Weird, Whimsy & Wonder

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Ever feel like your encounters and descriptions keep falling back on the same old tropes? Like you’re pulling from a well-worn bag of ideas, and what comes out feels… fine, but not quite magical?

Weird, Whimsy & Wonder is a creative tool for TTRPG game masters and solo players who want to break free from the expected and summon something more memorable: strange, moving, or mysterious. It helps you craft moments that feel out of place in the best possible way, evoking awe, delight, eeriness, or curiosity.

You can use it in multiple ways: prepping for a session, improvising at the table, or as you play solo. In any case, this book helps you transform the mundane: you take ordinary creatures, places, items, or events, and reimagine them as something dreamlike, uncanny, or majestic. You can even start from a blank page and let the tables inspire you to craft those delightfully bizarre situations.

With a tightly-knit procedure made of simple, flexible tools, you’ll start from a seed and quickly grow it into something you wouldn’t have thought of on your own. 

Use this tool when…

• Your usual random tables are starting to feel flat, and you want to transform their results into something truly unique.

• You’re playing solo and want to surprise yourself with an unexpected scene that sparks delight, awe, or discomfort.

• You’re prepping a session and want to make a location feel magical, alive, or deeply strange.

• You need a break from the tone of your current adventure and want to inject a burst of joy, mystery, or weirdness.

• You’re designing a treasure and want it to feel like a relic no one else has ever seen.

• You’re improvising an NPC and want to pull the right levers to make them unforgettable, odd, or oddly charming.

• You’re crafting an encounter that needs to show off—whether that means setting the tone, raising the stakes, or spotlighting the eerie nature of a monster or the grandeur of your world.

• You have a blank page and five minutes to prep, and just need that first spark to get your imagination rolling.

Here's how it works:

See it in action:

Prefer reading?

Check out this write-up on my newsletter. it walks through the thought process behind the tool and includes a full example of how to use it.

In the book, you will find:

• A tightly-knit procedure. With easy-to-follow steps, you can elevate mundane creatures, places, items and people to truly unforgettable moments while prepping for a session or improvising on the spot.

• A flexible set of tables. Instead of offering a set of premade entries that would limit the mileage you would get from this tool, you will find a series of inspiring tables that will help you craft endless combinations, including a Seed table with 648 unique single word prompts to get you going.

• Guide on three different flavors. Strangeness can take many shapes. This toolkit offers guidance so you strike the right tone you are going for: uncanny and eerie (Weird), dreamlike and playful (Whimsy), or majestic and awe-inspiring (Wonder).

All the tables you need!

• SEEDS: 648 evocative single-word prompts to spark your imagination during any step of the process.

• SUBJECTS: 12 different things you can change in a scene, like people, places, items, and more.

• TRAITS: 36 aspects of your Subject that you can change, from scale or material, to purpose or customs, all with detailed explanations and examples of use.

• SHIFT: 18 ways you can change your subject's traits, expressed via single-word action prompts.

• FRAMING: 18 aspects of a scene you can highlight to bring your new creation to life.

All of this, packed into an 80+ page, hardcover book—richly illustrated, in vibrant color, and filled with clear, step-by-step guidance to help you use the tables and land the exact tone you’re aiming for.

I’ve put together a free online version of the random tables; a little proof of concept to give you a taste of what Weird, Whimsy & Wonder can do. It’s also a very early, bare-bones glimpse of what the future web app could become if we hit that stretch goal.

While this demo doesn’t include the full procedures or detailed explanations of each flavor, it should still give you a feel for the tool’s potential. Some parts might seem a little esoteric without context, but you should be able to find your way around with the examples of play.

If it sparks your curiosity, consider backing the project to help bring the full version to life, and maybe even push the web app into development.

To access the free demo, simply claim the game for free below. You’ll find a direct link to the demo in your downloads. I just ask that you don’t share the link directly. If you’d like others to discover the project, please send them to this product page instead.