Random Table: 100 Market Stalls

Winding bazaars and markets filled with colorful stalls stocked with exotic goods are a fantasy staple. But what are today's stalls offering? Roll (d100) on the table below to find out:

100 Market Stalls (d100)
01.  Exotic parrots with rainbow plumage
02. Charms against possession and enchantment
03. Narwhal-horn scrimshaw
04. Purple Worm-tooth daggers
05. Fine parchment, inks, & quills
06. Obnoxiously loud ornamental dogs
07. Old Greba's Spell Component & Herb Emporium
08. Dragonfruit (a popular aphrodesiac)
09. Troot's "Knock-Knee" Brandy
10. Fine scarves and shawls
11. Holter's Roots, Tubers, and Grubs
12. Oak-handled umbrellas and sunshades
13. Lens Grinder - Bronze-rimmed reading glasses
14. Hot spiced meat pies
15. Pet lemurs and a variety of ornamental leashes
16. Firewood and charcoal
17. Handmade silver-wire hairnets & necklaces
18. Fried onions & mushrooms
19. Candied confections
20. Risque night attire
21. Rare books, scrolls, & tomes
22. Handcarved blackwood statuettes
23. Caricature artist
24. Ceramic pottery
25. Love potions (1 in 20 actually works!)
26. Fresh vegetables of gigantic size
27. Fine leather belts, straps, gloves, & boots
28. Iron cookware
29. Fine sheathes for blades of all sizes
30. Grilled insects on sticks
31. Rolula the Fortune Teller & Card Reader
32. Gungi's Ale Stall - Halfpints, pints, & litres available
33. Gnarlwood flutes & whistles
34. Fresh fruits from the fabled shouthern jungles
35. Scribing & Messenger service
36. Dulok the moneychanger and his intimidating bodyguards
37. Fine portraits & landscapes
38. Rare maps of locales near & far
39. Smoked giant hornfish
40. Fine shoes & slippers for courtiers
41. Well-crafted and colorful glassware
42. Freshly skinned rabbits
43. Finely woven baskets and hats
44. Pumpkins, Gourds, and Squash
45. Berries, Grapes, and Cherries
46. Saddles, tack, harness, and saddlebags
47. Priest pontificating about the End Days to any who'll listen
48. Nine different varieties of Bay Leaf
49. Fiery spices from across the great ocean
50. Needles & Pins, 99 different colors of thread
51. Leather jackets
52. Leather boots & shoes
53. Hot peppers & sauces
54. Fresh flowers, available in arrangements
55. Piping hot spiced cider
56. Potatoes, available in 10 or 25 lb sacks
57. Nice porcelain chamber pots & ewers
58. Caged geese, plump & raucous
59. Pintillican's Gauranteed Fever-Cures
60. Strings, cat-gut or wire for stringed instruments
61. Drums & drumheads
62. Fine attire for dwarfs, halflings & other folk of small stature
63. Chalk & slates of all sizes
64. Multi-colored rugs
65. Backpacks, pouches, & sacks
66. Candied chestnuts
67. Fine wines by the bottle or cask
68. Underclothes of Distinction
69. Masonry Tools
70. Ingots of various rare metals
71. Finely crafted hourglasses
72. Bolts of silk from the unapproachable East
73. Hats of all shapes & sizes
74. Rotten eggs & vegetables for sale to throw at undesirables
75. Poetry by commission
76. Puppets & Marionettes
77. A pair of surly looking goblins offering to darn socks
78. Bird feathers & plumage of all sizes & colors
79. A sergeant of the Black Iron Mercenary Company soliciting recruits
80. Bells, bells, and more bells. And a group of children who won't leave them alone.
81. Ornate birdcages
82. Massage for a gold piece
83. Fine cloaks & capes
84. Delicious smelling freshly baked bread
85. Dried meats & fruits
86. Tinterboxes & Torches
87. Beritte the Curse-Tamer
88. Ceramic mugs & goblets
89. Weird & Wonderful porcelain masks
90. Golben the Ogler
91. Sugar cane and molasses
92. Rare Tea of Altered Consciousness
93. A mud-caked orphan girl trying to sell from a litter of kittens
94. Bags of barley, wheat, and rye
95. Wooden contraptions of uncertain purpose
96. Hommaquill Whitebeard, Seer of Heroes
97. Hot apple & gooseberry pies
98. Fine rapiers with intricate basket-hilts
99. Model ships and gliders
00. A dubious-looking trader trying to sell (for an extravagant sum) what he claims to be a pseudodragon egg

BtBG Reader: The Way of Kings

Summer's always a big reading time for me, easily a dozen books or so in 3 months, and this year had a clear standout: Brandon Sanderson's The Way of Kings.

I was a little leery of picking up this book. On one hand, I thought he had brought a little needed energy to the end of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time saga, but on the other hand, I had picked up his Mistborn book and found it too plebian and derivative to read. It was hard to ignore all the glowing reviews though, and I eventually gave in and got it (I think it was on sale for like 2$ on Kindle at the time as well, so I wasn't risking much).

I was pleasantly surprised to find the Way of Kings was anything but the cookie-cutter fantasy I feared it would be. The world-building is fantastic - a war-torn world ravaged by unnatural storms that have the side-effect of charging the magical gems that help people survive, a complex ecology of flora and fauna that evolved in such a horrible environment, and a many-layered and appetizingly mysterious history. The characters all manage to be interesting without heavy-handed plot devices.

The books itself is nice, with something you almost never see any more - interior art! It makes me want to purchase the dead-tree version just for that. The interior art, other than maps, is usually a character's sketches and descriptions of the interesting locations, critters, and plant life of the world of storms, which further brings the setting to life. The cover art is by one of my favorites, Michael Whelan, who Sanderson apparently did some heavy lobbying to get.

Despite being over a thousand pages (I typically prefer my books in the 300-page range), I plowed through it in less than a week, and bought the sequel, Words of Radiance, before I was even finished, just to have in my library waiting. I can't recommend these enough, if you like your fantasy on the weirder side (Vance, Burroughs, etc), and less derivative of Tolkien (no elves, orcs, etc here!), do yourself a favor and pick this up.

Getting excited for Star Wars?

Despite my best intentions, I'm starting to feel a little excitement creep up on me for the forthcoming new chapter in the Star Wars saga. It's completely illogical, I know. It's hard not to be pessimistic - George Lucas has given up on the franchise, and many might argue he lost his "mojo" for it long before that. Star Wars is currently owned by Disney, the biggest entertainment juggernaut in the world, so there are likely to be financially-based compulsions behind the creation of the new trilogy that I can't even imagine. The director of the first installment, JJ Abrams, has kind of a mixed record with restarting franchises, at least in my opinion (I greatly enjoyed the first Star Trek reboot, not so much the second).

Nevertheless, I started to take a look around in those shadowier corners of the internet in which unsavory characters lurk with illicit offerings of "spoilers", and "leaks". And, deep down inside, that spark of excitement began to grow. I can't help myself. Star Wars was a huge part of my childhood, and any chance to relive a part of that magic, no matter how small... Well, I'm going to chase that feeling a little bit, keep a tiny bit of optimism in my shirt pocket just in case.

Some better (veracity not guaranteed, natch) Star Wars speculation can be found at these links:

http://theforce.net/
http://www.starwars7news.com/
http://makingstarwars.net/

What's YOUR opinion on the upcoming trilogy? Excited? Pessimistic?

Some 5E pregens for you.

Here are some pre-gen characters I made to give the 5E system a test-drive, and figured I'd share them. They are made from the Basic rulebook available here.

Gorum, 1st level human fighter (axe & board)

Hasan, another 1st level human fighter (2H'd sword)

Neer, 1st level elven cleric

Malakus, 1st level human wizard

Frodoric, 1st level halfling thief



Oh, and here's a higher level character - a conversion from a Pathfinder NPC of mine, the most annoying gnome Illusionist-Thief of all time. This guy was made with options from the new PHB.

Rufus

While I'm saving my thoughts on 5E for a future post, I have to admit I love the layout of the new character sheets, and how they are so focused on the role-playing aspects of the character.

Necromancer Games forums compilation

Back when D&D 3E was first announced, there was this new little thing called the OGL, which allowed 3rd party companies to produce materials compatible with the new edition sans any licensing fees. Necromancer Games was one of the first of these third parties, and the first to produce materials with an eye towards the game's 1E and B/X roots. "New school rules, old school feel". Years before the OSR became a thing.

If there was any sort of cultural center for old school gaming with newer rules back then, it was definitely the Necromancer Games forums, accessible from their website, and one of the most active and creative message boards around. The forums were filled with homebrew stuff, great debates and discussions, dungeon design and campaign tips, and lore from old-school luminaries like Bob Bledsaw.

Now that Necromancer Games is no more (one half of the original partnership continues to soldier on as Frog God Games, while the other apparently bowed out of the business after an atrocious and unfair public scandal), there is no official maintenance of their messageboards, and these boards are doomed to decay and eventually disappear altogether.

Fortunately, board member Magoo has taken it on himself to compile most of the board's content into a single download, accessible here, so all this great stuff can be preserved. If you were a visitor to those boards back in their glory days, were a contributor and want a copy of your material, or are simply curious and want to read some great stuff, grab a copy while you can!

You're gonna love this video

Megadungeons article

Saw a fun article on the "Deepest, Weirdest, Hugest Megadungeons" over on I09 and thought I'd share. There's some good stuff on the list itself, and some more interesting nods in the comments section. Check it out here.