brawler markets (brutality / blissful). |
| 5 | Order of the Blue Cross — death rites, inheritance (death / generous). |
| 6 | The Red Dragons — martial discipline (discipline / pure). |
| 7 | Temple of the One — doctrine, heterodox legitimacy (elegance / natural). |
| 8 | The Iron Coin — banking, sovereign currency (independence / gallant). |
| 9 | Multani — diplomacy, influence-brokerage (influence / tactical). |
| 10 | Abyssal Fires — intelligence, archives (intelligence / skeptical). |
| 11 | Bavit-vita — medicine, Heart lineages (life / chaotic). |
| 12 | Alyu’amare — marriage & alliance brokerage (love / elemental). |
| 13 | The Core — mind disciplines, mediation (mind / serene). |
| 14 | The Sulamir League — institutional memory (perseverance / singular). |
| 15 | Prodigus Group — engineering, logistics (resilience / logical). |
| 16 | Order of the Spider — espionage, sanctioned assassination (stealth / swift). |
| 17 | The White Legion — theatre, pleasure, celebrity (pleasure / dramatic). |
| 18 | The Hand — luxury trade, high-wealth finance (wealth / liberal). |
| 19 | Unguilded civic — a Steam System Worker (the one power no guild commands) or a Marshal (cross-guild enforcement). |
| 20 | Houseless / outside the Council — a Warrens footpad, a Waste-Land or Azhandian refugee, or quietly an outlaw order (Iosan Serpents / Heralds of the Sunborn). |
C. What They Want Right Now (d12)
Section titled “C. What They Want Right Now (d12)”| d12 | Drive |
|---|---|
| 1 | To collect a debt owed to their guild — today, with interest. |
| 2 | To escape a debt of their own before the Ledgerman comes. |
| 3 | To be released from an oath they can no longer keep — but only their sworn superior can lift it. |
| 4 | To broker a House alliance or marriage before a rival (Emphemere vs. Alyu’amare) seals the other match. |
| 5 | To buy or fence something contraband — an uncased sun-cell, unlicensed focus-work. |
| 6 | To get a family member through a dome gate before a closure vote. |
| 7 | To find a Binder and hush a seam sighting before the OCTA or a rival guild hears. |
| 8 | To pass an OCTA sweep carrying an unlicensed reach they can’t hide. |
| 9 | To carry a message or relic to the homeland their diaspora line still answers to. |
| 10 | To collect on broken faith — someone fled a licensed duel and owes standing. |
| 11 | To place a loyal asset inside a rival guild, and needs a deniable proxy (the party). |
| 12 | Only to survive the day’s labor on the grid, the quay, or the ledger — no scheme at all. |
D. A Quirk (d12)
Section titled “D. A Quirk (d12)”| d12 | Quirk |
|---|---|
| 1 | Ends every sentence with a beat of silence (Udlimill habit) — or over-talks to fill it. |
| 2 | Recites the sum anyone in the room owes, unprompted (a Ledgerman’s tic). |
| 3 | Thumbs a spent sun-cell for luck when nervous. |
| 4 | Serves tea before any hard word (Multani) — or refuses hospitality on principle. |
| 5 | Wears their guild tilt literally, in cloth-color and cut. |
| 6 | Flinches from focus-light; a bad seam-scare in their past. |
| 7 | Quotes the Universal Guild Oath at emotional moments. |
| 8 | Speaks only Sulamir Standard in public and their home register when moved. |
| 9 | Reads omens in the grid-flicker and counts the tithe-crows; superstitious. |
| 10 | Name-drops a Council Leader they have never actually met. |
| 11 | Won’t cross a dome gate line without touching it — a homeland habit made portable. |
| 12 | Marks every debt and favor in a little book they never let out of reach. |
E. A Secret (d12)
Section titled “E. A Secret (d12)”The leverage under the person — debt, oath, and guild culture doing what they do.
| d12 | Secret |
|---|---|
| 1 | Owes an unpayable debt to the Iron Coin or the Hand; one word forecloses their whole life. |
| 2 | Holds a prior oath to their birth-House that overrides the guild oath they now wear. |
| 3 | Has cousins on five guilds and passes word between them — no guild owns their loyalty. |
| 4 | Cast something unlicensed once; a half-written OCTA file carries their name. |
| 5 | Is a placed asset for a rival guild — and is being played by a second one they don’t know about. |
| 6 | Knows a seam is thinning under their block and hasn’t reported it; fears the Binders more than the Hollow. |
| 7 | Lost someone to a seepage and refuses to believe the thing wearing that face isn’t them. |
| 8 | Is freed Azhandian, or hides an Azhandian line; carries the Jukaggle-vs-Enwith wound. |
| 9 | Broke faith at a duel years ago; the standing owed has quietly compounded. |
| 10 | Carries a genuine Founding-era token, or the rumor of an angel-feather a great House would kill for. |
| 11 | Is quietly a Herald of the Sunborn, watching for angel-demon power returning in the world. |
| 12 | Has no secret worth the name — and that is the leverage, because everyone assumes they must. |
§3 — Rumors & Hooks (d20)
Section titled “§3 — Rumors & Hooks (d20)”Adventure seeds, all grounded in canon. Each is a door; what’s behind it is yours. The Hollow hooks pay off the origin rule — the fight is never the fix.
| d20 | Rumor / Hook |
|---|---|
| 1 | A guild debt is called due on a family that can’t pay. The Ledgerman comes at dawn — and the debtor has hired the party, to do what, exactly, they won’t yet say. |
| 2 | A Steam Worker didn’t come up from the deep shift. His crew won’t talk to the Marshals (the tunnels are theirs) but they’ll talk to outsiders. A seam? A Rhydin door? A summoner? |
| 3 | A focus stone on a shuttered upper-district manor has gone void-black. The House wants it quiet, a rival guild wants it public, the OCTA wants it Bound. |
| 4 | An uncased buried-sun cell is on the black market — a fortune and a bomb at once. Two guilds and a Smuggler-Captain want it; whoever holds it when it ruptures owns the blast. |
| 5 | An OCTA sweep is coming to a whole district. An unlicensed Hedge-Caster or Street Firebrand the party has reason to protect will be manacled unless spirited out first. |
| 6 | A Waste-Land raid has driven refugees toward a dome gate; the senate is voting closure. The party can slow the raiders, move the people, or lean on a senator. |
| 7 | Two Houses have competing marriage proposals on the same heir (Emphemere vs. Alyu’amare). Someone wants the wrong match sabotaged before the Harmony Hall seals it. |
| 8 | A coast-guard cutter has gone silent off the Maw, where a guild’s secret expedition sailed. The guild will deny the ship ever left port. |
| 9 | A Lucid Aldeken has been sighted holding a drowned gate — and with her, salt-warped ledgers that might name where Aldasen’s ward-stones failed. The twenty-two-year celestial is approaching. |
| 10 | A licensed duel went wrong: a House Blade killed the wrong man, or a Bravo fled the challenge. Broken faith is a debt, and someone with a name wants it collected. |
| 11 | A rival guild’s sponsored adventuring party is working the same ruin as the players. Only one crew comes back with the writ. |
| 12 | The grid dimmed for an hour last night with no cause the Prodigus engineers will admit. The Steam Workers know why and aren’t saying. |
| 13 | A Hollowmarked Pariah has been driven into the Warrens by a mob. They’ve killed before when cornered — and a Zar’ir Acolyte is leading the crowd that made them dangerous. |
| 14 | An Ashgrave Hound was put down three towns back — and now another wears a fresh dead animal. Someone never Bound the seam; the summoner is still working. |
| 15 | A Founding vault has been found intact in the deep. A Vault-Sentinel guards contents that may be long gone, and three guilds race for the counter-seal (which sits in a museum case). |
| 16 | A Marshal detachment has been leaning one guild’s way, and an honest indictment is being buried. Someone needs the file to surface. |
| 17 | A magnerail charter dispute (Alum-sidek vs. Multani) has stranded a homeland shipment; sabotage is suspected on the line through Tonja. |
| 18 | A Steam Worker child has inherited a Rhydin-level key on a schedule no one mapped, and a door that shouldn’t be open, is. (Deep dread; Oen-adjacent.) |
| 19 | A metal-armed stranger has been asking, across three districts, after anyone whose “reach bills the world, not the body” — testing for unregistered practitioners. |
| 20 | HIGH. The Azhandian Gate has failed; the first Hollow-touched things are coming through toward the Rhydin levels. The Azhandian diaspora, who know what a failing gate means, are already moving. The frontier’s war has reached the dome. |
§4 — Complications (d12)
Section titled “§4 — Complications (d12)”The setting’s signature twist — an oath-and-debt entanglement that fires mid-scene, turning a clean fight into a costly choice. Spring one when the swords are already out.
| d12 | Complication |
|---|---|
| 1 | The foe invokes a Formal Challenge / licensed duel. A bystander of standing is watching, and swarming him now is public broken faith — a debt you’ll carry. |
| 2 | A Ledgerman arrives with a writ naming someone present; by guild law, obstructing a lawful seizure makes you the criminal. |
| 3 | The NPC you need is oath-bound to a superior who hasn’t released them; they physically cannot help until the oath is lifted, and only one person can lift it. |
| 4 | Your quarry is someone’s placed asset. Harm them, and a guild you didn’t know was watching now owes you a grudge — or a job offer. |
| 5 | A debt you forgot is called at the worst moment: a favor you took in act one is redeemed as leverage right now. |
| 6 | The frightened debtor the enemy is really after cowers behind you. Step aside and the enemy stops; press the fight and you’re the aggressor. |
| 7 | An OCTA agent appears, drawn by an ally’s eye-flash. The lawful thing and the loyal thing are now opposites. |
| 8 | The dying enemy’s oath transfers: with their last breath they name you or an ally to a duty — a ward, a debt, a message — that the culture treats as binding. |
| 9 | A bond breaks in the room — a betrayal, an oath shattered — and the site is marked. Every Hollow act here now lands harder; the seam is quietly widening, and no instrument flags it ( Part One). |
| 10 | Two of your enemies are oath-siblings. Kill one and the survivor is released from a restraint that was holding them back, not you. |
| 11 | The contract you’re fulfilling was sold on to a rival guild without your knowing. The people who hired you are no longer the people you answer to. |
| 12 | The kill closes nothing — what you just put down was Hollow-origin, and unless a Binder seals the seam, another wears a new face within the tenday, while someone who loved the first shape watches you do it. |
§5 — Hollow Omens (d10)
Section titled “§5 — Hollow Omens (d10)”The surface signs a character would actually notice when a seam thins nearby — your dread-cue table. These are the GM-facing read of a thinning Wound, tied to the Hollow-Seepage creatures ( §2; ). Deal one out before the seepage appears, not after; the omen is the warning the world gives that instruments and disciplines can’t. What the character notices is on this table. The number they never see is the Wound Track ( Part One) — spend it while you deal these.
| d10 | Omen |
|---|---|
| 1 | A cold spot with no draft. Breath fogs indoors, a wall sweats, and the chill has an edge that feels like being watched. (The seam’s thinnest edge — a Seep-Wisp may already be drifting.) |
| 2 | Focus-light gutters. Lanterns, sun-lamps, and focus stones burn at half brightness and won’t be coaxed up; a dropped stone reads void-black, drinking the light. (Proto-seam — the OCTA’s alarm threshold.) |
| 3 | A familiar voice with no source. A parent’s, a lover’s, a dead friend’s — saying one true fragment, out of order, that never finishes its sentence. (Gutter-Maw’s chorus; the voice was soaked from someone nearby.) |
| 4 | Curdled luck. Dice, coins, and knots go wrong in a way that isn’t quite random — a card-house bleeding one way all night. (A Coinflip has settled close by.) |
| 5 | Animals refuse the ground. A mount won’t enter, birds go silent, the tithe-crows lift off a roof at once and don’t return. (Beasts read the seam before anyone knows why.) |
| 6 | A child’s face at the edge of sight. Someone’s missing or dead child, moving wrong for the face it wears. (The Half-Seen Child; it was never anyone.) |
| 7 | A held-breath stillness. A corridor where sound deadens, a flame stops guttering, and for a moment nothing moves — including you. (Stillpoint; causality thinning.) |
| 8 | The survivor who’s too whole. Someone with a long history of hard practice who bears none of its wear, whose eyes go flat instead of flashing a discipline color. (A Hollow-user — or the thing wearing the face they left behind.) |
| 9 | A refraction in the air, like a lens of heat where nothing should bend it, and the sense that the far end of the room doesn’t quite line up with the near end. (The Unseen; the wound itself, invisible.) |
| 10 | The room grows cold, the light halves, and dread arrives as pressure — not a thought. Everyone present quietly wants to leave and can’t say why. (The Long Hush; the seam has grown a body. Call a Binder. Do not linger.) |
§6 — Dome Weather & Street Colour (d12)
Section titled “§6 — Dome Weather & Street Colour (d12)”Ambient texture for a Sulamir scene — no dice needed to resolve, just to flavor. Roll one when a city scene needs a backdrop that says where you are.
| d12 | Colour |
|---|---|
| 1 | Grid-light flicker. The district’s sun-lamps dim and surge for a breath; conversation pauses, then resumes — everyone pretending not to have noticed the Steam Workers reminding the city who holds the switch. |
| 2 | A guild procession floods the avenue — banners of one of the eighteen (roll §2B), a Bolanbi drum-tower pulse, a Crekoan banner-count, an Antodineran Day-of-the-Dead column. You bow to the banners or you’re marked. |
| 3 | A tithe-crow mob boils off the gutter-lines at dusk, black against the Cloud network; a district’s worth of shinies goes missing by nightfall. |
| 4 | A Marshal checkpoint at the magnerail platform — gate-papers and focus-licenses checked, an unlicensed reach one flash from the manacles. |
| 5 | The Cloud network tints the sky an alien color as the sun crosses it. Visitors say so; the dome-born call it home and don’t look up. |
| 6 | A magnerail delay strands a platform of eighteen registers shoulder to shoulder — the one place the whole city stands together. |
| 7 | An airship convoy crosses low, the pilots (in theory) understanding the organization; a near-miss draws a street-crowd’s roar. |
| 8 | A debt-call in the open — a Ledgerman reading a writ on a doorstep, the street slowing to watch a family’s arrears made public. No one intervenes; it’s lawful. |
| 9 | Vashkil crosses fast overhead while slow Alshera hangs behind it — sailors and lovers swear by the fast moon; Pogus’s almanac-watchers track the alignment the prophecies name. |
| 10 | A festival spills across the levels — the Frewnese Masque, the one night the great houses drink beside the working tiers, costumes making everyone briefly unplaceable. |
| 11 | A corner collection — a tithe-box worked by an Ashen Penitent or a Zar’ir Acolyte; the Eight gods and the Temple of the One competing for the same coppers. |
| 12 | The red patina on everything — iron-red dust settling ruddy on stone and cloth. A painter flattens it out of the portrait; the street knows it as the true color of the city. |
§7 — Minor Finds (d12)
Section titled “§7 — Minor Finds (d12)”Small loot, relics, and clues appropriate to the setting — the kind of thing a search turns up. Some are worth coin, some are worth trouble, and the last two are worth a Binder’s or a ruin-delver’s whole day.
| d12 | Find |
|---|---|
| 1 | A spent sun-cell — a cased buried-sun cell, drained dead. Worthless as power, but the casing’s guild-stamp says which grid-works it was pulled from, and whether it was pulled legally. |
| 2 | An oath-cord — a knotted cord recording a personal vow, each knot a term. Read it and you learn what someone swore, and to whom. |
| 3 | A coil-tool — a Steam Worker’s grid-wrench, worn smooth and inherited, not bought. Marks the bearer as of the deep community — or as having robbed one of them. |
| 4 | A House signet — a great-House seal ring (roll §2A for the district coding). Enforceable authority in the wrong hand, and a hanging matter if it isn’t yours. |
| 5 | A half-written OCTA file — a field agent’s notes on an unlicensed caster; the name redacted, but the district and the discipline-color legible. |
| 6 | A focus stone, keyed and dim — someone’s licensed reach-tool. It flashes its owner’s discipline color if a caster wakes it, which the OCTA can read across a room. |
| 7 | A guild writ of distraint — a sealed, unfulfilled debt-order; the named debtor and the sum still legible, the seal either genuine or a very good forgery. |
| 8 | A magnerail charter-token — a brass fare-and-clearance chit for the inter-provincial line; grants passage a commoner waits weeks for. |
| 9 | A tithe-crow’s hoard — a gutter-nest of stolen shinies: a wedding-band, three coppers, a tooth, a keyed but dead focus stone, and one thing someone is still looking for. |
| 10 | A salt-warped page — a fragment of an Aldasenian ledger (a name, a law, a location), soaked but readable. The twenty-two-year celestial makes it suddenly worth killing for. |
| 11 | Cooling summoning residue — black blood-grit or grey ash bearing a faint geometric brand. A Knowing read, or an hour’s study, ties it to a specific summoner’s discipline-lineage. (A clue, not loot — the traceable signature every Hollow-summoned thing leaves.) |
| 12 | A Founding-era token — a small oath-metal seal in Old Founding Script. It means nothing to most, but a Latchwarden, a Vault-Sentinel, or an Adjudicator might recognize it as authority and stand down. Priceless to the right ruin-delver, lethal to carry into the wrong vault. |