Gear for Wilderness Explorers
Header Art: Compass Pirates of the Caribbean by Matthew Peiffer
Oh, the great wild outdoors. For those in the northern hemisphere, summer is well and truly here. It’s hot, it’s awful, and I never want to leave my air-conditioned apartment where the scorching sun will burn me worse than a vampire. For many, they have already had their first excursions to camping grounds where biting insects and horrible weather will make them question why they ever decided tent camping was for them.
Of course, I haven’t yet done that. By the time October comes around, the wife and I will realize that we haven’t gone camping all summer and hastily go out on the last weekend before it gets too cold and then I foolishly attempt to make a campfire before angrily pouring as much lighter fluid on it as I can to get it lit. Then I’ll remember why we have hotels and cabins. But you know who doesn’t have a hotel they can just pop into on their travels?
You guessed it, your party members who are forced to adventure through thick jungles, even thicker bogs, and the thickest forests your devious and twisted mind can conjure up. They’ll have to fight bugs of horrible size, run from dinosaurs to make a portal to the Beastlands, and explore ancient ruins, all the while the players get to enjoy their adventuring from the comfort of their chairs and table.
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Adventuring Gear
The problem with adventuring is that there is just not enough gear to stock up on when characters set off, excited for the dungeons they’ll delve and the ruins they’ll explore. In fact, its blatant false advertising that an “explorer’s pack” doesn’t even include a compass or a blank notebook to write down your discoveries. What type of explorer are you without a machete to cut through thick jungle or a thick set of boots for your travels?
As you might guess, I don’t think very highly of this pack as it only offers some food, a few torches, a bed roll, some rope, and a mess kit. That doesn’t fit my idea of an explorer, someone with a machete on their hip and a flask of repellant as they attempt to run away from the swarms of mosquitos that will suck them dry.
I have created 10 new items for your players to grab on their next jungle excursion!
Compass
We all know what a compass is… probably. A small magnetized piece of metal always points to where north is… unless a magnet is too close. The first compass was created in 206 BCE so it’s not like they were a completely unknown item during the pseudo-middle ages that Dungeons & Dragons exists in. This item just comes into play when the party gets lost and are attempting to reorient themselves and get going in the right direction.
Dowsing Rod
Is it pseudo-science or pseudo-useful? Who can tell, all we know is that this dowsing rod is a stick that points to water… once you add in some magic. We promise it isn’t the magic doing all the work, and it’s the stick… please give us money.
While you probably don’t need a dowsing rod in your day-to-day adventuring career, farmers and ranchers would probably love to have one of these devices… or hire a friendly druid to tell them the best place to build their wells throughout their fields.
Duck Call
QWACK! QWACK! No, we aren’t talking about the dowsing rod, instead we are trying to communicate with the majestic duck. This little whistle allows you to communicate with the ducks, hopefully, so that they fly to you so you can stab them with an arrow.
Then again, maybe you just want to see if there are ducks nearby or you are trying to just sound like a duck… for some reason. I’m sure that some players could easily set up a coded message system with duck calls, tricking goblins into thinking they are being attacked by a hundred duck-sized horses… or is it a single horse-sized duck?
Hivesuit
Let’s face it. Wasps suck, and bees are awesome. I know that’s a controversial sentiment, but I’m sticking to it. Luckily, there is now an item to make sure those swarms of horrible insects don’t immediately kill you when they begin swarming about. With this padded armor turned into a hivesuit, you are now safe from the worst of their biting and tearing mandibles.
Lumber Axe
Sometimes a big tree requires a big axe. This lumbering muscle-powered machine can fell any tree… so long as you have the time. While it’s not going to be your goto weapon at every battle, when you do have to fight that one animated tree, you’re going to be reaching for an anti-tree device as soon as you can.
This weapon is built off of the rules presented for building weapons in a previous post.
Machete
Exploring through an uncharted jungle means you are going to be facing a lot of shrugs, a lot of vines, and a lot of snakes that look like vines. The only way to cut through all of that is your trusty machete; the outcome of what happens when a sword gets dirty with an axe. This weapon can help you cut through monsters and not get lost as you get a bonus to Survival checks while marching through thick jungles.
This weapon is built off of the rules presented for building weapons in a previous post.
Planticide
Some plants are nice, others try to eat you. Luckily, all plants hate it when a concentrated dose of poison is sprayed on them, turning them into empty husks. This defoliant is great for destroying thick vegetation or simply getting rid of pesky ents who keep talking about how the trees you felled with your axe were their friends.
Repellent
Bugs suck, and I won’t apologize for my extreme beliefs. With this handy item, they can suck less. Of course, huge swarms of insects always seem to want your death, so even if they aren’t deterred by your repellent, they might become sick and poisoned while they are close to it. Sadly, most large animals don’t seem to mind the repellent and are happy enough to eat you, even while you smell unappealing.
Saw
While you probably aren’t going to be sawing down too many trees, there might come a time where you need to saw through a thick wooden beam so you can open the gates to a city and welcome the orc horde to your new kingdom. Then again, maybe you just want to saw through some door hinges or your ranger’s bow cause he keeps talking about his edgelord backstory about being raised by animated trees and blights.
Whetstone
Alright, this item already existed but it just existed… it didn’t live! Now, our whetstone can be put to some use by spending 10 minutes working on a weapon and then gaining a one-time bonus to your damage roll the first time you hit with the weapon.
Making It Through The Wilderness
Those are our new items for surviving the jungle! I’m planning on doing more in the future based on explorers venturing underwater, the mountains, the desert, and more! If you have ideas for equipment or locales you want to be explored, please let me know in the comments below.
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