52 Weeks of Magic - Item 30 - Elven Firebeads

In my very first post for this series, Magic Lamps, I introduced the idea every day problems caused by magic. A magic lamp or a light spell doesn't throw heat. Back when we all lived in caves, we probably needed light more than heat. However, knowing you can make both is great.

This magic item is very common in the elven lands in the Peninsula of Plenty campaign. The first elves in the land were unwilling to cut down trees and as a consequence, used magic for lighting. This was not helpful when they were hit by particularly cool monsoons. The Peninsula doesn't often receive snow outside of the mountains, so when it started falling right after the cold monsoon season, the elves were in trouble. If they had wanted to collect wood, it was too late to identify the best wood and proper kindling. The first attempt at a colony on the Peninsula retreated across the sea because of the lack of fire.

Thus the need for Firebeads were born. Firebeads look very much like prayer beads. To make them function, the user pulls a bead off the end, cups it in their hands like an ember and blows on it. The bead will warm, then burn like kindling for two hours. The beads have an affinity for earth and ash. They will roll up to 3 feet towards earth and ash, even up hill. A typical set of firebeads will have 52 beads with one large bead or toggle at the end to serve as a handle.

Empire to the left, Elven lands to the right.

In the elven lands, every household and every traveler will have one of these sets. In the human lands, they are highly prized treasures as they have not found a way to reproduce the magic. Creating such an item requires both a magic user and a cleric working in tandem.

Firebeads are interesting in the fact that they are a magical consumer product. They can burn homes down and they can inflict a point of damage, but only in highly contrived scenarios. For the most part, they are totally safe.

While totally common in the elven lands, they are a novel and highly prized commodity in the Empire. Most Elven-Human treaties involve the trade of Firebeads for Verbena, a powerful healing herb. These products are used to seal deals because they cannot be used as a weapon.

52 Weeks of Magic - Item 29 - The Witch's Staff

A witch's staff is empowered by contact with owner. It is a personal magic weapon, which cannot be wielded by anyone other than the mage, while the owner lives. If the owner passes, the staff will attempt to reach their next closest family member. Failing that, it may pass into the hands of a dear friend.

The staff has several benefits. First, it improves the wizards night vision, so they may see and read more easily at night. It is more like low light vision than infra or ultravision. There must be some source of light, even if it is starlight. Second, it confers a bonus of one to the mage's Dex bonus, allowing a +1 even if they do not possess an ability score high enough for a Dex bonus. If the mage isn't entitled to use their Dex bonus, they lose this bonus, too. The witch's staff is a +1 weapon that will inflict 1d4+1 in melee or release a dart of energy up to 20 feet for 1d3 points of damage. The dart of energy is a once per round effect, they do not gain more darts per level, nor can the darts be fired as fast a mage could throw a physical dart. The mage may not swing and fire a dart in the same round. 1d4+1 and 1d3 are not typos. This is the cost of having a staff that does multiple things. If the mage is reduced to 4 hit points or less, the staff will heal them for one hit point a day, in addition to any natural healing. If the mage is tied up and is in contact with the staff, the staff will cause ALL knots within 10 to 60 feet (1d6x10) to unravel, freeing the mage and possibly others. It will do this at the time of the mage's choosing. It can and will unravel the knots on clothing, shoes, armor, nets, etc. and this function is all or nothing. It is not selective.

There are dangers to creating or owning a staff like this. If someone grabs the staff from the mage's hands, it will sting them for 1d4+1 points of damage and they will let go. The mage may swing at them in the same round. If the staff is left someplace and someone touches it, it will sting for 1d2 point damage. If the person persists in their efforts to pick up the staff, it will "bite" them for 2d4+2 points of damage. The wound will actually look like an animal bite, even though the staff has no teeth or mouth-like structure. This is normally fatal to average people and the law may take the staff owner to task over this. A person who is bit by the staff and survives will not willing enter line of sight of the staff ever again. The staff will not bite or sting animals, family members or dear friends.

The wielder of such an item cannot be multi-classed or duo classed, EVER. The witch's staff will not accept them and will not reveal any powers to such a person.

Domesticated animals, even hostile ones, cannot be harmed by the staff even if swung at them. If detected for, the staff has an alignment of true neutral. This has no bearing on the mage's alignment or their ability to use it. It's a tool.

Owning a witch's staff will reduce the wielder's hit points by one per level. A third level mage will have a max hit points of 9, plus a Constitution bonus, if any. If the staff is lost, destroyed, etc. the hp loss is permanent. Replacing the staff with second staff will drain an additional 1 hp per level from the mage. A third will do the same, leaving the mage with but 1 hp per level. Taking up a fourth staff will transform the mage into a green slime, even if they had a Constitution bonus or some other magical means of boosting their hp over 1d4 per level. They cannot be resurrected or reincarnated, as they aren't dead. Nothing short of a wish will allow them to recover. If wished back into their normal form, they will be unable to wield a Witch's Staff.

This weapon was designed for old school D&D and AD&D campaigns, but should be usable in other systems. The terms "witch" and "mage" has been used throughout so that users could be an actual witch, an illusionist or a magic user. It is not appropriate for druids and clerics.

This magic item steals heavily from R. A. MacAvoy's Damiano Series of books.

H. M. Hoover's The Delikon Review

Title: The Delikon

Author: H. M. Hoover
Year: 1977
Pages: 148 pages
Rating: 4 of 5 stars

Ten year old Atla, 12 year old Jason and 307 year old Varina are children in the palace at the time of the coup. H. M. Hoover likes hooks like that, and this hook is fabulous.

Not all that is described is as it is. Hoover weaves a tale of an alien teacher guarding her charges as the world turns upside-down. Her prose is sanitary, succinct as is the world these characters exist in. As a Young Adult book should be as it is meant for children.

The focus of the story is the many dilemmas faced by Varina as she tries to guide her charges to safety. Varina's people have reshaped Earth's society and reshaped Varina to navigate between these societies. This creates a number of problems as Varina protects her charges in a place between two worlds-gone-wild.

This book holds itself against progress as the technology described is either utterly fantastic or totally pedestrian, with solid plot and story reasoning for both.

The Delikon is a drama, pasted on top of a world that could be utterly violent. The reader, like Alta and Jason are effectively screened from the violence of the world, while still being touched by the urgency and import of such events.

The Delikon is a wonderful read, a quick page turner. I am sure you will enjoy it as much as I did.

Books by H. M. Hoover on AbeBooks.

AD&D Spell Magic User - Aware Air

Aware Air

Level: 3                                                                                                    Components: V, S, M
Range: 0                                                                                                   Casting time: 1 segments
Duration: 6 rounds                                                                                 Saving Throw: None
Area of Effect: 36"

Being caught in melee is an occupational hazard for magic users. Aware Air gives the spell caster a supernatural ability to track threats out to 36" (360 feet indoors, 360 yards outdoors). Casting the spell takes but a single segment, but precludes attacks and other magic for the round of casting and the next round.

Aware Air will alert the magic user to moving targets in a 360 degree sphere, regardless of line of sight or illumination. This awareness gives them a bonus of 1 to AC and also means that moving targets cannot flank or sneak up behind them, even if hiding or invisible. They can't see details of the invisible person, only the fact that something is there. The spell will give the caster a bonus of 1 against illusions as it is one more point of data to allow them to disbelieve it.

The caster is aware of trees, bushes, etc. moving in the wind but will filter them out as non-threats. If the caster is in a body of water, they can only see above the surface. Moving liquids are opaque to this spell. Casting this spell underwater is ineffective, however it will create a sphere of airy water for two rounds before dissipating, out to 36". 

The caster is NOT aware of non-moving targets. They cannot see barriers, meaning there could be a wall between them and the tracked target. In respect to flanking and backstabbing, if the enemy is already in position, within reach to attack and motionless, the mage will NOT see it coming. They do keep the bonus to AC. Likewise, the spell doesn't reveal traps because they typically don't move until sprung.

Creatures that teleport cause the caster duress, they will jumps-startle when something teleports within the sphere of the spell. This completely breaks their concentration. Blink dogs are particularly distressing. When fighting Displacer Beasts, the mage will see two copies of the creature and will be unable to detect which is real until someone either makes or fails a strike on the beast. If an Air Elemental is within the range of the spell, it will be the ONLY target tracked. Air Elementals in range of the spell can speak directly to the caster, as if they are whispering in their ear.

If the caster moves faster than a jog, they can only detect targets to their front and in their path of travel. If the caster stops running, the spell becomes a spherical effect again.

The material component is a feather plucked from a living bird. Found feathers do not count.

Never, Ever Do I Ever... Horses, Drownings and First Aid.

I never let my characters have a skill called "horsemanship", "swimming" or "first aid". Know why? Killing a player because they don't have these skills is painful. Boring. Nothing is worse than being in bored and in pain. I wrote a book just for that reason. 

If a player wants to role play that they can't ride a horse, the other players can cart him around like a bag of oats. No need for silly rolls. I'm not prepping a campaign for players where one of them wants to die of a horseshoe to the face.

How hard it is it to jump in the ocean in a full set of plate armor, shield and sword? Super easy. Why roll? It's obvious as to what happens next.

One time, I amused myself with this very scenario by having the player to roll a four to succeed. As an epic battle of life and death raged around him, he was the only person not in on the joke.

"No... you're still aliv- er, hanging in there... keep rolling..."

I have this rule that characters aren't dead until they hit -10 hp and once you hit zero or less, you lose one point per round. Anyone attending to that character stops to the hit point drop. It creates an interesting scenario where the wizard drops to -4 hp, and all the way down to -7 before the cleric hits him with a cure light wounds for 4 points leaving them at -3 until they heal naturally. It's a couple of days before the wizard wakes up.

No need to screw any of the characters by telling them the medic couldn't figure out the arrow was the problem due to a bad roll. This is realistic for some reasons and total BS for others. In the Middle Ages, if you didn't respond to treatment, they'd bleed you. Save vs. Barber? No thanks.

Why do this? Because I like to reuse bad guys. A dude with a club isn't assured of killing someone with it unless they beat that person downed and beyond. If THAT doesn't occur to the players, well, I can be lazy with their enemies and they can have endless rematches with opponents. My NPCs can have names.

Which is more legendary, beating someone to death in a dark, dank, dungeon or having a horde of people who refuse to fight you because they don't want to be whupped again, third time this month? 

In my last aborted campaign, the "heroes" hacked apart 4 raiders that wouldn't surrender and took two captive. The captives were obviously intimidated by the PC's bloodthirsty treatment of their friends. Although the campaign ended, one of the players put two and two together and realized that the prisoners were the ones responsible for most... actually all of the raiding parties kills in the village. The 4 guys killed were a patrol that didn't mix it up with anyone. They let the wrong people live.

Trust me, that would have come back to haunt the party.

The lesson is, don't give people stupid skills.

#Inktober2019 collision - D&D meets Ink

This is an inktober2019 collision. I've been working on a map of a Roman themed city called Nace for a D&D campaign. The characters found a villa, but I really didn't have any idea of what it looked like. 

I tried a couple of sketches and mostly liked the results. I don't know why my scanner is clipping the edge. If I get time, I will update these scans.

#Inktober2019 Update - Tiny maps

I'm still working on Inktober projects. I have started doing tiny maps. Sometimes, when you are working on a large product, taking a break and doing something against the grain is helpful or at least destressing.

This is a motte and bailey castle layout, as yet uninked.

It's a copy of one of my dad's castles, a type of shell keep. While it won't end up in one of my D&D campaigns, the finished item could be good for yours. I'll scan it when I'm done.

Enjoy. 

Update:

Ooo... Blogger App Update

It looks like they updated the Blogger app. It looks more modern. 

the old app had a bug with large pictures, so I'll use this screen shot as a test. 

It didn't work. Blogger is still restricted to 400k.