Thursday, April 9, 2020

GLOG: Spells Bound to Minor Magic Items: Replace your spellbooks with something the barbarian can also use.

Here's an enjoyable aesthetic:




In the opening to the Harry Potter series, we see Dumbledore, the most powerful wizard alive, use a a little trinket to do his dark deeds. Instead of just willing the street to be dark, he comes prepared with a nifty little piece of artificery.

The first Harry Potter is full of this kind of device-based magic. The Deluminator, the invisibility cloak, the remembral, the philosopher's stone, everything in the quidditch trunk. Does Harry even use a wand to cast a spell during the film?

As the movie series goes on, magic shifts towards being more about laser gun fights. Pew pew. But in Deathly Hallows, the snitch and deluminator make a suprise comeback, and additional hidden abilities are retconned revealed.

I like this vibe. Let's adapt it to tabletop rpg magical items. 


Each item below has two abilities -- a "cantrip" and a "spell".

The cantrip is a magical effect which can be used freely and repeatedly by anyone with even the slightest bit of magical experience, or even by the magically ignorant if they fiddle around with it for a few hours.

The spell is a more powerful effect, maybe taken from your standard wizard spell list, and can be used by anyone magically powerful enough to actually cast spells. Using the item's spell will deplete its charge, preventing either the cantrip or spell effect from being used until the next dawn.

I'm using GLOG-style magic, where spells are levelless and limited by the caster's pool of "Magic Dice". (See here or here for an explanation, and here for the full ruleset I'm using.) Anyone with Magic Dice can spend them to activate the device's spell effect, using the same system as if they had that spell in their head instead of in their hands.

If you adapt this concept to a system with leveled spells, then allow the device's spell-effect to be activated by expending a spell slot of the appropriate level.



On to the list! 


#1 - Near-dead Dumbledore's Street Darkener

Cigarette Lighter
Cantrip: Extinguish and reignite small light sources within 60'.
Spell: Hold in your mind the image of a creature who is your true and mutual friend. Floating lights emerge and will lead you to them if they are within [sum] hours travel. If cast with at least four [dice], the lights can safely teleport you to their location.



#2 - Cloak with a Cloaking Device

Billowing oddly-patterned cloak. Eye-watering to look at.
Cantrip: The cloak is slowly re-patterned with a woven approximation of whatever surface the wearer is pressed against, cuttlefish style. Resets to static each dawn.
Spell: True and perfect invisibility for [sum] minutes. Muffles sound, erases footprints and shadows, nullifies odors. Even hides the wearer from Death and other abstract entities. Cats are immune. Dispelled  if the wearer does something really conspicuous like stabbing someone or vomiting on the governor's toupee .



#3 - Gem of Regret

Diamond Ring
Cantrip: Look through the gem at someone to see fragmentary glimpses of alternate lives they might have lived, had they made different choices.
Spell: Summon and converse with the spirit of anyone you know who has died. The process is uncomfortable for the spirit, akin to chronic full-body paresthesia. The spirit vanishes at dawn or if you die. For each [dice] spent beyond the first, choose one of the following:
  • The spirit will persist for up to [sum] days.
  • People other than you can see and converse with the spirit.
  • You may summon the spirit of someone whom you don't personally know, as long as you have some way of uniquely specifying them. (Name and face, unique accomplishment, etc.)
  • You are able to fluently converse with the spirit even if you don't share a language.
  • The spirit will see you more favorably. Neutral if they would be hostile, Adoring if they would be friendly.
  • The spirit can exert more force on the world. Not enough to injure anyone, but enough to turn over papers and move small objects.
  • The spirit feels no discomfort.



#4 - The Really Very Magical Killing Stick

Knobbly Pointed Stick (1d4 damage if used for stabbing)
Cantrip: Learn about anyone within 20' who wants to steal your Really Very Magical Killing Stick. Also learn that if anyone takes the stick from you, you can't use its very useful abilities anymore.
Spell: Magical Energy Accumulation. You are surrounded by [dice] crackling motes of energy. The next spell you cast before dawn has that many casting dice added to its roll, except that these extra dice don't contribute to mishaps or dooms. (You can still trigger mishaps and dooms while activating the stick.)



#5 - Flusterball

Mechanical Golden Ball, size of a chicken's egg.
Cantrip: Wings unfurl from the ball and it madly flutters about like a very frightened and confused bird. If someone manages to catch the damn thing, the wings fold back up.
Spell: The shell unfurls to reveal any small item which you lost or misplaced within the last [dice] weeks. The item is the real deal, and has been in there the whole time somehow.



#6 - Bludgerball

Fist Size Chunk of Rough Stone and Scrap Iron
Cantrip: Name a target within sight, and set the rock down. It will slowly follow after them, awkwardly rolling and bumping across the ground.
Spell: The rock zips through the air to bludgeon a target within sight, dealing [dice]+[sum] damage. Note that it doesn't automatically return to you.



#7 - Temporal Spinner

Brass Fidget Spinner with a Tiny Hourglass in the Middle
Cantrip: You can read two books at once, listen to two conversations, or so on. You must be actively spinning the device to maintain this split concentration.
Spell: You go back in time [sum] minutes, taking up to [dice] people with you. Except, as far as anyone else can prove, you don't. Nothing in the timeline changes. Any event which happened will still happen, and any event which will happen had happened all along. Your previous self will not see your new self, and nobody will see both versions of you unless what they witness is plausibly the behavior of a single person moving normally forward through time.
The spell will automatically fail (but dice are still spent) if your sudden appearance in the past would immediately cause a contradiction. These are absolutes. Try to force a contradiction, and something will stop you. Do not mess with Time.

This one is a headache to gm, but I couldn't help myself. 



#8 - Upfish's Bloodball

Hollow Glass Orb
Cantrip: Fills with blood if you've forgotten something important. The amount of blood is proportional to the amount you've forgotten.
Spell: Touch a target to revert their mind to the state it was in [dice] hours ago. Unwilling targets get a save to be reverted only [dice] rounds instead. Be careful about reverting someone with spells in their head. If a spell gets kicked out, it won't be happy.



#9 - The Philosopher's Stone

Blood Red Glass that reflects light which isn't there.
Cantrip: Anything kept in contact with the stone is protected from decay. Flesh doesn't age, iron doesn't rust. Stories don't become forgotten.
Spell: Target a magical effect within sight which has a duration. The duration of that effect is extended based on the number of [dice] used to activate this spell:
1 [dice]: extended by [sum] hours.
2 [dice]: extended by [sum] months.
3 [dice]: extended by [sum] centuries.
4 [dice]: made truly permanent.
5 [dice]: made truly permanent and cannot be dispelled.



#10 - The Stupendous Self-cleaning Sanitation Urn

Chamber Pot with a painting of an eye on the outside.
Cantrip: Any biological waste inside is vanished away. Where does it go? Space? The ocean? Everywhere at once? No. Nothing so fancy. It just dumps it on the ground outside somewhere nearby.
Spell: As the cantrip but for each [dice] used to cast the spell, choose one of the following:
  • The device can also vanish dirt, mold, love letters, and other suitably nasty things. Choose this option a second time to vanish anything without a soul. 
  • You get a little mental confirmation image of the waste being deposited at its new location. In your mind's eye, you can see the transfer spot and the immediate surroundings for a few seconds.
  • The range is increased. Instead of being deposited randomly outside within a hundred feet, it's deposited somewhere randomly outside within 6 miles.
  • With a clear mental image of the target location, you can choose where within range the waste is vanished to. It must be somewhere with a clear path to the sky.



#11 - The Crusty Ol' Soul-Scrying Advice Hat

Tattered Old Pointy Hat
Cantrip: When placed on someone's head, it will peer deep into their soul, have a chat with their id, and then proclaim them to be one of the following: "Hothead", "Pushover", "Dorkwad", or "Evil". Sometimes, if the hat likes someone, it will puke out a gift for them. Lockpicks, swords, jelly sandwiches; that kind of thing.
Spell: Until sunrise, the hat will provide more detailed information the next time it is sitting on someone's head. Once taken off that wearer's head, the hat falls asleep until sunrise. The information depends on Magic Dice spent:
  1 [dice]: Things the wearer is good at and things they are bad at. "Good at fishing. Bad at keeping in contact with his mother. Good at Knife-sharpening. Bad at tolerating bee venom...".
  2 [dice]: Declares the most significant thing the wearer has done. If left on their head, it begins to compose a ballad.
  3 [dice]: Gives the wearer mundane and reasonable long-term advice. The advice often sounds dull and runs contrary to what the wearer thinks their goals are, but if followed, will not be regretted.
  4 [dice]: The hat gives a loud speech with detailed actionable advice towards achieving the wearer's grandest possible destiny. The advice includes secret magical knowledge, mysterious prophecies, the whole works. Listeners can try to make use of this advice, but the speech is tailored to the wearer's capabilities.
  The given destiny depends on the hat's basic categorization of the person. If the wearer is a Hothead, the destiny will involve an epic quest or battle which would enshrine the wearer in legend. Pushovers are told how they can do the most good for the most people, which usually involves thankless self-sacrifice. Dorkwads are just told to go to The Library. And "Evil" wearers are guided on how to amass great power from the shadows.
  5 [dice]: As previous, but the hat also manically whispers into the wearer's mind and soul, giving them moment to moment advice detailed down to the foot placement of individual steps, all while urging them to run away, find the nearest wizard, and steal all of their teeth. This advice gives the wearer advantage on literally every roll, but they must save vs WIS every minute or drop what they're doing to start hunting wizards.



#12 - Helga's Cup of Servitude

Big ol' Fancy Drinking Goblet
Cantrip: Transfer food or drink between similarly-shaped containers within 100'.
Spell: The goblet rings like a bell. Up to [sum] HD of goblinoids within earshot obey your commands for the next [dice] hours. If a non-cookery-related command causes any individual to come to harm, the enchantment is broken.

Ever notice how the elves in Harry Potter are basically goblins, and the goblins are just wrinkly beardless dwarves?




#13 - Starbolt

A bundle of sticks resembling a crudely-fashioned handbroom.
Cantrip: It levitates. The lifting force is strong enough to carry up to 10 pounds.
Spell: Target a point you can see within 200 feet. The Starbolt rockets off to strike that point, creating an explosion which deals [sum] damage to everything within 20 feet. The Starbolt, miraculously, remains unharmed.



Okay, enough with the Harry Potter knockoffs. To round off the list, here are a few more items ripped off from other intellectual properties:




#14 - The King's Crown

A regal crown made of twisted iron filigree. 
Cantrip: If you touch someone, then for the next 5 minutes, you can sense whenever they feel pain, though you don't get any details about the cause of the pain.
Spell: Touch up to [dice] targets. For the next [dice] minutes, or until you pass out, whichever comes first, any damage dealt to one of your targets is instead transferred to you. If at least [2 dice] are spent, then you can designate yourself as one of the targets, in which case any damage dealt to one of your targets is instead dealt to one of the targets at random.



#15 - A Very Convenient Knife 

A long sword-handle attached to the blade of a small, straight-bladed utility knife. (d6 damage)
Cantrip: The wielder can, at will, make the blade shorter.
Spell: Make the knife longer. If the blade ends up longer than 5 feet, it takes up an extra inventory slot and becomes difficult to wield. How exactly the blade gets longer depends on the strength of the spell:
  1 [dice]: Until the next dawn, the knife slowly begins to grow at a rate of about 1 inch every hour. It can exert only negligible amounts of force with this growth, not even enough to puncture a tomato.
  2 [dice]: Over the course of several seconds, the blade grows to the desired length, up to 10 feet. If this would cause the blade to hit any solid object, the blade will instead curve to avoid that object.
  3 [dice]: The blade quickly grows up to 15 feet, exerting enough force to deal [sum] damage to anything it stabs in the process.
  4 [dice]: The blade immediately becomes the desired length, up to 100 feet long. Any matter in the path of the blade's growth is annihilated from existence, puncturing holes in walls, armor, creatures, anything really. ([sum] damage, ignores armor)

(But remember that using the spell-effect disables the cantrip, so you may end up with a 100-foot-long steel blade stuck through several walls, with no way to remove it until dawn.)



#16 - Six Pistils

Brass-tipped arrow with floral designs carved into the shaft. Very durable
Cantrip: Touch the arrow tip to any sort of food to feed the arrow. Free waste-disposal.
Spell: Launch the arrow from a bow as you use this spell. In addition to a normal attack, it ricochets an additional [dice] times, performing another attack each time. Can hit chandeliers 'n' stuff.
Additionally, if you have been consistently feeding the arrow every day for the past week, it will be grateful and will ricochet one additional time, without you needing to expend an extra MD.



#17 - Little Sadjazz

Small rubbery doll with bulbous eyes
Cantrip: Have the doll take on the appearance of someone within 5 feet. Until dawn or when you change the target, the doll mimics the movements of the person it copied.
Spell: The doll can target people through time. Choose what time you target. If there was someone near the doll's current location at that time, then the doll will assume their appearence and then start acting through their motions from that time. Range and sensitivity is based on [dice]
  1 [dice]: Can target things up to 1 hour in the past. If there was nobody within 5 feet of the doll at the exact time specified, the spell fizzles.
  2 [dice]: Up to 1 year in the past. 5 minutes of margin of error.
  3 [dice]: Up to 1 decade in the past. Margin of error of 1 day.
  4 [dice]: Up to one minute into the future.



#18 - Blockaclock

Carpenter's mallet with a clockface on the bottom of the handle.
Cantrip: Like an immovable rod, but mallet-shaped.
Spell: Touch a creature or object to freeze the target in place. They become immoveable and inviolable, dislodged from time. Unwilling targets can save to prevent this.
    Note the [sum] for this spell. Each round, roll a d20. If that d20 rolls higher than [sum], the spell effect ends, and the target unfreezes, only vaguely aware that time has passed.
    The spell also automatically ends at dawn.



#19 - The Duskhelm

A knights helmet without any eyeholes, made of cast iron. (+1 armor)
Cantrip: The wearer can sense nearby solid objects within 20 feet. But this only works when the helmet is fully closed, and no eyeholes, so...
Spell: Emit a spherical cloud of dark, opaque smog in a radius of [sum]*10 feet around yourself. The smog makes it nearly impossible to see. In an open area, the smog will dissipate after [sum] rounds. In an enclosed space, it will linger until dawn.



#20 - Eggscalibur

A very tiny sword, ornately-decorated, and fit for a gnomish king.  (d4 damage, like a dagger)
Cantrip: When used to attack an egg, the dagger cleanly slices through the entire shell without damaging the contents inside.
Spell: You lay a chicken egg. If you incubate it, then it will hatch within the normal timeframe. Spend at least two [dice] on the spell, and you may instead lay a random egg from this list. Spend three [dice] and you may choose an egg from the list.






Other Notes:


Many rulesets have wizards carry around spellbooks to cast from, and give out new spellbooks as loot. These items are essentially a way to make spellbooks just as exciting for non-wizards.

Sometimes when a wizard dies, one of their spells will fly off and get embedded in a nearby object.

For bonus fun when handing out such items as loot: Let the player who gets the item know exactly what the cantrip does. But don't tell them what the spell does until someone actually tries to cast it.

4 comments:

  1. I kind of love the Harry Potter magic items, to be honest. This is a fun idea all around, and some of the ways you chose to amplify a spell with extra dice were especially interesting!

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  2. Those are some nice items. :)

    #15 sounds like it comes from some anime. It would make a pretty cool alternative to +1 sword.

    #18 is Clockblocker. :D

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    Replies
    1. #18 is a simultaneous reference to both Clockblocker and MC Hammer. ;D

      And #15 actually started as a riff on Jack Slash, before going through a sort of conceptual inversion.

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  3. Thanks for citing my explanation for GLOG spellcasting. They seem to be my greatest contribution to the GLOG so far :)

    ReplyDelete