Exploring an ancient tomb can’t be all bones and stone, right? Use this list to generate a number of interesting objects that your players can find while exploring a musty old crypt. These items range from the mundane to possible quest hooks, and everything in between.
| d100 | Entry |
|---|---|
| 1 | A small birdcage with a raven’s skeleton inside. The skeleton will squawk loudly if the tomb is desecrated in any way. |
| 2 | A small locket, with a map scrawled on one side with a faded sketch of a woman on the other. |
| 3 | A skull mask that curses the wearer into believing they are undead. |
| 4 | Several small stone gargoyles are set on or near a coffin. If they or the coffin are disturbed, they inconspicuously come to life and cause mischief/harm among the party. |
| 5 | A broken compass. It needs to be oiled. |
| 6 | The broken phylactery of a long dead lich. |
| 7 | A skeleton leaning up against the wall gripping a rusty sword sitting in a pool of dried blood. A black and bloodied blindfold covers his eye sockets. |
| 8 | A small fortune in gems sits in a small, nondescript box. Whoever first takes a gem out of the box or removes the box from the crypt is cursed (DM’s discretion) |
| 9 | A small black glass marble where an eye would appear on occasion. |
| 10 | A small child’s doll from which near-silent screams echo from at night. |
| 11 | A ceramic figure of the person buried. |
| 12 | Ancestral weapon of the entombed. |
| 13 | Various human body parts (tongue, finger(nail)s, eyeball, ear) kept in small boxes inscribed with blood runes. They may give minor benefits if a person’s natural body part is cut out and replaced. |
| 14 | The statue of a lawful good deity. The statue has been defaced and it is missing its head. If the head is found and returned, the statue will magically heal the player who fixes it. |
| 15 | Darts that were fired from some ancient trap long ago. |
| 16 | Half-melted candles surrounding some kind of ritual area. |
| 17 | A yellowed humanoid skull with gems inset in its eye sockets. The rest of the body is nowhere to be found. |
| 18 | A rusty ring of keys that might unlock something within the crypt. One of the keys looks brand new. |
| 19 | A gilded stone sigil of a long forgotten demon lord. |
| 20 | A bouquet of black roses that always smells fresh, despite its withered appearance. |
| 21 | A knife that causes bleeding when it cuts into anything (stone, paper, and plant life included). |
| 22 | Abnormally large rodents and spiders. |
| 23 | A wicked looking sword with a crystal vial of human blood set into the hilt. |
| 24 | Ancestral armor of the entombed. |
| 25 | A compass that leads towards the user’s deepest, darkest desire. Whoever follows it inevitably winds up dead soon after reaching their destination, and the compass always returns. |
| 26 | Fresh flowers that instantly wither upon being touched. |
| 27 | Canopic jars. There is a faint rhythmic beating coming from one of them. |
| 28 | A spyglass that shows invisible things. |
| 29 | Pale corpses that have no damage on them but sunken eyes and dead skin. They have nothing but their clothes/equipment. |
| 30 | Wedding rings of the entombed. |
| 31 | A tea set that belonged to a noble family. |
| 32 | A small dried out tentacle the size of a ‘lucky rabbit’s foot’. |
| 33 | A statuette of a (angelic, demonic, monstrous) figure. |
| 34 | Fine, clear glass bottles filled with at least a pound of quicksilver each. The bottles are shaped like fantastical beasts. |
| 35 | A small bonsai tree in a glass bottle. |
| 36 | An evil, fiendish totem which tempts people to give into their dark impulses. |
| 37 | A vase made of pure gold. |
| 38 | A collection of terracotta farm animals, each the size of a small dog. |
| 39 | Dead rats piled against a dead-end wall. Scratches on the stone is evidence they were frantically trying to escape from something. |
| 40 | Innocuous seeming cubes of dense gray metal six inches on a side. Each is etched with fine, cryptic runes. Each face of the cube holds the equivalent of 17 pages of text in the language of the glyphs. |
| 41 | A giant-sized clay urn filled with: blood from an unknown source, a 700 pound ball of finest unfired soft porcelain clay (coincidentally large enough to form something in the shape and size of a humanoid) is wrapped in once fine funerary wrappings, and has at least a gallon of holy oil in a quartz-crystal bottle shaped like a heart stuffed inside it. The clay is submerged in the blood. Despite its age, the blood in the urn has not congealed, nor has the clay dried. |
| 42 | A fist sized gem which casts an aura of unnatural darkness around it for 10 feet. |
| 43 | A wedding veil that is said to possess those that wear it. |
| 44 | A worn and blood-stained silver dagger decorated with small gemstones and desecrated holy imagery. |
| 45 | A makeshift dagger made from a sharpened piece of rubble. When the players first encounter the dagger laying on the ground, it flies in their direction, attempting to stab the first player. |
| 46 | A burnt, blackened shovel lying beside an open grave. |
| 47 | A collection of lifelike, life-sized, painted terracotta warriors. |
| 48 | A pale gem that glows in the moonlight. The possessor has lycanthropic tendencies on a full moon (e.g. craving human hearts). |
| 49 | A single feather plucked from the wing of a Celestial Angel tortured in one of the Nine Hells. It is wrapped around a large cold-iron spike used to kill a powerful fiend with leather made from a humanoid. |
| 50 | A logbook of the ship known as Canarvon Bay with the last entry noting strange behavior from the crew. |
| 51 | 6d6+3 levels worth of obscure spell scrolls printed on thin golden plates. Each spell is cast as if it is 1 level higher. The gold plates get consumed when a spell is cast or copied into a spellbook from them. Each plate weighs 1 pound. |
| 52 | 3d4 swarms of angry bats. |
| 53 | A disembodied hand that crawls around like a spider, following the players. |
| 54 | A weathered map that leads in a massive loop starting and ending at the crypt. |
| 55 | A severed arm, that looks as if something has been gnawing on it. |
| 56 | Indecipherable runes painted in blood on a wall. |
| 57 | A glass vial with a corked top that contains a lock of hair, a fingernail, and a tooth. |
| 58 | A folded piece of parchment paper with each of the player’s names written on it. One of the names has been crossed out. |
| 59 | A book bound in human skin and wrapped with chains. |
| 60 | A pouch tied with a silk cord that feels and appears to be full of objects, but is empty when opened. |
| 61 | Mummified bodies covered in pitch, interred in giant canopic jars. |
| 62 | A music box that is said to reveal the spirit of a young girl in the small mirror inside. If the box is taken outside the crypt, the ghost will torment the thief through harmless, if annoying, pranks until the person returns the box. |
| 63 | A heart-shaped locket with an image of a young man with the inscription ‘We loved with a love that was more than love’ on the outside. Those that have the locket on their person will have strange dreams involving two lovers and their tragic ends. |
| 64 | Hidden in a crevice, a scrap of parchment, upon which someone has hastily scribbled: gods forgive us -- we could not stop th. The rest of the scrap is missing. |
| 65 | A small, onyx mirror that is said to show the reflection of the person holding it, albeit dead. |
| 66 | A moving mural of the ancient buried here, doing great and terrible things. The mural is ‘animated’, but time has taken its toll. |
| 67 | A gold piece with strange markings that always lands on heads. |
| 68 | A lantern emitting an eerie green light. |
| 69 | An intricately carved wooden figure laid carefully on a tomb. |
| 70 | A collection of miniature terracotta chariots. |
| 71 | A mirror mounted on the wall that only shows the viewer’s ruin--their worst fears, their exploitation of their vices, etc. The mirror itself is decorated with skulls, bones, and other imagery of death. |
| 72 | A 1’ by 1’ massless cube. |
| 73 | A cracked and damaged medallion of the sun that burns those who aren’t pure of heart. |
| 74 | A paper talisman, partially burned. |
| 75 | A skeletal hand clutching a faded love letter. |
| 76 | An astronomical orrery, but the celestial bodies depicted are not of this realm, are set to a far future date, or both. |
| 77 | Statues that move when they aren’t watched, and cause harm to the party if they can sneak up on them. |
| 78 | A broken mirror. |
| 79 | A drawing of an important person/one of the PCs. The drawing is faded and damaged but clearly very, very old. |
| 80 | A jar labeled ‘Necron Belladonna’. |
| 81 | A 1 inch cube of pulsating flesh inside a seamless, flawless crystal sphere, 6 inches across. |
| 82 | A little wooden toy coffin with a cloth figure of a child resting inside, its arms crossed upon its chest. A scripture in the coffin says ‘for Martha’. |
| 83 | Signet ring of the entombed. |
| 84 | Spell Scrolls in an ancient/forgotten language. The players can try them blind or have to decypher them first. |
| 85 | A shield with the family’s coat of arms. |
| 86 | A 10 foot cube of black obsidian. One corner has been beveled, but all edges are fine, straight, and unmarred. |
| 87 | A jagged shard of crystal that causes the bearer to suffer from debilitating flashes of someone else’s traumatic memories. |
| 88 | Urns of Wine from fields that haven’t existed for centuries. The wine is still fresh, but is possibly either cursed to taste so delicious that no other wine can compare, or just really is that good and priceless that one’s palate is ruined for anything else. |
| 89 | Urns containing the ashes of (servants, pets). |
| 90 | Candles which, when lit, bring a foul and rousing smell in the air. |
| 91 | An empty and desecrated sarcophagus containing nothing but a burial shroud stained with fresh blood. |
| 92 | Quartz Crystal Decanters filled with Mellified Humanoid, a type of honey mixed with humanoid remains preserved in honey. |
| 93 | A wooden planchette with skulls etched in the design. |
| 94 | A caltrop made of a resin spider. |
| 95 | An old, frayed coil of rope with a noose tied into one end. |
| 96 | A wooden stake, broken and splintered. |
| 97 | Unspoiled rations (which are actually human hearts, if the illusion is bypassed) in an unlocked box which will infect the consumer with a deadly disease. |
| 98 | The remains of a tomb robber. |
| 99 | A silver ring, along with (d3+1) severed fleshy fingers, attached sits in an inconspicuous corner or hole. |
| 100 | A perfectly preserved corpse that turns to ash the moment it is touched. |
