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Old 06-29-2012, 02:11 PM   #1161
Abe Sargent
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Join Date: Dec 2001
Location: Catonsville, MD
For fun, let’s walk you through a Magic Item that Alzar wants to make and has never managed to find. We'll use Volo's Guide to help. With his constant exposure to undead, and especially really powerful ones he can’t always control, Alzar wants to make a common item known as a Scarab of Protection. This is a Scarab that gives +1 to saves and has 12 charges and each time Alzar would lose a level to energy drain, instead a charge goes away. When the last charge is gone, the item crumbles, and it cannot be recharged. This is an item that won’t need 8th level spell Permanency to cast, but even if it did, Alzar could acquire a scroll of one easily. It normally has a loss of 1 Constitution point when used, but he has a 7th level spell called Blood Link that allows him to drain it from another living creature he has secured.


To begin the process, we need to find out what spells will be used in the item.

For the Energy Drain Protection, Negative Plane Protection seems like a good match. This spell specifically is designed to protect from energy drain attacks. It’s a common Priest spell at level 3. There is a level 7 version that is a wizard translation of it. It’s not that uncommon, and Alzar purchases a scroll of it for 2500 gold after scouring for a few weeks to find one.


For the +1 save, but not a bonus to AC, the best spell is the cleric spell Bless, but it does other things too so it won’t work. Alzar decides to get Lesser Malison, a spell that normally gives a target a -1 to their saves, but is reversible. The reverse of it will be his spell. He knows Greater Malison, and Lesser Malison is easy to acquire for 1000 gp and added to another spellbook and not his own. He puts it in Markessa’s High Level Spellbook. He doesn’t want it clunking up his normal books, but he did put NPP in his books.

Now that he has the two spells that will make the Scarab, he needs to store the spells. To do this, he will need to make a Focal Stone for each spell. He begins by selecting two gems from his collection.

He begins by casting Obar’s Lesser Purification on each of them. This will remove any magical taint from the item. Then he casts Dweomerflow. That enables spells he casts to move to an item, rather than just triggering. Finally, he casts Focal Stone on each gem. This will create and hold the spell. For the Purification he used a few drops of Sweet Water Potion, salt and limestone for the spell. The flow requires no additional components, and the Focal Stone just needs some opal dust, easily made ahead of time.

Now Alzar casts a reversed Lesser Malison into one stone and a Negative Plane Protection into the other stone. With the spells stored, he moves to the next subject.

Alzar researches how to make a Scarab. He purchases 2500 gold worth of texts that discuss it and a few other similar items. After a month of research, he has figured out how to make it. Making magical items are not like baking, where you just follow a recipe. Making it requires your own flavor of recipe, to suit your own tastes, and there are many ways to make the same item. Here is how Alzar will make this Scarab:

A flawless section of Epidote is to be used to make the body of the scarab
Copper Detailing, making the legs, antennae, and other detailing
Two small eyes of ruby
Washed in mixture of Mistletoe and Holly, and cleaned with leather made from the chitin of a giant beetle.

Alzar takes two weeks to hunt down the various ingredients, find a way to make chitin into leather, and gets the things carved by experts.

Now that the object is complete, Alzar prepares it. He begins with Lesser Purification on it. This removes any magical taint in the object. If he doesn’t do this, the result could be random. Imagine a stone sitting down stream of a magical statue for a few years. As the water erodes the statue, little bit of magic make their way downstream, and that affects the stone. There is no way of knowing what sort of eldritch taint these items might have, so a Purification is necessary.

Then Alzar casts Merald’s Meld on it several times. He casts it on each ruby, permanently attaching it to the Epidote body. Then he casts it on the copper detailing. The result is to merge these items, but he has used too many Melds, so he casts Crown Meld to make them all work together. This is now, magically, one item. Now he casts Veladar’s Vambrace on the object, and everything becomes of highest quality. The result of these Purification, Vambrace and Melds is to not only make the item one, but also to strengthen it. A magical item is much more durable than a normal one, and this process is how that happens.

Next, Alzar begins to enstar the item. He secures himself far away from the rest of his complex and minions in his Summoning Room. On a blank rock table, he scribes a circular diagram that is made just for this item. He connects the two Focal Stones with the diagram on opposite edges with the Scarab in the middle. Alzar casts the spell Eternal Flame. This is a spell that prepares an item for enchanting, much like the more generic Enchant an Item spell.

The Wondrous Web spell is cast, and this unites all of the items that will make the Scarab of Protection. He has any command words in scrolls on the table, but this item has none. The magic from the Focal Stones begins to move into the item, and after a while, they disappear from existence, and the item is fully prepared. Then Alzar finishes with Awakening, which makes the item work. At this point, a roll is made to see if the item is successfully made. With high quality ingredients, all precautionary spells cast, and so forth, there is only a small chance of failure, and no chance of a disaster. Alzar makes the roll easily.

Now he would cast Permanency, if it were needed. It’s not, so the item is now enchanted. Alzar spent 2500 for the items, 2500 for the books, and 4500 for the spells to make this object. Spell Components for a few powerful spells, such as the Web spell, ran about 2650 gold. He gains 2500 XP from the experience, and now has a Scarab of Protection at 12 charges.

It took about ten weeks to make from beginning to end. Some items can take a lot longer if a mage has to make their spell, or researching something rare or unique. But he was researching a common item, with many known routes to make it, and finding common spells, sable to immediately absorb texts after Bookcopying them, and so forth.
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Last edited by Abe Sargent : 06-29-2012 at 02:18 PM.
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