So I'm trying to come up with an idea for a set of magic items for a game I want to run (based around them) and I"m looking for a bit of help/brainstorming.
I want these items to follow the kind of template "each of these items has power of its own but having all of them grants a much greater power than their sum" that you see every now and then.
Thing is I'm not wanting there to be 10 or 20 of these items. I'm wanting there to be 1000+. I want the party to get their hands on their 3-4 pieces of this gargantuan pie and get pulled into a treasure hunt they didn't know existed, where it's not terribly uncommon to have one of these items and there's kings, cults, secret societies, wizards and all sorts of other whatnots after these things.
My big thing I'm trying to think of is: What could these items be? I want them to be small enough that if one person did somehow get all 1000 they could hold them all but beyond that I'm not sure what I want to use. Shards of larger items could work. The items can all have similar powers or they can be different (but if they're different they'll have to fit maybe several templates that get stronger as you have more of that template so I don't have to make 1000 different weak magical items)
Similar to pic related you could have the items be keys to a seal or some such variation. Gives you some wiggle room as far as physical appearance goes and reinforce their "collectible" nature.
Also deciding on what you intend to happen once they've all been gathered would help define what they do apart.
Gabriel Parker
I'm wanting to keep it ambiguous to the players (as well as the other people after these items) what they will do when they're together but the common consensus in universe is that it grants godhood or something akin to it. Other interpretations could be that it brings back a god. Another might be that it just grants incredible power akin to a god. At the very least it grants strings free immortality.
Like this is something where the game would just end the moment someone has all 1000.
Jonathan Perry
In the current game I'm running, I introduced magical chess pieces.
Sentient magical items that would occasionally offer advice, and had tiny little magic abilities, like a squid-shaped pawn that could desalinate a barrel of salt water, or a Goat-shaped rook that could become fixed to any surface. They all started off with one piece, and the idea is that each player will eventually assemble a full set, and would play in high stakes game with other people who had pieces of these magic chess sets.
You could do something similar, but with a single giant Shogi set.
Depends, how variable will the items be in appearance? Warehouse 13 is a good type of 'magic item collecty show' for inspiration if you like syfy type stuff.
Julian Turner
Make them coins. You can keep coins in a coinpurse.
Or make them beads that go on a necklace
But i think 1000 is a bit too high man. I'd do something more like 50 and below. That's going to be a night mare. Either they'll take for ever to find one at a time or they'll find them in clumps which will make them a functionally smller number.
Austin Martinez
They can be variable or uniform in appearance or function, I'm pretty open to options right now.
One area I'm wanting to get a bit into is that the items, while maybe not fully evil, are definitely not good. Like this is a quest for power hungry greedy people. I was even thinking something along the lines of there being a not so hard to make knowledge check that tells you that willingly gathering these items is a guaranteed ban from the heavenly afterlives, adding a kind of higher steaks to the game than even death.
Oliver Miller
can they be created? like in warehouse 13 the titular artifacts tend to be created from famous people and events. One item in a episode was causing people to become frosty cannibals, it was a glass jar from the infamous donner party.
Jacob Miller
>The items can all have similar powers or they can be different (but if they're different they'll have to fit maybe several templates that get stronger as you have more of that template so I don't have to make 1000 different weak magical items) How well known is this "great game"? Are you inexplicably drawn into it once you start, or can unaffiliated people get a hold of the pieces without realizing it? To what extent does having multiple pieces stack? Way I see it there's two options:
You can either go the chaos emerald route where they're all essentially the same type of juiced up powerful magical items, but can sometimes be used in different ways with some creative thinking. If they're really powerful then some people might be content to have just one (Unless forced into the game), or otherwise care more about using what they have to further their own individual interests instead of running off to gather more pieces.
or
Go the Xiaolin Showdown route where the focus is set on collecting all of them much more so than on the individual items. So they can be much more variable/not as overpowered as the other option since you're looking at it more from a catch'em all stand point. Similarly to the example I used for this one you could have them be more variably with different powers that could help you in procuring the other pieces.
Jayden Scott
I have something kinda similar. Basically there are 8 elements and either by men, gods, or accident, mundane items get infused with pure magical elements making them incredibly strong and giving them super magical abilities. Once infused it's almost impossible to destroy or damage those items. One of these items was a shield that did manage to break and is now in shards, each shard on its own has it's own powers that make up what the shield could once do.
So I think you should do maybe shards of a set of armor? And if you get all the shards the armor reforges and you can wear it. Or a weapon? I think shards are the way to go. Especially if they have the property that they can sort of possess other items, and if you break that item you can retrieve the shard.
So like you have a lamp or something and the lamp has the power to shine a light that can like x-ray walls or see through illusions or whatever, but if you broke that lamp out would pop the shard and you could then hold the shard to see through illusions yourself. Then later there's maybe a coin and the coin brings luck to those that have it but then you melt it and out pops another shard that does the same thing when you hold it but to a greater extend. And if these shards can possess items they could also probably become a part of someone and then the only way to get them out would either be a shard that does just that or death.
Easton Lee
I'd like if they're static items that are related to each other. Like they were all made at once in some fashion
The "great game" isn't one that you necessarily know about or feel drawn towards. The items, whatever they are, are clearly part of a set and just -feel- incomplete. I don't want there to be a whole lot of bonuses for having just one but I can completely picture someone being satisfied with just having one forever and not trying to get more (though that person may some day get killed by someone who is). Soldier Dave may stumble across one and not even realize its important until a year later when someone jumps him and tries to kill him for it.
Justin Gomez
I would say to have them be flat metal coins with a hole in the center similar to Chinese ones. They may be made out of different metals or have magical runes or inscriptions, but they're all basically the same size and shape.
Them being coins makes them rather easy to carry individually, and still useful in large numbers, if they would need to be held, the hole in the center makes it so you can tie a string through several to make a necklace or a short rod. Somebody who got all 1000 would be able to string them together in a proper sequence to form an entire staff of coins.
Daniel Sanchez
The first thing that comes to my mind is marbles. You could have them be fairly small too if you want them to be portable.
Other than that, shards might be your best bet. Theres a ton of possibilities with what the complete object could look like. You could even have them be jigsaw puzzle peices.
Kayden Cox
if you wanna go for a evil leaning type deal, you could have a bunch of mundane objects that absorbed the magic and evil of some form of heinous battle/ regime
Jack Gomez
>What could these items be? Full set of dinnerware
William Wood
>But i think 1000 is a bit too high man. Seconded.
108 is a much better number.
Jayden Brown
(OP) You could do some sort of menagerie that represents a scene, sort of like a christian nativity set. This not only gives you the ability to make a collection that has any set number you wish to be complete plus a definitive reason for every piece needing to be added for full effect while making the bonuses highly mutable.
You can use any number of pieces any material any size any shapes
Nathaniel Watson
>I want these items to follow the kind of template "each of these items has power of its own but having all of them grants a much greater power than their sum" >What could these items be? I want them to be small enough that if one person did somehow get all 1000 they could hold them all but beyond that I'm not sure what I want to use.
>You could do some sort of menagerie that represents a scene, sort of like a christian nativity set. This idea, combined with inspiration from The Lost Room could work for you OP. Either way, if you haven't seen it I recommend checking the mini-series out. It's one of the better "items of power collection" stories I've seen.
Alternatively, you could use beads with Chinese (or whatever) words symbols carved into each one, signifying it's power. The beads could form a long necklace, with the string being the final, hidden piece.
Joshua Carter
>Or make them beads that go on a necklace Ah, someone else thought of it first.
>But i think 1000 is a bit too high man. >they'll have to fit maybe several templates that get stronger as you have more of that template so I don't have to make 1000 different weak magical items If each template has 10 items with the same power, each one increasing the power's strength, then you'd only need 100 different powers.
>Put five "Fireball" beads on a bracelet and form a Burning Ring of Fire item.
Jacob Flores
McDonalds monopoly cards
Liam Turner
Descriptive runes could be etched into the faces
And notches in the sides could be used for alignments.
When 2 or more sequential coins are stacked the power inscribed on the visible coin face increases slightly.
The notches on the edges of 10 sequential coins created new runes that have even greater power.
10 sets of ten form a wand of power.
10 wands form the staff of destiny
Nicholas Nelson
Pogs.
Jayden Jackson
I'd do parts to a magical machine and have them having been decorated or embedded into other objects over time as they were used as individual magic items instead of pieces of the whole. Exact form you'd probably want to vary based on what the purpose of the complete thing was.
Brandon Gutierrez
Objects that were once in the possession of a great deity/saint/god. A Christ or Buddha-like character who's spirit touched a variety of objects from stone to sword, and when they ascended their spirit became divine, and the objects became empowered. Each is connected to a story or event from the character's life, or a religious verse written about them. The religious text has the double meaning of being a lesson and a hint as to what the divine object is and what it does.
Cooper Cooper
Magical keys that can "lock" or "unlock" things. I would suggest being really creative with what a key can do so that some can be used offensively, defensively and be really diverse and useful.
Dylan Thomas
ah the desires that plague humanity.
Brayden Long
>A Christ or Buddha-like character who's spirit touched a variety of objects from stone to sword, and when they ascended their spirit became divine, and the objects became empowered. Each is connected to a story or event from the character's life, or a religious verse written about them. The religious text has the double meaning of being a lesson and a hint as to what the divine object is and what it does I like this train of thought. Lets you have a good reason that the objects all belong together without necessarily limiting you to a conventional "set" so you can make them whatever you want.
Ayden Bennett
first and foremost have you considered sets and sub-sets?
so you have the 12 zodiac signs there, thats a set. gather a whole set and the holder of all of the set gains a (compared to the final one) minor boon. >pic related each card of a magical deck could grant a boon. collecting the whole set might grant you a Dealers Boon of significant power.
yeah, but how large is the bag you keep the set in? >804 you mean 805 right? cause I'm willing to bet a godhood bestowing set of shogi isn't played on any old plank
>tiny parts of a set now imagine some hapless cut-purse or pick-pocket taking you hoard of crazy shit.
>1000 is too high agreed
Jeremiah White
This is a good one. Mainly because if you want that many items, your players might not see them all anyway, and at a certain point it'll be more interesting to have them all be different rather than them being identical and fitting together into a puzzle.
Having them all be distinct pieces upon the path of a great religious figure's life has a lot more potential, and will make each item feel very distinct. Plus, it can also further get your players invested in the world or setting, especially if in order to unlock the full potential of some of the items they actually have to understand the lesson.
To use a biblical example, perhaps they find David's sling, and by default that has a bonus against large or larger creatures, matching up to the sale of him slaying Goliath. However, if the players dug a bit deeper into the meaning and how it was an allegory for how the weak can stand up to the strong, they may find an even greater effect when they step in to defend a peasant from a tyrant, moreso if it's done at great risk to themselves.
