I'm working on a thing. Sometimes I drift off on weird tangents and find myself in uncomfortable places.
I hope that someone can find some use for this. Maybe in a Lamentations of the Flame Princess campaign?
Roll 1d100
01. A witch sentenced to hang
02. A tree grows fruit in the shape of human fetuses dangling by their ubilical cords
03. A giant spider lurks in the branches of a tree, and snares men with its silken garrote
04. A cackling old women wraps herself in a cocoon of human skins and hangs herself from a tree; she emerges nine months later as a little girl with butterfly wings
05. A deranged old man believes he is a bat, and sleeps upside down
06. A man can only live as long as the tree feeds him through the vine attached to his neck
07. A man climbed a tree to retrieve his cat, and had an unfortunate accident
08. The man is a marionette; a spider pulls the strings
09. A gardener requires hanged men to grow his mandagoras
10. An insect disguises itself as a hanged man, and waits for someone to cut it down
11. A great bronze bell wrought in the likeness of a man
12. A clever facsimile of a hanged man, filled with treasure
13. A suicide
14. ???
This start would work wonderfully in a Salem World Campaign, with either a group of Witch hunters or Witches themselves. I have it for sale on drivethru (shameless plug)
14. The withered corpse of an aged Druid who hung himself from an oak tree to gain wisdom. Except for being dead, it worked, and his spirit still guards the region.
15. The fresh corpse of a wizard who hung himself to gain wisdom. He laid a plan to come back, and the hour draws near.
16. A disco ball, flashing with unnatural light. Strangely hypnotic.
17. The bodies of a dozen young men and boys. Placards around their necks name petty crimes: "pick pocket", "thief", "vagrant".
18. An infamous thief, still alive. He bribed the hangman to rig the noose, but his hands are bound and his confederate abandoned him instead of returning as promised. He grows desperate.
19. No one, yet. But an impossibly tall and thin man in tattered black silk waits below the tree, running a silk cord through his hands. He bows, and smiles an impossibly wide smile, and asks you who you would like hung; if you give him a name he smiles even wider, and asks what the charge is. This devil has the power and the duty of hanging any person against whom a true charge of a crime or sin is leveled. If the target is actually innocent of the exact charge made (whatever else they may be guilty of), if they are guilty but the accuser has committed the same transgression, or if a petitioner ever makes a second accusation, the petitioner is hung instead. The devil need not and will not reveal any of these conditions. Plainly evil, but if you don't deal with it and don't attack it you should be safe.
20. A crude piñata of a plate-clad knight. A motley group of bandits, ogres, goblins and minor demons are taking turns swinging at it during a crude feast, but can never seem to hit it. (A minor miracle has made it only strikeable by someone who's blindfolded, but every last one of this bunch has been cheating.)
21. Three score baby orcs. The small group of paladins and their men at arms who are just hoisting the last ones want you to know they take no joy in this, but they were given a fair hearing and all detected as evil.
22. A gifted young mage, hung for crimes against nature and the gods. The ravens that ate his eyes and cheeks still flock in the tree, and can whisper his forbidden spell to a wizard willing to listen. [LotFP Summon if you don't have any other ideas.]