The Tale of Trunk

Where is the best place to start when worldbuilding? A pantheon of gods? A world map? A magnificent city? As a first-time DM in 2018, my answer to that question was "a merchant I guess?"

Meet Trunk, interdimensional golden-retriever, bestower of silly magic items, and technically my first TTRPG creation. Over the years Trunk has appeared in nearly every campaign I've run, and become a beloved fixture among my players. In 2020 I accepted him as a quasi-mascot of my TTRPG career and commissioned Natalie Metzger of Fuzzy Slug to draw him so I could transpose his image onto my DM screen.

The Origin

I remember exactly how Trunk popped into my head. I was in the early stages of "maybe I could be a DM" and I studying everything I could about the hobby when I stumbled onto BJHypes' Deck of Silly Things. I loved it immediately. Here was a set of items that were unique, silly, and would encourage my players to solve problems in creative ways. But how would I deliver these items in-game? They were much too weird to make sense in TraditionalDnDLand(TM). While I was thinking about that problem I also happened across this kickstarter for strange dog-centaur minis. It was too niche for me to consider backing, but dropped the idea of sentient dog characters into my brain. Through the strange alchemy of inspiration and time we call creativity, Trunk was born.

The Lore

Granted sentience by an accidental Wish spell, Trunk is a magic dog who can psychically communicate with anyone. He hops around the multiverse looking for adventurers to help, and when he finds them he offers to dig for magic items. When he "digs," a portal appears at his paws and some items from the Deck of Silly Things pop out. The players can pay for these items by petting Trunk a sufficient number of times. Practically speaking, at the table I shuffle my Deck of Silly things, pull out "number of PCs + 1" cards at random, and give each item a cost. Each time a PC pets trunk, 10GP is removed from their coin purse, so an item that costs 150 GP costs 15 pets. No, Trunk doesn't know where the gold goes, he's much too pure to understand the infernal world of finance.

So why am I telling you all of this? Well for one, Trunk is a great character and I'm hoping he finds his way to other tables. More importantly, he's a microcosm of my GMing style and will be a helpful touch point for future blog posts about alternative worldbuilding approaches, leaving lore unwritten, the joy of curated randomness, and many more topics.