Wandering Titans, part IV - Hot and Cold, Plus Two More to Complete the Set

This is the final planned entry in a series of Wandering Titans, which are part weather, part giant monster. 

Previous parts with more titans: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

The Plague of Flame

AI Generated via Bing.
"Roman Tile Mosaic of a Rat kaiju towering above a burning city."

 On the horizon (visible in neighboring hexes)
: Smoke rising from burning forests or villages.

Environmental Effect 

:  Intense heat wave. Metal becomes too hot to touch barehanded. Outbreaks of fever-causing disease. Dry material spontaneously bursts into flame. Swarms of smoldering vermin spontaneously generate where you least expect it.

Appearance
:  Flickering apparition of a colossal Rat, wreathed in smoke. 

Behavior / Desires
: Hungry. Devours/burns fields, food stores, forests, and wooden buildings. 

Things to Discover or Encounter Nearby

• Pyromaniac Rat Cultists. Skin pockmarked and burnt. Constructs of flame or smoke fill their wounds, replace missing limbs, and grant a sort of manic undeath fueled by arson.
• The smoldering vermin sometimes contain valuable exotic chemical substances within their bodies. More common is that they contain nasty exotic diseases.
• Exotic fires and unusual forms of heat, which can be bottled by a skilled arcane technician. Floo, Bale, St. Elmo's, an unnamed species of flame that burns songs as fuel...
• Regular fire, too, if that's what you're into.

The Frigid Scapegoat

AI Generated via Bing.
"Roman Tile Mosaic of a giant sheep or goat creature towering above a frozen city. People pray to it."

On the horizon (visible in neighboring hexes)

: Snowstorm contained in a precise cylinder.

Environmental Effect 

:  Cold snap. Flames diminish and new fires cannot be lit. Pipes and vessels of water freeze and burst. Those who freeze to death will find themselves mysteriously revived and healthy when the goat moves on and the landscape thaws, but other harm remains.

Appearance
: Giant Ram with horns like icebergs. Flurries of snow drift out between matted locks of tangled wool.

Behavior / Desires
:  It seems to take a fascination in random things, tilting its head and fixing its eyes in place for hours at a time. Sometimes it takes the things, and not just a fascination. It lets out a massive breath, a downburst of bitter frigid air, causing collateral damage and knocking things aside, leaving only the object of the Scapegoat's interest sitting in a wind-blasted patch. This object - which is always perfectly intact whether it be a a statute, a mural, or something abstract - is then delicately picked up with teeth the size of warships and tucked deep into its fur.

Things to Discover or Encounter Nearby

• Ancient treasures tangled in its locks.
• Ancient people too.
• Also something called "slood", which no longer exists anywhere else.
• Petitioners beseech the Scapegoat to take their sins and obligations. If they attract its attention, it is often willing to oblige. It takes one of their limbs, too, frostbitten and broken off by its terrible breath.
• A caravan of frozen corpses. They corpses in question were people dying of something else, and will become so again once they leave the zone of cold. Their caretakers are trying to hitch a ride towards a specialist magical institution which can help them, but the Scapegoat is currently headed in the wrong direction.
• Lots of ice. Quite valuable in some settings.

And here are a couple bits of human-made giant goat artwork I found inspirational: "The Stilted Ram", by Michael MacRae,  "Summoning a god", by Calder Moore, and "Giant Goatman and his bridge", by Esteban Hernandez

The Fluffy Floppy Megabunny

AI Generated via Bing.
"Hyper fluffy giant bunny seen from below. Titanic rabbit towering into the sky. Tiny angry beady eyes. Ancient Painting."

 On the horizon (visible in neighboring hexes)
: The horizon and clouds in that direction look faintly blurry, as if seen through some lenses of the wrong prescription. Occasionally, a large white cloud seems to rise and then fall.

Environmental Effect 

:  Blades and claws are blunted. Stone becomes malleable. Iron becomes as plastic. Minus 1d6 damage when attacking unarmed or with physical weapons. Minus 1d6 from falling or other impacts, as well. A very faint ever-present mist moderates temperatures while making your hair bouncy and voluminous.

Appearance
:  Like an opaque cloud that leaps and bounds high into the air before slowly drifting back down.

Behavior / Desires
: Oh how it hates! It yearns in its heart to tear apart the pathetic creations of mortals. To trample their farms, and bring their empires to ruin, to lead mindless armies into pointless slaughter, and to hear their lamentations. Of course, none of that is obvious from its vast vacant expression. It just seems to bounce around harmlessly and at random.

Things to Discover or Encounter Nearby

• When the titan lands on top of you, it's said to be quite a relaxing experience, "like a fog made of hugs". It impairs visibility a bit, but doesn't impair movement and only lasts a few minutes at a time.
• Occasionally, patchs of "fluff" can get caught on brambles. These can be magically spun into a something like silk which is bouyant in air.
• Although the softening aura of the titan impedes the function of some devices, it enables forms of otherwise impossible crafting. A train of artisans follow the Megabunny in mobile workshops, creating ornate and durable artifacts out of materials which are difficult to work anywhere else.
• This train has grown over the years into a Wandering Festival which is part carnival and part trade show. In the big top, trapeze artists perform stunts without a net, jugglers juggle swords by the blade, and big dudes punch each other in the head while laughing. 
• Because blades and bludgeons are blunted, the most effective means of dealing with ne'er-do-wells (besides hiring a wizard) is via grappling. A tradition of wrestling has developed in the Wandering Festival, and the greatest wrestlers from all over the world come to demonstrate their prowess. Elaborate costumes are not required to enter the tournaments, but are appreciated by the crowds.
• Lots of happy people.

The Wretched Ape

"monkey"

 On the horizon (visible in neighboring hexes)
: Clouds of dust. Faint tremors and distant echoes of loud noises.

Environmental Effect 

:  Earthquakes.

Appearance
:  Big monkey. (Not actually an ape.)

Behavior / Desires
: It's a big monkey that knocks things over and shakes its fist at clouds. When it jumps around, it causes earthquakes.

Things to Discover or Encounter Nearby

• Things which have been knocked over by a big monkey.

Additional Titans: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

d6x6 Elemental Powers: Wood

 Inspired by this post by Red_Kangaroo.

All xylomancers are resistant to poison and illness.

1. Wood magic is about strength.

1. Wood in your sight can't be bent or broken.
2. Augment your strength with vines coiled around your limbs.
3. Form self-repairing wooden plate armour around your body.
4. Reactively form a protective wooden dome around yourself when attacked.
   
5. Lift and swing massive logs and poles as if they weighed no more than a twig.
6. Bring to life mannequins and totems which you carve from wood. They'll follow your commands, but are only capable of brute force, and not fine manipulation.

2. Wood magic is about endurance.

1. Your skin is faintly green. Time spent in the sun makes you rapidly heal.
2. Become tougher and more immovable the longer your feet are firmly planted on the same piece of ground.
3. Tap a contiguous piece of wood to render it immovable and inviolable. The effect lasts until you apply it to a different piece of wood.
4. Repair wounds - yours or another's - with wooden prostheses that work as well as flesh.
5. Go without food or water or rest, and ignore severe injuries, as long as you remain in contact with living plant matter
6. Care for a specific plant. If that plant grows ill, so will you. But as long as that plant flourishes, you cannot be killed.

3. Wood magic is about growth.

1. Sing to plants to make them grow at visible speed.
2. Snap your fingers to make a sapling instantly, explosively, destructively grow into a full-size tree.
3. Dense and diverse vegetation sprouts in your footsteps. You have limited control over the kind of plants that grow.
4. Grow to many times your normal height, with strength scaling more than proportionately. The extra mass sloughs of as leaf litter when you sleep.
5. Cause dense roots to burst from the ground and ensnare a target, growing around them. Needs existing roots as a starting point.
6. Extend and retract your limbs like Inspector Gadget. The extra length can take the form of either vines or hardwood.
   

4. Wood magic is about weird plant-themed whatsits.

1. Emit soporific spores from flowers blooming from your skin.
2. Organic material rapids decays under your touch.
3. Implant a parasitic sprout into someone's body to parasitically siphon away their lifeforce.
4. Absorb light energy into your skin and concentrate it without bound. Re-release all the light at once.
5. Rapidly grow parachutes of cottony fibers.
6. Exude sticky sap in place of sweat.

5. Wood Magic is about being in tune with nature.

1. Step into a tree-trunk, and step out from any trunk connected to the same wood web.
2. Meditate in a grove to gain tactile awareness of all the creatures therein.
3. Speak to trees. Learn the strange things they've seen and heard.
4. Plants and undergrowth don't hinder your passage. They bend out of your way while reaching to trip those who pursue you.
5. Trees grow and slowly twist into shapes convenient for you. Chairs, spears, houses, etc.
6. In exchange for tender care, Trees will relocate at your command. You need to shout; they're hard of hearing.

6. Wood Magic is about hurting people... with wood.

1. Shoot seeds as projectiles from out of your palms.
2. Cause impaling thorns to burst from nearby wood.
3. Summon and swing whip-like vines.
4. Staffs and polearms can grow and shrink in your hands.
5. Summon razor-sharp and impossibly rigid leaf blades. 
6. Stab a stake into something to destroy it utterly. 
   

Here is some visual inspiration: 1, 2.

Bonus: 6 more elemental powers to combine with Kangaroo's lists to make a nice round 200:

1. The element of Storm: Call down a lightning bolt directly on your location.
   
2. The element of Glass: Glass shards cannot cut you, and in your hands they can cut through anything.
3. The element of Osmium: You can telekinetically move osmium with your mind. It's quite strong, and has impressive range, but only works on highly purified osmium (which happens to be the rarest of the precious metals).
   
4. The element of Friendship: You can fire concussive beams of force from your palms that, in addition to knocking people off their feet and breaking their bones, also overwhelms them with an intense longing for companionship.
   
5. The element of Flesh: Sprout nasty flailing tentacles.
6. The element of Surprise: It's a gun. The surprise is that you can somehow own a working firearm in a magical psuedomedieval fantasy world.

Wizards in Rayon Stockings: Some worldbuilding notes on plastics.

How reasonable is it is include plastics in a psuedo-medieval fantasy world without fossil fuels? 

 

A better title might be "Alchemists in Rayon", because of course you can just wave your witchofingers and summon tupperware from the realms of chaos. But even restricting ourselves to low-magic fantasy, for many plastics, it's totally reasonable to throw them in. They'll probably just be rarer and considered high-quality objects instead of throwaway trash.

Clearly, the question on everyone's mind when they see this compilation of public domain witches is
"Where did they get those sweet leggings?"

Skip to the end if you just want a bulleted list of which plastics I thinks a witch might be able to brew in a cauldron. But otherwise, come with me on this scatterbrained journey into the world of organic chemistry.

 

Color-coding Monsters by Genre

I've been making a lot of wood-block minis, lately, and need a good color-coding system.

Here's what I've settled on:

Artificial, Bestial, Chimerical, Dungeonesque,
Ethereal, Fay, Grubby, Haunting,
Inflamed, Moist

Each category is associated with a basic color term. I tried to make the split be along aesthetic and thematic lines, so that the color-coding of a monster indicates something about the style of game encounter it leads to, as opposed to indicating something about the monster's appearance or physiology.

For example: Werewolves are fully alive, but in terms of thematic associations, interactions, and weaknesses, they're very similar to vampires. (As recognized by pretty much every piece of 21st century pop culture.) So Instead of having a category for "undead", I have "Haunting monsters", which draws a big circle around that whole chunk of slightly tragic halloweeny horrors.

Artificial

Creatures of artifice. Robots, golems, and alchemical oozes. 

Thematic Commonalities:

• Rigid programming gone awry. (Golem guards preventing people from stealing, but doing nothing to retrieve stolen items. Oozes mindlessly cleaning all 'filth', including living creatures.)
• Unhealthy relationships between creation and creator.
• Unique specimens trying to make more of their kind (with potentially apocalyptic consequences if they succeed)
• The dangers of hubris.
  

Mechanical Commonalities:

• Very durable.
• Aversion to water or fire. (Sinks or short-circuits; overheats or explodes)

Edibility:

• Extremely inedible.
• You can eat these things, but they will really do a number on your digestion.
• 0/5. Would not recommend steel nachos dipped in alchemical cheeze.
  

 

 

Bestial

Big animals, ogres, any any critter that's down for a good wrassle. Things that you'd hunt or which would hunt you.

Thematic Commonalities:

• Hunting, being hunted. 
• Uncomplicated Nature, red in tooth and claw.
• Straightforward fights. Brutal but necessary actions.
  
• Overcoming adversity, making new friends (bestial creatures are the most likely to be tamable as pets.)
  

Mechanical Commonalities:

• No fancy tricks. Just brute force and animal cunning.
• Will attack if they have the advantage, and retreat if they don't (unless enraged).
• Wary of loud noises and fire (but only because they don't understand it.)
• Trying to exploit some other sort of clever weakness (like smelling salts or holy water) is more  likely to drive such a creature into a murderous rage than it is to actually scare them off.
  

Edibility:

• Yes, very edible.
• Delicious too.
• Just be warned that the feeling is mutual.

Chimerical

Whimsical creatures of folklore, especially those composed of two real beasts stapled together. Cryptids, centaurs, fearsome critters, and the like. I'm including flying-saucer style aliens here too.

Thematic Commonalities:

•  Solitary and elusive creatures, often the only one of their kind.
• Tall-tales. Chasing rumors. Piecing together clues. Monsters as mysteries.
  
• Fairytale-style allegories. Storybook logic.
• The wonder of the unknown.
  

Mechanical Commonalities:

• Flashy magical abilities.
• Some exploitable eccentricity. Easy to trick, if you did your research.
  
• If all else fails, it will probably help to play soothing music.
  

Edibility:

• Yeah probably.
  

Wandering Titans, part III - Making Things Personal

 Part 1, Part 2

Here's another batch of titans as weather. See part 1 for explanation. The unifying factor with this batch is that these titans interact more directly with people. The first stretches the concept of "weather" a bit.

The Hard-hearted King of Dragons

Logan Feliciano
The artist's description is also pretty good RPG brainfuel.

 On the horizon (visible in neighboring hexes)

: Just the dragon's sharp silhouette seen occasionally in the sky.

Environmental Effect 

:  Blades and claws become sharper. Stone becomes unchippable. Bones become unbreakable. Metal becomes impossible to bend.  +1d6 damage when attacking a target without hard armor, like plate or shell. Bouts of dart-like hail impale the ground.

Appearance
:  Gargantuan dragon with impenetrable scales. Wings held wide, blocking out the sun.

Behavior / Desires
: The King of Dragons hoards peace and stability. In a conflict between two states, it will rush to decimate the attacking armies. It will use its breath to turn revolters into glass. And there is nothing it finds more beautiful than a tyrant on their throne. 

Things to Discover or Encounter Nearby

• Sharp nailed dragon cultists on ineffable missions of political espionage.
• Piles of wicked stones, once merely gravel, now made impassibly dangerous by the Dragon King's presence.
• Woodland creatures impaled on supernaturally sharp brambles and branches.
• Beehives and waspnests grown to unreasonable size, their stingers empowered, and their queens driven mad with a lust for expansion.

Radiant Fowl

"The Dragon Prince" background by Michael MacRae, but I doodled a little bird on top. 

 On the horizon (visible in neighboring hexes)
: Light on the horizon. Most noticeable during the night.

Environmental Effect 

:   Brightness that rivals the sun's. Lights up the night like the day (including effects like vampire ensmoldering). Somehow penetrates indoors and into caverns. Don't need light sources, stealth is impossible.

Appearance
:  A giant glowing phoenix, wispy tail trailing off towards the horizon. Or maybe its more of a glowing rooster. The details are hard to nail down because you can't really look directly at the thing.

Behavior / Desires
: Witness it! Witness its luminous glory! This titan wants to be seen, appreciated, and maybe even worshiped. It tends to gravitate towards areas with large populations of people or polished surfaces, where it perches and preens.

Things to Discover or Encounter Nearby

• Fluffy, arm-length, radiant feathers fallen on the ground. They glow so brightly it hurts to look at them. A single small barb casts light like a torch. Frequently leads to deadly conflict between rival feather-hunters.
• Cold-blooded monsters, standing still, eyes closed, basking in the ever-present glow.
• Travelling titan researchers bedecked in reflective protective suits. Despite its proclivity for precariously perching on buildings and blinding pedestrians, it's overall the safest titan to observe and study.
• Nomadic lycanthropes following the titan to avoid transformation, driven only a wee bit mad by lack of sleep.
• Basements and dungeons choked with new sprouted vegetation.

Desiccant Prowler

Nutchapol Thitinunthakorn

On the horizon (visible in neighboring hexes)
: No clouds in the sky. No rain.

Environmental Effect 

:  Rivers and lakes dry up, soil turns to dust, plants wither. Deplete an extra water ration each day. Persistent magical effects falter.

Appearance
:  A dusty striped pantherine thing, surrounded by a thin choking haze

Behavior / Desires
: Lazily tears apart magical protections, sabotages water reserves. It doesn't kill things directly, but its mere presence is hazardous, and it likes to watch things die. Stares down at entire villages or herds as the life drains out of them, and them laps up their souls like a cat drinking milk.

Things to Discover or Encounter Nearby

• Fanatical dust elementals and living stone statues, helping wage war on water-based life-forms. The titan is ignorant of their devotion.
• Arcanohazard disposal teams dragging wagonloads of janky cursed items and failed enchantments into the titan's zone of influence, hoping the beast will rip them apart for fun.
• The desiccated corpses sometimes begin to crawl around and gnaw. Don't let them get their teeth into you, or they'll steal your blood and soul. Outside of the titan's hex, they crumble into ash, which can be sold to wizards for its magic-suppressing and water-absorbent properties.

Kekai Kotaki

Additional Titans: Part 1, Part 2, Part 4

Wandering Titans, part II - Fast and Slow

Giant monsters that are also weather phenomena.

The basic mechanism I suggested in the previous post is to roll 2d6 each day, and move the titan to a neighboring hex when doubles are rolled. Here's a pair of titans brainstormed while thinking about twists to those rules.

Stampeding Winds

Keep track of the direction the titan last moved. Each day, roll 2d6, and use the sum to decide whether this titan continues in that direction (6,7,8) turns left or right (3,4,5;9,10,11), abruptly reverses direction (2) or stalls in place (12).

Donato Giancola

On the horizon (visible in neighboring hexes)

: Swirling clouds, moving at a visible pace, forming and dissolving in the blink of an eye. Distant sounds of roaring winds and hooves.

Environmental Effect 

:  Hurricane-force winds topple structures and knock you to the ground. But if travelling downwind, you'll find yourself magically invigorated and full of energy.  Travelling through the hex in the same direction as the winds provides the same benefits as a long rest. Travelling through any other direction is difficult and hazardous. Exiting the hex in the upwind direction is impossible. 

Appearance
: A herd of charging ethereal stallions precipitating from the air. Clouds run through the sky, and smaller instantiations charge along the ground. Windward, the air speeds up, forming into visible near-tangible wind-creatures, and then slowly dissipate as they approach the leeward edge of the hex.

Behavior / Desires
: Wants to run. Wants to be free. Wants mortal creatures to charge alongside it without end.

Things to Discover or Encounter Nearby

• The smaller manifestations of the Stampede can be captured and used as a magical power source. Poacher-wizards try to do this with elaborate steel wind-traps. But it's dangerous work, as the winds speed up to impossible levels to batter down walls wherever a member of the herd gets trapped.
• Wind-dependent ecosystems of whirlibirds, tumbletrees, and lumbering strandbeests.
• Homes or even entire castles tumbling through the air.
• An encounter with an instance of the Stampeding Winds. If it likes you, there's a chance it will bless you with tailwinds for the rest of the day. Party travels twice as fast until the next time they sleep.
• Travelers hitching a ride on the winds
1. Two blokes calmly rowing along in an airborne canoe.
2. A gang of witches racing along on suped-up broomsticks.
3. A village of people, rapidly evacuated, carrying as many possessions as they could grab from their now-destroyed homes.
4. Bandits in a balloon with long hooks and nets, snatching up possessions that people left behind.
5. 140-years-old woman, hunched over with age, slowly walking with the wind. Hasn't stopped or slept for the past 50 years. Barely kept alive by the sustaining force of the titanic winds.
6. A whale which beached itself and just kept going.

The Ponderous Ox

This one's simpler. Roll 3d6 each day and move the titan when you roll triples.

While the party is awake within the titan's hex, don't advance the time of day, and don't roll for its movement.

On the horizon (visible in neighboring hexes)

: Clouds frozen in midair. Things sound slightly more quiet than they should.

Environmental Effect 

:  Silence. Stillness. Fires stop crackling and flickering, but still give out steady heat and light. Rivers freeze in place while remaining fluid. A diffuse mist fills the air. The sun and moon appear frozen in the sky. Your heart aches with nostalgia for things you've never seen. Loosed arrows slow to a stop and hover in midair.  Rest and rations are optional when near this titan. Cannot gain XP while in this hex. As you travel away from it, time suddenly returns to normal as if you never approached the titan to begin with.

Appearance
: A massive buffalo, with fur like boulders and horns like mountains.  Always faintly visible, far off in the distance, behind the next hill, shaded by the mists. You can always approach the titan, but can never reach it. 

Behavior / Desires
: No one has ever seen it move, or do much of anything at all but slowly breathe titanic breathes. (But surely it must move, for how else can it travel from hex to hex?)

Things to Discover or Encounter Nearby

• Void monk meditating on a hilltop. No, they haven't been following the titan. They've been here in this spot as long as they can remember. The titan hasn't moved in all that time, they say. 
• Small towns that don't exist, fiercely aggressive towards outsiders.
• Strange pillars, can be hacked apart (may trigger localized earthquakes) and sold to wizards to make immovable rods.
• Empty cabins, with a warm hearth and hot soup inside. If you sleep in the soft beds inside, you'll wake up on cold ground outside, weeks later, the titan having moved on.
• Incomprehensible alien geometries slipping through the gaps between moments in time. Probably nothing to worry about.

Additional Titans: Part 1, Part 3, Part 4

Wandering Titans (Monster as a Hex/Weather)

• Idea 1: Storms are fun in hexcrawls.
• See this system of tiered weather tables 
• or this Weather Hex Flower
• Idea 2: Giant Monsters are fun. Yes? Yes.

I trust you see where I am going with this.

Rules

In addition to the normal features of a hex, the presence of one of these Titans adds some sort of environmental effect and additional things to encounter to the hex it's in. 

The Titan should move about the map, but not nearly as quickly as PCs. It's a mountainous lumbering beast. Untested suggestion: Number the 6 hex directions. Once per day, roll 2d6, move the titan in that direction if you roll doubles.

Combat stats aren't given to the Titans for the same reason that combat stats aren't given to a hurricane. 

Some Example Beasties

Flood Serpent

Flood by Sandara

On the horizon (visible in neighboring hexes)

: Towering Rainclouds. Clouds being unnaturally pulled in.

Environmental Effect 
:  Torrential downpours. Banks overflowing. Ankle-deep water even where you might not expect. Poor visibility. Need sheltered high ground to rest.

Appearance
: A raging river, rising into the air, and then flowing wherever it pleases.

Behavior / Desires
: Capricious. Sometimes languidly arcs through the sky. Sometimes rapidly tears apart towns with sadistic glee.

Things to Discover or Encounter Nearby

• Bountiful fauna. Animals flee the floods, but mysteriously more than could possibly live in these areas.
• Strange fauna. Creatures subtly wrong in form. Alien mutations. When killed, their bones perpetually leak water.
• Landlocked Pirates. Special boats that allow them to sail along in the wake of the serpent's storms, pillaging evacuated villages. 
• Her sociable children. In calmer waters within the serpent's hex, you can find strange smaller serpents assigning quests and  promising various wet boons. Personally, I wouldn't trust the things. But if you think stealing a dozen cats in exchange for a sword that gives the wielder extra blood sounds like a good time, that's your prerogative. 

Lucas Roussel

gavi-gavi

Penumbral Hound

by Muroid

On the horizon (visible in neighboring hexes)

: Dimmed sky. Sun sets early if the titan is to the west, and rises late if the titan is to the east.

Environmental Effect 

:  Darkness. Like night during the day. The sun and moon appear constantly eclipsed. Light from large fires just doesn't seem to carry as far. Need held light sources to navigate. 

Appearance
: The stars blacked out by an indistinct silhouette. Two bright eyes like rival moons. An occasional glint of giant teeth.

Behavior / Desires
: Slowly and carefully plod across the forest. It wants to be left alone. It wants to contemplate the stars. It wants to sleep.

Things to Discover or Encounter Nearby

• The cult of Mother's Shadow. Blindfolded titan-worshippers, skilled in echolocation. Core dogma is that none who see the Hound's face should live to speak of it. 
• Wizard vision. Spend enough consecutive time near this beast and you'll begin see the unseen. Permanent if you spend at least a full consecutive lunar cycle in the Hound's hex, or a week there without sleep.
• Shadow pits. Places of deep shadow (small pits, crevices, overhangs) become physically deeper within the Hound's domain. Sometimes open to inhospitable worlds.
• Snarls of titan fur, tangled in tree-tops. Can be woven into coarse, scratchy, uncomfortable cloaks which  cling to shadow and help hide the wearer.

The Swine Which Seeks to Unite the Earth and Sky

MtG card art by G-Host Lee

On the horizon (visible in neighboring hexes)

: Clouds of dust, floating rocks seen in the distance. Occasional tremors as floating chunks of stone leave the area of the beast's influence and come crashing to the ground.

Environmental Effect 
:  The earth reaches towards to sky. Trees grow upwards at visible rates. You feel lighter on your feet and can lift more weight. Random updrafts and downdrafts. Whole chunks of land lift up into floating islands.  No fall damage. Bulky items easier to hold in inventory.

Appearance
: Thick vegetation spiraling upwards into the air, carrying masses of debris with it. Pieces flake off and float into the sky. The entire tangled grove always looks at least vaguely like a giant boar.

Behavior / Desires
: Uproots earthen structures and hurls them into the air. Carefully avoids damaging obelisks and towers. Bows in deference to particularly impressive spires and mountains.

Things to Discover or Encounter Nearby

• Foreign Isles. Some of the large floating chunks of rock have been drifting along behind the Swine for decades, and are host to strange endemic species.
• Skywood. Plants which have passed through the Swine's body become buoyant in air and desirable for building flying ships. Incredibly difficult to collect in large quantity without getting crushed.
• Vanguard Birds. A society of birdmen worship the beast, and zealously attack anyone who comes near (that can't fly). Easy to bribe with shiny objects.

More Titans:

Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

A handful of random tables about magical whatzits

d6x6 Random Mundane Materials

	1	2	3	4	5	6
1	Dirt	Tin	Stone	Ethanol	Chitin	Hair
2	Silk	Copper	Sand	Soap	Rope	Skin
3	Water	Silver	Diamond	Nacre	Pykrete	Bone
4	Grass	Gold	Glass	Grease	Graphite	Giblets
5	Shellac	Iron	Rust	Treacle	Cement	Blood
6	Mold	Lead	Mud	Honey	Rubber	Meat

d20 Random Magical Materials with Impossible Properties

1. Dirt
2. Skywood: Dense, hard wood which resists the pull of gravity. Grows as trees which float through the air, carrying along clumps of earth tangled in their roots. Wicker panels of the stuff are used to craft flying ships.
3. Adamant Glass: Cloudy gray glass, impossible to sully or scratch. Impervious and impenetrable to all forms of chemical or magic, meaning it can be used to entrap ghosts, spells, and other spirits. Really easy to melt, though, and can shatter violently.
4. Vermillion Ichor: Like red-tinged quicksilver. Constantly jitters in place. Imbues anything it’s placed into with elan vital, compelling it into motion and imbuing it with will.
5. Magnets
6. Shimmersilk: Lightweight fluttering cloth of indeterminate form. Appearance changes based on the viewers’ expecations
7. Alkahest: Universal perfect solvent, seperates things into their constituent components without otherwise damaging or changing them.
8. Tomberstone: Stone which hates the heavens. Dark violet with streaks of iridescent yellow. When directly under an open sky, it pushes downwards with immense force. When covered, behaves like normal stone.
9. Chornolyst: Magical kudzu. Thick sticky pitch-black sheets which grow rapidly over surfaces in the presence of mana and bright light. Rapidly dies and rots in their absence. Tough but flexible. Highly flammable. Technically edible.
10. True Vitriol: Green-Red crystal with a greasy lustre. Eternally burns with an unquenchable putrid flame. Powerful heat, but irritating headache-causing flickering light.
11. Ectoplasm: A versatile stringy substance that can be regurgitated by skilled experts. A sort of physical manifestation of the soul which responds to the emitter’s will. Is capable of fine manipulation and interaction with a wide variety of magical phenomena. The main drawback is that any damage to the substance has drastic psychic health consequences for the person who squeezed it out.
12. Philosopher’s stone: Turns mercury into silver on contact, lead into gold, reverses aging, frags trolls, etc.
13. Slarmbe: Insulates from time. Kind of a salty amber-tinted jelly. Kind of just a zone of shimmering air. Kind of makes you go cross-eyed to look at it. The thicker it covers an object, the more slowly that thing advances through time. Can be arduously moved by prodding it with a long stick.
14. Solidified Nimbus: Like the cartoon version of a cloud. Soft and moldable. Cold to the touch. Drips water out of the bottom when squeezed. Accumulates static electricity.
15. Null: Absorbs energy practically without bound. Unworkable and immovable in its pure form. Can be dissolved and alloyed to produce immovable rods and similar wonders.
16. Impressionable Flesh: Raw animal matter in its most magically pure state. Often mistaken for a species of pale grey ooze. Assimilates small bits of detritus and small clumps of organic matter. When it comes into contact with a larger body of living flesh, it merges into and assumes the form of that flesh. Potent for healing, and can even restore lost limbs. Contraindicated for head and spinal injuries, under penalty of execution.
17. Demoncore: Densely malevolent metal, brimming with alchemical power. Capable of poisoning those who merely stand near it, or providing a near limitless source of arcane energy.
18. Voidmetal: Sticks to shadows and vice versa
19. Pureglass: Perfectly invisible stone.
20. Song-glass: Frost that dissolves into radio static whispers divine secrets.

Table of Random, and Likely Horrendous, Fluids.

Campaign Setting: Platescape: The Inner Planes of Flavor

Apologies to Zeb Cook