Item Drop

Adventurers delving into mysterious dungeons can rarely predict what they will find. These variant rules for treasure generation eschew tables weights and values for unexpected artifacts and intriguing descriptions. They allow the Dungeon Master to roll the bones, consult the tables and interperet the tale of the exciting and mysterious treasure that awaits.

This supplement primarily provides a method to roll artefacts and individual treasure items. This can be used to supplement existing treasure generation rules but also provides a full set of alternative rules for treasure generation.

Treasure Items

Treasure Items are individual artifacts that are are found amongst treasure hoards and cover a large array of different types of items.

This method of item generation ordinarily uses a full set of dice, rolled together and interpereted from tables on the following pages. A full set of dice includes a d4, a d6, a d8, a d10, a d12, a d20, and a decader. A decader is a ten sided die where each face is a multiple of 10 from 00 to 90. When reading the value of a decader the value of the die is divided by ten and treated as a second d10. Though you can roll each of these dice individually, rolling all the dice at once can create dramatic tension at the table.

Interpreting results

To interpret a roll into an item first consult the results of your d6 which will tell you the item category such as Homewares, Adventuring Gear, or Weapons.

The d4 will then tell you the subcategory of item within that category such as Flasks, Documents, or Toolkits.

Next find the row from the results of your d20 and find the specific item in the subcategory column.

Once you have the specific item you can look up it's descriptors. The result of your d8 tells you the column for your first descriptor and the d10 result tells you the row. Similarly, your d12 result tells you the column of your second descriptor and the decader result tells you the second descriptor's row.

Now that you have your item and descriptors it is up to you to work out a more detailed description of the item based on your results. Sometimes the descriptors might not precisely match the particular item that you rolled, in this case the descriptors might apply to additional details for an item such as the setting for a gem, the container for some trade goods, or the beads and accessories on a robe.

Not all items have exactly two descriptors. Simpler items might have one or no descriptors while more extravagant items might have up to four. Descriptors rolled with a d12 are likely to be more valuable than descriptors rolled with a d8. In the treasure tables presented later in this document these increases or decreases to the number of descriptors are listed as +d8, +d12, -d8, and -d12.