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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 5359198" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Magazine Issue 207: July 1994part 2/6Bazaar of the Bizarre: A collection of items from celtic legend here, putting the lie to the statement that they were uncommon back then. It's just that they were more likely to be living creatures, large objects or locations, and most heroes only had one or two. Which is the way to keep them special, really. The Hound of Loruaidhe is a perfect tracker. Well, not truly perfect. A good spellcaster could beat it no trouble. But it seemed impressive to them at the time. The Pigskin of Tuis can heal you and turn water into wine. Wait, wasn't that jesuses schtick? And isn't human meat very similar to pig. Hmm. I am very suspicious. The Chariot of Dobhar can be ridden over water. But you can't stop without sinking, which may be hard on the horses if you try long trips. Once again they prove that magic may be spectacular, but you need the mundane technology like ships as well. The Pigs of Easal, like Thor's goats, restore themselves if you put their bones out properly. If you don't, they stay dead, and the host gets very cross indeed. Don't kill the golden goose, or something. Apples of the Hesperides are seriously nerfed here. No immortality, just extra effective sustenance. Bah. This is a greek legend rather than a Celtic one as well. The Spear of Pisear protects you from fire, and sets alight anyone you hit. That'll create lots of panic if you wade into a crowd of enemies, breaking up their ranks quite efficiently. The Spear of Lugh drains the blood of those it hits and uses it to heal the wielder. Is it just me, or is that a bit vampiric? I guess it's alright if done in a heroic cause <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" /> The Cauldron of Dagda gives vast quantities of food to the worthy, and leaves cowards to starve. It can be a harsh life up north. The Sword of Nuada has also been nerfed in D&D compared to the legends. It's still pretty powerful though. And losing limbs can be considered worse than death, amirite? Stones of Destiny predict the future. As legends show, this generally isn't too helpful actually. You've got to actually make the mistakes to learn from them it seems. The Horn of Dispelling Illusions does exactly what it says on the tin when you blow it. No wizard's gonna frighten off my army! Course, in D&D they'll just fireball it instead, and what will disbelieving that get you?  The Cup of Truth is another means of accomplishing an end mentioned in the last bazaar. Course, it's lie detecting power is blatant and applies to everyone around it, so it's harder to abuse by authority. The Well of magical Lands transports you all over the shop if you stop and drink from it. If you make it back, you'll have some pretty wild adventures to tell. Cloaks of invisibility have a pretty similar effect to rings, but only your weapon becomes visible if you attack people. This means it'll look like a disembodied sword is attacking, which may be amusingly misleading. The Salmon of wisdom boosts your wisdom if you catch and eat it. Good luck with that, since I'm sure they're both rare and slippery. Of all the animals to invest wisdom in. Which god was responsible for that little cosmic joke? Another workmanlike collection really. Paper prosperity: Like artwork and magic items, pieces of paper can have value far above and beyond the physical item. Paper money is of course only valuable because people honour it (well, the same is true of all money, but gold, silver, etc are rare, and have quite substantial uses in electronics and precision crafting. ) Maps are valuable because of what they let you do, and the difficulty in creating a precise one. Legal documents can let you know exactly what you can get away with doing, and may well result in you going places or owning things you otherwise wouldn't be able too. This is a fairly low key article, but one of those ones that looks good for breaking a creative impasse, and inspiring adventures a little different from the usual. You can make the treasures from one adventure a direct hook into the next one, which saves a good deal of time and reduces hanging around drinking in taverns waiting for shady quest-setters. I think we can all agree that that's a good thing, at least until overused, and you spend years running from one hassle to another without ever getting to take a break. This is one they haven't done before, and hopefully It'll help you get out of a rut too. Trifling Treasures: The alliteration continues, with another short but amusing article.  Putting a bunch of random bits and pieces in the pockets of your NPC's is the kind of thing that adds a lot to your verisimilitude, but takes a lot of work, and if you only do it with some people, you run the risk of the players jumping on the details just because they're there and making enormous red herrings out of them. What shall we do about this? Random tables time! Now that's old skool. Actually, I seem to recall them doing something like this before, quite possibly by Ed. Ah yes, issue 104 and issue 164. This isn't too uncommon an idea then. Course in this, like wand of wonder tables, you can never have too many to choose from to keep your players on their toes. Mix and match spare bits and pieces for maximum randomness in your life, like a real messy apartment. Good luck finding something that'll be just perfect for saving the day some time in the future.</blockquote>

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