brian 333
2014-10-04, 06:45 PM
The life of an adventurer is great: you get to see exotic locales, meet important people, and kill things and take their stuff. But it is also lacking in the comforts of home. Well, until the intrepid adventurer finds one of these useful items, that is!
Cohan's Convenient Cottage
What resembles a child's wooden block is painted to resemble a quaint cottage, complete with window-boxes and chimney. On what is apparently the floor-side of the block there is only one word, the command word which causes the block to expand into a 10'x10' cabin.
To activate the command word the block must be placed on the ground in a place clear of any obstructions. The ground must be reasonably flat and clear for at least 10 feet in all directions. (If the ground is sloped the block can be activated and the cottage will appear on pillars of the local rock, but no pillar can exceed three feet in height. The cottage is always level when erected and, if necessary, up to three steps similar to the pillars will lead up to the door.) Attempting to activate the block on any site not suited to support the cottage will result in the cottage not appearing. The cottage cannot be used to harm a creature by being activated over it, for example, and allowing it to fall on the creature, nor will it activate if a living thing is within its area obstructing its expansion. However, when properly activated, the block expands into a cottage with the cottage door oriented the same way the painted door on the block faced.
A simple door without a lock, but capable of being barred from within, opens onto a small single room with a small fireplace opposite the door and small shuttered and barred windows on either side. On one side of the door there is a comfortable cot and on the other a small table with two chairs sized for humans. The fireplace itself is rigged as a cooking hearth, with pot-hooks which can be swiveled over the fire and a small bread box, (oven,) built in. Pantry shelves beside the fireplace contain cooking utensils and a variety of herb jars and sauce pots, as well as space for the foods an adventurer wishes to store for ready use, and on the opposite side of the fireplace there is an armoire suitable for storing clothing and other personal goods.
The cabin cannot be restored to its block form while any living thing is inside it, (rather, anything larger than microbes.) When all occupants are out of the cottage, the command word said in reverse reduces the cottage back into a block, and everything alive, (again, excepting microbes,) is expelled. Lice, roaches, and other insects are ejected, but yeast, molds, and other cultures may remain within.
Items stored in the cottage's storage spaces remain in the cottage and can be retrieved when the cottage is used again, but they are not immune to aging. Bread may become stale and/or moldy, beer may go flat, and shiny silverware may tarnish if left untended. Furthermore, the items in the reduced cottage are actually thrust into the Astral Plane, and there is a 1% chance per use that a particular item has been noticed and taken by an Astral traveler.
The window boxes allow the owner to grow kitchen herbs or flowers as he desires, and the painting of the block will reflect what is growing in them. They will never produce any plant larger than a football, (soccer ball,) and cannot be used to grow magical plants of any kind, but parsley, rosemary, and other similar herbs can be kept to provide fresh spices, and decorative flowers can spruce up the cottage's appearance. Unlike the interior contents, what grows in the window boxes is dormant while reduced, and cannot be altered without expanding the cottage.
For combat purposes the cottage is to be treated as any ordinary peasant's cottage. If damaged it may be repaired by mending spell, but if the damage is so significant that it cannot be repaired it will not revert to its block form. If it is damaged via crushing, cutting, or burning while in its block form whatever contents it held are rendered permanently to the Astral plane and cannot be retrieved without a Wish or similarly powerful spell. In its block form it has the structural integrity of a child's toy block.
Gio Bayt alOmar, (Omar's Wonderful Tent)
The desert peoples of the many worlds have learned to bring their homes with them when they travel, but Omar, maker of fine hand-woven tents, has carried this art to new heights. These low, long tents appear to be brown or black waves on the dunes when seen from a distance, and from close up they are short, with the many peaks of the roof not much higher than a standing man.
However, once inside, the meaning of comfort becomes clear. Whether the space within the tent is larger than its exterior, or whether the person shrinks as he enters, the result is that when inside the ceiling of the tent is high above the occupants, and large open spaces are filled with wonders, each more incredible than the last. Throughout the tent the air is cool and breezy no matter the temperature outside, and the harsh glare of the desert sun becomes a shaded diffuse light, bright enough to see by without glare or heat.
Usually the first chamber of the tent has a pool or fountain in its center. The water is cool, clear, and refreshing. Typically there are ewers for drawing the water, as bathing in the well is considered barbaric and uncivilized. From there arched passages with gauzy screens lead to deeper chambers, some with sleeping mats, some arranged for groups to socialize on a variety of pillows, and some with tables laden with various foods. Throughout the tent's many halls thick carpets woven in complex abstract patterns cover the floor and lower walls, while thick open-weave walls reach to the ceiling.
When packed away for transport the tent weighs no more than 100 pounds. It is erected quickly by rolling it out and staking the various lines, and disassembled by removing the guy lines and rolling it up again. The tent can be erected on virtually any terrain, so long as ground stakes can be driven in and nothing especially large protrudes from its floor.
Depending upon the quality and size of the tent it can range from a bundle three feet wide and about a foot in diameter weighing about forty pounds to the largest at six feet in length and perhaps three feet in diameter when rolled up. When erected, the exterior dimensions of the smallest is about six feet by twelve feet reaching perhaps four feet in height, with the interior being sixty by one hundred twenty feet with a ceiling of no more than forty feet. The largest can rival mansions of the most decadent city dwellers, but mansions of stone cannot compare to the luxury of the Wonderful Tents of Omar.
Cohan's Convenient Cottage
What resembles a child's wooden block is painted to resemble a quaint cottage, complete with window-boxes and chimney. On what is apparently the floor-side of the block there is only one word, the command word which causes the block to expand into a 10'x10' cabin.
To activate the command word the block must be placed on the ground in a place clear of any obstructions. The ground must be reasonably flat and clear for at least 10 feet in all directions. (If the ground is sloped the block can be activated and the cottage will appear on pillars of the local rock, but no pillar can exceed three feet in height. The cottage is always level when erected and, if necessary, up to three steps similar to the pillars will lead up to the door.) Attempting to activate the block on any site not suited to support the cottage will result in the cottage not appearing. The cottage cannot be used to harm a creature by being activated over it, for example, and allowing it to fall on the creature, nor will it activate if a living thing is within its area obstructing its expansion. However, when properly activated, the block expands into a cottage with the cottage door oriented the same way the painted door on the block faced.
A simple door without a lock, but capable of being barred from within, opens onto a small single room with a small fireplace opposite the door and small shuttered and barred windows on either side. On one side of the door there is a comfortable cot and on the other a small table with two chairs sized for humans. The fireplace itself is rigged as a cooking hearth, with pot-hooks which can be swiveled over the fire and a small bread box, (oven,) built in. Pantry shelves beside the fireplace contain cooking utensils and a variety of herb jars and sauce pots, as well as space for the foods an adventurer wishes to store for ready use, and on the opposite side of the fireplace there is an armoire suitable for storing clothing and other personal goods.
The cabin cannot be restored to its block form while any living thing is inside it, (rather, anything larger than microbes.) When all occupants are out of the cottage, the command word said in reverse reduces the cottage back into a block, and everything alive, (again, excepting microbes,) is expelled. Lice, roaches, and other insects are ejected, but yeast, molds, and other cultures may remain within.
Items stored in the cottage's storage spaces remain in the cottage and can be retrieved when the cottage is used again, but they are not immune to aging. Bread may become stale and/or moldy, beer may go flat, and shiny silverware may tarnish if left untended. Furthermore, the items in the reduced cottage are actually thrust into the Astral Plane, and there is a 1% chance per use that a particular item has been noticed and taken by an Astral traveler.
The window boxes allow the owner to grow kitchen herbs or flowers as he desires, and the painting of the block will reflect what is growing in them. They will never produce any plant larger than a football, (soccer ball,) and cannot be used to grow magical plants of any kind, but parsley, rosemary, and other similar herbs can be kept to provide fresh spices, and decorative flowers can spruce up the cottage's appearance. Unlike the interior contents, what grows in the window boxes is dormant while reduced, and cannot be altered without expanding the cottage.
For combat purposes the cottage is to be treated as any ordinary peasant's cottage. If damaged it may be repaired by mending spell, but if the damage is so significant that it cannot be repaired it will not revert to its block form. If it is damaged via crushing, cutting, or burning while in its block form whatever contents it held are rendered permanently to the Astral plane and cannot be retrieved without a Wish or similarly powerful spell. In its block form it has the structural integrity of a child's toy block.
Gio Bayt alOmar, (Omar's Wonderful Tent)
The desert peoples of the many worlds have learned to bring their homes with them when they travel, but Omar, maker of fine hand-woven tents, has carried this art to new heights. These low, long tents appear to be brown or black waves on the dunes when seen from a distance, and from close up they are short, with the many peaks of the roof not much higher than a standing man.
However, once inside, the meaning of comfort becomes clear. Whether the space within the tent is larger than its exterior, or whether the person shrinks as he enters, the result is that when inside the ceiling of the tent is high above the occupants, and large open spaces are filled with wonders, each more incredible than the last. Throughout the tent the air is cool and breezy no matter the temperature outside, and the harsh glare of the desert sun becomes a shaded diffuse light, bright enough to see by without glare or heat.
Usually the first chamber of the tent has a pool or fountain in its center. The water is cool, clear, and refreshing. Typically there are ewers for drawing the water, as bathing in the well is considered barbaric and uncivilized. From there arched passages with gauzy screens lead to deeper chambers, some with sleeping mats, some arranged for groups to socialize on a variety of pillows, and some with tables laden with various foods. Throughout the tent's many halls thick carpets woven in complex abstract patterns cover the floor and lower walls, while thick open-weave walls reach to the ceiling.
When packed away for transport the tent weighs no more than 100 pounds. It is erected quickly by rolling it out and staking the various lines, and disassembled by removing the guy lines and rolling it up again. The tent can be erected on virtually any terrain, so long as ground stakes can be driven in and nothing especially large protrudes from its floor.
Depending upon the quality and size of the tent it can range from a bundle three feet wide and about a foot in diameter weighing about forty pounds to the largest at six feet in length and perhaps three feet in diameter when rolled up. When erected, the exterior dimensions of the smallest is about six feet by twelve feet reaching perhaps four feet in height, with the interior being sixty by one hundred twenty feet with a ceiling of no more than forty feet. The largest can rival mansions of the most decadent city dwellers, but mansions of stone cannot compare to the luxury of the Wonderful Tents of Omar.