All By My Shelf is Open for Business

We’re rounding out all our potential party pitstops in town and wanted to ensure we included a proprietor that could fill all those basic needs. Stuff like some additional rope, another bag of ball bearings, a few more climbing pitons, or even a new handy item like a crowbar or shovel that they never thought they needed…until now!

Once again we go to the STL Miniatures bountiful print file well. And this time, we re-purpose a cool shelf that actually hails from their Taxidermist set. We loooooove when a printed and painted scatter piece can be utilized in multiple scenarios. After all, we worked hard to make our little 3D Printer (lovingly referred to as our “Star Trek replicator”) deliver a final DnD work of art.

We just needed the right display shelf with enough bits and bobs on it to give patrons that sorta old-west-general-store vibe. Ya know how you walk into a place sometimes and you’re like, “Why on earth are they even selling this thing?” – well, we think that’s what makes this STL choice so perfect. This endearing display shelf has got books, bottles, animal heads, drawers, etc…so it’s just the right amount of quirky.

Taking up just a 2×2 set of d20 squares, it’s also the right size. We don’t like super-sized RPG scatter terrain and we don’t like ’em too tiny. None of the gang around our table is going to win any eye doctor chart awards so a little larger never hurts though. A unique shape is also a nice-to-have. This one bows out a little in the middle while still maintaining its 2×2 width (and providing a little more freestanding stability).

As DM Ben mentioned previously with the creation of the “One, Two, Tree” Potion and Herbalist shop, he likes to take care of the shopping stuff in an off-session group email thread. Now that means we need to have some DM-approved resource links for the group to utilize though.

Certainly, D&D Beyond has everything one needs but their display of the countless item possibilities honestly just isn’t the greatest. You have to view everything one page at a time and that gets a bit tedious. Well, thankfully the ThievesGuild.cc comes through (yet again) with a well-organized list where things are broken into handy subcategories and can also be filtered.

During our article research, we also found this wonderful article by Flute’s Loot, “What to Spend Gold on in D&D 5e” so give it a read. There are lots of fun ideas to incorporate into your campaign.

Lastly, DM Ben thinks the name “All by Shelf” comes from a season 2 episode of “Murderers in the Building” but he honestly can’t remember for certain. He just had to ensure that marvelous moniker stayed in all our lives just a little longer.

Next week, we’ll introduce you to the proprietor of this popular pop-in Waterdeep locale, share the mini we selected, and explain how we created yet another NPC for you to maybe use in your own game. 🙂