Grim Jungles for OSR Games

  New weekend, new table from Lands of Legends!

A bit of a boring Saturday morning here, dreaming of upcoming holidays but still having to deal with work & everyday chores. Time to plan my next Kickstarter! There will be time to write about that in the next weeks...

For today, I offer a d10 table with ten Grim Jungle areas for your OSR sandbox campaign with simple stat references for your classic game of choice, wether is Old-School Essentials, Labyrinth Lord, Sword & Wizardry, or any other clone of OE, B/X, or BECMI Dungeons and Dragons.

Use them to spice up your sandbox!

These are straight from the Areas section of Lands of Legends Grim. Check it out for hundreds more!

So here's the table:

Jungles - Grim Areas

1. Geese Graveyard. Natives of the region say that in the heart of this jungle lies the fabled “golden geese” graveyard, where these birds go to die and become solid gold statues. Following the natives' directions is relatively easy and, indeed, golden geese can often be seen in the sky, heading to a precise location. It is a lost temple, surrounded by a village of cannibals and all the natives are their accomplices, trying to keep them at bay. Explorers who reach the village are brought to the "graveyard", surrounded and killed. Their remains are then given as food to cruel golden geese, who fly from across the region to feast on human flesh.
2. City of Tigers. Cruel man-eating tigers inhabit this impenetrable jungle and often make forays into the neighboring villages. Legends say that in the middle of the jungle lies the terrible City of Tigers, whose pavilions are built with human bones and skins. Cruel Rakshasas and weretigers rule it with an iron paw and their envoys are everywhere, hidden among men, in order to send more and more victims to the jungle. These emissaries (and all the tigers disguised as men) can be recognized because they have reversed hands and feet, with thumbs and toes on the outside.
3. The Invasion of Impossible Things. A mysterious skull-shaped green asteroid has fallen in this jungle, and now its deadly radiation contaminates the whole area. Those who spend more than a week and fail a Save vs Paralysis become a kind of reptilian creature within a few days (1d4). Leaving the area before the transformation is complete reverses and cancels the phenomenon, but leaving later causes the victims to explode in a burst of bloody pieces. If the transformation comes to completion, the victim's skin rips and a mindless lizard-man emerges trying to bite and devour everyone. The creature's bite is contagious like a werewolf’s and produces the same effects, but a Save can avoid the transformation.
4. The Real Living Death. A terrible curse affects those who die in this jungle. Bacteria keep the corpses together after death and allow smaller organisms to take part of it: the dead bodies are eaten as usual by bugs, worms, centipedes, fungi and molds, but they still maintain their structure and mass. As time goes by, all these beings "become" the corpse, which ultimately consists of a mass of plants, fungi and parasites and behaves as if it were still living and sentient. And it moves in search of food.
5. Cannibal Holocaust. This jungle is inhabited by tribes of cannibals who are accustomed to eat their dead, enemies defeated in war, the diseased or elderly ones and those who commit grave crimes. Despite these habits they act very politely with visitors, treating them with the utmost care and attention and inviting them to their special banquets as honored guests.
6. Death Valley. In this lush forest all predators, including reptiles, fish, mammals and birds, have poisonous attacks with teeth and/or claw!
7. Head Hunter Trolls. This jungle is the kingdom of a peculiar kind of trolls: they are about as tall as a man, and as nimble as monkeys. Primitive and savage, divided in several scattered tribes, they collect the heads of enemies and preys, both humanoids and animals, and then cut gashes on their shoulders and stick the severed head inside. Most heads just attach and become simple living tissue, slightly shrunk in size and slowly sliding down the chest; about 1 out of 6 is assimilated with better functions so that it can breath, eat and see, though it will become mindless; about 1 out of 6 of these breathing heads will be fully functional, retaining its knowledge and mental skills, though its will won’t be free unless the troll’s head is severed. The oldest and fiercest tribe leaders and warriors are covered with heads, many are shrunk, some are crazed and horrified faces, and a bunch are there, staring, thinking and serving the troll’s will.
8. Wooden Death. This jungle is dotted with the remains of long abandoned villages: rotting huts, broken wooden walls and canoes, stone totems. Amid the ruins, inside small holes, broken pottery and baskets, as well as in the shadows of the nearby vegetation, hundreds of murderous wooden dolls, with big horrible heads, topped with human scalps, stand vigil and are ready to assault anyone entering their territories. The dolls are possessed by the maddened souls of the dead natives, who were tricked into this undead slavery by evil spirits. Clerics may attempt to turn these 3 HD undead, while wizards and necromancers might be tempted to capture one and make an enslaved familiar of it.
9. Grim Scales. This jungle has no mammals nor birds. Equivalent creatures are all reptiles and all are ferocious predators: scaly monkeys, bat winged lizards, slinky, cold blooded scale tigers.
10. Termite Forest. This jungle is infested with carnivorous termites, whose territories are avoided by most animals. If explorers get close to their mounds (bizarre towers, up to 30 feet high) to examine them, it is already too late. The swarm comes out and attacks, dealing 1d6 damage with tiny bites and toxic saliva every round. In order to save their lives, heroes must stand very close to a flame, dive into water, or pour great amounts of oil all over them.

If you enjoy this type of content, check my other random tables posts, and my OSR stuff on DrivethruRPG: the Land of Legends series and my pwyw e-zines for Old-School Essentials: Wondrous Weavings Warped and Weird and Mysteriously Missing & Merrily Met!

My next pwyw Old-School Essentials e-zine will be released next month! To find out what it'll be about, and grab it as soon as it's out, follow me on Facebook, Twitter or Telegram!