I have been thinking about two wildly different shows: Mrs. Davis (a stage magician hunting nun / mystic from Reno, Nevada) and Scavengers Reign (space colonists get marooned on a planet with a mysterious and infinitely complex ecology).

What they have in common is a strong sense that something strange is going on deep behind the scenes. This often manifests as a snowballing series of semirelated or ambiguously related encounters. Sister Simone in Mrs. Davis keeps on running to a number of feuding secret societies and their agents who have an intense but unknown interest in her and each other. When you have a run in with the superintelligent AI app, the weird German treasure hunters take notice, which leads to an encounter with yet another faction when they intervene in ways I don’t want to spoil.

Similarly, the survivors in Scavengers Reign stumble across a creature that’s hunting or being hunting, which then kicks off a long series of encounters as predators and prey get involved and entangle/endanger the survivors further.

I’ve modeled how this could work in games in a short encounter table. Basically, you have encounters as normal, but certain reaction roll results either guarantee a certain encounter the next turn or guarantee that the next rolled encounter will be with a certain creature. If you run into a stressed out and Unfriendly prey animal, it means there’s a predator nearby. This means you can have normal encounters, but some make you fall forward into another encounter that demonstrates the relationships between creatures. There’s a little extra bookkeeping, but you just have to make note of what happens next turn and what replaces the next encounter, which isn’t too complex.

1d4 Indigo Steppe Encounter Table

2d100 Carrot Snails
3d6 Humpbacked Oryxes
1 Langouste Leopard
2d4 Big Scarlet Crawler

Carrot Snail

Roll	Result
2	Highly stressed by a nearby predator; will vent harmless but foul-smelling oil out of their eyespots on anyone who enters melee range. Next turn is a guaranteed encounter of humpbacked oryxes in addition to rolled results. Next rolled encounter is replaced with langouste leopards, attracted by the scent of snail oil that humpbacked oryxes are often drenched in.
3-5	Being hunted. Next rolled encounter result is replaced with humpbacked oryxes that are on the snails’ trail
6-9	Photosynthesizing, unbothered.
10-11	Senescent. These snails are at the end of their lifespan and full of seed-larva. They offer themselves up to likely predators in hope they will be eaten, thus spreading their larva (which gestate as they pass harmlessly through the eater’s digestive tract).
12	Will warble and approach with adorable little hops. They are infected with megaplasmodia; their eyespots will erupt into plumes of bacteria-bearing aerosol upon entering melee range of any uninfected creature. Save vs Poison get infected with megaplasmodia.

3d6 Humpbacked Oryx

Roll	Result
2	Moving quickly because a langouste leopard is in the area. Next encounter is replaced with a langouste leopard.
3-5	Protecting their young. 2d6 oryx calves are hidden nearby; the adult oryxes will go berserk if they are approached.
6-9	Grazing. Next rolled encounter is replaced with big scarlet crawlers that want to scavenge their shit.
10-11	Hungry, scavenging. Will nose through pockets and bags looking for food and positively remember anyone who gives them something.
12	Will amble up amicably. They are infected with megaplasmodia; their eyes will explode into plumes of bacteria-bearing aerosol upon entering melee range of any uninfected creature. Save vs Poison get infected with megaplasmodia.

1 Langouste Leopard

Roll	Result
2	Starved, sick. Can’t fail morale checks.
3-5	Hunting. Will attack but retreat if faced with any real violence. Until killed or fully chased off, it will secretly accompany every subsequent encounter, waiting for a chance to ambush.
6-9	Hunting something else.
10-11	Just ate; curious. Will accept bribes and is less likely to hunt anyone who bribes it with snacks.
12	Will act like a big cute cat. It is infected with megaplasmodia; after frolicking for a little while, it will turn to leave just as its tail explodes into a giant plume of bacteria-bearing aerosol. Save vs Poison get infected with megaplasmodia.

2d4 Big Scarlet Crawlers

Roll	Result
2	Confused. They are infected with megaplasmodia and will detonate into a sticky spume of bacteria-bearing purple ichor as soon as they ram into an uninfected creature. Take 3d6 damage, Save vs Breath for half; Save vs Poison or get infected with megaplasmodia.
3-5	Performing a mating ritual. Will attack only if approached.
6-9	Busily sifting through piles of oryx dung.
10-11	By chance unthreatened by the PCs; if offered food, they will trail behind by them until the next time the party rests, effacing all trace of their passage; negates all impending encounters. If there are no impending encounters, players can choose to reroll the encounter die the next time an encounter is rolled.
12	Will trail the PCs, effacing all trace of their passage; negates all impending encounters. If there are no impending encounters, players can choose to reroll the encounter die the next time an encounter is rolled.

Uses

This is probably best for relatively small encounter tables in places that PCs will be spending a lot of time in; if they’re just passing through or there are a lot of different kinds of encounters, I think it could end up as just a bunch of weird stuff happening. PCs have to linger long enough to understand how different behaviors are associated with different outcomes for the interesting part of this mechanic to really kick in.

This example uses animals to model an ecology, but you could model some fun Mrs. Davis / Crying of Lot 49 shenanigans where Neorosicrucians are always encountered on teal Vespas and when they’re Neutral it’s because they’re too busy fleeing from Retrotheosophists to try to throw fake blood on you, and everyone is getting chased around by the local SETI chapter, which is trying to whisk people away in their ice cream truck without getting nabbed by the IRS.

You could also do fun stuff like having certain creatures that aren’t on the encounter table at all and only show up as consequence to a prior encounter. This could be good for rare, especially dangerous predators or especially mysterious NPCs.

Having taken a closer look at Swords and Wizardry Complete, I have come to the conclusion that assassins are boring and monks are dumb. This is somewhat inspired by +Arnold K.‘s excellent post on void monks.

Saint of Honey and Salt

a class for old school D&D-likes

HP and XP as Magic-users
Attack bonus and saves as Clerics

Also called Las Basiliscas, the Velvet People, Pretty Poisoners, Beauty Monks

Each major city has a House of Honey and Salt, which acts as the home and headquarters of all Saints in the region. These Houses are temple-brothel-hospitals; few injuries or illnesses are beyond the flesh-crawling curatives of the Saints, though they charge a high price.

Saints are the enemies of the medusae, the drow, and the Weaver’s Guild. Their cousins are the vampires. They have treaties with the basilisks, dryads, nymphs, succubi, and shadows. Saints make servants of bees and flesh golems.

Saints have a reputation for espionage, though nobody knows where their interests lie. They’re that good. A nation’s monarch having a Saint in their court is viewed the same way as having a child king or a doddering regent: a sign of instability and bad things to come.

The dogma of the Saints is Love and their doctrine is Spite. A Saint cannot wield weapons and must avoid inflicting pain wherever possible (This is interpreted liberally. The Saints as an organization make extensive use of poisons, and have no problem telling their underlings to do exceedingly painful things to their enemies). Saints also cannot wear armor, as it conceals their bodies.

from full metal alchemist

A Saint is like this:
You’re always a little flushed, a little feverish, though you never seem to sweat. The whites of your eyes have no blood vessels, you tongue and lips are red; your hair is albino white or the iridescent black of crow feathers or else it shines like the sun on the sea etc etc. You look like the fervid imaginings of a court poet or a Raymond Chandler character or the lover of a hero from antiquity.

While you suffer the physical effects of old age like anyone else, you always appear to be in the full flush of youth.
You are thoroughly trained in the arts of dancing, singing, and/or acting.
Your Charisma score increases by 1 every time you gain a level, to a maximum 18. If you wish, you can use your Charisma score in place of your armor class.
You can make somebody’s blood weep painlessly out of their skin by touching them, flesh to flesh. A hand’s worth of coverage deals d6 damage (and requires an attack roll in combat, assuming they aren’t completely covered). More area of contact deals more damage, to a maximum of d20. This makes grappling with you very dangerous. Looks sort of like this:

by Bernypisa, distributed under Creative Commons

Level 2: Sweet Nothings
You can cast Suggestion at will by whispering into somebody’s ear for a full round, close enough that they can feel your breath on their face.

Level 3: Fascination

You can Charm someone by kissing them. They must be willing or restrained, and they get a saving throw. People Charmed in this way become obsessive, withdrawn, feverish, and Detect as Chaotic and/or Evil.

Level 4: Fountain of Youth

During downtime, you can prepare a special bath of animal hormones, plant extracts, and generally weird drugs that

cures diseases
restores lost limbs
removes deformities, like scars, tumors, and dermal fungal colonies

This bath costs 1,000 gp and works for a single person. You might have trouble finding the ingredients in backwater areas, though you can haul them around if you so choose; they count as 2 significant items.

Level 5: Carnation

You can spend a downtime action to change your appearance. You can’t radically alter your body plan (so you can’t become a quadruped or grow new limbs or change your arms to wings) or mimic a particular person, but you can change your build, posture, sex, pigmentation, and so on.

Level 6: Pretty Poison

If you consume a poison or drug and survive, you become immune to its effects. Furthermore, consuming a poison or drug to which you are immune allows you to preserve it in your body for d6 Turns. Anything that eats you (or at least a significant chunk) isn’t going to be feeling so great after, and your bodily fluids work as a contact poison of the same type, though victims get a +3 to saving throws against it in this form. Saint Malvada defeated the Blue Iron King by spitting into his eye, then getting his pet dragon to eat her arm.

Level 7:
You can read someone’s mind as per ESP by staring into their eyes for a full round. They can feel you reading their mind, so usually they must be restrained or otherwise unable to look away.

Level 8: All Shall Love Me and Despair
Once a day, you can issue a Mass Command. (As Command, but afflicts everyone in earshot)

Level 9: House of Honey and Salt
You found your own House of Honey and Salt and gain 2d6 disciples.

Level 10: Only Lovers Left Alive
Once per day, you can kill someone with fewer HD than you have levels by touching their bare chest with your forefinger. No save.

christian dior

from fire emblem awakening

Category: monks

food web