This month’s RPG Blog Carnival is courtesy of Dice Monkey, all about weather, something that, as I grew up in the Canadian North and currently live on the Canadian Prairies, I am all too familiar with. I try to include weather in my campaigns whenever appropriate, as it can add mood or texture to an encounter which might otherwise be straightforward or dull. In my current home campaign weather is particularly strange, as a magical cataclysm has altered weather patterns and sometimes causes weather events to have strange effects.

Below is a quick list I use in my campaign for strange weather phenomena (doo-doo-de-doo-doo!) on the fly. I don’t use it every time it rains, snows, and so on; the strange becomes commonplace with too much repetition. And while my strange weather comes about as a result of magical contamination, you might have other reasons for weird weather in your campaign. Perhaps a location, item, or being of great magical power is warping the weather around them. Maybe it’s a side effect of the casting or particularly powerful spells (7^th level or higher) or rituals. Whatever the reason, feel free to use this list or make up weird weather of your own.

• Perfectly normal snow is falling (and accumulating) on an otherwise warm but cloudy day. OR, if it’s winter, the snow falling is any other colour but white.
• Falling rain or snow is invisible, though it becomes visible as it pools or accumulates.
• High winds make it difficult to walk in any direction, except the direction the wind is blowing from. All movement is considered difficult unless walking directly into the wind.
• Perfectly normal rain is falling on an otherwise freezing winter’s day, puddling as normal. OR, if it’s not winter, the rain is a random colour.
• Rain or snow falls as if under the effect of a feather fall spell, basically in slow motion. Creature in the area can move as normal.
• Pick one character. The wind talks to that character for 1d6+1 hours over the course of the day. You can decide what sort of personality the wind has. No one else can hear the wind except for that character. Note: the wind goes everywhere, so this might be a fun way to impart campaign information to the player, as long as they don’t assume they’re imagining the whole thing.
• Perfectly normal rainfall, except it rains straight up for 1d6+1 hours. While all other gravity remains normal, rain will puddle on the underside of anything not protected from the rain. When the effect passes, all accumulated rain will fall normally to the ground.
• An aurora appears for 1d6+1 hours in the middle of an otherwise normal day.
• Pick one character. That character notices that the clouds seem to take a form relating to whatever they are thinking about at the time. Experimentation will reveal that they can, in fact, make the clouds take whatever shape they think of. This effect lasts for 1d6+1 hours.
• If spring/summer, the party wakes to find all their water and other liquids frozen as if left out in the cold. If fall/winter, the party discovers all of their liquids to be very warm, as if left in the sun on a hot day. The liquids return to normal temperature within 1d3 hours.

Do you use strange weather in your game? What sort of effects do you use? Drop a note in the comments!