P Is For Prostitue

Alright, I admit it. My memory was bad on this one. I've owned my Official Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Dungeon Masters Guide by Gary Gygax for decades and I was remembering the random table wrong. It would've been H for Harlot because good old Gary had a wandering Harlot table in the old Appendixes.

However, Gary is far from the only one to hit up such a random table for game play. After all, Runequest Cities has one as well, Prostitute Encounter Table 17 with a roll of 1d20 with five different possible results.

Now outside of a nod to the actual history of the game, what roles would these harlots play n a standard role playing game? Well, hitting up the old C. J. Sansom's Sovereign again, one of Matthew's friends has a vice where he enjoys a good beating with a leather belt every now and again and not wanting the misses to soil herself so, has a professional do it. This in turn puts him under another's power because these ladies performing these services have higher patrons whom they report to.

In addition, one of my favorite movies, The Brotherhood of the Wolf, used those in the sex trade as gatherers of information and even as royal spies and assassins.

While as a youngster we used to joke about the various potential for diseases from the lower quarters, the threat of assassination or having one's secrets spilled, or perhaps merely drugged and robbed, are probably more dangerous and potential things that an adventurer has to worry about.

Note that even if the adventurers themselves aren't seeking out the red lantern district for their own pleasures, they may be in search of information themselves. They may be seeking out information of a favorite patron or other tid bits that would generally not fall into the public hands.