Tales & Tomes Issue 6: The Waking Forest

This is Issue 6 of Tales & Tomes. 57 pages of setting agnostic, table ready content for 5th Edition, written by a DM who runs games for DMs who run games.

What's Inside
The Waking Forest - A 3 to 4 hour adventure for four characters of 8th to 10th level. Brindlemark's loggers pushed past the old Greenveil boundary markers, and the Rootwarden has woken up. A grieving druid named Theron Forsworn is directing its rage at the town. Three possible endings, including a negotiation climax instead of a boss fight. Encounter scaling notes for parties of 3 or 5 at every step. Pages from Theron's journal included as handouts.

Ancient Guardians - Five primordial titans built as a full campaign spine from level 8 to 20. The Rootwarden (CR 12), the Stonewarden (CR 14), the Tidewarden (CR 16), the Dunewarden (CR 18), and the Frostwarden (CR 20) as the capstone. Each one runs in two modes: Standoff (lair pressure, world degradation, negotiation framework) and Combat (full solo boss stat block). Each has an elemental weakness that bypasses defenses and shuts off Phase 2 regeneration. Includes a wrath escalation timer, awakening triggers by biome, and a DM toolkit for building your own.

Arcane Alley - The wandering market returns with a new shop. Dungeon Loot Co returns with a restock. The Last Draft is a custom potion brewery run by Maren Dolwar, a drow alchemist who does not negotiate price and does not make small talk. Plus a fresh d12 encounter table (V6) with twelve new moments, from a staircase that ends at a brick wall to a sleepwalking elf with shoes that don't match.

Roots and Remembrance - Four new General Feats for the wilderness born: the tracker who leaves no trail, the listener who hears what the trees are saying, the survivor whose skin has thickened like old bark, and the one who has been left for dead and refused to stay there. Plus six new spells for druids and rangers, from a cantrip that trips enemies with remembered roots to a 5th level spell that forces a city street to remember the forest it replaced.

Plus an introduction to the Flex-Attune system (baseline benefit while carried, full power when attuned), the Carved Heartwood Amulet, the Staff of the Deepwood, and the Rootwarden Heartwood as a legendary-rarity crafting component with a 90 day decay clock.

Japanese Mansion — Shinden Zukuri (54”×60”)

Step into the refined elegance of classical Japanese architecture with this sprawling shinden-zukuri mansion. Your players will navigate between multiple pavilions connected by covered walkways, each structure positioned around tranquil garden courtyards & koi ponds. The traditional raised floors & open design create countless opportunities for dramatic entrances, sneaky infiltrations, & rooftop chases across those distinctive sloped tiles.

The central water feature winds through the compound garden like a serpentine moat, complete with ornamental bridges that could serve as chokepoints or dramatic duel locations. Whether hosting a tea ceremony that turns deadly or investigating a murder mystery among the nobility, this authentic estate provides the perfect backdrop for intrigue!

Thoughts

• The multiple building entrances & connecting walkways create natural opportunities for split-party scenarios where different groups can approach from various angles.
• Those koi ponds aren’t just decorative, they’re perfect hiding spots for water-breathing assassins or magical creatures (kappa?) that your players won’t expect!
• Harbor a prayer at the fox statue, corner shrine, or perhaps at the graves scattered across the island garden.
• The massacre variant transforms this peaceful estate into a crime scene, perfect for investigation campaigns or showing the aftermath of a failed diplomatic mission.

Contents

• Spring: Cherry blossoms & fresh greenery bring the estate to vibrant life
• Summer: Lush gardens in full bloom with rich emerald foliage
• Autumn: Maple leaves paint the grounds in brilliant reds & golds
• Winter: Snow blankets the rooftops & gardens in serene white
• Fire: The estate burns dramatically, with flames consuming buildings & spreading across walkways
• Massacre: Blood stains the pristine grounds, perfect for investigation scenarios or showing the aftermath of violence
• Blueprint: Architectural drawings for planning sessions or player handouts
• Day/Night Variants: Wherever applicable!
• Canopy Overlays: Built for VTT canopy usage!

All maps are provided with & without square grids in WEBP format.

In addition, a Foundry module with a compendium of pre-built scenes for major variants is provided!

Furthermore, full-color PDF files in both single-page and divided poster formats are provided for printing!

• The divided poster PDFs are cut into US Letter-size pages; they have guidelines, sheet numbering, & a convenient sheet for sticking them together after you’ve printed them out, and have margins so that you don’t have to be pixel-perfect when cutting with your scissors.
• The single-sheet PDFs are suitable for making high-quality prints via print shops & on large-scale printers.

Formats

WEBP for digital

With or without square grid!

(Please note that while WEBP is compatible with all major VTTs, it may not be previewable in old Windows 10 photo viewers.)

PDFs for print

The PDFs come in two versions: a “single-sheet” PDF with the whole image on one page for print shops or large printers, and a “divided” PDF split into US Letter/A4 sheets that can be cut out & stitched together on a home printer!

Foundry VTT module included

A module with pre-made walls, lighting, & more for every scene is included for manual installation!

Hi there and welcome to my RPG stock art page here on Drivethru.

This mini-map of 'The Citadel' Tower is suitable for any OSR or fantasy game. The map is system-agnostic, so you can scale the encounter up or down.

No AI was used in creating any of my artwork; all the assets are original and hand-drawn.

This file contains a high-resolution .png

This pack contains a single Shinon Castle asset (lossely based on the historical Chinon Castle). The asset is provided in shadow and no shadow variants. All assets are hand drawn in isometric style and are provided in PNG format and as part of a Dungeon Draft file.

The asset is provided in the form of a single zipped folder containing individual asset files and a Dungeon Draft file. All my assets are provided under the Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence from Creative commons, this licence allows commercial use with attribution, see the creative commons site for more information. If you like my assets consider supporting me on Patreon, it's my patrons that allow me to regularly produce asset packs.

Overview

This Town Is Full of Monsters is a tabletop storytelling/roleplaying game about a smallish community beset by mysterious, eldritch forces. There’s always a Town. There are always townsfolk. And, somewhere, everywhere, perhaps in their hearts and minds, perhaps in the swamp or the woods, there are monsters, mysteries, and secrets.

If you want to build a Twin Peaks / Stranger Things / Life is Strange / Donnie Darko type story and/or world with the help of a couple of friends or friendly strangers, this game may well be a good fit for you. That said, It has also proven to work quite well for stories set in all kinds of worlds and places, well apart from sleepy, small American coastal towns and suburbs. Some notable actual plays have featured underwater casino towns, post apocalyptic cities populated by giant seagulls, and distant nebulae populated by all kinds of divine and terrestrial beings. (So, you know, please don't feel like you HAVE to do a Twin Peaks pastiche, because you can do whatever the heck you want).*

Game Format

This game works well with 3 to 6 players**, but can scale in either direction with a bit of adjustment. 

This Town Is Full Of Monsters is a game about making stuff up and trying to collaboratively (in most cases) piece together something that sort of resembles a semi-cohesive supernatural "small town" drama or melodrama out of all sorts of narrative bits and bobs.

It is diceless, GMless (think Fiasco, Follow, One Last Job, etc., with perhaps a dash of The Quiet Year thrown in to taste), and fairly free-form. It has an optional map-making / murder-board-making component and encourages players to seek guidance from Oracles of their choice (Tarot cards, coffee grounds, runes, or whatever works for you). 

Second Edition

This here is the long awaited Second Edition of the game (the PDF variant, at least), now with all kinds of artwork (hand painted by yours truly), a snazzy new layout, as well as a bit of overall polish and clarification. 

If you, like myself, are currently low on disposable funds but would still like to play this game at your table, the original version is, of course, still available and will always remain available. It is significantly cheaper - it's got a few more typos, no artwork, and a simpler layout, and it is missing the extra page (it really just one page) with the "solo mode" advice on it, but the content is otherwise functionally the same. If you've already purchased the original at some point in the past, you really don't have to buy this one unless you want the extra bells and whistles or would like to support the designer. You're not going to be missing out on brand new mechanics or a total overhaul. This ain't DnD, in other words.

There is a physical, print-on-demand version on the way, but, if you're reading this particular paragraph, then there is still some time left before that's fully wrapped up (first I've gotta send out for a proof and make sure everything is tip top - backers will be receiving their copies shortly after that process is concluded, of course).

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*The titular quote is from Silent Hill 2, of course, but while the Silent Hill series was strongly inspired by Twin Peaks and the works of David Lynch, the specifics of the "survival horror" video game genre tend to set it apart in terms of narrative format. That said, if you want to go "proper dark" with your town, as opposed to "cozy-creepy," there's nothing stopping you from adding all kinds of terrible cults and emotional purgatories into the mix for that Silent Hill flavor (twisted otherworlds and impossible mysteries are already included in the package). 

**This new edition also features some loose guidelines for solo play. TTIFOM is designed as a GMless collaborative game first and foremost, but can be played alone, usually with more than the standard amount of help from your favorite Oracles, as a world-building, story-crafting, and/or journaling exercise. That said, it is assumed that those who wish to adapt it to that modality are already familiar and experienced with solo tabletop roleplaying, and its many quirks. If you're interested in going at it alone but don't quite know where to start, I would recommend doing some research (read, watch some videos on the subject, etc.) and maybe trying out a couple of games that were specifically designed for that purpose, so that you might find your own groove and preferred approach.

This 94-page issue is for Adventure Word Sequences #5.

It revisits the next 20 frequent keywords from Plot Generator, Conflct (Plot) Generator 2, and Grammar Fuel ™ genre and subgenre books.

Why focus on Adventure Word Sequences?

The answer depends on the type of game that you are running.

• For that want fully prepared synopsis, ready-to-go adventures, or distinct setting adventures, then this book may not be for you.

• However, for GMs that play, modify, or plan adventures using suggestions and inspiration, this book may be for you, It gives more details than the keyword tables, yet are vague enough to fit or adjust to most genres, eras, and settings.

This is a guide book that is meant to aid a Gamemaster (GM) or solo game player in making creative adventure story conflict content. It is illustrated with some grayscale open or licensed images.

It's meant to help give useful tips and inspirational ideas.

An Adventure Word Sequence is our set of words that suggest a sequence of conflicts that may be interpreted to create an adventure.

We provide  a brief generic synopsis of what it may be interpreted to mean for each Adventure Word Sequence.

An Example of the first of six Adventure Word Sequence for Track keyword,

1. Identify > Track > Apprehend

Characters identify something important that leaves a trail of clues.

Then we provide a table with how the adventure may use each sequence to describe a type of foe of six main types. Here are the ones for the Failure > Rebuild > Resolve sequence.

Foe

There are about 80 different new Adventure Word Sequences (6 for each keyword, 20 keywords). A few are used more than once (from this and prior books) for similar situations that fit the keyword. A list of this issues keywords is found bellow.

What does this cover?

• Comparison of 3 keyword prompt methods
• Reasons, pros, and cons for each
• Parts of speech, pros, cons of the following: verbs, nouns, adverbs, adjectives, pronouns, and prepositions
• Using this book
• Using random tables for 3 different types of worldbuilding
• Keywords: track, prove, uncover, trap, enforce, lead, avoid, free, secure, rage, remain, determine, develop, perform, do, oppose, go, depart, enter, detect
• For each keyword: Definitions, synonyms, Theme Generator 2e subjects, 6 Adventure Word Sequences, foes table
• A list at the end lists prior issue keywords and adventure word sequences

When the poets sing of the Olympians, they praise Zeus and Hera’s sons, but forget their daughters. Vicious Ares and ingenious Hephaestus great Theoi, but their sisters aren’t glorified by poets and historians. Who praises caring Eileithyia, who guides mother and child through birth? Who evokes bloody Enyo, who makes war alongside her brother? Who extols gentle Hebe, cupbearer of Olympus? O great Muses! Lend me your tongue, pen, and genius so we may correct this slight!

This product includes: 

• Descriptions, Callings, and Purviews for three lesser Theoi: Eileithyia, Enyo, and Hebe. 
• Eight new Birthrights associated with the Goddesses and their mother.
• Four Terra Incognita to expand your story arcs. 

Compatible with Scion Second Edition. Requires the use of Scion: Origin and Scion: Hero from Onyx Path Publishing.

This set was sculpted by Colin Christenson during December 2025. We’ve had requests for a full snow set for years. I struggle to remember a winter where that request didn’t pop up, but this year Colin was ready. He poured every last drop of toil and talent into Snow production. He never said the extra passion was to make up for previous years, but it sure felt that way when processing these tiles for publishing.

We thank Colin for these models, and we dedicate them to all the fans who made this request over the years.

Awaken the power behind the eyes with the Psion, a class built for players who want to command the battlefield through thought, emotion, psychic force, and unseen influence. Designed around the Grace and Midnight domains, the Psion blends subtle manipulation, mental resilience, telekinetic pressure, and supernatural perception into a class that feels distinct from traditional spellcasters. This class is perfect for players who want to bend reality without raising a hand, speak mind to mind across the battlefield, shield allies with invisible force, or crush enemies beneath the weight of pure psychic will. Whether your character is a quiet mystic haunted by intrusive visions, a battlefield savant who sees combat before it happens, or a feared wanderer whose thoughts can move mountains, the Psion brings a powerful new mental archetype to your Daggerheart table.