I heard it through the grapevine

Ever needed to come up with a convincing ‘old’ legend to be connected with a given site or location, in very short time? This is how you do it. Once you’ve rolled a couple of dice and have the essentials written down, filling out the details shouldn’t be too hard. I’ll walk you through the process step by step, so don’t be frightened because the tables appear first. It’s easy! Honest!

Table 1: When (d8)

1	People Still Talk About It	This event is as recent as to still be in recall. Data can be found at the library, checking out last years’ headlines, or through interviews with anyone with an interest in what happens in the local community – whether that’s the vicar or the gossiping neighbor’s wife.
2	We Don’t Talk About That	This event is as recent as to have witnesses still bearing emotional (or physical) scars of it. They don’t want to talk about it yet. In a decade or two they may have had enough sessions with their therapist to open up.
3	Old People Still Talk About It	This event is as recent as to be in memory of old folks. Information can be found in obscure places – church annals, memoirs, and interviews conducted at the old folks’ home.
4	Grandma Used to Talk About It	This event dates about a century back. Maybe a little less, maybe a little more. It is of as recent occasion as to allow older people to recall their parents or grandparents mentioning it. The chance of anyone actually being alive to tell about is nearly non-existent. The event has not yet passed into local legend, but it’s well on its way there.
5	The Tale Is Still Being Told	This event dates more than a century back. It is still being talked about to inquiring strangers, connected with memorial stones or places, or being used as a funny story to entertain guests with. People may claim that their ancestors were involved, and that they own items that were used.
6	There Used To Be a Tale…	Old folks and others with an interest recall that there is some obscure old story or other connected to the site in question. If more thorough research is done, actual information may be acquired.
7	There Is a Story, But…	This event dates as far back as to have passed into local legend. The most precise dating you can get goes down the track of ‘in the days of good King Christian’, ‘a long time ago’, and ‘back when we were still pagans’.
8	What Is All This About?	This event dates so far back that no one has ever heard of it. Finding information comes through finding obscure slips of parchment at the museum, through graffiti on church walls, rune stones being translated into modern language and so on.

Table 2: Where (d8)

1	The Concealed Room	There is somewhere not evident from the floor plan, a hidden or concealed room of small size. This would be the room in the wall in which a maiden was trapped with her baby born outside wedlock; the secret treasury built in haste when the Moors were coming, or the room that was simply forgotten. Some past owner erected a wall and no one in more recent ages considered the possibility that there could be something behind it.
2	The Tower	This can be an actual tower on an old building, manor, or castle. It can be an attic, a platform atop a building, a balcony, and so on. Its function is not immediately evident and it seems to have been built mostly to impress the local peasantry (or a rival architect).
3	The Moat	Though most buildings from the 20th century rarely have moats, it should be no problem to find a moor or duck pond somewhere close by to serve a similar function. The moat, whether actually a moat or the local park pond, is where the ghost drowned. It may have walked into the moat intentionally to die, or have been drowned forcibly. Maybe it simply slipped when there was no one around to help it back out of the water.
4	The Ballroom	A ghost having died in the ballroom most likely died dramatically. A jealous lover shot him on his wedding night or poisoned the wedding cup. An enraged father died from cardiac arrest before being able to surrender and offer his blessings. Or, to borrow from classic folklore, a supernatural or ghostly entity appeared at the ball, dancing the prettiest girl to death.
5	The Street	This can be any street, from the local highway to a shady alley. The ghost may have been shot or stabbed to death there. It can have died from something as mundane as a poor heart. The event is remembered because people began referring to the road in question by the ghost’s name. Peter’s Road or Blackfriar Alley could be two different names might tell a stranger that a Paulite monk named Peter somehow died there, or that a homicidal named Peter lived there until the Inquisition caught him.
6	The Crypt	The ghost may have died by various horrible means in the crypt. It could also simply be haunting the crypt because it’s the only part of the building of his own era that is still standing. Leaning in on Poe for a moment, we have the man who was buried alive, — but we could also be dealing with a grave robber who was killed by a greedy partner, or who simply tripped and broke his neck. We could be facing the family ancestor who is looking after the entire family’s affairs. Or the most recently deceased family member who forgot to say something important before his heart gave out.
7	The Catacombs	This site does not belong to just one castle or manor. It is a huge maze like the Parisian les Innocentes or the catacombs of Rome. This place contains just about as many stories as there are graves – or more. There may also be the grave robber who could not find his way back out. The revolutionary who was killed when the hideout was discovered. The smugglers, the bandits, the raiders, the foreign spies, and so on. Almost any story can be applied to the catacombs – if it ever happened, it probably happened here.
8	The Opera	This site can be any large public building which houses a lot of people regularly; an opera, a theater, a city hall, a library, and so on. As goes for the Catacombs, just about any story can be connected to it. The main difference is that the Opera is still being frequented (as opposed to the Catacombs), and whatever did happen most likely had a big audience. If the site is haunted, there are probably a good deal of sightings, tales, and rumors about the ghost. This can be extremely difficult to find heads and tails of.

Table 3: What (d8)

1	She Leapt From the Highest Tower	A resident of the site took his or her own life in a dramatic fashion. The ghost is still said to haunt the site and can sometimes be sighted as he or she drifts across the courtyard, walks into the moat, falls from the tower, or whatever. The ghost appears to be completely oblivious of his or her surroundings and any spectators.
2	Meet Me When the Sun is in the Western Sky	The residents of nearby regions found reason to get together and do something about someone who resided at the site in question. This could be a peasant revolt, a band of robbers arriving to burn and loot and pillage, foreign troops, parents on the hunt for Freddy Krueger, and so on. The battle, the murder, or maybe merely a shrill sensation of dread is still evident, through sightings, sounds, or voices lingering on the evening air. Battle noises and the screams of the dying and wounded men and horses may still be heard.
3	Death Before Dishonor	A past resident of the site in question learned that he or she was about to be caught red-handed in treason, whether against the family, the firm, or even the country. Consequently, he or she took his or her own life, choosing death before dishonor. There may be a pool of blood in the library where he or she shot him- or herself to death, an ethereal corpse floating in the moat, or merely a shrill sensation of despair in the room where the traitor’s life ended.
4	The Castle of Bluebeard	This is the tale of some horrible forebear or other who lived at the site in question (who knows? Maybe even the real Bluebeard, Gilles de Rais?), ruling with an iron fist and being hated by his subjects. There will be a myriad of tales of what he did and how, one more gruesome than the other. Mothers frighten their children with threats like ‘if you don’t eat your vegetables Bluebeard will come get you’. Problem is, the man – or more likely, someone suffering heavy delusions – may still be there, with plans of a glorious return to power.
5	Kill the Vermin	This is essentially the tale of getting rid of minority no one wanted to have around. This could be the stoning of Jews, the hanging of unfortunate strangers who looked wrong, the execution of people with alternate religious convictions, and so on.
6	Old Nick Came For Him	At some point, someone lived there who had a very nasty reputation. As he vanished tracelessly (perhaps making off to somewhere else with lots of money), the people explained his absence as him being taken by the Devil. This tale can be a bit on the folkloristic side, but still it contains a core of truth. It might also work well with animals or monsters.
7	The Moddey Dhoo	This is a tale of omens. Whenever someone is about to die or just have died, or suffer from a severe case of bad fortune, a black dog (or other sinister entity) appears. It is visible either just to a few or to everyone, and causes great distress in the locals. It could also be the church bells ringing on their own, a distant battle drum sounding at midnight, a white lady standing on the newly deceased person’s doorstep, or on the battlements — anything goes.
8	Fortune is a two-edged Sword	This is the story of an item, which is very attractive and very valuable – and cursed. Like the Koh-I-Noor diamond, which is said to kill anyone who steals it, this item brings bad fortune to its owners. It reappears every time someone has succeeded in getting rid of it, looking for some new greedy fool. It will usually reappear in a certain place — like a specific table or shelf — and will be ignored entirely by the local folks who know its story. This does not mean that the stupid tourist does not grab it.

Table 4: What To Do (d8)

1	Pass On To My Children What Was Once Mine	In this case, something or someone must be brought to a specific place or person in order for the dread story to come to an end and justice to be done.
2	Kill the King!	This tale calls for justice to be done. A tyrant or villain must be removed from the ranks of the living on order for the entity to find peace (or the cursed item to be destroyed).
3	Clear My Name and Restore My Honor	A crime must be solved and a name must be cleared. Peter did not do it – but you have to prove that, and what’s worse, you have to convince the authorities, or the mob with sharp sticks and torches, that he didn’t do it.
4	Bury Me in Hallowed Ground	This is the folklore classic of the dead sailor jumping onto the back of anyone passing by, demanding to be carried to hallowed ground. Or of anyone else in need of a proper burial.
5	Whodunit?	In this case there is a need to blame someone. Who was this Peter character anyway, and what exactly did he do? For some reason, perhaps just that some amateur archeologist has hired the characters to sort out a historical mystery, they must find out as much as possible about it. Even when this just proves that there is really nothing scary about it.
6	Bury Me in Hallowed Ground — in Poughkeepsie	This is another variety of the classic ghost wanting a proper burial. The characters have to not only find the remains and notify the priest, but also to do something else which is not immediately apparent (but which will make sense later on).
7	Kill the Beast!	In this story the mob with the sticks and the torches were right. Did the characters find out in time, or are they burned for helping the villain escape? This is a no redemption scenario: There is a monster or a villain, and a dirty job to be done.
8	Damned if You Do, Damned if You Don’t	This tragic tale has no conclusion. Nothing that the characters do will ever have any effect. But they may be a good while in realizing that.

Getting the Dice Rolled and the Stories Told

Now we’re ready to try out an example of how these tables actually work. Rolling randomly, we get the following results:

(7) There is a Story, But…
(5) The Street
(2) Meet Me When the Sun is in the Western Sky
and (6) Bury Me in Hallowed Ground

Here we go. We decide that the scenario will be set at least 300 years back in time. The tale is still being told in specific circles – at the local museum. As the event took place in a street, we decide that whatever it was, it was horrible (this fits well with the 2 on the What table). We might as well have museum occupy a house in the street that was named after the event later on.

Okay. So we need the actual event. Since we found ourselves dealing with a situation that called for mob retaliation we have to have an event that introduced a major villain or other hated person – in order to inspire such a mob to retaliate. Let’s agree that he was a mass murderer.

We have to place a street somewhere in the story. We decide that he lived there, in the very building that is now a museum. Let’s call him Andropoulos – and now we have the street name too, Andropoulos Street.

We need an event that would outrage the locals. How about child murders? This leaves us with a homicidal sicko who went out at night to abduct kids, bring them home, chop them up and bury them in the basement. Finally he was tracked down and torched by the outraged parents.

The scenario hook will obviously be the reports of voices, children’s cries and shuffling feet in the basement of the museum. In order to put these disturbances to an end, the characters must discover the body and have them buried in hallowed ground.

Let’s try this again. We roll the following:

(8) What Is This All About?
(2) The Tower
(1) She Leapt From the Highest Tower
And (7) Kill the Beast!

This is obviously a tale that occurred a very long time ago. The daughter of someone in a high position (lord, king, chief, whatever) got into trouble. We decide that she met a roguish nobleman (our villain) who got her with child. To avoid the shame she took her own life by leaping from the western tower. Now she haunts the place.

This leaves us with one unanswered roll: the killing of the beast. So we decide that somehow, the villain is ALSO haunting the castle. The characters have to figure out that there are in fact more than one ghost present. They need to find out what happened. And they need to put the villain’s ghost to rest, if necessary by force –read: exorcise him. Only then can the unhappy mother find peace as well.

Now we’ve spent ten minutes making four die rolls and ended up with two storylines that only need a little flesh on the bones to go. Voila!