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A Handful of Magic Items 12
We’ve hit installment 12 of A Handful of Magic items! This time, we’re taking some of the items teased in our 25 Magical Artifact Adventure Seeds article and fleshing them out for use! As these items are supposed to be unique and rare we didn’t hold them to the normal balance testing, so use at your own risk!
Crowfeather Robe (requires attunement)
Once per day, as an action the wearer can activate the Crowfeather Robe. When activated, the wearer is transported into a pocket dimension and 1d6+1 crows appear in the space where they stood, lasting for a minute. These crows make immediate move actions, controlled by the wearer and act on the wearer’s initiative. As an action on their turn, the wearer can appear in the space of any crow that is alive, causing all crows to disappear. If all of the crows are slain while the wearer is in the pocket dimension, they appear in the space of where the last crow was slain, taking damage as if targeted by the attack that took out the crow. If the wearer is still in the pocket dimension when the duration expires, they must appear in the space of a crow.
This black robe is covered in tattered and worn crow feathers, almost giving the illusion of wings when the arms are raised. When used, a puff of feathers gently floating to the ground are all that remain besides a few crows.
Nullmagic Axe (any axe, requires attunement)
The Nullmagic Axe has four charges and regains d4 every dawn. When targeting a creature with the ability to cast spells, this axe deals force damage equal to 2 times the highest spell slot level the creature can cast. Creatures with spell-like abilities are unaffected unless they also have spell slots to cast spells with. This damage counts as magical for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction. This item does not appear as magical when affected by Detect Magic or similar spells.
When the Nullmagic Axe deals damage to a creature with the ability to cast spells, it may also choose to use a charge to drain magic. Roll a d10; the number rolled is the level of spell slot lost. If the roll is a 10 or is higher than the highest remaining spell slot, the highest remaining spell slot is lost.
Additionally, the wielder can use two charges to attempt to dispel an ongoing spell or counterspell a spell being cast. As a reaction, when within 30 feet of an ongoing spell area or when a spell is cast, roll a d10; if the number is higher than the level that the spell was cast at it is dispelled or counterspelled.
A skull and crude marks adorn the top of this barbaric axe. When in the presence of magic, a dark aura expands from the blade, trying to pull the magic into it.
Boots of the Immovable (requires attunement)
As a reaction, when at least one boot is touching a solid surface, the wearer can say a command word to make the Boots of the Immovable stay in place on the surface, unable to be moved except by a Strength (Athletics) check of 30 or higher. This does not stop the wearer’s body above the boots from being moved or affected by outside forces.
Otherwise simple and routine in appearance, these leather boots show a weird circular pattern on the bottom that glow when activated.
And that’s it! Again, these items were taken from our 25 Magical Artifact Adventure Seeds article, so if you need an idea on how to introduce these items into your game, look no further! That said, as these items are meant to be of the rare and powerful variety, think before you use them and make sure you’re not introducing too strong an item for your players.
Our first item is the Crowfeather Robe, which definitely puts an emphasis on escape or short term travel. Being able to turn into 1d6+1 different creatures that can fly and scatter is useful, and saving some large area spell such as Fireball, is a good way to safely get away from danger. There are some parts of this item that I’ll leave to the DM to sort out on their own, namely what happens if the multiple crows are the last crow (such as them all being burned to a crisp via fireball?), and is the wearer able to sense through the crows? Are they able to see and hear through all of them, just one, or does it work differently? What’s up in that pocket dimension? Again, I leave these to the DM to figure out as it may suit your game better one way or the other.
Secondly we have the Nullmagic Axe. I love anti-blank items and abilities, and an antimagic weapon is great for a “mage slayer” type character or enemy. There was plenty of potential to make this weapon more complicated than it already is; I envisioned it being able to cut through magic like butter, but in the end in the name of balance I had to cut back. The additional damage is a nice passive effect, becoming more powerful the better a caster the target is- meaning put this in the hands of an enemy and they’re doing bonus damage to even Paladins and Rangers. I also included the bit about it not being detectable by magic as a little bit of fluff, and maybe your players will think the creature wielding the axe was draining their magic via ability and not weapon, letting it sit there and get picked up by another enemy. The spell slot draining, dispelling, and counterspelling I didn’t want to become too over the top, so I opted to give the axe charges. This allows it to dispel/counterspell twice per day, dispel/counterspell once and spell slot drain twice, or spell slot drain 4 times per day when fully charged, giving it options as needed. I picked the d10 mechanic as opposed to the normal counterspell rules because it works for all three abilities and it’s also just simpler for an already complex item.
And lastly, we get some kicks out of the Boots of the Immovable. These are essentially immovable rods in footwear form, with the funny twist that they don’t help in a lot of situations. For example, a tsunami is closing in on you. You activate the boots and stand firm. The wave crashed against you, your legs break off at the ankle, and you drown while bleeding out of your legs. By lacking a way to actually protect you (making you into a statue, essentially), the use of the boots becomes less straight forward and hopefully more creative. They can certainly be used in spiderclimb-esque situations. Give them a go and tell me what your players end up doing with them!
Let us know what you think of these items, and how you would improve them or change them to fit into your campaign! Be sure to join in the discussion over on our Discord channel where we talk tabletop!
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