Bones of the Tarrasque | One-Roll Towns

A simple system for generating Towns on the fly. Roll a standard set of dice (d4, d6, d8, 2d10, d12, d20) all at once. On a blank
sheet of paper, map the locations of the dice exactly as they fell. Once your sheet has the 7 numbers strewn across it, find
each corresponding value on the following tables and place them on your map where the die fell. Additional Tools on Page 2.

d4 | Town Square d12 | Economic Touchstone

1. Water Well 1. Crossroads
2. Bonfire 2. Crops
3. Open Market/Bazaar 3. Livestock
4. Statue or Shrine 4. Docks/Harbor
5. Ferry/Major Bridge
d6 | Lodging 6. Fishery
1. Relatively safe clearing near town 7. Holy Site/Source of Magical Power
2. Generous Citizen with Vacancy 8. Mill
3. Open-Air Campground 9. Mine
4. Spare Building (Barn, Empty Home) 10. Trade Hub
5. Communal Lodge 11. Defense (Barracks, Defending a Strategic
6. Inn Location or Road, Gatehouse, Training)
12. Production Industry (Shipyards, Ironworks)
d8 | Food
1. Plentiful wild game/fish d20 | Landmark
2. Generous Citizen with Food 1. Wizard’s Tower (Active, Abandoned)
3. Public Vegetable Garden 2. College (Arcane, Bardic, Scholarly)
4. Communal Potluck Meals 3. Combat Training School
5. Open Pit Barbecue 4. Church/Shrine/Temple
6. Smokehouse 5. Fighting Pit
7. Marketplace 6. Tended Gardens
8. Tavern 7. Guild Hall (Craft, Trade, Fighter, Thieves)
8. Library/Knowledge Repository
2d10 | Shops 9. Lighthouse or Watchtower
1. General Store 10. Racetrack (Dogs, Horses)
2. Alchemist/Herbalist/Healer 11. Ruins (Castle, Cathedral, Shipyards)
3. Blacksmith (Armor, Weapons, Tools) 12. Sealed Cave Entrance
4. Carpenter (Boats, Buildings, Wagons) 13. Skirmish Aftermath (Neighboring Town, Invading
5. Clothing (Common, Fine) Horde, Rampaging Beast)
6. Enchanter/Hex Den 14. Spiritual Lodge
7. Glassblower 15. Standing Corporal Punishment Fixture (Stocks,
8. Leatherworks (Armor, Saddlery) Gallows, Chopping Block)
9. Stables 16. Theater/Amphitheater
10. Exotic Goods (Carpets & Cloth, Jewelry, 17. A River Runs Through It
Perfumes, Curio) 18. Build into a Hill- or Mountain-Side
19. Built into a Canyon or Ravine
20. Surrounded by Forest/Wilderness

Sidecarstories.itch.io | @SidecarStories v1.2

Utility
Firstly, you can probably print only Page 1. This page isn’t necessary for live play.
This system is excellent for generating “Towns on the fly”. Both parts of that phrase are
important;
it doesn’t scale down to Villages (which are less useful in an adventure as they lack food and
lodging), but it scales up easily as described in the Size section below. For a smaller steading
like a Village, it may be more appropriate to roll a few d6 as detailed in the Population
section.
“On the fly” describes the other important element of this system; it’s designed to create a
Town where there are none. It can help to design important places where the party is meant to
go, but it’s primarily for creating those places that the party just ends up. Ideally, it answers
all the questions of a party that’s just passing through, nothing more. For a deeper look at the
town because the party JUST WON’T LEAVE, see the Social & Political section.

Additional Systems
Size: For larger settlements, roll again. With multiple rolls - or multiple sets of dice - a Town
becomes a Keep, and a Keep becomes a City. As it grows, a Clothing shop may become a
Clothing District of a large City.

Population: To map additional details about the town’s population, including locations of
homes and information about the inhabitants, bulk d6 are handy. They can be bought in
blocks of 36d6 and up, and are also useful as tokens representing enemies, etc. Dropping a
handful onto your map after documenting the town’s major features will give you the layout of
homes and the number of inhabitants of each. A good rule of thumb is 12d6 for a Town, 24d6
for a Keep, and 36d6 for a City.

Social & Political: For many Towns, the party is just passing through. They won’t care about
its history or governance, and only occasionally will they inquire about the Town’s defenses.
For this, I’ve written a another tool utilizing the Blunderbuss Engine. It’s available at
sidecarstories.itch.io

Mission Statement
An elegant system to aid DMs in generating a Steading, which answers players’ most common questions, in order of priority.
1. Use by DMs: System will avoid superseding those parameters commonly determined by a DM relating to the setting they
imagine for the adventure. Therefore, though many players will ask about the racial makeup of a Town immediately, it
has been omitted from this tool to allow for DM discretion.
2. Elegance: few dice rolls, easy-to-read results, easy to convey and document.
3. Common Questions: Where can I get food? Where can I rest? How big is the town? What races are here?
4. Priority: players generally want to know the layout first, then where to find food and lodging, then other interesting
locations in town, then move on to questions of defenses and sociopolitical features.

Sidecarstories.itch.io | @SidecarStories v1.2