Building a magical item: The Crafting Process

  While I will not even begin to claim I know anything about forging metal, crafting bows, carving wood or stone or pretty much any skill even remotely related to *ancient* craftsmen, I have seen and read enough to at least speculate on some of the things necessary to craft items in a fantasy setting.

  So without further delay, here are some of the things one might take into consideration when crafting magical items:

The specific person (or thing) crafting the item.  I list this because chances are, your character isn't a master craftsmen, if they were, what are they doing adventuring?

    Master Craftsmen (racially dependent) - years of training, followed by years of skill perfecting lead to perfecting the ability to match an item to the user (most useful for weapons and metal armors)
    Planar Entity - physics on other planes make items on the prime plane more effective (think manufacturing in space as a real world equivalent)
    Divine/Abyssal/Infernal Entity - hey, an angel isn't going to fail you and an item crafted by a devil/demon is gonna advance their own agenda (not saying you will be advancing their agenda though)
 
 

Quenching Fluids (used in the forging of metal: swords, axe, hammer and arrow heads, wands, etc.)
    Blood - used to give an item SEEKING, HATED, SLAYING, LIFE STEALING, just need the blood of X (i.e. vampire) for effect against X (i.e. vampire)
    Milk - used to give an items HEALING,
    Natural Oils (olive, peanut, etc.) - used to give an item nature based effects
    Petroleum Oils - used to give an item SLICKNESS, SHADOW
    Holy/Unholy Water - used to give an item the Holy or Unholy ability, also potentially for use against divine/abyssal/infernal targets
    Salt Water - used on an item designed for use underwater
    Elemental Water - used to give an item power against elementals
    Your own Blood (likely mixed with something from above) - should give the item more power (at least in your hands), or possibly increase the likelihood of an intelligent weapon.

Phase of the Moon (when the primary part of whatever is being crafted would be crafted, i.e. blade of a sword, head of an axe, shaft of a staff), I'm not sure how waxing or waning might be included in this.
   Full - Protection, Power, Strength
   Gibbous - Chaos, Performance, Knowledge
   Half - Insight, Wards, Balance
   Crescent - Wisdom, Creation
   New - Stealth, Subterfuge
While these aren't necessarily *powers*, one can see how they might be used in conjunction with the intent of the item being created.

Seasons
   Spring - Life, Growth, Chaos, anything that involves increases
   Summer - Heat, strength, power, anything that involves stability (note: this is different that stasis)
   Fall - Decay, anything that involves decreasing
   Winter - Cold, Death, weakness, stealth, anything that involves stasis

So how does all of this work together you might ask, well that's mostly up to you and your DM.  Personally, I like to think of these things working in conjunction to boost the overall power of an item.  In game mechanics terms, something along the lines of a +1 of every component you might be able to use.  Case in point, how many +5 items (weapons or armor) do you see in a standard game, probably not many unless your DM is Monty Haul.  Thus, you could say that if a sword were crafted by a master sword smith (+1) during the Full Moon (+1), in the mid-Summer (perhaps specifically on the summer solstice) (+1), using a gallon of your own blood (+1) mixed with Holy Water (Holy) would result in a +4 Holy Sword *when you are wielding it, +3 Holy Sword in the hands of another.

Finally, enough has been stated about the necessary spells used in magic item construction so I won't go into those.  But, I would like to point out that spells used to improve the crafting environment (endure elements), skill of the craftsman (bless, bull's strength) and assistance to the craftsman (unseen servant) might be of importance to a DM.

Building a magical item

    I love my gaming group, I love my gaming group, I love my gaming group, well sometimes not so much.  Life, loves (or at least lusts), work, play, family, all seem to plague this group of people that constitute my gaming group.  We barely maintain an every-other week game after trying for about a year to have a weekly game - 2 hours a week just doesn't cut it for me, but I understand the demands of other's work requirements, so I try not to complain when they had to end or leave a gaming session at 8.  Perhaps I'm just a little spoiled in previously having a gaming group that played for 5-ish hours at a time, every week.  But this is mostly off-topic, what brings me to my point is that we are shifting game systems, likely to one that isn't as "highly magical" or "magically active" and the Pathfinder/D&D default worlds (yes, I know that the various D&D worlds vary in their magic-isity) in that magic items (weapons, wands, staves, rods, etc.) are going to actually be defined by their make-up.  If you want a magic wand, unless you find it, you aren't going to go to the store and "buy" a wand of magic missiles, so you have to make it, finding a special (perfect) tree branch or bone or having a craftsman make one.

   Well, what makes up a magic item?  That varies from item to item:

A sword is likely going to require:
metal for the blade and guard - iron, steel, etc.
leather for the grip - cow, deer, displacer beast
"something" for the pommel - gemstone, metal, bone
To add to the creativity, a different metal or gemstone might be inlaid along the blade. Wood from a certain type of tree might be used for the grip. A certain design (snake, vines, holy symbol) might be used for the guard.







What about an axe you might ask, well:
metal for the head - mithril, star metal
leather for the grip - umber hulk, drow skin
metal or wood for the haft - oak, trent



-C over at Hack&Slash has 3 good posts of random materials for item creation and that's a fine place to start.

But ultimately this information is only a side issue of where I'm headed with this series of posts.  What I'm really striving for is what "things" you might need to craft a flaming burst great axe +3 or a dancing long sword. So, over the next few entries, yes they are already written and scheduled to post automatically, I'm going to talk about what *I think* would allow for special ability to manifest in weapons and yes, there will be some discussion and elaboration on the actual crafting process as a means of adding abilities (hint: get ready to shed some blood).

Lords of Waterdeep

Lords of Waterdeep

Classified as a "European" style game by my friends, this game has been extraordinarily fun and quite enjoyable, if a bit complicated in learning how to play it.  The various aspects of this game have me wanting more games like it.  The game is very much a hybrid, providing the feel of a good combination of computer based MMO (quest completion and competing for limited resources) and tabletop RPG (making the decision on what, when and how to achieve goals).

The game starts with a combination of intrigue cards and quest cards, gives you a Lord of Waterdeep, a couple of agents and a money supply.  In the group pool of resources are gold, clerics, wizards, thieves and warriors.  On the board are more intrigue cards, quest cards, building cards, potential agent recruits and game control pieces.  Default locations on the board provide starting players with access to the various classes needed to complete quests and gain more gold.  Because only 1 building can be purchased each round, the selection of buildings (3 to choose from at any given time) can significantly affect your ability to complete quests.  As an aside, knowing which quest type your particular Lord wants can make a huge difference at the end of the game, so pay attention.

So far, there have been some obviously better quests/buildings/intrigue cards and some that seem to be after thought crap.  The difficulty in executing the quests varies and depending on how you approach it, can make a slow start erupt into a run-away winner.  

An important note, the execution order of each turn does seem to have a significant impact on play and determination of play by other players, so paying attention to the game is a must.  This is not a beer and pretzels game if you are trying to be competitive.  And while it can be complicated at first, getting to know and understand the little things about this game, make me like it even more.  But, because it has a fair bit of randomness, it does not benefit the regular player so much so that a new player cannot compete in their first game.

I highly enjoy this game, highly recommend this game and will consider purchasing this game upon my return from GenCon.

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Thunderstone Advanced - Towers of Ruin

Thunderstone Advanced has me torn.  Some aspects of this game I love, some irritate me and some just don't make a damn bit of sense.  There is a Facebook version of this game, but it is not the advanced version and is irritating in its own way.

Thunderstone gives the players an option of going to the village to acquire items (weapons, gear or villagers), heroes and spells or going to the dungeon to fight monsters.  In the dungeon, each "rank" of dungeon is progressively harder due to light levels, with rank 1 being -2 to attack, rank 2 being -4 and rank 3 being -6.  Fortunately, there are various light sources that can be used to counter these penalties.  This is significant as the monsters at each level are randomly pulled from the monster deck and thus you can get high/hard monsters at the "upper" ranks and low/easy monsters at the "lower" ranks, making them much more difficult.  In addition, most of the monsters now also have battle effects that can seriously affect the game.

Ok, some of the good - leveled heroes, no dice, lots of cards and options for deck development.  Fundamentally, this is just like other deck building game - a system of which I have become a huge fan.  The items can make a huge difference in how fast you make it into the dungeon, but can also be challenging due to becoming hero starved.

Some of the bad, one of the stated goals of this "advanced" version was to allow you into the dungeon faster - it has failed at this every time I've played it.  In the scenarios, the spells have been weak and at least one hero was pretty much useless, if not worse than the starting basic soldier (see picture above) you can get for free every round.











That said, some of the heroes are amazing and it is usually blatantly obvious that they are the best and go the fastest.  I mentioned "leveled heroes" earlier and I really, really like this aspect of the game.  You can level up your starting "basic heroes" to the purchased ones on the board and level the purchased ones up to more powerful versions using the experience gained from killing the monsters - that is fun and very useful.  The leveled up heroes eventually become worth victory points, so leveling at least some of them is usually a very good option.  Surprisingly, experience points (the little thunderstone shard pictured below) are not worth victory points, so holding on to them is useless - this is a point often lost on new players.

I cannot say I agree with most of the online evaluations giving this game a fairly high score (8+/10 in most cases).  I think they have tried too hard to refine it and actually made a slightly less fun version.  I cannot say that I would actually recommend spending money on this version, but if you already have, perhaps the expansions can redeem it, but I won't be purchasing them.

Darksiders II

It is not often that one finds out a high school friend went on to become exactly what we all wanted to be in high school - a professional gamer.  This has just happened to me and I am truly excited to hype his game in my own small little way.  So, if you enjoy any kind of computer gaming (PC, console, whatever) check out Darksiders II from Vigil Games.  Now for the totally robbed screen shots from the website:

Robotech

This excites me in so many different ways.  I have loved Robotech since I first discovered anime in high school (some 20+ years ago).  It just kills me that American audiences cannot get the concept of adult cartoons.








The good news is that it would appear that miniature production has effectively been approved.  At the same time, the Robotech Battles: Macross rules may provide an insight into a new rpg or something related.  With GenCon coming next month, perhaps, and this is just a hope against hope, somebody will be able to say something about this development.





And really, who doesn't love 60-foot tall giant space aliens and the human build mecha to fight them?

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GenCon 2012

The flight is booked, the hotel is secured.  Now just got to go through the pages of events and get the tickets I want and decide on buying the pass early or waiting till I arrive.  I'm torn, last year I did will-call on tickets and stood in line for a good 2+ hours while there was basically nobody in line for just buying the tickets the day of.  Now I'm in a situation where I have to decide on trying to face will-call again or buying them once I get there.  My flight arrives around noon on Thursday the 16th meaning I'll probably have to stand in line either way, I'm just not sure which is going to be the better (shorter) choice.  Oh well, still a good amount of gaming at the best gaming event of the year.

Drop me a line if you are going to be there and let's see if we can't meet up for some dice throwing.