In the center of the Southlands is the great Kusini Plains: a serengeti-like savannah home to countless numbers of wildlife, megafauna, and towering dinosaurs. Many kingdoms and civilizations have risen and fell in this massive area, leaving only remnants and ruins behind.
With the detritus of so many destroyed and once overlapping cultures littering the landscape, characters are sure to run across strange oddities and mysterious bits of junk. Gamemasters are encouraged to make these sorts of items both common and easily found. In general, oddities do not usually have alchemical, extraordinary, or magical powers beyond really minor effects.
Here are some of the oddities that we came up with:
- Thin metal can with a small, resealable opening.
- Strange mesh pouch filled with small nuggets of a food substance that never spoil.
- Folded squares of parchment that seem blank until touched in the center. They then produce an image of an unknown face, or of the bearer’s face.
- A small rod with a crystal on the tip and a button; it hums when the button is pressed but seemingly does nothing else.
- A palm-sized, rectangular box made of horn with no openings and two buttons. Pressing one button causes the box to say something unintelligible and then cry out.
- An egg-shaped container filled with a lump of very viscous, malleable material the size of a baby’s fist. If struck with a spark cantrip, the material holds its shape for six hours and becomes very durable. (Hardness 10, 10 hp)
- A charcoal or pumice lozenge about two fingers wide and long, hanging from a leather cord. Twice per day, it removes non-poison impurities from up to 5 gallons of water, even turning salt water to freshwater. If used more than twice, it turns black and does not function for 1d4 days.
“An egg-shaped container filled with a lump of very viscous, malleable material the size of a baby’s fist. If struck with a spark cantrip, the material holds its shape for six hours and becomes very durable. (Hardness 10, 10 hp)”
Not so Silly Putty?
A heavy cluster of quartz, green in color, the size of your fist. When stored in a container (backpack, saddlebag, etc..) it lightens the weight of the container by 20 lbs.
A container cannot be lightened in this manner to less than 1 lb.
A single gold coin that when exchanged for goods or services, or upon becoming lost or stolen, will magically teleport back into a random container in the possession of its owner after 1d4 hours have passed. To become the owner, a creature must be given the coin by the previous owner without expectation of anything in return. If the owner is not in possession of a container for the returning coin to teleport into, it simply reappears midair in front of the owner, and falls to the ground.
A silver and ebony halter designed to fit a presumably extinct species of horned camel. If fitted on a modern camel or horse, roll 1D4:
1: Animal goes berserk and attacks nearest living thing until killed or 1D6 rounds after the halter is somehow removed.
2: Animal goes comatose, waking only 3D6 hours after the halter is removed.
3: Animal goes glassy-eyed and proceeds to walk steadily in a random direction (or in a direction that most amuses the GM) forever, stopping only 2D6 hours after the halter is removed.
4: Animal goes glassy-eyed and bolts at top speed in a random direction (or in a direction that most amuses the GM) forever, stopping only 1D3 hours after the halter is somehow removed.
Perhap a divination will turn up some commands in a forgotten language that provide a means for making the halter more useful?
Bonus: Do the horned camels still exist? Where might one finds such a beast? Did the player characters find an engraving showing the horned camels had scales like a dragon? What properties might the halter reveal when fitted on one of the horned camels it was made for?
Circular clay tablet inscribed with a star atlas, just not showing any starts the PCs are familiar with.
Bonus: Hold on a minute. Closer inspection by someone learned in astronomy reveals that the northernmost stars on the atlas form a part of the southernmost constellation visible in the sky. Are there more lands even further to the south?
A wooden bucket with a hole in the bottom laying on it’s side at the bottom of a dried river bed. Oh, and the bucket is the size of a longhouse.
“Pressing one button causes the box to say something unintelligible..” What does pressing the other button do? Even if the answer is “apparently nothing”, it should probably be mentioned…