The darkest servants of evil were once champions of light and justice. Fallen paladins who forsake their Sacred Oaths and pledge themselves to the forces of corruption and conquest wield vicious magic in service of their dark masters. Doom magic feeds on the hatred and spite of its users to torture, or annihilate the practitioner’s […]
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Tools of the Arcane Weave Weaving magic into reality is not so far removed from the deftly crafted threads and patterns of masterwork garment makers. A handful of artificers can turn reinforced threads into conduits of arcane energy, and the faithful install their divinity into their works to bring a small portion of their deities
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Clockwork Magic Items Clockwork magic originated in the Free City of Zobeck, amongst the human, dwarf, and especially kobold followers of Rava, the Goddess of Gears and Fate. It has rapidly spread across the breadth of Midgard in the last century, and clockwork spells and magic items can now be found almost anywhere in Midgard,
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Draconic Magic Items Dragons are known to have a deep connection with magic. Those who seek to understand or emulate this connection study such monsters as others that fear their power or hate their ways incant spell and raise sword in opposition. Some seek to tap the dragon’s well of magic, collecting their body parts,
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The Necromancer’s Toolkit Necromancy is a potent force, and while many spellcasters might long for its power over the dead, the wise know not to meddle with what lives in the shadows. Despite this magic’s reputation, though, it can be used to create items of great potency. Those who take up these tools may even
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Gifts from the Void When the multiverse was whispered into being by the first words of creation, there was an echo of that generative moment. Nothingness in a dark reflection left behind in contrast to All That Is, the Void is All That Is Not. A place of dark, cold, and madness, the Void is
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Spenser & Sword Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene is one of the most important epic poems of the English language. Formed by six books of rhymed verses, it narrates the allegorical adventures of a group of knights embodying fundamental virtues like justice, temperance and so on. Like many other old poetic works depicting warriors and
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Dungeons & Decameron Storytelling games are as ancient as humankind. In his most-known book, The Decameron, the medieval Italian writer Giovanni Boccaccio (1313–1375) narrates how a group of young people manage to exorcise the fear of the Black Death spreading in Florence through the art of narrating stories. Many of them contain fantastic elements—even magic
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The Odyssey, an epic poem written thousands of years ago by Homer, is one of the first examples of fantasy literature, complete with the mythic-but-human hero Odysseus and the classic monsters of the harpy and cyclops. And of course, magic items. Two of these are particularly important in the narrative: the bowl and wand belonging
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Dante Alighieri cited various magic items in his masterwork opera Divine Comedy. As already done for otherworldly swords, 5E stats are presented for two potent items appearing in the first part of the epic poem Inferno. The Rod of the Heavenly Messenger  Rod, rare (requires attunement by a good-aligned cleric or paladin) “Well I perceived that
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