Extending the "Sparks" from Spark Tables

a simple procedure for turning sparks into adhesives for your larger projects

Rolling on tables to get ideas or figure out how something responds isn’t a new idea, but Spark Tables have been taking our world by storm to great effect. For those unaware, a Spark Table is basically a table with at least two columns of adjectives/adverbs/nouns that you roll on to spark an idea while prepping or for guiding improv during table play.

Here’s an example from Mythic Bastionland:

I use these tables to great effect when my players are traveling through hexes to add flair, because pre-rolling environmental descriptions for hexes just isn’t worthwhile prep for me if I have a tool I can use at the table.

But, what if I wanted to use Spark Tables to help me prepare a heftier piece of content that I don’t feel comfortable improvising at the table, such as a dungeon, a site, or a region in a hexcrawl? Some people might see Spark Tables as great for in-the-moment or spot-inspiration, but less useful for creating coherent themes or narratives. To which, I offer this procedure below:

1. Identify how many items you want in your list. [For this example, I’ll choose 5, because this will elicit 31 combinations, which lines up almost perfectly with a 30-room dungeon.]

2. Roll 5 times on a Spark Table of your choice; When it comes to dual-columned tables, only roll on one of the columns. [For this example, I’ll use the Mythic Bastionland table above. I’ll roll 2 times on the Wonder-Theme table, 2 times on the Wonder-Element table, and 1 time on the Otherworld-Landscape table.]

3. Take these results and arrange them in a configuration such that you have two Major Themes and three Minor Themes.

   1. Our results from rolling were: Memory, Strength, Colours, Beasts, Labyrinth. I’ll pick Memory and Strength as major themes.

4. Key your dungeon such that its rooms incorporate combinations of these Major and Minor themes. Major Themes should be the “centerpiece” of the room, while Minor Themes are the seasoning. [For example, Room 101: Memory + Beasts]

The reason I like this is that it uses the Spark Tables to generate an overarching, coherent theme for our dungeon. I can then keep using Spark Tables to fill in the rooms if I want to, but now I can contextualize the outcomes within the themes we identified so that the improv-heavy nature of these tables doesn’t leave me with something that feels out of place. Let’s see how this plays out with a couple of rooms of this dungeon I just rolled up, solely using the above Spark Tables and our themes.

Major Themes: Memory, Strength

Minor Themes: Colours, Beasts, Labyrinth

Room 101: Memory + Beasts

• Dilapidated entrance chamber, lined with sarcophagi

  • Each sarcophagus has a placard eulogizing a beast

    • Some placards have been entirely scratched out

Room 102: Strength + Colours + Beasts

• Vivid tapestries showing men and beasts triumphing over Evil

  • Each beast depicted corresponds to a eulogized beast

    • Beasts with scratched placards appear ethereal, almost invisible in the tapestries

Room 103: Memory + Labyrinth + Colours

• A haggard man, walking, turning, running in place, shouting incomprehensibly

  • His shouts reveal he is calling the name of his eulogized beast

    • Any player who recognizes this begins to weep, as the room turns a pale blue

You may want to additionally season your rooms or keying to your taste, but this is typically enough for me to keep moving. Critically, the rolling on Spark Tables and pulling out the results to broader Major/Minor themes gives me the impetus to move forward with creating instead of getting stuck in a rut, mulling over ideas for hours, and never actually writing anything. I intend on using this procedure to help create the remaining floors of my upcoming megadungeon to run in a His Majesty The Worm home game.

Adapting to Mythic Bastionland Sites

For those of you who want to use this procedure for sites in Mythic Bastionland, which are likely not going to be (but could be!) 30-room dungeons, you don’t necessarily need to roll for five major/minor themes. If you’re following the 6-point sites, I would suggest one Major Theme and two Minor Themes, because this will give you 7 possible combinations.

Instead:

1. Determine what type of Landmark you are making your site for.

2. Roll on the Wonder-Theme table. This result is your Major Theme. Below are suggestions on some of the tables to roll on to grab your Minor Themes, depending on what I see the general flavor of the Landmark types being.

   1. Curses: Otherworld

   2. Ruins: Wonder, Otherworld, Flora-Nature

   3. Hazards: Weather-Element, Flora/Fauna-Forms, and Otherworld-Character

   4. Sanctums: Wonder, Otherworld, Feature-Nature

   5. Dwellings: Feature, Flora, Fauna

   6. Monuments: Wonder, Otherworld

So if I were making a 6-point site for a Curse, my Major Theme would be: Regret, and my Minor Themes would be: Burning and Craters

Thus, each site would be some combination of these three: Regret + Burning, Burning + Craters, Regret + Craters, and so on. If this isn’t enough for me to spark coherent points, I would roll again on the Spark Tables for the sites themselves, but then contextualize the results within these themes.

Remember that you can use any Spark Table you want for these procedures, as the core procedure just involves taking the results from your initial rolls and turning them into an adhesive that binds everything else together.

Thanks for reading!