Sometimes a DM has no idea what to do. One trick you could try is turning to a random page in a book and finding a random word to inspire you. But I usually have kanji study cards at hand.
Example from a recent game. The players got interested in the fact that there were itinerant barbarians in town and wanted to hire one, so I had to come up with a guy on the fly. The card I drew had the kanji 介, which triggered the word 介護 for me, which can be used for care-giving. One English word I associate with that is nurse, because care-givers for the elderly are often called that. So I came up with a nurse-barbarian. He is into taking care of the wounded. For his name, I took the reading of the kanji, kai, and made him Kai the nursebarian.
In the same session, I let the players world-wank up some rumors about the house they were going to rumble. One player was like, "I dunno, I got nothing," and I assured them it was fine to pass on the question, but I also showed them the next kanji card in my box which was the kanji for other, and that got some creative-release.
You could use kanji to answer many kinds of questions. What does the prophesy say? What kind of trick is in this room? If you don't feel joy sparking, go to the next card in the box.
I looked a bit for some online random kanji generators, but frankly I like these cards (translations are on the back side) much better, as the example combo words are really what gets the juices flowing, and a kanji without a friend is often a half-baked idea--unless you happen to know a good wago word that uses it.介 is not such a kanji, so yeah, the card is helpful.
You could try a random English word generator, of course.
Like I said, there are a million ways to randomize ideas, like dictionaries. Sometimes, when I need a treasure, I turn to the kanji cards, but often I turn to a copy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art's catalogue.
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Claytonian at the gmails.
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