Oddities for a Ruined City
Many adventures will lead a party of characters into the ruins of a city - ancient or perhaps not so ancient! Here are some oddities designed to provide some interesting details or possible side-quests to your adventure.
At the back of a ruined cabinet in what was once a high-quality inn, you find an ornately-carved wooden box. Through the holes in the lid, you can see the gleam of gold coins and precious gems. It is a puzzle box, but a difficult one: if a player succeeds, the box opens and they can collect the contents. However if the player fails to open the box, they will notice that the box is lighter and there are now fewer coins and gems. The number of items in the box will be reduced with each try, until the box is empty, and snaps open with a noxious smell. Note opening the box, whether on a success or failure, dispels the magic and it will become an ordinary puzzle box.
In a courtyard you find a wall with a ruined mural. Not much remains, colors have blurred and shifted and the plaster flakes away when touched. As the characters walk by, a large section of plaster collapses to the ruined pavement, revealing the original wall and the map that has been scratched into it.
A winding set of stairs leads up through the rubble, over several empty doorway arches and ends abruptly at a landing. At the top there is a bedroll, a small pack crammed with soiled clothing. Nearby is a tin cup and some crumbs. There is an excellent view of the surrounding area from here.
At the end of a row of relatively intact decorative columns, you find a small yacht that lays nestled between two of the pillars, far from any water. It is old and shows signs of wear, but has no structural damage.
You hear a murmur of voices, and round the corner to find your way blocked by a large fallen column. Peering over top of it, you can see a paved square, where there is a collection of birds and beasts arranged in a circle. There are a broad variety including cats, dogs, a bear, a raven, several crows and magpies, a pair of lions, several wolves, a donkey, a horse, and many other smaller animals. You can clearly hear the lion saying "We know the opinion of the bears and wolves. What say the rest of you?" There is an alarmed croak from a watchful raven who calls out "Beware! Beware!" The animals turn their heads as one to stare at you, and then turn and exit rapidly in several directions.
In an empty square lined by the shells of once elegant buildings, you find a small market with where vendors have food and household goods to trade or sell. Customers appear to be coming in from areas beyond the square. Both vendors and customers are raggedly dressed, and all eye you warily.
A round tower has toppled sideways and its foundations have filled with water. There are stairs leading downward and something deep underwater looks to be burning.
The foundation stone of a collapsed building turns out to be hollow, and contains a metal toolbox. It is not locked, and when the catch is released, it opens to reveal a small statue of a frog dressed in festive clothing. The figure immediately springs to life, stands on its hind legs and performs a lively antique song and dance routine before returning to its statue form. It will perform like this at anytime the box is opened, but only if the audience is limited to the people who were there when the box was first opened.
The side wall of a block of flats has collapsed, leaving the rooms of those flats visible to the outside. It looks like a dollhouse - tables, chairs bookshelves and other furniture can be seen positioned as they were when the tenants were last there.
A dapper person wearing colorful rags approaches the players and offers either to give them a tour of the more interesting parts of the ruins, or to sell them a map. If they hire this tour guide, they will be led down a narrow alley where they will be attacked. If they buy the map, the map has locations that are trapped.
There is an open area in which lovely red flowers are growing in tidy rows and columns. If the players wander between the flowers they will see bones and decayed fabric sticking out of the thin soil that covers the bodies of the dead, who have been placed in rows. If you pluck one of the flowers, it whispers a secret known only to the person whose body it is growing out of ("It was me, I did it, I took the money," "I was mother's favorite", and the like).
You come to an area where the stone and concrete are scorch-marked, and you can see the charred remains of wooden structures. In places, there are skeletons collapsed against the scorched stone wall, some with sword hilts still grasped between bony fingers. This can be traced to a single figure that is in the center of the burnt area. A dessicated body lays collapsed in place, dressed in the tattered remains of a brocaded robe with two arrows piercing its chest, and another arrow piercing its eye. It has not been affected by the scorching or burning, but the burnt area extends in a 50' circle surrounding it. It grasps a crystal-topped staff in its bony fingers.
In an area within sight of an old harbor, you come across an area where some buildings have been flattened, as though crushed by a giant foot or tail. Other buildings nearby have survived relatively unscathed. If they care to, the players can follow a trail of such flattened buildings to the edge of the harbor, where they will find huge drag marks leading into the sea.
In the courtyard of what was once a wealth villa, five bodies have been pinned to the wall of the villa with spears that have steel spear heads and spear shafts that have been elaborately decorated with religious symbols. The bodies are dessicated but otherwise whole, and wearing matching black robes. If a player removes a spear, the body drops to the ground, and within 5 minutes begins to pull itself together and stand up.
A street near the harbor is strewn with the skeletons of many fish, large and small. There is a faint odor of fishy decay, but the fish have been dead a long time. Some of the fish bodies have human rib cages and skulls and a few of them are carrying tridents.
The skeleton of a large creature lays on top of the rubble of a row of shops, with bones poking out of dessicated flesh and tatters of scaly hide. The huge skull looks reptilian. You can see the bones of forelegs and rear legs, and a tail that extends for half again its body length. A lance is impaled in its chest.
In the back room of what appears to be a ruined Butcher shop there is a large table and an impressive set of knives of all sizes. Bones are piled on the table, and show scrapes indicating flesh having been removed with knives. They are human bones.
In the courtyard of a nearly intact house players may trip over a loose paving stone. Under the paving stone is a cache of looted treasure, an assortment of gold and silver coins, rings, cups, sword hilts and religious symbols. Silver items are blackened with age. Larger items such as cups and large religious symbols have been hammered flat and in some cases folded over.
A plum tree is growing up through what seems to have been a large coach that was turned on its side. The fruit of this tree, if eaten, has a beneficial effect - tired characters are refreshed, and bruises, blisters, sprains, scrapes and other minor injuries are immediately healed. Should the characters investigate more closely, they may notice a bulge at the base of the tree - it has grown up and around a small chest that was in the coach. A magic check will reveal that this chest contains an amulet of healing.
In the old shipyards, in addition to the a number of ruined vessels and semi-completed vessels, you come upon a large, clinker-built ship, in which lays the intact body of a giantess clad in magnificent armor. On her chest, , which you can see rising and falling, her hands clasp a giant-sized sword with a jeweled hilt. She appears to be asleep.
In an area near a set of interconnected buildings, you can hear a humming sound that gets louder as they go near it. You can trace it to a sturdy metal building that is somewhat warm to the touch, and vibrates. There is a door that opens easily. Should you be bold enough to investigate, you will find an empty room with marks on the floor where large objects once were. A trap door can be opened to reveal a large geared mechanism, a crankshaft that spins and crackles and sparks with eldritch energies.
As you enter the tiled courtyard of a large, columned building, you can see that that some of the tiles are shattered and damaged. There is a chance that one of them will trigger a magical landmine for a random spell effect. The Storyteller can decide on the magical effects and on whether or not you can quickly learn to identify which tiles are trapped.
You hear a murmer of voices from the other side of the partial wall of what was once a large building that stood near a market square. When you go to look, the voices stop and there is no one there.
A sign has been posted at the entryway to a narrow street. It has a large X with some words written underneath. At storyteller's discretion, someone in your party can translate it (it says DANGER! KEEP OUT).
A large, jagged shard of black stone sticks up out of the rubble of some low buildings. Solidly embedded, it has the circumferance of a large tree trunk and it is 20' long and sticking out of the ground at a 45 degree angle. Upon closer examination, its sides are smoothly finished, with only the top edges being rough and broken.The broken edges are sharp. As you examine it, a row of glowing text appears and then disappears. The shard detects as magic.
In the burned out ruin of a large building, you come upon an area with a great deal of broken pottery. As you look more closely, you can see that they have spilled from a set of corner shelves that are only partially burned. Each piece is formed from a rectangular piece of clay about the size of the palm of an adult's hand, and is inscribed with strange characters. A few are intact but many are broken.
Sidebar: Populating your ruin with random antiquities
Lootable antiquities
First, decide what ‘s there to be found by the players - roll a d20 and check the list below.
Pots, cups and dishes
Wall paintings (frescoes etc.)
Decorative lamps
Signet ring
Small figurines
Mosaics on walls or floors
Decorative metal fittings
Interesting tiles
Jewellery
Statues
Weapons
Carved wooden chest
Glassware of any kind
Coffins and urns
Stash of coins
Skeletons
Intact furniture
Books or scrolls
Amphorae
Decorative vases/small containers
Quantity, Quality and Condition
Next determine quantity, quality and condition:
Quantity - roll 1d6x
Quality - roll d100
A 1 indicates low quality, a 96-00 indicate extremely high quality, possibly magicalCondition - roll d100
Below 20 indicates an object that is broken. 96-100 indicates perfect condition.
