Gems, except not randomly generated

If you choose gems for treasure rather than generating it randomly, what gems do you place, and why?

See the other treasure generation threads at: http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=137033

Onyx

I only include onyx very rarely in treasure hoards. Traditional superstition holds that onyx is a bad luck stone. I might use it as an embelishment for a cursed weapon, rather than as a stand-alone gemstone.

I think placing gems gives more for dwarves and gnomes (or your campaign's equivalent) to do.

Whenever I place gems, I try to keep in mind:

1)Value of the stone -the more valueable, the more likely they are to hold on to it for an extended period of time...which lets me write plot hooks involving it.

2)Legends associated with that type of stone...which lets me write plot hooks involving it.

3)Legends that could be associated with a PARTICULAR stone, like the Hope diamond...which lets me write plot hooks.

4)My players- because some of them are just as aware of those legends, or because some of them just love gems...which can ALSO affect plotlines.

Examples:

Amethyst is associated with Dionysus because of its deep purple color, and as such, is ascribed the ability to ward off drunkenness.

Opals are among the most beautiful of all stones, and come in a wide variety of types. All are soft, some are valuable, some aren't...but there is a superstition that it is unlucky to buy them for yourself- they should be found or given.

There are many kinds of gems that can be found in meteor strikes- diamond, peridot, some precious metals. Some mineral finds are even "unique" to meteor strikes, like crystalline-structured nickel-iron. Any kind of stone found at at meteor strike will likely have mystical powers ascribed to it, and that crystalline nickel-iron is HARD stuff- I have an engraved piece (for jewelry) that broke 3 diamond drill bits (not the diamonds, the steel in which the diamonds were set) during the engraving process. Something like that would be highly valued by armorers and weaponers. (I did have a suit of Plate made of that stuff for a PC in a campaign I was running.)

There's always the good old fashioned Soul Trap gem - got something in it... can lead to some interesting situations, I reckon?

Quite a fan of huge numbers of semi precious stones - find it's less hassle for the party to divide them.

DannyAlcatraz: Do you ever hand out gems which are explicitly uncut? Or broken?

Inconsequenti-AL said:

There's always the good old fashioned Soul Trap gem - got something in it... can lead to some interesting situations, I reckon?

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Yeah. That's cool stuff. I love when the payoff turns out to be the hook. I have a gem merchant in my campaign who is actually a glabrezu in disguise running around signing Contracts of Nepthas with folks and traffiking in trapped souls with night hag contacts.

Inconsequenti-AL said:

Quite a fan of huge numbers of semi precious stones - find it's less hassle for the party to divide them.

Click to expand...

Why so? Just 'cause they're smaller denominations? Or because it gets hard to top a 10,000gp emerald the size of a grapefruit?

1-2 Alexandrite
3-4 Amethyst
5-6 Aquamarine
7-8 Garnets
9-10 Peridot
11-12 Ruby
13 Sapphire
14-15 Spinel
16-17 Tourmaline
18 Topaz
19-20 Zircon

I like Aquamarine and Amethyst as common defalt gems stones.

Arbiter of Wyrms, I tried handing out uncut gems once, a long time ago...the only reason it worked was that there was a Dwarf in the party- because I described the stones by appearance. I didn't spell out what they were..."To your left, you see a vein of opal in matrix...to your right, some topaz crystals." The dwarf made a stonecunning roll or some such.

As for broken stones...unless its RIDICULOUSLY huge or obviously a plot point, players tend to ignore broken gemstones, in my experience. Most people don't realize a stone can be recut.

Oddly enough, no female gamer in one of my campaigns has EVER left behind a gem, even a broken one. They tend to know that you can get stones recut, etc.

The Artificer's Handbook has a big write-up on gems, for those that have it. I love gems.

It's funny, in NeverWinter Nights, it was common to get things like alexandrite, and some other things, which are in fact, exceedingly rare on Earth. Kind of funny.