Two Quick & Dirty Tables

Adventurers share a common trait with rats, mice, and ants: they get into everything. This tendency often forces the referee to quickly determine what the party discovers when rooting through the set dressings of the dungeon in search of loot. Most times, this is not a problem for a referee on his or her toes. They can quickly rattle off a few items with the caveat that they are “worthless/ruined/of no practical use”. But sometimes inspiration fails the referee, and the answer the players receive is “you find nothing.”

Having run into this situation myself over the years, I sometimes like to prepare a few quick & dirty tables to randomly roll on for the next time the adventurers are poking around off the beaten treasure trail. Below are two of those tables, one for when the party starts searching through kitchen cupboards or pantries, the other for crates in a warehouse or storeroom associated with smugglers and thieves. The purpose of posting these is two-fold. On one hand, I’m hoping that these might be of use to another harried referee in need of quick answers. On the other hand, I’m still locked in vicious hand-to-hand combat with using tables in Blogger. I’ve gotten a bit better at it, thanks to some helpful suggestions from you folks, but I’m not 100% satisfied. Considering I’d like to use tables with a few projects I have planned for the future, I figured I better get in some more practice with them. Please excuse the mess in the event that I’m still encountering difficulty with them.

Random Pantry/Kitchen Table
D20 Roll	Item Found
1	Horseradish
2	Flour
3	Orange Cookies
4	Turkey Jerky
5	Jars of Tea
6	Olive Oil
7	Lemon Peel
8	Pickled Herring
9	Cinnamon
10	Hummus and Pita Bread
11	Mint Leaves
12	Hardtack
13	Mouse Droppings
14	Hard Candies
15	Dried Peas
16	Pistachio Nuts
17	Coffee Beans
18	Jar of Jelly
19	Salt
20	Sugar

The following table was originally created for an adventure involving a smuggling cartel, but it would work for any warehouse with connections to the thieves guild or gangs.

Random Crate Table (Crime Syndicate)
D20 Roll	Item Found
1	Carved Wooden Stools (2d4) packed in straw – worth 2 sp each
2	Saddle and harness, tooled leather – worth 100 gp
3	Statuette of medusa, carved from marble – 145 lbs. weight, worth 140 gp
4	Copperware (2d6 pieces: bowls, trays, pots, tea service, etc.) – worth 5 gp each
5	Furs and skins (1d12) wrapped and bundled – d20 x 10 gp each
6	2d10 5 lbs. bags of seeds – edible, planting, etc.
7	Five turbans, each in a different color and set with non-precious stones
8	Bronze sundial – 25 gp
9	10 gnomish firefly lanterns – missing fireflies, worth 9 sp each
10	15 lounging robes, assorted sizes – worth 5-8 gp each
11	Glass jugs (1d10) packed in straw
12	Human corpse, wrapped in linen for burial
13	Ceramic tiles, glazed and painted with colorful designs (1d4 x 100) – worth 2 cp each
14	Four small bales of narcotic resin sealed in wax – worth 100 gp each
15	Stuffed moose head, mounted on walnut plaque
16	Velvet-lined box holding a crystal sphere that glows a bright lavender
17	A longsword with obsidian blade and a plain brass scabbard
18	Thief-warded lace window curtains (protects window with alarm spell) – 1d10 sets
19	Rocking horse in the shape of a sea horse – 5 gp
20	5’ tall wall mirror, oval – 25 gp