We're back with another bit of texture you can stick into your tabletop RPGs. The concept is that it's a shop which is meta, not necessarily that it's a place where you can buy meta stuff. Though feel free to roll with that one, which could also be interesting. This allows you to have a shopkeeper or a particular shop that you find resonates with your players keep popping up even if your story doesn't frequently revisit the same places.
Take for instance Vlad's Various Verisimilitudes, a shop which deals in only the finest of knock-off good of questionable quality. Whenever your party takes a look at a street of shops, whether they're in a city or a small settlement, have them make a luck check; roll a d20 (or the equivalent for your system of choice) and if anyone rolls low, say 7 or below, they will see the familiar fascia of this store. If you want to force the matter for some reason (we don't judge), have the party make the luck check as they enter the door of any shop they haven't visited before.
Inside the shop Vlad is happy to sell adventurer's anything from a wide range of equipment, armor, and weapons. Anything that can be bought can also be bought at Vlad's, and frequently for a steep discount of 20% or more! But above the door as you exit sits a sign that says "No Warranty, No Returns!" As your players leave the shop, have them roll a d4; on a 4, anything they purchased loudly splinters into pieces.
The point of a meta establishment of this nature that sort of follows the party around is going to depend on your implementation of it. With something like Vlad's Various Verisimilitudes, it can add a bit of spice to something that can otherwise be dull, like buying health potions or torches. If you make your meta shop more inviting, it can be used as a resting point, a familiar home-base for quests to begin or end. Once the trend has been established, you might even consider upending those expectations when it would be narratively powerful. Perhaps the shop full of healing pastries is filled with spiders by the BBEG, or the blacksmith's of ceaseless screaming is suddenly silent after the party helps a seemingly unrelated spook find eternal rest.
How those options play out will depend a lot on how your characters react to the place, but don't be afraid to sprinkle these little pieces of impossible scenery around your world. What's the worst that can happen, your party of murder-hobos decides to kill Vlad?
Well, his stat block is below, just in case. And if they succeed... well, I wonder who the new shopkeeper would be? Do you think there's a Vlad Claus?
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