These stereotypes about the undead are offensive. As soon as we move in anywhere, the local villagers start saying we ruined the place. Shambling through a haunted castle is a lifestyle as valid as any other.
I think it’s not just how much gold one has, but whether it can be categorized as a “horde.” You may only have a small amount of gold coins, but if you leave them in a messy–but not too messy–pile, you could end up with a small dragon sleeping on top of it.
Ah-hah, you’ve discovered my plan: Attack of the gold coin mimics!
(Or just a lack of English comprehension on my part, really 😅.)
Okay but like… If I only have a pile like… A foot tall…
Will the dragon be hamster sized, Chihuahua sized, great Pyrenees size, or bear size?
Cause depending on the answer, I have some saving to do…
Hard to say, but it seems like there’s more gold than dragon, usually. (Unless you end up with a Gold Dragon!)
“Pal, look. If you had your gold coins stacked in your cave, and put in a couple tables, we’d just call it a ‘counting room.’ Then we’d be talking maybe a little citation for not spacing your dragon-discouragement columns close enough together. But what you’ve got here, with all your gold and gems and statues just like…piled up on the floor? I gotta be honest, I don’t know how you don’t at least have a little wyrmling in here yet. This is absolutely a hoard, and if we don’t remediate now you’re gonna need exterminators by the end of the week.”
That would be a fun way to subvert expectations, make it sound like your typical “rats in the cellar” job:
“Yeah, I’ve got a bit of a pest problem in the cellar and you came highly recommended.”
“I mean, we’ve done that in the past, but that’s a bit beneath us now…”
“The job pays quite handsomely.”
“…Well, it better.”
And then the pest problem is a wyrmling and maybe some kobolds
I know you just bought this house two months ago, but that ain’t a septic tank, that’s a pipe leading straight into the underdark. Do you want svirfneblins climbing outta your toilet? You gotta get a sewer hookup. I know this is just how they did it back when the house was built, but that ain’t how it works these days. It was out of code then, and it’s out of code now. I’m gonna be back in a tenday, and I really don’t wanna have to fine you. I’m gonna leave you the Adventurer’s Guild’s business card, they got a department specifically for this kinda high risk plumbing.
These sound like great prompts for an Acquisitions Incorporated game, or maybe something set in Discworld
Let’s go meta. There’s a Ministry of Chelonism whose remit it is to send teams of interdimensional agents to prevent fantasy settings from becoming too self-aware and ironic, because that would cause them to interact with the Discworld and destabilise their reality.
They constantly muck it up, leaving a trail of universes with retconned cosmogonies and unhinged cosmic geometries.
