Just because something is written for an outdated or discontinued tabletop RPG ruleset, it doesn't automatically make it trash. Wizards of the Coast has been recycling and updating old *Dungeons & Dragons* adventures and scenarios for years, either converting them to the current edition of the game, or presenting them as sequels to the classic material. Anyone with enough time and know-how can tinker around with old adventures, but that presumes you have that kind of time and know-how. It's much faster to let other people help give your campaign world a shot in the arm. So today, I'm going to present a half dozen resources from years past that can help pump some new excitement, wonder, and (occasionally) nightmares into your and your players' lives.

*As always, all images are scanned from my own sources.*

## 1) [Aurora's Whole Realms Catalogue](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/16834/Auroras-Whole-Realms-Catalogue-2e)
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This 160 page digest-size book is one of my favorite RPG resources of all time. While it was written for use with the Forgotten Realms setting and the 2nd Edition *D&D* rules, *Aurora's Whole Realms Catalogue* is nothing less than a gold mine of an expansion to the bog-standard equipment lists found in your *Player's Handbook*.

Aurora is a powerful mage who retired from adventuring to set up her own import/export goods emporium servicing all of Faerun. With departments ranging from 'General Hardware' and 'Storage Items' to 'Wilderness Gear' and 'Clothes & Shoes', to goods tailored for each of the major character classes, 'Household Accoutrements' and 'Jewelry' to 'Illuminations', 'Diversions', and 'Exotics', even a Larder section dealing with various foodstuffs, breads, cheeses and wines, this guide is stuffed to the covers with all the things you never knew you were missing in your game.

Best of all, while this is a D&D product, 95% of the gear in here falls into the cosmetic category and doesn't interact with the rules at all. Game Masters can use it to help stock the town apothecary, work out pricing for various day labor endeavors, outfit an inn or tavern, or accessorize a castle or mansion. Players, on the other hand, can find all sorts of goodies to foster role-playing opportunities, creative solutions to problems, or to create some truly obnoxious problems for their GM to solve.

I've spent countless hours poring through this book, and its cover and pages bear witness to the abuse it has suffered being carried in backpacks to various gaming sessions over the decades. While physical copies of this book are absurdly expensive (it's been out of print since 1992), the link in the title will take you straight to the product page on DriveThruRPG, where you can avail yourself of a nice PDF version for a mere $9.99.

Ten bucks for a slew of Bardic tools, Priestly accoutrements, Thieving accessories, Ranger gear, Wizard laboratory specimens, toys, spices, light sources, food, drink, candy, and all manner of other non-magical furniture, clothing, and contraptions is an absolute steal. If you only pick up one article from this list, make it this one.

## 2) [The Compendium of Weapons, Armour & Castles](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/225019/The-Compendium-of-Weapons-Armour--Castles)
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*Aurora's Whole Realms Catalogue* offers much in the way of goods and sundries, but it's entirely lacking in the weapons and armor department. That's where this book comes in. If you're looking for a heavily-researched and copiously-illustrated guide to medieval times, Palladium Books has you covered with this 224-page guide to exactly what it says on the cover.

While all the in-game statistics are written with Palladium's own *Palladium* system in mind, anyone with even a passing familiarity with their rules system of choice can drop this stuff into their own campaign and instantly add tons of depth and breadth to their fantasy world.

While there's plenty of your traditional European garb, you'll also get Sumerian, Babylonian, Egyptian, Malaysian, Japanese, Aztec, Native American, Arabian, Indian, Mongol, and other cultures' arms and armor. Swords, spears, maces, pole-arms, daggers, crossbows, and more exotic fare are all showcased. The castle section includes drawings and basic floorplans for a variety of real-world fortresses, giving any budding GM a template to work from when designing their own.

Best of all, *The Compendium of Weapons, Armour & Castles* is relatively inexpensive on both the second-hand and digital market. The title link will take you to DriveThruRPG, where a high-quality PDF set you back $12.49, but shopping around online, you can find the physical book for under $10. If your players are sick and tired of seeing the same long swords and short bows greeting them no matter what culture they're interacting with, this book will allow you to outfit your NPCs with some truly unique, outlandish, yet historically-correct arms and equipment.

## 3) [FR8: Cities of Mystery](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/16815/FR8-Cities-of-Mystery-2e)
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So now you have your goods & services, your weaponry, your armor, and your castles. Now you just need a places for your NPCs to live, work, and interact with your PCs. For my money (and yours), there's no better all-in-one reference package for setting up anything from a small hamlet to a province's capital city than *Cities of Mystery*, produced in 1989 for Second Edition *D&D*.

Despite being released as a "Forgotten Realms" product, complete with FR8 designation, *Cities of Mystery* has almost nothing at all to do with the Realms at all. Instead, this box comes stuffed to the gills with a 64-page booklet covering all aspects of city and town planning: government styles and taxation, population makeup, neighborhood blocks, criminal codes, holidays and festival celebrations, defense options, and ways to bring your city feel more "real" to the players. Also in the booklet are a handful of short city-themed encounters, a sample seaside city you can drop into your own campaign world, and ideas for adventuring within the walls. It also includes a variety of random encounter tables, which you can use when PCs explore an area you haven't mapped out fully yet, or on your own for dynamically generating the city beforehand.

Beyond the booklet, you get twenty-four cardboard sheets featuring a variety of punch-out and fold-up buildings and structures you can use in conjunction with the two enormous poster maps to literally build your own metropolis for players to see with their own very eyes. The poster maps are also printed in such a way that they can be cut apart and re-arranged, giving you a ridiculous amount of options for generating your own urban landscapes.

First, the bad news: like many other old *D&D* reference works, this one is long out of print and a complete copy will run $80+ on the secondhand market, which is...ouch.

The semi-good news is that the DriveThruRPG link above will get you a fully-printable PDF document, including all the maps and buildings, for $4.99. That's a bloody steal if ever there was one, so if *Cities of Mystery* has you intrigued, don't hesitate to pull the trigger at that price.

## 4) [Volo's Guide to Waterdeep](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/16836/Volos-Guide-to-Waterdeep-2e)
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TSR produced a half-dozen of these digest-sized "Volo's Guide" books, and while they all relate specifically to areas in the Forgotten Realms, there's nothing at all which says you couldn't pluck, plunder, and borrow the ideas and goodies contained within to expand on your own city scenarios. I used *Volo's Guide to Waterdeep* as the sample here simply because it's the first in the series, but really they're all entertaining and full of great little tidbits to add lore or adventuring ideas to your own campaign world.

These guidebooks are written in an in-universe style, and rate a variety of inns, taverns, shops, alleyways, and other areas in the manner of a real-world travel guide. Places to see, places to avoid, and places where Volo was kicked out for asking too many questions all get write-ups. And sure, the intention for these books is that they will be used to enhance a trip through Waterdeep...but I've cribbed bits and pieces of Volo's guidebooks for use in non-Realms locations for decades, and there's no reason you can't do the same. The Volo books are a masterclass in adding kitsch, lore, history, intrigue, rowdiness, local trouble, and "lived in" feel to your world. Floorplans, menus, illustrations, and a fold-out map showing all the locations Volo writes up in the book in relation to the City of Waterdeep round out the experience.

Like other 2nd Edition products, original print copies of this one are expensive (expect to pay about $50 for one that still has the fold-out map intact), but you can acquire a PDF copy from DriveThruRPG for $9.99, or a print-on-demand copy for $19.99.

## 5) [The Handbook of Traps and Tricks](http://www.dragontreepress.com/DT_Sales.html)
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Are you tired of the same old pit traps, collapsing ceilings, and exploding runes? Then this 1981 booklet from Dragon Tree Publishing might be just what you need to ignite your imagination and baffle your players.

*The Handbook of Traps and Tricks* is chock full of ways to delight, torment, and befuddle your PCs without insta-killing them the way some *other* resources ("Grimtooth", anybody?) resort to delver dicing. Arranged and grouped by location or subject matter, you can trap everything from a staircase, a doorway, parts of the outside world, the furniture, or even an entire room with gimmicks both magical and non-magical.

While it is certainly possible to kill adventurers using some of the traps, especially if they are of the lower-level (and thus more fragile) variety, the bulk of the traps herein are meant to serve as obstacles requiring brainpower to overcome, causing only minor damage or inconvenience while the PCs work out the solution.

The book itself is entertaining, replete with quotes from classic literature, and some period-perfect amateur pen-and-ink illustrations. What's more, the end of the book features a slew of tables for random effects, phobias, compulsions, psychological complications (read as: insanities), and ways to set off traps. Best of all, it's entirely system-agnostic, written for no particular rule set or brand.

Of all the items on this list, this one might be the trickiest to acquire. Dragon Tree Press is still around, and the title link will take you to their website, but bits and pieces of it are broken. They offer a print-on-demand version of this booklet for $11.95 + shipping, but I'd send an email to verify they're accepting orders before punching that Paypal button.

None of their products are available through DriveThruRPG or any other resource I've been able to locate. It's a pity, because this truly is one of my favorite RPG supplements, and it's a shame it's impossible to find these days.

## 6) [Riddle Rooms #1: Dungeon Dilemmas ](https://www.amazon.com/Riddle-Rooms-1-Dungeon-Dilemmas/dp/1928807011/)
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In the same vein as the *Handbook of Traps and Tricks* above, *Riddle Rooms #1: Dungeon Dilemmas* is a compendium of 20 different scenarios you can drop into your own underground areas to baffle and challenge your players as well as their PCs.

Intended for parties more interested in flexing their brains than their sword arms, this book from 1991 proffers logic puzzles, riddles, escape rooms, and other conundrums. Each specific room is detailed with illustrations, and most of them come with handouts meant to be photocopied and given to the players to refer to while they work out the solution.

Unless you're dealing with a savvy group of players who enjoy spending time on complexities, you may want to give this one a pass. That said, there's plenty of stuff in here which could be used in lieu of a final boss fight, either to surprise players expecting a massive smackdown or to show mercy to parties that have expended all their resources in pursuit of the end goal. Of all the products on this list, this one is easily the most "your mileage my vary" entry. Some Game Masters and players will be delighted with it, while others will find it of no use at all. 

Sadly, this one isn't available on DriveThruRPG, and it only pops up irregularly on sites like Amazon, so finding a copy might be a pain in the butt. That said, if your group is into these sorts of things, the *Riddle Room* series (#2 deals with outdoor locations, while #3 is for modern-day games) will be a boon to your campaign world.
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So, what's the verdict? See anything you like? Got a resource you love that I didn't cover? Sound off in the comments, and until next time, may all your hits be crits!