Tuesday 21 April 2015

Random Coin Hoard Generator

The task I am currently working on for There is Therefore a Strange Land is treasure tables. This is the table for generating coin hoards; like everything in TIT-ASL (is that a great acronym, or what?), it's designed to create treasure which is going to be, in itself, interesting to sell and find a buyer for. You obviously don't need to roll in the 'special' column every time; I will probably expand on the number of possibilities in that column in any event.

Dice
Value of Individual Coins
Number of Coins
Shape
Iconography
Special
1
Very low (1s) (Copper, brass, bronze)
10
Circle (small)
Male head
Cursed: anyone removing the coins suffers from effects of a curse spell
2
Low (1d6s) (Debased silver, gold)
1d6x10
Circle (medium)
Female head
Haunted: anyone removing the coins is plagued by a spirit who (1) makes constant low-level noise; (2) jinxes all rolls (-2 modifier); (3) blabs secrets at inopportune times
3
1d20x10
Circle (large)
Human figure
Rusted or defaced: half value
4
2d20x10
Triangle
Mammal
Of special interest to collectors: double value
5
Medium (2d6s) (Silver)
3d20x10
Square
Reptile
Of great interest to collectors: triple value
6
2d30x10
Hexagon
Bird
Fake: of nominal value only
7
3d30x10
Pentagon
Lettering
Imbued with dead souls: these whisper of their misfortune during the night
8
High (1l) (Gold, electrum)
1d100x10
Irregular
Geometric Shape
Extremely hot to the touch: cannot be lifted by bare hands
9
1000
Ring/Hoop
Flora
Blessed: using the coins for an investment makes it a guaranteed success
10
Very high (1d6l) (Platinum, ivory, etc.)
1d3x1000
Sphere
Skull
Disintegrate into dust when taken through the portal from their Strange Land

Treasure values are based on guineas/shillings/pence or l/s/d, with shillings being equivalent to a LotFP silver piece or D&D gold piece. There are 21 shillings in a guinea, and 12 pence in a shilling. 

3 comments:

  1. It's a great table! But here is the cruxt - money is so earth human civilization-ish, and you are dealing with the multi-dimensional universe with many Strange Lands! How about something truly alien? That's the joke of it, all these fantasists writing years of bullshit and on the whole passing off merely human and mundane for fantastic. Read the Voyage to Arcturus for inspiration. Another great book, an unknown pearl of truly alien artefacts, and humanity that tries to reverse engineer them for its use, is a novel called Roadside Picnic. If you read it carefully enough, you will figure out the creative process, by which the authors have created alien technologies, Gamma World pales in comparison.

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    1. The Chaotic Dimensional like solid 4D currency. I even hear tell of some who genuinely appreciate a currency that is solid, liquid, gaseous and is chunk of a cow shaped. They need a very special vault to store that extremely valuable currency.

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