Yaarel
🇮🇱 🇺🇦 He-Mage
The problem with using Greek terms is they inevitable cause people to assume a Greek (polytheistic) worldview.I think of them as Daemonic perhaps as in having life of their own and being part of the worlds cycles like living being are as well. Keying them as symbols abstracts a bit far for me.
In an animistic worldview, objects are the actual objects themselves, whether trees or stones or thunderstorms.
The minds of these nonhuman objects may or may not take on the form of a human, just like a human mage may or may not take on the form of a wolf.
These nonhuman objects are at the same time minds.
The best way to create a ‘magic item’ in D&D is the same way that any spiritual tradition does: a dreamlike conflation of related symbols.
For example, the ring that drips gold rings.
This magic item conflates the following symbols:
• endless seasonal cycles
• solar corona around the sun
• Óðinn as an aspect of the sky whose calendar ‘regulates’ (advises or rules) other objects of the sky
• Óðinn understood as a Jarl ‘chieftain’, who the other skyey objects elected
• The chieftain as a giver of a gold ring to reward a loyal supporter
So in the creation of any D&D magic item. Brainstorm a free association of concepts. Look at the results. Tie together the ones that are interesting. This diagram defines both the form of the magic item and the kinds of magical powers that it will have. The diagram will also show who created the magic item.