The apprais­er sat with a huff. He laced his thick fin­gers on the leather desk­top. “Good morn­ing, Mas­ter Tuck,” he said, mous­tache rip­pling.

Across, there sat two cut­ters in scuffy leathers. One, a dim­pled woman, nod­ded. “Morn­ing, Sei­der.”

Her com­pan­ion, an oily, onion-scent­ed young man with his hood still up, scowled. He kept his arms crossed over a burlap sack in his lap, star­ing at the pair of mus­cled fig­ures, clad in black suits and deep-hood­ed weath­er-capes, behind Sei­der. The boxy angles of body armor and con­cealed pis­tols poked con­spic­u­ous­ly from their hound­stooth capes.

Sei­der nod­ded at the sack, raised his bushy eye­brows. “I’m pleased you’ve cho­sen Peri­dot again. Got some goods for us today. Baubles, trin­kets, aye?”

“Aye,” smiled Tuck. She looked to her com­pan­ion, expec­tant­ly. He scowled. Tuck­’s mouth twitched. “Come on, mate. Give him the shite.”

Jerk­i­ly, the man uncrossed his arms, placed and slid the sack over the desk. It stopped, sagged before Sei­der with a metal­lic clink. “Very good,” said the mous­tache. Nub­by fin­gers stretched to pry open the tied mouth, opened it wide. “My, my.” 

“Hm?” said Tuck.

“Late Idran era, judg­ing by the rose motif. Loved flow­ers and sen­ti­ment,” said Sei­der, pluck­ing a tiny stat­uette with ram’s horns from the sack. “And beast­men. Dealt with any, recent­ly?” The oily lad glared at him, touched a ban­daged cut on his arm. Sei­der ignored him, rubbed the stat­uette with a rough thumb, har­rumphed. “Ivory. Give you three pounds, for this,” he mused, raised his eyes to Tuck.

At that, Tuck­’s com­pan­ion quit his glow­er­ing, bright­ened. His eyes grew to white-ringed spheres. “Three pou-” he tried to exclaim, winced. Tuck had stamped on his foot.

“I’d say it’s worth four,” she said.

“Fair enough.” Sei­der pulled a ledger over, began fill­ing lines with a stub­by pen­cil. He set the stat­uette in the table’s cen­ter, start­ed on anoth­er item from the sack: A sil­ver winecup carved with flo­ral scroll. “This is com­mon, but worth a pound half.”

“Fine. There’s four of them.”

Sei­der nod­ded, pleased.

Next from the sack was a set of crys­tal dice; eight pounds. Then, a small bag of large sil­ver but­tons shaped like eyes; a shilling each. A set of quill nibs.  Sei­der mum­bled, “ink, not blood.” Four pounds. A chap­let of gold­en ros­es; twen­ty. A set of seg­ment­ed rings, like the fin­gers of a gaunt­let. At these, Sei­der declared “curi­ous;” offered Tuck eleven pounds. A sil­vered knife with teeth like a key; twen­ty four pounds. A small pile of trea­sures and trin­kets grew on the table. Then, Sei­der with­drew a ring, del­i­cate and blue-sil­ver.

“Plat­inum,” com­ment­ed he, some sur­prise evi­dent in his raised tone. “Uncom­mon, for the era.” He held it close, not­ed minis­cule scroll­work twist­ed into styl­ized hearts, squint­ed. “There’s an inscrip­tion.” A draw­er shuf­fled open, from which he drew a jew­el­er’s glass, dialed the focus. “In Ancient Nor. Fas­ci­nat­ing. It reads: ‘Dear­est Peri­vere, know I bend all my hearts for you.’ ” 

Sei­der drew away, blinked slow­ly. There was a spell of silence. Cut­ters and apprais­er awk­ward­ly met eyes, looked away. Sei­der’s lips moved, silent. Final­ly, he man­aged a phrase. 

“Thir­ty pounds?” he rasped.

“Forty.”

“Done.”

d100 trinkets from an age of sorcery

Beneath the earth lie the bones of old sor­cery.

Tombs, dun­geons, and redoubts; the car­cass­es of empires come and gone over vast mil­len­nia, all fed and fat­tened on the hor­rid secrets of their antecedents. For­bid­den com­plex­es in vast and uncracked num­ber, still ripe with spoil; with all the twist­ed arts of sor­cery still there, fat for the pick­ing.

But more often, it is not gross pow­er that’s picked from these wrecks. Not magi­cian’s tricks, nor recipes for mon­sters, nor even the source of sor­cer­ers’ per­verse tran­shu­man­i­ty; not in any great mea­sure. What’s found is the small detri­tus of lives. The belong­ings of human beings, how­ev­er twist­ed.

A selec­tion of such trin­kets is list­ed below.

1. A black coin. One side bears the star­ing vis­age of a spi­ral-horned woman with mean eyes. The oth­er: an eye­less skull. A tar­ry black­bird, ragged, fol­lows the car­ri­er of said coin at cau­tious dis­tance, watch­ing with fish’s eyes.
2. A bone smok­ing pipe. Its stem is too short for the smok­ing of coqueli­cot, and the bowl is too small for any sub­stan­tial amount of pep­perelle. Said bowl is carved with imag­i­nary crea­tures, per­haps chimeras.
3. A bog­wood hand with sil­ver inlays indi­cat­ing the loca­tion of every bone in the wrist, palm, and fin­gers; all labeled in a loop­ing, unknown script.
4. A box made of pet­ri­fied, grey wood. Square, palm sized, and unusu­al­ly heavy. Has a lid and iron hinges, but no latch. A face, moon-like and squint­ing mirth­ful­ly, is carved on the immove­able lid.
5. A brand, or per­haps a rosette iron. Small, and quite del­i­cate in the han­dle. Scorch­es a pressed sur­face with a two-inch-tall cap­i­tal M if heat­ed cher­ry-hot.
6. A brass ring set with an over­sized, round brown bezoar for a gem­stone. Extreme­ly ugly, by mod­ern stan­dards.
7. A brooch com­posed of three over­lap­ping green-enam­eled nick­el sil­ver leaves secured togeth­er by rust­ed hinges. The enam­el is cracked and dusty. If worn, the leaves click togeth­er; a sound rem­i­nis­cent of clink­ing spurs on rid­ing boots. 
8. A box com­pass, hard leather, scuffed, and no larg­er than a snuff­box. Reveals a sphere struck through by a red nee­dle, sus­pend­ed in a crys­tal ball filled with clear liq­uid. The nee­dle points north, even if rotat­ed in three dimen­sions.
9. A cast iron fly, large as a chick­en’s egg. The legs are bent, and a wing is miss­ing. Tucked between the legs is the rem­nant of a mount­ing track, the kind used to attach orna­ments to con­nec­tion pins on met­al armor.
10. A chate­laine lined like a human palm. Five short iron chains hang from it, no more than two inch­es long. Each ends in a lead fin­ger­tip pen­dant. When pinned to a gar­ment or belt, the piece hangs like a strange, dis­em­bod­ied hand.
11. A chess­man, a king, craft­ed from black­est jet. He sits in a tall throne worked with a scroll­work relief, bear­ing an expres­sion of deep­est weari­ness. He rests, chin in palm, with a short knife tucked in the oppo­site hand. A fine­ly worked piece.
12. A chunk of amber includ­ed by a black­ened, fos­silized thing curled up upon itself. It is big-head­ed and rough­ly humanoid, like a minute fetus, but has dis­tinct ridges or spurs run­ning down its curved spine.
13. A clay whis­tle, shaped like a tooth­less, leer­ing skull. With some prac­tice, a user may devel­op a queer embouchure and play the thing, which requires a force­ful blow into the cra­ni­um. It pro­duces no music; only a high and rat­tling cry of human ter­ror. A blood-cur­dling scream.
14. A cloi­son­né drei­del. Each face, gold-leafed lead set with col­ored gar­nets, depicts a geo­met­ric face, each bear­ing a dif­fer­ent expres­sion: Bare-toothed anger, sneer­ing dis­gust, white-eyed fear, and twist­ed, wretched mis­ery.
15. A cop­per cica­da tar­nished blue-green. Large enough to fill the palm. The hump of its tho­rax is set with a large mala­chite cabo­chon. Some exam­i­na­tion reveals said cabo­chon is a but­ton. Its mech­a­nism, though some­what stuck with age, caus­es the cicada’s wings to lift, reveal­ing a small, oblong stor­age space in the abdomen. The wings must be reset man­u­al­ly. They click into place, locked tight.
16. A crys­tal shoe. A heeled slip­per, one made for the foot of a small woman. Bluish and light­ly faceted. Quite hard, and able to be worn and walked upon, albeit uncom­fort­ably.
17. A cylin­dri­cal spin­ning top, quite wide, and made of light, white met­al, weight­ed towards the nee­dle. A row of lit­tle skele­tons is paint­ed around the cylin­der. If spun and looked at dead-on, the skele­tons become one and ani­mate. It dances, and not pleas­ing­ly, made live­ly by the kine­sis of the whirring top.
18. A die with six sides. An inch square, and cut from decayed wal­rus ivory. The carved faces, their lines filled with dirt, are thus: A long-fin­gered hand, a thin eye, an acorn, a sev­en-point­ed star, a spiny fish, and a rose in full bloom. When rolled, the fish con­sis­tent­ly lands fac­ing up.
19. A dried ser­pent, coiled in a fog­gy crys­tal tube sealed with wax. A husk of a crea­ture, like onion skins wrapped around brit­tle fish­bones. A leak of ash and smoth­ered cin­ders spills from a split in its long, des­ic­cat­ed gut.
20. A fibu­la. Twice the usu­al size. Made of rust­ed, wrought iron del­i­cate­ly carved with scroll­work and dec­o­ra­tive riv­ets; all near­ly obscured in red oxi­diza­tion. Rust­ed hard to a scrap of fine chain maille still lodged between pin and plate.
21. A fold­ing knife with a curved tang, like a straight razor, but with a wicked­ly hooked blade. When closed, it forms a semi­cir­cle. The blade is quite pit­ted but has been cleaned of its rust at some point. It is keen­ly sharp.
22. A frag­ment of bone, obvi­ous­ly the con­cave top plate of a human cra­ni­um, edged with pit­ted gold. Three inch­es wide and carved on the inside with cramped script. A read­er adept in Ancient Nor will dis­cern an out­dat­ed ver­sion of the Lord’s Prayer carved with­in.
23. A glass heart. A 1:1 scale dis­em­bod­ied human heart craft­ed of dark, smoky glass. Hole for dip­ping in the gap­ing atri­um. Filled with the gum­my rem­nants of old, red­dish resin, per­haps ink. Quite heavy.
24. A glass jar, blue, sag­ging with the slow melt of ages. With­in are three seeds, some­how not yet turned to dust. They are like those of a pump­kin, or squash, but are red­dish and much pointier.
25. A green, glass apple bare­ly skinned with flak­ing gold leaf. With­in, there are vis­i­ble count­less rivers of incred­i­bly tiny veins, fibers, and seeds, as if a real apple were refash­ioned pre­cise­ly as glass. Said seeds are glim­mer­ing red, per­haps rubies. The apple is pro­found­ly strong and can­not eas­i­ly break.
26. A gun­metal sphere, slight­ly pit­ted. It rings dul­ly when shak­en and feels as though some thick liq­uid or sand shifts inside. If shak­en vig­or­ous­ly, it becomes chill­ing­ly cold. A shal­low mark has been stamped on one side: A long tri­an­gle, per­haps a tooth or an ici­cle.
27. A hair­work needle­point dis­played under a cabo­chon of green­ish glass. Mount­ed on a nick­el sil­ver brooch. The needle­point depicts, in black and blond, pre­sum­ably-human, hair, a smil­ing black skele­ton beck­on­ing to a quizzi­cal, robed child.
28. A hand­held fan with light­weight steel leaves. When ful­ly opened on its creak­ing riv­et, it forms three quar­ters of a cir­cle. The leaves are spot­ted with del­i­cate open­work in flow­er­ing geo­met­ric pat­terns, some of which have been eat­en through by rust.
29. A head-sized dodec­a­he­dron; bronze and black­ened. Each of the twelve sides has a wide hole in its cen­ter. Vis­i­ble through the holes is the indis­tinct form of a lead-dipped skull, evi­dent­ly entrapped there when the hedron was forged.
30. A heavy sil­ver ring with a flat, round head. A cap lifts off the top, reveal­ing a fold­ed-down nee­dle, which may be lift­ed into place, and the mark­ings of a sun­di­al around it. None of the marks, all twig­gy, nat­ur­al shapes, cor­re­spond to mod­ern nota­tion, save the fact there are 12.
31. A human mandible with strange, sil­very crys­tals jut­ting in a painful major from the ramus and process­es, where it might con­nect to the skull. The teeth, of which the incisors are sharp, are faint­ly coat­ed in plat­inum leaf.
32. A jade moth. Trapped in a squat, glass bot­tle. Craft­ed of jade sliv­ers and twists of sil­ver wire. Will fly fee­bly, briefly, if warmed by a liv­ing palm.
33. A joint­ed ceram­ic fin­ger on a leather thong. A nub of bent and bro­ken met­al, where­upon the thong is tied, sticks from the stump like an end of bone ripped from its joint in a whole hand. The fin­ger’s two joints may be manip­u­lat­ed with some dif­fi­cul­ty, artic­u­lat­ed over some rusty arma­ture of metal­lic bone.
34. A large blue coin with a pow­dery fin­ish, per­haps tar­nished. A hole is punched in one side, lend­ing it the appear­ance of a tag. One side bears rows of blocky char­ac­ters; a lost tongue. The oth­er shows a many-tow­ered sky­line, all spires and soar­ing onion domes.
35. A large lock­et, its case and door craft­ed from faceted, cracked, yel­lowed glass cut like a rec­tan­gu­lar gem. Its inte­ri­or frame holds not a paint­ing, nor a pho­to­type, but a fuzzy, sil­ver mir­ror. The mir­ror, when pol­ished, has a hid­den effect: If one looks into it, cen­ters their face in the frame, and focus­es upon the back­ground, they may dis­cern a tall, unmov­ing woman there, tow­er­ing behind them. She is ghost­ly, as if cut into the sil­ver, and looks on with deep, pierc­ing eyes. A pair of long, spi­ral­ing horns extend from her gaunt and mirth­less head.
36. A lead slate, five inch­es by four, and quite worn, with five lines of text writ­ten across the back in small, punched holes. Each line appears to be the same phrase, sim­ply repeat­ed in five lan­guages. The first, punched out in the sym­bols and tongue of the Ancient Nor, which is still read today, reads “what wrought we here should be for­got.”
37. A lensed brass tube, like a tele­scope, but not col­lapsi­ble. Any­one who peeks through its cracked and dusty lens sees the world upside down and in fad­ed, red-mono­chrome neg­a­tive.
38. A lock of human hair pre­served in a cylin­der of yel­low­ing resin capped by false-gold ends. The lock is pur­ple black, a col­or rarely seen these days, in humans.
39. A long steel tun­ing fork. When struck, it hums at a low­ing, wor­ri­some fre­quen­cy that stirs the gut and caus­es a lis­ten­ing ear to rush alarm­ing­ly.
40. A long arrow­head with only one barb, like a fish­hook. The shank is heli­cal­ly grooved, as if meant to screw onto a shaft. No rust, nor any sign of age or wear at all shows on the bril­liant, blued alloy from which the point is craft­ed.
41. A long-necked ves­sel, small, of porous, white porce­lain. Glazed with black metal­lic enam­el inside. There is a small face stamped on its bul­bous end; a curl-lipped face nes­tled in a pen­ta­gram. The ves­sel becomes dewy, if left in the open air, and over the course of a sin­gle night wells up a col­lect­ed, cloy­ing droplet in its bulb. This flu­id is sweet but turns the stom­ach. It kills insects and small ani­mals that drink of it.
42. A minia­ture, sil­ver-plat­ed skull inlaid with black fret­work. The skull­cap lifts of on a tiny hinge, reveal­ing holes for three vials, grouped in a tri­an­gle, with­in. Only two vials are there. They are octag­o­nal, ruby red bar­rels capped with sil­ver.
43. A mon­o­cle-like disc upon a frag­ment of sil­ver chain. Unfit for wear as a mon­o­cle, as the thick, yel­lowed lens is scratched and scuffed with count­less minu­tia and lit­tle pit­ted points. The points seem to coa­lesce as a man-shaped form. If set before a bright light, the lens projects a dia­gram: A flayed man, splayed in anatom­i­cal posi­tion, with labels in an odd lan­guage indi­cat­ing his spilled organs and opened bod­i­ly struc­tures.
44. A mon­ster tooth dag­ger, some­where between a shark’s and the long canine of a great cat. The edge, nicked and worn, appears, on some inspec­tion, to be an exten­sion of the tooth’s root, as is the grip. There are holes and dents, there­upon, sug­ges­tion the iron itself was once fed by nerves and veins.
45. A defaced iron insignia shaped like a shield. Some­one has tak­en a sharp knife point and defaced the thing with a rough X sym­bol, then crushed it flat. Under the X, the shape of a crude­ly mold­ed fir cone bare­ly shows.
46. A nee­dle file, steel, a foot long, and slight­ly dull at the point. The file itself is unex­cep­tion­al, save some rust, but the han­dle is long and fash­ioned like a bone. A very human bone, rec­og­niz­able by the knob­bly epi­ph­ysis of a femur at its end.
47. An hour­glass, slight­ly melt­ed, set in a droop­ing, ancient hous­ing of twist­ed glass. With­in the bloat­ed glass bulbs, there are two, sep­a­rate liq­uids: A clear, slight­ly yel­low oil that fills the space like air, and a heavy, cher­ry-red liq­uid sep­a­rate from it. This cher­ry liq­uid acts as sand, drip­ping in slow glob­ules from the top bulb to the bot­tom. Despite its age, it keeps a per­fect hour.
48. A nick­el sil­ver poman­der. Eight hinged seg­ments of scrolled open­work sep­a­rate and swing out from a bot­tom ring of hinges. The cen­tral stem, topped by a ring and the catch disc for all eight seg­ments, bris­tles with sharp, met­al thorns. They are rust­ed with ancient, brown stain. Atop one, a tiny bone is embed­ded.
49. An iron hook, barbed, like those meant for fish­ing, but quite too large. Two links of rust­ed, cast iron chain trail from it, fol­lowed by a flat, sim­i­lar­ly cast tag of iron. It shows, under ample rust, the sim­ple etch­ing of a bony man hung by a hook sunk through his col­lar­bone. Three runes, like cir­cles cut with spurs, are stamped below. The tag has anoth­er hole oppo­site the attach­ment of its links, sug­gest­ing more where attached there­after.
50. An ivory comb, the kind meant to lay flat and stay a plate of hair. Black­ened, either with age or with pur­pose­ful tar­nish, and carved on its han­dle with images of plagued skele­tons, obvi­ous­ly grues, spilling over each oth­er in a chill­ing accu­rate depic­tion of frozen, unnat­u­ral­ly insec­tile move­ment.
51. An ivory play­ing piece shaped like the bust of a mus­cled, eye­less man with inter­locked fin­gers and palms rest­ed atop the pum­mel of some weapon haft. He is eye­less, for the met­al dome of a lead skull­cap cov­ers his ears, nose and eyes. Only thin lips show below.
52. An oper­cu­lum pen­dant on a frag­ment of sil­ver chain. The whorl of the oper­cu­lum if filled with bright lead­ing. The reverse side is carved with a knot of engraved text in block let­ters; a lan­guage unknown.
53. A pair of point­ed thim­bles con­joined by a flex­i­ble loop of steel. The claw­like tips join nice­ly, like a tweez­er. They may be worn on thumb and fore­fin­ger to pluck up small objects with some pre­ci­sion.
54. A per­fume vinai­grette shaped like a tiny, long ampho­ra. Made of some sil­very met­al and worked all over with tar­nished curlicue. If shak­en, the vinai­grette rat­tles, as if filled with large grains. Its lid clicks open, allow­ing, from the grat­ed neck, a mossy odor of chypre. A scent nei­ther in vogue nor dis­liked, today. The scent does not run out, nor fade.
55. A pet­ri­fied egg, slight­ly orange, with one side cut away. A hideous embryo, also fos­silized, is curled there. It is a long-backed, anen­cephal­ic neonate with long, rodent-like incisors that join to form a sort of beak. It clutch­es, in three-fin­gered hands, its own tail. The thing is shot through with long mag­gots turned by time into red stone.
56. A pewter acorn with a lead cap and stem. Some­thing slosh­es heav­i­ly inside, like mer­cury. The cap does not open.
57. A pit­ted fist of ore, quite heavy, that con­tains strange fos­sils. Nei­ther the bony, many-legged fos­sils nor the met­al with­in the ore are read­i­ly iden­ti­fi­able as any known to sci­ence.
58. A ragged, thin tin box con­tain­ing two long, steel nails. Each has a shaft con­vo­lut­ed with organ­ic whorls and notch­es, and a head show­ing a carved rose or curl­ing tongue. On the box’s lid is past­ed a hand-drawn, musty sketch show­ing where the nails should be dri­ven into a human’s skull.
59. A ring with a minis­cule lock­box in its set­ting. Both the ring and the set­ting are plain, black alloy, save for a small, square sodalite cabo­chon set in the lid. A key of extra­or­di­nar­i­ly small pro­por­tion would be required to open said lid.
60. A ruby ring on a fin­ger bone. Heavy, plain, and gold, set with a fat, bad­ly cut ruby. In mod­ern times, it would be a man’s thumb ring, though an ugly one. Sur­rounds a thick fin­ger bone. Won’t come off the bone, as the knuck­les are knob­by and too wide. The bone is frag­ile with age, and con­spic­u­ous­ly black­ened.
61. A sharp pen. Long, and craft­ed in smooth onyx. It will bear no ink on its pierc­ing nib; only human blood. The sil­ver nib will nei­ther rust nor tar­nish.
62. A signet ring, quite wide, made of cast iron. The signet face is that of a beaked skull, one halfway between that of a human and a crow. The ring is too wide for a human to wear and seems to have been designed for a fin­ger dou­bly wide the usu­al.
63. A sil­ver brooch shaped like an impe­ri­ous face framed by styl­ized, curl­ing locks. It has small, yel­low gar­nets for eyes. The eyes seem to be backed by mir­rors, for they flash with an unusu­al bright­ness while in light. The brooch is mag­net­ic, on its iron back, and con­nects pow­er­ful­ly to met­al objects.
64. A sil­ver pen­dant, sans chain, shaped like a cone snail’s shell. There is a hole beside the chain loop, but no stop­per with­in. Inside, the shell is hol­low. Close inspec­tion reveals that the shell cul­mi­nates in a very sharp, short nee­dle. Flu­ids placed in the shell well at the needle’s vicious end.
65. A sil­ver tube, long, worked with branch­work, and thin, filled with yel­low pow­der. Said pow­der smells of hick­o­ry and some astrin­gent tang. It fills the tube, which is closed with a screw cap, to the brim.
66. A sin­gle ear­ring of an ugly style. A thick, short hoop of red­dish, soft met­al. It smells faint­ly of wet iron or raw offal when touched and seems to make the fin­gers sticky. It attracts insects, large ones, that sit with­in the loop, when worn, and wor­ry and wash their hairy legs, buzzing low­ly in the wear­er’s ear.
67. A skele­ton doll, artic­u­lat­ed. It’s black­ened ivory bones, rather detailed, are joined by small iron rings. One arm is miss­ing, and one eye sock­et is filled with a small gar­net. If care­ful­ly inspect­ed, it becomes evi­dent there are two more rows of teeth than nor­mal in the jaw.
68. A slum­ber, small, shaped like a pint-sized ampoule of green glass. A faint, flick­er­ing heart­beat can be heard with­in, if lis­tened to in absolute silence. The glass emits faint heat, like a liv­ing thing.
69. A small, car­touche-shaped pla­que­tte made from bronze, meant to hang around the neck by a chain, like a mod­ern dress gor­get. The chain is gone, replaced by sim­ple cord. A sculpt­ed, leo­nine face looks out from the front, snarling.
70. A small, ivory fig­ure nailed to a Y-shaped cru­ci­fix, also ivory. The fig­ure is carved in excel­lent detail. Though ema­ci­at­ed and wracked in stiff-limbed agony, a wide and tooth grin is present on the fig­ure’s hol­low-eyed face.
71. A small knife, unfit for fight­ing, with small notch­es and teeth, like those of a key, cut into its edge. Plain­ly made from dark, pati­nat­ed iron. Shiny and sharp­ened at the hard, toothy edge.
72. A small show globe, akin to the large sort hung in chemists’ shops, capped and band­ed with black­ened sil­ver. The screw cap is stuck on but might yield with some twist­ing. Con­tains bright blue pow­der, so fine that a sin­gle breath might send it all blow­ing away.
73. A small sil­ver spoon. Long, with two slots in its bowl. Any food it con­tacts devel­ops an acidic fla­vor; savory, but not pleas­ant to a mod­ern palette. Any water does so, too, and turns a greasy grey.
74. A small whis­tle shaped from ivory, per­haps bone. Yel­lowed and chipped, thin as a pen­cil, and per­haps the length of one’s hand. It has eight holes for fin­ger­ing, but they are of no use, for the whis­tle pro­duces no sound when played. It vibrates sub­tly, pro­duc­ing naught but raised hairs and a sen­sa­tion of anx­ious, hor­rid dread in all who are near.
75. A spher­i­cal astro­labe, small and brass, inlaid with gold leaf, with­out a stand. It has six rings, and none of the celes­tial details there­upon cor­re­spond with the earth­’s night sky. Has a loop upon which it might hang from a cord or chain.
76. A spher­oid box, small, and ribbed like a squat pump­kin. Splits neat­ly in two. The halves, which join near­ly flush via a thin, inset lip, are con­joined by a short sil­ver chain. Every link in the chain, oblong and black­ened, is glassed and opens like a lock­et. Only one of these frame-links con­tains a pic­ture: A minute, paint­ed image of a man with a pig’s head.
77. A spool of gold wire. Soft, and of a wide gauge. Wound round a cracked ivory spool. Every mil­lime­ter of the wire’s sur­face is carved in con­joined, cur­sive let­ters in a scratchy, unknown script.
78. A square bell, rather small, and unusu­al­ly heavy. Smooth, unrust­ed, with a short tongue that wags with only great force. It sheds no sound; only heavy vibra­tions that shake the hand, vibrate one’s teeth in their sock­ets, and touch ring­ing tones of near­by met­al objects.
79. A squar­ish iron key, large, with three blocky teeth. One of the teeth rotates, with some dif­fi­cul­ty, grind­ing with rust. The wide, han­dle por­tion of the key is also rust­ed, but depicts, in bas relief, a square door with a howl­ing, heavy-browed face above the key­hole.
80. A steel-bris­tle brush, round and palm-sized. The fer­ule and han­dle are rust­ed iron, but the bris­tles main­tain a stain­less shine. If the rust is scraped away, the mark of an obscure, two-crest­ed hel­met may be seen stamped atop the grip.
81. A steel mea­sur­ing chain. Iden­ti­fi­able as a mea­sur­ing instru­ment, as each two-cen­time­ter link is labeled with a care­ful line and a unit in its end. The units appear to be stan­dard num­bers, but with some odd, serif-like addi­tions to each. 110 links, in total.
82. A steel tooth cap, keen­ly sharp, meant for the upper jaw. Con­verts the canines and lat­er­al incisors into long, point­ed fangs. There are sock­ets in the fangs’ fronts, as if they once held gem­stones. A pair of black­ened, ancient teeth are still stuck with­in the cap’s inner groove.
83. A strange, tiny inkpot, bare­ly large enough to con­tain more than a few drops of ink, with a point­ed, small-diam­e­ter nee­dle pro­trud­ing from its bot­tom. The nee­dle, if embed­ded in one’s flesh, caus­es the pot to well with wait­ing red.
84. A strange pin, like a cloth­ier might use for sewing, but larg­er, and with a slight­ly ser­rat­ed shaft and a red glass bead for a head. Larg­er than is use­ful by a fac­tor of two. If stuck in red-blood­ed flesh, into which it sinks read­i­ly, the red bead glows, faint­ly, flick­er­ing like a faint flame in a bloody shade.
85. A syringe with a squared-off crys­tal bar­rel. The plunger, flange, and nee­dle hard­ware are nick­el alloy ornate­ly etched in twin­ing, ser­pen­tine coils. Though it has no nee­dle, and the plunger no longer seals, it is fine­ly made, giv­en its age.
86. A thick crys­tal sphere, large as a grape­fruit. Del­i­cate fronds of green flo­ra lie with­in, all sprout­ed in a choked abun­dance from a mess of roots and humus. Yel­low dust, per­haps pollen, swirls about the stems amidst motes of white gas. The sphere does not open, and the plants with­in are like none seen on the earth.
87. A thick iron ring with eight chains attached. Each quar­ter-meter chain, com­posed of nine links, has a short spine pro­trud­ing on either side of each link. Inves­ti­ga­tion shows that the large, cen­tral ring, which has a spike on one end, has a bro­ken nub oppo­site it, where the whole affair might have been attached to a haft.
88. A tin ear with a hole through the mid­dle. The back has three ser­rat­ed pins, slight­ly wob­bly, pre­sum­ably meant to have con­nect­ed it to a host’s skull.
89. A tiny bronze ket­tle, or per­haps a retort, dark with tar­nish. It has a curl­ing chim­ney, rather than a spout. When liq­uid is heat­ed inside, it imme­di­ate­ly evap­o­rates.
90. A tiny green ingot, pale emer­ald all the way through, as verdi­gris, in a torn-open lead enve­lope. On con­tact with skin, it turns the flesh a spongy, pale green, caus­es chills, and elic­its an itch­ing from the scalp. A geo­met­ric, faceted signet has been pressed into one cor­ner of the ingot, pre­sum­ably while it was cast.
91. A toad­stone, brown, near­ly cir­cu­lar, wrapped by dull lead wire. A loop is spun into the wire, and a new leather thong is tied through the loop, allow­ing it to be worn as a pen­dant. A sym­bol is carved on the stone’s bot­tom; that of a curled, bat-winged ser­pent.
92. A warm, black iron mar­ble; like a very large bear­ing, but rougher. The rough, iron exte­ri­or has worn away at a thin spot, show­ing a smooth, shiny yolk of hard, tung­sten-grey met­al with­in. Balmy warmth emanates from the mar­ble, but slow­ly burns near­by skin an irri­tat­ed red, if kept near­by for too long. The red­ness takes time to fade, and flakes and weeps before it does.
93. A white hand­ker­chief, slight­ly yel­lowed, bor­dered in black thread. The soft, silky weave sloughs away all soaked or stuck-on mess once ful­ly dried, no mat­ter how dirty. Impos­si­ble to tear, by hand, but frayed around the edges. Bears a mono­gram in one cor­ner; a rune rem­i­nis­cent of a G, but with more curls.
94. A white mar­ble mor­tar, quite small, chained to its pes­tle with a thin iron leash. Stained on the inte­ri­or with blotchy brown. Carved on the out­side with sim­ple images of tiny, imp­ish indi­vid­u­als grind­ing teeth in mor­tars just large enough to accom­mo­date a molar.
95. A wide, gun­metal ring. Plain, on the exte­ri­or. There is let­ter­ing inside the band, raised and sharp. If worn on a clenched fist, the let­ter­ing digs painful­ly into its fin­ger, leav­ing the word “momen­to” imprint­ed in red welts.
96. A hastel­la, six inch­es tall, made of frag­ile wood. Defaced with pro­fane graf­fi­ti deeply scored with a point­ed knife. The rude let­ters belong to a lan­guage now for­got­ten. They have since been filled with some sil­very met­al, and their edges now rise high­er than the worn-down wood. A hastel­la is a sev­en-point­ed spear head; the holy sym­bol of Aveth.
97. Half of a bro­ken mask of brit­tle iron. An impas­sive, large-eyed face shows on the front, gen­der­less. With­in, the mask is not smooth, but con­vo­lut­ed by the canals, cham­bers, and process­es of the facial skele­ton, as if this shat­tered mask once com­posed the front por­tion of a liv­ing skull.
98. The skele­ton of an unknown ani­mal encased in a mound of yel­low­ing resin. It is much like a gar­den frog in both size and shape, albeit a gar­den frog with long claws and a pro­tract­ed, toothy snout.
99. The steel tip of a horn capped in plain steel and point­ed like the punch-shape of a bod­kin arrow. Dry, ker­ati­nous splin­ters of horn, frag­ile with age, are still stuck on the inside.
100. Two glass eye­balls in a tar­nished sil­ver box with gold hinges. The orbs lie on dusty, red vel­vet div­ots. They are green glass and irreg­u­lar­ly shaped in the back. Odd­ly con­vo­lut­ed inside, like jel­ly and fish eggs. Gold leaf iris­es lie under the hard, crys­tal lens­es.

Notes

It’s about time I made some­thing peo­ple can more eas­i­ly uti­lize. Here it is: d100 trin­kets. Also very good as (extreme­ly) minor mag­ic arti­facts for 5e, if you like that kind of thing.

This is the third d100 list I’ve put togeth­er. If you want more, find d100 flower pix­ies and d100 books at their respec­tive links. If you’re from r/d100, wel­come back. Edit: Now we also have d100 mag­ic knuck­le­bones, my most detailed list yet!

I intend this list as a char­ac­ter gen­er­a­tion ele­ment. By that, I mean select sorts from the Incunab­u­li sys­tem will get one or two items, ran­dom­ly gen­er­at­ed, from here.

Anoth­er d100 trin­kets list will emerge at some oth­er time, with a dif­fer­ent fla­vor than this one.

If you like Incunab­u­li, share it! Fol­low on Red­dit and bluesky.

Con­sid­er becom­ing a sup­port­er of Incunab­u­li on Patre­on.

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