TEXT: EN World EN5IDER| Cherished Trinkets
  Small and enigmatic, trinkets 
  enrich your game world and 
  add detail to your adventures.  
  Trinkets 
  are 
  pocket-sized 
  treasures with little monetary 
  value, but they hold rich 
  storytelling potential.  Spicing 
  up your game with these prizes 
  in the right moment can add 
  an element of realism through 
  thoughtful detail and provide 
  a way of carrying experiences 
  along 
  as 
  souvenirs. 
   
  An 
  intriguing trinket can become a 
  plot hook to spur your players 
  to delve into the world you’ve 
  created.  They can also jolt 
  jaded players out of their ruts 
  and provide new ways to add 
  uniqueness to their characters.
  Neither trash nor precious loot, 
  trinkets fill a special niche in 
  adventures.  They can be more 
  than mere filler for the dungeon 
  floor or equipment handed out 
  at character creation.  These 
  tiny treasures should either 
  add detail to your world or 
  create questions to intrigue 
  your players.
  Ryan Chaddock
  by 
  
  EN World EN5IDER | Cherished Trinkets
  Value to the Character
  Some players ask what the point of trinkets is.  Why 
  should they care?  A few seem like junk, and others 
  like silly jokes, so to a greedy dungeoneer, trinkets 
  just take up valuable pack space.  And while most 
  players aren’t so cynical about interesting objects, 
  some would carry around every oddity they came 
  across for the rest of their adventuring careers.
  A trinket’s value is dependent on two things: the 
  character in question and the lore surrounding the 
  object.  A good trinket has value because it holds 
  special meaning to the character that holds it. Perhaps 
  it’s out of place, it’s beautiful, or it just strikes the 
  character as personally meaningful.  Whatever the 
  case, the mere act of taking it with them can be a 
  roleplaying choice with deep implications. 
  Example:  Royvel the Bard has two prized trinkets.  The first he’s 
  had most of his life, an ornately carved wooden figurine of an orc 
  warrior.  The carvings are of such loving detail that it has haunted 
  him since he first set eyes on it.  He keeps it as a good luck charm and 
  hopes he never has to kill an orc.  His second treasure is a more recent 
  find, a black metal coin from a realm he’s only heard of in whispers. 
  How it came to be on that goblin’s body he’s not sure, but he intends 
  to learn what all the fuss is about.
  Value to the Setting
  Trinkets can be a powerful force within the larger 
  context of a campaign.  Even a short-term game 
  peppered with the right mysterious items can 
  seem as textured as a lengthy novel, as they hint at 
  motivations, violence, foreign lands, history, and 
  daily life.  All these elements can come together to 
  form the flesh and blood of a rich campaign setting.  
  One important trick is altering the kinds of trinkets 
  provided in a given locale, depending on who lives 
  there.  For instance, having a small trinket list for the 
  raiders who attack small farming communities might 
  come in handy.  The list doesn’t need to be long; a 
  half dozen items that convey the raiders’ situation 
  and culture will serve quite nicely.  Another list for 
  the kinds of gifts the helpful elves give out might 
  be useful, both to better describe your elves and to 
  imply their generosity.  
  The physical conditions of the area can be conveyed 
  through trinkets fairly easily.  Items might be filmed 
  over with ash near an active volcano or forest fire, 
  or water damaged from the gloomy 
  swamplands.  Magical effects could 
  warp or even imbue items with strange 
  properties.  In this way, trinkets can 
  serve as a source of clues to the larger 
  conditions at work in the area.
  Example:  Stephanie is running a campaign that 
  highlights the tragedy of a fallen elven society 
  which once dominated the world.  She wants to 
  emphasize hubris and loss, as well as the use of 
  magic in the elves’ daily lives.  Since the first 
  adventure takes place in the ruins of an elven 
  temple, she comes up with a few trinkets that 
  showcase these themes. “A polished metal mirror, 
  partially melted and warped,” “A small magic 
  wand that commands the flight of a tiny illusory 
  butterfly,” and “A scorched stone chalice which 
  casts no shadow and seems to weigh far more than 
  it should.”  .
  Value to the Story
  As the source of new stories and 
  connections between characters, the 
  value of trinkets cannot be understated. 
  When your players find a foreign bank 
  note hidden under a pile of goblin 
  corpses, you might encourage them to 
  seek out its origin.  This can be a difficult 
  feat to manage—you don’t necessarily 
  want every mysterious trinket to derail 
  your planned adventure.  On the 
  other hand, if your game is more of a 
  sandbox, those clues could be a useful 
  way to gently guide your players.  
  Trinkets can also provide a source 
  of backstory and even connections 
  between PCs during character creation. 
  Trinkets can be mementos from their 
  prior adventures or possessions shared 
  by childhood friends.  Embellishments 
  like this can come naturally, as collective 
  character building, or in a structured 
  way, by having each character pair up 
  with another to tell a story of where 
  they acquired the trinkets they carry.  A 
  player and GM might work together to 
  weave the item’s story into the plot, or 
  the player might simply come up with 
  a few ideas on their own and see what 
  the Game Master wants to run with.
  
  EN World EN5IDER| Cherished Trinkets
  Example:  Jon, Amy, and Ray are creating 
  characters and decide to connect them together 
  through the trinkets they rolled. Jon and Amy 
  decide that their connection is due to Amy’s 
  trinket: a necklace made of giant shark teeth.  They 
  decide their characters formed a deep bond on a 
  nearby tropical island where Jon’s hero helped 
  Amy’s fight off a giant shark attack, and made a 
  necklace from its teeth.  Jon and Ray determine 
  that their characters met during a bar brawl and 
  that both Ray’s trinket, a bottle of goblin whiskey 
  and Jon’s blood-stained dart board, were kept to 
  remember how dangerous things can get when they 
  don’t control their tempers.  Amy and Ray think on 
  their trinkets and decide that the letter Ray found, 
  penned by a lovesick elven lord about a human 
  warrior, is actually about Amy’s character and that 
  neither of them have discussed this just yet.  
  Magical Concerns
  In high-magic worlds and regions, 
  trinkets are often mundane items 
  infused with a spark of the arcane.  
  While it’s easy to imagine that handing 
  out “magical” items left and right will 
  encourage powergaming, remember 
  that magic is like the technology of the 
  day in some of these places.  It might be 
  too convenient to have a frying pan that 
  doesn’t need a fire to cook something, 
  but will it break your game if a player 
  comes up with a clever use for it? A 
  good GM strives to reward player 
  ingenuity, not punish it.  
  Bear in mind that treasure-loving 
  adventurers will tend to hoard items 
  with actual utility, especially if they 
  bear the mark of magic.  If this becomes 
  a problem, defy their expectations 
  and give your next batch of trinkets 
  strange and flavorful magical effects, 
  instead of conventional ones, like 
  “a dull stone that glows green and 
  whistles at random hours of the day.” 
  Incomprehensible effects can suffice to 
  keep magic supernatural rather than 
  mundane and straightforward, which 
  is a good thing in certain campaign 
  settings. 
  Trinkets as Weapons
  Nothing encourages exciting and imaginative play 
  more than saying yes to a brilliant idea. Nearly any 
  item can be used as a deadly weapon, and though 
  players are notoriously creative when it comes to 
  violence, this is no reason to stifle creativity at the 
  table.  Your trinkets can and will be used against 
  your monsters and villains.  Most of the time this 
  just means treating them as improvised weapons 
  or equipment.  At other times a player will come up 
  with a truly creative use of your trinket, dovetailing 
  an unusual property with the needs of the moment. 
  Go with the flow and just be glad that your well-
  written trinket is now the stuff of legend.
  Managing Expectations
  A challenging part of handing out trinkets is keeping 
  the players interested in hearing what the trinkets 
  are.  This means you need to keep your trinkets 
  intriguing and noteworthy, and it also means you 
  need to be a little bit sparing in handing them out.  
  Too many or too ordinary, and soon your players will 
  be complaining about the “junk” you give them. This 
  doesn’t mean that every trinket should be a cryptic 
  tie-in to the villain’s machinations or an item with 
  priceless magical properties.  A good mix of three or 
  four trinkets that really grab their attention is a good 
  rule of thumb.  Keeping your trinkets plentiful, but 
  manageable, will help reward attention to detail and 
  investment in your world.
  
  EN World EN5IDER | Cherished Trinkets
  Building Trinkets
  When creating a trinket, it’s good to follow a few 
  guidelines to make things fast and keep your items 
  interesting.  Here are a few things to keep in mind:
  •	
  Keep it short.  Each trinket’s description should be 
  no more than two short sentences.  Remember, 
  you’ll most likely be reading this aloud and your 
  players will be copying down only the most 
  obvious details.  The simpler the better.
  •	
  Keep it unusual.  Rooms in a dungeon can be full 
  of random items.  Trinkets are those things that 
  immediately present themselves as just a little bit 
  extraordinary.  Try to think of these as treasured 
  objects to those who put them there.  Why would 
  they hold on to this particular item?  What does 
  this say about the people who live here?  These 
  are questions you should ask yourself when 
  you write the trinkets, and questions the players 
  should ponder when they find them. Example:
  o An old quill made from a vibrant feather of 
  an exotic bird, obviously imported at great 
  expense.
  o An artistically carved arrow, the tip of which 
  is caked with what looks like golden blood.
  o A clay bowl stained with the vibrant colors of 
  several poisonous native berries.
  •	
  Add a bit of mystery.  Items that imply a larger 
  world, defy explanation, or seem out of place are 
  great candidates for trinkets.  
  •	
  Defy convention.  Yes, your PCs might find a cigar 
  and a shaving kit on the corpse of the dwarf 
  miner, but they might instead find a flask of elven 
  wine or a love poem.  Mix things up a little.
  •	
  Tie in your larger plot.  This can be a subtle art, 
  but it’s possible to leave clues for your larger 
  campaign plans through some of the trinkets 
  you provide.  A coded communiqué here, a torn 
  map there, and pretty soon players are figuring 
  out what might lie ahead for them as the game 
  unfolds.  Be careful though.  There’s always one 
  PC who wants to follow that trail with the zeal 
  of a bloodhound.  Make sure your clues don’t tip 
  your hand too much, too soon.
  •	
  Don’t overwrite.  Each trinket is an idea, and you 
  only get so many of those before writing fatigue 
  sets in.  Have a small number you want to make 
  and stop there.
  Wrapping Up
  If you’re here you want to make the 
  most of trinkets in your game.  You 
  want to bring depth, sentimentality, 
  and enigmatic clues to a genre that 
  focuses an inordinate amount of 
  attention on combat stats and bloody 
  trophies.  Trinkets bring the game back 
  down to earth and into the realm of the 
  small, the precious, and the beloved.  
  Ultimately the choice to supply your 
  players with these kinds of items is 
  a negotiation.  If your players seem 
  uninterested, maybe trinkets are not 
  for your group.  Finding ways to keep 
  them interested is the real trick.  The 
  payout is a richer game world, which 
  is well worth it. 
  Author - Ryan Chaddock
  Editor - James Haeck
  Artists - Jen Tracy, Nick Cramp
  Layout - Justin Buell
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/Dungeons & Dragons [multi]/5th Edition (5e)/3rd Party/EN World EN5ider/EN5ider 001 - Cherished Trinkets.pdf