Magic Items

Traipsing through an abandoned wizard’s tower is always taking your life into your hands. Not only do you have to worry about the traps and magical protections that the wizard got right, you’re in just as much danger – or more! – from the projects that were left on the hob for whenever the wizard got back to it.

• Antillicus Bosch, Exploring Other People’s Basements (1873 A.T.)

Few words excite an adventurer’s imagination more than ‘I think we may have found a magic item’. As the name implies, magic items are items that hold some kind of magic within them; either magic that has a permanent, persistent effect, or one that discharges its magic when certain conditions are met. Rare to begin with, magic items can command a truly impressive price at market, requiring considerable skill and expertise to craft, and usually found only in the most perilous and well-defended of ruins.

In past, the Guild Arcane has kept a wary eye on those seeking to buy and sell magic items. In addition to potentially having potent effects that might upend a local status quo, there is a considerable market for fakes – something no mage wishes to become the norm – and the low but constant risk that an item may prove to be cursed, with undesirable effects that could harm or even kill an unwary user. The fact that this control also afforded the Guild financial and temporal power likely did nothing to dissuade them of their vigil.

Potions and Scrolls

“One use” magical items, potions and scrolls are two different forms of magical items that can be used to store the effect of a spell. Scrolls can only be used by those who know how to read the magical script in which they are written, but can be used to cast that spell as if the reader was the original caster. Potions can be consumed by anyone, but will generally only affect the person who consumes them – with oils being used for spells that affect items, requiring some care to apply.

Learning the exact formulation required to create an elixir that can hold the magic to be a potion is a time-and-resource-consuming and arduous affair, and many alchemists and herbalists guard such knowledge jealously. Scrolls can be created by any arcane spellcaster that knows the proper invocation to inscribe the power of the scroll upon the parchment, and has the appropriately arcane inks with which to do so. In both cases, once the magic is used up, there is nothing more to be had of it – a scroll that has been read has had the magic burned away (and a potion that has been consumed would be difficult and unpalatable to reconstitute, even if the magic remained).

Spell-Casting and Permanent Items

Items may also be imbued with magic; stories tell of wizards imbuing their wands and staves with magic, but in truth, any item may be pressed into service in a pinch. Some items can cast such a spell once, and then have no more magic to them; others may be made to regain their energy upon the next day, and either may hold up to three charges of the same spell. Importantly however, only one such effect may be impressed upon a single object; a wand could be made to cast forth a bolt of fire, or to envelop its target with healing energy, but not both. Activating a spell-casting item typically requires a short invocation, but more complex items may hold a magical effect in reserve until specific conditions are met.

Spells may also be wrought to have persistent effects as well. Although the magical process differs, these are the items more commonly appearing in tales and deeds of heroism; the warrior’s flaming sword, the scoundrel’s hat of invisible armour, and the belt of giant strength are all examples of such permanent items. As magic has shifted and changed however, permanence is not what it once was; even items that are thought to be ‘permanent’ must be recharged, or their magical energies will vanish, often within a year of their creation.

Cursed Items

True cursed items are rare, but serve to provide a constant warning to the unwary: do not don or wield strange magics lightly! Cursed items may arise when a regular magic item is built incorrectly; they may develop cursed properties through infusion in a highly magical environment; it is even possible that a deity or powerful creature will levy such a curse directly. Whatever the source, a cursed item will appear as cursed to spells that are designed to detect such effects, and may render an effect difficult or even impossible to reverse when used.

This is not to say that all negative effects stemming from an item are necessarily curses. A crown deliberately made to age the wearer unnaturally quickly is no more a curse than the spell that causes that same effect. Why someone would intentionally create such an item is a question for the ages and the gods, but simple spells to detect curses would not necessarily flag such an item as cursed.

Relics and Artifacts

Some items break the rules of other magic items as they are conventionally understood. Relics are magical items that have been infused with the power of a god, such that only their followers may wield that power; these items do not seem to expire, even if a similarly empowered item would have done so. Moreover, some relics, formed through the direct intervention of a deity, may possess abilities that do not directly map to the effects of a known spell.

Artifacts are similar and different at once; these ancient pieces of magic, often dating back to the Golden Age of Magic before the Tear, hold power that behaves differently from modern workings. The secrets to creating these artifacts have been lost to time, perhaps relying on both understanding and resources no longer available to modern crafters. Such items appear rarely, but when they appear, are often the nucleus of strange events and squabbles over the power that they, tantalizing, promise.

Authored by: Andrew Dunlop
Fantasy Alive Lore Team 2026
Copyright © Endless Adventures Ontario