A Penny for Your Thoughts: 35 hidden jokes in D&D spell components

Item: A copper piece

“A penny for your thoughts”, taken at face value.

Item: A bit of fleece

Both spells rely on pulling the wool over your target’s eyes.

Item: Handful of clay, crystal, or glass spheres

You wreck an enemy’s intellect by making them lose their marbles.

Item: A pinch of dried carrot

During WWII, Royal Air Force propaganda claimed British pilots ate carrots to see in the dark. It was actually a cover story to hide the invention of airborne radar.

Item: Tiny tarts and a feather

Two classic music-hall gags in one pouch: a custard pie to the face and a feather to tickle them with.

Item: A tiny ball of bat guano and sulfur

Bat guano was mined in the 19th century for potassium nitrate (saltpetre). Mix that with sulfur and charcoal and you have the recipe for black powder.

Item: A small amount of alcohol or distilled spirits

Temporary hit points powered by a quick shot of liquid courage.

Item: A tiny strip of white cloth

You are patching up the party with a makeshift Band-Aid.

Item: A pinch of sesame seeds

“Open Sesame” was Ali Baba’s password for opening solid rock in One Thousand and One Nights.

Item: A legume seed

A single baked bean to produce a 60-foot blast of wind. Subtle.

Item: A snake’s tongue and honeycomb or sweet oil

A forked tongue for deceit, paired with honey or sweet oil so you sound smooth enough to talk a guard into a terrible idea.

Item: A drop of vinegar or honey

Because you catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar.

Item: A pinch of talc and powdered silver

Throw talcum powder into the air and it clings to whatever invisible lurker is standing in the room.

Item: A small clay model of a ziggurat

A pocket-sized Tower of Babel that reverses the biblical story and lets everyone understand each other again.

Item: A pinch of lime, water, and earth

Lime, water, and earth is the real-world recipe for mixing mortar and concrete.

Item: A white feather or the heart of a hen

The hen’s heart calls your target a chicken, while the white feather was handed out in WWI Britain to accuse men of cowardice.

Item: A drop of molasses

Up to six enemies end up moving slower than molasses.

Item: Three nutshells

It is the old street-corner shell game, leaving your target guessing which shell hides the pea while their brain stalls.

Item: Fur, amber/glass rod (+ 3 silver pins)

Rubbing fur against amber builds up static electricity. Chain Lightning adds three silver pins to act as miniature lightning rods for the arc to jump between.

Item: A short piece of copper wire

A bit of telegraph wire to run a private landline across the dungeon.

Item: Eggshells from two different creatures

Two pieces of broken shell work like the wizard version of two tin cans and a piece of string.

Item: A magnifying glass

You focus sunlight through a lens like a bored kid frying ants on the pavement.

Item: A piece of string and a bit of wood

The wooden cross-bar and string used to work an invisible marionette.

Item: A drop of pitch mixed with mercury

Pitch for pitch black, and mercury for the heavy-metal poisoning that gave us the phrase “mad as a hatter”.

Item: Ointment of mushroom powder, saffron, and fat

You rub 25 gp worth of “magic mushrooms” onto your eyelids until you can see through illusions.

Item: A small leather loop

A leather bootstrap, so you can pull yourself up by your own bootstraps.

Item: Powdered corn extract and twisted parchment

Cornstarch stiffens fabric, which is one rumoured way stage magicians rigged the famous Indian Rope Trick.

Item: A short reed/straw / A piece of cork

One gives you a cartoon reed snorkel to breathe through underwater, and the other lets you bob along the surface like a fishing cork.

Item: A small crystal sphere

You are lobbing a weaponised snow globe at your enemies.

Item: Gold dust worth at least 25 gp

You bribe the door by crossing its palm with gold so it refuses to open for anyone else.

Item: A hot pepper

Chew a hot chilli pepper and breathe fire on the next turn.

Item: A bit of bat fur / A caterpillar cocoon

Bat fur for seeing in the dark via echolocation, and a caterpillar’s cocoon for a full metamorphosis.

Item: A pinch of fine sand / A piece of straw

Fine sand calls on the Sandman to put enemies to sleep, while straw in the wind is straight out of a Kansas tornado.

Item: A chip of mica / 100 gp of diamond dust

A joke about the Mohs hardness scale. Flaky, brittle mica splinters rock, while the hardest mineral on Earth turns skin to stone.

Item: Incense and four ivory strips

Modelled on the traditional I Ching divination stalks used to cast hexagrams and consult ancient wisdom.