D100 Objects Laying About an Alchemist’s Sanctum

 

One of the more evocative locations a party might venture to is an alchemist’s sanctum or laboratory. Images of Jacobs ladders, and bubbling glass containers fill the mind. To help you with bringing these dangerous and mysterious locations to life I’ve written for you a D100 table of items that are found in an alchemist’s sanctum. These aren’t the high value treasures that PCs are normally looking for when raiding dungeons and laboratories, but the kind of odd and interesting objects that fill a space and help to make it seem more real than it otherwise would. Many of the items below can be leveraged to varying effect by smart players. What will your players think when they find…

D100 Objects Laying About an Alchemist’s Sanctum

1. A pair of elbow length waxed griffon hide work gloves with elk hide lacing.
2. Four small brass spoons with silver cups at the end, each etched with a specific measurement. They are in descending size a bissel, a dram, a corn, and a pinch.
3. A massive, weathered copper alembic the size of a backpack. Something wet still sloshes around inside it. (1. 4 uses of a mild poison- save vs. death or take 1d4 damage. Half a flagon’s worth of foul smelling swill that tastes like sour rotting meat. 3. A bottle’s worth of a greenish acid. (thrown, splash 5/15/35, 1d8) 
4.  A glass’s worth of a citrus smelling, yellowish-orange liquid that tastes like oranges, limes, and guava mixed together. (save vs. magic or skin will become polka dotted with green and yellow polka dots, lasts for 1d6 days).
5. A full set of artist’s pastels. Most are unused except for the red which is almost gone. They come in a small, hinged metal tin.
6. Four small glass vials filled with powdered giant ant exoskeleton and stoppered with a cork and wax.
7. A handheld metal device that looks like a large wire safety pin, but instead of a head there is a small metal cup and a scraper that rubs against it. When the handle is squeezed, the scraper rubs against an odd metal fixed to the inside of the cup and produces plentiful sparks. (This is a more reliable replacement for flint and steel.)
8. A blown glass bottle with a flat bottom that has had regular horizontal lines marked on it in red pastel to indicate how many liquid ounces the bottle contains.
9. A set of copper eyeglass frames with lenses of swirled blue and red glass fitted into them.
10. A clear glass prism the size of a loaf of bread.
11. A dented and stained brass mortar and decorative copper pestle.
12. Three silver signet rings, one with an opal set in it that is carved with the device of an owlbear rampant, one which bears a ruby that has been etched with the device of two crossed wands, and one set with a jade gemstone that has been etched with the device of a dragon segreant. They are worth 55 gp each.
13. A milky sea-green glass flask with a decorative shell-shaped corroded bronze stopper. The flask is labeled with a delicate hand and says, “Sea of Southern Terror.” This flask contains salt water.
14. A set of the Platonic Solids, each made out of clay and painted the corresponding color of the element that they represent. They include the fiery red tetrahedron, the earthy green cube, the breathy yellow octahedron, the aethereal brown dodecahedron, and the watery blue icosahedron.
15. A parchment folio containing a treatise on cloud formation and weather prediction written by a Half-Elven sage named Olothealis.
16.  An intricate metal and waxed linen contraption that appears at first glance to be an upholstered walking cane until it is held upside down and the metal ring around the cane is extended out, transforming the linen into a circular canopy that blocks sunlight and rain with ease.
17.  A tanned leather mask that resembles a bird with an elongated beak-like mouth that has been sewn shut. Inside the mask is gauze soaked with clove and peppermint oil. The eyes of the mask are poor quality glass.
18. A pitted and stained set of leather chaps and a thick leather apron. (armor 12)
19. Seven blown-glass fishing trap floats. Most are made of green, blue, or purple glass. These glass globes are tied together through a lattice of knotted cordage.
20. A thin copper rack with 10 finger-length glass vials nestled into it. Two of the vials hold a reddish powder.
21. A ceramic jug shaped and painted like a stylized chickadee. When a special hole on the handle is covered by a finger, the jug will make an almost perfect chickadee song when tilted to pour.
22. A cylindrical metal lantern that when lit casts a shadow around it that looks like a scene of a playful village harvest festival.
23. A mildewed copy of Golem, The Key To Artificial Life by the sages Ilkaster and Branlouden. Sadly, the middle three-quarters of the book have been ripped out.
24. A beautifully made doll with a wax head. The intricately sewn cloths and sharply painted face resemble in almost perfect detail the princess-heir of the kingdom!
25. A small cask made of carved and oiled mesquite wood with an artistically crafted iron latch, hinges, and other iron hardware. This football-sized cask holds three fistfuls of multicolored powder. When a fistful of powder is thrown into a fire, the flames will flair, writhe, and transform into a rainbow of different colored flames for up to an hour.
26. Three waxed, folded paper envelopes filled with small chunks of sulfur and charcoal.
27. A small, hand-sized object the size of a large goose egg made of carved tiger’s eye quartz. The object is vaguely pear shaped and carved with repeating grooves and notches. When the carved stone is held in the hand, the bearer will instantly become aware of which way is north. (A party that uses this stone while traveling cannot become lost through nonmagical means. This object will not work when taken off the prime material plane.)
28. A hardly used cake of dried oak gall ink. One just needs to crush some of the cake into a powder and add water to it until the desired thickness is achieved. This cake is the size of a brick of soap and is the equivalent of twenty ink bottles.
29.  A small soapstone jar of pungent smelling invisible ink. Messages written with the ink quickly disappears. All the reader of the message must do is pass the note over a source of heat like a candle and the message will reveal itself.
30. A tattered tome of ripped manticore leather and orichalcum embellishments titled “The Drawing of Mercury from Cinnabar.” Random chapters have faded with time, age, and a myriad of unpleasant smelling stains.
31. A bar of a steel gray metal worked and polished to fit comfortably in the hand. When held for ten minutes, the bearer will feel a refreshing rush of cool air. This effect can only be felt by the bearer and doesn’t show any signs when working.
32. A set of keys attached to a copper and brass key ring with a blue topaz set into a charm on the key ring. Once the bearer has been in possession of the keyring for more than ten minutes, all they need to do is snap their fingers and the keyring and whatever is attached to it will appear in the bearers hand anywhere on the material plane.
33. Two fans made of lacquered manticore bone and delicate silk brocade woven with a scene of a desert in shades of yellow, red, pink, and orange.
34. A small ceramic jar glazed a dull red. Inside there are six uses of a mysterious spice blend that is so delicious, anything you cook with it will taste amazing, whether it is food or not.
35. An elaborate brass armillary sphere on a beautifully carved and polished ebony wood stand.
36. A set of 24 different sized tweezers. A few of the tools are clearly not original to this set. They are in relatively good shape except a small blackish green patina at the tips. The tweezers are made of a special alloy of silver, copper, and manganese. Their case is a roll of common leather with an individual pouch for each tweezer on the inside.
37. The cracked and broken wooden body of a telescope, missing its secondary lens, with its slightly scratched main lens still intact inside. The telescope body has a U-shaped brass mount and is painted with a faded pattern of rows of repeating red, blue, and yellow triangles.
38. A slightly water damaged copy of the ”Tome of Transmutational Magics,” a scholarly examination of the abstract concepts behind transmutation. The cover is fashioned out of sheets of mica with cast bronze corner protectors and a bronze lock. The chapter titled “What Lead into Gold Really Means” has been cut out of this copy, and an obscene Orkish rune has been scrawled on the inside cover.  
39. A large pipe with a carved alabaster bowl and a stem made of polished and oiled mesquite wood. The bowl resembles the laughing face of the local god of smoking, inebriation, and poetry.
40. A small set of apothecary’s drawers with small, hooked metal knobs. The set of drawers is roughly 15 inches long and 12 inches wide with a set of 16 drawers 20 inches deep. Inside the drawers can be found the severed feather barbs of several local bird species including brown eagles, ravens, magpies, cardinals, and nuthatches.
41. A delicate and thin 15 inch long glass spoon. The small bowl of the spoon is made of a translucent aqua colored glass.
42. A set of four graduated cylinders of varying diameters, each marked in regular intervals with a different numbering system.
43. A bronze abacus that is strung with beautifully colored glass beads. This is a table abacus, and because of that it is rather heavy.
44. A set of six lacquered black, red, and silver teacups that can be nested in an octagonal wooden carrying box for storage.
45. A palm sized glass jar with a stopper. The jar is labeled “Gas Pills” and contains three berry sized, frosted sugar coated balls of foul tasting herbs and who knows what. (If a pill is eaten, the consumer’s farts will smell heavily like flowery perfume. The effect last for d6 days.)
46. A thin, 2 foot long tin straw with a slightly bent end. The straw is not entirely straight and curves a little down its length.
47. An extremely polished, notably concave silver hand mirror that still has mounting pins on the edges that indicate this was used as a mounted reflector at some point.
48. A folded packet made of waxed paper that contains a slightly dried herb that tastes bitter and peppery. (If the herb is placed between the gums and the lips for at least ten minutes, the consumer will get an energizing feeling coursing through them that helps them feel brave and capable (+2 to saving throws vs. fear). This lasts as long as the character keeps it between their lip and gums, but no longer than an hour. After the effects of the herb ends, the consumer must save vs. paralysis or receive -1 to to-hit and damage rolls until they get a good night’s sleep due to exhaustion.)
49. A crusty and discolored 3 feet diameter flat-bodied salt boiling pan with handles and three stubby legs on the bottom.
50. At least 11 unwashed glass beakers. Most are chipped and cracked.
51. A traveler’s stool constructed out of three equal 2 foot lengths of staves pinioned together side by side so that when they are rotated the staves splay out and function as the chair legs. Over the top of the staves is stretched a leather seat cushion. The tension between the legs splaying and the seat cushion keeps the stool together.
52. A clear crystal roughly a foot long and 3 inches in diameter that glows progressively bluer the more basic the liquid it is dipped in is. When dipped into an acid, the crystal glows redder and redder to indicate how acidic the liquid is instead.
53. A 4 foot long lightweight metal mechanical grasping pincer. A squeeze handle on one end can be squeezed to close the grasping, claw-like pincer at the other end of the device.
54. A set of 4 inch diameter balls, all polished to a shine and all with varying numbers of grooves carved in them. Each ball is made of a different material than the others. There is a ball of yellowing white mammoth ivory, a ball of blood red sandstone with metallic flakes in it, a well oiled ball carved of shedua wood, and a ball made of amber.
55. A heavy chalice over a foot tall, carved from a gigantic block of rose agate. There are four handles on the crystal chalice, and it has been carved to resemble a rose bush.
56. A small ogre skin pouch filled with a mixture of rock salt, powdered chalk, and fine ground rust powder.
57. A bent copper signet ring with a serpentine imbroglio inscribed with the image of a wyvern being ridden by a long-haired woman on it.
58.  A brass and iron balancing scale with an incomplete set of counterweights. The only ones left are the half ounce, five ounces, and one-third pound weights.
59. A flat envelope of thick paper, one foot square. It is open on only one side. Inside the envelope there is a curious flat disk made of wax with a hole in its center. The envelope is faded and cracked, although it was once beautifully painted. The faint image shows the impression of a triangle in white at the center over a black background with a thin bar of colors stacked one on top of the other that appears to travel horizontally through the picture from the left of the image, through the triangle, exit it, and then bend downward before widening at its end. The disk made of hard wax is inscribed with a long thin continuous groove that travels from the outside edge towards the center.
60. A beautifully carved walnut wood box approximately 8 by 2 by 4 inches that contains four ounces of black peppercorns (worth 100 gp.) The box is carved with a hypnotic repeating motif of bounding wolves.
61. A foot long, half inch diameter copper tube decorated with hammered inlays of dots, zigzags, and circle patterns. A transparent glass marble has been fixed at each end of the tube. When looked through while facing a light source, one will see a fractured image of color and reflections that seem to swirl when rotated.
62. Finely ground graphite dust contained in a 6 inch long brown glass bottle, a small, delicate 6 inch long duster with a down feather head, and a small booklet of thin sheets of almost translucent white paper.
63. A bottle of an opaque, metallic blue liquid marked “Blood Beacon.” When the liquid is lightly applied to a surface, any trace amounts of blood on that surface will fluoresce a cool green color. There is enough liquid here to cover 5 square feet of a surface.
64. A wide glass jar approximately 10 inches high and 7 inches in diameter, with a leather stopper. Inside is a fuzzy looking fungus that looks like a small mound of blueish, purplish, greenish fuzz. The interior of the jar smells musty, with a hint of warm spices. This is Murlac, a fungus that grows on meteoroids that crash to the ground. If smoked, one will feel elation, profundity, and a sense of pressing weight that lasts for 1d8 turns. The smoker must save vs. poison. If they fail, they take 1d4 damage and vomit up whatever is in their stomach. If they succeed, they have hallucinatory visions of the near future lasting 1d8 minutes. This prescient vision grants the smoker a +1 bonus to attacks and saving throws for the next 24 hours.
65. A quart-sized stoneware crock of fragrant mineral oil that has been steeped with rose pedals, cloves, and sandalwood bark.
66. A bronze pill mold used to make pills for medicine. The mold is 12 inches long and 6 inches wide and contains individual pill molds for 18 pills.
67. A simple tin filled with broken and ground up glass of various colors and qualities.
68. A bread loaf sized crucible made of carved stone. There are traces of steel still inside.
69. A cuttlefish bone comb with decorative silver wire.
70. A loose-leaf treatise on the use of auroch bezoars in curing poisons and curses. This work was written by an Elven healer named Gwyne of Thelos whose works were thought lost to history.
71. A small vial of an unknown substance that smells so horribly bad that it can wake up any unconscious characters who smell it.
72. A 13 inch diameter marble mortar attached to a rotating frame that can be used to dump out the mortar’s contents. The pestle for this mortar is big and made of heavy granite.
73. A delicate set of two tongs both thin and long. One is crafted from common pewter, and the other is crafted from gold (worth 15 gp.)
74. A delicately carved tube, only an inch in diameter and 2 inches long with a well-polished lens fixed to one end of it. This object magnifies things seen through it as long as they are brought close up to the lens. This is commonly used by jewelers when viewing work close up.
75. A cut crystal decanter with glass stopper. A dried rusty orange residue still clings to the inside surface of this object.
76. A thin, dark blue glass jar filled with a yellowish brown powder that smells of citrus and sulfur. When the jar is thrown into a fire, the fire will immediately start to pour out thick purple smoke that obscures all vision within a 10 foot radius. This powder takes one round to start producing smoke and will only dissipate after ten minutes or when facing a moderate to strong wind.
77. A dented can of opaque waxy grey putty that remains pliable and ductile indefinitely.
78. A handful (1d4) of marble-sized blue and white swirled glass spheres with some kind of blue liquid inside. If thrown (10’/35’/70’), on a successful hit, the sphere will crack and a rapid endothermic reaction will occur within 5 feet of the point of impact, inflicting 1d6 cold damage to any characters struck by the sphere. These spheres get cold enough to freeze water or put out a campfire instantaneously.
79. A pinch pot sized ceramic jar of ointment that smells strongly of a combination of anise, clove, and black pepper. When applied to sore muscles the ointment will cause a sensation of soothing heat and cold, helping relieving tired and aching muscles.  
80. A squat brown bottle of a chemically smelling liquid. When the liquid is poured on copper it will transform into two-thirds of the copper’s weight in silver. This process takes 2d10 hours and produces noxious vapers.  One bottle will transform 500 coin weight of copper into 250 coin weight of silver.
81. A corrosion-speckled copper retort with an archetypical bent neck, used to dry-distill many important alchemical mixtures. An angular rune of unknown provenance has been stamped into the side of the retort.
82. A red stoneware jar with ceramic stopper. Inside the hand-sized jar is an incredibly sticky paste that acts as a stronger than average glue. The glue will dry within 1d10 minutes and can be overcome with either an acidic solvent or a successful open doors/ lift gates check. There is enough of the sticky paste for eight applications of glue.
83. A pair of large work gloves long enough to reach to the wearer’s shoulders. These impressively sized gloves are made of a shinny light green leather and bear dwarven protection runes embroidered into them with gold thread. The gloves are immune to damage caused by even the most corrosive acids.
84. A 100 foot long roll of bright yellow silk ribbon on a spool. The ribbon has been marked in 1 inch long intervals and numbered.
85.  An 8 inch tall mechanical gnomish bard figurine crafted out of gears and an armature covered in beaten plates of copper, iron, and brass. It is powered by winding up the figurine with its winding key. Once fully wound, any tune being sung, hummed, or played within 10 feet of the figurine will be copied by it and whistled back in a beautifully haunting high pitch whistle. It can be asked to play as many times as one likes, but the figure only knows one song at a time that it can whistle back. (The figurine cannot replicate speech, only melodies it hears).
86. A rounded, lozenge-shaped chunk of quartzite big enough to fit in a hand, carved with abstractly shaped patterns of ridges of varying widths and raised knobs of differing sizes spaced a uniform distance apart. When it is held, the stone allows the bearer to radiate an air of strength and trustworthiness. This effect only lasts for five minutes a day, but while it does, any social checks the bearer makes while holding the stone and invoking its power grants them a +2 bonus, such as on reaction rolls and charisma checks.
87. A bar of blue-green soap wrapped in waxed paper. It works just as effectively as normal soap at cleaning. When a person washes themselves with the soap, they become undetectable to scent-based detection methods for 24 hours. There are seven uses left of the soap.
88. Six metal sticks coated with a thin layer of elongated almost bulb-shaped dried chemicals. When a flame is put to the tip of the bulb the sticks will start to burn erratically, casting bright sparks of various colors from the tip. The sticks burn for five minutes and cast as much light as a torch as they burn.
89. A silver hammer (worth 10 gp) engraved with the obscure and complicated script of the higher planes. The hammer is surprisingly light and tough.
90. A set of iron tuning forks, one for each note of the diatonic scale. They are found in a brown, leather covered wooden case with strap.
91. A bronze and copper collar made for an adult humanoid and decorated with arcane ruins and small charms of little metallic silver powder filled glass bottles. When the collar is worn by a person who has the ability to hear, the person is rendered instantly deaf and unable to hear any noise whatsoever for as long as they wear the collar. A spellcaster wearing the collar can’t cast spells with verbal components. The collared person can still make noise audible to those not wearing the collar.
92. A primitive battery consisting of a ceramic vessel the size of a jug with a copper cylinder wrapping around an iron rod. Once the vessel is filled with an acidic solution it becomes a primitive wet-cell battery. When properly filled and maintained, the vessel puts out 4 volts of electricity for about six hours.
93. A wooden stand with a brass extension on top of it holding a series of lenses on a rotary hinge so that they can be stacked in various ways while looking through them. There are five hinged brass arms with hoops at the end, four of which have a different lens made out of colored crystal. The lenses are made of ruby quartz, clear quartz, green emerald, and a reddish golden amber.
94. An amazingly beautiful game board for the game Senet with inlays of mother of pearl, ebony, and cedarwood. The board is gorgeous, but it lacks any pieces.
95. A small tome with a dyed black cover and tin corner pieces. The cover reads “An Index of Potions.” Inside is a mostly intact encyclopedia of various potions and their variants. The book details the history, creation, original purpose of, identification of, and effects of each listed potion.
96. A large silver ring topped with an intricately carved lozenge depicting a scene of drunken debauchery on the top decoration. This ring holds a secret compartment in the decorated lozenge that can be used to store poisons or other powders or liquids. The top of the ring hinges open but will remain basically undetectable to observers when kept closed.
97. A small amphorae-shaped ceramic jar that has a leather lanyard tied to it so that it can be easily worn around the neck. When the jar is uncorked, it will slowly and steadily draw air inside it. It’s unknown where the air sucked into it goes, but the hanging jar is always pulling air into it with a slight vacuum when uncorked.    
98. A set of four wooden sifting hoops, all roughly 10 inches in diameter, with progressively finer mesh screens attached to the base of each hoop.
99. An odd looking tool composed of a 2 foot long metal handle wrapped in a protective wooden sheath and a 10 inch diameter metal hoop bent at a 30 degree angle from the handle. When the hoop is pressed up against a rock surface for ten minutes, the consistency of the rock becomes like thick, sticky clay. After about an hour the rock will return to its natural consistency again.
100. A small glass flask with a green glass stopper. The liquid inside is a metallic emerald green color. Whatever the liquid inside touches will begin to instantaneously sprout a rapidly growing carpet of grasses and flowers. If successfully thrown at an opponent, the flask will break, covering the target in the green liquid. A target that has been covered in the liquid will immediately begin to erupt in a carpet of uncontrolled plant growth that forces them prone, as they receive 1d8 points of damage.