Wednesday, November 28, 2018

The Alphabet of Outer Beings - M is for Miracle

Image Source: https://www.deviantart.com/artdeepmind/art/Cleric-675034125

M is for Miracle

Miracles are the stuff of divine legend. The handiwork of a divine hand reaching down to the mortal plane and performing the impossible, but what is impossible in a world of wizards and magic, of dragons and demons? When a faithful cleric of a god can heal with a touch and blast enemies with divine retribution as easily as he kneels to pray what does "miracle" really mean in that context?

Table M1: 1d20 Miracles in a World Full of Magic
  1. The local temple's holy symbol begins to weep (or bleed). Collecting and drinking this fluid will cure disease and heal injury. 
  2. A virulent plague that leaves naught but death in its wake fails to infect the citizens of an especially pious town. 
  3. A raging fire burns down an entire town/city except for the temple of the deity.
  4. The local lord (or duke, or king, etc) swaps alignment on the eve of a significant holy day. 
  5. Within the bounds of a certain holy site all present can comprehend all languages.
  6. An endangered town is taken wholly out of their native plain and into the deity's divine home as a means of protection, it returns to the mortal plain for 1 day every month. 
  7. The image of the deity's divine symbol on a battlefield rallies the faithful troops to defeat a greater force.
  8. A downtrodden faithful is given a prophetic view of the divine plan, restoring his faith and setting into action events that serve the deity's plans.
  9. The deity reaches out and blights the lands, killing hundreds, but preventing an invasion by a hoard of monsters which would have killed thousands. 
  10. The deity reaches out and smites the world itself, sundering the land and creating a geographical barrier between his chosen people and their enemies.
  11. The words of the deity's chosen priests and clerics are always understood but any who hear them. 
  12. A starving group of hundreds of faithful are able to eat their fill from a single day's worth of rations donated by a charitable person.
  13. The deity curses the land of a wicked queen with unending drought until she repents her ways.
  14. The spirit of a long dead champion of the deity descends from the divine plain to protect the deity's next champion as a child.
  15. A town or kingdom who have disobeyed the deity are struck down by natural disaster, but those few pious citizens are away or given divine warning to leave. 
  16. On the highest holy day of the faith no mortal worshiper of a given deity perishes.  
  17. A wandering people, the only remaining mortals who worship a deity, settle in an otherwise harsh and barren land, but find that their crops yield bountiful harvests and their beasts grow healthy and strong. 
  18. A king is divinely linked to his lands with his health and well-being becoming inexorably linked to that of the land. 
  19. For a period of one day both sides in a war were enabled to feel all the wounds they inflicted upon the opposite side. 
  20. A child, orphaned by monsters, rises up and protects their village without any formal training despite all odds.