Magic Items/McGuffins

[assault]

I'm making a short list of magic Items that might be important to my setting. I'm short a couple though.

 

So far I've got:

 

An amulet which provides magical protection, and boosts the abilities of wizards 

 

A talisman that does the same only more so.

 

A sword that does normal magic sword stuff, and also is required if you want to conquer the Big City.

 

A ring of invisibility.

 

All of these are potentially campaign shaking. They aren't just casual loot.

 

But I want a couple more. Any ideas?

 

 

 

[Tjack]

   My note is more cautionary than any thing else.  A ring of invisibility being such a trope could lose your game some focus if one of your players cracks up too easily.  All it takes sometimes is one “funny” remark too many to blow an episodes mood entirely.  One potential jackass at the table doing “my precious” bits all night long can ruin a whole multi-night run of episodes.  You may want to put that same power into a different piece of jewelry.

          Play well & good luck.

[DShomshak]

Campaign-shaking but not obvious WOW THAT'S BIG MAGIC stuff, eh?

 

There's an called The Freeshooter, in which a man makes a deal with the Devil to get a gun and set of bullets that never miss... but one of the bullets is cursed to loop around and kill the gun's wielder. Maybe something like that with a crossbow and a set of bolts. Win any archery contest, a la William Tell, or make the "nigh impossible" shot to hit the dragon in its one vulnerable point a la Smaug... but each time there's a chance that instead you will die. And even if you dare, each bolt can be used only once. You won't use this weapon lightly.

 

(I just did something like this in my D&D campaign. One PC comes from a family of crossbow-makers. She just learned that her grandfather sacrificed his life to a Goddess of Vengeance to make a set of bolts that would never miss, in order to avenge the death of the PC's older brother. There's one bolt left. No curse this time, but what will she do with just one shot that is sure to succeed?)

 

Dean Shomshak

[assault]

The ring is of course a riff on the ring of Gyges, and thus somewhat mandatory.

 

Because Plato.

[Tjack]

9 hours ago, assault said:

The ring is of course a riff on the ring of Gyges, and thus somewhat mandatory.

 

Because Plato.

     And that’s probably where ‘ol JRR got it from.  I never said “don’t” I just say be careful.

[Lord Liaden]

A shape-shifting cloak, hat, etc that can change the wearer to animal forms. Something big if you want it for combat, something small that can hide easily and get through smaller spaces, and/or some kind of flier. Multiple shapes would make it very tactically advantageous.

 

An item that increases Strength, Speed, Presence, as desired. Belt, helmet, boots, and so on.

 

A spear that pierces nearly anything, can be thrown for extraordinary distance with uncanny accuracy, and returns to the thrower's hand.

 

A philosopher's stone/wand/whatever that transforms matter. Base metals to gold was the big goal of Western alchemical tradition; but in the Orient it was a pill of immortality.

 

A horn, cauldron, or the like that produces an unending supply of food.

 

10 hours ago, assault said:

The ring is of course a riff on the ring of Gyges, and thus somewhat mandatory.

 

Because Plato.

 

You can go well beyond the ring of Gyges, if you want to. Andvari's ring that locates gold, or Odin's gold arm ring that duplicates itself. Aladdin's djinni-summoning ring. Top of the line in legendary rings is the seal-ring of Solomon, which could bind any djinn, and command the four traditional elements.

[DShomshak]

While I haven't tried to do a census of magic items from myth and folklore, my intuition is that most of them weren't kaboomy, "gamerish" magic. The most powerful, such as wish-granting items, tend to operate at narrative levels that are hard to quantify. I will grant you, epics from India have army-destroying magic such as the discus of Vishnu, while China's Fengshen Yanyi has plenty of kaboomy magic such as the Umbrella of Chaos.

 

An item that cures disease, such as the brazen serpent of Moses. That would be worth fighting wars to possess.

 

Truth-verifying item, such as a mirror that darkens if someone tells a lie. If you don't mind the pun, a "ring of truth" that chimes when someone nearby tells a lie.

 

Resurrection magic. Maybe single-use such as the Honey of Heaven that Lemminkainen's mother uses to bring him back, from the Kalevala. An even bigger deal if it functions repeatedly, such as the Black Cauldron of Celtic myth. (The original actually did raise the dead. The version in Lloyd Alexander's "Prydain" series reanimated the dead as zombies; still formidable.) Again, people would do much to possess such an item.

 

"Mirror, mirror, on the wall..." A scrying/clairvoyance item, especially if it can locate people or objects.

 

Here's a real object that sounds like it ought to be magic, though I don't know what it would do. Years back, The Economist ran a science story about chemical archeology -- deriving information about the past from chemical residues left on objects. The most spectacular example was a coin found in a Roman sewer, that over the centuries had turned bright blue. Aluminum from clay and phosphorus from bones dumped in the sewer had reacted with copper in the bronze coin to coat it in a thin layer of turquoise. So... coin from a sewer, color of the sky. What can it buy?

 

Dean Shomshak

[assault]

I'm considering a book I'm not sure what would be in it yet. Obviously something special - sacred or magical. The Book of Kells is a possible inspiration.

 

Back when I was a programmer, there was a Known Error List for the operating system and other system software. It was of course known as the KEL. A Book of Known Errors in reality could be interesting. See Time Bandits for further details. A bit silly though.

 

The shapeshifting idea is good.  Clearly there are ethical issues with some changes. After all, if you need to wear a wolf skin to change into a wolf, what do you have to wear to change into another human form?

 

Some might not be too problematic. I could see women warriors taking and wearing "trophies" from defeated male enemies as a "don't mess with me" symbol. The kind of enchantments that could be applied to such an object are obvious. But such an object probably couldn't be inherited, but would have to be created by each such wearer. (Obviously not a particularly "civilized" practice.)

[Lord Liaden]

Other renowned occult books include the Key of Solomon, containing spells purported to summon and command demons; the Book of the Dead from Egypt, with prayers to protect and guide the dead on their journey to the afterlife (but for your purpose could be reinterpreted in the reverse direction); and the I Ching ( "Book of Changes,") filled with divination spells.

 

4 hours ago, assault said:

The shapeshifting idea is good.  Clearly there are ethical issues with some changes. After all, if you need to wear a wolf skin to change into a wolf, what do you have to wear to change into another human form?

 

 

The correspondences need not be one-to-one. Loki could change himself into any creature, so something drawing from the power of a similar trickster-god could work just as broadly. But if you wanted to confine yourself to changing into one other creature, a dragon would probably be useful.

[assault]

7 minutes ago, Lord Liaden said:

But if you wanted to confine yourself to changing into one other creature, a dragon would probably be useful.

 

First catch your dragon... 

[Lord Liaden]

Nah, someone else could have already done that for you. Nobody ever says what happened to Fafnir's body after Siegfried killed him.

[L. Marcus]

Fafnir is alive and well and living the best gaming otaku life somewhere in Japan.

[Ninja-Bear]

5 hours ago, assault said:

 

First catch your dragon... 

First let me get my Pokeball!

[DShomshak]

13 hours ago, assault said:

I'm considering a book I'm not sure what would be in it yet. Obviously something special - sacred or magical. The Book of Kells is a possible inspiration.

 

Back when I was a programmer, there was a Known Error List for the operating system and other system software. It was of course known as the KEL. A Book of Known Errors in reality could be interesting. See Time Bandits for further details. A bit silly though.

Or possibly horrific, if the errors in reality are where Eldritch Things can break through, or provide the means to do things otherwise impossible even for "normal" magic -- at a terrible price for the entire world, as reality further unravels. See LeGuin's The Last Shore, in which a wizard's means of escaping death is draining vitality from the world. The nameless book in Bellairs' The Face in the Frost was rather doomsday-creepy as well: a book read by effort of will, telling how to materialize objects and creqatures by will -- but strange and frightening manifestations make the world increasingly nightmarish, with a suggestion that the entire world might unravel and/or something long-bound and dreadful might be set free.

 

Dean Shomshak

[DShomshak]

Knowledge is a big part of magic, and classic magic items. In addition to books, one oldie-but-goodie is the brass oracular head, attributed both to Albertus Magnus and to Roger Bacon. Requires great arcane knowledge to construct, but provides even more (qmong other options for supernatural nigh-omniscience). Though Albertus' brass head was smashed by his student Thomas Aquinas because it wouldn't stop chattering and let him study.

 

Dean Shomshak

[MordeanGrey]

A magical gate that leads to ______________. There may be a "key" of some type (doesn't have to be an actual key) to use the gate. Whoever holds the keys controls the gate.

[Asperion]

2 hours ago, MordeanGrey said:

A magical gate that leads to ______________. There may be a "key" of some type (doesn't have to be an actual key) to use the gate. Whoever holds the keys controls the gate.

 

You can go the route that was used in Sword of Truth.  The key that opens the interdimensional portal was the actual Sword that the main character was using for the entire series. 

[assault]

A thought about changing into a dragon.

 

Changing into a wolf is dangerous. There is a chance of being possessed by the wolf's spirit and thus becoming a werewolf.

 

A dragon's spirit is much more powerful. Taking a dragon's form is a recipe for becoming a dragon.

 

With the right player that could be fun, but in most cases you might want to suggest that it's a bad idea before it happens.