A small collection of handy, everyday artifacts to make your day a little more interesting.
Created by a duke who, for some reason, goes by the name Darc Discordia, Discordia’s assorted artifacts are a series of handy minor and significant artifacts designed to make people’s lives slightly more magickal. Being a huge roleplaying geek, Darc usually names his artifacts after other artifacts from whatever RPG he’s playing at the time. What a nerd.
Discordia’s Dandy Dufflebag – Significant Artifact
Description: Discordia’s Dandy Dufflebag (named, of course, after the D&D item Heward’s Handy Haversack) is a large, dark blue duffel bag. From the outside, there’s nothing noteworthy about it- it looks like any standard bag you could buy from a sports equipment ship. The bag, however, has two distinct properties. First, any items placed into the bag have their weight reduced by half for as long as they are inside and the bag is closed. Second, the bag is able to hold roughly 50% more than a similar bag of its size. Darc often used it to haul around large quantities of roleplaying rule books to his weekly gaming sessions before he sold it to another duke to help pay a bill.
Discordia’s Diabolical D20 – Minor Artifact
Description: Discordia’s Diabolical D20 (this guy really likes the letter D, huh?) is a twenty-sided die. The color could best be described as “water mixed with motor oil”- black with random splotches of color mixed in. It’s quite pretty. Used normally, the die rolls as any other would. If an Adept comes into possession of it, however, he may spend a minor charge to force the next roll to be a 1. Darc would often spend a charge and then give the die to a player he didn’t like, just to mess with them. He no longer has it; someone apparently took it by mistake when leaving one of his gaming sessions and never got around to giving it back.
Discordia’s Bookmark of True Seeing – Significant Artifact
Description: Discordia’s Bookmark of True Seeing is a six-inch-long plain leather bookmark with a thin leather strap at the top. When used by a normal person, it functions just as any bookmark does- it keeps your place in a book. When used by an Adept, however, he may spend two minor charges to activate its effect: by placing it on the cover of a book, saying out loud what you need to find in it (ie. “The rules for grappling” or “the stats for the Tarrasque”), and then opening the book at random, you will open the book to the page that contains the information you spoke of. Normally this kind of artifact would be very useful, but Darc skimped on the power when he made it- it only works on RPG gamebooks. Good if you want to find out what Disciplines your Vampire: the Requiem character has access to; not so good if you want to find a person in a phone book. Darc sold this one to a roleplaying buddy of his who still has it.
Discordia’s Vorpal Pencil – Minor Artifact
Description: This is a simple green mechanical pencil. It never runs out of lead, and the eraser never gets too low to use. Handy, huh? Unlike most of the artifacts he makes, Darc still has this one.
Discordia’s Decanter of Endless Caffeine – Significant Artifact
Description: Discordia’s Decanter of Endless Caffeine is an insulated, stainless steel travel mug with a black plastic handle. There was a lid once, but it broke in the dishwasher. The mug appears normal upon inspection, but has been magickally enhanced to hold up to 2 liters of liquid at once. While it can hold any liquid, the insulation properties of the mug suffer a bit- it keeps hot drinks hot and cold drinks cold, but only for about half as long as a regular insulated cup. Darc made this one for those late-night roleplaying games- the last thing a game needs is a sleepy DM. Unfortunately, he lost it in a friend’s basement and still hasn’t found it.
Discordia’s Dice Bag of Holding – Significant Artifact
Description:Discordia’s Dice Bag of Holding is a small drawstring pouch made of purple fabric. It has gold stitching, a gold drawstring, and the name of a popular brand of liquor on the side. A normal bag this size is able to hold roughly 50 dice; however, this bag has been magically enhanced to hold up to double that. Darc made this one to ensure he’d never run out of dice for his gaming sessions; however, he lost it soon afterward. For all he knows, it’s still out there; it, and the 10 sets of polyhedral dice he put in it.
Wow, what useless magick items.
That was kind of the point; they’re mildly useful, but not in any serious way. Just the kind of stuff you might enjoy having around the house.
It sounds like Discordia is either under a curse or has someone/something following him around causing his artifacts to vanish shortly after completion.
Could be. Or maybe he’s just absentminded and keeps leaving things places. Who knows?
I think absent-minded is much better. Most players would never suspect it.
Discordia made that duffel bag? I hope I’m the only one who knows, because you have to ask yourself: How powerful is this guy that he can just make magickal artifacts? I mean, yeah, they’re basically just novelty items, but do you know how hard it is to permanently enchant an object? If the rest of the dukes in this town find out, they’ll be gouging each other’s eyes out to either find his library, or pry the secret from his shattered mind (because trust me, they don’t ask nearly as nice as I do).
I tell you, the dude’s sitting on a goldmine, whether he knows it or not. Let’s just hope that he has some tricks up his sleeve when some obsessed duke finds out, or even worse, when TNI finds out. Or when one of his little items gets noticed and the Sleepers come poking around.
Darc did indeed make that duffel bag, though it’s the only thing he’ll openly admit to having made. He could have somehow made everything here or just the bag. There’s really no way of telling, short of tracking him down and forcing the answer out of him; and even then, someone strong enough to permanently enchant anything isn’t likely to respond well to that. There’s also the matter of how he got his hands on that much magickal energy to begin with… just what the hell is he, anyway?
Really, the idea here was to envision myself as an Adept and think of the kind of artifacts I’d likely create, given enough power. That said, this guy really isn’t me- he just shares my handle and taste for games. Expect a full writeup in the Dukes section when I figure out what the heck he is exactly.
Darc only thinks his d20 was taken by mistake. I’ve heard an alert player in one of his games noticed it rolled fumbles just a bit too often…
Better hope Darc never finds out about that. He’s perfectly fine with giving his things away or letting them go if they get lost, but thievery is one thing he can’t stand. Well. Being stolen from, at least.
I’d say that the bookmark is a minor artifact, and I think he’d be a Bibliomancer variant, something based on roleplaying sourcebooks, with the theme of exploiting rules from obscure ones.
Minor charge: get a sourccebook from a system you already have or the entire set from a game that only has five or less books.
Sig: Get the core rulebooks from a roleplaying game that has six or more books. Note: Unofficial books count as long as they have been published.
Major: Publish a official sourcebook that has only things you have made in it for a roleplaying game.
Or something like that.
I like that idea. Just might have to use it. Shame there isn’t a school of magic based around playing tabletop RPGs, that’d be just about perfect. I’d make one but I’m not sure I’m quite up to such a task.
Are you sure someone didn’t write up a school of magic like that over in the adepts section? (Maybe not exactly like that, and I wouldn’t know how good it would be.) It seems like a natural school for these forums.
Hey, I have all of the books for Castle Falkenstein, including the two novels (not worth the money) and the Steve Jackson Games GURPS stuff (worth the money)– what sort of charge does that get me?!?
Maybe he is a mageekian who picked up a major charge by somehow getting his hands on the unpublished adventure module Gary Gygax was working on when he died.
It’s possible that his magick school works somewhat like mechanomancy. The more of his life he is willing to pour into his fantasy worlds, the more fantasy he can bring to this one. Or maybe the people who participate in his gaming sessions leave the table with a little less… imagination than they had coming in.
Blupe: If there was one, I didn’t see it.
Ashwood: I like both those ideas. Darc does seem more like a mageekian than a regular adept, if only because there isn’t a tabletop RPG-focused school. And the bit about pouring his life into his fantasy worlds sounds pretty cool, too.
At last, my character can stumble upon – *gasp!* – a Mary Sue’s enchanted mechanical pencil. Thank God you posted this.
Well, what can I say. I aim to please.