What Happens At Sea? d24 Table for the Dreamtime/lands Hexcrawl

It's been awhile since my "What's My Crime" post about using the Lucky Roll in DCC to determine what crime lands a PC in the penal colony at Biology Bay in the Dreamtime/Dreamlands hexcrawl thing that I have yet to discuss too much about. It's been somewhat on the back burner as I write new material for the Game of Taps, the Weaver's Loom and the Metal Gods of Ur-Hadad campaigns, but soon one of those obligations will be lifted for a bit as +Edgar Johnson takes over. And so, it's time to turn back toward the hexcrawl thingy and see where we're going with it (aside from needing a new name for it) by switching up the "d24 Random Equipment" list into a "d24 Random Events at Sea" table that serves roughly the same purpose with the addition of simplifying the 5d12 cp for starting money roll.

Roll | Result

1 | Uncharted island; you need something to keep your map in as you explore. - Backpack (14 cp)
2 | Important anniversary; you celebrate it at sea, in chains, but the cake ain't bad. - Candles, 1d6 (20 cp)
3 | Learned a dangerous secret; spent the rest of the trip in solitary confinement. - Chain, 10' (23 cp)
4 | Mysterious possession; compulsively drawing magic circles saves your soul. - Chalk, 1d4 pieces (26 cp)
5 | Ship-board gambling champion; too bad the chest you won had no money in it. - Chest, empty (27 cp)
6 | Smuggled cargo; it's gotta be in one of these crates, right? - Crowbar (28 cp)
7 | Drinking buddies with a guard; he let you keep the empties. - Flask, empty (29 cp)
8 | Regarded as an old salt; you take up smoking a pipe. Maybe a meerschaum. - Flint & steel (30 cp)
9 | Hurricane! You used whatever was at hand to keep yourself on board. - Grappling hook (31 cp)
10 | Ran a gambling ring; broke fingers of debtors who didn't pay. - Hammer, small (31 cp)
11 | Ship-board conversion; sincere or not, you've been penitent. - Holy symbol (32 cp)
12 | P-p-p-pirate ghosts! Quick, hold them off with this! - Holy water, 1 vial (32 cp)
13 | Ship-board heresy; heretics enjoy free crucifixions. - Iron spikes, 1d4 (33cp)
14 | Assigned to night watch; no boarders, no icebergs, no problem. - Lantern (33 cp)
15 | Ship-board romance; this can be scary on a prison ship. - Mirror, hand-sized (34 cp)
16 | Plague outbreak; you helped burn the bodies to stave off infection. - Oil, 1 flask (34 cp)
17 | Labor on an away boat; they made you work, but let you keep the pole. - Pole, 10-foot (35 cp)
18 | Stole from the mess hall; you got really good at hiding food really quickly. - Rations, 1d4 days (36 cp)
19 | Washed overboard; your consolation prize is the rope they saved you with. - Rope, 50' (37 cp)
20 | Pirate attack! Your infamous "sack of potatos" disguise saves your life. - Sack, large (38 cp)
21 | Mysterious contagion; it drives men mad and leaves you cowering in your bunk. - Sack, small (39 cp)
22 | Deathbed confession; the old thief gave you these tools along with his dying words. - Thieves' tools (42 cp)
23 | Monster attack; you learned to use fire to keep the beasts at bay. - Torch, 1d4 (45 cp)
24 | Boarded by a foreign power; and all I got was this crappy waterskin. - Waterskin (51 cp)

This table should be self-explanatory other than the copper piece listing. Instead of rolling your random item, roll a d24 and roll for something that happened during your voyage as well as a piece of random equipment. Rather than roll the 5d12 for starting cash, you can, instead, roll a d24 and take the cp listed here.* Take as much or as little direction from this table as you like; it's mostly just a fun way to add a little bit of detail along with something useful.

*As you might expect if you've been reading this blog, these results for cp totals are based on the probability models for rolling 5d12, which provides a nice, normalized bell curve, which is then fitted to the super-flat probability curve of the d24 die roll. Instead of making it strictly make sense probabilistically, I instead tried to preserve the flavor of a bell curve, particularly with the first and last die results being significantly far away from the median (two standard deviations, if you're keeping track, putting it squarely within the 96% mark). Of course, you could just ignore it and roll normally. 

[Edit: I just fixed the cp distribution a little. Somehow, I had my 1/2/3 rule of probability distribution a little off. Should be more even odds now.]

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