Been waiting for this for so long. And the idea on how a piece of gear might become magical and/or awakened simply by being exposed to the insane things adventurers get up to over their careers is just beautiful.
Knowing how such "intelligent" items are often created, they have been fucked with way more than they have done so to the user so it's probably just taking out its frustration.
The jewelry is sentient, this bloodstone is frozen blood and it sings of fever dreams. "We are born of the blood, made men by the blood, undone by the blood..."
These are always tons of fun with endless poasbpliies. A bag of holding that snitches on the thief hiding things in it. A sword describing in detail to a guard who you just killed and how. A helmet that constantly gives you advice. Two of my personal favorites, an animate skull with a fully self aware priest of lothander who is not undead in the traditional sense, and lilarcor of BG2. That thing constantly asked about killing. Hell even “Rick and Morty” had a pink sentient switchblade to encourage a young Beth to acts of violence.
The last few campaigns my players and I as part of character building created their signature weapon, and had it grow in power with them. I find it’s given them more of a connection with their main magical item.
"Citadel by the Sea", one of the old "Dragon Magazine" modules, had an orc holy relic in it. I spear named Alkharg that was an elf slaying weapon. No elves in the party, and the druid was a spear wielder, so she snapped it up and was happy. Sadly, she failed her check against it and the thing started whispering to her, keeping her warm during the cold seashore nights, stuff like that. First day in town she kills an elf, and then the fun began. Ended up with the player killing her husband's character before they could get the thing away from her. I did give them plenty of hints that this wasn't a good idea.
"I did give them plenty of hints that this wasn't a good idea." Oh, trust me, they saw those hints. They were just playing "curse-roullette" because it was so handy, and just trying to beat the odds. Let me guess, the same players, even when they know about the bad cards in the Deck of Many Things, they still draw from the deck... don't they? Well, it's part of the fun of the game. In fantasy, you can be the risk-taking idiot and the horrible consequences would only make your story more interesting. However, a WIS penalty would apply to such a character that does that regularly. Myself, I allow that player to take that permanent WIS loss to give it as a permanent point gain to an attribute of their choice, even if it exceeds their racial limits.
@@That80sGuy1972 no, they just weren't paying attention. Even the woman I have been playing D&D with since the 70's. Most of the people at the table were at least new to my table, if not completely new to the game (like my wife). At some point I had a sidebar with the player to explain the basics of what was happening to their character. She was a brand new player and thought it an exciting twist. Still, when as DM I took brief control of her character long enough to randomly murderize that poor elf, the table was "shocked" and then I saw realization on my friends face as said "ahhhhhhhhhh, shit". As the meme goes: "Wait, the DM wouldn't actually kill us, would he?" "Oh that's right. You're new here."
I love how you covered the time dilation here for other planes. My players discovered that by "retiring" their characters that way, to try to "cleverly" gain some insight from them by summoning them later in that campaign or in the campaign of their descendants/legacies (their future). What? Who are you? How did you summon me here? I was just here long enough to find a way to this town and get lodging. **Que boss fight between party and "retired" summoned character** And, players do tend to NOT go into the origin of intelligent magical items, true. But doesn't it bring a smile to your face when they DO look into their origin? I mean, my intelligent item "the Verbal Weapon" was originally a joke item because a player demanded to let him quest for it because he kept misreading the word "Vorpal". That origin was quite fun, a thing I only created in my head, not expecting anyone to actually look into it. I did it to make a script for it, how it behaved, and why. I was over-joyed when one of my players actually used sage and lore skills to research its origin.
So much excellence here. A few notes. I get my players into lore via NOC interactions, dreams, visions, and magic items. I HAVE run a Feywild adventure where the players phased back and forth, and I did it YEARS before Witchlight came out. I am a HUGE fan of sentient magic items, and items with lore and history. Attuning to a sentient flame tongue might reveal the soul of an Efreet trapped in the steel, but that will be a conversation through a series of dreams. That player then has to choose whether or not to free it. I've run a murder mystery simply by having the players find a sentient weapon. The victim had been murdered, and their soul, and indeed body parts, were infused into several magic items. They had to find them all to free the victim and have them attain final rest. Also, there's zero reason to NOT have special planes or pocket realities. Why CAN'T there be a Realm of Blades or Dreamscape? Why NOT an extra dimensional City of Nightmares or even a wandering Door To Hell. Absolutely. The weirder or worse the better. I homebrew all my magic items to resolve two issues. First, metagaming. I hate when I start describing a magic item and a player, usually a vet, will interrupt with "yeah. Okay. Frost Brand. Got it". Second, I believe magic items should be weird. An Alchemist may be able to brew a potion, and a Wizard can scribe a scroll, but the magics that create a talking sword are ancient and based in a culture of Giants, Dragons, Hags or other ancient beings. They weren't meant for mere mortals. I also detest "cursed" or "perfect" magic items. Why not both? The One Ring was a blessing and a curse. Stormbringer was mighty and carried a terrible price. My items are the same, but lesser. A sword like "Ambition" costs you hit points, but you can ramp up it's attack and damage bonuses. Berserker Plate will protect you very well, but the blood frenzy that comes with being damaged endangers those close by. Living Potions can give you their benefits multiple times...if you can gag down a tiny ooze for a time, and hopefully it's exit won't occur when you're vulnerable. Magic and lore can be had, can be strange, can be the hook that takes the players in, but there's a trick. They gave to want it. Making them want it is the DM secret. Entice them a bit at a time. Draw them in. Give them the choice. Show them the power, either of the knowledge or the item. And when you're stuck, have them dream their way somewhere. Alternate realities are everywhere for the willing and the creative. For those really brave, for those who want to inject roleplay or intrigue, perhaps romance, have that intelligent magic item court them in their dreams. Who says that aforementioned Flametongue cannot have an attractive citizen of the Realm of Fire, City of Brass, or even Hell, who's become enamored with their new "owner". What a great way to inject lore and hints as this soul talks to the owner in their own mind (via notes or texts from the DM), creating new interactions with the rest of the party. Experiment. Go wild. Invent. Never stop creating.
My Gm is completely on the same page! We've had to train our play group to avoid doing that veteran mistake of calling out a notable item/monster/etc, potentially spoiling an item or what it does, or just belittling any effort you put into crafting the item uniquely. He's done a lot of really fun things with magic items to inspire creativity in himself and the players, including magic cursed items come in a variety of flavours (minor to major) that usually aren't just straight-up bad, but introduce some kind of weakness to offset the strength they have. The stronger the curse is, the stronger the power and accosting downside. On top of that, we even started with a unique system inspired by Elden Ring, called Weapon Arts. Players could do special actions using specific weapons that conferred some unique, small attack or advantage. Currently, I've got a legendary sentient 'linked weapon', through a serious trial that led to a near-tpk. I was the only player to survive and managed to escape with the weapon. It's got a whole playstyle of it's own, starting with a charge system based on actions in combat. The more I'm targetted in combat, the more charges I get. I also take a little bit of fire damage each time I gain charges. Then, in combat, I can choose to spend them to basically enhance a successful attack, increasing the damage by 1d8 and potentially smacking another adjacent enemy for 1d4. If I let the charges build up to the current cap, I do a big free-action AOE on everyone grouped up around me in a 15 ft sphere, doing 4d8 damage. It also counts as an arcane focus, so I could also freely cast spells with it. It's really made the combats very interesting to me! On top of the mechanical benefits it confers, it's also been a massive part of the current plot and ongoing story with my PC + the party overall. My character has been enthralled by the patron of the linked weapon, leading to him practically willingly agreeing to become his patron's vessel. There's a lot of depth to the story but I don't want to bore you with 30 pages of nonsense!
"but the magics that create a talking sword are ancient and based in a culture of Giants, Dragons, Hags or other ancient beings. They weren't meant for mere mortals. I also detest "cursed" or "perfect" magic items. Why not both?" *100% hell yes to this!*
Yo, my dude Nick is talking with ED GREENWOOD on his show if anybody wants to stop by. He’s chill AF. They were here but just moved to another platform I probably can’t say the name of or my comment may mysteriously disappear but it rhymes with ‘Grumble’. Rekieta Law channel. They’ll probably be live for another hour or so at least (as of 12:43 AM, Eastern US Time). I’ll try to post the link but it might get caught in auto mod or whatever so we’ll see. (EDIT: It did. Just hit up Rekieta Law on Grumble. He’s got the green logo. Probably have a bunch of people watching. Should be easy to find. Peace.)
The Grey King. It’s a staff made of ironwood with one side looking like bleached bone and the other side charred black. The spell Gentle Repose is inlaid in bone on the charred side and the spell Animate Dead is inlaid in onyx on the bone-white side. In the hands of any necromancer, it can cast spells like a 17th level necromancer, but it will try to dominate that person because the staff is a necromancer-priest’s trapped soul. In the hands of one of its summoned skeletons, treat the skeleton as a lich of true neutral alignment. If the lich is destroyed, one of the others will try to pick up the staff. The staff does not care about anything but protecting graveyards from looters since its original home kingdom has long since fallen into dust. It can be found in any graveyard, on any plane of existence, but its real home is in the gravedigger’s cottage beside the chapel of a cemetery in a lost portion of the fey realms. The only way to destroy it is for two priests to simultaneously cast both Animate Dead and Gentle Repose on the staff standing between the consecrated chapel and the desecrated cottage. When destroyed, the consecrated clay jars buried in the cemetery, holding thousands of animated skeletons will crack, allowing them to escape. The Grey King’s Rest, the cemetery trapped in the fey kingdoms, is a planar nexus. It connects to every crypt, tomb, cemetery or individual grave anywhere across the planes, if you know the way to travel to and from it. It was a place of torture, created by long-forgotten gods to punish the priest who split the gravedigger’s skull for stealing a ring from a grave. The ring still lies in the grass where it fell when the gravedigger died and the priest was struck down. Yeah, magic items can be fun.
One of the major factions in my setting, the one that outwardly appears to be lawful evil but is actually chaotic good, is actually populated entirely by people immigrating to this dimension to escape a disaster that's destroying their home dimension. They've got a completely different set of magical spells than the native population, and this is reflected as being the origin of home brew spells in my setting. If a player want's to cast a spell that's not listed in any official sources they must first meat some one from the other dimension. A good place to find one would be a magical black smith or artificer work shop, they rely more on magical items but do not have the ability to enchant iron. To them a basic +1 sword is a mythic item simply because it's made of iron. But to us their common magic items like the image orb (magic camera) are unheard of and incredibly useful.
It would be ... If it had any real affect on the main plot beyond the origin of new magic and another faction suddenly appearing from desert territory that no one wants.
Off topic ? A group of PC soldiers are taking point and the floor gives out as a 30ft/9m dead drop pit for 3d6 dmg. Due to initiative rolls, four storm troopers grab Darth Vader as he just drops down, two other troopers grab the falling guy before them. The third trooper on point gets a bad init and falls 10ft before another trooper hands his side lead rope to two others and drives down catching the other in a free fall. All happen in one or two seconds time. Vader then use the Force to lift everyone back to safety. One player states that Vader should have sense the danger of the location through the Force and the player made sure to use Force sense danger check. Another player points out that the whole place is force cloaked, along with that fall could do very little dmg to their 12th-level PCs and nothing to Vader. Other pointed out difference from D&D and Star Wars, Detect Trap is a 2nd-level divination arcane spell just tells/magic aura show a traps location but not what type of danger the trap is. The skill Detect Force, just tells you have a danger but not what type unless you study the area for half a minute. Long story short, everyone was covering each others backs, so no one was in any real danger. Big difference from detect trap and detect danger. Nice logic to reason how/why the PCs could walk into a bunch of minor 1d4dmg traps. Then Detect danger trap goes off like a fog horn, which causes the players PCs to turn to stone scared to move till they figure it out. -- time for the jump scare. 2.) Did you get a good look at that thing ? Call of Cthulhu creature, higher your Spot check, more temporary wisdom dmg it does. WotC 3e Spellcraft DC 15+spell level, such as 5th-level arcane spell Nightmare. PC pass a DC20 spot roll they come under the Nightmare spell effect for the next 2d6 weeks. Base saves and dmg on the given flow of the story plot line.
Great thumbnail 😅 Way better than the Satyr in that H.A.T. movie. (Won't even utter the name in comment section to benefit the algorithm.) Really enjoyed utilizing an intelligent item in a campaign.
When I think of intelligent items I now think of The Moment from Doctor Who, a terrible weapon in a box, that has a conscience of its own, in the Doctors case in the form of Rose Tyler, or more aptly The Bad Wolf.
Expectations subverted. Better than i could have guessed. More of the inspiriation i think more of us need to hear, and I hope this is the kind of thing that end up in more prologs to player and GM facing books.
Maybe I just like to control things too much, but actually thinking about the magic items is a reason why I don't really like magic item shops and Artificers. Let's say I add a Ring of Spell Storing for some reason... well, why does the ring have that ability? Where did it come from? Maybe it was part of a legendary mage that always used it, so it became a magical item because the hand gestures he made always left a little bit of magic inside the ring. Maybe the ring can only capture certain schools of magic because the wizard was an Abjurer or a Transmuter I think the idea of a bond between the item and the one that uses it is a great idea
There's a lot of creative space as to how magical items originate, and depending on how much freedom and control you want your players to have, you could vary up the explanations or add some imaginative bricks to build up the foundation for how these things come to be. If magic items are super scarce, maybe they are powerful artifacts created by magical craftsmen throughout the years, which have incredible ties to the previous owners, enabling you to see parts of their journey while carrying the item. Or maybe, magical items are common, because a magical goddess is producing them constantly, and her followers scour them across the land in hopes of putting them into the hands of would-be villains and heroes, with the intent of simply proliferating the use of magical items! (Perhaps for some nefarious purpose, or some grand benefit, who knows?)
In 2nd ed, psicnicsts could, if they learned the right power, create pscionically empowered items. According to the rules and lore in that edition, all such items had to be intelligent and have an ego. It was necessary for anyone (or thing) that used pscionics had to be intelligent, since those powers were based on the mind. This meant all such items had a personality - something originally based on its creator's personality, although that personality might change over time as conditions and its experience influence it. It would have its own goals, its own prejudices, its own likes, etc. Also, being intelligent, it might use its powers without being commanded to if it thought it was appropriate. For instance, a staff with the teleportation power might whisk it and its owner away from danger if it thinks its owner is in trouble or overmatched, all without being asked to. Or it might refuse to use its powers if doing so went against its ethical outlook, or maybe just because it really didn't like its current owner. It's one thing to have a +1 sword or a wand, it's another thing entirely to have a sword or wand that you have to make friends with to make it work or whom you're constantly arguing with. An interesting idea would be that there is many such items floating about, and they are all, without the knowledge of their owners, conspiring with one another to accomplish some secret, greater goal, and are quietly influencing the people around them towards that end.
I often forget that some players don't care about the lore of the world, I'm always dumbfounded when I hear about it. Luckily me and all my friends live and breathe world building.
Haha, I interpreted your title as a sentient magical item that is intelligent. Then I thought of a DM giving one of the party members a living magical item that has a personality like Jar-Jar causing hilarious backfires
I'm in a session with a weapon that is linked to some fire god (I think Kossuth?) but the there's this hilarity in the relationship because it's like, a primal god of fire, right? So it's got very simple, very basic wants and needs and my character is just constantly going, ?!?! WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?! IS THERE SOME GREATER DEPTH TO IT? WHAT DO I HAVE TO DO TO EARN IT'S POWER?! and meanwhile it's like "KILL, DESTROY, BURRRRN!" like Ragnaros or something.
@@paulcoy9060 Ah, and my favorite, the 'Shield of Insecurity', that constantly nags you about how comprimised your safety is whenever you aren't actively wielding it.
@@ahealthkit2745 Does it sound like a Jewish mother-in-law? "Oh, your brother David is now a 10th level Paladin, why don't you apply yourself more? And stand up straight."
Oddly enough I always wanted to craft my own intelligent item. A trident with the heart of a devil a celestial and the brain of a Modron. law evil lawful good and lawful neutral all competing for dominance. I like to call it the tripolar trident because that thing has the worst possible mood swings imaginable.
Old classic Baldurs Gate 2 is the sentient and talking sword Lilacor thou his level of intelligence is questionable. And the in the current World of Warcraft expansion we have the fully sentient and intelligent simulacrum of Sindragosa. Sindragosa died long ago but her simulacrum, loaded with her memories is still "alive". As an "item", not really but like a ghost she cannot leave the area so there is something there projecting her. Both examples to keep in mind.
@@AJPickett "Sindragosa" probably work the same way but you wouldn't want to do that, she isn't really a ghost but more like an immaterial magical construct.
I had an intelligent sword that had the purpose power " to cleanse corruption" but due to a translation error, it wound up with the ability to use prestidigitation (clean) at will...and the compulsion to do so. So any area my paladin (who may or may not have been based on Mr. Clean) was in would be scrubbed fastidiously while he was standing there as the sword muttered "absolutley filthy! unsanitary! dirty dirty dirty!"
I like that you expanded on the feywild. My campaign world is of the grimdark variety but for as dim and bleak the world is I am trying to make the feywild equally bright and wonderful. Darkness is only relatively to the light. Famine war, the world entering an ice age but stories tell of a lands of color and feasts and dancing. I am on the fence if the feywild Isa real place or I might make it just a place that exists in people minds, it's dream world that people have invented to escape misery.
I often say that the (player) characters should be the star of the game, not the setting. Also, planner adventures should be end-game stuff, because once you experience that, you will be forever changed. There is no going back to normal afterwards.
Yep, you get "Frodo'ed"; you may return to the little village, but while it remained the same, your brush with the epic has left you a stranger in your former home.
Other than AD&D2ndE system, WotC 3e D&D/Psionic hand book/ Star Wars. 6th-level druid spell Awaken Animal turn into Awaken Elemental be a good way to create an Intelligent Magic Item. b.) 3e Psionic, there was a feat Craft wondrous psionic item, caster level 3rd. class ability " awaken psionic crystal," carrying a bit of the psionic casters personality fragment. c.) Star Wars/Knights of the Old Republic, Dark horse comics, a Sith lord bonded himself to his holocron. So in one mini campaign playing off of Star Trek lore just using WotC Star Wars rule system. The DS9 Dominion War due to Vulcan mental discipline( Jedi consular) and Klingon warrior training ( Jedi guardian) and made random people Force Adept. So we did a generic earth federation with independent colonies and a few dozen other space faring species. Going joke was " We are not playing Star Wars." So I highjack the peace consul of psionic diplomates, and called it the first Jedi surmount, I finish the dialog as if it was a historic recording. Another player jump up the meta game saying my PC was a Jedi force ghost like that other Sith lord. d.) Star Wars EU legends from the 1990's novel " Eye of Palpatine," a dead Jedi ghost inhabit an asteroid spaceship computer, she could travel the wires and dream talk but had a hard time dealing with the deep imbedded command programs. Neat story, as a spin off we ran games where some Sith lord spirit inhabit crystals but hop from droid to droid in combat. e.) Now as for Whitewolf/World of Darkness (WoD) Werewolf, Changeling, and Mage magic items hold spirit being totems called fetish. f.) Honestly, my last group just took all the great ideals of ghost possession from Ravenloft and stuck it in other settings. Such as charisma checks to see which villain/hero becomes a ghost after being killed. One of the many problems of taking command of a ship from a dead pirate captain. Along with using AD&D/Ravenloft - Dark Sun rules for psionic lich creation. So any player magic user or not at 11th level on dying could roll charisma to see if the become a ghost attach to a fetter item. Being a dagger, weapon, ring, or book. Really bending WotC 3e rules/ guidelines on lich creation. But whatever keeps the game going. 2.) TPK, ... dark dungeon. The PCs are stuck in a time loop, and they also have to make int/wis/cha rolls to break the cycle. Or to realize they are ghost trapped within the given site. From time to time our DM reruns the players current PCs through the death trap to meta game shock of seeing your past PCs laying dried out dead in different parts of the dungeon. Running gag was I been stuck here for the past 30,000 years trying to get out. Start off at any given point in time, then do a follow up as Egyptians finding an ancient Conan era Call of Cthulhu temple built by mind flayers in the western desert mountain range. A thousand or so years later Caeser conquers Egypt. Question becomes how do you deal with a few thousand years just passing you by ?
This reminds me of an intelligent magical spear one of my players picked up in a dungeon. It was a very snotty high class individual with very high standards of who wielded it. But as time went on they grew as close as the rest of the party.
I'm playing a character in a heavily modified version of Tomb of Annihiliation in 5e D&D currently, and this video spoke to me! I developed my character for the campaign with a relationship with a warlock patron in the form of a sentient weapon, and the GM was eager to run away with the idea. Before the session, I gave them some concepts (Character inspirations, themes and flavours that I enjoy) that I liked, then developed my actual pc separately. I began without any sentient item, as an ordinary himbo paladin dragonborn (red dragon flavoured, with heavy implications around the character's anger control) in a party with my brother (another PC, played by an irl friend) and a stranger (a noble human played by my fiance). Over time in session, my character received visions from some flaming entity existant within Port Nyanzaru. It seemed to be contacting him with visions of a dungeon underneath Kwayothe's villa. In time, I made in-game choices that ultimately led to a confrontation with Kwayothe, and her fiendish allies, Indar and Ixis, in the dungeon of the villa. Spoilers, we had a near-tpk. I escaped with the legendary sentient item, haunted by nightmares of my brother's graphic death and the tragedy of the noble stranger, who died heroically sacrificing himself to enable my escape. Having this item has really changed the roleplay. My character is experiencing some kind of force within the weapon, which the GM has divulged is a unique 'linked weapon', a rarity even among intelligent items. It's similar to the artifact weapons from Critical Role, in the sense that it is a magical item with a direct tie to a god. The ongoing mystery is figuring out which god is behind this linked weapon, who has been manipulating my heavily traumatized PC into becoming it's vessel willingly! It's a lot of fun and there's a lot of depth to the relationship. Just like you'd expect an unknowable fire-god of rage, the entity rarely talks if at all, unless it directly desires something from my PC. There's an ongoing thread with the discovery that the weapon seems to take parts of my PC's physical body every time he 'dies' and 'comes back', as a result of the dramatic way we handle PC death in-session. So far, he's lost his heart and his memory of his family, brother, and the original tragedy that led to him obtaining the weapon. (OH! And it's missing, mysteriously. There's a theory that it somehow merged with my PC after they killed Kwayothe).
@@AJPickett My fiance rolled a Shadarkai elf with a mix of Eldritch Fighter, Warlock and Wizard. My friend rolled a Chultan warlock with a vaguely Chultan-diety Patron, and rejoined the party the session after the near-tpk, as people paid to protect my PC from assassination attempts contracted by Kwayothe. We were more-or-less kicked out of the city shortly after, because of the danger of being caught by Indar or Ixis.
Now reading DC comics tells the tale of magic, gods and magic creatures + where they went. After Atlantis fell magic declined and over time all the magic left the earth until only a few magic people and magic zones are left today. Queen of fairy titania said that all realms besides the prime material realm are imaginary and there are as many realms as one mind/s can hold.
A faerie Dragon in the Fay realm wanted a life of Adventure, like in the books, so he flew to see the queen of the Seelie court, and begged to the queen for such a life, perturbed at such a request the queen granted his wish,... by transforming him into a magical rapier and casting him into the material plane to be carried by a 1001 adventurers before he could return to the Seelie Court its up to you to flesh it out from there.
Excellent! I did that in a round about way with a party of All Pixies one time, it worked out fine as the youngest pixies in their village were now the village elders and remembered who they were.
A helmet that allows the player to summon any weapons in their inventory as an appropriate attack action with that weapon. BUT, when entering combat make a wisdom check; if you fail, you will become possessed by the random ghost of any previous wearer until combat ends. Outside of combat, roll either a wisdom, intelligence, or charisma check (whichever is the lowest) at the start of your turn. If you fail, receive -1 to charisma, intelligence and wisdom, and your character will become increasingly agitated until either you succeed your check or combat begins. If your lowest attribute reaches 0, you will automatically attack on sight. If you sleep while wearing the helmet, you can receive any not yet known martial training or increase one combat skill by one level. You do not receive long rest bonuses, and awaken with the first level of agitation.
Hmmm. Well although they are fey entities, the Nymph is pretty much the gold standard for that sort of creature. I say just alter the fluff text and keep the stats largely unchanged and you are good to go there.
This comment set off a chain reaction in my head. May I present the great godmother, celestial matchmaker and warlock patron. "Oh you are just the most heroic and stalwart soul, aren't you? It would simply be a crime if you never got the chance to pass your strength of body and character to the next generation! Now, since it would be improper for me to partake in dalliance with mortals, I've had my eye on several wonderful young partners that would be perfect for you. I'll be sending them your way whoever opportunities present themselves. In the meantime, if you have any emotional or physical health hangups I'll happily help you resolve them." The warlock can then 1. Go on a series of insane supernaturally charged dates while the rest of the party causes hijinks in the background trying to be helpful, 2. Romance the matchmaker in spite of celestial convention, 3. After a failed date nervously inform the matchmaker that they are hopelessly homosexual, which she will take in stride, adjusting her list of partners and adding adoption paperwork to the routine.
I had my players accompany a wizard to the faerie grove to pick up a commissioned feycraft mithril armor he could cast in. While there, they picked up a silver goblet named Puck (named after the faerie and also cup backwards...). I had found some magic item advancement rules that allowed them to put some Exp into Puck to level him up. I chose abilities fitting the characters who 'fed' him to each level. Starting out with create water, then magic missile when the warmage fed him first, etc. Unfortunately said warmage took offense when Puck disagreed with some morally questionable actions of his and he foisted him off on a different player's follower. They never learned his backstory as a formerly mortal soul stuck as the goblet.
TY for telling me about DNDWOWDICE got the character sheets pulse some extra. Wrote a good review. I did not expect how foldable they are and leave no lines very happy. If your mats are like this people will be happy.
A staff that creates blueberries out of nowhere would be useful. Now you got a member of the party that is fat yet strangely enough. He never eats. Not in a tavern, on a journey, with the party, not low on health unless forced too. He always smells like blueberries. He never tells anyone that this staff can be useful. Not even if the party is starving. He knows he'll be fed. He wants his blue blueberry staff all to himself.
I'm reminded honestly of Weapons of Legacy. For the new kids, this is the book Matt Mercer used as the basis for the Vestiges of Divergence. The original book explored a lot of what AJ goes into here; namely, why *shouldn't* an object carried through and vital to legendary deeds become legendary in its own right? A normal dagger belonging to a wizard's minion, that becomes effective at not just cutting things, but able to cast spells off of scrolls itself. The spear of a guard in an evil empire, the guard starting out a slave, making his way to a guard of others, then setting in motion the collapse of that empire. But doing all this through the use of necromancy, so their actions caused incalculable harm as well. And the weapon demands similar behavior of a wielder before its true, tremendous power will be unlocked. If you're having trouble thinking of personalities and wants for a magic item, think about its legacy. Not just what can it do, but where has it been? Where would it *want* to go? And what kind of powers beyond just "on fire" or "extra dice" do the events in its past suggest it should possess?
I gave a player a intelligent magic wedding ring. It could absorb the abilities of other magic rings. The drawbacks were it had the personality of a overbearing wife with the voice of Edith Bunker. Wouldn't allow ownership of any other rings and demanded jewelry or it wouldn't help.
As the DM I insist on voicing a magic intelligent item that I give the party. The mechanical aspect is an extention of the character but it's personality is an NPC.
resume an almost forgotten game with the PCs getting an extra level. mention, at the beginning of the session, that the PCs had just returned from the Feywild. explain nothing. let madness ensue.
beginning of the video is kind of off putting in my opinion, like trying to encourage people to go away from dnd when some already are it and then just saying instead of plane of fire or other dnd planes you use a name that easily could just be another name for the same conceptual realm or an analog in another system or setting, just comes off like trying to lead people away from dnd rather than just covering general beats of the concept in the video and maybe some examples in certain systems to help convey the idea, and letting people play the games they want to play, i know is likely not your intent, but was the vibe i was getting that whole first chunk of the video, and the memory loss thing is still in the dnd fey, is just a core rule these days and is thus optional, is right there in the dmg, so is not really existant more so cuz people just happen to be choosing not to use it or don't even bother with the dmg in the first place of the realm's normal base concept, like one dnd show i watched their take on the feywild was basically nothing like the norm or any counterpart, like it was more of a realm of randomness than fey
Character-based lore building for magic items and emergent, bonded items that evolve as they do. It's a conversation Sean, you ask a question, I will do my best to answer it for you.
Yes yes ... I needed this been getting a headache an sweating the small things. All the lil reminders like this helps so much between sessions. Follow up random question for really anyone. One of my players is a barbarian but wants to also be a necromancer? What kinda build would me as a dm recommend an such? Honestly I have been wreaking my brain on this . I am also "alil" worried but not completely that this character will end up being the end of this campaign or next campaign bbeg .... Oh God a bubble gummed haired, southern belle accented noble woman, barbarian necromancer with a claymore. .. omg what has my player made. 🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️
They can pick a magic talent type of feat, otherwise, this is why cross classing exists I guess? Not sure how noble woman fits with that dynamic, but evil shaman certainly works.
If it's 5e path of the ancestral guardian literally has your ancestor's spirits watching over and guiding you. If you mean raze the dead necromancer... A good general rule of thumb for homebrew class abilities is it has a number if used equal to your proficiency bonus. Look at the companions from the artificer battle smith and druid wild fire or spores classes for a reference on the undead. Life drain on kills is a very necromancy/ tanky ability, add something like undead fortitude and I think we've got a homebrew necromancer barbarian in our hands. Let me know how it works out.
Been waiting for this for so long. And the idea on how a piece of gear might become magical and/or awakened simply by being exposed to the insane things adventurers get up to over their careers is just beautiful.
Thanks!
Oh this will be a classic, can tell already. Intelligent Magic Items have f’ed with more parties than all the warlock patrons combined.
Yes
Knowing how such "intelligent" items are often created, they have been fucked with way more than they have done so to the user so it's probably just taking out its frustration.
Another vid knocked out of the park. Really got me thinking about the items I give my players.
These are great ideas! I love the concept of having the items enchanted and letting the players figure out how it is occurring.
The jewelry is sentient, this bloodstone is frozen blood and it sings of fever dreams.
"We are born of the blood, made men by the blood, undone by the blood..."
Cool. I've been considering making a campaign that involved sentient magic items.
These are always tons of fun with endless poasbpliies. A bag of holding that snitches on the thief hiding things in it. A sword describing in detail to a guard who you just killed and how. A helmet that constantly gives you advice. Two of my personal favorites, an animate skull with a fully self aware priest of lothander who is not undead in the traditional sense, and lilarcor of BG2. That thing constantly asked about killing. Hell even “Rick and Morty” had a pink sentient switchblade to encourage a young Beth to acts of violence.
I forgot about the switchblade!
The last few campaigns my players and I as part of character building created their signature weapon, and had it grow in power with them. I find it’s given them more of a connection with their main magical item.
"Citadel by the Sea", one of the old "Dragon Magazine" modules, had an orc holy relic in it. I spear named Alkharg that was an elf slaying weapon. No elves in the party, and the druid was a spear wielder, so she snapped it up and was happy. Sadly, she failed her check against it and the thing started whispering to her, keeping her warm during the cold seashore nights, stuff like that. First day in town she kills an elf, and then the fun began. Ended up with the player killing her husband's character before they could get the thing away from her. I did give them plenty of hints that this wasn't a good idea.
"I did give them plenty of hints that this wasn't a good idea."
Oh, trust me, they saw those hints. They were just playing "curse-roullette" because it was so handy, and just trying to beat the odds. Let me guess, the same players, even when they know about the bad cards in the Deck of Many Things, they still draw from the deck... don't they?
Well, it's part of the fun of the game. In fantasy, you can be the risk-taking idiot and the horrible consequences would only make your story more interesting. However, a WIS penalty would apply to such a character that does that regularly. Myself, I allow that player to take that permanent WIS loss to give it as a permanent point gain to an attribute of their choice, even if it exceeds their racial limits.
@@That80sGuy1972 no, they just weren't paying attention. Even the woman I have been playing D&D with since the 70's. Most of the people at the table were at least new to my table, if not completely new to the game (like my wife). At some point I had a sidebar with the player to explain the basics of what was happening to their character. She was a brand new player and thought it an exciting twist. Still, when as DM I took brief control of her character long enough to randomly murderize that poor elf, the table was "shocked" and then I saw realization on my friends face as said "ahhhhhhhhhh, shit".
As the meme goes:
"Wait, the DM wouldn't actually kill us, would he?"
"Oh that's right. You're new here."
love this explanation, rewards adventure and has in baked nostalgia for what has happened in that campaign.
I like the simple but elequent way an item can become magical spontaniously.
I haven't forgotten that I need to send you that list of items! A lot has happened since then and I need a free moment to sit down and send it to you.
I love how you covered the time dilation here for other planes. My players discovered that by "retiring" their characters that way, to try to "cleverly" gain some insight from them by summoning them later in that campaign or in the campaign of their descendants/legacies (their future).
What? Who are you? How did you summon me here? I was just here long enough to find a way to this town and get lodging. **Que boss fight between party and "retired" summoned character**
And, players do tend to NOT go into the origin of intelligent magical items, true. But doesn't it bring a smile to your face when they DO look into their origin? I mean, my intelligent item "the Verbal Weapon" was originally a joke item because a player demanded to let him quest for it because he kept misreading the word "Vorpal". That origin was quite fun, a thing I only created in my head, not expecting anyone to actually look into it. I did it to make a script for it, how it behaved, and why. I was over-joyed when one of my players actually used sage and lore skills to research its origin.
Sentient magic items are super convenient as a dm to give the party an NPC
So much excellence here.
A few notes.
I get my players into lore via NOC interactions, dreams, visions, and magic items. I HAVE run a Feywild adventure where the players phased back and forth, and I did it YEARS before Witchlight came out.
I am a HUGE fan of sentient magic items, and items with lore and history. Attuning to a sentient flame tongue might reveal the soul of an Efreet trapped in the steel, but that will be a conversation through a series of dreams. That player then has to choose whether or not to free it.
I've run a murder mystery simply by having the players find a sentient weapon. The victim had been murdered, and their soul, and indeed body parts, were infused into several magic items. They had to find them all to free the victim and have them attain final rest.
Also, there's zero reason to NOT have special planes or pocket realities. Why CAN'T there be a Realm of Blades or Dreamscape? Why NOT an extra dimensional City of Nightmares or even a wandering Door To Hell. Absolutely. The weirder or worse the better.
I homebrew all my magic items to resolve two issues. First, metagaming. I hate when I start describing a magic item and a player, usually a vet, will interrupt with "yeah. Okay. Frost Brand. Got it".
Second, I believe magic items should be weird. An Alchemist may be able to brew a potion, and a Wizard can scribe a scroll, but the magics that create a talking sword are ancient and based in a culture of Giants, Dragons, Hags or other ancient beings. They weren't meant for mere mortals. I also detest "cursed" or "perfect" magic items. Why not both? The One Ring was a blessing and a curse. Stormbringer was mighty and carried a terrible price. My items are the same, but lesser.
A sword like "Ambition" costs you hit points, but you can ramp up it's attack and damage bonuses. Berserker Plate will protect you very well, but the blood frenzy that comes with being damaged endangers those close by. Living Potions can give you their benefits multiple times...if you can gag down a tiny ooze for a time, and hopefully it's exit won't occur when you're vulnerable.
Magic and lore can be had, can be strange, can be the hook that takes the players in, but there's a trick. They gave to want it. Making them want it is the DM secret. Entice them a bit at a time. Draw them in. Give them the choice. Show them the power, either of the knowledge or the item.
And when you're stuck, have them dream their way somewhere. Alternate realities are everywhere for the willing and the creative.
For those really brave, for those who want to inject roleplay or intrigue, perhaps romance, have that intelligent magic item court them in their dreams. Who says that aforementioned Flametongue cannot have an attractive citizen of the Realm of Fire, City of Brass, or even Hell, who's become enamored with their new "owner". What a great way to inject lore and hints as this soul talks to the owner in their own mind (via notes or texts from the DM), creating new interactions with the rest of the party.
Experiment. Go wild. Invent. Never stop creating.
My Gm is completely on the same page! We've had to train our play group to avoid doing that veteran mistake of calling out a notable item/monster/etc, potentially spoiling an item or what it does, or just belittling any effort you put into crafting the item uniquely.
He's done a lot of really fun things with magic items to inspire creativity in himself and the players, including magic cursed items come in a variety of flavours (minor to major) that usually aren't just straight-up bad, but introduce some kind of weakness to offset the strength they have. The stronger the curse is, the stronger the power and accosting downside.
On top of that, we even started with a unique system inspired by Elden Ring, called Weapon Arts. Players could do special actions using specific weapons that conferred some unique, small attack or advantage.
Currently, I've got a legendary sentient 'linked weapon', through a serious trial that led to a near-tpk. I was the only player to survive and managed to escape with the weapon. It's got a whole playstyle of it's own, starting with a charge system based on actions in combat. The more I'm targetted in combat, the more charges I get. I also take a little bit of fire damage each time I gain charges. Then, in combat, I can choose to spend them to basically enhance a successful attack, increasing the damage by 1d8 and potentially smacking another adjacent enemy for 1d4. If I let the charges build up to the current cap, I do a big free-action AOE on everyone grouped up around me in a 15 ft sphere, doing 4d8 damage. It also counts as an arcane focus, so I could also freely cast spells with it.
It's really made the combats very interesting to me! On top of the mechanical benefits it confers, it's also been a massive part of the current plot and ongoing story with my PC + the party overall. My character has been enthralled by the patron of the linked weapon, leading to him practically willingly agreeing to become his patron's vessel. There's a lot of depth to the story but I don't want to bore you with 30 pages of nonsense!
"but the magics that create a talking sword are ancient and based in a culture of Giants, Dragons, Hags or other ancient beings. They weren't meant for mere mortals. I also detest "cursed" or "perfect" magic items. Why not both?" *100% hell yes to this!*
Yo, my dude Nick is talking with ED GREENWOOD on his show if anybody wants to stop by. He’s chill AF. They were here but just moved to another platform I probably can’t say the name of or my comment may mysteriously disappear but it rhymes with ‘Grumble’. Rekieta Law channel. They’ll probably be live for another hour or so at least (as of 12:43 AM, Eastern US Time). I’ll try to post the link but it might get caught in auto mod or whatever so we’ll see. (EDIT: It did. Just hit up Rekieta Law on Grumble. He’s got the green logo. Probably have a bunch of people watching. Should be easy to find. Peace.)
Be sure to mention my Kickstarter on your socials Kyle, cheers mate.
The Grey King. It’s a staff made of ironwood with one side looking like bleached bone and the other side charred black. The spell Gentle Repose is inlaid in bone on the charred side and the spell Animate Dead is inlaid in onyx on the bone-white side. In the hands of any necromancer, it can cast spells like a 17th level necromancer, but it will try to dominate that person because the staff is a necromancer-priest’s trapped soul.
In the hands of one of its summoned skeletons, treat the skeleton as a lich of true neutral alignment. If the lich is destroyed, one of the others will try to pick up the staff. The staff does not care about anything but protecting graveyards from looters since its original home kingdom has long since fallen into dust. It can be found in any graveyard, on any plane of existence, but its real home is in the gravedigger’s cottage beside the chapel of a cemetery in a lost portion of the fey realms.
The only way to destroy it is for two priests to simultaneously cast both Animate Dead and Gentle Repose on the staff standing between the consecrated chapel and the desecrated cottage. When destroyed, the consecrated clay jars buried in the cemetery, holding thousands of animated skeletons will crack, allowing them to escape.
The Grey King’s Rest, the cemetery trapped in the fey kingdoms, is a planar nexus. It connects to every crypt, tomb, cemetery or individual grave anywhere across the planes, if you know the way to travel to and from it. It was a place of torture, created by long-forgotten gods to punish the priest who split the gravedigger’s skull for stealing a ring from a grave. The ring still lies in the grass where it fell when the gravedigger died and the priest was struck down.
Yeah, magic items can be fun.
One of the major factions in my setting, the one that outwardly appears to be lawful evil but is actually chaotic good, is actually populated entirely by people immigrating to this dimension to escape a disaster that's destroying their home dimension.
They've got a completely different set of magical spells than the native population, and this is reflected as being the origin of home brew spells in my setting. If a player want's to cast a spell that's not listed in any official sources they must first meat some one from the other dimension.
A good place to find one would be a magical black smith or artificer work shop, they rely more on magical items but do not have the ability to enchant iron. To them a basic +1 sword is a mythic item simply because it's made of iron. But to us their common magic items like the image orb (magic camera) are unheard of and incredibly useful.
Damn, that is a great plot! Refugees from another dimension.
It would be ... If it had any real affect on the main plot beyond the origin of new magic and another faction suddenly appearing from desert territory that no one wants.
@@ianyoder2537 I might make use of it in one of my adventure videos
@@AJPickett ✨please do✨
Off topic ?
A group of PC soldiers are taking point and the floor gives out as a 30ft/9m dead drop pit for 3d6 dmg.
Due to initiative rolls, four storm troopers grab Darth Vader as he just drops down, two other troopers grab the falling guy before them. The third trooper on point gets a bad init and falls 10ft before another trooper hands his side lead rope to two others and drives down catching the other in a free fall. All happen in one or two seconds time.
Vader then use the Force to lift everyone back to safety.
One player states that Vader should have sense the danger of the location through the Force and the player made sure to use Force sense danger check.
Another player points out that the whole place is force cloaked, along with that fall could do very little dmg to their 12th-level PCs and nothing to Vader.
Other pointed out difference from D&D and Star Wars, Detect Trap is a 2nd-level divination arcane spell just tells/magic aura show a traps location but not what type of danger the trap is. The skill Detect Force, just tells you have a danger but not what type unless you study the area for half a minute.
Long story short, everyone was covering each others backs, so no one was in any real danger. Big difference from detect trap and detect danger.
Nice logic to reason how/why the PCs could walk into a bunch of minor 1d4dmg traps. Then Detect danger trap goes off like a fog horn, which causes the players PCs to turn to stone scared to move till they figure it out. -- time for the jump scare.
2.) Did you get a good look at that thing ?
Call of Cthulhu creature, higher your Spot check, more temporary wisdom dmg it does.
WotC 3e Spellcraft DC 15+spell level, such as 5th-level arcane spell Nightmare. PC pass a DC20 spot roll they come under the Nightmare spell effect for the next 2d6 weeks.
Base saves and dmg on the given flow of the story plot line.
@@Derry_A_Deryni Love the post, have a great weekend.
Great thumbnail 😅 Way better than the Satyr in that H.A.T. movie.
(Won't even utter the name in comment section to benefit the algorithm.)
Really enjoyed utilizing an intelligent item in a campaign.
When I think of intelligent items I now think of The Moment from Doctor Who, a terrible weapon in a box, that has a conscience of its own, in the Doctors case in the form of Rose Tyler, or more aptly The Bad Wolf.
Expectations subverted. Better than i could have guessed.
More of the inspiriation i think more of us need to hear, and I hope this is the kind of thing that end up in more prologs to player and GM facing books.
Maybe I just like to control things too much, but actually thinking about the magic items is a reason why I don't really like magic item shops and Artificers. Let's say I add a Ring of Spell Storing for some reason... well, why does the ring have that ability? Where did it come from? Maybe it was part of a legendary mage that always used it, so it became a magical item because the hand gestures he made always left a little bit of magic inside the ring. Maybe the ring can only capture certain schools of magic because the wizard was an Abjurer or a Transmuter
I think the idea of a bond between the item and the one that uses it is a great idea
There's a lot of creative space as to how magical items originate, and depending on how much freedom and control you want your players to have, you could vary up the explanations or add some imaginative bricks to build up the foundation for how these things come to be. If magic items are super scarce, maybe they are powerful artifacts created by magical craftsmen throughout the years, which have incredible ties to the previous owners, enabling you to see parts of their journey while carrying the item. Or maybe, magical items are common, because a magical goddess is producing them constantly, and her followers scour them across the land in hopes of putting them into the hands of would-be villains and heroes, with the intent of simply proliferating the use of magical items! (Perhaps for some nefarious purpose, or some grand benefit, who knows?)
Magic items that require actions to operate, so, the specific gestures the original mage used to cast their spell. That's a great idea.
@@AJPickett Yeah! That sounds cool
In 2nd ed, psicnicsts could, if they learned the right power, create pscionically empowered items. According to the rules and lore in that edition, all such items had to be intelligent and have an ego. It was necessary for anyone (or thing) that used pscionics had to be intelligent, since those powers were based on the mind. This meant all such items had a personality - something originally based on its creator's personality, although that personality might change over time as conditions and its experience influence it. It would have its own goals, its own prejudices, its own likes, etc.
Also, being intelligent, it might use its powers without being commanded to if it thought it was appropriate. For instance, a staff with the teleportation power might whisk it and its owner away from danger if it thinks its owner is in trouble or overmatched, all without being asked to. Or it might refuse to use its powers if doing so went against its ethical outlook, or maybe just because it really didn't like its current owner. It's one thing to have a +1 sword or a wand, it's another thing entirely to have a sword or wand that you have to make friends with to make it work or whom you're constantly arguing with.
An interesting idea would be that there is many such items floating about, and they are all, without the knowledge of their owners, conspiring with one another to accomplish some secret, greater goal, and are quietly influencing the people around them towards that end.
That is a great concept! A secret cabal of magic intelligence. That is so in tune with the fear of AI so topical right now.
Oooooh I felt like a little kid waiting for this video. I love ur magic items videos 😁 thanks AJ
You are so welcome!
I often forget that some players don't care about the lore of the world, I'm always dumbfounded when I hear about it. Luckily me and all my friends live and breathe world building.
Haha, I interpreted your title as a sentient magical item that is intelligent. Then I thought of a DM giving one of the party members a living magical item that has a personality like Jar-Jar causing hilarious backfires
I'm in a session with a weapon that is linked to some fire god (I think Kossuth?) but the there's this hilarity in the relationship because it's like, a primal god of fire, right? So it's got very simple, very basic wants and needs and my character is just constantly going, ?!?! WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?! IS THERE SOME GREATER DEPTH TO IT? WHAT DO I HAVE TO DO TO EARN IT'S POWER?! and meanwhile it's like "KILL, DESTROY, BURRRRN!" like Ragnaros or something.
@@ahealthkit2745 😂❤️
Me: Any DM who would give out an Unintelligent Magic Item is an utter bastard.
Also me: Hmm ... where's my notebook? "Staff of Heckling".
@@paulcoy9060 Ah, and my favorite, the 'Shield of Insecurity', that constantly nags you about how comprimised your safety is whenever you aren't actively wielding it.
@@ahealthkit2745 Does it sound like a Jewish mother-in-law? "Oh, your brother David is now a 10th level Paladin, why don't you apply yourself more? And stand up straight."
Oddly enough I always wanted to craft my own intelligent item. A trident with the heart of a devil a celestial and the brain of a Modron. law evil lawful good and lawful neutral all competing for dominance. I like to call it the tripolar trident because that thing has the worst possible mood swings imaginable.
Old classic Baldurs Gate 2 is the sentient and talking sword Lilacor thou his level of intelligence is questionable. And the in the current World of Warcraft expansion we have the fully sentient and intelligent simulacrum of Sindragosa. Sindragosa died long ago but her simulacrum, loaded with her memories is still "alive". As an "item", not really but like a ghost she cannot leave the area so there is something there projecting her. Both examples to keep in mind.
Right. I always liked the idea in the show Supernatural that they had to find what was anchoring the ghost and destroy it with salt and fire.
@@AJPickett "Sindragosa" probably work the same way but you wouldn't want to do that, she isn't really a ghost but more like an immaterial magical construct.
"Your magic staff is intelligent... but not intelligent enough" My DM after i decieved my own eq
I sent my first homebrew group to the fey and when they returned it was 50 years in the future with a war having ended and new enemies.
I had an intelligent sword that had the purpose power " to cleanse corruption" but due to a translation error, it wound up with the ability to use prestidigitation (clean) at will...and the compulsion to do so. So any area my paladin (who may or may not have been based on Mr. Clean) was in would be scrubbed fastidiously while he was standing there as the sword muttered "absolutley filthy! unsanitary! dirty dirty dirty!"
LOL, nice.
I like that you expanded on the feywild. My campaign world is of the grimdark variety but for as dim and bleak the world is I am trying to make the feywild equally bright and wonderful. Darkness is only relatively to the light. Famine war, the world entering an ice age but stories tell of a lands of color and feasts and dancing. I am on the fence if the feywild Isa real place or I might make it just a place that exists in people minds, it's dream world that people have invented to escape misery.
Yeah, its the collective dreamspace of folklore, fairytale, story, legend, myth and even popular culture... memes would fit right into the feywild
@@Derry_A_Deryni Understandable.
Pissst pissst got a little of that DnD.... yeah yes I knew you'd be back.😝
I'm currently in love with Dragonbane RPG.
I often say that the (player) characters should be the star of the game, not the setting.
Also, planner adventures should be end-game stuff, because once you experience that, you will be forever changed. There is no going back to normal afterwards.
Yep, you get "Frodo'ed"; you may return to the little village, but while it remained the same, your brush with the epic has left you a stranger in your former home.
That one statement, “they are there to be the story not hear a story” describes my players exactly
Other than AD&D2ndE system, WotC 3e D&D/Psionic hand book/ Star Wars.
6th-level druid spell Awaken Animal turn into Awaken Elemental be a good way to create an Intelligent Magic Item.
b.) 3e Psionic, there was a feat Craft wondrous psionic item, caster level 3rd. class ability " awaken psionic crystal," carrying a bit of the psionic casters personality fragment.
c.) Star Wars/Knights of the Old Republic, Dark horse comics, a Sith lord bonded himself to his holocron.
So in one mini campaign playing off of Star Trek lore just using WotC Star Wars rule system. The DS9 Dominion War due to Vulcan mental discipline( Jedi consular) and Klingon warrior training ( Jedi guardian) and made random people Force Adept. So we did a generic earth federation with independent colonies and a few dozen other space faring species. Going joke was " We are not playing Star Wars."
So I highjack the peace consul of psionic diplomates, and called it the first Jedi surmount, I finish the dialog as if it was a historic recording. Another player jump up the meta game saying my PC was a Jedi force ghost like that other Sith lord.
d.) Star Wars EU legends from the 1990's novel " Eye of Palpatine," a dead Jedi ghost inhabit an asteroid spaceship computer, she could travel the wires and dream talk but had a hard time dealing with the deep imbedded command programs. Neat story, as a spin off we ran games where some Sith lord spirit inhabit crystals but hop from droid to droid in combat.
e.) Now as for Whitewolf/World of Darkness (WoD) Werewolf, Changeling, and Mage magic items hold spirit being totems called fetish.
f.) Honestly, my last group just took all the great ideals of ghost possession from Ravenloft and stuck it in other settings. Such as charisma checks to see which villain/hero becomes a ghost after being killed. One of the many problems of taking command of a ship from a dead pirate captain.
Along with using AD&D/Ravenloft - Dark Sun rules for psionic lich creation. So any player magic user or not at 11th level on dying could roll charisma to see if the become a ghost attach to a fetter item. Being a dagger, weapon, ring, or book. Really bending WotC 3e rules/ guidelines on lich creation. But whatever keeps the game going.
2.) TPK, ... dark dungeon.
The PCs are stuck in a time loop, and they also have to make int/wis/cha rolls to break the cycle. Or to realize they are ghost trapped within the given site. From time to time our DM reruns the players current PCs through the death trap to meta game shock of seeing your past PCs laying dried out dead in different parts of the dungeon. Running gag was I been stuck here for the past 30,000 years trying to get out.
Start off at any given point in time, then do a follow up as Egyptians finding an ancient Conan era Call of Cthulhu temple built by mind flayers in the western desert mountain range. A thousand or so years later Caeser conquers Egypt. Question becomes how do you deal with a few thousand years just passing you by ?
Good video. Love witnessing your journey away from Hasbro and glad to support it with views, likes and comments.
This reminds me of an intelligent magical spear one of my players picked up in a dungeon. It was a very snotty high class individual with very high standards of who wielded it. But as time went on they grew as close as the rest of the party.
I'm playing a character in a heavily modified version of Tomb of Annihiliation in 5e D&D currently, and this video spoke to me! I developed my character for the campaign with a relationship with a warlock patron in the form of a sentient weapon, and the GM was eager to run away with the idea. Before the session, I gave them some concepts (Character inspirations, themes and flavours that I enjoy) that I liked, then developed my actual pc separately.
I began without any sentient item, as an ordinary himbo paladin dragonborn (red dragon flavoured, with heavy implications around the character's anger control) in a party with my brother (another PC, played by an irl friend) and a stranger (a noble human played by my fiance). Over time in session, my character received visions from some flaming entity existant within Port Nyanzaru. It seemed to be contacting him with visions of a dungeon underneath Kwayothe's villa. In time, I made in-game choices that ultimately led to a confrontation with Kwayothe, and her fiendish allies, Indar and Ixis, in the dungeon of the villa. Spoilers, we had a near-tpk. I escaped with the legendary sentient item, haunted by nightmares of my brother's graphic death and the tragedy of the noble stranger, who died heroically sacrificing himself to enable my escape.
Having this item has really changed the roleplay. My character is experiencing some kind of force within the weapon, which the GM has divulged is a unique 'linked weapon', a rarity even among intelligent items. It's similar to the artifact weapons from Critical Role, in the sense that it is a magical item with a direct tie to a god. The ongoing mystery is figuring out which god is behind this linked weapon, who has been manipulating my heavily traumatized PC into becoming it's vessel willingly!
It's a lot of fun and there's a lot of depth to the relationship. Just like you'd expect an unknowable fire-god of rage, the entity rarely talks if at all, unless it directly desires something from my PC. There's an ongoing thread with the discovery that the weapon seems to take parts of my PC's physical body every time he 'dies' and 'comes back', as a result of the dramatic way we handle PC death in-session. So far, he's lost his heart and his memory of his family, brother, and the original tragedy that led to him obtaining the weapon. (OH! And it's missing, mysteriously. There's a theory that it somehow merged with my PC after they killed Kwayothe).
What characters did your friend and your fiance roll up next?
@@AJPickett My fiance rolled a Shadarkai elf with a mix of Eldritch Fighter, Warlock and Wizard. My friend rolled a Chultan warlock with a vaguely Chultan-diety Patron, and rejoined the party the session after the near-tpk, as people paid to protect my PC from assassination attempts contracted by Kwayothe. We were more-or-less kicked out of the city shortly after, because of the danger of being caught by Indar or Ixis.
Guts' Dragon Slayer.
Now reading DC comics tells the tale of magic, gods and magic creatures + where they went. After Atlantis fell magic declined and over time all the magic left the earth until only a few magic people and magic zones are left today. Queen of fairy titania said that all realms besides the prime material realm are imaginary and there are as many realms as one mind/s can hold.
A faerie Dragon in the Fay realm wanted a life of Adventure, like in the books, so he flew to see the queen of the Seelie court, and begged to the queen for such a life, perturbed at such a request the queen granted his wish,... by transforming him into a magical rapier and casting him into the material plane to be carried by a 1001 adventurers before he could return to the Seelie Court
its up to you to flesh it out from there.
We just left the Fey Wild and skipped over 300 years into the future.😅
Excellent! I did that in a round about way with a party of All Pixies one time, it worked out fine as the youngest pixies in their village were now the village elders and remembered who they were.
A helmet that allows the player to summon any weapons in their inventory as an appropriate attack action with that weapon. BUT, when entering combat make a wisdom check; if you fail, you will become possessed by the random ghost of any previous wearer until combat ends.
Outside of combat, roll either a wisdom, intelligence, or charisma check (whichever is the lowest) at the start of your turn. If you fail, receive -1 to charisma, intelligence and wisdom, and your character will become increasingly agitated until either you succeed your check or combat begins. If your lowest attribute reaches 0, you will automatically attack on sight.
If you sleep while wearing the helmet, you can receive any not yet known martial training or increase one combat skill by one level. You do not receive long rest bonuses, and awaken with the first level of agitation.
Hey AJ, I was wondering if D&D has something like a wholesome Celestial analogue to the succubus. Maybe you have a video on such a creature?
Hmmm. Well although they are fey entities, the Nymph is pretty much the gold standard for that sort of creature. I say just alter the fluff text and keep the stats largely unchanged and you are good to go there.
This comment set off a chain reaction in my head. May I present the great godmother, celestial matchmaker and warlock patron. "Oh you are just the most heroic and stalwart soul, aren't you? It would simply be a crime if you never got the chance to pass your strength of body and character to the next generation! Now, since it would be improper for me to partake in dalliance with mortals, I've had my eye on several wonderful young partners that would be perfect for you. I'll be sending them your way whoever opportunities present themselves. In the meantime, if you have any emotional or physical health hangups I'll happily help you resolve them." The warlock can then 1. Go on a series of insane supernaturally charged dates while the rest of the party causes hijinks in the background trying to be helpful, 2. Romance the matchmaker in spite of celestial convention, 3. After a failed date nervously inform the matchmaker that they are hopelessly homosexual, which she will take in stride, adjusting her list of partners and adding adoption paperwork to the routine.
Love the idea of the item gaining sentience through a bond or growing more powerful
I remember playing Baldurs gate WAY BACK when and i found Lilarcor and i was in love with it.
This is a neat twist to the old way weapons were enchanted.
I had my players accompany a wizard to the faerie grove to pick up a commissioned feycraft mithril armor he could cast in.
While there, they picked up a silver goblet named Puck (named after the faerie and also cup backwards...).
I had found some magic item advancement rules that allowed them to put some Exp into Puck to level him up. I chose abilities fitting the characters who 'fed' him to each level.
Starting out with create water, then magic missile when the warmage fed him first, etc.
Unfortunately said warmage took offense when Puck disagreed with some morally questionable actions of his and he foisted him off on a different player's follower.
They never learned his backstory as a formerly mortal soul stuck as the goblet.
good video AJ
Thank you Chris
You are an example of how you don’t need DnD, DnD needs you.
Thank you 😔
TY for telling me about DNDWOWDICE got the character sheets pulse some extra.
Wrote a good review.
I did not expect how foldable they are and leave no lines very happy.
If your mats are like this people will be happy.
The mats are just a touch thinner to improve that quality even more, so, yeah, they are very nice.
A staff that creates blueberries out of nowhere would be useful. Now you got a member of the party that is fat yet strangely enough. He never eats. Not in a tavern, on a journey, with the party, not low on health unless forced too. He always smells like blueberries. He never tells anyone that this staff can be useful. Not even if the party is starving. He knows he'll be fed. He wants his blue blueberry staff all to himself.
мне понравилось ! лайк и комментарий , для алгоритмов ютуба =)
Earthdawn was great for magic items.
If you have a luck blade, which can cast the WISH spell, why not have a Jinn inside the blade or a gem set into the pommel?
Thanks AJ.
Always awesome listening to your channel brother. I would love to be in one of your games.
I'm reminded honestly of Weapons of Legacy.
For the new kids, this is the book Matt Mercer used as the basis for the Vestiges of Divergence. The original book explored a lot of what AJ goes into here; namely, why *shouldn't* an object carried through and vital to legendary deeds become legendary in its own right?
A normal dagger belonging to a wizard's minion, that becomes effective at not just cutting things, but able to cast spells off of scrolls itself.
The spear of a guard in an evil empire, the guard starting out a slave, making his way to a guard of others, then setting in motion the collapse of that empire. But doing all this through the use of necromancy, so their actions caused incalculable harm as well. And the weapon demands similar behavior of a wielder before its true, tremendous power will be unlocked.
If you're having trouble thinking of personalities and wants for a magic item, think about its legacy. Not just what can it do, but where has it been? Where would it *want* to go?
And what kind of powers beyond just "on fire" or "extra dice" do the events in its past suggest it should possess?
Yep, it was a great book, but came along quite late into that edition.
I gave a player a intelligent magic wedding ring. It could absorb the abilities of other magic rings.
The drawbacks were it had the personality of a overbearing wife with the voice of Edith Bunker. Wouldn't allow ownership of any other rings and demanded jewelry or it wouldn't help.
Can we get a video on Ratfolk or molefolk?
Yes, we can.
Can you start going over pathfinder monsters
This. There is no one even near your caliber doing PF lore.
@@royriley6282 mythkeeper is really good. He's just started but already has quite a few videos
@@on_6933 Good choice.
Thar smart ass sword from baldurs gate 2
Should bards be called rizzards?
Skalds
As the DM I insist on voicing a magic intelligent item that I give the party. The mechanical aspect is an extention of the character but it's personality is an NPC.
I like these ideas 😁
resume an almost forgotten game with the PCs getting an extra level. mention, at the beginning of the session, that the PCs had just returned from the Feywild. explain nothing. let madness ensue.
brilliant
y have these vids been so short lately?
I got more concise? The adventure vids are longer
Just a question, did you stop making dnd content because of wotc’s actions or were you just bored/burnt out
Because of WotCs actions I stopped making forgotten realms content. Now I just make setting and system agnostic content for all fantasy RPGs.
8:03 almost puked
Bearded dwarven ladies, no, chick with horns growing out of her head, yes. *hides the Tabaxi*
beginning of the video is kind of off putting in my opinion, like trying to encourage people to go away from dnd when some already are it and then just saying instead of plane of fire or other dnd planes you use a name that easily could just be another name for the same conceptual realm or an analog in another system or setting, just comes off like trying to lead people away from dnd rather than just covering general beats of the concept in the video and maybe some examples in certain systems to help convey the idea, and letting people play the games they want to play, i know is likely not your intent, but was the vibe i was getting that whole first chunk of the video, and the memory loss thing is still in the dnd fey, is just a core rule these days and is thus optional, is right there in the dmg, so is not really existant more so cuz people just happen to be choosing not to use it or don't even bother with the dmg in the first place of the realm's normal base concept, like one dnd show i watched their take on the feywild was basically nothing like the norm or any counterpart, like it was more of a realm of randomness than fey
Fair critique, thank you.
I'm not sure what this video is about...
Character-based lore building for magic items and emergent, bonded items that evolve as they do. It's a conversation Sean, you ask a question, I will do my best to answer it for you.
Yes yes ... I needed this been getting a headache an sweating the small things. All the lil reminders like this helps so much between sessions.
Follow up random question for really anyone. One of my players is a barbarian but wants to also be a necromancer? What kinda build would me as a dm recommend an such? Honestly I have been wreaking my brain on this . I am also "alil" worried but not completely that this character will end up being the end of this campaign or next campaign bbeg .... Oh God a bubble gummed haired, southern belle accented noble woman, barbarian necromancer with a claymore. .. omg what has my player made. 🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️
They can pick a magic talent type of feat, otherwise, this is why cross classing exists I guess? Not sure how noble woman fits with that dynamic, but evil shaman certainly works.
If it's 5e path of the ancestral guardian literally has your ancestor's spirits watching over and guiding you.
If you mean raze the dead necromancer... A good general rule of thumb for homebrew class abilities is it has a number if used equal to your proficiency bonus. Look at the companions from the artificer battle smith and druid wild fire or spores classes for a reference on the undead. Life drain on kills is a very necromancy/ tanky ability, add something like undead fortitude and I think we've got a homebrew necromancer barbarian in our hands.
Let me know how it works out.