The Dungeon d100s: Rewards

(An Italian translation of this post is available on Dragons’ Lair)

Nothing on this list is meant to be exchanged for money, nor could most of it be described as “magic items” in the traditional sense. Both those things are excellent rewards for players to find in dungeons. Both have even been subjects for my own writing, (see d100 Objects of Moderate Value, or the Magic Items subheading of my Index). However, my goal with this table is to focus on the sorts of treasures that are often neglected when planning a dungeon. Things like relationships, information, opportunities to be creative, unusual tools, character modifications, and access to tremendous and terrible power.

Like any reward from a dungeon, these objects must be earned. Once cannot simply place “friendship with an elder red dragon” inside a chest. Instead the players might find an elder red dragon whose tail was caught in a massive bear trap, and was left here to starve while adventurers looted his treasure horde. Other rewards on this list might be better suited to being quest rewards. For example, a king will listen to the party on matters of public policy if they go into the dungeon and take care of this’n’that for them.

The Dungeon d100s
1 – Themes
2 – Structures
3 – Rewards
4 – Doors, Floors, Walls, & Ceilings
5 – Factions
6 – Locks & Keys

Bonus – Auto-roller, at Liche’s Libram.

d100 Dungeon Rewards:

1. A printing press.
2. A fine fleet of chariots.
3. Some well constructed bit of mobile siege equipment, such as a catapult or scorpion.
4. Complex siege equipment which must be disassembled for transport, such as trebuchets or rolling towers.
5. A supply of a rare material with incredible properties. Something like mithril or gopher wood.
6. A ship in good condition.
7. A war tank, perhaps brought here by a time warp, or a remnant from an ancient magical empire.
8. A backhoe, cement mixer, bulldozer, steamroller, or other piece of time-warped industrial construction equipment or its ancient magical counterpart.
9. A supply of absolutely primo drugs. They do all the stuff you like, none of the stuff you don’t like, and there’s enough of it to throw the world’s greatest party.
10. A bank of unknown seeds with a supply sufficient for long term cultivation. They may be from a far distant land, extinct local flora, or from some entirely alien world.
11. Command over a great orbiting eye (or telescope if your game allows for it) which can communicate its observations from space.
12. Access to a heretofore unknown deposit of natural resources. A rich vein of precious metals, a well of oil, etc.
13. A massive cache of supplies. Stuff like food, medicine, or war materiel. Enough to solve a famine, alleviate a plague, or outfit an army.
14. A legitimate coin press, or a convincing counterfeit one. Enables the owner to create fake currency if they wish.
15. An artifact from the future left behind by a clumsy time traveler. It could be information that advances the party’s knowledge, some bit of useful tech like a flashlight or motorcycle, or a weapon like a ray gun.
16. A specialized encryption machine, which allows some certain group to send secret messages to one another. None has ever fallen into the wrong hands before, and with it the party could intercept highly sensitive messages.
17. Access to a secret and wide ranging communications network, enabling the players to pass messages quickly and effectively over great distances. Alternately, the players may have the opportunity to exploit or disrupt such a network.
18. A single-use item of tremendous restorative power. Using it could end a plague, or resurrect a dead army.
19. A single-use item of tremendous destructive power. Essentially a briefcase sized atom bomb.
20. A single-use item of tremendous transportation power. Enough that a whole city could be gracefully moved to another planet or plane of existence with the snap of a finger.
21. An artifact of religious or historical significance which would alter what is commonly believed. The powers that be are probably threatened by this.
22. Some bit of culture lost to history. Something like extra verses of Gilgamesh, a forgotten board game, or the lost writings of an ancient philosopher.
23. An imprisoned dungeon delver. If freed they will join your party at least to the end of the dungeon, and if you impress them, may continue on as a hireling.
24. A kidnapped prisoner, brought to the dungeon against their will. Are they known to be missing? Were they replaced by a doppelganger? Regardless of other circumstances, they will be grateful to be rescued.
25. The friendship of a skilled professional of some kind, happy to perform some free work for the party. They may be a craftsperson, a lawyer, an accountant, a guide, an engineer, an artist, etc.
26. The friendship of an individual or a group with the ability to easily access spaces which might be out of reach for the players. For example, merfolk, ghosts, harpies, mole men, desert worm riders, or plane hoppers.
27. The friendship of an individual or a group which is usually intractably isolationist, or at least opposed to forming friendships with people of the player character’s type. Perhaps wood elves, faeries, or members of an enemy nation.
28. The friendship of a great and terrible beast which might normally be inclined to eat you, like a troll or dragon.
29. The friendship of a person who is highly placed within some powerful system. An aristocrat, military officer, or postmaster general.
30. A group of slaves whom the party can set free. Some of them may choose to join the party, others will spread stories of their heroism, while still others might be positioned to offer substantive rewards once they get home.
31. Animals of a heretofore unknown type. They might be alien creatures, dinosaurs frozen in ice, dodo birds surviving in a sealed valley, or anything in between. They could be useful for exotic meat, domestic labor, companionship, or merely as curiosities. There are enough to breed a healthy population.
32. A golem or robot imprints itself on you. It follows wherever you lead and tirelessly performs any task you set it to. It is limited by rudimentary intelligence and creativity, and perhaps a lack of agility.

33. An ethereal servitor imprints itself on you.
34. The companionship of an animal which is not normally attainable as a pet. It may be an elephant, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, elk, cheetah, etc. The animal is already trained, understands basic commands, and will aid you so long as it is well treated.
35. An object with no significant trade value or use value, but which would be the perfect gift for a particular person in the game world. Perhaps a lost painting of a king’s dead lover, or the childhood toy of an elder dragon.
36. The opportunity to create a new spell, ignoring many of the normal restrictions on time, cost, or scope.
37. The opportunity to craft a powerful weapon or suit of armor, ignoring many of the normal restrictions on time, cost, or scope.
38. The opportunity to use a rapid evolution device to guide a new form of animal into existence, matching specifications you set within a certain margin of error.
39. The opportunity to plan a public works project on the scale of a bridge, road, bath house, grain dole, etc. The party will not need to pay for creating or maintaining this project.
40. The opportunity to dictate what the production of a factory will be over a given period, and what will be done with the items produced. Players may wish to outfit an army, take a new product to market, or introduce new technology to society.
41. Temporary command over a work force of builder elves. In a single night they will build any construction that is described to them.
42. The opportunity to direct the efforts of a team of scientists or engineers towards a problem of the player characters’ choosing.
43. The opportunity to establish a charity which will tackle some particular social ill.
44. The opportunity to direct an angry mob towards a particular target.
45. For a fraction of a second the character becomes a god. Just enough time to make a single world-altering decision. The other gods are swift to put the character back in their proper place, but will not undo this one change.
46. The opportunity to advise someone powerful about how they ought to proceed. To influence the social policies of a king, or the military tactics of a general. This advice will be followed unless it would be suicidally absurd to do so.
47. The opportunity to lay down the precepts of a new religion, or life philosophy, which will be adhered to (and no doubt eventually distorted to some degree) by a community of peoples.
48. A clearly stated and completely accurate prophecy describing an a celestial, geological, or otherwise uncontrollable event. A solar eclipse, a falling meteor, an erupting volcano, a monarch dying or birthing an heir, etc. Only you know this thing will happen.
49. A clearly stated and accurate prophecy describing an event which could be altered if you choose to pursue it. Someone being murdered, the outcome of a battle or an election, etc.
50. Knowledge to any one secret in the world, so long as a single person exists who knows about it.
51. The opportunity to ask an omnipotent intelligence a single question, and receive a fully detailed answer.
52. The opportunity to ask an omnipotent intelligence three yes-or-no questions, which will be answered honestly and accurately.
53. All the details of someone’s plans or battle strategies, or perhaps diagrams which describe their defensive arrangements in detail.
54. Genealogical records which could alter someone’s social position. A member of or friend to the party may find that they’re actually a minor noble, or even in line of succession for the crown. Alternately these records might reveal that some aristocrat’s lineage has been faked.
55. Evidence which disproves a criminal or embarrassing claim made against the party, friend of the party, or employer of the party. The evidence may or may not be faked, but it is convincing.
56. Evidence which proves that one of the party’s foes has committed a serious crime, which they will otherwise get away with. Alternately, evidence of a conspiracy the party wishes to expose.
57. Blackmail sufficiently damning to earn concessions from some person or group. The strength of the blackmail will determine how much the blackmailer can get for it.
58. A pirate’s map, complete with annotations, passwords for safe rooms, several uncharted islands, and a few spots marked X.
59. A map to an abandoned tower, castle, city, fleet of warships, or other sturdy construction left over from a previous era. It belongs to anyone who wants to lay claim to it.
60. A map of a place the player characters would be familiar with. The map reveals hidden passages, buried treasures, forgotten underground structures, or other lost knowledge.
61. A complete map of this, or some other dungeon, with enough information to make plundering dramatically easier.
62. Access to an unknown hideyhole which allows someone to spy easily on some incredibly secret location, such as a monarch’s private audience chamber.
63. Instructions for replicating some secret technology which has become lost. Ulfberht steel, roman concrete, greek fire, brilliantly blue paint, etc.
64. A map which highlights a valuable traveling route, such as a quick path through a difficult range of mountains, directions that would allow ships to avoid rocks and sandbars in a treacherous river, the safe path through a minefield, or route through an impenetrable marsh.
65. Access to a magic tunnel which, when crawled through, allows the crawler to temporarily inhabit the body of some notable figure in the game world. At the end of their time, they consistently appear at some place a few miles from the tunnel access.
66. A control panel for activating some particular catastrophe. Perhaps an earthquake, a tsunami, a meteor, an ice age, etc. The players cannot choose what the disaster is, only where, when, and whether it will happen.

67. Access to the settings for creation. The power of magnetism, the rate of evolution, etc. Curiously, gravity is currently set to 120% normal strength.
68. The services of an expert assassin who will eliminate any one person of your choosing. No cost. Success guaranteed.
69. Command over an army or navy of the damned who will be freed when a certain condition is met. It could be when they win their next battle, when they recapture a certain territory, or avenge an ancient wrong.
70. The opportunity for characters to clone themselves. It may be that the clone is immediately active, or may be kept dormant. The clone may have complete free will, or be willing to defer to the original.
71. The opportunity to time travel. This might be subject to any number of limitations (one way and permanent, only within the travelers lifetime, only outside their lifetime, only backwards in time, the traveler can only exist outside their proper time for a few moments, the list goes on.)
72. The opportunity to stop time the whole world over, allowing the player characters some set period (a few hours/a day/a week) in which they may act before time sets itself into motion once again.
73. The opportunity to open a door between our world and another. The pathway will be large, permanent, and accessible to many people on both sides. The inhabitants of both worlds will begin to mingle, and influence one another in unpredictable ways.
74. The chance to bestow a curse of misfortune on someone, such that all their current prosperity will leave them, and all their future ventures will fail, until some condition is met.
75. A large seed which, when planted, will spread and grow rapidly. In a single afternoon it will produce a whole forest of trees.
76. The opportunity to parley on friendly terms with a powerful creature. Anywhere from an elder dragon, to a god.
77. The opportunity to undo a single mistake from the characters past. It must be a choice they made, not just a roll they failed. The change may have unintended consequences.
78. The opportunity to remove a single person from existence. They will have never existed, and much of what they’ve done
79. The players find themselves in just the right place at just the right time to influence a war that is well beyond their ken. Some conflict between solar empires, or between the gods themselves. The choice the players make will tip the scales.
80. A character is inducted into an auspicious order. In addition to potential social benefits, they may gain class features not normally available to their class. For example, they might be declared paladins, and gain a Smite Evil ability.
81. An upgrade to a skill, spell, or ability the character already possesses. A spell which deals d4 damage may now deal d6; a skill may now be able to ignore certain limitations; An ability may be usable more times per day; etc.
82. The opportunity to combine their genetic makeup with another creature in some beneficial way. Gaining bird’s wings, or the speed of a cheetah, or the dignified mane of a lion, etc.
83. The opportunity to subject themselves to a random beneficial mutation.
84. The opportunity for characters to alter their physical selves. Change their height, sex, age, reroll one or more stats, and even their species to whatever they want.
85. The opportunity to work with a teacher or therapist who can help characters learn a new skill, or remove some mental hindrance.
86. Magical or mechanical replacements for lost body parts, which function just as well (or perhaps better) than natural ones.
87. Experimental body modifications. Adrenaline boosters, sub-dermal armor, internal potion injectors, etc.
88. Become immune to some specified thing: burns from fire, inhaled poisons, axes, etc.
89. Secret techniques for better living. Perhaps breathing techniques which double the length of time breath can be held, exercises which grant a set amount of temporary hit points each day they are performed, or sleeping methods which allow a full night’s rest in a scant few hours.
90. A shipment of stolen goods which, if returned, would prevent a sea captain or merchant from going bankrupt.
91. Documents which prove that an obscure law or treaty is still in effect. It may become repealed, but until it is the player characters can abuse it to some advantage.
92. The ability to understand and speak with something unusual. Birds, cats, fish, trees, etc.
93. The opportunity to perform a profoundly good deed, such as releasing a thousand imprisoned souls. Performing the good deed is trivial, but offers no tangible personal benefit.
94. A key needed to access something in another dungeon, or a bank vault, or to bypass security somewhere.
95. The remains of some notable figure who disappeared mysteriously. Perhaps a noted political reformer, a heroic adventurer, or a renowned artist. Apparently they met their end in this dungeon.
96. The remains of a ghost or phylactery of a lich, enabling the characters to send some wayward spirit to its proper rest.
97. The opportunity to undergo a ritual which will allow characters to become ghosts (or perhaps other forms of undead) when they die.
98. Alternate versions of common spells which are dramatically more effective, but are more difficult to cast. Perhaps they have a longer casting time, require multiple casters, or have expensive material components.
99. Access to a great tunnel through the underdark which allows travelers to bypass some surface danger, such as a terrible desert, marsh, or enemy nation.
100. Access to one or more magical portals, which could transport a person instantaneously to set locations throughout the world, or even to different planes and planets.

Also, defund the police.