Treasure Help!

[DrNilesCrane]

Great & interesting ideas...am planning on borrowing them as well.

 

[Arbiter of Wyrms]

thank you, everybody

Obviously, I didn't get to use everything, but it was a fun session. . . spent entirely on the distribution of the treasure earned in the previous session.

Quickleaf: Thank you. I had to use the Rhyton. It has become a big deal. There were some inconsistencies in the descrption, but oddly enough, that just seemed to add to the intrigue. The fact that you tied it into my campaign for me is above and beyond. Thank you!

Brent_Nall: Wow! I ask for 28 items and I get 28 from one response. Your list accounts for a majority of mine, and with very little customization needed. Thank you.

Everybody: Great stuff. I don't know that I want to generate my own treasure anymore. I might start a gems thread. I'll have to start a mundane objects thread. There's already a Magic Item a Day thread I'll have to link to.

I don't think it gets any better than this. Sharing is better by far than random generation.
http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?p=2334863#post2334863

 

[Arbiter of Wyrms]

This thread has proven so helpful, I thought that perhaps some other, similar threads might as well: http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?p=2348721#post2348721

 

[Arkhandus]

It's rather late for me to help with your recent session, but for future reference, here's some stuff I've used as art objects in the past. I usually glance at the DMG to see what general sort of material or size of item is typical of a given value range, then come up with something else that seems of similar value and/or materials. I've lost much of my notes and logs though on treasure stuff I had used more than a year ago, unfortunately, and some items from this past year would be time-consuming to find, sifting through several session logs and OpenRPG nodes of mine.

*a silver torc with golden inlays that form a tiger shape
*a small oaken amulet imbedded with a piece of amber and hanging on a leather string
*a platinum ring etched with claw patterns and inlaid with several rock crystals
*tiny ivory samurai statuettes
*black velvet curtain
*embroidered red silk mantle
*silver-wire circlet with lapis lazuli insets
*fine bronze goblets
*silvered dagger with a decoratively-etched hilt wrapped in supple black leather
*ivory armlet sized for an elven child and decorated with sun and vine etchings plus four tiny imbedded pieces of amber
*solid gold idol artistically depicting a dragon god consuming souls
*carved bone statuette depicting a green dragon
*bronze torc inlaid with pieces of jet, sized for a small humanoid's head or a medium humanoid's arm
*silver medallion inlaid with an elaborate green dragon's profile in malachite stones, upon a necklace of tiny gold and silver chain-links
*brass ring embedded with six tiny square pieces of different precious stones
*lapis lazuli brooch
*Adamantine ring etched with elaborate patterns
*onyx talisman
*halfling-made elaborate gold rings
*a small, ornamental war-club made of solid silver

 

[Quickleaf]

Hey, Arbiter, you're welcome. I too was impressed by the quality of responses you got!
If you don't mind my asking, how did the rhyton figure into your game? And what is the Vulture's Talon?

I intended it as an example of how a DM could weave in plot hooks and establish a sense of mystery around an object (or scene, or NPC) by requiring various scaled skill checks to learn information.

 

[Arbiter of Wyrms]

Hey, Arbiter, you're welcome. I too was impressed by the quality of responses you got!
If you don't mind my asking, how did the rhyton figure into your game? And what is the Vulture's Talon?

I intended it as an example of how a DM could weave in plot hooks and establish a sense of mystery around an object (or scene, or NPC) by requiring various scaled skill checks to learn information.

The Vulture's Talon was a last-minute creation. One of the PCs has a warp marble, an unbalancingly powerful magical item carried over from 2nd edition that has been holding a white wyrmling in stasis for sometime. He wanted to get rid of the dragon without having to put it down or raise it himself. In the course of the story, the marble was stolen from him in a very railroady kind of way, and a monk NPC figured as a minor character earlier in the campaign. I decided to insert the monastery of the Vulture's Talon en route to the order where the 'good guy monks' live so that I could manage a combat encounter. I was going to go with ghosts or a banshee, but decided to use a gray linnorm instead.
It was a seat-of-the-pants DMing session, but I always try to weave as many plot hooks as I can.

They ended up killing the linnorm, taking its treasure and walking all night up a staircase to the new monastery, where dwells the Perching Dove order, a good-aligned order grown from the surviving members of the Vulture's Talon, and headed by a level 20 gestalt monk/wizard zenythri with a slew of exhalted feats including vows of poverty, non-violence, and peace. He had an acolyte steal the warp marble so that he could give the wyrmling to a local crystal dragon with whom he is allied. The side benefit is that it brings the PC to him for an audience.

 

[Arbiter of Wyrms]

As for the rhyton, it finds it's way into the history of Kidorro, a North-African/Arabian analogy nation in "the Goblin Lands." Right across the water lies Guadalante, the homeland of the PC in question, and an analogy to Spain with some "old-west" flavor. The two nations have a long history, with each having ruled the other in years past. I'm thinking that this may provide an in with the people now in power in Kidorro or even the descendants of the deposed dynasty.

 

[Arbiter of Wyrms]

I intended it as an example of how a DM could weave in plot hooks and establish a sense of mystery around an object (or scene, or NPC) by requiring various scaled skill checks to learn information.

This, it achieved. This one item was the thing that received the most attention by a long shot. They got the Knowledge checks (all of them, IIRC, but no bardic knowledge (as they've got no bard) I'd really like them to get the rest of the info, so we'll see how it plays out. This single item is what is bound to bring them into the intrigues of a region that I've been wanting the players to explore for three years now.

 

[Turhan]

All of the above ideas are good ones, or at least I think so since I've used many of them in my own campaigns. Also, I almost never use the random tables for treasure. They are too limiting except in cases where you want to inject a specific DnD/DMG item with ready made stats. Art type issues are the most notable shortcoming....

Instead...
I use interesting mail order catalogs (of which I receive too many) and clip out any picture therein that sparks my imagination. (Then dump the useless catalog.) Noble Collection, Museum Replicas, Some of the Home and garden type things with cool lawn ornaments, and of course any little tourist brochure I can get from museums or historical sights. Sometimes I even use newspaper articles with cool pix.

I write up whatever I think makes the item an interesting bit of treasure. At any given time I have several such around. I sketch the item onto a sheet of paper and print out some of the observable features of the item, and a guess as to value. This sheet will go to the PC's when they find and keep the item. I take the photo and stick it to another piece of paper and print the notes, real value and all details about magic or adventure hooks giving me, the DM, a "complete copy of the item."

On the DM's copy I can list special features or adventure hooks and the real price; or also the magic property if any. When I hand out such an item, the players know that there is something about it. So in a way it automatically hooks them. Some items have only a cash or aesthic value, and some have a lot more.

 

[Arbiter of Wyrms]

Museum Replicas

Thank you! I couldn't remember the name of this catalogue. I've gotten this a couple of times and thought that this must be the only use for this thing. There are some really cool pieces in there if all you're looking for is display kitsch, and the pictures suffice for that. (I confess, though, that both my wife and I really like the sword of Arwen [can't remember the proper name], but I just can't bring myself to blow money on that when I have to scrape and save for D&D books.)