Tuesday, September 14, 2010----
Magic Items in My Forthcoming Book
When my friends and I began playing D&D in 1980, none of us had any idea of what any particular magic item did. A snake staff? A potion of gaseous form? A dancing sword? These items were esoteric and puzzling to us, and as we probed their secrets, we experienced a sense of wonder. They were new and unsullied by familiarity. Unfortunately, as time passed the “magic” in the magic items faded and contempt was bred: “Another potion of growth? That’s good for being 30’ tall for an hour or so. Stow it with the other potions.”
This feeling of the commonplace is reinforced when the players learn that when their magic-user or cleric characters attain high enough level, they can potentially manufacture most of the magic items in the rulebook.
I aspire for my new book to provide an adventure setting which is purely magical and not at all familiar. No magic item that can be found in any published D&D product will find its way into the book. Nor will you find slightly tweaked versions of the standard items, such as a ring of fire that is otherwise identical to a wand of fire. In fact, magic items as such will be few and far between. No player character will be able to find so many magic items in the new book that he will be decked out with them like a Christmas tree.
Consider the fantasy tales of Clark Ashton Smith. Reflect upon R. E. Howard’s adventures of Conan. Bring to mind the exploits of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. How many magic items did these figures of renown carry with them? Most of the time, it was zero. Much the same can be observed regarding the heroes of myth. Over 90% of the heroes in the AD&D Deities & Demigods Cyclopedia have 2 or fewer magic items, and over 40% of these heroes have no magic items whatsoever. (And many of these items are humble and unique items, such as a canoe that moves by itself, or a cloak that enables its wearer to turn into a halibut.) The aforementioned Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser do not have any magic items whatsoever.
Any player characters in a D&D campaign based on the weird lands detailed in my forthcoming book will find themselves similar in this regard to the heroes of myth, legend, and modern fantasy (unless, of course, the referee adds magic items to the setting).
Places and monuments (rather than items that can be carried away) are much more likely to be magical. Consider, for example, my favorite room in a published dungeon module: the Room of Pools in B1: In Search of the Unknown. Some of the more than a dozen mysterious pools found therein have arcane powers, but your PCs certainly won’t be stashing them in their backpacks to later use to blow-away foes. That’s the general sort of atmosphere I’m striving for, hopefully as weird and memorable as the occultism you find in a Clark Ashton Smith story.
Posted by Geoffrey at 11:05 PM
Claytonian at the gmails.
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