Historical Events - Yearly Events

When creating a sandbox the GM should create some history to make the place real. The color that makes things a bit more believable, that is where Historical Events come in. I would recommend going back at least 5 years to detail history and forward one year. Going forward?

Yes, going forward. The GM knowing what's going to happen in the near future means they can have oracles predict the future, or foreshadow events to create a build-up as the historic event gets closer and closer. Events for the future, if appropriate, should be written up as Events. That is temporary changes to all of the encounter tables including possible associated adventure hooks. This might be part of the foreshadowing, maybe the characters will notice.

Of course not ever Event will change the encounter tables and the GM should be flexible to take character actions into account. If the characters do something that might change or kill the event the GM should do just that no matter how much work went into preparing the thing.

These following tables assumes a 12 month calendar with four seasons of three months each. You can make a more alien world but it's really not worth the bother, even Tolkien used the well known months in the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings.

Yearly Events
Yearly Events are events that take place on the national level. That is the kingdom, emperor or whatever.  Everyone in the realm, and in the neighboring realms as well. Whenever reasonably possible the GM should try to link the events and/or reorder them to make sense.

• Roll 1d4 to determine how many events occur each year.

Then for each event:

1. Roll 1d12 to determine which month
2. Roll 1d8 on the Event table
3. Roll1d6 on the Table the corresponds to the result of Event table.

Table 1: Events Table

1d8	Event
01	Noble Business
02	Natural Disaster
03	Peace
04	Peace
05	Religious
06	War
07	War
08	War

Table 2: Noble Business

1d6	Event
01	Birth
02	Death
03	Feud
04	Marriage
05	Scandal
06	Visitation

 

Table 3: Natural Disaster

1d6	Event
01	Earthquake
02	Famine
03	Fire
04	Heat Wave
05	Plague
06	Storms

Table 3: Peace

1d6	Event
01	Nothing Happens
02	Nothing Happens
03	Nothing Happens
04	Ruins Discovered
05	Fashion Trend sweeps the nation
06	Trade Route Opens

Table 3: Religious Events

1d6	Event
01	Major Celebration
02	Minor Celebration
03	Inquisition
04	New Leader
05	Heretical Leader
06	Purge/Schism

Table 4: War

1d6	Event
01	Civil War (Nobles fighting)
02	Dynastic War (Royals fighting)
03	Holy War (Recruiting/Crusade)
04	Peasant Revolt/Uprising
05	War, invading other
06	War, Invaded by others

When creating a bunch of events it helps if the GM has a list of names appropriate for nobles as well as the name of the realm, Shire/County/ and settlement.