Little Green Bag (Random Table, Any System)

Little Green Bag (I)
You find a little green bag. In it there might be...

1. (3d4) severed human hands. All of them extremely well-preserved, pliant and slightly warm to the touch. They have all but healed at the point where they were removed from their original bodies. One of the hands is wearing a milky jade ring carved into the likeness of three vigorously entwined serpents.
2. A partridge mounted on a deftly trimmed section of a branch lovingly cut from a pear tree. There are (1d4) pears dangling from the section of branch. Each of them cure 3d4 damage if eaten within an hour of being plucked from the branch. When the last pear is removed, the taxidermied bird emits a faint squawk of indignation and flies off stiffly.
3. Six used scalpels (as knives: very short reach, -1 to hit, X2 damage), a crumpled and blood-soaked map of some large metropolitan area with (2d6) spots marked-out with a black grease pencil, and someone's kidney wrapped-up in a cheap silk scarf.
4. Eighteen pounds of dead, dried-out cockroaches.
5. (3d4) assorted batteries of various types. Some of them are leaking various caustic substances.
6. A cracked faux-malachite bowling ball encrusted with something Squick and/or Ickorous.
7. A Gronk sword that won't fit back into the bag once it is removed.
8. A really, really angry squirrel.
9. Eight yellowed and curiously stained 3"x4" index cards detailing Eight Magical Weapons, alas there is no information provided as to where these items might be found.
10. Five cans of off-brand 10w30 motor oil.
11. All the raw components necessary for a Jaladari to craft a few dozen minor wards or charms. There might be a reward for the return of this stuff...if you can find the right charm-peddler.
12. The journal of Aloysius Hemlock. Each entry is written backwards in a recursive magical-cypher requiring it to be read in a mirror in moonlight. There may be (1d4) odd, reversed variant spells interspersed through the text as well as a few vague references that sound quite portentous but lack all context. At the moment.
13. A well-carved bit of blue-green ivory that is half-way to becoming a very elegant wand. Too bad whomever was working on it was interrupted. There's a base 30% chance that there are some well-used carving tools in the bag as well.
14. A sleeping squid sealed within a large, heavy glass jar. Now that you've woken it up, it stares expectantly at you.
15. (2d4) Bruthem toe-nails.
16. Buried beneath hundreds of small teeth is a hand-written Gothic manuscript of decidedly grotesque character. It gives off the scent of patchouli and storax. There are cat teeth mixed in with the rest, but this isn't noticeable until after the manuscript has been removed.
17. Four dozen tiny blue ferns, each one with its roots individually wrapped tightly in a burlap ball that has been treated with a solution of some sort that preserves them until they are removed, after which they begin to rot if not planted or potted in 1d6 hours.
18. (6d6) exotic tulip bulbs.
19. This bag is empty, however it also suffers from having been imprinted with a form of the Triple Shadow spell, making it slightly conspicuous, depending on the company you keep.
20. Sixty-three tin whistles and one kazoo. All of them covered in spit and reeking of cheap beer.
21. A crudely-drawn diagram sketched-out on a tattered piece of badly-frayed sail-cloth showing the proper way to butcher a Giant Albino Penguin.
22. Four hundred glass marbles in six different sizes, all of exceptional quality.
23. Several disparate pieces of silverware and three napkin-rings of carved soapstone that may or may not be blasphemous but are certainly obscene.
24. Three bundles of unused postcards depicting a variety of clowns from Little Carcosa and a dog-eared copy of The Mundy Guide to the City: A Comprehensive Guide to the Five Baronies of the Metropolis. Too bad the majority of the pages are stuck together by blood and some tarry substance that may still be moving if you look closely enough at it for long enough. Someone has sketched out a rough map on the inside of a book of matches that purportedly shows the way to a derelict barber shop. The matches have been ruined by exposure to the black stuff.
25. A small actinic torch sans batteries and a pair of Doctor Bronson's patented Wermpliers.
26. (1d4) random non-powered hand-tools.
27. The complete rigging of a schooner, including every line, rope or piece of sail, all expertly rolled-up, tightly folded, and packed neatly into the bag in such a way that simply boggles the mind.
28. Two gallons of wort from a long-lost brewery sloshing about in a pair of matching hermetically-sealed containers. To someone with a good knowledge of Zymurgy, this stuff is worth its weight in gold, or better.
29. Six pounds of raw Cacao, a dozen seed-pods and (1d4) pounds of 'cocoa powder.'
30. A nicely sculpted figurine cast in black bronze of a Grobbly-Bonk that can either be used to summon, bind or ward-off one of the nasty things depending upon how well you know your Aklo...

You might also find some use for the Questionable Trinkets & Trash Tables or some of our other Alternative Treasure tables.

And then there is Porky's excellent 100 Items Lost or Found on the Rogue Spacer table, which we highly recommend.

Aeonic Synchropore

A scroll unlike any other, it unrolls into a sheet of brass. Stained with blood and warm to the touch, it shimmers and seems more alive than any bit of hide. A window. Yes. It resembles some sort of window more than anything else, a way to see beyond, to look deeply upon somewhere--no; not 'where'--but rather somewhen else.

According to Dalmutrin's Doxological Exegeticon (but only in the third revision), the Aeonic Synchropore is essentially a divination device akin to a dowser's forked-rod, only it synchronizes itself with the area where it is opened-up and allows the user to observe events as they played out long, long ago in that very spot.

The user is behooved to know and employ the cursive iconoglyphs of classical aeonetics in order to appropriately tune and direct the time-skrying capabilities of this marvelous device.

It is all but indestructible and completely impervious to all attempts to engage it in conversation in any but the most obscure and esoteric form of some dead language known only to a select few rarefied scholars or mummified monastics.

Certain barbaric spell-casters have discovered that they can force the Aeonic Synchropore to execute a Temporal Dislocation (what they naively refer to as a 'Time-Shift') by the liberal application of a Feeblemind spell. Unfortunately, for them, no one has learned how to do this in a controlled manner, thus it is probably best left for all but the most fool-hardy or desperate.

Found Objects: The Crystal Egg

A Truly Curious Found Object: The Crystal Egg

Before there were Palantir Mister Wells gave us The Crystal Egg, a marvelous mass of unearthly crystal that had been pain-stakingly worked into an egg-shape and brilliantly polished by some person or persons unknown. A shew-stone of clear crystal, a bit like John Dee's obsidian one, it allows the user to Skry or view scenes of distant worlds. In the story itself, they saw images of Mars, just prior to the launch of the fateful Martian Invasion and the subsequent War of the Worlds of 1898.

Some Details Regarding The Crystal Egg

"The dirty little place was impenetrably black except in one spot, where he perceived an unusual glow of light. Approaching this, he discovered it to be the crystal egg, which was standing on the corner of the counter towards the window. A thin ray smote through a crack in the shutters, impinged upon the object, and seemed as it were to fill its entire interior."

"It occurred to Mr. Cave that this was not in accordance with the laws of optics as he had known them in his younger days. He could understand the rays being refracted by the crystal and coming to a focus in its interior, but this diffusion jarred with his physical conceptions. He approached the crystal nearly, peering into it and round it, with a transient revival of the scientific curiosity that in his youth had determined his choice of a calling. He was surprised to find the light not steady, but writhing within the substance of the egg, as though that object was a hollow sphere of some luminous vapour. In moving about to get different points of view, he suddenly found that he had come between it and the ray, and that the crystal none the less remained luminous. Greatly astonished, he lifted it out of the light ray and carried it to the darkest part of the shop. It remained bright for some four or five minutes, when it slowly faded and went out. He placed it in the thin streak of daylight, and its luminousness was almost immediately restored."

H. G. Wells, The Crystal Egg

The Crystal Egg requires only a minute amount of light in order to begin writing with interior illumination. A slender ray of not more than a millimeter will do nicely. It also helps a great deal to place the Crystal Egg in an otherwise very dark place, or to fold a heavy piece of velvet over it, as Mister Cave does in the story. Too much ambient light usually drowns-out the inner luminance of the Crystal Egg, making it appear as just a nicely polished bit of egg-shaped crystal.

"Unless we dismiss it all as the ingenious fabrication of Mr. Wace, we have to believe one of two things: either that Mr. Cave's crystal was in two worlds at once, and that, while it was carried about in one, it remained stationary in the other, which seems altogether absurd; or else that it had some peculiar relation of sympathy with another and exactly similar crystal in this other world, so that what was seen in the interior of the one in this world, was, under suitable conditions, visible to an observer in the corresponding crystal in the other world; and vice versa. At present, indeed, we do not know of any way in which two crystals could so come en rapport, but nowadays we know enough to understand that the thing is not altogether impossible. This view of the crystals as en rapport was the supposition that occurred to Mr. Wace, and to me at least it seems extremely plausible. . ."

H. G. Wells, The Crystal Egg

So What Can You (or your players) Do With This Thing?

Once the interior illumination is set into motion, The Crystal Egg will reveal scenes of distant worlds. However, whatever it reveals to you, it also provides a similar view to those who are on the other side of the connection. You can see those other worlds, but the inhabitants of those worlds can likewise see into your world. They can see you.

It may be possible to tune the thing through various technical, scientific, or sorcerous techniques. If so, this could be a very powerful variant Crystal Ball, one that might well attract attention both from the Powers That Be and Those Who Watch From The Otherside.

The Crystal Egg might be a very dangerous artifact to have in one's possession, either knowingly or not. If the location of The Crystal Egg were to become known, there are almost certainly dozens of individuals, groups, factions, cults or worse who would very much like to recover it or prevent it from falling into the 'wrong hands.' It might be a strange sort of alien probe sent off in advance of an impending invasion. It could be a relic left-over from a civilization that employed a very highly advanced form of opticks. Maybe it is a ritual object from a cult of sorcerers who maintained a covert form of interplanetary communications through-out the so-called Dark Ages. Who knows? But it could be fun to find out...The Crystal Egg is only one of the Curiosities and Antiquities we're including in the random tables associated with Schroedinger & Cave: Naturalists & Dealers in Curiosities, Prodigies & Antiquities (discrete). Coming soon.

Table One: Worlds & Places Revealed by the Crystal Egg

1. Mars (see A Fighting Table of Mars)
2. Yuggoth
3. Tekumel
4. Middle Earth (roll to avoid attracting Sauron's notice)
5. Yezmyr
6. The Lost World
7. Mysterious Island
8. Kepler-11
9. Planet Algol
10. Xiccarph  (more details at Eldritch Dark)
11. Zalchis
12. Carcosa
13. Altair 4 (IA! IA! Krell Fhtagn!)
14. Metaluna
15. The Planet of the Apes
16. The City
17. Skartaris or Pellucidar (30/70 odds)
18. Smithverse: Roll save or the Eddorians have you, otherwise you're talking to a bored Arisian.
19. Otherwhen
20. Special--pick some other fictional universe or wait for more tables like this to pop up, or click here for a really good list of Fictional Planets.

Table Two: Tuning It In and Getting Good Reception

1. Egg remains opaque. Perhaps you've broken it.
2. You've done it now--the Egg unfolds from its fractally-condensed state into a fully functional Interocitor and Trey is on the other end wondering why you called.
3. Egg explodes Irwin Allen style, with lots of sparks and noise, a good bit of smoke and the floor rocks back and forth a bit, but with relatively little damage (everyone save or take 1 point damage). Once the smoke clears, you get to roll on the Irwin Allen Sub-Table to see where the Egg now connects to--with a base 30% chance that it will form a temporary portal to this location.
4. Egg reveals the location of 2d10 other, similar Eggs and casts Quest or Geas upon everyone within 10' radius to go forth and collect these Eggs. The Egg will perform a strange form of Plane Shift to take the group to each of the other Eggs, one at a time on a once-a-week schedule. When the set is completed, it will merge into a translucent mass of hyper-intelligent--oh, but that would be telling. Finish the Quest, then you can roll on another table...
5. You see nothing. Those on the Other Side see everything, even your underwear.
6. Egg imprints the means to cast ESP once a day into the mind of one lucky(?) viewer.
7. Egg grants 1d4 viewers the ability to cast Clairvoyance once a week. Unfortunately each use of this ability has a cumulative 5% chance to burn their brain to a cinder from inadvertent feedback.
8. Egg becomes a gateway into whatever realm is currently being viewed.
9. You watch speeded-up old newsreel footage from the Great Depression that runs continuously for 1d4 weeks after which time egg displays a flashing green prompt.
10. The Egg displays every single episode of every single TV broadcast from across the Earth during 1950-59. It re-runs them all endlessly. Often out of order. The commercials are the worst. Save or go insane with a 30% chance of becoming convinced that you're caught up in some twilight realm. Your character needs to roll a save or be fixated by the flickering light of the dreaded cathode ray tube and slowly lose 1 point of wisdom or intelligence every hour they are mesmerized by this never-ending stream of images.
11. You can now view episodes of alien soap operas. There are subtitles if you know how to work the remote.
12. Egg bonds to one person and can only show scenes from their life, over and over again until they die or the Egg bonds to someone else. However, victim must save or die if they attempt to pass along the Egg.

A Fighting Table of Mars

1. Barsoom
2. Wellsian Mars
3. Kline's Mars
4. Le Roux's Mars with the Erloor-Vampires
5. Leigh Brackett's Mars
6. Podkayne Mars
7. Pope's Mars
8. Edison's Conquered Mars
9. Gulliver Jone's Mars
10. A Socialist-Utopian Mars
11. Nyctalope's Mars
12. Aelita, a Mars in Decline

Irwin Allen Sub-Table

1. Land of the Giants
2. Lost in Space
3. Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea
4. The Time Tunnel
5. Swiss Family Robinson
6. City Beneath the Sea
7. Towering Inferno
8. Poseidon Adventure

Bonus Video: The first 9 minutes of City Beneath the Sea

Additional Background and Sources

H. G. Wells wrote The Crystal Egg in 1897. You can find a version of this story at Online Literature, or at Many Books, or within the collection Tales of Space and Time over at Project Gutenberg.

You can also watch a modernized (1950s-style) adaptation of The Crystal Egg for the classic scifi TV series Tales of Tomorrow either at YouTube (Below), or over at Hulu or  Archive.org.

Found Objects II (Random Table/Wermspittle)

Ten Intriguing Items and Peculiar Objects salvaged from the Public Domain and elsewhere that you can now slip seamlessly into your own game.

A few of these things might be found in Schroedinger and Cave's Curiosity Shop in Wermspittle...

1. Three slightly dented tins containing a peculiar White Powder. (Base 20% chance of a sage, scholar or sorcerer identifying this as the vinum sabbati. Alchemists have base 60% chance to identify it correctly.) [Details: White Powder--enables strange visions of eldritch things. User may learn obscure secrets, including ancient spells and rituals, but runs risk of losing 1 point of Wisdom with each use (save versus poison) as well as becoming increasingly polymorphous until at last they lose all sense of their true form and become a writhing protean mass that loses all intelligence and is triply susceptible to fire damage. If burnt to death, victim leaves behind a patch of white powder...]
2. A luminous opal that seems to flicker strangely when not looked at directly, as though illuminated by a sort of Inmost Light. (40% chance that this is the gem of one of the Soulless. They will be searching for this item...) [Details: The opal contains a formerly humanoid soul and is the property of a Soulless NPC that is looking for it with every intention of recovering it despite cost or difficulty. Prolonged study of the opal will run a 20% chance of forming a temporary telepathic rapport with the soul residing in the opal (treat this as a Sapient Sword in terms of CHAR, INT, Willpower and attempts to take-over the character--the soul within the gem will attempt to first Charm the character, then to Possess them, and if they fail in their attempt they will attempt to bargain in order to broker the return of the opal to its proper master). Study of the opal will also reveal certain dark secrets of the Trap the Soul spell to a spell-caster of sufficient level to cast that spell, but such study will take 3d6 weeks of intense observation, exposing them to repeated Charms, Possession-attempts and/or offers from the soul trapped within the gem...]
3. A small orichalcum disk inscribed with an elaborate alchymical diagram on both sides. Locked within this disk is a small sliver of Quintessence. The disk heals 1d4 hit points of damage/day when held against the skin of one person. Unlocking any of its other capabilities will require the services of an Alchemist.
4. One slightly used Parisian-style Safety-Pin...stuck into an unpublished hand-written and slightly waterlogged and singed score from some obscure opera that has never been performed.
5. A Gold Tiberius in nearly mint condition resting within a teakwood box lined with green velvet. Removing the glass panel releases the rank fume of a goat. [Details: There are unscrupulous, ruthless, very dangerous people searching for this particular antique coin. Possessing the Gold Tiberius inevitably attracts the attention of those seeking after it. This could be most terrible, violent or potentially rewarding depending upon how the character(s) choose to handle it...one wouldn't want to wind up like the young man with spectacles...]
6. A very old, battered and notched sword that appears either yellow, or red or gray depending upon from which angle one looks at the blade. The hilt is inscribed 'Crocea Mors' and it has the following stats: [Crocea Mors, INT 12, Psyche 10, Willpower 22; Detection Powers: 3--Detect Secret Doors (10' radius X3/day), Detect Evil (20' radius), Detect Traps (10' radius X3/day); Spell-like Power: Double Damage for 1d10 rounds once per day. Crocea Mors is Lawful/+2 versus Chaotic beings when Yellow. It is Chaotic/+2 versus Lawful beings when Red. It is Neutral/+2 versus Law or Chaos when Gray. It switches color/alignment every 2d8 days.]
7. A notebook containing a translation of the Wujing Zongyao part I, vol 12 with extensive notes, diagrams, formulas and corrections derived from someone's efforts at concocting various forms of gunpowder. The translation and notes are in six different languages (randomly determined) and are clear enough that even a non-alchemist could create gunpowder, making it a very dangerous book in the wrong hands, potentially attracting the interest or ire of very powerful NPCs who were relieved that this manuscript was supposedly 'lost' sometime ago.
8. (1d4) rolls of a sickly yellow wallpaper. Anyone viewing this wallpaper for longer than a couple of hours must make a Save or begin to really, really hate this stuff and suffer a debilitating sensation of powerlessness for 1d4 turns.
9. A wonderfully well-preserved and richly bound copy of the third edition of Homer's Odyssey as translated into Gronk-speak. This volume does have the tipped-in hand-colored illustrations, but is lacking the index. Any non-Gronk attempting to read this translation must make a Save or lose 1d4 INT or WIS for one week. Doing it twice results in a permanent loss of 1 point from either stat.
10. A Cask of Amontillado in reasonably decent condition, all things considered. The outside is a bit banged-up, dusty and smells of long years of being left in a closed-up cellar, but the wine itself is still excellent and very drinkable.

Gronk Sword, cheap

Gronk-Sword
Does 2d4 +STR bonus, if any.
Requires a minimum Strength of 15 to wield at -2 penalty, each point of strength above 15 decreases the penalty (thus: 16 STR=-1 penalty, 17 STR=no penalty, 18 STR=+1 bonus). A Gronk-Sword is overly heavy, very-much off-balance and difficult to use unless one takes 1d4 days to get the hang of it. Even then, it takes a lot of strength to make it worth swinging around as a weapon, though it does make an excellent pry-bar, can-opener, and completely illegal substitute cricket-bat. The core is composed of yellow metal traded from certain morlock kingdoms, the exterior is composed of a smooth, white metal that would retain an excellent edge had it been sharpened prior to being tempered and quenched in a muriatic acid bath.

The Gronk are a very sturdy, industrious and collectively-organized species of parthenogenic beings who have fully embraced the concepts of centralized planning and mass production in a peculiar Gronk-ific form of militarized assembly-line communalism.

Gronks are famous for their over-sized, unwieldy and very off-balanced swords. Each Gronk receives one Gronk-Sword from the Central Supply Service upon completing their initial desensitization and pain tolerance training. This is the only weapon they'll ever need. That is a direct order from Gronk Central Command.

It is treasonous to disobey Gronk Central Command.

The Eyes of the Gronk Central Command are upon all Gronks at all times.

Because Gronk Central Command cares about all good Gronks.

Abandoning or selling one's Gronk-Sword is a treasonous act.

Only those under the influence of foreign agitators and hardened traitors would do such a terrible thing. The Gronk-Sword is the acme of Gronk military-industrial design science. It is the perfect weapon for all Gronks.

Such a thing should not be allowed to fall into the hands of other forces. Especially not those who do not respect the Gronk way of life.