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I'm ded, here, have a magic item.

   
I'm ded, here, have a magic item.

So I was actually looking for reading material about designing a character who doesn't rely on magic items, often ending up reading questions about campaigns with low/no magic items, and I got to wondering:

What if you had a setting where, instead of magic items being crafted by powerful spellcasters, they arose naturally upon the death of powerful heroes, villains, or monsters?
The idea being, the soul of said deceased creature would inhabit an item and be the source of its replenishing magical power.



So yeah. When someone dies, if they're powerful enough, their soul could enchant a magic item. Thoughts?

(P.S. Scrolls, potions, and other one-use items would probably still remain the same; this is just positing the idea that permanent magic items are permanent because they have a soul powering them.)

(P.P.S. I figure if you did have souls make magic items, there'd probably be a good way, a neutral way, and an evil way to make magic items.
Good way is to contact another plane and find an appropriate soul, using your Knowledge (Arcana/Religion/History/etc) or Diplomacy or whatnot to convince them to come down and inhabit an item for you. Neutral way is to slay some powerful monster and perform a little ritual to attract the soul to your weapon/armor/etc. Evil way is like the good or neutral way, except for bargaining using slaves/sacrifices, chopping up heroes instead of monsters, or just using a soul-trapping spell and shoving it in an item by force.)

(P.P.P.S. Imagine a 17th level or so fighter dying, turning into a magic greatsword, and giving advice to a 3rd level fighter. Sounds to me that collecting magic items would be a great way to increase your character's knowledge and breadth of skill (read: experience points).)

Sounds like an interesting campaign world. At the beginning you mentioned that these magical items were formed naturally, but then down below you started talking about making them by convincing a soul to inhabit something. If you wanted to make this a little more consistent and make the magic inherent in one-use items also draw their power from the same source, you could say that permanent magic items are created naturally and one-use items come artificially by convincing a soul to temporarily inhabit them.

So weapons, magic rivers, rings, and what-not couldn't be "crafted to order" by living people; they would only occur naturally when someone powerful died. However, potions and wands could be created or charged by convincing less powerful souls to inhabit them temporarily.

Just brainstorming a few ideas.

The early editions of Earthdawn explored this idea with a few twists set in a magic rich world.

Essentially, strongwilled individuals imprinted some element of themselves over time on items that were important to them. Bows, swords, clothing, jewelry, etc. If a character discovered an item that had been imprinted on, they needed to use it for a significant lenght of time to discover/attune to it. Basically as they leveled up more powers were revealed. I think later on they could leave their own imprint on an item.

The powers became available during life,the imprint wasn't triggered by death. I have no idea if later editions of Earthdawn kept that system. The last time I kept up with it, was 2nd edition.

Huh, didn't Might & Magic X have a system like that? Where the longer you used an item, the better stats it would get?

Also, clarification for Newcago; what I was actually thinking was that magic items are possible to create the old-fashioned way, but making one that doesn't quickly run out of fuel is nearly impossible (and thus, cost prohibitive).
Thus, you could create scrolls, potions, oils, possibly even wands and staffs, but something like a magic sword would run out of power after a few swings.

At the same time, I was thinking that souls a) generate spirit energy just from their mere presence, and b) have a habit of lurking around in objects after they stop living.
If you have an item with a soul in it, the energy that soul is emitting will charge up said item with power, making it a magic item (even if it wasn't magical before) with infinite charge; in other words, your traditional +1 weapon or armor or cloak of resistance or whatnot.

Sorry, it's a bit confusing to explain, isn't it?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Avaday Daydream View Post
So I was actually looking for reading material about designing a character who doesn't rely on magic items, often ending up reading questions about campaigns with low/no magic items, and I got to wondering:

What if you had a setting where, instead of magic items being crafted by powerful spellcasters, they arose naturally upon the death of powerful heroes, villains, or monsters?
The idea being, the soul of said deceased creature would inhabit an item and be the source of its replenishing magical power.



So yeah. When someone dies, if they're powerful enough, their soul could enchant a magic item. Thoughts?

(P.S. Scrolls, potions, and other one-use items would probably still remain the same; this is just positing the idea that permanent magic items are permanent because they have a soul powering them.)

(P.P.S. I figure if you did have souls make magic items, there'd probably be a good way, a neutral way, and an evil way to make magic items.
Good way is to contact another plane and find an appropriate soul, using your Knowledge (Arcana/Religion/History/etc) or Diplomacy or whatnot to convince them to come down and inhabit an item for you. Neutral way is to slay some powerful monster and perform a little ritual to attract the soul to your weapon/armor/etc. Evil way is like the good or neutral way, except for bargaining using slaves/sacrifices, chopping up heroes instead of monsters, or just using a soul-trapping spell and shoving it in an item by force.)

(P.P.P.S. Imagine a 17th level or so fighter dying, turning into a magic greatsword, and giving advice to a 3rd level fighter. Sounds to me that collecting magic items would be a great way to increase your character's knowledge and breadth of skill (read: experience points).)
your ideas are creative but I would think that would be more akin to the creation of unique and powerful magic items like artifacts and relics

As mentioned, this is similar to how in Earthdawn, having a powerful legend quite literally made items that you used while forging that legend become stronger. I'd integrate your ideas into that system - dying as a martyr would make you gain one heck of a legend, after all.

If one did this, I'd avoid any sort of easy way to make such items. Consumables yes, but I'd avoid being able to force, coerce, or convince souls to come down to enchant an item.

Mmm...I couldn't say how well this sort of thing would fit in Earthdawn, I don't know anything about the game.

Ikul: The 'old-fashioned' way of making magic items is the one where you spend XP and GP to craft one, given you have the appropriate feat. Or just buy what you need from ye olde magic shoppe.


Now I'm wondering, if you had a world with both magic items (usual kind in 3.5) and possessed items (ones that are magical due to a soul inhabiting them), how would it affect the campaign setting?

A couple of things come to mind; one is that I'm not sure you could get possessed items at a magic shop, too difficult to obtain, too difficult to find a personality matching owner...
Another thing is, imagine the kobolds; if the PCs clean out one warren, the next one might well be fully armed with possessed weapons, armor and traps. Anything they killed could literally come back to haunt them.

This isn't that different from the Weapons of Legacy supplement for 3.5, so you could find a way to integrate that somehow.

It also kind of fits the 5e design philosophy of rare magic items, or Midnight (3rd party setting) where basically the only magic items left after an extensive campaign of purging by the big bad are "innate" arising from the magic of the world itself, and only express themselves as the user becomes more powerful.

It is an interesting concept. I am now thinking about some weapon from a legendary school that has been used and handed down from wielder to wielder after the previous one died. So it starts collecting more than one soul into it as they die valiant or badass deaths.




 

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