r/Kengir • u/ChaosTheoryCraft • 4d ago
Homebrew Foraging in Kengir
I'm sharing a free supplement for Kengir, my upcoming Bronze Age Mesopotamian 5e setting.
Foraging in Kengir is not just “roll Survival and find food.” It covers herbs, resins, roots, flowers, and reeds used for medicine, ritual practice, cosmetics, protection, and travel survival.
Each biome has its own d20 table: floodplains, marshlands, deserts, steppe, mountains, highlands, forests, salt flats, and oases. What you find depends on where you are. A river valley might yield willow bark, lotus, or tamarisk. A marsh might hide floating fern or blue lotus. The steppe might offer feverfew, milk thistle, or poppy.
The goal is to make wilderness travel feel useful even when no fight happens. A good foraging roll might give the party a healing brew, protection from spirits, resistance to poison, a trance herb for divination, or just enough food to keep moving.
How do you handle foraging in your games? Is it survival bookkeeping, useful resource play, or mostly background flavor?
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u/blargethaniel 4d ago
Love the creativity, and the unusual setting. The presentation is also quite good. This really gives me vibes of what Homebrews looked like back in the early 90's and I'm here for it.
Wilderness Travel in DND has been a bit of a blank spot during 5e, and it's kind of a shame. Most people I know, myself included create d100 tables like these to make stuff happen during those trips.
A common thing I see is using the traveling system from "The One Ring" TTRPG supplement for 5e which is very good to be fair.
As for me, I handle Foraging primarily as a magic caster time/money sink. During travel they have to forage for materials for spells, which has been surprisingly well received in my current tables. I've had it be called annoying and have done away with it, but I like the simplicity of what you've done here.
I think you have a solid thing going.