So, I know better than this but I off the cuff improvised something that worked well in roleplay, but is going to come back to bite me in the backside. So could do with some help.
I introduced the idea of a Copperland store (think Poundland for UK folks, Dollartree for NA folks, places where cheaply made tat is stocked) where every item stocked costs just 1cp. It was an off the cuff joke that presented the opportunity for some story fun. It is essentially a chain of stores across the land. I improvised during a lengthy derailment from players which I loved, a series of whistles carved from wood in the shape of creatures. When blown they made a horrid version of the creature's call or noises. I made out that this store only had four in stock, but there were...why did I say this?!?!?! ...50 different shapes in existence.
As I say, I know better, but we were two and half hours into a diversion where all story hooks had been ignored in favour of a shopping and NPC heavy improv session. And of course, one of my players now has their heart set on collecting 'em all. Which I'm going to give them the opportunities to do...but I don't yet have the full list of fifty in my head.
So, now I'm trying to build a full list of all fifty whistles that might exist. I'm thinking maybe there were five different runs of whistles released by the person who crafted them. I'm thinking also maybe only beasts, creatures, fiends...things that don't necessarily speak but might craw, call, squeak, or bark for example. I'm also thinking that maybe it could be possible to have some rarer whistles...maybe spiders are rare because it's difficult to find one where the legs didn't break off in transport? Maybe a rare variant carved from stone as a prototype?
At very every different store they encounter will have different stock and I might even create a schedule that the players won't see, or only get hints at that means they could miss one of the collectables if they arrive late to the town in which the latest whistle that they're looking for has been released.
So aside from suggestions of which creatures might have made it into the collection, I'd like some feedback on if this is a good set-up for collectables? I'm not a collectables person, but think it's just a fun little background thing to have going on in the background.
Seems like you have to have a dragon in there. I know most of them can speak, but they can also roar. You could even do a super-limited edition one that's specifically Tiamat or Bahamut.
As for a couple more in the regular categories
For land: Lion, bear
Air: Heron, harpy
Sea: Whale, sea turtle, kraken
Monsters: demon, gelatinous cube (surely they make some really disgusting squishing sound when they move), zombie
You could have one of each of the chromatic dragons, which can combine into Tiamat if you have them all.
I'd suggest just opening the monster manual at a random page for the ceatures!
Other ideas:
a backwards tribe which is using a whistle as a totem/idol.
a collector who hounds the party endlessly to trade.
a ghost who's unfinished business is to get a whistle back from someone else, who was buried with it.
one whistle which is "the lost whistle". The crate disappeared, and none were ever made again. Cue a side-quest to summon it, only to find that they are the reason the crate disappeared - they pulled it through time. Maybe a Sphinx, as they do time stuff.
a monster who hates the sounds of the whistles - every time they blow on them, it gets closer to finding them
a sunken ship with a shipment of these whistles which was lost
some sort of forgotten promotion where if you collect all the whistles you'll get a prize. perhaps something like commanding shares of the business, and the promotion was run before it became a world-spanning empire. The BBEG is also collecting whistles to try and take it over (akin to Ready Player One).
You could have one of each of the chromatic dragons, which can combine into Tiamat if you have them all.
I'd suggest just opening the monster manual at a random page for the ceatures!
Other ideas:
a backwards tribe which is using a whistle as a totem/idol.
a collector who hounds the party endlessly to trade.
a ghost who's unfinished business is to get a whistle back from someone else, who was buried with it.
one whistle which is "the lost whistle". The crate disappeared, and none were ever made again. Cue a side-quest to summon it, only to find that they are the reason the crate disappeared - they pulled it through time. Maybe a Sphinx, as they do time stuff.
a monster who hates the sounds of the whistles - every time they blow on them, it gets closer to finding them
a sunken ship with a shipment of these whistles which was lost
some sort of forgotten promotion where if you collect all the whistles you'll get a prize. perhaps something like commanding shares of the business, and the promotion was run before it became a world-spanning empire. The BBEG is also collecting whistles to try and take it over (akin to Ready Player One).
I'm running a homebrew world, so Tiamat doesn't have the same status in that world, but nice suggestion in a different world.
I love the idea of the promotion to collect them all. Some interesting suggestions for me to think about!
the more I think about it the more I love the idea of the BBEG collecting them as well.
just picture it - the party is like "yeah we're trying to stop Skulko the Dim from awakening Cthulhu and ending the world, but we're also trying to collect these neat whistles!", then they are bidding at an auction and they keep getting out-bid, and they look over to see the familiar evil-horned-crown of Skulko on the other side as he bids 4,500 gold for the duck whistle.
or even better, they haven't met the BBEG yet, they meet them in the final act and they both recognise each other as those other guys from the auctions, and the whole battle is punctuated by them shouting at each other for outbidding them. Skulko even thinks they're there to steal his whistles, not stop his plan of apocalypse.
So, I fleshed out the list after a bit more thought and some suggestions. This is what I have so far. I think I'm going to allow the players to find a list written this way somewhere so the italics will be like handwritten notes maybe?
Series 1 - Beasts of the Land 1 - Badger 2 - Cat 3 - Deer 4 - Fox 5 - Hare 6 - Horse 7 - Lion 8 - Mastiff 9 - Pig 10 - Rat 11 - Weasel 12 - Wolf Series 2 - Beasts of the Skies 13 - Bat 14 - Eagle 15 - Hawk 16 - Honeybee 17 - Owl 18 - Raven 19 - Swan 20 - Vulture Series 3 - Beasts of the Water 21 - Crab 22 - Dolphin 23 - Fish 24 - Frog 25 - Quipper 26 - Sea Horse 27 - Seal 28 - Shark 29 - Walrus 30 - Whale Series 4 - Monsters 31 - Aboleth 32 - Abyssal Chicken 33 - Beholder 34 - Flumph 35 - Gargoyle 36 - Grell 37 - Hell Hound 38 - Nightmare 39 - Pheonix 40 - Vrock Series 5 - Rare Variants 41 - Boar - Stone Carved Rare Variant 42 - Wasp - Unreleased Prototype 43 - Unicorn - Candyfloss colouring - Extremely rare 44 - Magpie - Mispainted raven? 45 - Squid - Product Recall? 46 - Golden Lizard - Bronze Cast variant? 47 - Spider - Rare to find one intact 48 - Camel - Stone carved? 49 - Snake - No whistle? Unidentified 50 - - No idea?
I feel there may be a legendary Dwarven clan, a dynasty if you will, responsible for the manufacture of these trinkets, and they've parlayed their commercial success into minor celebrity. Think dudes with real big beards, with very entrenched belief systems that are controversial in some circles.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I like this a lot. I would just caution having too many other collectors out there. In a game where the party routinely kills things and takes their belongings, it seems like it would be real easy to collect them all by just killing/stealing from someone else, going directly from 0/50 to 40/50 or something. Collectors should go to lengths to keep their collections secure and inaccessible upon their death.
These collections are numbered and can be registered at a central clearing house. There are auctions for specialty items but the common ones are much easier to find.
Some monsters use the rumor of their location as bait, whether they exist or not.
These collections are numbered and can be registered at a central clearing house. There are auctions for specialty items but the common ones are much easier to find.
Some monsters use the rumor of their location as bait, whether they exist or not.
Not my cup of tea, but awesome idea for other settings I'm sure.
Most of my worlds are set up with local production in mind...so there isn't much in the way of centralised merchant guilds or what have you. This'll be a regional craftsperson making these things in small batches and shipping them across the kingdom to different copperland stores I think. I don't really want them to be more than just a curiosity, a silly side thing maybe.
some sort of forgotten promotion where if you collect all the whistles you'll get a prize. perhaps something like commanding shares of the business, and the promotion was run before it became a world-spanning empire. The BBEG is also collecting whistles to try and take it over (akin to Ready Player One).
So something good came out of Ready Player One after all
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
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So, I know better than this but I off the cuff improvised something that worked well in roleplay, but is going to come back to bite me in the backside. So could do with some help.
I introduced the idea of a Copperland store (think Poundland for UK folks, Dollartree for NA folks, places where cheaply made tat is stocked) where every item stocked costs just 1cp. It was an off the cuff joke that presented the opportunity for some story fun. It is essentially a chain of stores across the land. I improvised during a lengthy derailment from players which I loved, a series of whistles carved from wood in the shape of creatures. When blown they made a horrid version of the creature's call or noises. I made out that this store only had four in stock, but there were...why did I say this?!?!?! ...50 different shapes in existence.
As I say, I know better, but we were two and half hours into a diversion where all story hooks had been ignored in favour of a shopping and NPC heavy improv session. And of course, one of my players now has their heart set on collecting 'em all. Which I'm going to give them the opportunities to do...but I don't yet have the full list of fifty in my head.
So, now I'm trying to build a full list of all fifty whistles that might exist. I'm thinking maybe there were five different runs of whistles released by the person who crafted them. I'm thinking also maybe only beasts, creatures, fiends...things that don't necessarily speak but might craw, call, squeak, or bark for example. I'm also thinking that maybe it could be possible to have some rarer whistles...maybe spiders are rare because it's difficult to find one where the legs didn't break off in transport? Maybe a rare variant carved from stone as a prototype?
At very every different store they encounter will have different stock and I might even create a schedule that the players won't see, or only get hints at that means they could miss one of the collectables if they arrive late to the town in which the latest whistle that they're looking for has been released.
So aside from suggestions of which creatures might have made it into the collection, I'd like some feedback on if this is a good set-up for collectables? I'm not a collectables person, but think it's just a fun little background thing to have going on in the background.
Collectable list so far
Series 1 - Beasts of the Land
Cat
Deer
Fox
Hare
Horse
Mastiff
Rat
Wolf
Series 2 - Beasts of the Skies
Bat
Eagle
Owl
Raven
Wasp
Series 3 - Beasts of the Water
Crab
Frog
Quipper
Shark
Walrus
Series 4 - Monsters
Abyssal Chicken
Beholder
Flumph
Gargoyle
Nightmare
Pheonix
Series 5 - Rare Variants
Boar - Stone Carved Rare Variant
Wasp - Unreleased Prototype
Unicorn - Candyfloss colouring - Extremely rare
Magpie - Mispainted raven?
Squid - Product Recall?
DM session planning template - My version of maps for 'Lost Mine of Phandelver' - Send your party to The Circus - Other DM Resources - Maps, Tokens, Quests - 'Better' Player Character Injury Tables?
Actor, Writer, Director & Teacher by day - GM/DM in my off hours.
Seems like you have to have a dragon in there. I know most of them can speak, but they can also roar. You could even do a super-limited edition one that's specifically Tiamat or Bahamut.
As for a couple more in the regular categories
For land: Lion, bear
Air: Heron, harpy
Sea: Whale, sea turtle, kraken
Monsters: demon, gelatinous cube (surely they make some really disgusting squishing sound when they move), zombie
Some sort of horrible-looking creature they've never heard of. When blown, they hear nothing, but any dogs nearby run away in fear.
Collectable makers often have exclusives for special events (GenCon, San Diego Comicon).
There should absolutely be a dragon out there who's hoarding them, and has all of one of the ultra-rares.
I love the idea of a dragon hoarding it's own collection and having one of the ultra rare ones!
Maybe a Grell or Flying Horror for the horrid looking creature eh?
DM session planning template - My version of maps for 'Lost Mine of Phandelver' - Send your party to The Circus - Other DM Resources - Maps, Tokens, Quests - 'Better' Player Character Injury Tables?
Actor, Writer, Director & Teacher by day - GM/DM in my off hours.
This sounds like a really cool idea.
You could have one of each of the chromatic dragons, which can combine into Tiamat if you have them all.
I'd suggest just opening the monster manual at a random page for the ceatures!
Other ideas:
Make your Artificer work with any other class with 174 Multiclassing Feats for your Artificer Multiclass Character!
DM's Guild Releases on This Thread Or check them all out on DMs Guild!
DrivethruRPG Releases on This Thread - latest release: My Character is a Werewolf: balanced rules for Lycanthropy!
I have started discussing/reviewing 3rd party D&D content on Substack - stay tuned for semi-regular posts!
I'm running a homebrew world, so Tiamat doesn't have the same status in that world, but nice suggestion in a different world.
I love the idea of the promotion to collect them all. Some interesting suggestions for me to think about!
DM session planning template - My version of maps for 'Lost Mine of Phandelver' - Send your party to The Circus - Other DM Resources - Maps, Tokens, Quests - 'Better' Player Character Injury Tables?
Actor, Writer, Director & Teacher by day - GM/DM in my off hours.
the more I think about it the more I love the idea of the BBEG collecting them as well.
just picture it - the party is like "yeah we're trying to stop Skulko the Dim from awakening Cthulhu and ending the world, but we're also trying to collect these neat whistles!", then they are bidding at an auction and they keep getting out-bid, and they look over to see the familiar evil-horned-crown of Skulko on the other side as he bids 4,500 gold for the duck whistle.
or even better, they haven't met the BBEG yet, they meet them in the final act and they both recognise each other as those other guys from the auctions, and the whole battle is punctuated by them shouting at each other for outbidding them. Skulko even thinks they're there to steal his whistles, not stop his plan of apocalypse.
I am so adding collectables into my world!
Make your Artificer work with any other class with 174 Multiclassing Feats for your Artificer Multiclass Character!
DM's Guild Releases on This Thread Or check them all out on DMs Guild!
DrivethruRPG Releases on This Thread - latest release: My Character is a Werewolf: balanced rules for Lycanthropy!
I have started discussing/reviewing 3rd party D&D content on Substack - stay tuned for semi-regular posts!
So, I fleshed out the list after a bit more thought and some suggestions. This is what I have so far. I think I'm going to allow the players to find a list written this way somewhere so the italics will be like handwritten notes maybe?
Series 1 - Beasts of the Land
1 - Badger
2 - Cat
3 - Deer
4 - Fox
5 - Hare
6 - Horse
7 - Lion
8 - Mastiff
9 - Pig
10 - Rat
11 - Weasel
12 - Wolf
Series 2 - Beasts of the Skies
13 - Bat
14 - Eagle
15 - Hawk
16 - Honeybee
17 - Owl
18 - Raven
19 - Swan
20 - Vulture
Series 3 - Beasts of the Water
21 - Crab
22 - Dolphin
23 - Fish
24 - Frog
25 - Quipper
26 - Sea Horse
27 - Seal
28 - Shark
29 - Walrus
30 - Whale
Series 4 - Monsters
31 - Aboleth
32 - Abyssal Chicken
33 - Beholder
34 - Flumph
35 - Gargoyle
36 - Grell
37 - Hell Hound
38 - Nightmare
39 - Pheonix
40 - Vrock
Series 5 - Rare Variants
41 - Boar - Stone Carved Rare Variant
42 - Wasp - Unreleased Prototype
43 - Unicorn - Candyfloss colouring - Extremely rare
44 - Magpie - Mispainted raven?
45 - Squid - Product Recall?
46 - Golden Lizard - Bronze Cast variant?
47 - Spider - Rare to find one intact
48 - Camel - Stone carved?
49 - Snake - No whistle?
Unidentified 50 - - No idea?
Number 50 will of course be a Dragon I think.
DM session planning template - My version of maps for 'Lost Mine of Phandelver' - Send your party to The Circus - Other DM Resources - Maps, Tokens, Quests - 'Better' Player Character Injury Tables?
Actor, Writer, Director & Teacher by day - GM/DM in my off hours.
I feel there may be a legendary Dwarven clan, a dynasty if you will, responsible for the manufacture of these trinkets, and they've parlayed their commercial success into minor celebrity. Think dudes with real big beards, with very entrenched belief systems that are controversial in some circles.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Flumphs canonically use telepathy, so a flumph whistle should give a telepathic sound.
I like this a lot. I would just caution having too many other collectors out there. In a game where the party routinely kills things and takes their belongings, it seems like it would be real easy to collect them all by just killing/stealing from someone else, going directly from 0/50 to 40/50 or something. Collectors should go to lengths to keep their collections secure and inaccessible upon their death.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
Ok, how about this?
These collections are numbered and can be registered at a central clearing house. There are auctions for specialty items but the common ones are much easier to find.
Some monsters use the rumor of their location as bait, whether they exist or not.
Not my cup of tea, but awesome idea for other settings I'm sure.
Most of my worlds are set up with local production in mind...so there isn't much in the way of centralised merchant guilds or what have you. This'll be a regional craftsperson making these things in small batches and shipping them across the kingdom to different copperland stores I think. I don't really want them to be more than just a curiosity, a silly side thing maybe.
Cool ideas all the same though.
DM session planning template - My version of maps for 'Lost Mine of Phandelver' - Send your party to The Circus - Other DM Resources - Maps, Tokens, Quests - 'Better' Player Character Injury Tables?
Actor, Writer, Director & Teacher by day - GM/DM in my off hours.
So something good came out of Ready Player One after all
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)