Surreal weather
With fantasy weather, you can go wild.
Firestorms, celestial sky battles, the sun exploding…
I could go on.
But sometimes you don’t want the sky to undergo one big Wild Magic Surge. Sometimes you don’t want the earth to open up and spew lava everywhere.
It can be enough to remind your players they’re in a fantasy setting with some harmless but spectacular weather. These can be plot hooks if they’re the side effects of something important going on. They could be omens. Or they could be unexplained – nothing but a bit of magical weirdness.
Now, I say these are harmless. I’m sure your party can turn some of these to their advantage. Let them.
Before I go into my list, what ideas come to your mind? Post them in the comments below – I’m eager to hear more ideas.
Vertical rain
For a few hours, raindrops appear on the ground, on rooftops and even on people’s heads. A moment later, each raindrop flies up into the sky.
Prism hail
Hailstones fall, each refracting brilliant rainbows that turn the air into a symphony of colour.
Supersnowflakes
These snowflakes are enormous – the smallest are larger than a person and all are incredibly intricate.
Wind chimes
The breeze carries a soft melody from no known source. The style varies, reflecting genres and composers of the land over centuries.
Mind fog
A rolling fog that induces mild hallucinations based on your memories. When the wind picks up, your hallucinations jump to anyone close and downwind from you.
Poetic thunder
A storm where the claps of thunder are replaced with lines from an unknown poem spoken from the heavens.
Stalking shadows
The shadows cast by the sun are darker than usual. They also lag behind a moving person, not quite keeping up with their movements. The greater the guilt they feel, the longer the delay.
Day stars
The sun is out. So are the stars. All the familiar constellations are there, sparkling against a blue sky.
At night, the sky is nothing but an inky void, populated with a lonely moon.
Colour filter
Sunlight shifts for some reason, blanketing the lands with an intense green hue.
Drawn out dawn and dusk
The length of the day is the same, but the sun lingers close to the horizon before zipping across the sky to make up for lost time.
Night wisps
At night, small balls of moonlight float through the air, dancing in chaotic patterns. They pop when they touch something, coating it with thin, glowing goo that quickly evaporates.