Waymarks: 40 Roadside Encounters for Weird Journeys

A journey is not filler.

Waymarks collects forty encounters for the road: a toll gate that accepts only true embarrassments, a barrow that collects its own tax from your pockets, a ferry paid in one hour of memory, a highwayman with immaculate paperwork and a state pension.

Each entry is a situation, a choice, and a consequence — read it aloud or paraphrase, then let your party decide what kind of travellers they are. Nothing requires preparation. Nothing blocks the road. Every Waymark can be walked past — the world will remember either way.

• 40 encounters in 5 sections, each with a d8 roll index
• System-neutral; DCs assume levels 3–8 in any modern d20 game
• 18-page A5 PDF, typeset for pocket or table
• 100% original text. SRD 5.1 material under CC-BY-4.0, no product identity.

A taste —

2. Toll of the Laughing Gate. Two painted pillars and a rope span the road. The hand-lettered sign demands one true embarrassment. The gate-keeper is a very old woman with a ledger and no sense of shame whatsoever; she records every confession, seals it, and promises return in ten years' time. She has never missed a delivery. Refusing the toll is allowed: her nephews, three large, gentle, deeply polite dogs, sit down in the road and simply will not move.

Transparency: the text of this zine was written by an AI writing assistant and edited into its final form by its human publisher. No generative AI art — the book is typeset text.

Part of the Waymarks series: Harbormarks — 24 port encounters — is also out now.

Also in the series: Harbormarks — 24 port encounters, and Marketmarks — 24 market-town encounters for shady bargains. https://varisolpress.itch.io/marketmarks