“ In nature, for instance, a rhino has flies and ticks etc, that live on the hide and live off the blood. Rhino will visit and lie in ponds where turtles will clean the underwater portion of the ticks and a species of bird will clean the the top of ticks and other parasites. What if where the characters camp there were a species of animals that lived off wounds of the creatures. PCs camp. Anybody with wounds on there body are soon covered with small rodent - insect - shadows - whatever. Would immediately see it as a threat I would imagine. But perhaps one of the wounded didn't wake up when it happened, and when they did finally wake they were completely healed. Perhaps somebody was warned of something attacking them but they were able to notice that the wound was actually getting smaller instead of larger. Or maybe they successfully beat the creatures off them and don't notice an improvement, marking this place never to rest at ever again....later learn that villagers send their wounded there but they keep it a guarded secret because they don't want all the attention or traffic and what comes with such a special gift. Could turn into something more too if characters decide to start blabbing about it.”
“ I've never been happy that almost every player picks long sword and greatsword, so I made a special chart to make them more unique. I use this in OSR and Pathfinder. I use 20 only as crit threat(Pathfinder speak),double damage.
dagger +2 to hit, D4 damage
short sword +1 to hit, d6 damage
long sword, threatens critical(see below) on 19-20, D8 damage
battle axe, ignores one Damage resistance( some monsters have resistance to damage in the form of knocks damage off before you do actual damage)(scale at higher L?) D8 damage
Mace, 0ne damage on a miss(Scalable?) D8 damage (Ok , should prob only be vrs Metal armor but not looking for that kind of complexity)
spear D6 damage, d12 damage vrs large creatures
great sword 2d6 damage
military pick d6 damage, x3 damage( triple dice damage) on crit(20)
great axe D10 damage, +3 to confirm crit ( in pathfinder if you roll a 20 you then reroll your attack and if you hit the targets AC, you get a critical multiplier)
quarterstaff(2 handed) D6 damage +1 bonus to AC (to the better)
Etc.”
“ 'Look, lad! You see the streak of glowing green off the larboard bow? Them's the bright waters!'
While the lad peered intently at the eerie glow, the old salt continued. 'Entire ships have been lost to the Bright, lad, for once you let it surround you, you'll never touch land again!'”