Dangerous Destinations - Watch Tower

My bog book for Dangerous Destinations arrived, and I decided a quick roll-through to see what sort of thing shows up. The book is not exactly what I thought it would be, though it is exactly what it said it would be: "The definitive guide to creating intriguing and dynamic destinations for storytelling and fantasy roleplaying games". Think of it as a very complete generation system that lets you procedurally create a destination. So more of a random place generator that I was thinking, but in re-reading the campaign, that is what it said it was.

To begin with, we start with the prelude which is something evocative to flavor the end result, and help with fleshing out the results with a story. In reading some of the sample destinations generated by the rules, this prelude can make a dramatic difference in interpretation of the final results. 

Prelude: Fear - feeling that something threatening or dangerous is near. We'll have to figure out what this can be as we move along the process.

Previous Presence: Dumping ground. Area used to get rid of something: refuse, bodies, bad magic experiments...this was not a happy place before whatever ends up as our destination is present. 

Continued Presence: apparent - what was there has been replaced but there are obvious signs of the dumping grounds. So - whatever was getting dumped is not hidden or buried. Not a secret anyone is trying to keep.

Finally, the first big step - just what is our destination?

Destination Type: Watch Tower. Ahh, so this location will be a watch tower. Build on, over or nearby whatever was being dumped. And there is a sense of fear at this destination. Sadly, I am doing this post-Halloween!

• Watch Tower type: visual signal tower. Signal flags, or torches, or something. This also means that there should be similar watch towers in visual range. Depending on the terrain and height, that can be quite a variable distance.
• Height: 10-20'. Going with 10 + d10 I get a 17' tower. 
• Top Floor: 25x25 feet
• Construction: stand-alone tower. This is a sole tower: no support buildings or anything like that. I would assume there are barracks and facilities in the lower level.
• Condition: Dangerous - in serious disrepair. The tower is falling apart and not maintained. Never a good sign!
• Current effectiveness: effective, works as it should. Despite appearances, the signals are still getting through.
• Control - original people. That is, whoever is supposed to be here is still here.

Next, just where is this watch tower?

Environment - Plains

• Danger: environmental danger - intelligent monster. We'll have to roll on the plains intelligent monster table to see what that means.
• destination locality - deep plains, close to the heart of the plains. We'll have some travelling to get there.
• notable environmental feature: plateau, 390' high, 560 acres. Big plateau! And the watch tower is built on this big plateau in the middle of the plains. Meaning that if we stick the 17' tall watch tower near the edge of this plateau, it would be visible for several days journey at least in one direction.
• terrain feature: burrows of small animals. Could be they ar ethe ones that are causing the tower to be in such bad repair. Buit watch your foot - gopher holes are everywhere!
• Recent weather has been mild.
• Current weather (assume this really means when the players get there) is also mild. We could have had all sorts of bad weather: heavy snows, heavy rains, gale force winds. Oddly I rolled nice weather twice.
• Local fauna - no additional wildlife. Just those burrowing animals and that intelligent monster. Not that the players know any of this yet!
• Now we roll for our intelligent monster: an 18 yields a Pegasus! Just why is this intelligent Pegasus dangerous? Fortunately, I actually have a Pegasus mini. I think. Unfortunately, I don't get to play face to face much anymore!

And there we have the bare rolls. Putting this altogether, we can create our dangerous destination.

Years before, gnolls hunted the few Pegasus (Pegasi? Pegasuses?) for ritual sacrifice atop the Charn Plateau, near the heart of the Stratgeo Plains. A great pit was dug where the bodies were burned alive, great metal netting preventing flight and escape. Unfortunately for the gnolls, Tric, a wind god of the plains, took umbrage at this and destroyed most of the gnolls. The few that were left have been since hunted down by the remaining few Pegasus. These Pegasus have been driven mad by the experience and will not react normally. Years later. Gerth the Great of the Strageo Plains wanted to expand his tribe's territories. He established a watchtower on the edge of the Charn Plateau, armed with fire and smoke, to give alerts for other tribes who were not so happy about territorial expansion. Unfortunately, not realizing that gophers had no natural enemies on the plateau, the watchtower over the years has started to list somewhat alarmingly to one side.

Why are the players going there? Perhaps a neighboring tribe wants the tower destroyed but wants outsiders to do the deed so as to not start a plains war. Or Gerth's daughter Gertha, now tribe leader, has not heard from her crew at the tower, and needs someone to go and find out what is happening. The flying Pegasus is terrifying her tribe, and none will return there. Or the travelers just wander by, seeking shelter from this crazed Pegasus that seems intent on doing bodily harm to all bipeds on Charn Plateau.

via ArtStation

I do have at least one more post for Iomaria, and still need to heavily re-work my random table post as it was, well, too random!