Procedural Generation Demonstration - The Manse's Underdark Ocean Island Generator

Cacklecharm from The Manse wrote a series of random tables to generate islands on an Underdark ocean. These tables work together quickly, and I had little trouble assembling the pieces into a narratively coherent whole in a matter of minutes. So instead of my usual two, let's generate three!

Underdark Ocean Island Generator by Cacklecharm

 

1 - Tusk Island
Rolls: 4, 2, 4, 9, 7, 5

Tusk Island rises like a tooth from the sea. The pale stone island is a great stalagmite, pregnant with calcite and riddled with cavities. The water around it glows pink from the luminescent red algae that clings to the island's base, just beneath the waves, feasting on the rich magnesium oxides that burble up from a vent at the island's base.

The Tusk has a large central cave, just off the most obvious landing site. Its floor is flat, carpeted with soft layers of lichen and mushrooms. These grow in ring formations; a few circles are clear, making ideal spots for fire-building; one large ring is especially lush, an inviting place to sleep. Tooth-fairies lurk in the hollows of this cave. They attack sleeping adventurers, stealing teeth from their mouths, clothes, books, and other symbols of civilization.

Most of the other caves on Tusk Island are inhabited by olms, blind, white salamander people. The tooth fairies are slowly domesticating them, filling their mouths with human teeth, supplying them with stolen supplies, and relentlessly tormenting them to enact parodies of human behavior. They will eagerly trade for information about human customs, along with corpses, and literally any possessions the adventurers are willing to barter.

Though most of the olms' belongings are worthless - saturated with seawater and humidity and fluids from the olms' own hygroscopic bodies - they currently own a quiver of magnesium arrows that burn brightly (though without heat) for an hour, from the moment they're exposed to the air, and continue burning even underwater.

The olm are also tormented by "the dragon" a giant of their own species, a mutant olm twice the height of any other, tattooed with arcane sigils, able to breathe fire. It subsists on a diet of olm-flesh and fairies.
 
 
2 - Cackle-harm's Glacier
Rolls: 3, 6, 5, 2, 2, 2

It would be easy to run aground against the black glacier. The island is made of black ice, almost invisible against the background. The waters around it are filled with carnivorous black seaweed that grasps at the hulls of ships, and pulls anyone who falls overboard deep below to drown them. Chill winds blow down off the glacier at unpredictable times, always preceded by the sound of laughter, dealing 1d6 frost damage to anyone unprotected by shelter.

A wrecked dwarven ship is tangled in the weeds just off the coast of the glacier. Seven dwarven prospectors have a makeshift camp. Their mining company will pay handsomely for them to be returned to dwarven civilization. These seven are the survivors of a much larger expedition, but their numbers have been much reduced by the wreck, the seaweed, the cold, and the depredations of an invisible menace.

The dread goblin Cackle-harm lives on the glacier, his hideous laughter echoes across the whole island just before the chill wind blows. A marauder and brigand, Cackle-harm and his pirates robbed elven merchants for years before they caught him, and tried to execute him - but the magic in the elf-rope noose they hanged him with malfunctioned, making him invisible and invulnerable. He'll be happy to tell you his story ... right before he kills you. The only way to kill him is to remove the rope. The unbreakable elf-rope is Cackle-harm's only treasure - everything else he steals he throws in the sea, unreachable beneath the black seaweed garden.

 
3 - The Sleeping Giant
Rolls: 6, 5, 2, 4, 4, 7*
(Note: The Manse recommends rolling d6 to determine inhabitants, but also suggests the island might be uninhabited, so I rolled a d10, and I'm interpreting results 7-10 as uninhabited.)

It's impossible to miss the Sleeping Giant. It's a giant olm, an albino salamander the size of a mountain, trapped in magical slumber.

The waters surrounding the island are filled with flags and warning buoys written in dozens of languages. Shipcatching nets are set out to prevent any vessel larger than a lifeboat from approaching the island directly. A lighthouse sits atop an promontory stone, positioned so shadows prevent its light from hitting the slumbering giant's sleeping eyes. The everburning flame of the lighthouse is a trapped fire elemental, magically bound to the tower.

Hidden in the crevices and folds of the giant's skin are dozens of pest-traps. By now, about half have been triggered and hold the skeletons of various underworld vermin. The rest remain a hazard to adventures. Each deals 1d4 damage and requires an exploration turn for two people to remove.

The only treasure on the island is a spellbook, Ø ōōōō ō Øōōō ØØØ ØØØ ØōØ ØØØ ōōØō Øōōō ōō Øō Øōō ōō Øō ØØō, the Book of Binding, which is locked to a chain, the chain wrapped around the giant olm's neck like a collar. The book is written in a kind of braille, legible to the sightless hands of the original spellcasters. The book contains only two spells - one to put the olm back to sleep if it begins to wake, another to bind the elemental to its lighthouse prison. Any spellcaster intelligent enough to translate the spells from their time-forgotten original language is also skilled enough to reverse them to awaken the giant or free the fire.

(Also note: I just used Morse Code to write the book title. If you decide to use this island, consider making a "book" out of three notecards folded in half. Use a hole-puncher for the dashses and poke a smaller hole with a pen-tip for the dots. The spells can just be called "sleep" and "bind" for simplicity's sake.)