Why did I decide to do this? I don’t know. But here’s a name generator for science fantasy/space opera/sword and planet characters. There’s some more information about the dataset this uses after the generator, for those who are interested, but if you’re not and you’re just here to create long lists of names then please enjoy doing that!

(Since WordPress sometimes plays funny with iframes, that embed might break. If it does you can find the generator here.)

The Dataset

There are two sources for the names here. The first, and most common, is simply pulling from two lists of names, first names and surnames. The fun part of writing it was actually coming up with the names themselves. First names are drawn from these sources:

• Noir detectives and femme fatales
• Golden Age of Hollywood actors and actresses, and the characters they portrayed
• Philosophers
• Roman Emperors
• Celestial bodies
• “Classic” (read: 1920s-1950s) English first names with the first letters switched with different letters.

The surnames are even more simple, drawing from noir characters and Golden Age actresses and actors almost exclusively. Originally I didn’t include these in the first names lists, opting to use just their surnames, but it became more fun when I included their full names.

There are 199 first names and 109 surnames in the first dataset, so it gives plenty of combinations on its own.

The second dataset is generating the “English first names with the first letter switched” randomly, combining a random suffix with a random prefix. I’ve set the probabilities of the generator so that these names occur half as often as the more “curated” ones, since they have a higher chance of outputting nonsense.

Enjoy!

The art used in this post is by Rick Guidice, taken from Public Domain Review.

This post was originally posted in 2018. I’ve re-posted it with updated artwork, but haven’t changed anything about the post itself. I’m still pretty happy with this!

While you’re here – it’s my birthday this week, so all of my games on itch.io are currently on sale. Go check it out!

If you follow me on Twitter you’ll have seen that I’ve been working my way through back issues of Dragon Magazine, beginning at issue #1. As well as being a fascinating glimpse into the history and development of this hobby that I love so much, I’ve also been finding some useful things among those pages – and some things that could be useful, but fall a little short of the mark.

One of those things crops up in Issue #15 in the form of an article entitled “PITS” by Richard Morenoff, which presents “A set of charts to help the dungeon master when player characters or monsters fall into a pit”.

What follows are a series of random roll tables to help determine what might actually be in the pit. I got unreasonably excited by this when I saw the article, but unfortunately the tables themselves aren’t much use if we want to generate interesting results. 60% of the time the pit is simply an empty pit; to my mind, the point of rolling on a table like this is when you want something other than an empty pit. The rest of the results are fairly typical of early D&D, with most of them being some variant of a monster/random NPC/spellcaster who is tied or chained down in the pit, or else generating a pit of snakes or random oozes. One of the results even directs DMs to roll on the D&D monster matrix to generate a result, requiring you to turn to another book to finish generating your pit.

I think we can do better than that. The philosophy of dungeon design has changed in the intervening 40 years since this set of tables was published, so we need something that works with the modern game. I’d also like to preserve some of the strangeness of early games, too. My main goal, though, is to provide you with something quick and easy to use that a) doesn’t result in empty pits (and, thus, wasted time while rolling on the tables) and b) doesn’t require you to turn to another table somewhere else and roll on that (although you will need to consult the Monster Manual if you roll for any creatures).

A quick word to the wise; this table is very much in the vein of “save or suck”, which may not gell well with everyone’s preferred style of play. Be aware that using this table is guaranteed to ruin the day of at least one of your players.

Here’s what I’ve come up with.

PERILOUS PITS

Random pits for Fifth Edition

Using these tables is easy. Beginning at Table 1 – Concealment roll 1d100 and note the result, working through the tables in numerical order. Some categories contain sub-tables; entries on the main tables will direct you to roll on these depending on the result of your roll on that category’s main table. Once you have rolled on any sub-tables required for that category, move on.

Concealment

In all cases where a pit is not immediately visible, there is a 50% chance that there is visible evidence of dungeon creatures avoiding the pit. Spotting these tracks requires a passive Perception of 14 or higher.

The Basics

Determine the size of the opening and the depth of the pit by rolling on Table 2a: Opening and Table 2b: Depth. Then roll on Table 3a: Hazards, generating Additional Hazards and Creatures if necessary.

Additional Hazards

First roll to determine how many additional hazards are present. Then roll that many times on the Additional Hazards table. When rolling for multiple additional hazards, reroll duplicates.

Table 3d – Creatures

Special Features

Teleportation Destinations

Image Credit: Rustam rescues Bihzan from the pit, watched by Manizeh. Gouache painting by an Indian artist, ca. 1800. Credit: Wellcome Collection. Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

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It’s RPG Blog Carnival time, and this month we’re tackling the theme of Journals, Grimoires, & Spell-Books set by the folks over at Hereticwerks. Check in with their anchor post throughout the month to read all of the entries as they come in!

This month’s theme is one I always enjoy writing about and it lines up nicely with the post that was meant to form this past Monday’s Stat Boost, in which I’m once again revisiting this post of books and their contents. I’ve already revisited The Blasted Lands (twice, in fact) and on Monday I had planned to give you more from Ironstride’s Compendium of Jinxes & Hexes. Since the post schedule went out of the window over the past few weeks, I’m dedicating this coming weekend at Loot The Room to all things books!

First, though, a shameless plug. Since the whole point of the Carnival is to bring in new readers, I hope the long time supporters won’t mind me taking a moment to direct the new folks to some past book-related content here. Namely:

• Matt Sanders’ recent post of 10 Bookish NPCs
• Magic and Data Storage: 5 ‘Mundane’ Magical Items
• Some books and their contents
• 1d10 Books
• This library map

And, of course, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Matt Sanders’ Trinkets – Books, which we’ve recently released over on DriveThruRPG as a Pay What You Want title.

But let’s move on from old content, and get to the reason we’re here – new stuff!

Starting today with this post and going until Monday, I’m going to be bringing you daily posts on the theme of Journals, Grimoires, and Spell-Books. Here’s what’s coming up over the next few days:

• Tuesday is what should have been this month’s Stat Boost. I’ll be bringing you some new 5th Edition spells from Ironstride’s Compendium of Jinxes & Hexes.
• On Thursday I’m revisiting some old edition material and updating it to Fifth Edition.
• Friday is map day, and we’re heading to the library.

That’s what the rest of this week looks like. Since Wednesday is the final one of the month, it’s reserved for this month’s DMs Guild roundup. But what about today?

Today we’re taking names. Or, more accurately, generating them. I proudly present to you…

Loot The Room’s Manual of Mystical Manuscript Monikers

Your party have slain the wizard in his tower and set to work looting his vast library. You hastily conjure together a description of the slim green tome bound in thorns and fairy wings that they pull from the shelves, only to have a player turn to you and ask, “What’s it called?”

Generating a name for a book is easy. The following tables will help you determine the type of book, the name of the author, and the topic of the book. Then, simply piece these elements together in whatever order you desire in order to create the name of your book. There’s also a bonus table of descriptors to add a little variety and spice to your names. 

Don’t feel bound by these suggestions. In some cases – especially when determining the topic of the book – you may generate a number of words (e.g. “beasts/creatures/monsters” or “venoms, poisons, and toxins”) when you only want one. In those cases, simply pick the word you like best. You get bonus points for egregious use of alliteration in your titles. You should also feel free to discard any rolls you don’t like, and skip tables you don’t want to include.

Book Type (1d20)

Book Topic (1d100)

Who Wrote It?

The addition of a person’s name to the title of a book instantly makes it more interesting. Who was this person, and why did they see fit to write about whatever the book contains? What happened to them to cause the book to be lost, and what other knowledge did they possess that isn’t contained in this tome?

This section contains two short list. The first names specific people. No details of who these people actually are; they are left purely as names so that you can invent a history for them as fits your campaign. The second is a list of generic types of people – rather than specific names – in case you would not rather answer questions on the fly about who a named author might be.

Specific People (1d10)

1. Netherbane
2. Ironstride
3. Barnum Rekel
4. Phantomsong
5. Silverglow
6. Amana Ravendown
7. Whisperwind
8. Pureheart
9. Sister/Brother Pevranom
10. Theodoric Norwood

Who (Generic People) (1d10)

1. The Archmage
2. The Archfey
3. The Necromancer
4. The Vindicator
5. The Anointed
6. The Arbitrator
7. The Witch
8. The Patrician
9. The Alchemist
10. The Inquisitor

Descriptors (1d20)

This is a bonus table, which you can use to spice up your book titles. Have you rolled up a “book of magic”, and don’t think that’s very interesting? This is where you fix that.

Sample Names

If you don’t feel like rolling for a book, here are some titles I generated earlier:

• Sister Pevranom’s Digest of Hidden Arms & Their Maintenance
• Phantomsong’s Guide to Omens
• Ironstride’s Compendium of Jinxes and Hexes
• A Grimoire of Psionic Potential
• The Folio of Feathers
• Whisperwind’s History of the Fiend-Touched