Magic Merchants 1: House of the Transformed Toad

[arwink]

ritten By: Peter M. Ball
Page Count: 11 pages of content + OGL

House of the Transformed Toad details a complete magic store that can be dropped into your d20 Fantasy game. It details the store, its owner, and its stock, including two new items unique to the Transformed Toad – Liquid Images and Telgen’s Stonewart. Ideal for use with low-level parties or as an encounter location in a small town, the House of the Transformed Toad includes everything you tell your players exactly what’s in stock when they come shopping for magic.

The Magic Merchants series presents a variety of stores and traders that deal in a variety of arcane and divine wares, each with a variety of new items and adventure hooks that can be used to liven the process of shopping in your games. Look for more releases in the Magic Merchants series from the Clockwork Golem Workshop in February 2005.

 

[Crothian]

Magic Merchant House of the Transformed Toad

Magic shops are an odd element into the d20 game. Many of the people who have played for years area little reluctant to introduce them while the people newer to the game seem willing to embrace them with no problems. Some people fear that magic shops take the wonder out of magic. That it cheapens the reward for the players making it too easy for them to get such items. The Magical Merchant series seems like it is going to in some ways tackle these issues. It presents a single small magical shop with a gnome owner and a small inventory.

House of the Transformed Toad is a new PDF by a new company, Clockwork Golem Workshop. The author is Peter Ball. The PDF is not that big being only twelve pages in length. There is not a lot of art and the few pieces are pretty simple. The Layout is just fine with no problems for reading it. The book has no book marks though and while for a PDF this size they might not be needed it is still better to see them then not.

This Magical Merchant book is filled with nice detail. It is way more then a simple shop. The author starts with a short few paragraphs explaining how the series is a hope to run the middle ground of having shops but not allowing players to buy anything they want. The shop presented here is has a limited supply of items so it would not be difficult for the players to buy the shop out of cure light wound potions for instance. This will serve as a simple way to supplement the players but not provide an endless supply of items for their use.

The shop for the most part has items for low level parties. One will not find a robe of the arch magi here for instance. There area few new items presented here like Liquid Images. These are small vials that contain a simple illusion inside. There are six stock illusions and special orders can be made. One can find a few wands, scrolls, and other small odds and ends in the store.

The real benefit of the store though it that it can quickly become a reoccurring place with an interesting reoccurring NPC. The store has a good history and the Telgen Mythander is fully fleshed out. There are some nice details like the fact that Telgen just recently learned to craft wands so anyone he sells a wand to with be questions ed on how well it worked.

Over all this is a pretty nice example of a magic shop. It does have some security but it is not completely secure as a building. There is no layout of the store presented but enough detail to figure one out. There are a pair of adventure ideas presented as well, but adventure ideas using a magic shop should be fairly easy for people to come up with on their own.

 

[pogre]

Magic Merchants 1: House of the Transformed Toad
Written by: Peter Ball
Page Count: 11pages + OGL

Price as of July 28, 2005: $1.40

Introduction
This is not a playtest review. However, I will go into some detail in the review. Those wanting a quick overview of my judgment of the product are directed to the capsule review at the conclusion.

Impressions
The House of the Transformed Toad (“Toad”) is a magic shop intended for use in a small town or large village. Many DMs recoil in horror at the thought of a place for the selling of magic, but this place deserves a second look. First, the Toad is not a place for players to grab for your DMG and start a wish list. Instead, it has a real flavor of a curios shop and descriptions of what is in the shop and why.

One of the impressive things about this pdf is the amount of flavor packed into it ready for use in your campaign. For example, the sign outside of the Toad has an animated illusion of a duel where one of the combatants gets transformed into a toad. The sign is often surrounded by children, who cheer at the transformation of the evil wizard. This is great stuff that a DM can use to paint a scene in his world. I could easily envision myself describing that scene to my players and raising their curiosity about the place. It certainly beats, ‘down the road you see a small magic shop.’

There is a small catalogue of things the owner has on hand and even a couple of unique low-powered items he has created. There’s a list of wands, scrolls, potions, and alchemy and notes on which items the owner will seek to restock and how long it will take him. Some of the rarer items require certain ingredients and this of cours creates adventure seeds, particularly for lower-level PCs. The owner will also perform a few spellcasting services for a fee.

There are a number of one off items that the owner has acquired and these items are described in depth with their regular game statistics provided. So a Wand of Magic Missiles with 15 charges has a number of sentences describing its appearance and reasons why the owner might be reluctant to sell it to adventurers. Complete game statistics for the owner, Telgen Mythhander, are given so DMs may determine what he is capable of creating or casting. The document concludes with a page on how to include the location in your campaign and a pair of adventure seeds.

There are a few things lacking I would have like to have seen in a location such as this. The Toad reminds me very much of a series of books by Buffalo Games in their Catalyst line called City Books. These old books, the first was published in 1983 I believe, detailed places in the city with NPCs and adventure hooks. They also contained nice maps of the location. Unfortunately, this document has no map of the Toad. More information on what Telgen Mythhander, owner of the Toad, is willing and able to buy would have helped. I sensed Telgen would need to barter for most higher ticket items, but it is not specifically stated that I read. There is also only filler art and an illustration of the Telgen would be cool.

The Toad is designed for lower level PCs and would work well even in campaigns where magic levels are a little lower than the D&D standard. Before you turn your nose up at the thought of a magic shop, you should really give the House of the Transformed Toad a try.

Capsule Review
I really like House of the Transformed Toad. The location and NPCs described therein are useful nearly to any campaign. The House of the Transformed Toad is a cool curios shop of magical items that PCs are going to enjoy browsing and interacting in. Even DMs who are adverse to the idea of a magic shop in their campaign should give this document a read as it logically and flavorfully describes the shop in a very non-Monty Haul way. My only problems with the document are the lack of a map and a lack of details on what the shop will purchase from PCs. These minor reservations aside I heartily recommend this magical location.

 

[Pinotage]

Magic Merchants 1: House of the Transformed Toad is a pdf product from Clockwork Golem Workshop, the first in The Magic Merchants' series. House of the Transformed Toad features a small magical store along a major trading route that's run by an inquisitive and talkative gnome wizard. It's a 12 page pdf of which 11 pages are devoted to the description of the gnome, his store, and the stock he normally carries, including histories on many of the items. This pdf normally retails on RPGNow for $1.50. This review was done as part of Crothian's Review Project.

Initial Impressions:

One of the things I really like about Clockwork Golem Workshop's products is that they're very professionally done. While there are generally only a few pieces of art, the layout is simple, yet effective, the writing clear and concise, and the material useful and easy to read. It really is a complete package, and I'd really like to see them expand into more substantial pdfs sometime in the future. And, at the price they're normally offered at, you really can't go wrong in picking up one of their products.

This offering is the first in the Magic Merchants' series, detailing a small store run by a gnome wizard. Whether you are a fan of magic stores or not, this is a worthy piece of work with lots of nice little touches, interesting material, good background fluff and a few crunch items thrown in in the form of two new magical items. It's a very well done pdf, and a pleasure to read. The only thing really missing from the pdf is perhaps some detail on how the gnome wizard protects a store filled with so much expensive magic, and a few typos and minor stat block errors in the wizard's write-up.

The Details:

The wizard, Telgan Mythander, runs a small little magic store mainly aimed at low level parties. Wands, scrolls, potions, alchemical items and a handful of other minor magic items such as weapons or wondrous items are all for sale. Details on given on each of the items, with nice touches of flavor, such as elixirs of fire breath giving a strange aftertaste since the wizard is still perfecting the art of brewing them. Histories are included on the origins of many of the minor weapons, from the chain shirt obtained from a half-dead barbarian, to the remaining arrows of ooze slaying after an order of knight used similar items against a renegade sorcerer.

These little personal touches expand on the roleplaying opportunities, and enough information is given on the gnome himself to make for some fun encounters and a lasting NPC. Of the two new magical items, liquid images and stonewart (an alchemical substance useful against elementals), liquid images conjures up some great imagery and has some really useful applications in creating certain illusions. Certainly that's something I can see myself using in the future.

There are details on replenishing lost stock, the gnome's opinions on custom items, and a whole host of other information that will give you more than enough to make a shopping experience a fun roleplaying experience. Full details and a stat block are given on the wizard himself, although I found it rather odd that he crafts alchemical items without any ranks in Craft (Alchemy). Lots of useful advice is given on how to use the store, as well as two plot hooks that can be used if you want to make Telgan and his store a more integral part of your campaign.

Conclusions:

This is a very nice pdf featuring a magic store run by a gnome wizard. The pdf is well and professionally done, and includes all the details that one would require to run a successful encounter using the store. DMs can decide how little or how much of the information they want to use. Two new magical items are included, full description of the wizard NPC, and nice touches of flavor are added to the items bought in the store. There were one or two typos and some minor errors in the stat block (e.g. silvered daggers do an additional -1 damage), but otherwise a complete and useful product. Based on quality of the layout and writing, usefulness of content, and completeness, I'd grade this product with four stars.