Chain Gang's Main Drain

The Emperor is building a new canal. Maybe it's going to be full of his favorite fish; a pond next to his new palace. Or perhaps it's a massive rice farm, or maybe it's a network for fast travel and commerce within the heart of the empire. For whatever reason, a massive pit is being dug and slowly lined with wet stones. To accomplish this huge undertaking, hundreds of strong farmers, random criminals, and outlaws were shoved into this huge pit to finish the work. The pit is a straight drop, far too tall to climb out, with guards stationed every so often to make sure nobody is trying to escape. They are paid in sweet wine and bread, but at least they were promised a satchel of silver each when they were done. There's no telling if this will ever materialize, but at least it helps with the morale.

You are not one of them. You're down their drain.

Chain Gang's Main Drain
The center of the massive drained canal is a ditch that leads to a hole. The hole is many meters deep, only letting in enough light to barely illuminate the bottom. This is a drainage ditch and well dug to keep the canal from flooding too quickly, but the earth was too soft and it broke into a space beneath. The walls are way too wet to climb, and even getting a ladder down the tight hole would be difficult, if the chain gang even had one. You're stuck down here.

The Chain Gang has no way to get you out, but they still have need of you. Partially, just to have someone to look down on. The guards are lorded over by the Emperor, they chain gang are lorded over by the gaurds, and you're lorded over by them. Fair?

For doing tasks for them, the Chain Gangers can give you food, usually just scraps, and precious wine, which is one of your only ways of getting clean drinking water. They can also spare some of their tools, pickaxes to move stones and shovels to sift dirt, which you can use as weapons; but if too many goes missing or lost the guards will likely punish the Chain Gang very harshly, so they'll want them back for each inspection. They accomplish this by sending down a bucket on a string, along with other supplies, but it's too small and weak to send one of you back up, of course. Being down the drain does have its advantages though; the guards don't know you exist, and as such, you aren't getting beaten or forced to work. But where as the chain gang are going to be brought out of the pit when the job is done, and they swear they'll try to get you out, the architects overseeing the project have no obligation to figure out a solution to your problem, and the dig is on a tight schedule as is...

The Chain Gang's Quests
Every three days, the Chain Gangers will collectively have a task for you to complete. Their attitude is cordial, but they aren't going to share their rations if you don't help them, and they know you can't do much about it if they do stiff you your reward. The reward will be;

1. Exactly enough rations for everyone down the hole, with no extra for lunch breaks, healing (well fed bonuses), or monster bait, for the next three days. If the Chain Gang had a few bad days, assume a few smaller or missing rations this time.
   
2. One tool. This can be a rough shovel (1d3 blunt), a trowel (1d2, but can be used in grapple or sneak attacks like a dagger), a sharpened pickaxe (two handed, 1d6 piercing), or a long pole used for moving stones (1d4 quarterstaff, attack at disadvantage in cramped space, could be made into a spear or broken apart for a few torches). If it's a bad day, you get a random one instead of the tool you wanted.
   
3. Two pieces of driftwood and soiled linens that can be used as a torch OR a few leather straps that broke off from from scaffold or from moving heavy stones. (Two or more straps can be used to make basic armor as leather, or wrapped around your arms and legs for +1 temporary AC) If you don't ask for one in particular, they'll just give you a random choice.
4. One wineskin. The Chain Gang all get one every other three days, so they rotate who gives it up for you. First thing to go during bad days.
   

The wine is enough to get one person drunk or can be shared among three people. It's enough to wet your tongue enough to cast spells or can restore one Hit-Point if you chug the whole thing like a health potion. If anything bad happens on the surface (somebody escaped & the guards crack down, it rains, it's a church day and everyone is still forced to work, a mason loses their tools and the chain gangers are searched for contraband, etc.) then the wine always goes.

If you do a task for them, they'll give you all of the above as your reward. If you do an extra task or a really good job, they'll give you an extra pick of anything on the list; except for the wine.

There is also a one in six chance each day the Chain Gang steals something from a higher up like a mason (an actual valuable worker) or an architect who had to step into the pit for a moment. The Chain Gang is spiteful enough to want to pawn these off on you in lieu of one of your normal rewards just to inconvenience those above them, but will never send you down anything actually valuable like coin or a proper weapon. This special reward can only be taken on these days, and is randomly;

1. Length of rope or small bit of iron chain (1d3 improvised weapon). You can also break down the bucket for this if you really need it, but then you'll have no way to trade for items.
2. Mason chisel (1d4 improvised dagger) OR Mason's chalk
   
3. Parchment and paper taken from architects or stolen letters (you can use these to draw a map)
4. Axe Head that fell from a woodcutter and was lost in the mud when they were clearing space for the canal. (No handle, but could be made into a d6 axe)
5. Animal fat and grease from the kitchen tents (can be used as fuel, ointment, or smeared over something to make it bait for a monster). If you're a weirdo you can ask for specific organs or animal bones instead; like if you need them to cast a spell or something.
   
6. Guard's Cuirass (as chainmail). They would 100% keep this themselves but is too hard to hide and anyone caught with it would 100% be killed. Expect the next three days in a row to be 'bad days', since a guard either died or just got demoted.
   

In order to determine what task the Chain Gangers give you, roll on this table. If you roll a 11 or 12, then this is a bonus task that is secretly given by someone among the Chain Gang, whispered down and separate from the rest of the group. Roll again. They can drop something on the reward table extra; but it's rarely worth the added risk.

Chain Gang Task Table - Roll 1d12
[1] Teach us a new song, funny hole people! (Entertain them and humiliate yourself, 1d2 chance they get drunk and forget to give you your reward later)

[2] Stop the weird spiders that come up the hole from drinking our blood when we sleep.

[3] One of us dropped a silver wedding ring down the hole a few days ago, find it and bring it back up! And don't you dare keep it for yourself! It couldn't have gone far... right?

[4] The men are starved for something besides crusty stale bread. We want you to bring us an animal that we can eat from below; nothing unsavory or rotten, no nasty bugs, ye shits.

[5] We want to get high. Go bring us those little mushrooms, with the black caps and yellow spot? They only grow down below. The smaller and brighter the spots, the stronger.

[6] Our camp has a pet, a funny little monkey. He got loose from his rope and climbed down the hole; please bring him back! ALIVE!

[7] Bring us the precious ore; silver or gold! We can hide it from the guard.

[8] One of the architects said the canal floor is unstable. Go down there and put up some supports or whatever and prevent the next sinkhole!

[9] Don't you hear that horrible, stinking sobbing? There's a ghost down there of someone who fell in and died. Go get their remains so we can put them to rest and end the haunting.

[10] We heard there are Orcs down there. Please make sure there aren't any orcs down there. If there are any, can you like, make them go away? Please no Orcs.

[11] I am a worshiper of the ones beneath. Take this (cursed) talisman to the deepest place in that well; I will know when your task is complete. He will speak to me in my dreams.

[12] I was an apprentice alchemist before I was press-ganged. I have no interest in slaving away in this hole; especially how dangerous it is. Send me up a bucket full of the fulminate, those dull gray stones? And I'll reward you. (He will die in the escape attempt, one bad week after. But after this happens, you learn of their explosive properties).

This setup allows you to do a few interesting things. The core idea is that the players are trapped in an unequal relationship with people who are also trapped, and yet somehow a bunch of indentured servants are better off and better equipped then you are. I imagine this would probably work better as a level 0 funnel or a starter "dungeon" adventure. It also allows new characters and hirelings to literally be dropped in on your head; anyone who falls down the pit isn't going to get back up very easily, and the Chain Gang doesn't want to tell anyone in authority about the pit because it could be a method for them to escape their work, so anyone who falls down is stuck with you. I like the idea of an especially annoying guy accidentally falling down the pit while piss drunk and now having to work with the people whose hole he was just pissing down a few minutes ago.

With the canal eventually being finished and later flooded, there is also an implied time pressure. I don't have an exact time scale thought out for this, but it should be at least a few weeks, but probably less then a month. The idea here is the players need to find a way to escape in addition to keeping themselves alive and exploring the dangerous "drain". It's a classic overarching goal to their short term goals of survival and getting along with the workers above. You could probably shorten this down to a single session or two, but I like the idea of amassing a bunch of adventuring gear from scraps and trash; which is an element you lose if this is just the classic "party captured and has to escape with limited resources vibe"

The Drain
[1] The Hole
You're at the bottom of this. It's about as tight as a generic well, but opens up greatly near the bottom, where it broke into some natural underground area. Water trickles here constantly, but the sunlight and noise from the chain gang above keep most of the creatures at bay. Somehow smells worse then the deeper parts of the drain. While here and during the day make no wandering monster checks, at night, roll only a 1d4 on the wandering monsters table if you camp here.

The Hole has a tunnel that leads to two places, the tunnels at [2] and Cragger's Drog at [5], which is the reason exploration is so perilous.

[2] Mud Tunnels
Soft walls, damp, water is ankle high. Confusing mess of corridors that mostly lead to dead ends, except for the path to [3] & [4]. The first time you travel through this area, lose an exploration turn from navigation.

[3] The Descent
Steep rocky slope leading downwards. Slippery when wet; if you're encumbered and have a negative dexterity modifier, you will slip and fall back down, needing either a rope or less weight to make your way back up. Creatures from the deeper levels will not chase you past this point.

[4] The High Point
Circular chamber that's located somewhere in the cliffs and normal flat ground above the canal. The air here feels fresher and less heavy, indicated some air flow (it's coming in through the soil). Dwarves can easily tell this area is above the rest of the Drain in altitude. Only one way in and out, so it's probably the safest place to sleep.

[5] Cragger's Drop
The drain slopes down from the entrance to this point; there is a constant sound of crashing water. Hard but not impossible to safely climb down without tools. Two pickaxes and a strong arm (+1) Strength could get up and down pretty easily. If you have a negative Constitution modifier, the cold water will exhaust you too much to climb the rough edges.

The bottom of the drop is a bit of mostly safe and flat ground surrounding [6], with branching paths leading off to the other areas.

[6] Sharp & Pointy Pit
The place where all the metal weapons and tools flowed last time it rained heavy. Acts like a pit trap if you fall in (probably instant death), but you could lure a monster to fall in here instead. You can also search this place all you want, you won't find the wedding ring here. You can also dig out a sword (1d6) or spear (1d6) out of the crack if you spend an hour, have some rope, and have at least one character risk falling in to reach for it. 

There is also a precarious small sack hanging from the tip of an upturned spear, half ripped, just barely hanging on until it falls into the irretrievable abyss below. Mage Hand could pull it up but that's boring; make someone risk their life for the husk of a bread loaf (inedible) and 1d6 silver coins within.

If you throw the (cursed) talisman down this hole the man who gave you the tasked would be pleased and give you a reward; but over the next three nights you are plagued by nightmares and end up permanently cursed; feeling as though the deep longs for your destruction. (-1 to AC and Saving Throws whenever you're underground. Only people who directly voted for or had a hand in throwing the amulet down here end up cursed, and you could break the curse by retrieving it (lol) and putting it in the Deep Place [20] where it belongs.

[7] Trembler's Nest
Weird little bipedal, subterranean owls. They can only shake and huddle together in a corner for defense. Scrawny but can be consumed for food. Their legs and lower body are absolutely hideously scarred with tiny bite marks from their blood being drained over and over.

Their eggs are a dull green and vibrate worryingly when you hold them. If you throw them they explode like a grenade and deal 1d3 damage in an acidic yolk explosion. 1d6 Tremblers and 1d6 eggs can be found here. They aren't smart enough to leave if you come back, so you can find another egg every week or so if you don't eat them.

[8] Giant's Hand
There is a giant hand poking out of the wall lengthwise along this tunnel. You can squeeze past it easily as long as you aren't carrying something really big or have way too many weapons that might scratch it. No amount of noise will "wake" it up. However touching or attacking it will, causing it to lash out. It's stuck in the wall and can only attack by a big sweep (10 damage but spread evenly among all characters in the tunnel) or by grabbing and crushing someone it can feel (save and be grabbed, everyone has to attack it to let go, one round later it crushes dealing 2d6 unavoidable damage). It has 6 HD.

Also after killing the hand or if you dig the wall nearby you'll find it isn't actually attached to a giant and just kinda grew here attached to a wall with flesh colored webbing.

You can also totally chop up the hand if you have an axe and feed it to the Chain-Gangers but after one day they'll get sick and blame you for it (three bad days after).

[9] Moss Chamber
Large open space with shaggy moss that crunches like grass underneath. At exactly midnight, the Tremblers from [7] come here to forage for tiny worms and scrabbling cave-crabs. You could try harvesting the moss for something to burn or trade but it's too wet down here and would never dry properly. Underneath a shelf of discolored moss is a vein of fulminate, which you can extract. The moss acts as an excellent cushion to avoid flaming sparks from igniting the vein and also an excellent sound absorber for when you accidentally make it explode and kill everyone in the party.

An Elf or Druid could tell that the discolored moss must be growing on an unusual mineral. Otherwise you'd just have to investigate until you learn that's where it is.

[10] Blood Pool
Mysterious cave side chamber with a floor that funnels inwards to a pool of still blood. Along the outside edges are the desiccated corpses of several lanky owls, some worms, and a pixie. Vampires or weirdos could drink it and tell there is some human in it, but it's probably a mix of multiple. Actually where the blood drinking spiders lay their eggs. If you cause any ripples in the blood pool they hatch early in anticipation of their next meal.

Stat as a 2 HD Swarm (takes only 1 damage maximum from attacks, takes normal damage from AoE or fire). Deals 1d8 damage per round and always automatically hit without needing an attack roll (they crawl under your armor). The adult spiders are significantly less aggressive then this honestly, at least they wait until you're asleep.

[11] Roid Rat Feeding Ground
Weird rust-colored smears against a smooth rock floor. Little black turds indicate this is a place rats cross often from burrows and cracks in the walls. You could try to hunt these, but it's not worth it. There is a 1 in 3 chance any given hour 1d2 rats come out from their hiding places here.

Look like little albino kangaroo rats. They seem strangely docile, even when approached or after being caught in a trap. The moment they are cornered or handled however, they freak out, turn red, and triple in size. Like a goblin but with Strength modifier of +3. Attack by stomping your toes into paste; if you try to grab one it's thrashing can break your fingers. 1+1 HD creature with decent mobility since they jump around (eye level height). They always fight to death, and the meat is especially gamey and shitty like they burnt out everything they had just to spite you in their rage.

[12] Mysterious Tunnels
Winding upward tunnels carved into the stone, too smooth for tools. Could be a giant worm, but feels too intentional. Just big enough for a man to crawl through on hands and knees, half movement speed. Sharp rocks scraps your hands and knees unless if you have good quality clothes or leather straps to protect yourselves with (deals 1 nonlethal damage for a full journey up).

Follow the tunnels is painstakingly slow and takes at least two hours to crawl up them, but when you do you'll find a secret passage to [2]. It's significantly slower then taking the other path down, but large creatures certainly could not follow you up.

[13] Clutch Roots
Roots from some mysterious plant far above poke through the roof here. If touched directly (any character with a big hat or anyone really tall), the roots suddenly extend downward and try to wrap around and squeeze whatever touched them, needing an axe to be cut free. Using any improvised tool will dull it or have other roots grab it as well just to make things worse. As long as only one person gets trapped at a time, it's manageable.

Roots chopped down still retain the ability to squeeze but less aggressively. If fed with water they could be kept alive longer and made more docile; clever parties could wrap a fighter in these for some decent armor (as chainmail, but inflexible so treat your Dex as -1 while wearing). They only live for a week with constant watering, but if brought into the sunlight they sprout new small shoots and become living armor you can keep for as long as you want, immune to rust monsters, and grows back any damage it sustains. If the character wearing the armor dies from Dragonbreath or a Fire Spell however then the armor dies for good.

If you hold up a torch or lantern to look above at the roots and get a better look, you'll see the ceiling sparkle. There is a vein of gold from the rock the roots hang down from. Fire would work but the smoke would fill up this and surrounding chambers and be lethal.

[14] Mimic
Small side chamber which has a totally normal, clean treasure chest sitting in the corner. It's not dirty or rotten from the moisture at all. It is obviously a mimic. There are bones next to it for fucks sake. Stats as mimic. If you kill the mimic, you'll find a very traumatized monkey inside clutching a silver key belonging to the foreman above. (It opens the Chain-Gang's chains).

Also if you avoid the mimic entirely or come back here after dealing with it you'll notice a single mushroom leading you to the mushroom patch [15] in case you missed it. The mushroom is random and if plucked gives one dose, roll 1d6 on the Mushroom table below.

[15] Mushroom Patch
Cute little mushroom patch in the corner of this cavern, fed by a trickling of stalactites above. There seems to be a small glow around the shrooms even though none of them seem to be enchanting; it's actually the water that seems very lightly magical. There is enough mushrooms of each kind for a group (party sized) of people to be able to use them.

These are the Mushrooms you can find in the patch and their effects (Roll 1d6 for random)

1. White with Yellow Spots- Constipation for one day, then painful excretion.
2. All White- Edible and quite good (enough for 6-8 rations but don't grow back if they're all plucked)
3. White with Red Spots- Poison. Can be smeared on a weapon to deal +1 damage for a day, if eaten deals 1d6 damage instead.
4. Black with Red Spots- No noticeable effects. Vampires think you taste funny.
5. All Black- Giga Poison, but thankfully taste horrendous (you can't stomach eating one, but would be lethal if you did)
6. Black with Yellow Spots- Gets you high. As long as one party member remains sober, they can keep everyone in line. If everyone in the party tries one, you all black out in bliss and then wake up in a random place in the Drain (roll 1d20). There's one really small and brightly colored one hiding among the stalks, which only the party member most likely to want to stay sober will see.
   

Also, a Pixie lives here, making a living off some ambient dumb fae magic. There's a little house you can only see if you have Mage Sight (or are a Gnome). If you knock on the door and are polite the pixie will come out and ask you if you've seen its mother/daughter/significant other/whatever relationships pixies have. If you confirm the dead Pixie in the blood pool spider nest [10] then the Pixie here will be sad but will offer to enchant a weapon (+1) or a party member (+1 max HP). That's about the limit of her powers unfortunately.

[16] Tar Pits
Most of this chamber is dominated by large sloped pits with bubbling tar from deep beneath the earth. Anyone who is thrown into one will almost certainly get sucked in and drown. The air here smells terrible. You could use the tar as a glue or throw in trash to get rid of it but that about is the limit of its usefulness.

Halfway slid down a tar pit; you'll find a small, humble silver wedding ring here. If you touch the tar trying to grab the ring directly it will take a turn for someone to pull you out and a lot of cussing and noise (random encounter roll). If you fail any roll associated with getting the ring, it slides into the tar and is lost forever.

[17] Carved Dinosaur Skull
Huge open-mouth dinosaur skull acts as a cool entrance to the remaining areas [18], [19], and [20]. If you strike the cracked tooth with a blunt weapon the skull will snap shut blocked off access to the deepest areas (or trapping you inside). Digging around the skull would be almost as hard as trying to chip your way through it.

If a Necromancer or sufficiently skilled Magic-User inspects the carvings they can learn a random 1st or 2nd level Necromancy spell. If you use a different magic system, +1 to Dinosaur spells or whatever.

[18] Sad Little Corner
There's a sad little dead body in the corner of a stone chamber, desiccated to bones and tatters. Just looking at it makes you feel sad. If you get close, you must make a morale check or start openly weeping, which gives you -2 to your attack rolls if you get into a fight right after this. Somebody has to succeed a morale check to inspect or move the body. The body contains a small silver blade carved with a moon crest; increase your damage with offensive spells by +1.

If you pick up the body and give it a proper burial somewhere nice (The Moss Chamber or the Mushroom Patch), you'll put the spirit to rest. All Wandering Encounter rolls of 1 are treated as safe instead. If you dispose of the body somewhere shitty like the tar pits or loot it without a burial you'll enrage the spirit instead.

[19] Rubble Ditch
Shallow incline that leads to a wall completely caved in and filled with rubble. Nearby on flat stone ground are the signs of weapons being sharpened, some casually tossed aside bones, and some smashed gambling dice after a losing game. All sure signs of Orcs. They seem to be gone now; back to the subterranean kingdoms from whence they came when there was nothing to plunder and no reason to guard this hole when a cave-in would suffice.

[20] The Black Altar
At the deepest point in the Drain is a black altar coated with slime and moss, hanging from the sides, black tar seeping in from the ceiling in slow droplets, black water bubbles around its base. All light sources are dimmer and darker in this room; torches become candles and candles become matchsticks. If you took the amulet from the cultist Chain-Ganger, you can put it here to properly complete their request and please their Gods. If you are suffering from a Curse, you get an extra saving throw to break it.

You can also drink from the black water below the Altar to pledge yourself to the Ones Beneath. From then on, you will feel a calling to the dark places of the world, and feel uncomfortable in the sunlight. If you choose to follow these new Gods and their whisperings you could unlock new powers stemming from the dark and cthonic, but your alignment shifts towards Chaos. Pledging yourself to these Gods allows you to drink this water as a healing tonic like a health potion. For Clerics of existing Gods or lawful character; this water burns their skin like Unholy Water. The bubbling water loses all special properties when taken above ground.

If you disrespect or desecrate this altar in some way, you will anger the Ones Beneath. Add +1 to all wandering encounter rolls while you remain in the Drain.

Wandering Encounters (Roll 1d6)
[1] Crying Ghost Girl (1 HD, +4 AC, Ethereal, Undead)
Doesn't attack and has no morale. You see the girl as a translucent blue-colored specter holding her face in her hands floating along, quietly sobbing. It's a ghost so she can't be hurt by normal weapons. Anyone who hears the ghost directly feels sad, and receives a negative -1 to their next Saving Throw or until they are cheered up. Any Turn Undead action causes her to disappear.

If you anger the spirit of the girl, the ghost will instead appear with a red color and the spirit attacks with tears streaming down its face. It gains +1 HD and deals 1d8+1 damage with her incorporeal hands, which cause lacerations to appear on your flesh as if from nothing. She will also give off a banshee scream once per time she is encountered where all your party members are stunned for one round and have to make another Wandering Monster encounter roll to see what the noise brought.

[2] Blood Drinking Spiders (1 HD, +2 AC, Bloodsucking attack 1d4+1)
Morale: 8
Number Appearing: 2d4+1

The adult version of the Blood Drinking Spiders, about as big as a housecat. They aren't especially aggressive, especially after feeding. After making a successful attack, the individual spider makes a morale check to run away and go spit the blood up in their blood pool spawning nest at [10]. The spiders heal 1 hit point each time they successfully drink blood from someone. They aren't very smart and will bite straight into metal shin guards or boots if you have them, causing their mouthparts to break and making them totally harmless.

[3] Roid Rat (1+1 HD, +2 AC, Stomp Attack 1d6 damage)
Morale: 7 or Fight Until Death
Number Appearing: 1d2

Strangely calm and docile albino cave dwelling rat. Doesn't have any interest in fighting and will run away if you make loud noise, but corner one or grab one and prepare for it to roid out and attack. Described in more detail at [11].

[4] Long Man (3 HD, +2 AC, Stomp Attack 1d6+1, Bite Attack 1d10+1 casts Web when at half HP)
Morale: 14
Number Appearing: Just one

Looks like a pale creepily elongated human man with no genitals. You get the feeling its something nameless and promethean. It doesn't bleed, and instead has some strange skin-colored goo inside of its body that leaks out in sticky strands. When it takes enough damage this spurts out over everyone close enough covering them in it and slowing their movement. Prefers to attack with legs that are as long as you are tall even though it has to unnaturally crouch down in these tunnels given its too tall for them.

It can also unhinge its jaw and open its mouth very wide to bite with big flat teeth; but it only does this against someone totally immobilized by its Webbing or something trying to grapple it up close. The first one of these you encounter will be missing a hand.

[5] Giant Mud Wasp (2 HD, +6 AC, Stinger Attack 1d6+1, Mild Poison causes nausea, calls reinforcements)
Morale: 16
Number Appearing: 1d2 and then way more

They can't see you and get disadvantage to attack you if you're covered in a good amount of mud or tar, but seriously, don't fight these. Won't chase you down since they're too busy scrapping in the mud to build a nest or whatever it is they do.

[6] Chain-Ghoul (2+1 HD, +4 AC, Chain whip attack 1d4+1, Chain wrapped claws at 1d6, Undead)
Morale: N/A
Number Appearing: 1d4

Body of a Chain-Ganger executed or fallen into the well and left to rot. Their corpse is puppeted by animated chains they are still bound by; they move around like Doctor Octopus from Spiderman. They attack with broken bits of chain and smack you with their claws that are wrapped in chains for more impact and are fierce. If multiple Chain-Ghouls are encountered at once, they are encountered chained together, and get slower for each one felled as the others have to drag its corpse around.

While I don't use Ghoul to mean D&Dism Ghoul Ghouls if you insist on giving them the D&D Ghoul paralysis thing then make it wrap people hit by it in chains if they fail the save instead since it's cooler.

If you spend a combat round unlocking their manacle using the Foreman's silver key [14] the ghouls instantly go limp and cease their undeath as their spirits are free. This roll requires you to either keep the ghouls still for one round, or have someone use a Slight-Of-Hand or Rogue skill to actually get the key in there.

[7] Dark Dwellers (5 HD, +4 AC, +2 To-Hit, 2d6 tentacle attack which entangle on any roll of 6, corrosive blood returns 1d2 damage blunt weapon attacks, pass thru matter, light sensitivity)
Morale: 17
Number Appearing: 2d4

Hulking and misshapen black figures from the unnamed places beneath the earth. Seem to be made of black tar and shadow. Attack with tentacles that spawn from random places on their body making their attacks difficult to deflect or dodge. When hit with blunt weapons or fists the struck body part bubbles up and then pops, releasing bubbling black water that burns (identical to [20]) your skin from its heat and corrosive shadow. Whenever their tentacles deal a maximum damage roll on either die, they entangle them in some tentacles. If one die rolls 6, they are partially entangled and can't move but can still fight back, if both roll a 6, they are totally entangled and can't do anything unless cut free.

The Dark Dwellers are agents of the Ones Beneath and have no interest in feeding or killing the party members for sport. Instead, they will attempt to kill whoever desecrated the sacred altar, or those aligned with the forces of the Sky or Light (Clerics of Sky Gods are hated almost as much as those who desecrate the altar). They're clever and won't fight endlessly; instead trying to wrap the offender up in their tentacles and then sink into the floor with them in tow never to be heard from again.

While extremely strong, the Dark Dwellers are weak to light. Torches and lanterns cause them to flinch back and attack at -2 to whoever holds them. Anything that produces light (glowing sword, firefly lantern, torch, etc.) deals damage either equal to a 1d6 sword OR deals +1 bonus damage, whichever is stronger. Intended to be a party wipe unless you have some amazing light sources (like a Light spell, or Flare, or a flask of sunlight or something) to even the odds.

Possible Outcomes
Because there is no direct end goal the main driving force for the party will be to find a way to escape the drain while playing nice with their unreliable and unhelpful superiors in the form of the chain-gangers, who are in turn enslaved by someone above them.

Possible methods to escape the Drain as written here are;

• Do enough favors to be lifted out of the hole by the Chain-Gang (only works for small characters; maybe the pixie can shrink you?) You'd still have to escape the ditch and guards afterwards
  
• Intentionally cause a cave-in which could open a way out onto the surface. Obviously, this has its own risks. I like to imagine monster hunters and the guards will come out to any open sink holes to make sure nothing crawled out to stalk the King's woods; would include outlaws like you or maybe they assume you're escaped Chain-Gangers.
  
• Survive in the drain long enough for the work to be completed and the water let into the canal. If this happens you'll be swept away into the great below and die unless you set up camp in the high point [4]. It will take at least a few days for the water to settle, and then you can swim up out of the hole if you can hold your breath long enough and remember the way. There won't be any guards waiting for you because nobody is expecting a bunch of outlaws to surface in a giant farming irrigation canal.
• Break open the rock wall at [19] and enter the Underdark. Not technically escaping to the surface but you're bound to find another way back up eventually. This would either take explosives (the fulminate) or several days of hard labor. You'd still need to supply this work with food from the Chain-Gangers and new tools. Assume 1d2 tools break per day while digging through the stone, everyone working on it needs double rations, and it takes ~250 man hours to complete (three strong men working twelve hours a day a week could clear it, add an extra hour of work completed per strength modifier or if you have extra tools)
  
• Align yourself with the Ones Beneath. While this would help you survive or do do other tasks or missions, I imagine having enough favor with them or one night before the whole cave floods you get a premonition that you can safely enter the tar pits at [16] to be sucked away to some other subterranean realm or the Underdark. If you haven't pledged your soul to the Ones Beneath and are just tagging along to the party then make a save or die. I think the idea of one party member being the chosen mud messiah only for half of party to die when they try their stupid plan to trust the dark gods who hate the sun.
  

Note: Only after writing this did I realize that I wrote a similar set up for the Massacre at Slave Creek which featured similar factions. I actually think this works out better because this adventure almost perfectly fits into the next if the Chain-Gang manages to escape or rise up against their captors, or if the players exacerbating the tensions so badly the guards begin a massacre to kick off those events.

Alien Biomass Severity Warning System

You ever have a dream where you get so mad at the sheer incompetence or stupidity on display that you halfway wake up and think about ways to fix it? I just had that.

I was dreaming that a new unidentified bunch of goop that clung to the ground appeared at a coastal city. It was pink to skin colored, and was thought to be alien, appearing along the beach and ocean-front caves. The news made a big deal about how they don't know how it spreads, if it's dangerous, or what it feeds on, when there was a VERY OBVIOUS shadowy indentations just underneath the biomass that were human shaped. I took the picture off the website and opened it in mspaint or photoshop and outlined the shadowy bits that poked out from the smooth biomass floor, and very obviously got human silhouettes, the dark spots where the nose or elbows poke out from people stuck in various poses underneath the carpet of alien flesh, very obviously being fed upon.

I was so outraged by sheer incompetence of the media for not noticing something this obvious that I halfway woke up, thinking about how to better spread the information or give an early warning system for a rapidly spreading alien biomass across the surface of the planet. I had a very simple solution; we'll go with the types of media we already know. As such, this is a 3 step warning system; the alien biomass is defined by whichever it is most similar to; Blob, Creep, or The Thing.

3) Blob
If the biomass falls under blob rules, then it can open up or is heavily acidic, meaning anyone who touches it can be broken down or melted into its mass. This is the least dangerous of the three despite still being incredibly dangerous. In this case, simple containment measures like extreme heat or cold, fire, chemicals, or whatever else could be used to try and keep it contained.

2) Creep
Like Starcraft's Zerg creep, the goop hive stuff Xenomorphs use from aliens, or that one SCP, this biomass version is living tissue that supports other structures or alien encouragement. This one could still open up or absorb people who touch it, but it's differentiated because now it can also support other structures or creatures; such as spawning tentacles to attack low flying aircraft or creating short lived creatures who can expand its influence or go capture humans to add to its biomass collective. It may also be a part of a natural alien ecosystem or be a tool for terraformation, causing more damage to the natural world in addition to just eating everything it touches.

1) The Thing
Obviously, if we're going by the Thing Rules, then this is the worst and most dangerous one. Thing rules are similar to Creep biomass, able to create new living things or morph itself, but with the addition of being universal across all living things and is able to create its own life forms or split into pieces that are long lived and not reliant on the creep's biomass to sustain its life functions. If the alien biomass follows Thing rules, then all bets are off. It might be able to take over biological things it touches, copy life forms, roll up into a ball and become a giant monster, split its pieces apart, etc. Obviously if this was actually unleashed anywhere on Earth it is highly likely it would just destroy the whole world and assimilate anything without anyone able to do anything anyway, which is why it's the highest on the warning system, you're totally fucked on this level, but at least you have something a little more accurate.

Tony Hawk should have been the last Smash-Pass Fighter and your KNOW I'm right

Alright we got Sora, which is like fine or whatever, but I feel like we had a big missed opportunity in Smash Ultimate. With the final roster all set in stone years ago; there isn't much to add or complain about. After all, it's unlikely a new Smash game is coming out any time soon and even if it does it likely won't have every character. Ultimate was the last hurrah, and the last time we experienced Sakurai time; the endless speculation and fan arguing. Smash was a once in a life time event, and it was fun while it lasted, but it's sadly time to move on.

But something I've thought about over the last few years? The final Smash Fighter really should have been Tony Hawk. No I'm not kidding. Really think about it for a minute.

Now of course, it's important to remember this is all pie in the sky stuff. Anyone can wish for any fighter for Smash, since it's a crossover game. But Smash fighters tend to have a few restrictions or areas of impact. So typically the game has to be at least somewhat famous, representative of a genre or series, or add to unique and interesting gameplay.

While being primarily based on Nintendo IPs, Smash is kind of meant to be a museum of gaming as a whole, at least in the time when it was created. You have the entire indie and PC gaming scene represented with Minecraft Steve, you have JRPGs like Square's FF and Dragonquest representation, you have casual gamers represented, and then you have crowd pleasers and fan favorites like Banjo and K Rool. But you know what Smash really doesn't have representation for? Sports Games. Sports games represent an absolutely massive portion of the gaming market. But just making a generic "football man" or something doesn't work, it needs to be a real person, even if it's one of Smash's rules not to include those. Besides; what of the gameplay implications? With Steve Smash proved they can take even the most boring and basic characters and give them a fun and interesting moveset; but how would you do that for a Sports character? Wii-Fit is kind of the closest, but I view that as a different genre, more of the casual gamer or "game as application" type then a Sports game. 

Tony Hawk straddles this line between Sports but also arcadey and action-oriented the best. You can instantly see his moveset potential. Using different tricks to slide around the stage, grinding on edges and hitting opponents with sick kickflips and the Superman. You could even see him having a unique mechanic like a combo meter that builds up and multiplies his damage the longer he goes without falling down or getting hit, stringing together multiple hits and good movement for insane damage potential.

Of course, practical concerns make this less likely. Activision apparently put Tony's name into insane licensing hell, hence the 'Tony Hawk's existential nightmare" meme. But if we're handwaving that concern, then what about the music? The Tony Hawk games are some of the most iconic music of the era, alt-rock, punk, grunge, and various other genres that make up that comfy 90s and 00s rebellious nostalgia. Just imagine beating people up in Smash Bros to Superman or Bus Driver's Imaginary Places. It doesn't really fit other music tracks in the game, which are strictly video gamey or more orchestral.

As for the Stage? It's gotta be New Jersey. You've got stage hazards with toxic dumps, halfpipes in drained swimming pools, and more. Maybe it could be a transforming map, with you switching between the New Jersey slums, to the inside of the Warehouse, to a professional skate park with lights and everything to fit the narrative of Tony Hawk's Underground, which is more what this representation is based on, though the entire series is rife with alt-colors and costumes for Tony Hawk as a character.

We could see the other skaters from around that time and the various stars of Jackass, another massive well of nostalgia for Smash fans, as alt-colors. Or just outfits inspired by them, similar to how other Smash Fighters have alts meant to show off other characters even if they can't have them in the game directly.

Finally; I want to talk about the WTF factor. Yeah, Tony would be a WTF pick, and I think one of Smash's rules is "no real world people" in the first place, but I think if we ignored that for this concept it would be the perfect capstone for Smash. Representing Sports games, bridging the gap to the real world, and finally being UNEXPECTED. One of my favorite Fighters that came with Smash ultimate was Piranha Plant, because nobody expected it. It's clear that things you don't expect are a huge part of Smash hype and the culture that came with the game, even if those days are long since passed. It's just a fantasy, but I love the idea. Maybe just because I hate Kingdom Hearts beyond belief. Anyway, Merry Christmas.

Everybody's Halflings

Just think about it logically

The name "Halfling" raises some confusion. For most, the simple fact that Haflings are about half as tall as a human is enough, but is there some other meaning? In truth, Halflings are not their own race, nor are they a phenomena unique to humans. Halflings are basically, half people. It's fantasy dwarfism; having nothing to do with actual real life little people, of course. But in this case; they are "half" a person.

Scholars disagree what this means exactly. They have a soul, a physical body, and a mind- mostly capable of beings of any given race; but they aren't "all there". They tend to see things a bit simpler- more like children. They're a bundle of simple stereotypes and drives- based on the race that spawned them. The reason Halflings are so laid back, love to live in rolling green farms, smoke weed and drink ale all day while the rest of the world passes them by is because they are only halfway to humans- the great longing to find the secrets of the universe, the search for passion and meaning- absent. Only the bare minimum of cultures. Wholesome, fulfilling, but simple.

But why do only humans seem to have these "Halflings" associated with them? Well, that's not actually true. Every race does.

Elves have halflings, they are called Gnomes.

Orcs have Goblins.

Dragonborn halflings are Kobolds. You may ask where dragons fit into this, and that's simple, dragonborn are actually Halflings of them. So Kobolds are half of a half, which is why are objectively not people and it's okay to break into their warrens and kill them for their shiny stuff.

Dwarves don't have halflings because dwarves are already halflings. Think about it; they basically act as stereotypes already, only caring about beer, mining, and forging with silly accents? Dwarves are the Halflings of the ancient great progenitor race of Giants, who once forged weapons for the Gods; now made silly and gold obsessed with cave-driven evolutionary adaptation. Also explains why they don't have darkvision; Giants live on the surface.

Sometimes the process works in reverse, at least in terms of size. The Halflings of Hyenas are actually Gnolls, which sounds weird until you consider how stupid and one-note Gnolls tend to be compared to the advanced social systems of hyena packs. Just look at the success rate of hyenas; they clearly have more going on upstairs then a fucking gnoll.

Drow have halflings too, and those are those weird little dark imp looking darkling creepy crawly gollum looking things you see sometimes in media but doesn't really have a specific overarching name but are totally common enough to be a fantasy race.

Ents have dryads. (Or those could be Halflings of trees?)

And those little magical pixie/fairy type creatures you can catch in jars and are generally helpful and nice? Those are the Halflings of the True Fae. The "halfing" aspect of them shaved off all of the extremely dangerous subtly and depth to what the Fae are like. They just give gifts and helpful little spells instead of actually ruining your whole family line while "helping" you with a problem.

What about Ogres? They tend to be pretty humanoid, just bigger. Are they doublelings? No, they're halflings too. Just of something way bigger and way, way worse.

Hits as Perils (Hit-Points Rework System)

But aren't they though? Hit Points are kind of unnecessary beancounting that gets in the way of fun.

Note; This blogpost is partially a shitpost based on the above comment, which is in itself a bit pretentious and shitposty. I don't seriously have a problem with hit points, nor any disconnects they may cause with the verisimilitude of the game world- such as high level characters being not threatened by lesser weapons. This can be explained away easily. Plus in terms of it being beancounting- I've personally never experienced any annoyance at keeping track of HP. If anything, players seem to enjoy having a rolling HP total to keep track of, the one figure on their character sheet that is the most pressing and important of them all. After all, if that number reaches zero, you'll die- it's more important and interesting to keep track of then say weight or rations. Plus, Hit-Points are probably one of the strongest metrics of risk-vs-reward gameplay and the most obvious "resource" of the resource management common in roleplaying but especially in OSR play. You have a clear and obvious sign of how much danger you are likely in at any given time simply by knowing how damaged you are- knowing roughly how much damage a failed roll or an enemy monster will do gives you more tactical decision making then if, say, a game simply had every hazard have a small chance to kill you.

However, especially in progression-based games with growing health pools, combat encounters with multiple damage and healing events in any given combat- monster attacks and spells, healing potions or allied spells, inspirations and temporary HP, etc- these can be a bit distracting and take away from the immediately interesting part of simulating a game world; the threat in front of you. This concept made me think of how to streamline or move the Hit-Points and damage system of a generic roleplaying game into being something simple and easy to understand, quick to adjudicate, while also being able to plug in to as many existing systems as possible to avoid friction.

One system that has a non Hit-Points systems is Into the Odd. Now technically it does have Hit-Points, but these are more like a shield before you take damage to your Body stat, which also reduces your ability to fight or take further damage. (At least, that's how I remember it working- I could be totally wrong. Been a long time.) I actually like this system for a lot of reasons over a traditional Hit-Point system, since taking damage also impacts your ability to deal or sustain further damage- a more realistic take on injury that, while it can result in a death spiral, makes taking damage more meaningful. Traditionally; a character with full HP and one Hit-Point remaining have the same ability scores, same movement speed, same power of spells or attacks, and so on. It doesn't have to be realistic by any means but I think it gamifies the concept of taking damage or injury TOO much, making it harder to simulate and create situations that feel at home in the game world itself. As such, these combined factors lead to this very rough concept; The Peril System.

The Peril System
Whenever you are hit by an enemy attack, struck by an offensive spell, caught in a trap, encounter a natural hazard, or otherwise take any form of damage or risk- you encounter Peril. There are two types of Perils- Peril and Mortal Peril. Standard Perils essentially make your situation worse, requiring valuable time, resources, or inflicting nasty status effects or weaknesses that will harm your ability to continue fighting or exploring. Mortal Perils work differently. When you are struck with a Mortal Peril, your character is essentially toast- the same as a monster with a very powerful attack or instant-death spell. So for example, a dragon's Fire Breath would deal enough damage to kill most characters, so it would be considered a Mortal Peril, as failure against it would be deadly. 

I also feel like I should mention here; all of this applies to the Players' Hit-Points, not monsters or NPCs. They still use normal systems. The idea is to get rid of player bean counting, but GM counting is par for the course.

This may make Mortal Perils sound extremely dangerous- but remember that the Peril is always done after your other form of mitigation or chance to avoid the danger. ie; Perils are the replacement for hit-point damage. So if a monster hits you on an attack roll vs your AC, then you are hit with a Peril. If you fail a saving throw, you might get hit with a Mortal Peril, and so on.

So if a monster hits you, instead of dealing damage, what negative thing happens to your character? It depends on the monster and situation. The general idea is that instead of standard damage, each infliction of an attack or spell does something negative and harms your character's abilities in some way. Some of this could be more mechanical (ie; dealing damage to stat points or causing morale checks), but the intention is that these are more flavorful, essentially roleplaying or game-world-simulating problems that crop up to make your adventure more difficult.

For example- a Goblin stabs you with a punji stick. Instead of dealing 1d4 damage; the wound washed clean or else you will get very sick and need to amputate the limb or die of infection. In mechanics terms, that means the party must have access to clean water in order to wash out your wound. They can expend a ration or a spell to use some water, or in some dungeons it would be trivial to find a clean stream to use instead. Note how despite not being a mortal peril, regular perils can still be very serious, it is still putting you in peril, just not immediate. It still represents a loss of either resources or weakens your party in some way, which is the point of HP loss, simply abstracted from numbers.

Instead of saying "my character's down twenty five Hit Points" in this system, you'd say something like "I'm sick, my shoes are melted to the floor, I'm blinded, and my damn hair is on fire". Both characters have taken the same amount of punishment and aren't looking too good.

Mortal Perils
Mortal Perils are a bit of a strange one. The idea behind Mortal Perils is to replace attacks that are dangerous enough to kill characters anyway; so attacks or spells that deal enough hit point damage to kill outright and that don't have another mechanic (like Save v Death) would feel about the same, but it may feel bad for a high level character to get instantly murdered by one bad hit against an otherwise regular enemy if it was strong enough to be considered "mortal". One simple concept would be that if the player characters are equal or higher level to the threat, then the 'Mortal Peril' becomes a regular Peril instead. ie; if you get bonked over the head by a troll's club as a staring character, your head gets smashed and you die, but if you're a high level character, the injury just stuns you for a round, dents your helmet, and makes you lose 1d4 points of Intelligence permanently. If you get hit in the head with a dented helmet, then it would be treated as a Mortal Peril instead, and so on. Simple way to incorporate player level into your survivability without using hit points.

The second Mortal Peril concept is to either use a simple lives system, or bennies, as an exchange to prevent instant character death. For instance, if you would take a Mortal Peril, you can give up one of your characters life tokens to just barely avoid death. You only have a limited amount of these and they do not come back per rest or even session- probably just per character. I really like the idea of starting with none of these actually, getting one per level up, and maybe healing or magic spells (such as Healing Potions) essentially restore these instead of healing hit points. So in-universe the healing potion is knitting together your wounds and restoring your vitality but in rules it's giving you back the one bit of protection you get from a one hit death. This is still basically a hit point system, just a much simpler and easier to track, so it doesn't 100% follow our guideline at the top, but I think it's a concession that makes the game more fun. I also think certain mechanics, monsters, or character classes could really add to a system as simple as this. Imagine if Paladins using Lay On Hands doesn't heal hit points, but instead just lets them give you their own life tokens as a way to protect their party members while sacrificing their own safety. Imagine if undead creatures that use drain life don't take away or restore their own hit points by suck away your "soul" temporarily, which means they basically steal a life token. But if you slay that undead, you can get it back, meaning you might be stuck in a dungeon in a lose-lose situation; do you go chasing after the ghost holding your last life token or do you take a risk on your return to the surface; with one lucky crossbow trap could kill you?

Final Mortal Peril concept- the DM picks a stat most fitting based on the Peril you are in and you can choose to half that stat permanently or die. Fail a save vs acid breath? Charisma halved. Yes, half, and the reason why it is a choice is because some people would rather just kill off their own character then continue on like that. I don't blame them. This could be its whole own post but for as much as the OSR/New-Weird/blogosphere loves their death and dismemberment tables, mutation tables, spell cataclysm rolls, their "scar" and "trauma" systems- people don't want to go on playing gimped characters, so just give them a choice to accept it and move on with a fresh character to roll. At least, that's what I would do with something this nasty.

Perils in Combat
The idea behind perils is to replicate the effects of HP. How do we do this in a fight? If you can take an unlimited number of perils, then characters can just fight forever without going down, right? Not necessarily. The idea is that perils put you in enough danger that you could be killed, but typically you'd need to get hit by a few or expend other resources (armor, one-time use abilities, lucky rolls, etc.) that eventually you could get worn down. As with the above example, higher level characters can downgrade certain Mortal Perils into regular ones- you could extend this concept to lesser Perils of a certain type. So in the above example Peril of getting stabbed by a nasty, shit-covered spear- a Paladin of a certain level may become immune to all earthly diseases. This means that for them? They can just ignore that Peril entirely. Would that make him totally immune to a goblin encounter? As per RAW, yes, which I think is fine. It's the equivalent of a high level character with tons of healing and action surges and the like all going into a fight against much lesser opponents; they realistically can't die from it so it's the same as not needing HP at all. But for most combat encounters, Perils work as a time, turn, and resource pressure as an HP replacement.

Regular Perils are also dynamic and can lead to character death and real danger. For example, a common peril of man eating monsters like Giants or Dragons may be a grab move. That Peril ties you up, meaning you can't attack and need to struggle to break free OR have a teammate come free you. But on the dragon's next turn, if you're still grabbed, it will attempt to bite your head off and kill you. The regular Peril has progressed to a Mortal Peril. The idea is the same as if you had been hit by a strong attack, and the same tension of being down to 1 HP and the next attack will kill you is the same here.

Status effects not specific to spells or abilities are also somewhat uncommon, but could be employed here. The difficulty is in keeping track. One example for a common catch-all sort of mechanic is whenever your character is bleeding. Since it doesn't have HP damage, whenever you bleed at all; the effect of the blood loss doesn't matter unless it's lethal amounts of blood loss or isn't bandaged (Mortal Peril?) so in this case, I would say that anyone who is suffering from a bleeding wound now enrages bloodsucking creatures; making them more likely to be targeted by them or having higher To-Hit rolls, stacking on more Perils, or potentially having the chance to upgrade a regular Peril into a Mortal Peril. Once again, we're starting to get into simulating the exact same thing as an HP system, so this still needs more ironing out, but I feel like there is a creative space here where this works. 

Next; Weapons. Weapons are interesting here because player weapon choices tend to be more impactful, where as NPC weapon choices are less important since it's typically just the numbers that matter. Some games or systems may include alternate rules as weapons vs AC To-Hit tables, but the idea of players switching up what armor they wear or protection they bring along vs specific weapons (if they even know what they're going against) seems extremely niche and silly. In this regard, the Peril system actually offers more interesting gameplay, because Perils could be unique to weapon types or even individual enemy weapons. Normally you don't care if an Orc is smacking you with a d8 Axe or a d8 Longsword unless you have some special feature that gives you an AC bonus against that weapon type or some extremely niche scenario like that. Having Perils fixes that and could make fights more interesting. An example being the triangular wounds of a bayonet being less immediately deadly then say a sword or axe, but being much harder to stitch up makes them an interesting peril on their own. Once again, this is an NPC thing- players will still have all the fun of normal weapons since they're still rolling damage dice and all that.

Finally; Armor. The removal of HP means that Fighters or tank-type characters are going to be less effective in this system, being as vulnerable to standard Perils as other characters are MINUS the normal effectiveness of their AC, their saves, etc. since Perils happen AFTER normal mitigation. With that being said, I still think making Fighters more durable even when they fail their rolls or protections is fine and fits the theme of the game. Maybe it's a class feature, maybe it's just inbuilt in the system. As mentioned above, common Perils will often do things like "dent your armor" or "give you a scratch", which are not dangerous in an of themselves, but a second Peril of the same type will likely have a much worse effect. This means that the strongest armor (worn by Fighters) still grants additional protection as would having a higher HP pool, keeping the class roles and feeling of gameplay similar.

The Big Peril Table
Finally, to round out this blogpost, here's a big list of Perils. These Perils are listed alphabetically based on the type of damage or spell, with possible monsters that use these attacks listed in the parenthesis. Use the search function to find a relevant list of Perils. 

To keep it interesting, each one has also been split into a d6 table, which you could randomly pick (whichever is most interesting) or roll on to keep encounters fresh. Higher numbers are also associated with more dangerous or costly Perils, so you could apply a simple modifier of +1 or -1, or have all enemies of a lower HD then the player character hit roll a 1d4 for the Peril instead of a 1d6, with higher HD enemies rolling a 2d6 and taking the better of the two rolls, etc. You get the idea.

Editing Note; about 80% through writing this table I realized I was just writing death & dismemberment instead of the idea of Perils that I had originally thought of. However, I think in the end it works, because perilous situations are too specific and situational to the fiction of the game world to be written in table format like this. In such a case, use the Peril concept as a method to weaken and add challenge to the game, and then this could be an additive version for more ideas, or an alternative De&Dis table for funsies. In any case, I hope you find some use out of it!

Acid (Slime, Ooze, Traps, Spells, Black Dragon)
If you're covered in oil OR can splash water on yourself immediately (takes a combat round if you have a bucket or can jump into a stream, etc.) you can lower the roll result by -2, but with a minimum of always 1.

[1] Your skin is red and blistered. You get -1 to Finesse/Lockpicking/Dexterity rolls until it has time to heal. If you roll this result while already blistered, reroll and take the new result.

[2] You jump away from the acid, narrowly avoiding it splashing on you, but you bump into the nearest large and fragile precarious object (like a giant urn) causing it to fall, shatter, and make a tremendous noise. If no large precarious objects are nearby, you bump into an ally instead causing them to get accidentally splashed with some acid and blistered (roll result one for them).

[3] You get a bit of acid on you. Each round you don't wash it, it burns through another layer. First round, puts a hole in armor and lowers your AC by -1. Second round, burns through your clothes and ruins your whole outfit. Third round you lose -1 Constitution as it burns your skin and flesh. You can also avoid this peril by spending a combat round throwing your armor off, but it will corrode away and be lost by the time you can recover it safely.

[4] Pool of acid forms around your feet as you jump onto an elevated surface like a table or large paving stone. The object is slowly sinking into the now weakened ground. You cannot move around to dodge or attack in melee. You can jump off yourself if you have Dexterity modifier of +1 or better, otherwise you need someone to rescue you. Requires a round from each of you to pull them to safety. 

[5] Nasty burn in an obvious place; hands or face. It heals but not right, -1 Charisma modifier the first time it happens. Every time after, simply causes immense pain and makes unable to do anything but roll around in agony until cool water or ointment is applied.

[6] Some gets in an eye. You go blind in one eye. If it happens again, it's the other one.

Arrows / Crossbow Bolts (Bandits, Elves, Demihumans, Archers, Traps)
Whenever you encounter an Arrow/Bolt Peril, your shield can block it if you're aware of the danger. Lower the roll result by -1 per AC bonus of your shield. If you get to 0, the arrow is stuck in the shield and has no other effect. Getting shot at by one archer is a regular peril, getting hit with a volley or an ambush by a group of highly trained archers is a mortal peril.

[1] The arrow misses you, but causes another problem. Flame arrow hits something explosive, giving you a round to run and jump or be exploded. Regular arrow hits your lantern you are holding, causing you to drop it and start a small fire. If you have a nearby animal or retainer that is not from a class feature (ie; not animal companion), the arrow hits them instead causing immediate serious but non-fatal wounds.

[2] The arrow narrowly misses and lodged itself in the hem of your robe, the soft part of your cap, or the end of your cloak and pinned you to the ground or wall. You can only move away if you pull the arrow out (takes a round) or by pulling yourself free, which rips the article of clothing.

[3] The arrow grazes your arm or leg. You are now suffering a minor bleed. The wound can be tracked by hounds, sharks, and intelligent humanoids if it is not bandaged up.

[4] The arrow hits flesh on an extremity. To remove it, you must push the arrowhead through the flesh and bandage up the wound. The cries of pain will be enough to alert nearby patrols of your presence or attract predatory animals unless you can succeed a save.

[5] The arrow lodges itself in your achillies tendon. You are temporarily unable to run or walk. After removing the arrow, your overland travel speed is halved for the next few weeks until it is fully healed- either taking longer to travel or rolling for two encounters per hex unless you have someone to carry you or you're riding a horse.

[6] The arrow has pierced a body cavity or was glued on the shaft with honey and now cannot be safely removed. Once the shaft is pulled free, the arrowhead will remain inside the body for the rest of the person's natural life, causing them a small amount of pain when moving that area. (If you want a more mechanical impact: -1 Dexterity permanently.)

Blunt Damage (Ogres, clubs, living tree branches, falling rocks)
You can receive the same perils in this category multiples times each with stacking effects.

[1] Bruises to the arms and legs. -1 Strength until you get a good's night sleep.

[2] Bruises to the chest and torso. -1 Strength AND Constitution. Heals after a few days. Alternatively? You can't hold your breath for the rest of the day. Doesn't sound that bad until you have to run across the poison gas pits, or hide from the scary revenant black riders, or swim down the one-way-water tunnel of death.

[3] Knocks one object you're holding out of your hand. The object is as damaged as it would be if you threw it against the floor as hard as you can; since that's what basically happened. You get to pick the object.

[4] Dents your armor or chestplate. You can't breathe right until you take it off, giving disadvantage on all rolls until you do and losing protection once you do. Requires a noisy bit of hammering over a day (or a turn with a Dwarf) to buff the dent out. If you aren't wearing chest armor, it just breaks a rib instead, making you lose -1 Constitution permanently.

[5] Crunches one of your hands. You have to bandage it and wait for it to heal up for a season before you can use it effectively again.  You get to pick the hand.

[6] Hits you in the head. You lose -1 Intelligence permanently and forget your name, how to get home, and favorite magic spell. If you're wearing a helmet, pick one of those three things and you'll remember it a few weeks later. If you're wearing padding underneath the helmet, you get to pick a second one, but you always lose the third.

Cold Damage (Ice magic, frozen enemies, ice fairies, abominable snowmen)
Every Cold Peril you are suffering from causes the next one to get worse, increasing the result by +1. If you get duplicates, just take the one above the one you rolled.

[1] You shiver, causing you to shake around anything you're carrying or holding. Only a real problem with a lit bomb. If you have a source of heat (torch) or are wearing heavy winter clothing, this only lasts one round, otherwise, one turn.

[2] Your teeth chatter from the cold, causing stealth to become almost impossible unless you can put something in your mouth to stop the noise. If you have a source of heat (torch) or are wearing heavy winter clothing, this only lasts one round, otherwise, one turn.

[3] Any liquids you are carrying (potions) freeze inside their bottles. This doesn't damage or waste them, but you do need to make a fire and spend a turn warming them up by it to thaw them out.

[4] One object you are wearing or carrying becomes brittle. Your warhammer is only good for one more attack, or it will shatter apart. Your breastplate cracks and deforms the next time you are hit, and so on. The object becomes dusted in ice and frost; if you can avoid using or damaging it will regain its normal toughness after it warms up in one turn.

[5] You develop hypothermia, losing -1 Dexterity per turn before you get warmed up. This requires at least a long rest to fully recover from.

[6] You are frozen solid. One solid attack by a blunt weapon or strong creature will shatter you into pieces (Mortal Peril). Until then, your party has to carry you around as a very heavy piece of "treasure" or encumbrance until they can find a place to thaw you out safely or use some sort of magic to restore you back to normal.

Curse Damage (ghost touch, cursed items, dark spells, ominous fog, witches, hags)
Most of the time, the effects of a curse or touch are already spelled out. This is more for getting his with dark magic or generic "damage" from occult sources. Armor offers no protection, but a protective talisman or holy symbol lets you roll twice and pick the least-worst result.

[1] Bad Aura. Everyone around you thinks you feel off and there is a feeling of unease. You make horses nervous and flighty, cats hiss, and babies cry. It goes away the next time you go to church.

[2] Three laughing skulls, bats, little devils, or inky black crow spirits start flying around your head. You get disadvantage to aim or spells and you can't look up as they are going for your eyes until you manage to shoo them away. 

[3] Supernatural Fear. Make a morale check or flee. Even if you succeed the check, you are still scared or nervous and get disadvantage on the next one until you calm down.

[4] Depression. Like a Dementor's kiss. Everything feels gray and meaningless. Character cannot do any kind of performance checks and will automatically fail any magic item or effect that requires a "will to live" or "force of personality" to be used. Chocolate helps, but can only be cured by the next time you or your party achieves a major victory.

[5] Your life-force was drained, causing you to look older and your hair to turn white. Whatever hit you with this peril has an object imbued with a glowing light, and you can restore your life-force by retrieving that object. If you're more hardcore, this can just cause premature aging that you can't really do anything about; this only becomes a mortal peril if you age up enough times that it could theoretically kill you from old age.

[6] Voodoo Doll. The next time it makes sense; you find a voodoo doll that looks exactly like you. You're stuck taking care of it; as any damage it receives is reflected on you. Any Peril that damages or messes up your inventory will effect the voodoo doll. If you drop your pack into the river, you will start drowning on land as the doll sinks, and so on. This one needs a curse-breaker to get rid of it.

Fall Damage (Birds, dragons, rickety bridges, air magic, shot out of a catapult)
I imagine most fall damage would count as a Mortal Peril, since there are few outcomes depending on the height and few ways to save yourself. However, if you want a more Perils-As-Hit-Points way to simulate fall damage, here are some ideas.

[1] Collapse into a heap of dust. When you get up, you need to dust yourself off, else leave a small smoke trail or cough and mess up your next spell incantation from the dirt on you.

[2] You fall onto your side and feel something crack. It's not you; but it is a fragile item on your person. Usually, just a single healing potion or a wand if you're magically inclined; but a more specific or important item can be broken instead if you don't have anything that could realistically break on impact.

[3] Crash through an awning, top of a wagon, or bundle of trees and carefully curated glassware. Besides being stunned for one round so you can't run away, the owner of the store or traveling merchant you just got flung into is going to be very angry and wants to implement a "you break it, you buy it" policy. If you're traveling or in a dungeon, just have yourself fall on your own camp or something idk.

[4] Breaks a leg. Requires an actual skilled healer to bind it up, and takes a season to heal. You can't flee combat and travel at half speed without a horse or wagon.

[5] As [3], but instead of into an allied or neutral force, you get thrown into a nest of vipers, a river of crocodiles, or dropping into the nest of a giant bird to be fed to her babies. You're still stunned for a round.

[6] You manage to catch yourself from a greater fall (mortal peril) but on an object that is slowly breaking or can't handle your weight; like a tree at the edge of a ravine or the last rope from the rope-bridge. Somebody needs to pull you up within the next turn or else it will give and you will plunge to your death.

Fire Damage (Flamethrowers, elementals, burning oil, dragon breath)
Fire hazards are the most chaotic. If you gain one of these perils while adjacent to an ally, they gain one too unless if they are fighting defensively or have some fire resistance. While this peril could be any that fit, I'd just make it a result of [1] to make it less harsh.

[1] Your hat, hair, or headdress is on fire! It will go out on its own in one combat round or in a few seconds unless if you jump, run, tumble (make a saving throw), etc. If you do this, then the fire spreads and get worse. Easiest way to fix it is to throw your hat on the ground and stomp on it. If it's not a hat you can easily remove, you'd better get our your knife and cut it off then instead.

[2] Singed. Eyebrows burnt off, black soot, cartoonishly blown back hair. You're coughing a lot and it stings; you cannot cast spells until you can wash it off in a cool clean stream or expending a water ration.

[3] Your whole body is tender and turned red from the flash-fire, meaning you cannot wear any clothes without extreme discomfort. Remove your armor and lose all magic properties and bonus AC until you cool off in a day.

[4] Crispy! Your outer clothes and skin are charred black or heavily burnt and singed. You leave a black trail of soot wherever you go and have a permanent black mark on anything you touch for the next 1d4 days. Any clothes you wear or objects you touch are permanently ruined and stained.

[5] You are engulfed in flame from head to toe. Stop whatever you are doing and run to the nearest source of water, fine sand, or something else to put out the fire. If you perform any other action the flame engulfs you and kills you. No, stop drop and roll doesn't work in medieval times, it wasn't invented until way later or something.

[6] One piece of metal touching you closely like a ring, helmet, or piece of armor is heated up so much it turns red hot. Your skin is burnt and fuses to the metal, meaning it cannot be removed without a skilled surgeon; akin to a cursed item. This is probably the most gross and unrealistic Peril on this list, but I think it's a cool way to do fire damage that isn't just "more burnt". 

Fists (Unarmed strikes, monks, martial arts, punching traps)
If you got your own fists up and are in a fighting stance, you can reroll a roll of [6] on this table. That's only if you get hit with a suckerpunch.

[1] Arms, wrist, or body blows of little impact. You are folding back from the assault, but otherwise unharmed. You have -1 AC against this attacker but only for the next combat round.

[2] Hits you right in the side. You get -1 Constitution until you sleep it off.

[3] Take it on the chin- your footwork is wobbly. -1 AC from all attacks for the rest of this combat and you can't make any complex maneuvers like tumbles or dodge rolls.

[4] Stunning strike! Karate chop to the sternum! You can step back and be stunned for one round OR you get hit in the head and see double; you have a 50% chance to miss your intended target. You also can't read any spellbooks or count up treasure for at least a day.

[5] Your attacker can disarm you and either take your weapon, throw it away in the most inconvenient place, or redirect your strike into the nearest ally; whichever is worse for you.

[6] Out cold. Takes a few hours or smelling salts to wake you up. You're totally helpless if you're in combat, and your party members will have to drag you around until you can be helped.

Lightning Damage (shocking grasp, lightning bolt, thunder magic, storm giants, static discharge, Diablo 2 beetles)
Lightning damage can only effect you if you're grounded (have at least one foot on the ground), if you are hit with a lightning peril while flying it doesn't do anything until you become grounded or the next time you are struck with a metal item (in which case it hits whoever hit you instead).

[1] Your hair goes spiky and you get a little singed. Doesn't do much but makes you look ridiculous, -1 Charisma until you can groom yourself.

[2] Uncomfortable buzz. Anyone who touches you gets a mean static shock and disrupts any healing or blessing spells used on you. Lasts for a day or until you touch water.

[3] If you're holding a metal object like a sword or lantern, you have to drop it as it sparks wildly. If you're not holding a metal item, then you just get a nasty shock and your armor gets a little magnetic; lowers your AC by -1 against metal weapons.

[4] Temporarily electrified; you shake and are stunned for one round. If you've gotten hit by another Lightning Peril this combat encounter, it bounces to your nearest ally and stuns them too. If they were hit by another Lightning peril before, then it chains off of them and so on.

[5] Knocked off your feet backwards from the source of the Peril in an arcing electrical explosion; 20 to 30 feet. Anyone you are directly next to or anything you were riding also gets blasted back but only half as far in a different direction.

[6] You get zapped really bad. Knocked prone, your heart stops beating. You'll die if someone doesn't do chest compressions for a turn (can't revive you during combat). Even if revived, you'll have seizures for the rest of your life unless restored by a powerful healing spell. (Once per session, the GM/DM can make you roll a save or you shake uncontrollably for two combat rounds. This is bad enough to make you fall off your horse.)

Magic Damage (Magic Missile, Arcane elements, Wizards, Familiars, Runic Traps, Spellbooks)
This Peril type is specific to flashy, arcane, wizard-y style attacks and spells; like magic missile or generic glowing energy beam wand/staff attacks. If you are hit by a spell that is elemental, then that element should be used first. If it's a telekinesis shove, use Blunt or Fist damage, If it's dark magic or from an evil witch, use the curse damage table instead and so on.)

[1] Blinding colorful lights flash before your eyes, causing you to make your next attack roll at disadvantage.

[2] Your skin is burned with arcane sigils and runes that glow in the dark. You can cover them with clothing. They seem really mystical and spooky but it's honestly just swearwords. Take multiple months to go away or if you know the trick you can just rub a crystal over them to scratch them off. You get -1 to saving throws vs spells while these runes are on your body.

[3] Random magic item that can be activated you are carrying goes off. To prevent this from being an easy TPK; the person holding the item can make a check to direct the magic spell towards enemies or in a direction where nobody can get hurt as long as they aren't distracted by another effect.

[4] Summons a 1 HD creature from another dimension either from your belongings, next to you, or jumping out of a portal to attack you. Its temperament and relationship to you is determined by a reaction check; it's permanently stuck on this plane until its killed or hit with another spell to send it back.

[5] One spell you know or have prepared at random has its effect reversed. The DM makes a secret note of this, but tells you that one of your spells HAS flipped,  just not which one. If you study your notes and spellbook you can remember the spell the right way to do it and the trap is no longer set.

[6] You are turned into an animal! Roll a d20 vs your Charisma. If you roll under, you get to pick something small, harmless, and maybe useful like a rat or a bat. If you roll over, the DM gets to pick instead. While in this form you can't talk or attack but have full control and memory over your old self, but are vulnerable to being stepped on or eaten. You also drop all your items and otherwise become mostly useless. Your party members can keep you in their backpack to keep you safe. The next time you sleep and wake up, you're back to normal.

Piercing Damage (Spears, dagger points, rapiers, Monster teeth, spike traps)
If you're carrying a shield, you can have that pierced through or shredded to avoid any one of these effects.

[1] Grazes you, leaving a scratch. Next time you roll for any Peril result add +1 to the roll just to make it a little worse.

[2] Presses hard into you, stopped by a small trinket that takes the brunt of the force instead. Minor damage to a spellbook, bed roll, or medical bag you are carrying.

[3] You get bitten or poked in the neck. The force was only enough to break the skin, but you still have trouble breathing and make all rolls at disadvantage and you cannot cast spells. You must spend a round to catch your breath to end the effect. If you're in a dusty tomb, a smokey tavern, or breathing in foul miasma or ash it takes three combat rounds instead.

[4] With a sharp point coming at you, you drop what you're holding and grab it with both hands in a life-or-death struggle. You get stuck holding a spear (or the jaws if it's a big monster) by the shaft with your hands and can hold it for one round until it overcomes you and pierces your chest (Mortal Peril). Somebody else must succeed an attack roll to force the enemy off of you. You can hold the spear for an extra round per positive Strength modifier you have.

[5] The tip pushes into your flesh, causing you immense pain. If you're getting bitten instead, the creature latches on. You're stuck in a lose-lose situation; prevents you from moving. If you do pull yourself off the spear, suffer bleeding and make all rolls at disadvantage until you can be bandaged up.

[6] You get stabbed or bitten right in the torso, causing you to go into shock and require immediate medical care or your condition will worsen. You will recover after one season but only with a warm bed, good food, and a dedicated healer. If you're missing one of those things, lose -2 Constitution permanently. If you're missing two of things, you suffer complications and die.

Poison Damage (Snakes, Poison Darts, Dart Frogs, Assassins)
If the poison is bad enough that simply touching it can hurt you, probably go with the Acid table instead. If an arrow or other similar threat is poisoned, you only have to deal with the poison peril instead of the arrow peril; not both.

[1] You just start throwing up everywhere. If you ate today, you lose that ration and will need another later once you can stomach food again.

[2] You start turning green and lose -1 points of Wisdom or Strength, whichever is most fitting to the poison. If someone sucks on the wound and spits it out, you'll recover in a turn, otherwise, 1d3 days.

[3] Your veins turn black and travel up to your face and eyes. You become unable to speak for a day, which means no spells.

[4] You become extremely feeble and sickly the next time you have downtime, losing -3 Constitution which you slowly recovery over a season. If you don't drink an antidote or chew medicinal herbs in the next three days, then you lose -1 point of Constitution permanently.

[5] You feel a looming sensation of dread, but no other ill effects thinking maybe it missed. If you don't do a folk remedy, drink an antidote potion, or have a healer watch over you constantly; you'll die in your sleep from the insidious, slow-acting poison.

[6] Immediately putrefies the extremity that was bitten. Every round, it spreads to the next part of the body towards the heart (finger to hand to elbow to shoulder to chest). Somebody has to cut it off before it spreads too far.

Psychic Damage (Aboleths, Mind Flayers, Horrorterrors, Magic mirrors, some magic items & traps)
"Psychic damage" in this case could mean actual psychic spells or enemies, or it more means emotional or brain/mental assaults as simplified and flavored through a fantasy lens. While the idea behind this Peril system is to avoid hit points, I think having points of sanity or whatever is fine as a way to soak the character-changing effects listed here. Maybe something like the roll result on this Peril table is absorbed with minor, curable effects equal to your Wisdom score, but once you exceed that, then the effects happen as written. Since these effects are purely mental and mostly roleplayed, they are more severe then the physical effects written on other tables.

[1] Your character becomes terrified for 1d4 rounds, being forced to run away or cower each round they fail a moral check or saving throw. If you're not in combat, save or scream and attract a wandering monster roll.

[2] You gain a minor phobia for whatever is causing the psychic damage or the last Peril category you rolled on. The phobia just makes your character intensely dislike and avoid it, but causes no other rolls or effects. If you get this a second time for the same peril, object, or creature the phobia gets so bad you run away screaming every time you encounter it.

[3] Your character becomes an amnesiac and forgets who they are or what they are doing for 1d6 exploration turns. During this time, their class abilities are removed and they can only do actions as an untrained commoner. They cannot cast any spells beyond first level/cantrips.

[4] You gain an imaginary friend. You must share half your treasure with the friend.

[5] Character's face is frozen in fear, rage, despair, or rapturous joy. This causes no loss of charisma, but they always act like this chosen face and cannot order or express things that go against this emotion until a remove curse is used on them. 

[6] Your mind is swapped with the nearest living thing, an ally, or the creature that caused this effect. You gain the abilities of that creature and vice versa, but are distinctly not them. If one of you dies, the other will be stuck in the original body. The two creatures must be kept in each others presence for about a year before they swap back to normal, and both must be present if cured with a remove curse spell or mindswapping power.

Sharp Damage (Swords, claws, cutting winds, blade traps)
Probably one of the most common types of damage in a game, so it's going to be the most common peril. All of them except a roll of one require a bandage item or strip of cloth to bind up in addition to their usual effects.

[1] Merely a scratch! Has no effect on its own, but the next time you roll for any Peril result add +1 to the roll just to make it a little worse.

[2] You dodge out of the way at the last second, but the cutting edge finds the nearest and least convenient bit of rope or fabric to sever. Could be the hood hiding your identity, the rope to the chandelier that now comes falling down towards your head, the leather strap keeping your quiver attached to you, or the jungle vine dropping a nest of killer hornets. Whatever it is, it's probably as inconvenient for the cutter as it is for you.

[3] Bleeding Cut. Persistent wound that drips a trail of blood that can be tracked by blood-seeking creatures. Adding an extra bandage can stop this effect for one turn, but it resumes afterwards until it fully heals.

[4] Deeper Cut. Lose a bunch of blood in a big pool, making you feel woozy. You roll for disadvantage to climb, cross a balance beam, jump a gap, etc. for the next day or so.

[5] Deepest Cut. You must use one arm to press down on the wound else you will faint from rapid blood loss. You can still fight or run or whatever but one of your arms is disabled the whole time.

[6] Pick your nose, ear, tail, or boob. Whichever one you pick has been cut off almost completely, and is barely hanging on by a thread. It can be saved, but only if you don't get hit by another peril before you can stitch it back on. If you do take another peril, replace it with that body part falling off and being permanently lost.

Tentacle Damage (Kraken, Giant Octopus, Mind Flayers, Lovecraftian monsters, animate rope,  giant snakes, animate jungle vines, giant prehensile tail, rubber blob monster, etc.)
Most damage here could be used as bashing or fist; but this is specifically for flexible tentacles, worms, or other such creatures that could grab you, constrict you, etc. Anyone with a Strength modifier of +1 or better can resist some of the worst effects of this and gets to lower the result of their roll by -1

[1] Wraps loosely around a single arm, preventing you from using it or moving away unless you thrash it away with a successful attack against the creature with your other arm or pull away, taking a combat round and forcing you to move.

[2] Slaps the floor next to you or brushes against a leg. If you're in any way slippery, wet, on uneven flooring or not wearing good shoes you fall to the ground. Otherwise, your movement is halved for this round.

[3] Constricts around both lower legs. Arms and mouth are freed, but you must be cut free to be loosed. If the creature is stunned in any way, you can also slip free.

[4] Constricts the neck or head. You can move and attack, but cannot see or cast spells. If you attack, you attack a random target, which can include your allies or the creature grabbing you. All ranged attacks miss while grabbed this way.

[5] Grabs and flings you or bats you aside as a giant fleshy whip. You get thrown back in a random direction against a wall (stunning you one round and denting your armor) or flings you into 1d2 other party members (all are knocked prone for a round and must untangle themselves to do anything)

[6] Full constriction. Arms bound at the sides and legs dangling uselessly; you begin to get squeezed. Each round you lose 1d4 Constitution until you drop to zero, in which case your spine is snapped and you die. No mortal peril for this, you just have to get saved quickly enough.

Toxic Gas Damage (Toxic gas traps, Dragon farts, fat undead, demons, mushroom spores)
If you have a bandana covering your mouth or a free hand to reach up to cover your mouth you only roll a 1d4 on this table, though you can't use that hand for anything else for 1d4 rounds as you cough around the gas. This table is also specifically for toxic gases that could kill or seriously damage people in them; corrosive acid clouds or poison gases from evil swamps are more for the Acid and Poison table respectively.

[1] Cough a lot, not much else. You can't cast spells for the next 1d4 rounds.

[2] Blisters form all over your face, nose, and lips; but you thankfully avoided the worst of it. You lose -1d4 Charisma temporarily until it heals in a few days.

[3] The gas itself makes you cough, but it's also extremely flammable. Any spark from a spell, parrying a weapon, or an open torch flame could cause it to explode (Mortal Peril). Get out of the room or let it air out to avoid this hazard.

[4] Edema. After exposure, your hands and feet swell up and double in size. You can't wear gloves or boots until the body parts are drained, can't pick locks, and can't sneak. You can still fight in melee, but you can't use "fancy" weapons like rapiers or whips with your meaty flesh mitts.

[5] You inhale sharply, eyes going wide, and fall to the floor. You need your mouth forced open and a breath of fresh air in order to recover; which is easier said then done in a dungeon. Spells or a "beak" of perfumed air can help you; otherwise you will eventually open your mouth and breath again but lose -2 Strength permanently from the clenching. Your skin also permanently has a greenish tint.

[6] Cancerous cysts and growth explode all over your arms, legs, and chest. You will need a clean knife, someone with a steady hand, and a way to manage the pain to cut it off before it saps you of your strength and kills you. This process takes a whole night and if you're missing any of those elements you will die before morning either from the toxins or a botched removal surgery.