If you play PRFPG or D&D you are no doubt familiar with the magical sack that holds damn near everything.  This bag is the answer to an adventurer’s every problem (or close to).  Loads of loot to drag home? Just toss it in the bag, it barely changes the weight.  Need a bedroll or a tent? I probably have an extra one in here somewhere.

Some GMs are more of a stickler for how much you can fit in one of these puppies and exactly what can go in, saying some items are too big to fit inside the mouth of the bag, or that the item itself could puncture the bag, destroying it and either expelling all the items, or sucking them and nearby people into a whole heap of trouble.  No matter how your GM rules, or what you use it for, no doubt this enchanted bag has made its way into more than one game session.  If only there was something like it in real life, right…?

There is.

Well, sort of.  See, during our latest solo-campaign, which was meant to be a one off during vacation, my character was busy scavenging goods to survive in a zombie-filled-post-apocolyptic world after she got separated from the group had been living with, and their secure compound.  Ken, my husband, GM, and fellow Dire Rugrat Publishing companion, hand waved the contents of some purses.  Not much in there, he said. Mints, some recipients, that’s about it, he said.  The room had been untouched to date and I found more in the cheap motel’s bathroom than I did in the middle aged woman’s handbag.  I shrugged and figured she was one of the few women I know who keeps her bag to a minimum.  I wanted to focus on playing, not raise a stink about a hand-waved handbag in a savage story, but it kept happening.

Then it occurred to me: most men have no idea exactly what lays in the depths of these mysterious containers. Indeed, dumping out the contents of my purse at any given time either causes my husband to stare in wonder or back away slowly (I have since been much more careful to remove any perishable food). There’s seemingly no end to the random junk in the bottom of an oversized purse.

Much like a bag of holding, a woman’s purse can produce any number of random long forgotten object, and can store a great deal.  From the incredibly helpful flashlight or screw driver to the useless lone child’s sock, these bags were (at least in my opinion) an untapped resource in a world four years into a zombie apocalypse.

So What’s in There?

In an effort to help him out (*cough* gain more awesome resources), I started making a list.  I dumped out my purse.  I asked around.  I looked up pictures of the content of people’s bags (oh Flickr and Instagram, how helpful you can be). I even found the random bags I’ve emptied my purse contents into before a trip (those were some random items in there I’ll tell ya!) and inventoried what I found.

The result…? Over a hundred various items with varying degrees of usefulness.  Of course, an item’s usefulness is related to the situation and the imagination of the bearer.  I’m sure, given enough pressure and few enough resources, a creative mind could put damn near every item in a bag or two to good use.

The full PDF of Handy Handbag or Pointless Purse? is now available over on DTRPG, but as a sneak peek, I’ve included one of the tables below. Being the mother of 3 charming (and exhausting) rugrats, I’ve picked the Caregiver Table. This particular list is one that only applies to certain handbags, but the contents could be useful to anyone, depending on their desperation.

Some of the items are more humorous than helpful. Rugrat #1 couldn’t stop laughing about a few of them, but I assure you that either myself, or a friend, has had any one of these items in their bag at some point.

Ready to add these items? Roll 2d4 – that’s how many items from the table will appear in the bag.  Now collect 3d12, total the results and find the matching item.  Repeat for each item and voila! Repeats are okay, unless you don’t want them to be.  I assure you, and I’m sure fellow parents can agree, when in doubt – throw another one in!

Caregiver’s Handbag Table

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Did you try out the table? What did you end up with? What’s your favourite item? We want to head from you!