Monday, 11 July 2016

Urban Dwarf House

Does your city have dwarves in it? Then they need houses! Here's an idea for an urban dwarf house design you can use in your campaign.

Exterior

The outside of the most common type dwarven house is a 10' cube of large smooth stone bricks. The flat roof is made of tin and sloped to allow rain to run off to the side. The stone door is about 5' high and wide set in a prominent brick doorway. An ornate keystone above the door features a family or professional mark. Some families use a historical occupation no longer practised in the city as their mark. The house features a letter slot but no windows.

Tuesday, 14 July 2015

Mentzer Basic D&D Jewellery Treasure Table (1983)

A very basic table with just four entries that I think is one of the most inspiring and useful things in all of Dungeons & Dragons.
It's so simple, who would even need such a thing? Apparently not many people, because as far as I can tell it doesn't appear in any other edition of the game ever produced. But I relied on it for just about every adventure I made. It's not exhaustive by any means, but it's an fantastic starting point, a valuable nugget of world building information. It gives the DM something meaningful to work with and kickstarts their imagination. Before finding this table I probably couldn't have named eight types of jewellery if put on the spot, and I certainly wouldn't have included crowns or sceptres if I'd tried.

Without this table all my adventures would be a bit less awesome. "A piece of jewellery worth 1200gp" is bland and stupid but "a gold necklace with an opal heart" is beautiful. This simple little table taught me the difference between a boring game and an engaging adventure, it taught me to make fun, exciting worlds filled with rich and interesting details. This little table made me the DM I am today. Thanks Jewelry Value Table (gp)!