The Mother of All Treasure Tables PDF just landed on DriveThruRPG.com.

What is it?

I wrote a substantial chunk of it, so I’m biased, but in a nutshell it’s the largest, niftiest collection of non-magical fantasy treasure ever assembled.

The Book

The Mother of All Treasure Tables weighs in at 162 pages and contains nearly 700 treasures. Each treasure entry includes a variety of non-magical items, and is written to match a specific gold piece value (ranging from piddling to very, very large).

Update: I didn’t catch this right away, but there’s a free 6-page PDF preview available. It’s got the obnoxious DTRPG watermark on every page, but it’s still a darned good sample.

The idea is that when you want to give the PCs, say, 1,000 gp in treasure, you can pick (or roll) from the 1,000 gp section of Mother of All Treasure Tables.

Instead of giving the party a sack with 1,000 gold in it, you might give them this:

In the box [cabinet] you find eight yellow clay cups without handles [5 sp ea.], a pair of small open-toed doeskin sandals with gold buckles [5 gp], a silver box small enough to fit into your palm, containing tiny white crystals [salt, box and salt 3 gp] and a hen and six baby chicks of clay, carefully painted in lifelike colors [2 gp]. A soft oiled leather box holds picks, files, tiny pliers and tweezers [thieves’ tools, 30 gp]. A narrow polished wooden box beside it slides open

to reveal jewelry. In it is a pendant, two rings, a bracelet and a necklace. The pendant is a clear crystal like a large drop of water [rock crystal 100 gp] on a complex thin gold chain [50 gp]. One ring is a signet ring with a crest [a flaming sword or …pewter, 20 gp], the other is a thin platinum ring with a sparkling green gem [ring 300 gp, green spinel 100 gp]. The bracelet is a series of pieces simple hammered gold, each long as cuff and half as wide, linked together with hinges [120 gp]. The necklace is thick, polished copper supporting 12 carefully matched and cut pieces of hematite [hematite 10 gp/necklace with stones 180 gp]. A fat clay pig [3 sp] with a slit in the top rattles with coins. [Pig holds 66 gp, 175 sp 142 cp but they cannot be easily removed without breaking it].”

(That sample came from the Necromancer forums last year, and might not actually be in the book — but it gives you a good idea of what will be in the book.)

The treasures are things the party might want to keep simply because they’re interesting. And, especially in the case of the larger hoards, they often contain items that could be used as jumping-off points for future adventures.

The Backstory

Necromancer Games commissioned Tabletop Adventures to write Mother of All Treasure Tables, and as one of TTA’s regular freelancers I was tapped to write part of it. Back in July and August of 2005, I wrote 11,000 words worth of different treasure hoards for this book, and it was an absolute blast.

The print version won’t be out until August or September of 2006, but Necromancer decided to make the PDF available right away. If it sounds good and you like PDFs, you can snag The Mother of All Treasure Tables for under $20.

Myself, I’ll be waiting for the print version. I can’t wait to hold a copy of this puppy in my hands.

One last tidbit: This book is one of the reasons why I called this site Treasure Tables.

TT went live on July 11, 2005, right after I’d started writing my portion of Mother of All Treasure Tables. My head was full of thoughts about, well, treasure tables — which are one of my favorite parts of any fantasy RPG.

When you roll on a treasure table, you never know exactly what you’re going to get (except that it’ll be treasure) — but you know it’ll be good. That’s what I aim for here on TT, as well.