Home / Delve into the Depths in the Kobold Blog / Your Whispering Homunculus: 100 Spots for Overnight Roughing It (50 Fair and 50 Foul)

Your Whispering Homunculus: 100 Spots for Overnight Roughing It (50 Fair and 50 Foul)

Your Whispering Homunculus: 100 Spots for Overnight Roughing It (50 Fair and 50 Foul)

Your Whispering Homunculus

“Master! Look what I’ve found in the dungeon.”

“Ah, my old adventurer’s tent. How much I miss the days of my youth when I’d gad about the countryside, chasing this purple temple or that magenta stronghold. How my young limbs used to love a stop in the dangerous wilderness and break my fast with spring water and berries.”

“Whereas now your regal buttocks become inflamed unless they are warm and cozy on your mighty mattress.”

“True, slug-mother, true. Now get my warming pan ready and boil me some frothy milk for my supper or I’ll have you lashed.”

The overnight stop in the wilderness, the night’s rest of some band of orcs being chased across the hills, the odd curiosity by the trailside. Sometimes these places can be nothing more than a brief mention on the journey, but sometimes a group’s stopping point can be a staging point for an encounter, and then, the choice of a place with walls and cover becomes more crucial.

The tables below offer a little more meat to the overnight stop. The first list is the shelter found with a successful Survival check (DC 10), the other is for fails. Characters can push on if they find a camp not to their liking, but these tables provide stops at random when the player characters have almost concluded a day walking. If they push on into the dark, might they get lost, might their torches bring foes, or might the next place be even worse?

Check Succeeds

  1. A tumbled-down chapel, one wall remains standing and a weathered angel stands guard
  2. A collapsed hay barn with enough space inside for camping
  3. An old pigpen
  4. A sheepfold with intact walls
  5. An abandoned cottage
  6. An old carriage turned upside down
  7. A stout barn
  8. A roadside chapel with room inside for plenty to sleep and a big fireplace stocked with wood
  9. A ruined manse with one wing still standing
  10. The shell of a windmill with a makeshift roof of cloth from previous visitors
  11. A ruined keep
  12.  A recently abandoned inn
  13. A stout, dry cave with carvings of a saint
  14. A trio of recently felled trees that form a perfect grove
  15. An old boathouse whose walls, though falling, are stout and weatherproof
  16. An old ruined mill
  17. A mouldering gypsy caravan
  18. A landlocked bridge whose arches offer shelter
  19. A sheep pen
  20. A ruin made of huge stones
  21. An old church surrounded by weathered graves
  22. A small hill commanding fine views and with a dozen rabbit holes
  23. A hilltop with a small hermit’s cave cut in
  24. A hillock with three huge trees
  25. A south-facing grove by a stream that is a favorite for local game
  26. A boarded-shut woodcutter’s hut
  27. An abandoned walled garden
  28. A tumbled-down cottage with a garden brimming with seasonal vegetables
  29. A ruined cottage with a functional well
  30. A lean-to made of stout trees
  31. A ruined church tower with a rusty bell inside
  32. A fine tor of large stones that commands excellent views of the surroundings
  33. An old quarry with caves
  34. A ruined farm with wild mushrooms and berries
  35. A hunter’s wood shelter by a loch brimming with pike
  36. A lochan teeming with eels
  37. A small abandoned dungeon complex
  38. A large abandoned dungeon complex
  39. A huge hay barn
  40. A small bothy
  41. A roadside temple with a wooden shed
  42. A natural rock bowl with a fire pit in its center
  43. A hillside with good cover and plenty of hares
  44. A small cave by a natural pond
  45. A very high wall with a trough
  46. A sheltered cairn
  47. A small lochan with an island in the middle that can easily be waded to
  48. A chapel on a small island in a loch
  49. An abandoned tower
  50. A wattle and daub hut

Check Fails

  1. A small glade that overnight begins to run with spring water
  2. A ruined cottage infested with ants
  3. A gatepost on a hillock
  4. A wet valley
  5. A moldering gypsy caravan that falls to pieces when entered
  6. A damp grove in a damper copse
  7. A frequently used trail with giant footprints
  8. A stone circle on a hill covered in gorse
  9. A cairn on a windy hillock
  10. A very damp shallow cave
  11.  A heathery hillock infested with vermin
  12. A small grassed area filled with thistles at the side of a stream
  13. A completely collapsed old inn on a very windy hillside
  14. An old quarry with half a dozen hornet’s nests
  15. A low bowl of grass by a stream that is infamous for midges
  16. A sheltered hill infamous for midges
  17. A shelter by a small loch infamous for midges
  18. A ruined village infested with brambles
  19. A foul spot for flies
  20. A pleasant ruined farmhouse overrun with mice
  21. A pleasant ruined cottage overrun with rats
  22. A ruined barn that is a favorite hangout for skunks
  23. An old hay barn infested with spiders
  24. A mile post on a moist grassy knoll
  25. A horribly exposed hillside
  26. A toadstool-infested glade
  27. A ruined house with numerous stinkhorns and other foul-smelling fungi in its damp rooms
  28. A spot uncannily visible for many miles
  29. A ruined castle in danger of imminent collapse
  30. A barn in danger of imminent collapse
  31. A foul-smelling hovel
  32. A damp spot infested with big slugs
  33. A cave occupied by something aggressive
  34. A ruin occupied with something aggressive
  35. A ruin containing several poisonous snakes
  36. A terrible spot for poisonous ivy
  37. A very damp spot beneath some trees
  38. A ruin with an untraceable foul-smelling object buried somewhere in it
  39. A tree that makes an unsettling groaning and creaking noise at night
  40. A barn that has been used by some large creature that has recently died
  41. A windy cave
  42. An old graveyard
  43. A barrow on a windy spot
  44. A nettle-infested field
  45. A well with bad water
  46. A weed-choked mill with rotten floors
  47. A pool overrun with noisy frogs
  48. An abandoned plague village
  49. A remote farmstead with the dead owner still in bed upstairs
  50. A cottage with the last occupant hanging from a rafter

12 thoughts on “Your Whispering Homunculus: 100 Spots for Overnight Roughing It (50 Fair and 50 Foul)”

  1. Well, I admit to some preference for the second 50, but I’m surprised no one has commented. The “camping overnight” part of wilderness exploration is always one of my favorite bits…

  2. A bunch of my players totally failed their Survival check last year and ended up camping on a muddy bog in a heavy downpour near a crumbling cliff, by a troll-path, and got woke by the trolls midway through the night after falling asleep on watch.

  3. Always a pleasure. Thanks Rich. Plenty there. Looking forward to adding some flesh to the wonderful bones you have provided. Might use two or three of these as my players PCs go cross country transporting a criminal to trial.

  4. Wonderfully descriptive. Several give me ideas for encounters or side treks. I can’t wait to try them out.

  5. I love it, and will be using it on my party here very soon! They’re on foot in Trollheim at present, some ways N of Huldramose, and this will work great.

  6. I’m digging the top 50 for experienced wilderness adventurers, who are always on the lookout for good campsites. I’d use the bottom 50 with extreme care. I wouldn’t want to discourage novice players too much. But they would work with experienced players taking on the role of low level characters or those that find themselves I desperate circumstances, eager for any port in a storm. It is a delightful list, and is definately going into my GM folder.

  7. I’m particularly taken with the entry for a wattle and daub hut … I guess for big tough adventurers, it doesn’t matter if its occupied.

  8. I hope to see a YWH vol. 2 in the future. Perfect timing on this though, I plan on using this for my one shot Swords and Wizardry campaign on Sunday night.

  9. Thank you kindly, it’s lovely to be here again. If ywh is useful to you, and the charming Mr Baur is happy, I’m always delighted to beat some more useful information out of the poor creature. I think the next few ywhs will be a slight sidestep which I hope you’ll enjoy too.

    Well spotted geraint:) A very, very fine piece of surreal comedy, if you haven’t seen Hunderby it’s well worth a look.

    Huzzah!

    Rich

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Join the Kobold Courier and Earn Loot!

Stay informed with the newest Kobold Press news and updates delivered to your inbox weekly. Join now and receive a PDF copy of Demon Cults & Secret Societies: Harbingers of the Yawning Void for 5th Edition (PDF)

Join The Kobold Courier

38878

Be like Swolbold. Stay up to date with the newest Kobold Press news and updates delivered to your inbox twice a month.

Pin It on Pinterest

Share This
Scroll to Top