From designer Philip Reed comes The Gamemaster’s Tome of Infinite Treasures, a wonderfully practical and system-agnostic toolkit designed to spark the imagination of any GM in need of inspiration.
Already released is a 20-page preview that offers a generous glimpse into what will be a book of over 120 pages, and it’s already brimming with clever ideas.
The entire book, which will have its wire-bound edition limited to the USA due to shipping challenges, is being sent to us via Kickstarter. Philip has an incredible crowdfunding record.
A System of Infinite Possibilities
At its heart, The Gamemaster’s Tome of Infinite Treasures is a remarkably simple yet effective tool. The core of the complete book is a vast d100 table, with each of the first 100 pages corresponding to a die roll. A GM rolls the die, turns to the resulting page, and is immediately presented with a wealth of information to create treasure, encounters, or story hooks.
Since this preview contains only the first dozen pages of the main table, it cleverly suggests rolling a d12 instead, ensuring that even this sample is a fully functional and valuable resource right out of the box. Each page is thoughtfully laid out to resemble a spread in an ancient book, featuring 17 distinct entries that offer different creative prompts.
Generating Treasure
As the title suggests, the primary function of this tome is to help GMs quickly generate loot for their players. Each page spread provides tables to randomly determine a stash of coins, a potion, an item of jewellery, and a mundane piece of equipment. For example, a single roll could yield a handful of electrum, a Potion of Flying, a Crown of Strength, and a set of Thieves’ Tools.
Beyond these smaller finds, every entry includes a fully fleshed-out magic item, complete with a descriptive name and mechanics. The preview showcases some excellent examples, from the Greataxe of Cleaved Skulls, which can triple an attack’s damage, to the Spectral Lockpicks, which summon a ghostly rogue to deal with a troublesome lock. These items are imaginative and provide great inspiration that can be dropped into almost any fantasy campaign with minimal effort.
More Than Just Loot
What makes this book such a valuable resource is that it goes far beyond simple treasure generation. Each page is packed with creative catalysts that can be used in countless ways. These include:
- Literary Prompts: Short snippets of text from public domain works, perfect for inspiring an item’s history or a whole new encounter.
- Creative Words: Each entry includes an adjective, an origin, and a noun (like “Empowered,” “Ogreish,” “Sanctuary”) that can be combined to name new items or places.
- Magic Elements: You’ll also find a colour, a magical ingredient, a school of magic, an item type, and a damage type on every page. This allows a GM to instantly theme a newly found item, decide an NPC wizard’s specialisation, or determine the properties of a strange magical effect.
Art and Layout
The layout convincingly mimics the pages of a weathered, scroll-like tome, making it feel like an in-world artefact. The illustrations that accompany the item descriptions are clean and evocative, perfect for showing to players at the table to give them a clear idea of what their characters have found. It’s a well-considered aesthetic that is both visually pleasing and practical in use.
There’s no doubt there’s another Kickstarter success on the way, but be quick, as these tend to be very short-run campaigns!
