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General Purpose Domains
by Mike on 23 March 2026
While custom faction lists help you flavor NPCs, locations, monuments, items, and other things in your game; sometimes you don't have a clear list of such factions ready to go.
Here's a list of forty generic domains – they could be gods, 13th Age style Icons, or any other sort of flavor you want to add to your game. Use these lists to build your own pantheon or use them as a guide to choose gods from an existing pantheon from the Forgotten Realms, Midgard, Eberron, or even real-world gods if they suit your campaign.
Roll on these domains to flavor items, locations, monuments, NPCs, or any other objects in your game.
Major Domains
- Light
- Dark
- Life
- Death
- Nature
- War
- Trickery
- Knowledge
- Tempest
- Harvest
- The Hells
- Love
- Fire
- Water
- Earth
- Air
- The Sea
- Undeath
- Magic
- Creation
Minor Domains
- Murder
- The Abyss
- Serpents
- Insects
- The Void
- Blood
- The Hearth
- Stars
- The Hunt
- Beauty
- Music
- Prophecy
- The Wilds
- Seelie Fey
- Unseelie Fey
- Shadow
- Wine
- Metalwork
- Revelry
- Beasts
More Sly Flourish Stuff
Each week I record an episode of the Lazy RPG Talk Show (also available as a podcast) in which I talk about all things in tabletop RPGs.
Last Week's Lazy RPG Talk Show Topics
Here are last week's topics with time stamped links to the YouTube video.
- Play Solo RPGs, Experiences Running a 1 to 20 3x5e Game, Secret Project News
- Druskara for Shadowdark
- Creating Villains and Lairs by Jeff Stevens
- Onboard Players with Cheap or Free Player Guides
- Who Summarizes Your Last Session
Patreon Questions and Answers
Also on the Talk Show, I answer questions from Sly Flourish Patrons. Here are last week's questions and answers.
Talk Show Links
Here are links to the sites I referenced during the talk show.
- Play Solo RPGs
- Experiences Running a 20th Level Multi-5e Game
- Druskara: A Brutal Fantasy World Setting for Shadowdark RPG
- Game Master Tools: Creating Villains & Lairs
- Daggerheart character playbooks
- Dragonbane's cheat sheet by Rocketpunch
- Dragonbane Quick Start Riddermound
- Dragonbane Quick Start Sinking Tower
- Dolmenwood's online rules reference
- Dolmenwood character generator
- Cairn's Kettlewright
- Index Card RPG Free Quickstart
- Index Card RPG $5 print Player Book
- Shadowdark Quickstart Set
- Pirate Borg Player's Guidebook ($25)
- Daggerheart Quickstart Adventure
- The Delian Tomb for Draw Steel
- Build Single Encounter Situations
Last week I also posted a couple of YouTube videos on What's Your Villain's Backup Plan? – Lazy GM Tip and Save the Sultana – Dragon Empire Prep Session 60.
RPG Tips
Each week I think about what I learned in my last RPG session and write them up as RPG tips. Here are this week's tips:
- Reward unique magic items that expand a character’s capabilities such as area attack spells for a fighter or healing for a rogue.
- Build scenes from the lore of the world.
- What hooks the characters to get involved in a situation? Secrets? Loot? Heroism?
- Reskin existing monster stat blocks with the flavor of whatever your devious mind can imagine.
- Do mid-campaign check-ins to see how players enjoy the campaign you’re running.
- Use campfire tales to hear what characters think about from their past and future.
- What is the potential non-combat solution to any given hostile situation?
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