Category Archives: GameMaster’s Resource

D20: Items to Find in a Sofa

SofaSofas are notorious places for accumulating pieces of debris. Should a character ever choose to go poking around inside a sofa, looking for something important, here are various less useful, and sometimes unpleasant, items they could find.

  1. 1d6 loose change
  2. Pen
  3. Unwrapped and sticky sweet
  4. Used tissue
  5. Cheese puff
  6. Leaking battery
  7. Remote control
  8. Crisp packet
  9. Sock
  10. Mouse droppings
  11. Dead spider
  12. Soft and disintegrating biscuit
  13. Dummy
  14. Faded receipt
  15. Hard bread crust
  16. Lego piece
  17. Screw
  18. Peanut
  19. Pill
  20. Plastic figure

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D10: Scroll Cases

Scroll Case
Some artwork copyright William McAusland, used with permission

Scrolls, whether they be scrolls of magic, maps or other writings, are common items to find in a fantasy game. They are also fairly fragile items, so finding them in a scroll case is hardly unusual. Here, then, are ten different scroll cases to find them in.

  1. A pale brown scroll case that has been shaped out of a piece of sandstone. One end cap, also made of sandstone, is removable and fits surprisingly snugly.
  2. An expensive-looking case made from silver with flat-cut semi-precious stones, amethyst that has been carefully pieced together on each endcap, and acid-etched vines on the main body.
  3. Carvings of trees decorate the sides of this mahogany scroll case, with each end cap shaped like branches radiating out from a central point.
  4. Decorating the side of this scroll case made from fired red terracotta are bas reliefs of people kneeling before a figure on a throne and presenting them with offerings.
  5. Dirty rags have been stuffed into the ends of this hollowed out yellowed and cracked bone that is being used as an improvised scroll case.
  6. Scrimshaw of ships at sea hunting whales decorates the side of this scroll case that has been craved from a walrus tusk.
  7. The case is made from brass with rotating sections each of which is has symbols carved into it. To open the case, the correct symbols need to be lined up.
  8. The once highly-polished steel of this scroll case is now marred by scratches, with several dents in the side, though the case itself is still sound.
  9. This case is made from white ceramic that has been painted with cherry trees in blue. Both endcaps are solid blue and the glaze is cracked.
  10. This is a crude scroll case made from greenish glass. It was once clearly a bottle, but the top has been broken off and a plug of wood used to block the open end.

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D10: Numenera Rumours – Navarene

Numenera Cover
TM and © 2019 Monte Cook Games, LLC.

Numenera is a game published by Monte Cook Games. Its setting is the Ninth World, and this list has ten rumours for that setting. The rumours, which are similar to the Hearsay that can be found in the official books, can be used as adventure hooks or as simple misinformation.

  1. Bodrov in Navarene is an unusual city, being built on top of a strange rock formation. It resembles a round table with a single leg more than anything. Though the city is extremely defensible, and can house nearly ten times as many people as it currently does, the difficulty of getting supplies to the top has restrained its growth. There’s a rumour that a means of more easily shipping supplies to the city is being investigated, via some sort of ancient mechanism, and that if this is achieved, the city will grow substantially.
  2. Charmonde, the capital of Navarene, is protected by four fortresses, each of which has a powerful and ancient device that can emit a standing field that inflicts pain, and eventually death, on anyone who tries to cross the barrier. The devices have not been used in living memory, but there’s a rumour that recently they’ve started briefly activating all by themselves, without being switched on.
  3. For years, people feared the Westwood, believing it to be the haunt of ghosts and beasts, but the citizens of Navarene have started claiming the forest for their own, cutting down trees, building roads and clearing land for farming. They have met opposition which, until now, has been the creatures called the colovas. However, more recently there have been rumours of something else stirring in the region, and of strange disappearances, leading some to believe the tales of ghosts were not as far-fetched as is now commonly thought.
  4. In the Westwood on Navarene’s coastline is a huge tree known simply as the Emperor of the Green, substantially taller than any other tree and of a different species. Occasionally, some attempt to travel to the tree, but the journey can be dangerous. Recently, the survivors of one party returned, claiming that they couldn’t find the tree. Most think they simply got lost but some wonder how they could have failed to see a tree of the Emperor’s size.
  5. Queen Armalu, the ruler of Navarene, lives in Empiternal House, her palace in the capital city of Charmonde, and has not left there for years. Anyone wishing to visit the queen must pass through a whole series of stringent checks, something that, in combination with other procedures, has apparently allowed the queen for 253 years. Yet there are mutterings that none of that is true. That the elaborate procedures and protections are intended to cover up the truth, and add an air of mystery, that the queen died many years ago and the current Queen Armalu is merely the latest successor.
  6. The Emols, a noble family of Navarene, own a machine called the Dark Smoker that cuts down and processes the trees of the Westwood at a tremendous rate. The Dark Smoker requires constant maintenance to keep it going, both because of how jury-rigged the machine and because of constant attacks by culovas. Recently, though, the Dark Smoker has been suffering from an increasing number of problems, failing with greater regularity, in some cases injuring those working on it. The Emols suspect sabotage.
  7. The Empiternal House in Charmonde, home of Queen Armalu, the ruler of Navarene, is also called the House of a Thousand Slaves, as that is said to be the exact number of slaves that the queen has in the palace. There’s a rumour that this is also the number of slaves that the queen goes through each year, some being simply worn out but many of the others dying, fuel for whatever means the queen uses to extend her life.
  8. The northern portion of Navarene is filled with fortresses south of the Tithe River that are used to defend the border from the Beyond, and are important given that the Amber Pope has declared war on the lands to the north. Queen Armalu has been attempting to get the other eight kingdoms to help subsidise these fortresses, but they are reluctant, fearing that they may be funding a potential invasion of their own realms. It’s even been said that the Amber Pope has been duped by Queen Armalu into declaring war on a non-existent foe, simply to raise funding for her own army.
  9. The Vacant Palace in Bodrov in Navarene was constructed by a now long-dead suitor of Queen Armalu as a place for the queen to retreat to in time of war or calamity. Queen Armalu never leaves her chambers in Empiternal House, and has never set foot in the palace, though the suitor’s estate still maintains it as if the queen could arrive there any day. There’s a rumour that the estate also hides a secret in the palace, one that the suitor never shared with anyone else, something that could perhaps interest the queen, were she to find out the truth.
  10. There’s a ruin in Navarene whose mirror image can be seen in the sky, though there are some differences. For one, the image is always in winter, no matter what the season, and for another, the inhabitants don’t seem quite human. There’s a rumour that recently the ruin itself has started to take on some of the characteristics of the mirror image. Snow has been seen on the ruin outside of winter and some claim to have spied some of the inhabitants of the mirror image in the ruin on the ground as well.

Want some items that could be used as oddities? Check out 100 Xenoarchaeological Finds.

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D10: Walls to Find in a Dungeon

Skeleton by a Wall
Some artwork copyright William McAusland, used with permission

Dungeons need walls, to separate the ceiling from the floor, and this list has 10 different walls that can be added. These could be used as a source of potential curiosities or hazards, or perhaps as potential adventure hooks. Alternatively, they may simply be used as walls to flesh out an otherwise uninteresting room and, perhaps, pose a puzzle that lacks a true answer.

  1. A huge fossil of what looks to be an ammonite sticks slightly out of the wall, the rock cut back slightly to partially expose the fossil, and the exposed surfaces highly polished.
  2. Curved tiles made from terracotta cover the wall, forming a wavy pattern. Each tile has a small face moulded into it, and each face is identifiable as being an individual.
  3. The wall appears to be made of circles of glass, in alternating blues and browns. Each circle is approximately 3″ in diameter, and is slightly indented. They have been fixed together with mortar and, if more closely examined, it can be seen that the circles are the bases of glass bottles.
  4. The wall is formed from trilithons, which have the openings beneath the stones filled up with roughly shaped stones. These stones, on inspection, look to be menhirs that have been cut into pieces.
  5. One-inch-wide strips of copper run vertically and horizontally, forming a woven wall of copper strips.
  6. What look like louvred slats of wood running horizontally form the wall. The slats are unusually hard, and prove to be stone if investigated. They cannot be moved from their current position, but a slight draft comes from the gaps between the slats.
  7. The wall is made from what look to be thick, black tentacles. The tentacles interlock tightly, but whenever anything living approaches them, they shift and writhe.
  8. Three-foot square blocks of stone form the wall. Although each block is tightly fitted, they are made from different materials; granite, marble, sandstone and limestone, and with different types and colours of each individual stone.
  9. Rusty iron bars have been vertically mounted, driven into the floor and ceiling, and roughly welded together.
  10. Bodies of many different creatures have been used to make the wall. The bodies have been stacked and fitted together, then coated with some sort of thick, clear varnish to preserve them. Those bodies that have faces all appear to be screaming.

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D20: Looted Corner Shop Contents

ShopThe apocalypse has struck and the local shop has been looted of everything, whether of value or use now or not. Characters could still search such a shop to see what the previous looters have missed. Items may have fallen under shelving, been kicked behind cabinets or simply left for no longer being of use.

  1. Bruised apple
  2. 1d6 penny chews
  3. Packet of cheese & onion crisps
  4. AAA battery
  5. Can of extra strong beer
  6. Book of stamps
  7. Packet of cigarette papers
  8. Tin of baked beans
  9. Solidifying milk
  10. Roll of bin liners
  11. Squashed chocolate bar
  12. Tin of anchovies in olive oil
  13. Packet of dry spaghetti
  14. Disposable lighter
  15. Lottery scratch card
  16. Small bottle of hand sanitiser
  17. Sheet of over-the-counter painkillers
  18. Raspberry yoghurt
  19. Melted lollipop
  20. Bag of deliquescing salad

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3d6: Crawling Hand

Crawling Hand
Image: Jacob E. Blackmon

Crawling hands are severed hands that have been brought back to life through necromantic magics. They are low level guardians for necromancers and are frequently found in numbers.

What Creature Did the Crawling Hand Come From?

  1. Human.
  2. Orc.
  3. Goblin.
  4. Kobold.
  5. Bugbear.
  6. Hobgoblin.

Where is the Crawling Hand Hiding?

  1. Inside a sealed jar.
  2. Underneath a wooden box.
  3. Beneath a pile of fabric.
  4. Clinging to the room’s ceiling.
  5. Inside a cupboard.
  6. In a backpack.

What’s Unusual About the Crawling Hand?

  1. Painted fingernails.
  2. Copper ring on one finger.
  3. Wearing a rusty gauntlet.
  4. Missing a finger.
  5. Has a tattoo on the back of its hand.
  6. Nearly skeletal.

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D10: Irrelevant Notes and Letters

Scrolls
Some artwork copyright William McAusland, used with permission

This simple table has ten different notes and letters that could be found lying around on desks, hidden in drawers, blowing in the wind or in the pockets of the dead. None have any game relevance unless the GM decides that they do. They can be used to add miscellaneous flavour, be misdirection or potential adventure hooks.

  1. Bantus says he’ll be able to get it for you. Be careful when dealing with him.
  2. Drayank is up to something, I’m sure of it. There’s no way he can be doing that well unless there’s something underhand going on.
  3. Hide the stuff in the usual place. M.
  4. I need to do some research on the tunnels below the town.
  5. It’s buried beneath the heart of the collapsed building in the village.
  6. No choice left. I’m going to challenge that idiot to a duel.
  7. Not a chance. There’s no way I’m going to help you do that Urich.
  8. Speak to Betts. She can recommend a good guide.
  9. Turns out that giant worms are very good eating. Who knew?
  10. Why did that happen?

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D12: Dreadful Christmas Song Covers

PianoThese are dreadful covers of Christmas songs that characters could hear in a modern setting, perhaps in stores, lifts or whilst on hold. They could be heard during a normal investigation, or in a retail establishment during the zombie apocalypse or similar event.

  1. Rap version of Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas is You”
  2. Drum and base version of “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas”
  3. Electronic dance version of Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas”
  4. Children’s gospel choir performing Wizzard’s “I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday”
  5. Panpipe version of Slade’s “Merry Xmas Everybody”
  6. Steel band version of “Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town”
  7. Bagpipes playing Gene Autry’s “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”
  8. Rock guitar version of Wham!’s “Last Christmas”
  9. Tibetan throat singing version of The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl’s “Fairytale of New York”
  10. Harmonica version of “Walking in the Air”
  11. Hammond organ version of Cliff Richard’s “Mistletoe and Wine”
  12. Electronic dance version of Chris Rea’s “Driving Home for Christmas”

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3d6: Basilisk Den

Basilisk
Image: Jacob E. Blackmon

Basilisks are feared eight-legged reptiles, not so much for their poisonous bite as for their gaze which turns those who meet it to stone. Basilisks can be found in most terrain, and statues may be the first sign there is one present.

What Does the Basilisk Look Like?

  1. A narrow strip of bright red scales down each side.
  2. Backward-pointing horns on its head.
  3. Bony spurs on its leg joints.
  4. Extra claw on each foot.
  5. Ridge of dorsal plates down its spine.
  6. Unusual red eyes.

What Statues Are Found in the Den?

  1. Armoured figure wielding sword and shield but lacking a head.
  2. Cleric brandishing a holy symbol.
  3. Fleeing halfling, looking over one shoulder.
  4. Robed figure holding a staff with the head of an owl poking out from the robes.
  5. Snake poised to strike.
  6. Snarling wolf.

What’s Found in the Den?

  1. Basket of stone apples.
  2. Broken basilisk eggs.
  3. Shards of broken mirror.
  4. Shattered stone sword.
  5. Stone feminine hand holding a broken stone wand.
  6. Stone torso lacking legs, arms or head.

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3D6: Lich’s Lair

Lich
Image: Jacob E. Blackmon

Liches are powerful wielders of magic who have used necromancy to cheat death through undeath. The lich extracts its lifeforce and places it in a phylactery designed for the purpose, ensuring that though they are not alive, they cannot die.

What’s the Lich’s Phylactery Like?

  1. Cracked gem in a rusty iron circlet.
  2. Jackal-headed canopic jar, empty of anything.
  3. Locked, leather-bound work on magic.
  4. Obsidian dagger.
  5. Stone statue of a mage.
  6. Wooden puzzle box.

What Possessions Does the Lich Have?

  1. Bone staff.
  2. Gold crown fixed to their skull.
  3. Iron skulls mounted on a belt.
  4. Rotting cloth of gold robes.
  5. Skull that has been plated in gold and made into an orb.
  6. Tarnished silver sceptre.

What’s in the Lich’s Lair?

  1. Book on necromancy bound in skin.
  2. Elegant four-poster bed, now riddled with woodworm and with rotted curtains.
  3. Lectern for books made from yellowed bone.
  4. Rotting sacks of copper coins from long-dead kingdoms.
  5. Skulls whose orifices have been plugged and are being used as containers.
  6. Swirling black portal to the realm of negative energy.

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