D&D: Five Ominous Portents for Ushering in a Spooktacular Age of Darkness
Want to instill your D&D game with a sense of dread foreboding? Reach for these ominous portents; show a hint of future terror.
There is nothing quite as terrifying as the doom you know is coming but can do little about. That’s why fantasy stories are littered with ancient prophecies. Or mystic omens.
We fear what we don’t understand. And for better or worse we don’t understand what the future will bring us. This is why there have been different sorts of seers in humanity for centuries. Whether you turn to cards, the intestines of birds, the stars, or the stock market trends to try and divine the future, all we can ever get are cryptic clues.
But that’s perfect for D&D. Where a single glimpse of things to come not only instills a sense of urgency (oh no we have to prevent the bad thing OR oh no we have to get the good thing first). But it creates that most desired of all fantasies: that the DM actually has a plan for what’s happening.
Lookin’ at you, Tarokka deck
Prophecies and portents build immersion even as they create an atmosphere of foreboding. It can be super easy to use one. You don’t have to know everything ahead of time. You just need to create the right mood.
All you really need is an ominous event. Both the real world and fiction hold plenty of examples of this. Whether it’s seeing a skull in the bottom of tea leaves, discovering drowned birds, or simply hearing a haunting voice that you swear whispered your name, here are a few ominous portents you can use to heighten the mystery in your game.
Green Star Blazing
A green star rises in the night sky, one winter’s night. A local wizard or sage wants to study it, but under its baleful light, there’s an aura of dread. To keep up the hints that this star is portending something, you might have all the lights in a nearby place turn flickering and green just for a moment. Or have a haze of green light—like out-of-season aurora borealis, localized entirely around a particular area, and leave your players wondering what it means.
The Flight of Birds
A flock of birds is a classic omen, and this one is no different. As the characters approach a new area, wandering through a forest, a flight of birds takes off from the nearby trees, cawing. Their cries break an otherwise gloomy silence, and something about the way they move suggests imminent danger.
The Sudden Cold
Are the characters in a warm place? They’ll be wondering what’s about to happen when the temperature around them drops, suddenly. Be sure and describe the sudden chill, and how their breath seems to linger in the air. Ramp up the melodrama with this one, and you’ll be sure to hook them in.
The Comet’s Twin
Everything’s 27% more ominous with a murder comet
Comets are always an omen, no matter what happens, someone out there is predicting something based on their movements. But the comet the PCs see soaring over their heads stands out—it’s no ordinary comet. As they watch, it splits, and they can see a fragment of the comet blazing red against the sky.
The Unasked-For Eclipse
Eclipses are predictable things, right? So what happens when a freak astrological event occurs and sudden darkness washes across the land in a localized area? Is it the work of sorcery, or a hint of things to come? We leave that up to you.
Next time you want to set the mood, reach for one of these omens. Happy adventuring!
