The Lost Artifacts of Greyghast is a massive 350+ page book featuring hundreds of richly detailed magic items and articfacts that can be used in virtually any 5th Edition Dungeons & Dragons campaign.
Three major things set the items in our book apart from other compendiums, either in the great wide world of homebrew content or real products out there today:
First... our philosophy about what makes a magic item great.
We believe, and always have for all of our games, that the great takeaways from the experience aren't just whether a number showed up on a dice or how optimal one's build for their character was, it's the stories you tell after the game is over--the War Stories. And if you've been around RPGs long enough, you know what I'm talking about. The best parts of any game are the things you talk about years later, still.
And, from that, it's rare to fall in love with a +1 sword. You don't very often hear stories about the incredible wand that could cast some spells from the Wizard Spell List a few times a day. They're useful items and you want them in your game, but they're not the sorts of things you'll end up wrapping your character around and hear players tell stories about long after the game ends.
That's our goal. An item should be unique, memorable, and something that gets talked about and mused over from the moment it shows up to well after it leaves your game world or campaign.
Second... the extra content that comes with each one.
We designed each item in our compendium to have its own backstory and history. These items are called Lost Artifacts of Greyghast because we think of them as the remnants of ancient cultures in your world, weapons of destiny created by long gone heroes, forbidden wonders lost to time. There may only ever be one in your whole world and whether more or less "powerful", it has an Origin and a purpose it was created for.
Naturally, you don't have to use our Origin or history and can insert your own; but what sets us apart from other collections of magic items is that we give you--the DM--loads of rich, available, and well-written resources to use to build a better game. It's not just an index of items, it's half-a-campaign setting just waiting on your own world to give it context.
That brings hundreds of ideas to your fingertips for new Factions, new Adventures, new Dungeons, new worldbuilding elements. The items in this book kick off with flavorful stories of someone that once owned it and something they once did. The history of the item helps you fit it into your world in a meaningful way, giving players not just "a sword" but a sword from a particular time, made by a particular cult, in service to a particular master... and that sword drifted through the world, lost and found again by new champions. And now, it is theirs.
Virtually every item in the compendium requires a unique attunement, special to it and it alone. These attunements will provide you with whole quest arcs for your campaign in order to complete (like "travel between two cities" or "speak the name of a long dead Archrduid" to attune) and things for your players to do, learn, risk, or develop. We're so convinced you'll love the ideas you get from the attunements that we believe it'll make you want to invent your own for every item you'll ever create yourself.
And third... we believe mechanics should give players new options and keep the game playable.
A great item gives your player new things to do with their character and not just add basic +1 bonuses, grant spells already in the game, or change damage types for the sake of it. Offering a shortsword with +0, +1, +2, and +3 variations is not offering four separate items. Having magic arrows that each do a different type of damage (fire, cold, etc.) is not having a dozen arrows to choose from.
A wand or staff that casts a theme set of spells (fire spells from the book, mind-altering spells from the book, etc.) is boring. Done. And many collections are filled with these sorts of things. We aren't.
Our items push the rules a little, give players new features to interact with or tactics to try in combat--and none of it is game-breaking or campaign wrecking. Some of our items have more dramatic and exciting effects, do great damage and/or allow a character vastly exceed what they can normally do... but all have been play-tested, balanced, and added to this compendium as "Safe for Play" items that may not be as amazingly powerful as a +3 Vorpal Sword of Wounding and Returning, but it'll be a magic item your player will wrap their character around and have a hard time letting go of.
Lost Artifacts of Greyghast – A 5e Magic Item Compendium by Many-Sided Dice is running on Kickstarter until Wednesday 21st June.
Three major things set the items in our book apart from other compendiums, either in the great wide world of homebrew content or real products out there today:
First... our philosophy about what makes a magic item great.
We believe, and always have for all of our games, that the great takeaways from the experience aren't just whether a number showed up on a dice or how optimal one's build for their character was, it's the stories you tell after the game is over--the War Stories. And if you've been around RPGs long enough, you know what I'm talking about. The best parts of any game are the things you talk about years later, still.
And, from that, it's rare to fall in love with a +1 sword. You don't very often hear stories about the incredible wand that could cast some spells from the Wizard Spell List a few times a day. They're useful items and you want them in your game, but they're not the sorts of things you'll end up wrapping your character around and hear players tell stories about long after the game ends.
That's our goal. An item should be unique, memorable, and something that gets talked about and mused over from the moment it shows up to well after it leaves your game world or campaign.
Second... the extra content that comes with each one.
We designed each item in our compendium to have its own backstory and history. These items are called Lost Artifacts of Greyghast because we think of them as the remnants of ancient cultures in your world, weapons of destiny created by long gone heroes, forbidden wonders lost to time. There may only ever be one in your whole world and whether more or less "powerful", it has an Origin and a purpose it was created for.
Naturally, you don't have to use our Origin or history and can insert your own; but what sets us apart from other collections of magic items is that we give you--the DM--loads of rich, available, and well-written resources to use to build a better game. It's not just an index of items, it's half-a-campaign setting just waiting on your own world to give it context.
That brings hundreds of ideas to your fingertips for new Factions, new Adventures, new Dungeons, new worldbuilding elements. The items in this book kick off with flavorful stories of someone that once owned it and something they once did. The history of the item helps you fit it into your world in a meaningful way, giving players not just "a sword" but a sword from a particular time, made by a particular cult, in service to a particular master... and that sword drifted through the world, lost and found again by new champions. And now, it is theirs.
Virtually every item in the compendium requires a unique attunement, special to it and it alone. These attunements will provide you with whole quest arcs for your campaign in order to complete (like "travel between two cities" or "speak the name of a long dead Archrduid" to attune) and things for your players to do, learn, risk, or develop. We're so convinced you'll love the ideas you get from the attunements that we believe it'll make you want to invent your own for every item you'll ever create yourself.
And third... we believe mechanics should give players new options and keep the game playable.
A great item gives your player new things to do with their character and not just add basic +1 bonuses, grant spells already in the game, or change damage types for the sake of it. Offering a shortsword with +0, +1, +2, and +3 variations is not offering four separate items. Having magic arrows that each do a different type of damage (fire, cold, etc.) is not having a dozen arrows to choose from.
A wand or staff that casts a theme set of spells (fire spells from the book, mind-altering spells from the book, etc.) is boring. Done. And many collections are filled with these sorts of things. We aren't.
Our items push the rules a little, give players new features to interact with or tactics to try in combat--and none of it is game-breaking or campaign wrecking. Some of our items have more dramatic and exciting effects, do great damage and/or allow a character vastly exceed what they can normally do... but all have been play-tested, balanced, and added to this compendium as "Safe for Play" items that may not be as amazingly powerful as a +3 Vorpal Sword of Wounding and Returning, but it'll be a magic item your player will wrap their character around and have a hard time letting go of.
Lost Artifacts of Greyghast – A 5e Magic Item Compendium by Many-Sided Dice is running on Kickstarter until Wednesday 21st June.
