1d6 Items In An Explorer’s Pack
As part of my continued effort to make 5e’s starting equipment packs more interesting, today I present the Explorer’s Pack!
You can find the other packs in this series here.
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The Pack Itself
The explorer’s pack is a sturdy canvas backpack treated with wax to resist the elements. It carries a large number of external pockets fastened with heavy leather straps, and another pair of heavy straps over the main top flap to hold a bedroll in place. The top flap is made of a large piece of tarp that folds up to sit on top of the pack. When unfolded it opens to a large sheet 6 feet long and 4 feet wide, which can be tied off to a tree or overhang as a makeshift shelter, with the weight of the pack holding it down where the tarp joins it.
Inside The Pack
As well as the basics – a bedroll, a mess kit, a tinderbox, torches, rations, a waterskin, and 50 feet of hempen rope – the explorer’s pack contains the following items:
- An assortment of short pieces of rope fashioned into loops to act as slings when climbing. Useful for tying off to rocks to run rope through, anchoring yourself, or for tying directly around lengths of rope to make ascent easier.
- A rolled piece of thick canvas tied with narrow strips of leather. When unfurled it has a number of compartments sewn into it to hold cartographer’s supplies – calipers, a pair of compasses, slim vials of ink, a narrow quill, and a ruler. A wax-lined pocket sewn into the lining holds sheets of parchment.
- A hollow wooden pole segmented into increasingly narrow sections so that they can be pushed down into each other. It is only a foot long when collapsed but extends up to ten feet. It comes with a set of different tips that can be screwed on or off – a sharp point, a small brass hook, a miniature saw blade, and a heavy brass ball.
- A small belt pouch stained with ink made from bioluminescent plankton, so that it glows a dull greenish-yellow in low light. It contains essential items for exploring cave networks and other labyrinthine environments – lengths of different coloured string, a selection of coloured chalks, plus a lodestone and set of needles pushed through pieces of cork, used to make an impromptu compass.
- A thick pocket-sized notebook filled with your notes and sketches. It is string-tied and bound in mulberry bark.
- A strange insect encased in amber. It has a long armored thorax with multiple legs, and appears to have a head at both ends. The amber has been seated in a brass housing and hangs from a slim chain necklace.
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Image Credit: Explorers cutting up whales.. Credit: Wellcome Collection. Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)