So your world is basically just heaven and earth and you want to be all “Let There Be Light!” and are running out of ideas. I have two words for you: Random tables. Obviously, you need to make your own, but ain’t nobody got time for that! So use mine. Now, I didn’t actually fill in each entry myself - I use a trusty little LLM to do that for me and then edited away until I liked the results. And I didn’t come up with the method myself: That’s something a Benedict monk taught me in history class as a teenager: The latin phrase quis, quid, ubi, quibus auxiliis, cur, quomodo, quando is 7 questions that can be asked about a historic event. Somehow it got stuck in my head. I’m probably totally wrong about it all, but as far as I remember, it translates roughly as:

• Who?
• What?
• Where?
• Who helped them?
• Why?
• How?
• When?

What follows is a series of d20 tables to provide sparks to get your own brain juices flowing. Roll up on each table. You can even roll twice if you like. Then take a step back, go for a walk and see if you can integrate these idea seeds into a great historic event. Remember, the results here are only supposed to help you come up with ideas: Anything you don’t like, ignore. Use the table to get your imagination all fired up.

I also made a PDF with all these tables rolled into one big table that prints to A4: Historic Event Generator PDF.

Who?

The primary actor(s). Initially, this might give you some ideas of important figures in your world’s history, feel free to swap out some for your own ideas. You can also anchor this roll to a historical figure you already have in mind and would like to add some backstory to.

What?

The nature of their pivotal deed. You’re going to need to fill in the details here. Say you rolled a 3: Seized a forbidden artifact. What artefact? Why was it forbidden? What does it do?

Where?

The key location (abstracted distance/direction).

Who helped them?

Major ally/enabler. Allies, maybe, or sponsors. A god? It’s your story, go nuts. Also, think about the consequences for the ally - are they happy with the outcome? Were they eventually betrayed? Or did they do the betraying?

Swap out boring entries with your worlds factions. Or use these to start your own faction list.

Why?

Their motivation or goal. Spend time on this one. Also, is the protagonist in this story a hero or a villain? Depending on that, you might be inclined to change the motivation, but instead, think about changing their methods instead - a villain is just a hero that’s willing to do anything to achieve their goal.

How?

The method, tactic, or approach used.

When?

An abstract or thematic time period. Use this to seed major events in your world. Or swap out stuff with events you’ve already created.

Using the Results

Suppose you roll a 3 for “Who?” (A nomadic horde chieftain), 10 for “What?” (Stole an ancient prophecy), 17 for “Where?” (A cursed battlefield from ages past), 7 for “With Whose Help?” (A clandestine spy network), 3 for “Why?” (To avert a prophesied apocalypse), 14 for “How?” (Through infiltration and espionage), and 20 for “When?” (On the brink of a prophesied apocalypse).

You end up with:

A nomadic horde chieftain stole an ancient prophecy on a cursed battlefield from ages past with the help of a clandestine spy network, to avert a prophesied apocalypse, by means of infiltration and espionage, all taking place on the brink of a prophesied apocalypse.

For my liking, that’s too much prophesy stuff but since this is a historic event, maybe we’ll just roll with it for now. The idea is to now start to figure out the details:

• Who was the nomadic horde chieftain? Some kind of Gengis Khan style figure, but this story takes place before he becomes famous and at a time when his horde is very vulnerable
• What was the prophesy about? Skip. We’ll get back to that later.
• How do you steal a prophesy? You can’t. But the prophesy could mention some treasure that was lost during the ancient battle.
• The cursed battlefield is the site of a huge battle between humans (the ancestors of the nomadic horde) and the giants that lived in those lands before the horde showed up.
• The giants were Fomorians and the king of the Fomorians spoke a curse just as his head was lopped off by a great hero.
• So the prophesy is actually a curse and the skull of the king of the Fomorians is the seat of that curse.
• What is the nature of the clandestine spy network? I really want it to be ravens! So we’ll add that. Let’s say the actual location of the battlefield has been lost to time.
• The prophesy (loosely translated from Fomorian) goes something like this: “When the last true raven forgets it’s name, I’ll return and with me the endless winter.”
• The horde and the ravens have close ties. The ravens have started to lose their ability to speak - this is the beginning of the Kenku. And the Horde is trying to save both themselves and the ravens.
• The nomadic chieftain and some of his most trusted men infiltrate the swamps that have grown up around the ancient battlefield dressed as hideous figures meant to resemble small Fomorians, to sneak past the inhabitants to gain access to the skull that still repeats the curse every new moon.

I’ll leave the hardest part to you, dear reader. How was the curse lifted? What are the repercussions to this day? How does it affect your campaign?

As you can see, a bunch of lore can be generated quickly from a few rolls of the dice and a little bit of thinking and probing into the results. I’ll be using this to create some historic events to post here soon!