I've been toying with the idea of magic items that are inhabited by a spirit who gates the item's capabilities a la pic...

I've been toying with the idea of magic items that are inhabited by a spirit who gates the item's capabilities a la pic related, to keep them few and important. Are there any obvious drawbacks to this I'm missing? Do you have any ideas for stuff beyond magic weapons that get stronger?

Other urls found in this thread:

tribality.com/2015/06/09/5-uses-for-intelligent-weapons/
twitter.com/SFWRedditVideos

The spirit itself could get exorcised.

What exactly does this entail? Can the owner gain favour with the spirit to increase the weapon's capabilities?

What if the spirit grants the weapon's powers? Then if it's exorcised you're left with a mundane sword.

Well that's a drawback that I guessed that OP would like to know or include as a feature.

Having to deal with magic swords that have their own opinions sounds tedious at best and shitty at worst. I'd probably just play a wizard instead

>obvious drawbacks
Spirit could be destroyed.
Spirit could not like you, causing powers to either fail or mess up because it's fucking with you.
Spirit might have standards for you to even wield the weapon. This could range from a deal between the two of you to your "worthiness".
Spirit might have a bane that you have to avoid like the plague or that its powers are useless against.
Spirit might be bound against its will, meaning that it's trying to get out and when it does, you're on its shitlist.

>Do you have any ideas for stuff beyond magic weapons that get stronger?
The spirit could also act as a familiar of a kind. It also doesn't have to be limited to weapons. You could have any kind of item that starts with one magical power, but evolves and branches out to be stronger and more versatile.

This sounds a lot like intelligent weapons from 1e & 2e.
This might give you some ideas, but googling "intelligent weapons D&D" might be a better place to start.
tribality.com/2015/06/09/5-uses-for-intelligent-weapons/

Spirit can't be made artificially, so either the maker or another willing (emphasis) individual need to sacrifice themselves for every such "imbued" item.

And for a person to willingly make such sacrifice their circumstances have to be very peculiar.
Hero mortally wounded on battlefield, seeking glory beyond mortal shell.
Last member of dying lineage, hoping to maintain the legacy.
Half-mad craftsman striving for magnum opus, no matter the cost.
Deranged murderer hellbent on spilling blood forever.

When used regularly, spirit in the weapon will influence the wearer - at first giving them just little quirks or flashes of memory that isn't their own, but eventually completely overwriting the personality.

I don't think a spirit exorcism should be something easily doable in the middle of battle, so as long as nobody steals the sword it should not be a big problem.

I've given my players items like these before. Not as OP as the ones in Magi, but still magic items with a "person" in them that regulated how well the item worked and what it could do. Three PCs, so three items.

The first was a sword that couldn't cut anything but was the perfect "shield" instead (because it sounded funny at the time). The sword gave the PC a couple extra moves, like choosing between reflecting and negating an attack, and the sword could block stuff like magic missile, too. If the PC tried to seriously hurt anyone, though, the sword would turn useless and become ridiculously heavy.

Second item was a little cauldron that would conjure items out of nowhere. The items would always be stuf the person insde the cauldron (who never revealed themselves) thought would be useful, and I mostly used it for gags, like finding a set of nooses and shit like that. It favored "Abnegation" (the word was written on the side of the cauldron in ancient script) and would help the PC more if they did stuff like rejecting rewards and only reach into the cauldron to help someone else.

The last item was a timepiece on a chain that would let the third player reroll a die per long rest, either OOC or IC, on an actual die. The thing was essentially an in-universe excuse to le me fudge rolls sometimes. It would intervene to help the PC once it liked them enough, and it favored high stakes and going all in.

The game was pretty dangerous, or at least I tried to make it look that way. The items were incentives made to try and keep the players from having the cynicism of the setting get to them, since I've had some terrible experiences with murderhobos AND with people who won't do anything without planning it for hours OOC.

Look at John Wick's Wield rpg. Premise in a nutshell.

A friend had this idea a while back, with, not just possessed items as the primary/only magic items, but also with them as being intelligent a la Shu-Shu in Wakfu. I'll text him and see what he remembers, and be back in a bit.

Depends on how powerful the spirits are. The example you gave have enough power to become the undisputed ruler of a nation, being even stronger than nukes at it's highest levels of atunement, like the image.

sounds familiar

Yes, I imagine that's the point to some extent. Even the fighter can have a nuke at the higher levels.

weapon does not have spirit inside, it's actually just the last wielder's will imprinted onto the weapon, due to the extremely magical nature of the materials used in creating the weapon, and allows for quicker learning of how the weapon worked, on top of its name (each of them were named after a demon in the Ars Goetia)

each wielder with a strong enough will imprints a part of that into the weapon, causing it to become gradually stronger with time (my players also believed that it would then possess them)

To quote, "Items possessed by ghosts have special powers, require test of will or befriending to use," and then he mentions that the main character of his idea had, "conceptual punching gloves."

I thought there was more information to it than that, but I guess I was wrong. Sorry.

Don't worry about it, user. Cheers.

>Do you have any ideas for stuff beyond magic weapons that get stronger?
>The spirit could also act as a familiar of a kind. It also doesn't have to be limited to weapons. You could have any kind of item that starts with one magical power, but evolves and branches out to be stronger and more versatile.

This reminds me heavily of Brandon Sanderson's Stormlight Archive novels.

The sprites or whatever they're called occasionally form bonds with people and can take the form of weapons/armor, in addition to granting abilities based on the type of sprite, ranging from creating "connections" between objects to illusions to combat buffs. [/Spoiler]

>Are there any obvious drawbacks to this I'm missing?
Borrow from the concept of household vessels in Magi. Certain spells or abilities wear away at the users humanity or health.

Some Teigu from Akame Ga Kill are technically, "possessed," but, they have the downside of only allowing you to use one at a time; the only person to successfully use two at once without straight-up dying suffered severe enough internal damage that one of his internal organs was damaged beyond repair, and he had to start going and seeing a doctor once a year.

Like the demon extract, which makes you go crazy by putting voices in your head telling you to do all the crazy, psychopathic bullshit that your subconscious comes up with, but gives you the ability to create and control ice, up to and including, "freezing," time at higher levels of control.

...