GM Guide · Mar de Oro
Handbook
The Golden Sea harbour at night beneath three moons, tall sailing ships at anchor and a lamplit waterfront city.

GM Tools

Mar de Oro GM Tables

Fast generators and reference tables for people, ports, associations, cargo, rumours, encounters, factions, and Fortera signs.

Roll a d12, generate a combination, or choose what fits.

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How to use these tables

Roll a d12, read down the list, or simply choose what fits. These tables exist to keep the world moving without a pause. They provide ingredients, not outcomes: connect the result to what is already true, let the players act, and let consequences follow the fiction.

Moon phases are planned, not rolled

The three moons belong to the campaign calendar. Their established phases and effects should be prepared from that timeline. This reference never randomises when lunar effects occur.

Fast combinations

NPC
name + role + want + leverage
Association
association + current pressure + association leverage
Port
place name + port character + association + rumour
Session Spark
NPC or association + job + complication
Cargo
cargo + why it is hidden

Quick actions

Each button composes one result from the published tables below. Everything runs in your browser; nothing is stored or sent anywhere.

The selected pool determines every generated name, including the place or establishment name produced by Generate Port. Pools are never mixed. Golden Sea Creole, Port & Island Communities remains the natural choice for mixed or mobile port communities.

Results appear here. You can also read or roll any table directly below.

The published tables

Fifteen d12 tables, exactly as printed. Roll, read down the list, or simply choose what fits.

Occupations & Roles

Roll when a named person needs an immediate place in the world. This says what the person does here, not what kind of character they are.

Occupations & Roles: twelve d12 results
d12Result
1Harbour pilot, navigator, or local route-guide.
2Sailor, gunner, marine, or deck officer.
3Shipwright, rigger, carpenter, or yard worker.
4Engineer, regulator technician, or Éterlumin specialist.
5Factor, broker, merchant agent, or clerk.
6Customs officer, harbour official, inspector, or registrar.
7Physician, surgeon, apothecary, or field medic.
8Priest, lay religious worker, teacher, or charitable organiser.
9Surveyor, cartographer, naturalist, scholar, or translator.
10Hunter, fisher, guide, courier, or frontier hand.
11Soldier, veteran, watch officer, or hired guard.
12Smuggler, fixer, informer, thief, or deniable intermediary.

NPC Wants

Roll when you know who someone is but need to know why they care.

NPC Wants: twelve d12 results
d12Result
1Enough money to solve an immediate problem.
2Safe passage for themselves or someone else.
3Protection from a person, faction, or institution.
4Information they cannot obtain openly.
5Someone found, recovered, or brought home.
6A debt forgiven, transferred, delayed, or collected.
7Recognition, rank, legitimacy, or restored reputation.
8Revenge, preferably without being seen to take it.
9Evidence exposed, recovered, or destroyed.
10Access to a person, place, ship, archive, or institution.
11Their family, crew, community, or association kept out of the consequences.
12To know whether something they fear is actually true.

NPC Leverage

What makes this person useful, dangerous, or worth dealing with?

NPC Leverage: twelve d12 results
d12Result
1Reliable local information.
2An introduction to someone difficult to reach.
3Passage, transport, or a berth aboard a vessel.
4Safe lodging, concealment, or a discreet meeting place.
5Credit, coin, supplies, or favourable terms.
6Skilled labour, repair capacity, or technical expertise.
7Documents, seals, testimony, or administrative access.
8A pilot, guide, scout, interpreter, or specialist.
9Political or institutional cover.
10Evidence, correspondence, charts, or records.
11Access to somewhere outsiders normally cannot enter.
12A favour owed by someone more powerful than they are.

Associations & Local Institutions

These are types of organisation, not twelve universal named factions. A pilots’ house in one port is not automatically the same institution as one elsewhere.

Associations & Local Institutions: twelve d12 results
d12Result
1Pilots’ house controlling local navigation knowledge.
2Harbour council representing dockside interests.
3Yard brotherhood of shipwrights, riggers, and labourers.
4Mariners’ mutual-aid confraternity.
5Independent carriers’ association.
6Rescue and salvage society.
7Factor house or merchants’ consortium.
8Surveyors’, engineers’, or instrument-makers’ society.
9Road-Keeper lodge or local route network.
10Religious charitable house or lay confraternity.
11Veterans’, widows’, or dependants’ association.
12Quiet political, resistance, or mutual-protection network.

Association Pressure

Roll with an association to find out why it matters now.

Association Pressure: twelve d12 results
d12Result
1Its charter, licence, or right to operate is being challenged.
2A member has disappeared, deserted, or been detained.
3Someone powerful has called in a debt or favour.
4A rival organisation has gained official backing.
5It needs something dangerous done without appearing involved.
6Its records contain information someone wants destroyed.
7A respected member is accused of betrayal or corruption.
8The route, trade, harbour, or resource it depends on has become unsafe.
9Its members are divided over cooperation with a foreign power.
10It needs protection but cannot publicly ask for it.
11It controls access to something another faction urgently needs.
12It is preparing collective action: strike, refusal, protest, blockade, evacuation, or defiance.

Association Leverage

What can a local association actually do for the characters?

Association Leverage: twelve d12 results
d12Result
1Local knowledge no official chart records.
2Skilled workers or an experienced crew.
3Introductions across the harbour or town.
4Storage, workshops, safe rooms, or meeting space.
5Credit, supplies, or access to scarce goods.
6Pilots, guides, couriers, or interpreters.
7Collective testimony or witnesses.
8Access to records, ledgers, manifests, or technical notes.
9Political pressure through members or patrons.
10Quiet transport of people or goods.
11The ability to slow, obstruct, or stop local work.
12A connection to an institution much more powerful than the association itself.

Port Character

Roll once when a harbour needs to feel like a place rather than a backdrop.

Port Character: twelve d12 results
d12Result
1Military inspection is unusually strict; ships queue under armed observation.
2A recent Éterlumin discovery has filled the harbour with speculators, labourers, and opportunists.
3Storm damage has left piers, warehouses, and vessels under hurried repair.
4Refugees or displaced crews have crowded every cheap room and unused warehouse.
5A labour dispute has slowed loading, repairs, and harbour traffic.
6A foreign squadron is visiting, and everyone is watching everyone else.
7A feast, holy observance, election, procession, or public ceremony has transformed normal routines.
8An accident or unexplained loss has made sailors reluctant to leave harbour.
9Trade is booming, prices are rising, and every berth is contested.
10Trade has collapsed; warehouses are full and creditors are nervous.
11Two authorities claim overlapping jurisdiction and disagree publicly.
12Everything appears normal, but people keep lowering their voices before saying why it is not.

Jobs & Offers

Roll when someone has a reason to put work in front of the crew.

Jobs & Offers: twelve d12 results
d12Result
1Escort a person, vessel, or cargo through dangerous territory.
2Find someone who was expected and never arrived.
3Recover property, evidence, cargo, or a vessel before someone else does.
4Survey a route, island, reef, ruin, Source site, or disputed boundary.
5Carry something discreetly past an authority that would ask questions.
6Verify whether a rumour, report, chart, or accusation is true.
7Protect a meeting, witness, delegation, work crew, or negotiation.
8Sabotage, disable, delay, or expose something without creating open war.
9Salvage a wreck or abandoned site before ownership is settled.
10Deliver an offer, warning, demand, pardon, or ultimatum.
11Find the cause of a mechanical, Fortera, environmental, or logistical failure.
12Get someone or something out before authorities, weather, an enemy, or a phenomenon closes the route.

Cargo

What is in the hold?

Cargo: twelve d12 results
d12Result
1Éterlumin in transport vessels, poorly maintained or unusually valuable.
2Charts, soundings, survey notes, or navigational observations.
3Religious goods, vestments, books, ceremonial objects, or authenticated relics.
4Powder, shot, firearms, artillery components, or military stores.
5A passenger whose presence is absent from the manifest.
6Sealed letters, dispatches, ledgers, codes, or diplomatic papers.
7Fortera-embedded tools, instruments, ammunition, or objects.
8Ordinary commercial cargo with one crate conspicuously different from the rest.
9Salvage recovered from a wreck, ruin, battlefield, or abandoned vessel.
10Medicines, specimens, surgical material, or research equipment.
11Valuable but perfectly ordinary trade goods.
12A living specimen, animal, organism, or phenomenon someone believes can be transported safely.

Why It Is Hidden

What counts as contraband depends on the port, flag, charter, ownership, and current politics. The same cargo may be ordinary trade under one authority and grounds for seizure under another.

Why It Is Hidden: twelve d12 results
d12Result
1Import duty or harbour tax has not been paid.
2The cargo is legal, but its owner is not supposed to possess it.
3It was stolen, seized, or salvaged under disputed circumstances.
4Its destination is forbidden even though the cargo itself is legal.
5Wartime or emergency law makes it subject to seizure.
6Someone falsified its origin to conceal who supplied it.
7The cargo would expose espionage, surveying, or an undeclared military operation.
8Its condition is unsafe and an honest inspection would stop the voyage.
9Another claimant holds papers proving it belongs to them.
10Moving it would embarrass an institution that officially denies involvement.
11The cargo is completely legal; the concealment protects the person receiving it.
12Customs are supposed to discover it. The hidden cargo is bait, cover, or misdirection.

Port Rumours

Roll when the party reaches a new harbour, drinks somewhere, or asks around. Some are true, some are bait, most are half-right. That is the point.

Port Rumours: twelve d12 results
d12Result
1A ship came in with her lift chamber sealed and her crew forbidden to speak of the crossing.
2The customs officer at the next quay can be paid to look the other way, but the price rose after someone talked.
3A Valdegracian synod ship is anchored offshore and no one has been allowed aboard.
4There is Éterlumin for sale below assay price. Below assay price always means something.
5A colony three days’ sail east has gone quiet. No signals, no ships out, no reason given.
6An Albion officer is asking after a name, and the name belongs to someone drinking in this room.
7Three different crews swear they saw the same unmarked cutter enter harbour on three different nights, yet no berthmaster recorded it.
8A chart is circulating that marks a reef where there was open water a year ago.
9Someone paid a hunter’s crew in advance to guide them inland and they have not come back.
10A factor house is calling in old debts all at once, and no one knows who told it to.
11A ship’s physician from Eisenmark is treating something the local doctors will not name.
12The relay tower on the headland failed at the same hour three nights running.

Complications

Roll when a scene is going too smoothly, when a plan needs a wrinkle, or when the world should push back. Escalate from the fiction already in play.

Complications: twelve d12 results
d12Result
1The wind or the lift fails at the worst moment and the vessel loses way, altitude, or steering.
2Someone present recognises a character: an old debt, an old crime, an old face from another flag.
3A faction the party wronged has arrived first and is already talking to the people they needed.
4The papers are wrong. A seal, a name, or a stamp does not match, and someone official notices.
5Powder is damp, a key is missing, a tool is broken. The thing they were counting on will not work.
6A signal meant for someone else is mistaken for the party’s, drawing attention from exactly the wrong people.
7An ally’s loyalty is tested by a better offer, and they hesitate long enough for it to matter.
8A bystander is caught in the middle, a child, a servant, a stranger, and cannot simply be ignored.
9The quiet way in is watched. What was meant to be unseen has a witness who must be dealt with.
10A rival is running the same job for a different patron and the two crews meet in the same corridor.
11Weather turns: fog swallows the signals, or a storm forces a choice between speed and safety.
12The truth they came for is real, but so is the reason someone buried it, and that reason is here.

Harbour & Sea Encounters

Roll for a chance meeting in port, on the water, or in the sky. Some are people, some are the Golden Sea itself.

Harbour & Sea Encounters: twelve d12 results
d12Result
1A becalmed or grounded ship signalling for aid, honestly or as a lure.
2A naval patrol of one of the powers, bored, thorough, or looking for a specific ship.
3A hunter’s boat working a reef that turns out not to be a reef.
4A drifting boat, empty but for signs its crew left in a hurry, or did not leave at all.
5A rival crew or privateer, weighing whether the party is prey, peer, or problem.
6A missionary or synod vessel, offering blessing, asking questions, or both.
7A pod of sky rays or something larger crossing the vessel’s path, indifferent and immense.
8A factor’s launch coming out to meet the ship before it has even docked, with an offer.
9A colony boat trading fresh water and news for coin, and the news is worth more.
10Wreckage and survivors from a fight that just happened over the horizon.
11A Fortera-disturbed creature moves through the water or fog, drawn toward the vessel’s active systems.
12Another flag entirely, far from where it should be, and pretending it is not.

Faction Moves

Roll between sessions, or when the party has been idle, to advance the living world. The faction most affected by recent events acts first.

Faction Moves: twelve d12 results
d12Result
1A power tightens control of a chokepoint, harbour, channel, or relay, and fees or searches rise.
2A quiet purge: someone inconvenient is reassigned, arrested, or lost at sea.
3An alliance shifts. Two flags that were cool are suddenly cooperating, or two friends have fallen out.
4A public accusation, a synod charge, a scandal, a denouncement, forces people to take sides.
5A power moves military weight into the region: a squadron, a garrison, a ship of the line.
6An Éterlumin deposit is claimed, stripped, or fought over, and prices lurch.
7A debt is called, a charter revoked, a favour demanded, catching someone the party knows.
8Intelligence changes hands. Someone now knows something they should not, and it points at the party.
9A power sponsors the party’s rival, or their enemy, giving them ships, coin, or licence.
10A reformer or hardliner gains ground inside a faction, and its behaviour shifts accordingly.
11A colony asserts itself against its metropole, and the archipelago holds its breath.
12Something the party did earlier bears fruit, for good or ill, in a place they did not expect.

Fortera & Source Signs

Use when a Fortera working, active system, Source site, old machine, or retained pattern needs a sign. These are clues and pressures, not explanations. Lunar effects are deliberately absent: moon phases are planned from the campaign calendar.

Fortera & Source Signs: twelve d12 results
d12Result
1Lanterns, lift-glow, or signal lights dim and flare out of sequence, as if a nearby system is drawing on the field.
2An embedding nearing the end of its useful life stirs and faintly reproduces the working bound into it.
3Two instruments that should agree settle on the same impossible reading.
4A trusted calibration drifts. A regulator, resonator, or signal instrument begins to lie.
5Something in the water, ruins, or fog answers a signal no one meant to send.
6A source-marked object or surface responds to a familiar voice, touch, rhythm, or repeated action.
7An old site, a drowned choir, or a source-marked ruin reacts to the party’s presence or Fortera practice.
8A reading comes back impossible: too much, too little, or a pattern that should not exist.
9A retained human pattern reproduces a remembered voice, gesture, or candle-song with unsettling precision.
10Containment fails: pressure vents, active Éterlumin ignites, usable reserve is lost, or a connected system is damaged.
11A recently repaired system returns to the same miscalibration, as if something external keeps pulling it out of agreement.
12The underlying pattern shows through for a heartbeat, and everyone who saw it disagrees on what it was.

Names of the Golden Sea

The final eight landscape pages contain one naming pool per culture or community. Use the local pool when you want a name to suggest local origin. Mix freely for migrants, mixed families, sailors, traders, cosmopolitan ports, or anyone whose history crosses borders. Given names are grouped by traditional masculine and feminine usage for quick reference; use either column whenever it fits the person in front of the players.

Valdegracia

The Mother-Crown. Formal, Solarian-inflected, cedar and cathedral. Surnames often carry territorial markers such as de or del.

Valdegracia naming pool: given names, surnames, ship names and places
d12Given (masc.)Given (fem.)SurnameShipPlace / Establishment
1AlonsoBeatrizde SoláJusticia del AlbaBoca Serena
2ReyesInésCostesiusNuestra Señora del VientoCasa del Fielato
3HernánCatalinade la VegaSanta AureliaEl Cedral
4DiegoMencíaGuzmán del RíoEspada de OroMuelle de los Reyes
5BartoloméLeonorOrdóñezCorona SerenaTaberna del Ancla Rota
6RodrigoXimenaSalcedoEl InquisidorPlaza del Sínodo
7CristóbalIsabelade AlmazánVoz de ValdegraciaFuerte San Amadeo
8ÍñigoConsueloPerezziAlma de CedroCalle de los Faroles
9SebastiánAldonzaMontalvoTrueno SagradoEl Almazén
10GasparEstrellade HellerLa PeregrinaPosada de la Estrella
11LorenzoPalomaArandaFénix de SalPuerto Viejo
12AmadeoSerafinadel CerroGuardián del SurCuesta del Humo

Albion

The Naval Crown. Understated, mercantile, quietly intelligent. Plain strong surnames, sober ship names.

Albion naming pool: given names, surnames, ship names and places
d12Given (masc.)Given (fem.)SurnameShipPlace / Establishment
1EdmundAdelaideAshcombeResoluteNew Avalon
2RowlandWinifredThornbyWatchfulThe Correspondent's Rest
3PercivalCordeliaKetteringSteadfastCustom House Quay
4OswaldPrudenceHarrowgateVigilanceHarrow Street
5SilasRosamundBlackwoodNightingaleThe King's Reach
6AmbroseMillicentFenwickBulwarkFenwick & Sons
7ThaddeusBeatriceMarloweSovereign's WordThe Split Anchor
8CrispinHonoriaStapletonTempestGovernor's Row
9ReginaldVerityRedversGriffinOld Dock
10BartholomewClemencyAinsworthIndomitableThe Marlowe Rooms
11GideonAugustaCorbetSparrowhawkCutter's Lane
12AlistairMargueriteWystanRedoubtBeacon Hill

Stroomdijk

Company holdings, ledgers and returns. Mercantile, blunt, water-engineering. Surnames often carry van or van der.

Stroomdijk naming pool: given names, surnames, ship names and places
d12Given (masc.)Given (fem.)SurnameShipPlace / Establishment
1JoostGrietjevan der VeldeFortuynNieuw Waterland
2CornelisAaltjeKuiperZwarte MeeuwHet Kantoor
3WillemMarykevan DijkWinstgevendKadewacht
4BartholdCorneliaOckerseDe StandvastigeDe Gebroken Kiel
5DirkTrijntjeBlokWaterhondCompagnie Plein
6ReynierWilhelminavan LeeuwenGouden BalansSluiswachtershuis
7HendrikSaskiaTerhorstNachtwachtDe Natte Duit
8MaartenFemkeBrouwerZeeslangPakhuis Negen
9SanderNeeltjevan der MeerDe RekeningVossenlaan
10GovertJohannaVosStormvogelHet Wisselkantoor
11LucasGrietClaeszDiepgangHavenzicht
12RoelofAnnekeRavensbergenDe VoorzienigheidDe Lantaarn

Luminore

The Republican colony. Rationalist, formal, attentive to record. Elegant, precise ship and place names.

Luminore naming pool: given names, surnames, ship names and places
d12Given (masc.)Given (fem.)SurnameShipPlace / Establishment
1AurélienCélestineDuvernoisLa Lumière ViveNouvelle Lumière
2BastienAméliede CharmeVent d’AubeLe Bureau des Registres
3ThibaultRosalieLariviereL'Esprit RépublicainQuai des Lanternes
4ÉmileAdélaïdeBeaumontÉtoile du SudL'Ancre Fendue
5GaspardLéonieFontaineLa RaisonPlace de la Raison
6LéandreSabineRocheteauLe CormoranMaison Duvernois
7SéverinVivienned'AubignyVent d'AzurLe Sel et l'Encre
8FlorentHortenseMarchandLa SentinelleRue des Fanaux
9MariusMargueriteVasseurFoudre ClaireL'Octroi
10OctaveSolèneLenoirL'Encre et le SelAuberge de l'Étoile
11ThéodorePhilippinede CréquiLa VoyageuseVieux Port
12ValentinOndineSauvterreÉclat de SelCôte du Cormoran

Eisenmark

No colony; individuals of competence. Engineers, scholars, ships’ physicians. Hard consonants, precise compounds.

Eisenmark naming pool: given names, surnames, ship names and places
d12Given (masc.)Given (fem.)SurnameShipPlace / Establishment
1KonradAdelheidEisenbergEisenwilleEisenkontor
2ReinhardtGudrunvon WaldheimDer PrüfsteinDie Prüfhalle
3WilhelmWilhelmineSchreiberNordwachtZahnradgasse
4OttoBrunhildGrünwaldZahnradZum Zerbrochenen Kiel
5GerhardtElsbethBachmeierSturmglückGelehrtenplatz
6LudwigKunigundeSteinhauerDer IngenieurKellermanns Werkstatt
7AnselmHedwigRitterhausAschenkielDer Windmesser
8DietrichRoswithaVogelsangWindmesserLampengasse
9FriedhelmOttilieKellermannDer GrundsatzDas Kontor
10KasparMargarethevon LindtFeuerhandGasthaus zum Stern
11BrunoFriedaDrechslerKlarwindAlthafen
12EmmerichIsoldeKastnerDer WächterRauchsteig

Volkharov

No colony; it watches. Survey vessels, missions, diplomats with unexplained mandates. Cold, purposeful.

Volkharov naming pool: given names, surnames, ship names and places
d12Given (masc.)Given (fem.)SurnameShipPlace / Establishment
1MiroslavZlataVolkharovNedremlyushchiyThe Volkharov Mission
2YefimMiroslavaZerentsovZvezda SeveraDozor House
3RadomirVasilisaBogdanovichVernyy VzorNorthwind Quay
4StanislavRadostMiretskyKholodny VeterThe Silent Bell
5BogdanYaroslavaRadomirovStrazhWatcher's Row
6VsevolodBogdanaZvonarevMolchanieVetrov's Lodge
7PostnikLyudmilaOstrovskyDobraya VolyaThe Salt Road
8OstapZvezdanaChernikovSerp NebaLampovaya Lane
9LavrentiSvetlanaYaropolkinTikhiy GromThe Consulate
10YaropolkNadezhdaZablonskyVestnikStar Inn
11ZakharMilenaVetrovDozornyyCold Harbor
12DobromirVesnaSolovetsSolyanoy PutSmoke Rise

Éirighdún

Holds no territory; factor houses everywhere. The closest thing to neutral ground. Traders, brokers, go-betweens.

Éirighdún naming pool: given names, surnames, ship names and places
d12Given (masc.)Given (fem.)SurnameShipPlace / Establishment
1CormacSorchaÓ BraonáinAn Réalt SiarÉirighdúnari Factor House
2FionnbarrGráinneMac CárthaighCuan FadaThe Broker's Table
3RuairíAoifeNí ÉirighIolar na MaraLong Quay
4DiarmuidNualaÓ FaoláinAn IdirghabhálaíThe Middle Ground
5ÉamonnRíonáMac TíreGaoth AduaidhSalt Merchants' Row
6LorcánÉabhaÓ CeallaighAn Fhírinnede Búrca & Co.
7TadhgSadhbhde BúrcaLong na SalainnThe Quiet Light
8OisínCaoimheÓ RiainCormoránLantern Lane
9CathalDeirbhileMac an BháirdAn ChóirThe Counting Room
10FearghalMuireannNí DhomhnaillSolas CiúinWayfarer's Inn
11DonnachaÓrlaithÓ SéAn FánaíOld Harbor
12BréanainnSibéalCaomhánachÉan StoirmeSmoke Steps

Golden Sea Creole, Port & Island Communities

A mixed naming pool for mobile port and island communities across the Golden Sea, not a claim that every island shares one culture or ancestry. Sailors, hunters, engineers, guides, parents, survivors. “The road keeps the names.”

Golden Sea Creole, Port & Island Communities naming pool: given names, surnames, ship names and places
d12Given (masc.)Given (fem.)SurnameShipPlace / Establishment
1TovanMarisolReef-bornSunfishBoca Serena Market
2MaleoNayeliSaltgroveMarisol's LuckThe Reefside
3SefariSeridade la IslaReefwalkerPalm Quay
4DucoIslaWindwardSaltlightThe Warm Current
5NakaiCalemaCortasThe Long TideGuide's Landing
6CorenzoRosavelMabariSister WindKessa's Table
7BaltasarTanithTwo-HarborsBoca GirlThe Saltgrove
8IyoDelmarSerranoDriftwood KingLantern Beach
9RenjoSunaLongtideThe GuideThe Long Tide House
10Marek-SolCorahlAchiWarm CurrentDriftwood Inn
11CasioBeyadel FaroPalm ShadowOld Anchorage
12TalenEstrelinaKessaSea-RoadSmoke Cove

Pairs with

For the Game Master's eyes

Tales of Mar de Oro · Game Master's Guide · Johnny Crown · 7202 Post Sundering