d100 - Where is that Treasure Hidden?

As another elaboration to assist with Dungeon Stocking duties, here is a Table I’ve put together of some potential locations to secrete the occasional “Hidden Treasure” that can show up during the process. Many of the entries here also include a bit of “Dungeon Dressing” as well that might help provide ideas for rendering the space in addition to any other contents placed.

Usually when I am stocking this sort of thing, I may include a few subtle Clues or other Tells, but sometimes it has been secreted so skillfully that it might take more thorough investigation of the environment to reveal it. For this reason, I usually don’t factor in these rewards for the purposes of determining whether or not a Dungeon has “enough” Treasure: Those hidden Troves are just a bit of a bonus to reward diligent exploration.

d100 - Monster Smells & Olfactory Tells

When Telegraphing or Foreshadowing Encounters, sometimes other senses can be employed. Thinking about this led to another fun Table that had my imagination working overtime! I tried not to consult my prior Three Hundred Smells Table for this one, but I’m quite certain there might be a bit of overlap here and potentially with my Spoor & Sign or Tracks & Traces by Type Table as well.

Naturally, since our musty Monster Manuals don’t come in spectacular “Scratch & Sniff” these are all fanciful speculation and conjecture. I suppose that’s a good thing too, as I’m not sure I’d really like to experience a Troglodyte’s signature Stench ability!

Dungeon Stocking - Expanded

When Stocking Dungeons, we sometimes turn to using Dice to Randomly Generate the Room Contents. In B/X and its successors, we’re presented with this lovely little table to help us with this process:

With a few quick throws of some six-sided dice, we’re able to get a rough idea of those Room Contents!

I’ve committed this table to memory at this point (I use it in my Wilderness Stocking Procedures as well, just slightly re-skinned) but one thing always irked me slighty: The “wasted opportunity” hiding in that “Chance of Treasure” Roll. It would be much more preferable if instead of a binary yes/no, that roll could give us a little something more.

After thinking about this for a bit, I came up with the following Table. This utilizes both of the dice rolled (in that lovely d36 method) to get a little more granular while preserving the same results as the table above. With the additional combinations it exposes, my hope is for it to serve as a bit of a “Helper” or “Oracle” and provide some additional inspiration/ideas for the results. I often find myself looking toward certain additional Random Tables I’ve created for this in various ways, so I’ve linked some of them here to make them accessible with a quick click. During the Process, I even spotted a few new opportunities for some additional d100 Tables and added those to my growing Dev List. 🤣

Random Stocking can provide a wonderful “Starting Point” sometimes and it remains the backbone behind my “20 Minute Dungeons” and the Dolmenwood Dozen Project I put together recently. It’s always interesting to me how that initial idea produced can sometimes spawn interesting connections or situations once the results are assembled together and presented in context.

So, without further ado, here’s the Expanded Dungeon Stocking Table. I’d love to hear if you find it useful when digging those Dungeons and would be excited to see what it shakes out for you! There may even be a similar tool/resource for Wilderness Stocking in the pipeline as well!

d00 – Peculiar Portals & Distinctive Doors

Sometimes, those “Special” Results on the sainted Stocking Table might leave a Referee a bit at a Loss. There are only so many Statues, Pools, or other features one can sprinkle about. One option I sometimes like to consider is using this as a cue to add in a Strange or Unusual Door.

I am pretty comfortable with injecting a bit of humor and whimsy into my Dungeons on occasion for a slight break in Tension, and this table began with a few ideas I cribbed from a Tunnels & Trolls Dungeon that I dug. Every Door in that Dungeon had something to say it seemed! While that might be a bit excessive for most Mythic Underworlds, here are a few ideas for that can be used to make these Thresholds of Exploration a bit more interactive. Some are a bit more akin to Puzzles, other might benefit from a quick Reaction Roll to determine their Disposition to the Party, etc. I love presenting the Players with Opportunities to talk to things, so many of these Doors can Speak or have their own Personalities. There are an awful lot of Rules about interacting with Doors in these games after all!

Dolmenwood Dozen

Recently I embarked on a little self-imposed Challenge. With some of the previews of the Dolmenwood Materials available to Backers, I noticed that the Monster descriptions had a Lair Chance. I always loved this but figured it might be a bit tricky for some Referees to come up with some of these “on the fly” as it were, should it be the result of a Random Encounter or such. So, over the last several days, I resolved to put together a quick Lair/Dungeon/Adventure Location for some of these Monsters on a Daily Basis.

I often find myself slapping together a quick Dungeon or Site-Based Adventure at the last minute (usually when I’ve been procrastinating on Prep and have a Game coming up in a few hours!) and sometimes a time constraint actually helps get the ideas flowing. It can be a little stressful (in a good way!), but I find that the process of “Discovering” a place through creating it helps me focus a little more on the lens I need for conveying this to Players. By leaving the stocking largely up to Random Rolls, I’m also letting myself “Experience Surprise” and forcing myself to brush away some of those accumulated cobwebs that might be clogging up the parts of my brain I use for Improvisation and Providing Descriptions. Sometimes it helps put me in a frame of mind that ends up being very similar to the act of Play itself, or I stumble across interesting and inspiring ideas I never would have considered or would have cast aside with a more leisurely approach.

So here are the fruits of this little experiment: A Dozen One Page Dungeons, Lairs, Points of Interest, or other Adventure Sites for Dolmenwood, all compiled together in a convenient document. If you’re a Player in a Dolmenwood game, you might want to avert your eyes in case your Referee decides to use one of these! For each, I tried to limit myself to around twenty minutes or so for each to replicate that “left it to the last minute” experience. Of course, there are some that necessitated breaks or other interruptions during their creation (I didn’t exactly click a stopwatch on each!), and as I was compiling them together I couldn’t help doing a little bit more editing or expanding once I found some free real-estate by consolidating the formatting. I’ve also included a bonus: A Peek into the Production Process for these that might help other Referees who want to give this a try. The end result of this little Project is available below:

d100 - Strange Sculptures & Ensorcelled Statuary

One of my favorite “Standbys” should those “Special” Results rear their head when Stocking are Statues. A skosh of art provides an excellent opportunity for conveying Setting and Theme, usually featuring a dollop of Lore for lagniappe. Some Players might find themselves a bit wary around those stoic sculptures however, with all the Gargoyles, Caryatid Columns, Golems, and Living Statues standing about in these games.

So sometimes it helps to include some more standard ones within your Set Dressing, while still others can serve as a Puzzle, Hazard, or Trick in their own right. A few might even be unbelievably valuable Treasures, should the Players find a way to extract and transport them to safety. I will always enjoy the ones that end up being utilized by the Players in creative ways to solve problems of course, but sometimes they become a delicious way to perplex or confound, consuming limited Resources and precious Time in dangerous environments.

So should you need to decorate a Dungeon or pastoral Plinth with something a little Special, this table of one Hundred ideas will hopefully help!