1d100 Bad Omens

1d100 Bad Omens

Version 1.0

Sometimes foreshadowing events in your campaign with a strange occurrence,  wierd event, or terrifying unsolved mystery can set a tone for adventures,  change the way PCs respond, and build up immersion.

This table offers you 100 possible events (most inspired by European folk lore, literature,  or pop culture) to give your PCs a little forewarning about upcoming events... or to serve as inspiration for your next adventure.

d100	Omen
00	Lightning splits the altar of the local temple.
01	Dead songbirds rain from the sky.
02	Face on a nearby holy icon screams for 1d4 minutes.
03	A herd animal gives birth to young that is covered in scales and has a forked tongue.
04	Nearby trees develop boles in the form of screaming faces.
05	During a religious service, all the congregation is compelled to sing a profane corruption of a hymn. No one realize they are doing it until the end.
06	An old beggar sits on the steps of the local lords' house and begins muttering a dreadful prophecy. He falls over when touched; he appears to have been dead for several days.
07	An angelic being plummets from the sky and crashes into the market square, its wings have been torn off.
08	A tiny fiend appears at the edge of a mage's laboratory, battered and dripping black ichor. Before it dies, it says only "He comes for you. Save..."
09	A Gothic monument springs out of the soil at the edge of a graveyard in front of witnesses; it bears the names of the PCs or prominent NPCs.
10	The Beadle cuts down a dying tree in the common to find it hollow and stuffed with unidentifiable skulls that had no way to get in.
11	A black, oily rain falls down on a festival, some of which forms into tiny (1 hp) oozes.
12	A local priest, during a ritual suddenly becomes possessed, and speaks a cryptic and frightening prophecy.
13	A jackdaw lands on a PC's windowsill carrying an inhuman eye in its beak.
14	An enire fruit orchard turns to stone at the verge of the town,
15	A local artist falls into a trance and spends several days doing nothing but sculpting a profane diorama before fainting. He does not remember any of it.
16	An unseen bell is heard at the marketplace, causing all food nearby to rot instantly.
17	All the fruit in a nearby grove develops eyes and thrashing tendrils.
18	A hen's egg hatches to reveal a horrid serpent with the face of one of the PCs, which promptly dies.
19	The stone statue of a beloved folk hero begins to change, looking progressively more withered and decayed every night.
20	The fountain in the town square becomes tainted with wormwood.
21	Mandrake roots begin sprouting all over town in huge clumps. Legend has it that they appear only where the dead are buried, or are soon to be.
22	No matter how hard they are shaken, runes will not fall out of the local Seidr's pouch.
23	Immense swarms of spiders descend on the town, draping everything in a shroud of webs.
24	All the hearth-fires in the village burn crimson and give no heat for 2d3 days.
25	All means of measuring time, including the movement of the sun and stars freezes for roughly an hour.
26	A man who famously vanished without a trace 100 years previously is found dead in the middle of town, unchanged and still warm.
27	A local seer begins screaming incoherently during a vision-quest for 1d4 hours before dying with a look of absolute terror on their faces.
28	A bizarre tentacled horror descends from the sky to a local shepherd and hands him a book. Inside are indecipherable writings and detailed pictures of everyone in the village, as children, at present, and as ragged, malformed mutations amon the ruins of the village some time in the future.
29	Ghostly images of dead soldiers float down a nearby river.
30	For just a few moments, everyone in the province sees their reflection glowering cruelly at them in nearby surfaces.
31	Scars on a local warrior's sword form the name of a demon from regional folklore.
32	Birds are seen flying backwards.
33	The moon appears to rise from the West, then return to its original direction at midnight.
34	The local well water turns blood red.
35	During a local holy day, people carry around dolls to confess fears, secrets, and sins to, then the dolls are burned in a bonfire... only this year the fire won't consume them.
36	People wake up in the wrong beds with no idea how they got there in the mornings.
37	Children in the village all sleepwalk to a local well and sing hymns in their sleep around it. Maybe it is an acoustical trick, but something seems to sing back.
38	The acolyte in charge of guarding the local cemetery swears he hears the sound of music and festive chatter coming from the mausoleum on a now-banned holiday.
39	A local child fishes a three-eyed fish from the pool near a local mill.
40	A collection of waxen dolls representing everyone in the village are left on the tavern steps, posed to show off secret sins in many cases.
41	While trying to forge a sword for a local youth, the blacksmith's anvil cracks clean in two.
42	After being asked to tell the Baroness' fortune, the local fortune teller's Tarot cards all become The Tower and the Ten of Swords.
43	A stranger buys precious and fine goods at the local market with actual gold and electrum coins. Nobody noticed until later that the coins are stamped with the face of a Prince of Hell, and no one remembers his face.
44	A ship pulls in to harbour and docks, but there is no sign of any living creature aboard.
45	A moss-covered old crypt is discovered near a ruin in the woods. A bronze plate with the date of its discovery engraved upon it is attached to the door.
46	People in town are unable to speak the name of their deity, their heralds, or any saints of their religion.
47	An invisible being roams through town marked by the sound of growling, a foul smell, and heavy, thudding footprints. It leaves no tracks, but the word "REPENT" is clawed into several doors.
48	All of the ale in town turns to brackish water.
49	After a meteor shower, a weird idol is found in a smoking crater on a local farm. The crops nearby are mutated.
50	All the sheep in a field bite out their own tongues.
51	For just an instant, everyone nearby freezes in place, unable to think or move, as a buzzing sound fills their mind.
52	The town is overrun by Death's Head moths - even if they are far out of season.
53	All the rats in the area suddenly surge out of their hiding holes in broad daylight and move as one to flee the town in a living river of vermin.
54	Ghostly corpses hang from a tree in the commons of the town.
55	All the flowers in the village turn ivory white.
56	Three loud knocks are heard on every door in the county all at once.
57	The town crier falls into a trance and begins giving news from a city in Hell about the suffering of various locals' ancestors. He remembers nothing.
58	The cresent moon turns in the sky to the shape of horns, while an unnaturally dark patch in the sky suggests some huge thing underneath it to bear them. Everyone feels eyes upon them.
59	Torrential rains pour down for several days pushing up the water table until coffins are pushed up from the soft earth and float into town. They are mostly empty.
60	Frogs and newts fall down with a strangely warm, wet, and fetid rain.
61	A local gathering place is suddenly cast into darkness as it is carpeted by a dense carpet of foul smelling fish-flies. Their buzzing is rhythmical.
62	The sky on the horizon turns a strange green just as the sun sets - only for a moment.
63	Carrion crows suddenly are seen in small murders around the town gazing menacingly at people. They mutter cryptic threats to each other when people are barely in earshot. Did they learn this from someone, or are they actually speaking? If so, what do they know?
64	Whipoorwills begin singing madly at such a din that no one can hear themselves speak for an hour just before dawn.
65	A hooded figure that emanates an aura of calmn and power approaches several groups of local children and hands them painted stones that are actually potent protective amulets. He vanishes without an adult seeing his face, but some children insist he is a figure from a frescoe at the temple.
66	After a raging storm with thunder and unseasonably warm/cold winds, local farms are covered in glistening black hail.
67	A hideously malformed black dog wanders into town and sets itself down at the feet of a sickly old woman. It will not be moved, and waches her expectantly.
68	An infernal contract to place curses on his neglectful family is found, signed in blood, in the desk of a recently deceased old man.
69	Everyone in town finds an eerie old nursery rhyme stuck in their head. It can be heard being muttered by oldsters and sung by children all over town.
70	After a strange dream, the local faithful of one of Elemental Gods find that there are new pages in their holy book none had seen before, calling the faithful to War.
71	A hideous figure has been seen lurking in doorways and windows in the background people's reflections, although it not there when people turn around. It seems to exist wholly in mirrors.
72	Mynah birds begin repeating fragments of people's most private conversations back at them,
73	A local grove sacred to the community's druids is overrun with gigantic and highly acidic slugs and baneful herbs.
74	An undead or demonic horse is found tethered to a tree near a patch of deadly nightshade. It has a bit, bridle, and saddle. People are panicking speculating about whom the rider is, and where they may be.
75	A local madman has been raving about his made-up god for years in town. Now, however, he is working miracles in its name... and some locals are beginning to consider converting.
76	All instances of the local liege's heraldry change to drab colors and suddenly include a secret sign calling assassins to act, and a mourning band.
77	The shape of a clawed hand is found melted into a stone in town.
78	Erosion on a local cliffside is slowly taking the shape of a fiendish face.
79	In the middle of the night, strains of macabre music come from the vicinity of every musical instrument in town.
80	The corpse of a recently hanged man will not stay buried or burnt. It appears every morning in his workshop, at his favourite table in the tavern, in his widow's bed, or sitting on a stone at the edge of the temple grounds.
81	Everyone in the town has the same recurring nightmares about being eaten alive night after night. No one is sleeping.
82	An earthquake topples the local watchtower and open cracks in the earth that belch noxious fumes.
83	A herd of goats is heard chanting and seen gathering together like a congregation at night.
84	Tiny faeries are found nailed to a signpost with cold iron nails.
85	Tombstones float weightlessly in the air above the local cemetary.
86	The local oracle is found comatose, her eyes have been turned to volcanic glass or gold. When she awakes she cannot bear to tell what she has seen, but begs people to leave the area for a year.
87	A miller arrives in the morning to find the mill is running... and producing bone meal. No sign of who of what is operating the mill is left behind... only the dry animal bones fed into the grinder.
88	A construction accident mortally injures several men, but though their bodies are badly injured, and their hearts no longer beat; they feel no pain. They cannot be healed. Each is compelled to have a drink, say farewell, and then die in the place of their choosing
89	Rats killed by cats, terriers, and traps are seen still moving around with broken bodies by night.
90	An apparition of a woman in a red habit and veil is seen wandering the streets in twilight. She occasionally waves a cimson kerchief at certain windows, but vanishes if approached.
91	A pond at the edge of town freezes solid if it is Summer or boils if it is Winter.
92	Stone idols of an ancient goddess of fertility are pulled up from the dirt by red vines that ooze bloody sap. Sacrificial knives are always found tangled in the vines as well.
93	All the wine in town sours and turns an unsettling yellow colour.
94	The soil of gardens and planters near the heart of town are blighted and filled with dangerous toadstools.
95	A strong wind from an unusual direction blows a profusion of crimson feathers as long as a hand across the village. They smell of smoke, blood, and decay.
96	A huge, armoured figure wanders in out of the woodlands without saying a word. It heads to the gathering square drives a pike into the ground, then mounts a giant monstrous head from a bloody sack onto it. It then walks back into the wood and vanishes without a trace.
97	For three days, the locals find themselves only able to speak and understand an ancient or otherworldly tongue.
98	After trysting in an old ruined house in the woods, a couple of local teenagers fall ill and begin vomiting snakes.
99	There is a rush of wind and a terrifying shriek as the village is cast in shadow by something flying overhead at impossible speeds. Then there is a bang, and the flying thing is gone before anyone gets a clear look. Some people remeber feeling a compulsion not to lift their eyes.

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