Chaotic Shiny is a generator site aimed at people who write, game, or live in fantasy worlds of their own creation. Grappling with writer's block? Need a character on the fly? Party just walked into a tavern and you want it to be a little more exciting than normal? Want to flesh out a setting with some detailed religions? Chaotic Shiny is the site for you.

Generators are divided into rough categories based on what they come up with. Some of them, such as the drink and name generators, are simple, whereas others, such as the civilization and pantheon gens, are much more detailed. If you want a generator that you can't find here, you can make your own with the custom gen builder, or feel free to drop me a line with suggestions or feedback.

Enjoy!

6/27/09: By request, the Musical Instrument Generator. For all you exotic bards and quirky buskers out there. Incidentally, that brings us up to 50 generators, not counting the ones in the Silly category or the Language Mixer, which would make 60.

6/10/09: Work is keeping me busy, but I did get inspired to make the Treasure Trove Generator. It's more along the lines of "what's lying around the old wizard's study" than "you find 1d6 platinum and a +2 flaming sword in the chest." It will probably appeal more to writers than gamers because of that, but there are plenty of gaming-treasure gens out there already.

5/31/09: Spawned by my frustrating attempts to find a decent urban fantasy that wasn't all about a traumatized heroine and the dangerous supernatural man who wants to love her, the Paranormal Romance Generator. (Note: Patricia Briggs gets a pass on this because her books are all awesome. Everyone else, please put little warning labels on your covers.) Not that there's anything wrong with the genre; it's just not my taste. Whether you're a fan of paranormal romances or not, hopefully the gen should entertain you.

5/12/09: Another new gen, for all you fans of gladiatorial combat: the Arena Gen.

5/8/09: My apology for the long time without updates comes in the form of the most complex gen for quite a while: the Bazaar Gen. Makes medieval marketplaces of all shapes and sizes, with controls for number and density of stalls. Not just descriptions, but, in a first for Chaotic Shiny, a map.

5/1/09: No new gens at the moment, but a few small changes. I realized that people hitting this site from anything other than the front page had no clue as to what it was about, so I added the little tagline. Also, my 48 Hour RPG Design Challenge game is now up on the Resources page, and a friend's Star Wars d6 site is on the Links page. Go check them both out.

4/25/09: Finally a new update: the Apocalypse Gen. Some say the world will end in fire, some in ice, while others are more elaborate.

4/14/09: It's been one thing after another: my motherboard fries, I finally get it fixed, and then my harddrive dies. I have almost everything backed up, and the new laptop is coming soon. Hopefully I'll be able to get some more generators up soon. I don't like going this long without updates any more than you guys do.

4/2/09: Sorry for the downtime, folks! Some spammer decided to play a bad April Fool's joke on me, and took down the WordPress part of the site. That forced AwardSpace to shut down my account, but luckily they're understanding people who helped me get it back up again. In happier news, I also got my PHB2 today. I'm not sure if I'll be able to add everything to the 4e gen, but I'll probably add at least something, once I figure out the best way of going about it.

3/14/09: Happy Pi Day, and here's the Opinion Generator, for when you don't know how your NPC or character feels about anything from womens' rights to the treatment of foreigners to the local ordinance on barking dogs.

3/11/09: Inspiration has struck at long last for a popular request: the Monster Generator. I've been getting a lot of fun results from it; once, it even gave me yetis. Enjoy.

2/28/09: Based on a suggestion from a while back, the Fashion generator. Mostly makes medieval-ish styles; I might add in some stuff later to allow for sci-fi fashions as well. Also, if you're on facebook (and who isn't, these days?) there are some good gaming groups around that are worth checking out.

2/6/09: More tinkering with the 4e gen. Added some of the mechanical effects of the epic destinies that I'd overlooked, and also made multiclass powers more obvious. If you've noticed that updates have slowed down a little lately, you're right - my schedule is insane right now. I'll still make new gens when I can, and hopefully pick up the pace again once things are under control.

1/27/09: Because I just can't stop myself, added multiclassing to the extended 4e gen. If you wonder why paragon path powers only come up for characters that multiclass as their paragon path, it's because the powers are automatic otherwise; no choices, so nothing to generate. Let me know if there are any bugs.

1/24/09: Added a level range selector to the 4e gen, so you can now ask for, for example, a character within 2 levels of your level 7 party.

1/17/09: Put together the latin gibberish gen, the constellation gen, and a request, and what do you get? The Star Generator.

1/16/09: My insane project has come to an end, and the Extended 4e Character Generator is completed. I added racial skill bonuses, and the extra racial at-will powers and skill training. The extended gen is now linked on the sidebar, though you can still get to the old gen though the new gen's page. Also: Hello to everyone from RPGBloggers.

1/5/09: Hey! Go check out the Campaign Mastery blog. It's fairly new, and already has some great gaming stuff up. And speaking of gaming, tweaks and updates continue on the extended 4e gen. I just need to add in the powers at epic tier, and possibly something with magic items, and then I think I'll be done. Any requests on additional features? Let me know.

1/2/09: I've taken a break from the 4e gen improvements to bring you the Currency Generator, which creates names and values for ancient and futuristic currencies. Makes things like "silicon noth" and "silver itha."

1/1/09: Quick update on the 4e gen upgrades - it now functions up through lvl 20, not including paragon paths, but including skills, stat bonuses, calculated stats, and powers, plus more toggles and options. I'm sure the writers that use this site would rather I get back to making more gens, instead of fiddling with this one - no worries; I'm sure I'll be back to those as soon as the "must write complicated code" bug that's bitten me lately goes away. Happy New Year, everyone.