There are many flavors of Dungeons & Dragons. Heroic fantasy is one of the most popular as well as gritty sword & sorcery stories. In recent years, cozy fantasy has risen as a trend. Games like this take their cues from video games where the world is still full of adventure and excitement but the monsters are just as likely to be cute as scary and the towns that mark civilization are full of quirky denizens. Much as classic D&D takes inspiration from Conan or Lord of the Rings, these settings take inspiration from Japanese RPGs or games like Stardew Valley.
The Homebakery created a series of cozy setting elements called Drag and Drop Shops. These are meant to fit into a fantasy game to add a little bit of quirkiness the next time the adventurers need to spend a little bit of that hard earned gold.Each shop offers a proprietor as an NPC, a variety of magic items and a handful of story hooks. Each of these is available as an individual PDF but I picked them up as a decently priced PDF bundle. Did the shops want me to come back and fill their loyalty punch cards? Let’s play to find out.
The Rootless Boutique features a mysterious fey owner, quirky magic items and a policy of no names. It is perhaps the easiest to fit into an existing campaign since the owner comes and goes as they please. I enjoyed the characterization of the owner but I wanted a bit more guidance on how players can explore the story behind the mystery. It seems like there could be a side campaign in answering this question that could be set up here but unfortunately it as not.
The Skeleton Closet features a fully undead staff that rotates every time the players come to visit. The items are also dark in their theming and makes it feel like a magic shop for those crews that have warlocks, death priests and necromancers. This is the darkest of the entries and it stays more in the realm of spooky than horrible. The different skeletons have unique personalities and the book talks about how to make them express nonverbal emotion even if they don’t have the usual tools to do so. This is a great choice for games that want to take underworld and death magic into more of a Beetlejuice direction.
The Adoption Armoury includes a store that sells intelligent magic items. It's more like an adoption agency for pets with a staff that cares less about making a profit than finding a good home for the items it has. This is probably the most flexible in that if you don’t care about the store you can slip the items into your game easily. Favorites include an adorable wondrous figure of a dog named Fetch that does exactly what you think it does. There’s also a good weapon pretending to be an evil one (poorly) because it wants to reunite with its master that turned to evil and try to redeem them.
The Cakeish Corner is my favorite out of the set. It’s a bakery that features magic baked items. Some offer effects in the field and combat while others just provide a rush of Willy Wonka style flavor to the world. The owner seems like the kind of halfling who would sell cookies of healing rather than potions and radiate the kind of energy as an NPC that players would die to protect. If not her, perhaps Booker, the pet cookbook mimic she owns with big puppy energy.
Each of these selections offers a quirky spin on the usual magic item shop that makes them stand out in town. Though they are set up for 5e, I could easily see them in any brighter fantasy setting or game. I plan on putting them in my Fabula Ultima campaign for a little flavor once the players are done shopping for new adventuring gear.
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