Table of Contents

Introduction 4 Book and Shelf 52

A Brief History of This and That 4 A Brief History of Books 52
How This Book Is Organized 4 A Brief History of Libraries 54
Lock and Key 5 Books and Libraries in a Fantasy World 54
A Brief History of Locks and Keys 5 Optional Rules: Building a Library 55
A Brief History of Picking Locks 6 Random Book Generators 56
Locks and Keys in a Fantasy World 7 Spells 58

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Variant Locks 8 Magic Items 58
Trapped Locks 10 Monsters 61
Random Keys 11 Hourglass and Sundial 66
New Spell 11 A Brief History of (Telling) Time 66

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New Magic Items 12 Timekeeping in a Fantasy World 68
New Monsters 13 Traps 69
Rope and Chain 16 Sundial Puzzles 70
A Brief History of Rope 16 Random Time Keeping 70
A Brief History of Chains 17 New Magic Items 71
Ropes and Chains in a Fantasy World 18 New Monsters 72
New Equipment 19 Pack and Pouch 76
Optional Rules 20 A Brief History of Bags 76

New Spells
New Magic Items
New Monsters
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Random Rope and Chain Generators 21
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Bags in a Fantasy World
New Equipment
Porters
New Spell
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Secret and Cypher 27 Random Bags 79
A Brief History of Sending Secrets 27 Magic Items 80
Meanwhile in Steganography 29 Monsters 82
Secrets in a Fantasy World 29 Pack and Pouch 86
Encoding and Decoding Messages 30 A Brief History of Wheeled Transportation 86
New Equipment 30 Carts and Wagons in a Fantasy World 88
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New Spell 31 Equipment 88

New Magic Items 31 Optional Rules: Races and Chases 89
New Monsters 33 Sample Race: Circus Extremus 92
Torch and Lantern 39 Random Tables 94
A Brief History of Illumination 39 New Spells 94
Illumination in a Fantasy World 41 Magic Items 95
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New Equipment 42 Monsters 95

Optional Rule: Continual Flame 43 Appendices 101
Random Light Source 44 Spells Alphabetically 101
Magic Items 44 Spells by Class and Level 101
Monsters 45 Magic Items Alphabetically 102
Magic Items by Rarity 103
Monster by CR 103
Monsters Alphabetically 104
Backer Credits 105
 Introduction
Sure, swords and wands are important, but they
already get plenty of attention. What about all that
other adventuring gear that’s easy to take for granted,
but no adventurer would leave behind? Where’s the
book about ropes, or bags, or lights?
You’re holding it in your hands right now.
This and That started as a series of PDFs, each of which
is now a chapter in this book. Each chapter takes a piece of
adventuring gear and explores it in many ways. For world
builders, each topic starts with real-world history, then
tries to extrapolate how a fantasy setting might affect
things.
For those who love new mechanics, each topic includes
monsters and magic items that you can drop into your
game. Many also include spells, equipment, or optional
rules.
Through it all we try to sprinkle hooks to spark your
imagination to come up with adventures. You might run
a spy mission using the information in Chapter 3: Cypher
and Secret, or you might rescue kidnapped children from
the childnapper in Chapter 7: Pack and Pouch. Maybe
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you love the Xu Xialing from Shang Chi and you want to
create a character who fights with a rope dagger. We’ve
got stats for those in Chapter 2: Rope and Chain.
Whatever you are looking for, we hope that you can find
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tools and inspiration in this book to add to your fantasy
world.
A Brief History of This and That
I’ve always loved world building. I am one of those
GMs who has more notes on the history and society
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of my homebrew than the players ever get to see in
their adventures. One area I like to drill down on is
the details of common items. Who made it? What
infrastructure does it require? Does our pop-culture
impression bear any resemblance to how the gear
was historically used?
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Back in early 2021, this love of world building
and gear details led to a crowdfunding campaign
for a short PDF book called Lock and Key, which
discussed—aptly enough—locks, keys, lock picking,
and related details.
It turns out that plenty of other people were also
interested in these details, as Lock and Key not only reached
its goal, but then went on to fund two additional books as
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stretch goals, plus spun off into a Patreon to fund other
books in what’s now the This and That series.
All along the way, people asked if they could get these
books in print. Each individual book is only about 12 to 14
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pages, so not worth printing each on its own. Now that
we’ve got eight books in the This and That series, we’ve
collected them into a single volume, which you now have.
How This Book Is Organized
When putting together this book, we considered
several options to organize it, such as pulling out
monsters and magic items and putting them in their
own separate chapter.
In the end, however, we decided to keep the themes
together, so the rope monsters and rope magic stay in the
same chapter as the history of rope. We did this because
part of the appeal of This and That is seeing how the theme
for each chapter can inspire many different things. Putting
all the monsters in the monster chapter would break some
of this connection.
But we also know that sometimes you’re just
looking for a new monster to send against your PCs in
tonight’s game. That’s why we’ve also included several
appendices at the end of the book that you can skim
through to find the content you need, including page
numbers so you can look up more details.
 Lock and Key
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Since the dawn of fantasy roleplaying games, opening
locks has been a staple of thieves and explorers. This
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supplement provides all kinds of information about
historical locks and keys, their fantasy variants, new
magic items, monsters, and more.
A Brief History of Locks and Keys
For as long as people have owned stuff, they have
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tried to prevent others from taking said stuff.
The first tools that resembled what we call locks
and keys were developed around 3,000 BCE in Egypt.
Though their function was the same as modern keys,
these early keys looked more like giant wooden
toothbrushes. In place of bristles, they had pegs of
various heights. When somebody inserted them into
a lock and raised the keys, the pegs pushed tumblers
up, and if the pegs were the proper height, the lock
opened.
These early wooden keys were large and unwieldy,
but as metallurgy advanced, many civilizations,
including the Roman Empire, made locks and keys
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much smaller by crafting them from metal instead
of wood. The Romans commonly wore their keys
as finger rings or other pieces of jewelry, possibly
because their clothing lacked pockets, but also likely
as a symbol of status. Doing so showed they owned
something valuable enough to lock up.
Warded Locks
The Romans were among several cultures that
independently developed the warded lock, the lock
technology that dominated the world for centuries.
Warded locks contain a series of wards: obstacles of
different shapes, sizes, and patterns. The proper keys
have blades cut with gaps that correspond to the
wards inside the locks, allowing them to turn and
open the locks, while the wrong keys hit the wards
and thus cannot turn.
While the basic technology remained the same for
centuries, as time went on, the designs of the wards—
and corresponding keys—became increasingly
complex, and the design of locks and keys became
 Combination Locks
Combination locks have existed since Roman times,
but they tended to be seen more as novelties than
a way to protect valuables. These early combination
locks consisted of multiple wheels that could spin
independently, and only when all were in the correct
position would the lock open.
As with keyed locks, combination locks also greatly
improved during the Industrial Revolution. For

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decades they continued to use multiple dials, but the
first single-dial combination lock (common to high
school lockers everywhere) was patented in 1910.

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Electronic Locks
The twentieth century saw the advent of electronic
locks. As their name implies, electronic locks use
electricity to activate a magnet or turn a motor to lock
or unlock a door. Depending on the lock, electronic
locks may be activated by keypads, magnetic key
cards, radio frequency ID chips, or biometrics like
fingerprint or retina scanners.

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homeowners, electronic locks are still most commonly
used by businesses that value their many advantages,
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like the ability to easily change what doors a key card
can access.

works of art. Locksmiths added extra flourishes, Smithing Locks

like hidden keyholes, false keyholes, and multiple Early in their history, locks and keys were made by
keyholes that required all their keys to be turned at the local blacksmith. As time passed and demand
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the same time. grew, locksmithing became a specialized profession.

Locksmiths were common in medieval towns and
Pin Tumbler Locks cities. As locks and keys were often the purview of
The Industrial Revolution at the end of the 18th and the wealthy, these highly skilled artisans made their
beginning of the 19th centuries introduced new designs both beautiful and functional, and they
tools and techniques that spurred innovation in lock worked with a wide variety of metals.
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designs. This culminated in the pin tumbler lock. In

these, the teeth of the key raise pins inside the lock. A Brief History of Picking Locks
If all the pins are raised to the correct height, the key For as long as people have owned stuff, other people
can turn, but if the key raises even one pin too high or have wanted to take their stuff. The history of locks
too low, the lock remains closed. and keys can be seen as an arms race, and on the
Pin tumbler locks are the most common kinds of other side of that race is the history of lock picks.
locks found in the modern world, and likely the sort
of lock you have on the front door of your house. If Skeleton Keys
your game takes place in a modern setting, or any era While the warded lock reigned, so did its nemesis, the
after the industrial age, it is the most common type of skeleton key. These keys gained their name because
lock characters may encounter. they were stripped down to the barest essentials.
Instead of a wide blade, they had only a thin metal
stem and a small bit necessary to turn the heart of the
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 lock, thus there was nothing to catch on the wards.
Because of other variations in lock sizes and shapes,
no single skeleton key could open every lock, but a
clever rogue would keep a collection of skeleton keys
and quickly learn which ones worked on which locks.
Lockpicks
The thin metal rods most people imagine when they
think of lockpicks only came into popular use with
the rise of pin tumbler locks. The basic principle
behind these tools is that the lock picker uses one
pick to raise pins to the appropriate height, and then
another to apply tension to keep the pins already
picked in place.
Locks and Keys in a Fantasy World
If your fantasy world uses technology common to
medieval Earth, the warded lock is the default type of
lock and key, and skeleton keys are the most common
means of bypassing locks in the thief’s toolkit.
Pin tumbler locks are beyond the technology of
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medieval Earth and likely most equivalent fantasy
societies. However, such locks might appear in a
more advanced setting or technologically advanced
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culture. For example, gnomes in many settings
produce all manner of clockwork devices not found
in the medieval world. Similarly, they might have
developed more advanced locks.
In a fantasy setting, combination locks might
remain a novelty, suitable for a mad wizard’s dungeon
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full of death traps, or they might be more common
in certain cultures. Perhaps combination locks are
favored in a quiet village of halflings who have riddles
painted on their doors, and the answer to the riddle is
the correct combination for the lock.
Sample Riddles
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You might find these riddles painted on the door
of a halfling’s combination riddle lock or asked by
a talking lock.
I have no mouth but consume plants and beasts
alike. Though I need food and air, give me water
and I die. Fire
In striped uniforms, our warrior women brandish
barbed spears and protect our golden treasure
with their lives. Bees
I cannot be seen but am often heard and felt.
I topple trees and wear down mountains but am
lighter than a feather. Wind
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Locks and Keys for Fantasy Races
Fantasy races are tremendously diverse, as are their
locks. However, if you would like to add a little
quick flavor to the locks and keys of a fantasy race,
here are some ideas.
Dragonborn build their keys into rings and
other jewelry, often plating them with precious
metals.
Dwarves like heavy, angular keys. Often hide
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secret entrances with Moon Locks (page 9)
Elves like elegant keys with nature motifs.
Gnomes have developed pin tumbler locks, an
atypical technology (page 8)
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Halflings use combination locks with letter-filled
dials. The combinations are answers to riddles.
Half-Orcs build keys with sharp points or edges
which can be used as weapons in a pinch.
Humans use simple keys in a variety of designs.
Tieflings have perfected a technique for
hardening and shaping bone keys so they work as
well as metal ones.
Barring the occasional space-ship crash, electronic
locks are beyond the technology of most fantasy
worlds. These sorts of locks, however, could serve as
inspiration for magical locks. Indeed, the arcane lock
spell’s ability to allow certain creatures to bypass it is a
magical form of biometrics. You can also use magic to
emulate modern lock technologies, like timed locks
or doors that unlock when in proximity to a magically
keyed item.
Fantasy Races and Cultures
In fantasy worlds, many non-human races craft locks
and keys, so consider how non-humans design their
locks differently from their human counterparts.
Fantasy cultures might employ advanced technology,
such as the gnomes and halflings described above,
or they might prefer different aesthetic qualities.
Dwarves might craft heavy keys with geometric
designs, while elves like thinner organic-looking locks
and keys, and dragonborn might have their keys built
into finger rings.
Intelligent, non-humanoid creatures might have
even stranger locks and keys. Flying creatures might
put their locks at the top of tall doors, beyond the
reach of typical humanoids. Dragons have magical
locks triggered by their breath weapons. Aberrations
with innate telekinetic powers create keys without
handles that they insert entirely into the lock.
 Variant Locks
While most locks are relatively similar, you can use
these variant locks to present characters with a new
challenge or signal that a door or chest has special
significance. The initial variant locks are based on
real-world technologies.
Hidden Keyhole
While most keyholes are obvious, the keyholes of
some locks are cleverly hidden within an intricate
design, behind a sliding panel, or disguised as an
inconsequential hole. Before attempting to pick
this lock, the character must first find the keyhole
by making a successful Intelligence (Investigation)
check. The DC of the check depends on how cleverly
the keyhole is hidden, typically between 10 and 20.
False Keyhole
False keyholes are similar to hidden ones, but in
addition to a hidden keyhole, there is what seems
to be an obvious keyhole on the lock, complete with
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wards and locking mechanism. However, this is a false
keyhole, and characters cannot unlock the lock using
it, even if they have the correct key.
To find the true keyhole, the characters must make
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a successful Intelligence (Investigation) check, much
like finding the hidden keyhole above.
Multiple Keys
Not just the product of game designers encouraging
players to thoroughly search levels, locks requiring
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multiple keys are based on historical examples. These
locks are designed to open only when all the keys are
placed in different keyholes and turned at the same
time.
Similarly, characters trying to pick the locks must
make simultaneous Dexterity checks for each lock. A
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single character can try to pick two keyholes at the
same time but have disadvantage when attempting
to do so. Otherwise, different characters must pick
the different locks, each making separate checks.
All characters must beat the lock’s DC to open it
successfully.
Atypical Technologies
Sometimes, you as the GM might want to highlight
that heroes have encountered technology beyond
the culture they are used to, such as when they find
a pin tumbler mechanism in a world of warded locks.
In this case, you might decide that the characters do
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not gain their normal proficiency bonus with thieves’
tools, as the tools they use are not up for the job.
However, once the character gets a chance to study
the mechanism and purchase or craft new tools,
perhaps as a downtime activity, they can apply their
proficiency bonus to the new locks.
Monstrous Locks
Any type of intelligent creature may have locks in its
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buildings. The more the creature’s anatomy differs
from humans, the more their locks and keys are likely
to differ too. The following are some such unusual
locks. Though magic might help use them, they are
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not themselves magical.
Giant Locks
Civilized giants use locks and keys of similar designs
to humans, but of course, they are giant sized. These
huge keys would seem like metal clubs in the hands
of human-sized characters and require two hands to
turn.
The trickiest part, however, is that giant door locks
are above the level that humans can easily reach. These
locks are a distance from the ground roughly half the
giant’s height. Depending on the giant, that might be
anywhere from nine to thirteen feet up. If they don’t
have other ways to get up there, the characters need
to climb with a DC 10 Strength (Athletics) check.
Should the character need to pick the lock while
climbing the door at the same time, they have
disadvantage on their Dexterity check to do so.
Handleless Key
Some creatures use telekinesis to control objects
rather than hands, so they have no need of a handle
to hold their keys, and the “blade” of the key might
be a strange shape, such as a cube or sphere with
different sized spikes protruding off of them.
Characters who have their own form of telekinesis,
including the mage hand cantrip, can open the
door automatically. Those without such magic must
attempt a DC 15 Dexterity (Sleight of Hand or thieves’
tools) check to correctly position the key within the
lock.
Magical Locks
As mentioned earlier, magical locks might duplicate
electronic locks or other advanced technologies,
but you need not limit your magical locks to real-
world analogs. With magic, nearly any kind of lock is