Residuum: A Re-Fluffing

[Jer]

Well, the reason I wanted to reflavor this was because I hate the concept of magic items having some kind of "magic energy" (or essence, or residuum, or whatever you want to call it) that you can just suck out of it. I can tolerate the idea that possessing magic items makes a spirit stronger in some way, but "magic energy" gets on my nerves.

Except in certain special cases, I think that if you break a magic sword, all you should get is a broken magic sword.

Hey it's your fluff. I think as long as the "sacrifice magic item X and gain the ability to create magic item Y through the application of ritual Z" mechanic isn't violated, everything else is in you and your players' court. Unless you want to make the application of this ritual particularly hard, you might not want to make them have to travel back to their ancestor's burial site to do it (though, of course, you might want to make "extracting magic from magic items" difficult - in which case go for it).

Another idea for those who don't like treating magic as if it were "vis" (or "mana" if you prefer) - the spirits/gods/rulers of the age just "take" your sacrifice right there when you perform whatever you've substituted for the "Disenchant" ritual. The item disappears from the earthly plane altogether - perhaps you have to throw it into a large body of water for the Lady of the Lake to take it as a favor, or you need to bury it in peat for the Forest Lord, or you need to stick it in a closet for the Lord of Nightmares to find - whatever. If anyone tries to dive into the lake after it, or dig up the peat, or open the closet door after the ritual is complete they find that the item is gone. And then when you call upon the "spirit"'s favor later you just happen to get a boon of magical favor equal to the worth of the item you gave the spirit in question.

(I kind of like this - but I also like the idea of wizards having the ability to disassemble the "magical matrix" of an item and then reassemble it into a new form. Perhaps I'll put both possibilities into my next campaign and let players choose whatever flavor they like for the ritual...)

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

(I kind of like this - but I also like the idea of wizards having the ability to disassemble the "magical matrix" of an item and then reassemble it into a new form. Perhaps I'll put both possibilities into my next campaign and let players choose whatever flavor they like for the ritual...)

I also like the idea of having different ways it can be done. That's the great thing about flavors; you can have 31 of them all in the same ice cream stand you call your campaign setting. As long as the mechanics behind the curtain remain the same it won't fundamentally change the game.

 

[F5]

All we've really seen is that there is a "disenchant" ritual, that gives you something called "residuum"...and I suspect that's about as detailed as they're going to get with it, fluff-wise. There's no reason you couldn't take the "residuum", and call it "spirit blessings", or whatever was more appropriate/palatable for your campaign setting.

From what I've seen, most of the "Points of Light" fluff inherent to the rules is layered on pretty thin, and is easy to tweak or replace.

I like this enchant/disenchant mechanic.

 

[Rechan]

Well, the reason I wanted to reflavor this was because I hate the concept of magic items having some kind of "magic energy" (or essence, or residuum, or whatever you want to call it) that you can just suck out of them. I can tolerate the idea that possessing magic items makes a spirit stronger in some way, but "magic energy" gets on my nerves.

Except in certain special cases, I think that if you break a magic sword, all you should get is a broken magic sword. You can't suck the enchantment out of it any more than you could suck the blacksmithing out of it; it's integral to what it is.

I'll put it to you this way.

In 3e, any masterwork item could be enchanted.

I.e. The item wasn't magic upon birth, it just had an enchantment squirted into it.

How's that different than taking the enchantment back out?

 

[Boarstorm]

Well since you asked (not really), I'll give you my take on things.

The enchantment on any particular piece of equipment is easily quantifiable. A "+1" sword is obviously possessed of less magical oomph than a "+4" sword. This can be determined through trial, identify spells, etc.

Stripping that magic energy (a-la FR's spellfire system) isn't a new concept. Using it for your own ends is... well, new in this form (at least insofar as D&D is concerned), if not actually unheard of in fantasy in general.

Now, the real question here, is what form does residuum take? Are we talking a powder or a gem or something else physical that can be toted around? Or are we talking about a strengthening of your aura until you "divest" the energy you leeched into a new (or existing) magic item?

The first I find somewhat ... wonky; though I can definately see where an epic level campaign could use such items as almost another form of currency. The second... well, that just seems cool to me.

I dunno, I might even allow a degredation of the item powers and allow the disenchanter to use the power as something of a spell-like ability a number of times until the power fades away or is imbued into a new item.

Also, my thoughts are kinda scattered right now. Sorry if this doesn't make any sense.

 

[Dausuul]

I'll put it to you this way.

In 3e, any masterwork item could be enchanted.

I.e. The item wasn't magic upon birth, it just had an enchantment squirted into it.

How's that different than taking the enchantment back out?

A lump of iron can be forged into a sword. How do you take the forging back out?

The question is whether enchantment is something that you add to an item (a magic sword is a sword with magic on it, the sword itself remaining fundamentally unchanged), or a process you perform on an item (a magic sword is a sword that has been altered in such a way as to give it magical properties). Residuum implies the former; I prefer the latter.

Or, to put it another way: A lump of iron can be forged into a sword. Is magic the iron? Or is it the forging?

 

[Rechan]

In 3e, the argument for using XP when creating magical items is that the spellcaster was putting a part of THEMSELVES into the magical item. As in, they were putting part of the essence of their being, their strength, their magic, into the item itself. Now let's say that a second spellcaster could break the item, stealing the essence of it for themselves?

To use a contemporary example, in the second issue of the Sandman, Morpheus the King of Dreams was freed from his prison, but he was very very weak. He had to reclaim the Tools of his station (a mask, a gem, and his bag of sand) because he had invested a lot of his personal power into those items, and having them once more would allow him to regain his strength.

Let us hypothesize that if Morpheus himself had those items of power, and he destroyed the physical vessels that held his power, then he could reclaim the power that he had stored in them in the first place.

So any spellcaster could unmake an item, and steal or reclaim the power inside of it as their own. Now, in many cases, this is for the purposes of building a better vessel for the power. It's not just a matter of a magical shell game, but that the user has managed to create a better vessel, a more potent home for that power. It's like going from a one room apartment to a two bedroom house with a white picket fence.

 

[Boarstorm]

A lump of iron can be forged into a sword. How do you take the forging back out?

... you melt it back down?

 

[MindWanderer]

... you melt it back down?

Which takes all the craftsmanship out of it and reduces it to raw components. It isn't worth 1/5 of a masterwork weapon; it's worth a few cp.

 

[Dausuul]

... you melt it back down?

Then all you've got is a lump of iron. If your goal was to take a lump of mithral and turn it into a sword, this does not help you. You do not have an "essence of forging" that you can apply to the mithral.