Troll Lord Games

The discussion going on over in the Rules Question thread inspired me to try and make some magic items for a setting where magic is rare, and a system where characters' major abilities are inherent, rather than dependent upon the items they have. (In other words, some house-ruled versions of C&C.) The magic items should be interesting and give the character who has them some sort of benefit, but the major "selling points" of the item should be a bit more fantastic and not simply an everyday utility.

The two items below are based on some whimsical ideas that popped into my head while I was writing my post over in the Rules Question thread, and that I fleshed out last night. I've left out any "setting-specific" information, because frankly I didn't have any when the ideas came to mind. However, I'm working on some, and might post that later.

If this kind of thing interests you, please feel free to let me know what you think. Do the items interest you? Do they come close to meeting the kind of goal I said above? Also, if you have any rare-magic world magic items of your own that you'd like to share, well, feel free to share them!
The Conflagrant Mantle of the Phoenix Kings: The mantle is a cloak made from phoenix feathers, colored in vibrant hues of violet, blue, red, and yellow. Its wearer suffers only half of the damage from any fire-based attack, or none if a successful saving throw is made. Furthermore, the mantle bestows an air of authority and grace upon the wearer, who receives a +2 bonus to all rolls made to openly influence or inspire others.

The real power of the mantle, however, is the legacy of the phoenixes that the feathers once belonged to. If the wearer should prematurely diedue to violence, poison, or disease for examplethen the mantle reduces him or her to ash in a stunning conflagration that inflicts 5d6 fire damage on everyone within a 5-foot radius. A saving throw may be made for half damage. However, the mantle cannot hold back the ravages of old age; this true fiery rebirth is only for the phoenixes.

Four days later, the wearer will magically reappear, naked and accompanied by the scent of burning flesh, in the same spot where he or she was killed. Whatever wounds or illnesses once troubled the wearer will be gone, but the mantle itself will not reappear. Seven years later it will reemerge from some pile of ashes elsewhere in the world, although the location is seemingly random.
Wavereaver: The head of this battle-axe is mounted on an ash handle, which is always damp to the touch. The head itself is made of iron that shimmers a faint sea green and is spotted with rust, which no amount of scraping will get rid of. It simply reappears a few minutes later.

There is very little remarkable about this axe when used in combat, unless it is wielded against a water elemental or similar being. In these cases it grants its owner a +2 on all rolls to hit, and deals an additional 3d8 damage.

The Wavereaver has other powers, however. The owner may call out a curse to the spirits of the sea and embed the axe in the mast of a sailing ship or the bow of a galley. So long as the Wavereaver remains there, waves will not crash upon the ship, and any sea creature or water elemental attempting to come into contact with the ship or its crew must succeed at a charisma saving throw or be repulsed. Add 10 to the challenge base when determining the challenge level of the save.

Once per day, the wielder of the Wavereaver may hold it aloft and swing it into a body of water. The water rises up and parts around the axe, resulting in a 10-foot-wide corridor that begins where the axe struck and extends down to the bottom of the water's bed and out to a distance of 500 feet. This passage remains for 10 minutes, although the Wavereaver's bearer may choose to collapse it at any point before then.

Look cool, a former DM of mine created similar type items for his campaign, not overpowering, but very unique items you always liked to have.
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Just a thought. Instead of 'abilities' for a given item you might consider writing up a kind of epic history for the item instead?

In low magical settings a 'magical' item isnt neccessarrily magical because it has inherent powers. Its considered magical because a given key historical figure used the item in some famous event instead. The given item is 'magical' because its a symbol instead, and people believe in its power.

If a weapon, perhaps its considered magical because it was forged in some lost metalurgical means that makes it not rust. Or its material was rare, or created by a legendary craftsman.

In this way you end up with an item of quality with an evocative plot hook instead of a numbers buster. ^_^
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Peter Bradley

I personally like the idea of covenant items from Midnight, which is a low magic setting.

These are items which have a history and have become "magical" due to it's possessor going through something heroic or dramatic (usually dieing in the process) and the item becomes infused with some enchantment from those occurances.

Two things:

First, I find "low-magic" to be a confusing term. Lots of people have different conceptions of what "low magic" entails. Do you mean "rare magic", "weak magic", both, or something else? Sometime people really mean "subtle magic" (which is what gideon is implying), but I don't think you mean that. Neither of your items are subtle. They're not exactly weak either, which lends me to believe you mean "rare."

If you are implying that magic is rare: why is it rare? If it's powerful and useful (as your items are), people will seek to create more. Why haven't they? What's the constraint? Make sure it's something not easily overcome, or your PC's may make an end-run around you and get more (and more powerful) stuff than you planned.

Second, I notice that your items are "all upside." In a setting where PC's are intrinsically powerful, magic items should be optional. To be "options", they have to be balanced. But balanced against what? Not other items, because that way lies D&D 3.x. No, an item's use should be balanced against not using the item. That means that there must ba cost associated with the item's use.
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DangerDwarf wrote:
These are items which have a history and have become "magical" due to it's possessor going through something heroic or dramatic (usually dieing in the process) and the item becomes infused with some enchantment from those occurances.

I personally like that was well.

irda ranger wrote:
First, I find "low-magic" to be a confusing term. Lots of people have different conceptions of what "low magic" entails. Do you mean "rare magic", "weak magic", both, or something else? Sometime people really mean "subtle magic" (which is what gideon is implying), but I don't think you mean that. Neither of your items are subtle. They're not exactly weak either, which lends me to believe you mean "rare."

Yes, actually. That's a mistake on my part which I hadn't considered till I came back and everyone had already responded! In the body of my post itself I reference "rare" magic, but then when I slapped a title on it, "low magic" popped into my head and out of my fingers.

So I apologize to everyone for any confusion that might have arisen.

irda ranger wrote:
If you are implying that magic is rare: why is it rare? If it's powerful and useful (as your items are), people will seek to create more. Why haven't they? What's the constraint? Make sure it's something not easily overcome, or your PC's may make an end-run around you and get more (and more powerful) stuff than you planned.

The Conflagrant Mantle actually got me thinking about a particular setting, as opposed to just a general "feeling" of setting, but I haven't quite worked out the details yet. Nonetheless, as it stands I envision magic--especially the kind where items occasionally were made--as a relic of the past. But even then such things were a taxing process, so only important sorts of items got created. Magic that is used in the present is extremely rare, and dark, and not well-suited to things of permanence.

The mantle, for example, was created as a symbol of goodwill between the Phoenixes of the Mountain and the People by the Mountain, until eventually the Mountain erupted and consumed the doomed city in liquid fire as the Phoenixes looked on, not fully understanding until much later that the People would never again come to life. (There's more to this, I'm just hitting the highlights.)

Honestly though I never really had any trouble with my former gaming group as far as exploitation was concerned. We were always pretty fair to each other. I definitely miss them.

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Second, I notice that your items are "all upside." In a setting where PC's are intrinsically powerful, magic items should be optional. To be "options", they have to be balanced. But balanced against what? Not other items, because that way lies D&D 3.x. No, an item's use should be balanced against not using the item. That means that there must ba cost associated with the item's use.

An excellent point. I consider the mantle's drawback to be that it disappears when its most notable ability happens. If the characters want to track it down seven years later (assuming they even know that happens), well, that's another adventure in itself. It was, of course, much more immediately useful to the rulers of the People by the Mountain, but when their temple to the Phoenixes was destroyed with the rest of the city, it went all wonky.

Even so, the mantle resurrected the last Phoenix King after he was melted alive by the lava flow, but since the temple was destroyed it disappeared, and when he came back he was still trapped underneath all that rock. Perhaps there could be some kind of curse related to that.

But I didn't really have a cost in mind with the Wavereaver, so I'll have to think about that. Thanks for the advice.

I use a "Heroic" and "Villainous" Imbuement system in my gameworld for the creation of the most potentially powerful magical items. As heroes and villains do their deeds, word spreads of their actions which becomes tied to them and their equipment causing their items to become imbued with magical effects.

So far, the effects have been minimal in nature, relegated to minor attack/damage bonuses or minor luck bonuses.

While these imbuements seem to be tied to one particular item, they are only mostly tied to a particular item. If the character loses an item and picks up something similar in design, then the imbuements would "shift" over to the new item in time.

The old item losing the imbuements all together.

There are "normal" magical items and those items are limited in how powerful they can become. Normal magical weapons are limited to maybe +1 or +2 and never have "Special" abilities.

This does two things. It makes the gaining of a magical item more personal to the character and to me, it looks like the players have more enjoyment out of it and it also keeps the PCs from constantly switching out their items for better and better equipment.
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Agreed. Even a +1 sword becomes exciting when you talk about how a one-eyed dwarf, Durzak Ironhide wielded it 600 years ago at the Battle of the Bleeding Mountain, slaying the orc chief in a single swipe, after which the blade was passed from generation, until a coward goblin poisoned the current wielder in the Swamp of Seven Stinks.

Also cool are interesting descriptions of the appearance of the item. But from the look of it, Gnostic Gnoll, you've got that part down.

gideon_thorne wrote:
Just a thought. Instead of 'abilities' for a given item you might consider writing up a kind of epic history for the item instead?

Jyrdan Fairblade wrote:
Agreed. Even a +1 sword becomes exciting when you talk about how a one-eyed dwarf, Durzak Ironhide wielded it 600 years ago at the Battle of the Bleeding Mountain, slaying the orc chief in a single swipe, after which the blade was passed from generation, until a coward goblin poisoned the current wielder in the Swamp of Seven Stinks.

Nice. Description is always welcomed to add to the flavor of an item. This is defintely a neat way to add "value" to "magic" items. I like this a great deal.

..................................................Omote

FPQ
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Jyrdan Fairblade wrote:
Agreed. Even a +1 sword becomes exciting when you talk about how a one-eyed dwarf, Durzak Ironhide wielded it 600 years ago at the Battle of the Bleeding Mountain, slaying the orc chief in a single swipe, after which the blade was passed from generation, until a coward goblin poisoned the current wielder in the Swamp of Seven Stinks.

Agreed. In the Iron Heroes game I am a player in (which is quite "rare" magic), the only magic item I have is cursed, but even the non-magic ones are cool.

My (non-magic) shield was recovered from Undermountain off the remains of a dead soldier of the same order as my PC, lost these 300 years. My (non-magic, not even masterwork) spear used to be an Ogre's longspear - until I sundered it while the Ogre was wielding it, picked up the point half, and killed him with it. My longsword (which I recovered from the reanimated corpe of an ancient King, whose Kingdom was lost to the North for some half a millenium) is cursed, but I accepted the curse voluntarily in exchange for crucial information. The information I needed was to complete the quest that lifts the curse, so it ties together neatly.

The story makes it cool. If I can improve on Jyrdan's quote at all: make sure the item isn't so cool that it defines the PC; make sure the PC can leave his mark on the history of the item.
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