Attraction/repulsion: magic items as NPCs

Following yesterday's post, I was thinking a bit more about the reappearance of the Drinker in our Whitehack campaign. This is a lethal magic sword - d20 damage - but it will attack its wielder's friends or even its wielder if it does not draw the blood of a living foe after being drawn from its scabbard.

When the PCs rediscovered it on the corpse of a knight that was slowly being turned to wood by a sinister giant tree, their reaction was characterised by terror and greed. The PC who had last owned it wanted it back, but when it was clear that finders keepers applied, he was desperate to keep his distance. And when the party was attacked by rootlings a few minutes later, the new owner was sharp enough to realise that the Drinker posed a greater threat to her than to creatures whose veins ran with sap rather than blood. So the sword stayed sheathed in favour of a much less effective weapon.

Like Ollam's Ring, the Drinker is exactly the kind of magical item I want in my campaigns: something that fades in and out of the story like a well-drawn NPC. The competing urges of attraction and repulsion that my players experienced when re-encountering the Drinker are precisely what I want them to feel in the presence of magical power.

Ollam's Ring: more thoughts on magic items

In the two weekend games I ran, there were three 'magic items' for the players to find: an ancient energy weapon, the Drinker and Ollam's Ring. One of the groups of PCs had twice encountered the Drinker before, which led to some amusing squabbles over ownership rights.

Ollam's Ring is a twist on a spell I often allow Wise PCs to use in Whitehack. The spell has a simple formula: the Wise character can turn invisible but suffers 1HP in damage each round (until they pass out, at which point they are no longer invisible, or they stop the spell). I really like this because it offers a good balance of risk and reward.

One of the games I ran last year featured a magic ring with the same power: 1 HP per round for invisibility. Those rounds tick away quickly, so the ring-wearer takes a big risk in using it.

Ollam's Ring is largely the same, but for one important difference: it glows. When not being worn, the ring glows with sufficient light to serve as a lantern - and to shine through clothing. It also shone through the belly of the fishman in which the PCs discovered it.

I was pleased with this. Why? Well, the ring has a prime function: stealth. And it's really, really useful for that when worn - albeit at a high cost in hit points. But when not in use, it achieves the opposite of its prime function, by making the bearer highly conspicuous. It's hard to escape pursuit in a cavern or in a forest at night when you've got an unearthly glow hanging round your neck.

That heightens the risk/reward aspect of the item. It's risk to carry as it's clearly valuable and hard to conceal.  Also - and this is something I really like - it creates the potential for a situation in which a player might want to get rid of it. If you're low on HP and heavily outnumbered, you might well decide that your best bet is to throw Ollam's Ring deep into the forest to draw your pursuers off.

And that's exactly how I want my magical items: ambiguous, treacherous yet alluring. So far in our Whitehack campaign, the Drinker has caused the death of a couple of PCs (directly and indirectly). The last time they found it, the PCs were happy to accept a reward for it, because they knew how dangerous it could be. This time, they appear to have forgotten the hard lesson they learned the first time. We'll see how it turns out ...

No one fights with a backpack on ...

A bit overladen for fighting ...

I've rambled on about encumbrance in RPGs before, but I'm going to do it again.

In our most recent Whitehack session, the loot-laden PCs were attacked by bestial inhabitants of the Blackwold Forest. They had camped out and had secreted much of their stuff in trees. When the encounter began, only those on watch were (lightly) armoured and none had their other stuff on their person. And when battle broke out, the PCs' manoeuvres left their loot vulnerable to theft; sure enough, a hairy, dwarf-like creature ran off with some of the booty.

Once the beast-people were slain, the chase led the PCs to the lair of the ettin Brug and Brag, whose ogre henchmen they had previously dispatched; the hairy creature was another of the ettin's servants.

I'm making two points here. First, PCs shouldn't want to fight loaded down with all their equipment if they can possibly help it. Second, the placement of gear and plunder leads to plenty of options for story-telling.

Let's take the first point. No one in their right mind would engage in hand-to-hand combat with a rucksack on. The first thing you'd do would be to dump it (a free action, I'd suggest). I'm suspicious of "backpacks" in a medieval-ish setting in the first place, but my players have all bought them from the equipment list already, so hey ho. In future campaigns, I might insist they stick to sacks. In any case, anyone trying to fight with a pack full of stuff should be at -3 to hit and damage (with a minimum of 1). I think the damage reduction is realistic here; it's really hard to get a good swing with a weapon if there's something heavy on your back.

Nor would someone sleep with their armour on, unless it was just a gambeson or something like that (I think padded jacks and gambesons are what most RPGs really mean when they say "leather armour"). Recovery should be impaired for any character who does so, and lack of sleep/comfort might impose a -1 penalty on all actions and tests for the remainder of the day (cumulative for each successive night).

What about the second point? Well, as our last session showed, stuff that's not being carried is vulnerable to being snatched.

This has interesting implications. It gives the PCs something to defend. The most obvious stratagem would be to dump their stuff in one spot and form a ring around it. That's interesting, because it potentially limits their tactical options. They've got to stay in one place, and you can't have an archer or a magician picking off the enemy from behind more heavily armoured friends if they're facing the wrong way.

It also raises the possibility of the PCs being driven back from their gear. Whitehack gives characters in "the Strong" class (i.e. fighters) the option of driving foes back in combat. I give this to certain monsters too, as it creates more dynamic and interesting tabletop melees. The more movement the better: static fights can be terribly boring, especially in D&D-style d20 systems, which lack the colourful skewerings and leg-loppings of Runequest and its ilk. So the dumping of backpacks can serve as a reminder to keep combat dynamic.

Imagine a band of orcs charging into a room. If there's a burly chieftain at the front (almost man-size, perhaps ...), he might well be able drive one or more of the PCs out of their line, creating a breach into which his followers could pour - and allowing back-rankers to make off with the PCs' stuff.

If the PCs survive, they've then got a motive to raid the orcish quarters. Perhaps all the assailants except a few imps were slain. But there are probably plenty of bigger and nastier orcs waiting back at base.

It's also easy to envisage scenarios where the PCs do the driving back and then pursue their routing foes. But what if some dungeon scavenger has devoured their stuff in the meantime, before retreating to its lair?

And when the PCs cut their losses and decide not to bother retrieving the carved wooden totems they recovered from the beastmen? Why, they might discover that those offer protection from the demons that patrol the lower reaches, and so are well worth retrieving after all.

Essentially, penalising PCs for fighting with their packs on is an engine for separating players from their stuff. And that, it seems to me, should be a crucial part of a dungeon-crawling game. In our campaign, the Drinker has passed through the hands of three PCs, two of whom have died. It was the object of the party's last raid on the Devil Warrens, as they were paid to retrieve it. Little do they know that it's now in the hands of a very nasty NPC indeed ...

A Fallen Warrior

The corpses of several manlike creatures with bestial heads scattered around half of this large chamber. Carrion creatures have stripped their bones of flesh; their ribcages and skulls are pierced with grey-quilled arrows. Whoever shot them did not linger to retrieve the shafts.

At the other end of the chamber lies a fallen warrior, a sheathed sword clutched to his chest. Unlike the dead monsters, his flesh is untouched by carrion-eaters, though he has clearly been dead for some time. His jerkin is rent at the breast where he received his death-wound. The sword is a plain-looking longsword in a scabbard of soft, pale leather. It moans softly when its hilt is gripped. It is, of course, the Drinker.

The fallen warrior is Mondragans, and he was killed by the Drinker after his companions slew their monstrous assailants before the drawn sword could taste their blood. Once sated, the sword crept back into its scabbard.

Mondragans' friends have taken any coins that he carried, but they dared not touch the Drinker (which has kept away the carrion-eaters too). Round his neck, however, is a silver amulet bearing the inscription Aralith. This is the name of Mondragans' sweetheart. Returning the amulet to Aralith will earn the PCs her gratitude; she is well connected and well known in the nearest city, so can easily be found by asking around.

The Drinker

Just how common are magic items? It's always a big question. I used to deplore their abundance in games: I wanted a magic sword to be the object of a quest - nay, of an entire campaign - or even just a legend, not something that a wandering adventurer might have swinging by his side.

Increasingly, though, I've begun to think that magic items should be more common than magicians - for the simple fact that magicians (along with dwarves and elves and other supernatural creatures) make them - and probably make several over the course of a career. But rather than providing unqualified benefits, magic items should be - at the very least - double-edged. Here's one that is - quite literally.

The Drinker

This is a plain-looking longsword with a grip and scabbard bound in a peculiar soft leather (human skin, in fact). When drawn, the blade reveals "veins" of blue and red in the metal. In combat, it does 1d20 damage (1d20 + 1 if wielded in two hands). When it draws blood, the veins on the blade writhe and pulse, and the sword appears to suck noisily at the wound.

Once drawn, the Drinker cannot be sheathed until it causes a wound. It poses no threat to its owner when combat is underway, even if that combat breaks into successive skirmishes. Basically, if the wielder can still see living enemies that he can hope to attack, he's safe. But when there are no more foes to fight and the sword has not caused a wound since being drawn, it will twist in its wielder's hand to deliver 1d20 in damage 

Any attempt to avoid this by throwing the sword away or otherwise discarding it will prove futile; the Drinker will slake its thirst before it will allow itself to be abandoned. The wielder can, of course, avoid this by turning on a friend, though friends are likely to prove scarce if this becomes common practice. 

When it has caused a wound, the Drinker becomes docile and is easily sheathed. If it is not drawn during a fight, however, it will sigh and groan in its scabbard - sufficiently loudly to attract nearby creatures. The Drinker thirsts only for the blood of the living and cannot be assuaged with even the most freshly slain corpses.