Magic Item Recipes
Methods of Magical Crafting¶
Magic items may be crafted through several methods. A recipe may use one method, allow several, or require a specific approach.
Material Perfection¶
The crafter refines the physical item until its materials, balance, structure, and workmanship can support enchantment. This method relies heavily on superior mundane or exotic materials, tool proficiency, and careful craftsmanship.
Essence Incorporation¶
The crafter binds an existing magical principle into the item using harvested monster parts, magical plants, distilled essence, or other supernatural materials.
Most ACS recipes use Essence Incorporation as the default assumption.
Arcane Imposition¶
Arcane Imposition is an advanced method of magic item crafting.
Unlike Essence Incorporation, it does not require the crafter to bind harvested magical essence into the item. Instead, the crafter uses repeated spellwork, arcane inscription, ritual geometry, stabilizing reagents, and magical theory to impose the desired enchantment directly onto the item.
Arcane Imposition is not normally available to low-level characters.
As a default, a character must be at least 9th level to craft a magic item by Arcane Imposition. The DM may also require proficiency in Arcana, access to an appropriate tool, access to a suitable workspace, and the ability to cast or reproduce spells appropriate to the item being crafted.
Institutions such as wizard colleges, temple forges, artificer guilds, royal enchanteries, and ancient laboratories may use Arcane Imposition even when no single NPC crafter is represented at the table. In that case, the institution counts as providing the necessary level, workspace, spell access, and trained assistants.
Arcane Imposition does not remove the item’s normal crafting time or resource burden. Instead, it changes what kind of components are required. The recipe may rely less on harvested essence and more on arcane inks, precious metals, spell diagrams, gemstones, ritual reagents, inscriptions, and workshop infrastructure.
General Magic Item Crafting Requirements¶
The Andórë Crafting System expands the standard D&D magic item crafting rules; it does not replace them.
Unless a recipe or DM ruling says otherwise, crafting a magic item requires:
- proficiency in the Arcana skill;
- proficiency with the recipe’s required tool or tools;
- access to the required tool or tools;
- the listed crafting time;
- the listed resource burden;
- and the recipe’s required physical and magical components.
Any assistant who contributes to the crafting must also be proficient in Arcana and with the required tool they are using.
ACS recipes list the tools, materials, essence, substitutions, and resource burden needed for each item. They do not restate the Arcana requirement in every recipe.
Cataloged Recipes¶
Common¶
Uncommon¶
- Potions of Healing-Greater to Supreme
- Bag of Holding
- Cloak of Protection
- Cloak of the Manta Ray
- Coiling Grasp Tattoo
- Decanter of Endless Water
- Eldritch Claw Tattoo
- Gauntlets of Ogre Power
- Periapt of Wound Closure
- Sending Stones
Rare¶
- None
Very Rare¶
- None
Legenary¶
Recipies¶
Common¶
Potion of Healing¶
Potion, Common
You regain 2d4 + 2 Hit Points when you drink this potion.
Crafting Time: 1 day
Material Cost: 25 GP worth of raw herbal materials, or 1 unit of Minor Healing Essence
Required Tools: Herbalism Kit
Components¶
Choose one of the following:
- 25 GP worth of suitable medicinal herbs, restorative plants, herbal reagents, preserved foraging supplies, or other “trash herbs”
- 1 unit of Minor Healing Essence
Consumed Supplies¶
The material cost may be paid with clean water, alcohol, honey, oils, glass vials, wax seals, medicinal herbs, common restorative plants, poultice ingredients, or equivalent herbal supplies.
If Minor Healing Essence is used, it satisfies the recipe’s material requirement by itself.
Crafting Notes¶
A character proficient with the Herbalism Kit can brew a Potion of Healing using that kit, suitable materials, and 1 day of work.
This recipe follows the standard Potion of Healing crafting rule. It does not require Arcana proficiency, a magic item formula, or the normal ACS magic item crafting time for Common magic items unless the DM rules otherwise.
The intent is to keep basic healing potions practical. Any reasonable pile of medicinal herbs and apothecary supplies worth 25 GP is enough, and Minor Healing Essence may be used as a clean magical substitute.
Chest of Preserving¶
Wondrous Item, Common
This common wondrous item preserves food and other perishable items placed inside it. Food and other perishable items do not age or decay while inside the chest.
Crafting Time: 5 days
Resource Burden: 1 Crafting Supply Unit
Required Tools: Carpenter’s Tools, Tinker’s Tools or Smith’s Tools
Optional Tools: Alchemist’s Supplies
Physical Components¶
- A small cedar chest, roughly 2½ feet long, 1½ feet wide, and 1 foot tall
- Silver hinges, bindings, latch, and corner braces
- Waxed interior sealant, resin, or pitch
- Preservation runes engraved around the inside lip of the chest
- A fitted half-barrel lid
Cedar is the default wood because it is commonly used for chests and naturally resists rot. Other mundane woods may be used, but the DM may require better sealing, additional resin, or more careful construction.
Silver is used for the hinges, bindings, latch, and corner braces because the enchantment must hold a boundary: inside the chest, decay is arrested; outside the chest, the world continues normally.
Magical Components¶
- 1 unit of Minor Necromancy Essence
Acceptable Substitutions¶
The following essences may be substituted because they can plausibly preserve, stabilize, or arrest decay:
| Required Essence | Possible Substitute | Required Amount | Reason |
|---|---|---|---|
| Minor Necromancy Essence | Minor Healing Essence | 2 units | Sustains freshness and prevents corruption. |
| Minor Necromancy Essence | Minor Transmutation Essence | 2 units | Alters or slows the physical process of decay. |
| Minor Necromancy Essence | Minor Petrification Essence | 2 units | Locks organic matter into a stable state. |
| Minor Necromancy Essence | Potent Healing Essence | 1 unit | Overpowers the weaker requirement through concentrated restorative magic. |
| Minor Necromancy Essence | Potent Transmutation Essence | 1 unit | Overpowers the weaker requirement through concentrated transformative magic. |
| Minor Necromancy Essence | Potent Petrification Essence | 1 unit | Overpowers the weaker requirement by forcefully arresting change. |
Consumed Supplies¶
The 1 Crafting Supply Unit may be paid with suitable lumber, silver fittings, wax, resin, pitch, alchemical preservatives, rune-etching tools, binding salts, workshop fuel, or equivalent resources.
Crafting Notes¶
The wood provides the body of the chest, but the silver fittings define the magical boundary. The preservation runes are worked into the interior lip so that the enchantment closes when the lid closes.
Necromancy is the most efficient essence because the item arrests decay. Healing, Transmutation, or Petrification can imitate the effect, but they are less direct unless supplied at much greater potency.
Enduring Spellbook¶
Wondrous Item, Common
This spellbook, along with anything written on its pages, can’t be damaged by fire or immersion in water. In addition, the spellbook doesn’t deteriorate with age.
Crafting Time: 5 days
Resource Burden: 1 Crafting Supply Unit
Required Tools: Calligrapher’s Supplies
Optional Tools: Alchemist’s Supplies, Leatherworker’s Tools, Weaver’s Tools
Physical Components¶
- A blank spellbook or book suitable for use as a spellbook
- Durable paper, vellum, parchment, bark paper, linen paper, or thin prepared hide pages
- Waterproof binding glue, wax, resin, oil, or alchemical sealant
- Fire-resistant ink, mineral pigment, ash ink, salt ink, or silver-flecked ink
- Reinforced thread, cord, leather, cloth, or hinge binding
- Protective corner fittings, clasps, or cover plates
- Small warding marks inscribed along the spine, cover, page edges, or first and last pages
The book must be physically well made before it can be enchanted. The magic protects the book; it does not turn a poor binding into a good one.
Magical Components¶
- 1 unit of Minor Abjuration Essence
Acceptable Substitutions¶
The following essences may be substituted because they can plausibly protect, stabilize, or alter the book’s physical nature.
| Required Essence | Possible Substitute | Required Amount | Reason |
|---|---|---|---|
| Minor Abjuration Essence | Minor Transmutation Essence | 2 units | Alters the book’s material nature so fire, water, and age fail to affect it. |
| Minor Abjuration Essence | Minor Necromancy Essence | 2 units | Arrests decay, rot, mold, and deterioration. |
| Minor Abjuration Essence | Minor Fire Essence + Minor Transmutation Essence | 1 unit each | Fire Essence answers burning; Transmutation stabilizes the physical book against water and age. |
| Minor Abjuration Essence | Potent Transmutation Essence | 1 unit | Overpowers the weaker requirement by permanently altering the material. |
| Minor Abjuration Essence | Potent Necromancy Essence | 1 unit | Overpowers the weaker requirement by arresting decay and deterioration. |
The DM may reject a substitution if it protects against only one part of the item’s function. For example, Minor Fire Essence by itself may prevent burning, but it does not explain why the book survives immersion in water or refuses to age.
Specific Component Alternatives¶
The following specific components may replace the Minor Abjuration Essence at the DM’s discretion:
| Specific Component | Required Amount | Replaces |
|---|---|---|
| Fireproof hide, scale, shell, or chitin from a Minor magical creature | 1 raw magical unit | Minor Abjuration Essence |
| Waterproof membrane, treated hide, or preserved gland from a Minor magical creature adapted to water | 1 raw magical unit | Minor Abjuration Essence |
| Preserved bark, leaf, resin, or plant fiber from a Common magical plant associated with preservation, protection, or endurance | 1 plant-derived component or enough plant units to satisfy the DM | Minor Abjuration Essence |
| Ash, ink, or residue from a Minor warding, sealing, or preservation effect | 1 usable raw magical unit | Minor Abjuration Essence |
A specific component should explain the whole enchantment, not merely one hazard. A salamander scale might help with fire, but the recipe still needs another explanation for water and age unless the DM rules the preparation process covers those effects.
Consumed Supplies¶
The Resource Burden may be paid with bookbinding supplies, paper, vellum, parchment, leather, cloth, thread, glue, wax, resin, oil, waterproofing compounds, mineral pigments, ash ink, silver dust, salt, alchemical sealants, replacement nibs, failed pages, test bindings, and other scriptorium or workshop consumables.
The required essence or approved specific component must still be provided.
Crafting Notes¶
Abjuration Essence is the default because the spellbook is protected from harm. It does not become stronger, smarter, larger, or more magically informative. It simply refuses fire, water, and age.
Transmutation can work by changing the book’s physical nature until it no longer behaves like ordinary paper, ink, glue, and leather.
Necromancy can work only in the narrow preservation sense: arresting decay, rot, mold, fading, and age. It is less efficient than Abjuration because it does not naturally answer fire and water as cleanly.
The enchantment protects the spellbook and anything written on its pages. It does not protect loose notes placed between the pages unless those notes are later copied into the book or separately enchanted.
Manifold Tool¶
Wondrous Item, Common (Requires Attunement)
This tool takes the form of a wrench, a screwdriver, or another basic tool. As a Magic action, you can touch the item and transform it into a type of Artisan’s Tools of your choice. Whatever form the tool takes, you have proficiency with it when you use it.
Crafting Time: 5 days
Resource Burden: 1 Crafting Supply Unit
Required Tools: Tinker’s Tools
Optional Tools: Smith’s Tools, Jeweler’s Tools, Alchemist’s Supplies
Physical Components¶
- A compact master tool, usually built around a wrench, screwdriver, awl, file, or similar hand tool
- Hinged, sliding, folding, or nested tool fittings
- Fine steel, brass, or silver adjustment pins
- A central grip, handle, or tool body capable of surviving repeated transformation
- Small transformation runes engraved along the joints, handle, or working head
The tool’s base form should be simple, durable, and useful. A wrench, screwdriver, hammer, awl, chisel, or measuring tool is common. More elaborate forms are possible, but the item must begin as a believable hand tool rather than an abstract magical rod.
Magical Components¶
- 1 unit of Minor Transmutation Essence
Specific Component Alternatives¶
The following specific components may replace the Minor Transmutation Essence:
| Specific Component | Required Amount | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| Mimic Ichor | 1 unit | Embodies tool-like reshaping, surface adaptation, and physical transformation. |
| Shapechanger Blood | 1 unit | Carries the principle of controlled change from one form to another. |
| Animated Tool Core or Construct Joint | 1 component | Supports precise mechanical reconfiguration. |
| Comparable transformation-bearing material | 1 component | The raw material naturally supports controlled physical alteration. |
Acceptable Substitutions¶
The following essences may be substituted because they can plausibly support controlled mechanical adaptation, though Transmutation remains the most direct and reliable option:
| Required Essence | Possible Substitute | Required Amount | Reason |
|---|---|---|---|
| Minor Transmutation Essence | Minor Conjuration Essence | 2 units | Temporarily calls forth the needed tool form rather than physically reshaping the item. |
| Minor Transmutation Essence | Minor Illusion Essence | 2 units | Helps the tool assume a functional magical guise, though the effect is less stable. |
| Minor Transmutation Essence | Potent Conjuration Essence | 1 unit | Overpowers the weaker requirement by supplying the desired tool form through stronger magic. |
| Minor Transmutation Essence | Potent Illusion Essence | 1 unit | Overpowers the weaker requirement by forcing the tool’s assumed form to behave as real. |
Consumed Supplies¶
The 1 Crafting Supply Unit may be paid with suitable steel, brass, silver pins, springs, hinges, files, polishing grit, rune-etching acids, binding salts, alchemical lubricants, spare tool heads, failed fittings, workshop fuel, or equivalent resources.
Crafting Notes¶
Transmutation Essence is the primary requirement because the Manifold Tool physically changes into different kinds of Artisan’s Tools. The enchantment does not merely disguise the item or summon separate tools; it alters the tool’s form while preserving its identity.
The tool proficiency granted by the item is part of the same transformation. The item does not teach permanent skill. Instead, while attuned and in use, it guides the bearer’s hands through the form and habits of the tool it has become.
The physical tool must be well made before enchantment begins. The runes do not replace hinges, fittings, grips, edges, clamps, pins, or working surfaces. They teach those parts how to become other parts.
A Manifold Tool is not every tool at once. It is one tool with many remembered shapes.
Uncommon¶
Potions of Healing-Greater to Supreme¶
Potion, Uncommon to Very Rare
A creature that drinks one of these potions regains Hit Points according to the potion’s type.
| Potion | Rarity | Healing | Crafting Time | Resource Burden | Required Essence |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Potion of Healing (Greater) | Uncommon | 4d4 + 4 | 5 days | 2 Crafting Supply Units | 1 unit of Lesser Healing Essence |
| Potion of Healing (Superior) | Rare | 8d4 + 8 | 25 days | 20 Crafting Supply Units | 1 unit of Potent Healing Essence |
| Potion of Healing (Supreme) | Very Rare | 10d4 + 20 | 63 days | 200 Crafting Supply Units | 1 unit of Greater Healing Essence |
Required Tools: Herbalism Kit
Optional Tools: Alchemist’s Supplies
Components¶
Each potion requires:
- a clean vial, flask, or stoppered bottle;
- a stable liquid carrier such as clean water, alcohol, honey, oil, or medicinal syrup;
- suitable medicinal herbs, stabilizing reagents, and restorative supplies;
- and the listed Healing Essence.
Consumed Supplies¶
The Resource Burden may be paid with suitable medicinal herbs, restorative reagents, rare plant preparations, clean alcohol, honey, oils, glass vials, wax seals, alchemical stabilizers, purified water, binding salts, filtering materials, and equivalent apothecary supplies.
The required Healing Essence must still be provided. It is not replaced by generic supplies unless the DM specifically allows a suitable raw healing component to stand in for the essence.
Crafting Notes¶
These potions follow the normal magic item crafting time and cost for their rarity, halved because they are consumable magic items.
The only meaningful difference between the upgraded healing potions is the strength of the healing effect, the time required, the resource burden, and the potency of the Healing Essence used.
A Potion of Healing (Greater) uses Lesser Healing Essence.
A Potion of Healing (Superior) uses Potent Healing Essence.
A Potion of Healing (Supreme) uses Greater Healing Essence.
Unlike a basic Potion of Healing, these stronger potions require distilled Healing Essence or an equivalent healing-bearing raw component approved by the DM.
Bag of Holding¶
Wondrous Item, Uncommon
This bag has an interior space considerably larger than its outside dimensions—roughly 2 feet square and 4 feet deep on the inside. The bag can hold up to 500 pounds, not exceeding a volume of 64 cubic feet. The bag weighs 5 pounds, regardless of its contents. Retrieving an item from the bag requires a Utilize action.
If the bag is overloaded, pierced, or torn, it is destroyed, and its contents are scattered in the Astral Plane. If the bag is turned inside out, its contents spill forth unharmed, but the bag must be put right before it can be used again. The bag holds enough air for 10 minutes of breathing, divided by the number of breathing creatures inside.
Placing a Bag of Holding inside an extradimensional space created by a Heward’s Handy Haversack, Portable Hole, or similar item instantly destroys both items and opens a gate to the Astral Plane. The gate originates where the one item was placed inside the other. Any creature within a 10-foot-radius Sphere centered on the gate is sucked through it to a random location on the Astral Plane. The gate then closes. The gate is one-way and can’t be reopened.
Crafting Time: 10 days
Resource Burden: 4 Crafting Supply Units
Required Tools: Weaver’s Tools or Leatherworker’s Tools
Optional Tools: Alchemist’s Supplies, Calligrapher’s Supplies, Tinker’s Tools
Physical Components¶
- A well-made sack, satchel, pouch, or travel bag
- Durable cloth, canvas, leather, spider silk, treated hide, or extradimensionally stable textile
- Reinforced seams, straps, drawcords, buckles, clasps, or mouth binding
- A stable mouth ring, stitched rim, folded seam, or hidden frame that defines the bag’s opening
- Silver, copper, or brass thread worked through the inner lining
- A nested interior lining that does not fully match the exterior dimensions
- Small spatial runes stitched, painted, burned, stamped, or knotted into the seam pattern
The bag must be physically durable, but not rigid. The enchantment requires a flexible container with a clearly defined opening, a stable boundary, and enough give for the interior space to “fold” without tearing the outer shell.
Magical Components¶
- 1 unit of Lesser Conjuration Essence
Acceptable Substitutions¶
The following essences may be substituted because they can plausibly create, fold, stabilize, or anchor extradimensional space.
| Required Essence | Possible Substitute | Required Amount | Reason |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lesser Conjuration Essence | Lesser Transmutation Essence | 2 units | Alters the spatial relationship between the bag’s exterior and interior, similar to effects such as Rope Trick. |
| Lesser Conjuration Essence | Lesser Abjuration Essence | 2 units | Stabilizes the extradimensional boundary and prevents the interior space from collapsing. |
| Lesser Conjuration Essence | Lesser Force Essence | 2 units | Creates a stable invisible structure capable of holding the interior volume apart from the exterior shell. |
| Lesser Conjuration Essence | Potent Transmutation Essence | 1 unit | Overpowers the weaker requirement by reshaping the bag’s physical relationship to space. |
| Lesser Conjuration Essence | Potent Abjuration Essence | 1 unit | Overpowers the weaker requirement by strongly stabilizing the spatial boundary. |
| Lesser Conjuration Essence | Potent Force Essence | 1 unit | Overpowers the weaker requirement by creating a durable extradimensional support structure. |
Conjuration is the most efficient choice because the bag’s primary function is an extradimensional space. Transmutation can imitate the result by changing how the bag’s interior relates to physical space, but it is less direct.
The DM may reject a substitution if it explains only durability, weight reduction, or storage efficiency without explaining the extradimensional interior.
Specific Component Alternatives¶
The following specific components may replace the Lesser Conjuration Essence at the DM’s discretion:
| Specific Component | Required Amount | Replaces |
|---|---|---|
| Spatial gland, folded organ, or extradimensional sac from a Lesser magical creature | 1 raw magical unit | Lesser Conjuration Essence |
| Phase spider silk, blink dog hide, displacer beast membrane, or similar space-bending material | 1 raw magical unit | Lesser Conjuration Essence |
| Residue from a Lesser teleportation, summoning, planar, or extradimensional effect | 1 raw magical unit | Lesser Conjuration Essence |
| Fragment from a damaged Bag of Holding, Handy Haversack, Portable Hole, or similar item | 1 usable salvaged component | Lesser Conjuration Essence |
| Thread, cloth, or lining recovered from a stable extradimensional space | 1 usable component | Lesser Conjuration Essence |
A component used this way must support extradimensional storage, planar displacement, spatial folding, or boundary anchoring. Merely strong cloth or fine leather is not enough.
Consumed Supplies¶
The Resource Burden may be paid with cloth, leather, canvas, silk, thread, cord, buckles, clasps, rings, dyes, wax, resin, alchemical stabilizers, silver thread, copper wire, brass fittings, binding salts, spatial chalk, folded pattern templates, failed linings, test bags, damaged seams, and other workshop consumables.
The required essence or approved specific component must still be provided.
Crafting Notes¶
Conjuration Essence is the default because the Bag of Holding creates and anchors an extradimensional storage space. The bag is not simply larger on the inside in a mundane way; its interior is held apart from ordinary space.
Transmutation is the main backup because some magic changes spatial relationships by altering the nature of a physical object or space. This produces a functional Bag of Holding, but it is less efficient because the crafter is forcing a material-change tradition to perform extradimensional work.
Abjuration can help stabilize the boundary, but by itself it is defensive rather than spatial. Force can provide structure, but by itself it is support rather than extradimensional access. Both are plausible substitutes only because the item is Uncommon and mechanically simple.
The mouth of the bag is the anchor. The stitched rim, binding ring, or reinforced seam teaches the enchantment where the outside ends and the inside begins.
If the bag is overloaded, pierced, torn, or placed inside another extradimensional space, that boundary fails catastrophically.
Bag of Preserving¶
Wondrous Item, Uncommon
This reinforced leather satchel preserves food, harvested materials, herbs, organs, glands, venoms, blood, and other perishable crafting materials placed inside it.
The bag weighs 5 pounds. Its interior can hold up to 50 pounds of material, not exceeding 4 cubic feet. Perishable items inside the bag do not age, rot, dry out, congeal, ferment, lose potency, or decay while they remain inside.
Time resumes normally when an item is removed. The bag does not restore spoiled material, repair damaged components, purify contamination, or make a failed harvest usable.
The bag cannot preserve a living creature. If a living creature is placed inside, the preservation magic fails for that creature, and normal suffocation rules apply.
Crafting Time: 10 days
Resource Burden: 4 Crafting Supply Units
Required Tools: Leatherworker’s Tools, Weaver’s Tools, Tinker’s Tools or Smith’s Tools
Optional Tools: Alchemist’s Supplies, Carpenter’s Tools
Physical Components¶
- A reinforced leather satchel, haversack, or field bag
- Waxed inner lining
- Cedar slats, cedar chips, or cedar-bark lining
- Silver-thread stitching around the mouth and seams
- Silver clasp, rings, buckles, or corner fittings
- Preservation runes stitched or etched into the interior lip
- A small extradimensional fold worked into the lining
Cedar is used because it naturally resists rot and already supports preservation work. Silver is used because the enchantment must hold a boundary: inside the bag, decay is arrested; outside the bag, the world continues normally.
The extradimensional fold is intentionally limited. A Bag of Preserving is not a Bag of Holding. It is made to carry fragile, perishable crafting materials, not bulk cargo.
Magical Components¶
- 1 unit of Minor Necromancy Essence
- 1 unit of Lesser Conjuration Essence
Acceptable Substitutions¶
| Required Essence | Possible Substitute | Required Amount | Reason |
|---|---|---|---|
| Minor Necromancy Essence | Minor Healing Essence | 2 units | Sustains freshness and prevents corruption. |
| Minor Necromancy Essence | Minor Transmutation Essence | 2 units | Alters or slows the physical process of decay. |
| Minor Necromancy Essence | Minor Petrification Essence | 2 units | Locks organic matter into a stable state. |
| Minor Necromancy Essence | Potent Healing Essence | 1 unit | Overpowers the weaker requirement through concentrated restorative magic. |
| Minor Necromancy Essence | Potent Transmutation Essence | 1 unit | Overpowers the weaker requirement through concentrated transformative magic. |
| Minor Necromancy Essence | Potent Petrification Essence | 1 unit | Overpowers the weaker requirement by forcefully arresting change. |
| Lesser Conjuration Essence | Lesser Transmutation Essence | 2 units | Creates a folded interior through alteration rather than space magic. |
| Lesser Conjuration Essence | Potent Conjuration Essence | 1 unit | Overpowers the weaker space-folding requirement. |
Consumed Supplies¶
The 4 Crafting Supply Units may be paid with suitable leather, wax, cedar, silver thread, silver fittings, alchemical preservatives, binding salts, rune-stitching supplies, extradimensional stabilizers, workshop fuel, tool wear, or equivalent resources.
Crafting Notes¶
The Bag of Preserving combines the preservation boundary of a Chest of Preserving with a much smaller and more specialized extradimensional space. The preservation effect arrests decay, while the conjuration effect folds the bag’s interior just enough to make field harvesting practical.
Necromancy is the most efficient essence because the item arrests decay. Conjuration is required because the bag’s interior is larger than its exterior. Transmutation can imitate either function, but it is less efficient unless supplied in greater quantity or potency.
A Bag of Preserving is most useful when the party harvests valuable raw materials but cannot immediately distill them into stable essence. It protects the time between field recovery and proper alchemical work.
Cloak of Protection¶
Wondrous Item, Uncommon (Requires Attunement)
You gain a +1 bonus to Armor Class and saving throws while you wear this cloak.
Crafting Time: 10 days
Resource Burden: 4 Crafting Supply Units
Required Tools: Weaver’s Tools or Leatherworker’s Tools
Optional Tools: Alchemist’s Supplies, Calligrapher’s Supplies, Jeweler’s Tools
Physical Components¶
- A well-made cloak, mantle, robe, cape, shawl, or protective wrap
- Fine wool, linen, silk, leather, treated hide, scale-backed cloth, or other durable wearable material
- Reinforced hem, collar, clasp, brooch, cord, or shoulder fastening
- Protective lining, padding, quilted inner layer, or hidden warding panels
- Silver thread, copper wire, brass rings, bone toggles, carved beads, or warding knots
- Small protective marks stitched, stamped, painted, embroidered, or tooled along the hem, collar, clasp, or inner lining
The cloak must be comfortable enough to wear constantly and strong enough to hold a persistent enchantment. A purely decorative cloak can work, but only if it is reinforced, lined, or marked so the enchantment has a stable structure to inhabit.
Magical Components¶
- 1 unit of Lesser Abjuration Essence
Acceptable Substitutions¶
The following essences may be substituted because they can plausibly protect the wearer, deflect harm, stabilize the body, or reinforce the boundary between the wearer and danger.
| Required Essence | Possible Substitute | Required Amount | Reason |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lesser Abjuration Essence | Lesser Force Essence | 2 units | Creates a subtle protective pressure or deflecting field around the wearer. |
| Lesser Abjuration Essence | Lesser Transmutation Essence | 2 units | Reinforces the cloak and wearer against physical harm by altering resilience and response. |
| Lesser Abjuration Essence | Lesser Divination Essence | 2 units | Guides the wearer away from danger by sharpening instinctive defensive reactions. |
| Lesser Abjuration Essence | Potent Force Essence | 1 unit | Overpowers the weaker requirement with a stronger protective field. |
| Lesser Abjuration Essence | Potent Transmutation Essence | 1 unit | Overpowers the weaker requirement by hardening or stabilizing the wearer’s defenses. |
| Lesser Abjuration Essence | Potent Divination Essence | 1 unit | Overpowers the weaker requirement through strong danger-sense and defensive anticipation. |
Abjuration is the most efficient essence because the cloak’s function is broad protection. Other essences can imitate part of that result, but they are less direct.
The DM may reject a substitution if it explains only Armor Class or only saving throws. A Cloak of Protection must protect the wearer from both physical threat and magical, environmental, or supernatural danger.
Specific Component Alternatives¶
The following specific components may replace the Lesser Abjuration Essence at the DM’s discretion:
| Specific Component | Required Amount | Replaces |
|---|---|---|
| Hide, scale, shell, chitin, feather mantle, or protective membrane from a Lesser creature with Magic Resistance | 1 raw magical unit | Lesser Abjuration Essence |
| Hide, scale, shell, chitin, or mantle from a Lesser creature with resistance to spells, magical effects, or supernatural harm | 1 raw magical unit | Lesser Abjuration Essence |
| Carapace, hide, or warding plate from a Lesser creature with a natural protective aura, defensive reaction, or supernatural resilience | 1 raw magical unit | Lesser Abjuration Essence |
| Preserved pelt, cloak-like membrane, wing, mane, or mantle from a Lesser creature known for warding, guarding, or shielding others | 1 raw magical unit | Lesser Abjuration Essence |
| Fragment of a broken protective charm, warding cloak, shield brooch, guardian idol, or similar Uncommon protective item | 1 usable salvaged component | Lesser Abjuration Essence |
A specific component should protect broadly. A hide that merely resists fire might be useful for a fire-resistant cloak, but it does not fully explain a Cloak of Protection unless the creature’s defensive nature is broader than a single damage type.
Consumed Supplies¶
The Resource Burden may be paid with fine cloth, leather, thread, cord, wax, dyes, waterproofing oil, resin, padding, silver thread, copper wire, brass clasps, protective charms, bone toggles, carved beads, powdered shell, binding salts, alchemical stabilizers, failed linings, test swatches, and other tailoring, leatherworking, or warding supplies.
The required essence or approved specific component must still be provided.
Crafting Notes¶
Abjuration Essence is the default because the cloak protects the wearer from harm. The bonus to Armor Class represents blows turned aside, strikes catching strangely on the cloak, or attacks failing to land cleanly. The bonus to saving throws represents the same ward extending to poison, spells, breath, curses, fear, force, and other dangers that threaten the wearer directly.
A creature part can replace the essence when the creature’s body already expresses the same protective principle. The best examples are hides, scales, feathers, shells, chitin, or mantles from creatures with Magic Resistance, spell resistance, defensive auras, or broad supernatural resilience.
The cloak does not need to be armor. In fact, the enchantment works best when the cloak remains flexible. It protects by turning danger aside, not by becoming a breastplate.
The clasp, collar, hem, or inner lining usually serves as the anchor. If the cloak is badly torn, burned, or stripped of its warding marks, the enchantment may fail or require repair before it functions again.
Cloak of the Manta Ray¶
Wondrous Item, Uncommon (Requires Attunement)
While wearing this cloak, you can breathe underwater, and you have a Swim Speed of 60 feet.
Crafting Time: 10 days
Resource Burden: 4 Crafting Supply Units
Required Tools: Leatherworker’s Tools or Weaver’s Tools
Optional Tools: Alchemist’s Supplies, Herbalism Kit, Calligrapher’s Supplies
Physical Components¶
- A well-made cloak, mantle, cape, shawl, or swimming wrap
- Treated leather, waterproof cloth, manta-like hide, ray skin, eel skin, sharkskin, or flexible aquatic membrane
- Reinforced collar, shoulder binding, clasp, cord, or fastening
- A broad trailing back panel shaped to move like a fin, wing, or ray mantle
- Waxed thread, waterproof stitching, resin sealant, fish oil, pitch, or alchemical waterproofing
- Flexible ribbing, hidden stays, bone slivers, cartilage strips, baleen, reed, or thin springy wood worked into the cloak’s shape
- Small transformation marks, wave-pattern stitching, gill glyphs, or current-runes worked into the collar and inner lining
The cloak must remain flexible. It does not function as armor or a rigid diving suit. The magic works by letting the cloak become part of the wearer’s movement through water.
Magical Components¶
- 1 unit of Lesser Transmutation Essence
Acceptable Substitutions¶
The following essences may be substituted because they can plausibly allow underwater breathing, swimming, aquatic adaptation, or movement through water.
| Required Essence | Possible Substitute | Required Amount | Reason |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lesser Transmutation Essence | Lesser Conjuration Essence | 2 units | Draws or exchanges breathable air through a magical boundary. |
| Lesser Transmutation Essence | Lesser Abjuration Essence | 2 units | Protects the wearer from drowning and pressure by warding the body against water’s hostile effects. |
| Lesser Transmutation Essence | Lesser Force Essence | 2 units | Creates a subtle propulsion and breathing channel through water. |
| Lesser Transmutation Essence | Potent Conjuration Essence | 1 unit | Overpowers the weaker requirement by creating a stronger magical exchange between air and water. |
| Lesser Transmutation Essence | Potent Abjuration Essence | 1 unit | Overpowers the weaker requirement by sustaining the wearer against drowning and aquatic pressure. |
| Lesser Transmutation Essence | Potent Force Essence | 1 unit | Overpowers the weaker requirement through strong magical propulsion and fluid control. |
Transmutation is the most efficient essence because the cloak grants an aquatic adaptation. It changes how the wearer breathes and moves.
Conjuration can work if the formula treats the cloak as drawing breathable air from elsewhere or exchanging water for air. Abjuration can work if the formula treats drowning as a hostile condition being warded away. Force can work for the swim speed, but needs the breathing effect to be explained by the formula, materials, or additional reagents.
The DM may reject a substitution if it explains only breathing or only swimming. A Cloak of the Manta Ray must do both.
Specific Component Alternatives¶
The following specific components may replace the Lesser Transmutation Essence at the DM’s discretion:
| Specific Component | Required Amount | Replaces |
|---|---|---|
| Gills, gill sac, lung-gill organ, or water-breathing gland from a Lesser magical creature | 1 raw magical unit | Lesser Transmutation Essence |
| Hide, membrane, fin, mantle, wing, or skin from a Lesser aquatic creature with supernatural swimming ability | 1 raw magical unit | Lesser Transmutation Essence |
| Manta ray hide, giant ray membrane, sharkskin, eel skin, or similar aquatic hide touched by magic | 1 raw magical unit | Lesser Transmutation Essence |
| Preserved mucus, oil, slime, or membrane from a Lesser amphibious creature | 1 raw magical unit | Lesser Transmutation Essence |
| A plant-derived component from an Uncommon aquatic magical plant associated with water breathing, gills, buoyancy, or swimming | 1 suitable plant-derived component or enough plant units to satisfy the DM | Lesser Transmutation Essence |
A mundane manta ray hide may serve as an excellent physical component, but it does not replace the magical component unless it comes from a magical creature, has been altered by supernatural waters, or is paired with a suitable essence.
Consumed Supplies¶
The Resource Burden may be paid with waterproof cloth, leather, treated hide, waxed thread, fish oil, pitch, resin, salt, alchemical waterproofing, flexible ribbing, shell powder, coral dust, binding salts, swimming harness fittings, failed membranes, test cloaks, and other tailoring, leatherworking, or aquatic adaptation supplies.
The required essence or approved specific component must still be provided.
Crafting Notes¶
Transmutation Essence is the default because the cloak changes the wearer’s relationship to water. The wearer can breathe underwater and move as though adapted for swimming.
The cloak’s shape matters. Most versions are cut broad through the shoulders and back, with a trailing mantle that spreads in water like a ray’s wings. On land, it may look like an unusually heavy cloak, waterproof cape, or folded swimming mantle.
Gills are a strong specific-component alternative because they directly explain the breathing function. A fin, ray mantle, eel skin, sharkskin, or aquatic membrane can explain the swimming function. The best raw components explain both, or are paired with enough alchemical work to complete the missing half.
The collar usually anchors the breathing enchantment. The back panel usually anchors the swimming enchantment. If either is badly damaged, the cloak may still function partially at the DM’s discretion, but a damaged cloak is not safe diving equipment.
Coiling Grasp Tattoo¶
Wondrous Item, Uncommon (Requires Attunement)
Produced by a special needle, this magic tattoo has long intertwining designs.
Tattoo Attunement. To attune to this item, you hold the needle to your skin where you want the tattoo to appear, pressing the needle there throughout the attunement process. When the attunement is complete, the needle turns into the ink that becomes the tattoo, which appears on the skin.
If your attunement to the tattoo ends, the tattoo vanishes, and the needle reappears in your space.
Grasping Tendrils. While the tattoo is on your skin, you can, as an action, cause the tattoo to extrude into inky tendrils, which reach for a creature you can see within 15 feet of you. The creature must succeed on a DC 14 Strength saving throw or take 3d6 force damage and be grappled by you. As an action, the creature can escape the grapple by succeeding on a DC 14 Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) check. The grapple also ends if you halt it, no action required, if the creature is ever more than 15 feet away from you, or if you use this tattoo on a different creature.
Crafting Time: 10 days
Resource Burden: 4 Crafting Supply Units
Required Tools: Smith’s Tools, Tinker’s Tools or Jeweler’s Tools
Optional Tools: Alchemist’s Supplies, Calligrapher’s Supplies
Physical Components¶
- A fine silver tattoo needle
- Alchemical tattoo ink made from soot, oil, wax, and silver dust
- Long coiling runes etched into the needle
- A prepared tattoo stencil, design vellum, or ritual skin-marking pattern
- Binding knots, spiral marks, chain-script, tentacle patterns, or grasping hand motifs worked into the design
- Optional Wizard’s Ink, Silver Root, Spellcatch Grass, adhesive resin, squid ink, octopus ink, or constrictor venom residue
Silver is the default needle material because the item must move cleanly between three states: needle, ink, and tattoo. Other metals may be used at the DM’s discretion for tattoos of different rarity or tradition.
Magical Components¶
Choose one of the following:
- 1 unit of Lesser Force Essence and 1 unit of Lesser Transmutation Essence
- 1 force-bearing tendril, tentacle, tendon, grasping organ, or constricting appendage and 1 unit of Lesser Transmutation Essence
Acceptable Substitutions¶
The following essences may replace the Lesser Force Essence.
| Required Essence | Possible Substitute | Required Amount | Reason |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lesser Force Essence | Lesser Grappled Essence | 2 units | Emphasizes the binding and holding function, but is less direct for the force damage. |
| Lesser Force Essence | Lesser Restrained Essence | 2 units | Supports magical binding, coiling, and immobilization. |
| Lesser Force Essence | Lesser Transmutation Essence | 2 additional units | Lets the tattoo physically extrude and constrict, but requires more transformative power. |
| Lesser Force Essence | Potent Grappled Essence | 1 unit | Overpowers the weaker requirement with a stronger binding principle. |
| Lesser Force Essence | Potent Restrained Essence | 1 unit | Overpowers the weaker requirement with stronger immobilizing magic. |
The Lesser Transmutation Essence should not normally be removed. It allows the needle to become ink, the ink to become a living tattoo, and the tattoo to extrude from the wearer’s skin as moving tendrils.
Specific Component Alternatives¶
The following specific components may replace the Lesser Force Essence:
| Specific Component | Required Amount | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| Displacer Beast Tendon | 1 component | Embodies unnatural reach and force projected beyond the body. |
| Roper Tendril | 1 raw magical unit | Embodies grasping, pulling, and holding prey at a distance. |
| Grick Tentacle | 1 raw magical unit | Embodies coiling predation and flexible constriction. |
| Giant Octopus Tentacle or Sucker Cluster touched by magic | 1 raw magical unit | Embodies adhesive grasping and flexible aquatic restraint. |
| Spectral Tendril or Shadowy Grasping Remnant | 1 raw magical unit | Carries the principle of a limb not fully bound by physical form. |
| Comparable force-bearing tendril, tentacle, tendon, or grasping organ | 1 raw magical unit | The raw material naturally embodies projected magical restraint. |
The following specific components may replace the Lesser Transmutation Essence:
| Specific Component | Required Amount | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| Mimic Ichor | 1 raw magical unit | Supports adhesive, surface-bound, unstable form. |
| Shapechanger Blood | 1 raw magical unit | Embodies bodily transformation and fluid identity. |
| Phase Spider Silk or Gland | 1 component | Supports partial displacement between body, space, and extension point. |
| Animated Ink, Living Tattoo Scrap, or Salvaged Magical Tattoo Needle | 1 usable component | Already contains the principle of ink becoming active magical form. |
| Comparable transformation-bearing tissue or fluid | 1 raw magical unit | The raw material naturally supports alteration of form, surface, or reach. |
Consumed Supplies¶
The Resource Burden may be paid with suitable silver, alchemical inks, soot, oils, wax, silver dust, binding salts, rune-etching acids, sterilizing spirits, stencil vellum, tattooing tools, adhesive resins, powdered shell, squid ink, octopus ink, failed test needles, and other tattooing or inscription supplies.
The required essences or approved specific components must still be provided.
Crafting Notes¶
Force Essence creates the damaging impact of the inky tendrils. The tattoo does not simply wrap around the target; it strikes, crushes, and holds with magical force.
Transmutation Essence allows the needle to become ink, the ink to become a tattoo, and the tattoo to become active tendrils that extend from the wearer’s body.
Grappled or Restrained Essence can substitute for Force Essence when the formula emphasizes binding over impact, but those essences are less efficient because the item still deals force damage.
The design should be long, looping, and recursive. Spirals, knots, chains, tentacles, grasping hands, vines, serpents, and interlocking bands all work. The important feature is that the tattoo looks like it is waiting to uncoil.
The tattoo’s 15-foot limit is part of the binding structure. The tendrils do not create an independent creature or summon separate limbs. They remain connected to the wearer through the tattoo.
Decanter of Endless Water¶
Wondrous Item, Uncommon
This stoppered flask sloshes when shaken, as if it contains water. The decanter weighs 2 pounds.
You can take a Magic action to remove the stopper and issue one of three command words, whereupon an amount of fresh water or salt water, your choice, pours out of the flask. The water stops pouring out at the start of your next turn. Choose from the following command words:
Splash. The decanter produces 1 gallon of water.
Fountain. The decanter produces 5 gallons of water.
Geyser. The decanter produces 30 gallons of water that gushes forth in a Line 30 feet long and 1 foot wide. If you’re holding the decanter, you can aim the geyser in one direction, no action required. One creature of your choice in the Line must succeed on a DC 13 Strength saving throw or take 1d4 Bludgeoning damage and have the Prone condition. Instead of a creature, you can target one object in the Line that isn’t being worn or carried and that weighs no more than 200 pounds. The object is knocked over by the geyser.
Crafting Time: 10 days
Resource Burden: 4 Crafting Supply Units
Required Tools: Glassblower’s Tools, Potter’s Tools, or Tinker’s Tools
Optional Tools: Alchemist’s Supplies, Jeweler’s Tools, Calligrapher’s Supplies
Physical Components¶
- A well-made flask, decanter, amphora, bottle, or stoppered vessel
- A fitted stopper, cork, glass plug, ceramic cap, or metal-sealed lid
- A narrow neck or controlled pouring mouth
- Silver, copper, brass, or shell inlay around the lip and stopper
- Waterproof sealing wax, resin, pitch, oil, or alchemical sealant
- Interior flow runes, wave marks, tide spirals, or command-word inscriptions
- Three command marks corresponding to Splash, Fountain, and Geyser
- Optional pearl dust, coral dust, sea salt, river stone powder, blue glass, or shell fragments
The vessel must be strong enough to hold a stable portal boundary, but the stopper is the most important physical component. The decanter works because it opens, regulates, and closes.
Magical Components¶
- 1 unit of Lesser Conjuration Essence
Acceptable Substitutions¶
The following essences may be substituted because they can plausibly create, draw, shape, or regulate the flow of water.
| Required Essence | Possible Substitute | Required Amount | Reason |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lesser Conjuration Essence | Lesser Transmutation Essence | 2 units | Transforms ambient magical potential into water, but less directly than opening a planar source. |
| Lesser Conjuration Essence | Lesser Abjuration Essence + Lesser Water-bearing component | 1 unit + component | Stabilizes and seals a controlled water portal, but still needs an actual water source principle. |
| Lesser Conjuration Essence | Lesser Force Essence + Lesser Transmutation Essence | 1 unit each | Force supplies geyser pressure; Transmutation supplies the water-producing alteration. |
| Lesser Conjuration Essence | Potent Transmutation Essence | 1 unit | Overpowers the weaker requirement by creating water through strong physical alteration. |
| Lesser Conjuration Essence | Potent Abjuration Essence with a water-linked vessel | 1 unit | Overpowers the weaker requirement by safely containing and regulating an existing planar or elemental link. |
Conjuration is the most efficient essence because the decanter’s true function is access. It opens a controlled connection to an endless water source.
Transmutation can work if the formula treats the decanter as transforming magical potential into water, but that is a different and less elegant tradition.
Force can help explain the Geyser command, but Force Essence alone does not explain endless water.
Specific Component Alternatives¶
The following specific components may replace the Lesser Conjuration Essence at the DM’s discretion:
| Specific Component | Required Amount | Replaces |
|---|---|---|
| Water elemental core, mote, or flow-heart | 1 raw magical unit | Lesser Conjuration Essence |
| Marid-touched water, genie vessel fragment, or bound elemental spring residue | 1 raw magical unit | Lesser Conjuration Essence |
| Planar water from the Elemental Plane of Water sealed during a ritual | 1 usable component | Lesser Conjuration Essence |
| Pearl, shell, coral, or river stone from a magical spring, endless fountain, or sacred well | 1 usable component | Lesser Conjuration Essence |
| Fragment of a broken Decanter of Endless Water, elemental font, water gate, or similar item | 1 usable salvaged component | Lesser Conjuration Essence |
| Gland, sac, organ, or vessel from a Lesser creature that magically produces water | 1 raw magical unit | Lesser Conjuration Essence |
A mundane flask full of water is not enough. The component must express endless flow, planar water, magical production, or controlled elemental release.
Consumed Supplies¶
The Resource Burden may be paid with glass, ceramic, crystal, polished stone, silver fittings, copper wire, brass caps, wax, resin, pitch, sealing oil, shell powder, pearl dust, coral dust, salt, alchemical stabilizers, command-word inks, rune-etching acids, failed vessels, broken stoppers, and other bottle-making or containment supplies.
The required essence or approved specific component must still be provided.
Crafting Notes¶
Conjuration Essence is the default because the decanter opens a controlled connection to an endless water source, most commonly understood as the Elemental Plane of Water.
The flask is not valuable because it holds water. It is valuable because it safely holds a doorway.
The stopper is the regulator. Without the stopper, the item cannot reliably distinguish between closed, Splash, Fountain, and Geyser.
The three command words are not flavor. They are flow settings. Each word teaches the portal how wide to open and how violently the water should emerge.
Fresh water and salt water are both possible because the decanter is not drawing from a single mundane lake, river, or barrel. It is accessing the principle of water and shaping the output as the user commands.
A failed decanter is dangerous. It might leak constantly, produce brine only, refuse to stop pouring, rupture its stopper, flood the workspace, or briefly open a much larger gate than intended.
Eldritch Claw Tattoo¶
Wondrous Item, Uncommon (Requires Attunement)
Produced by a special needle, this magic tattoo depicts clawlike forms and other jagged shapes.
While the tattoo is on your skin, your unarmed strikes are magical, and you gain a +1 bonus to attack and damage rolls with unarmed strikes. As a bonus action, you can empower the tattoo for 1 minute. For the duration, your melee attacks with a weapon or unarmed strike can reach a target up to 15 feet away, as inky tendrils launch toward the target. In addition, your melee attacks deal an extra 1d6 force damage on a hit. Once used, this bonus action can’t be used again until the next dawn.
Crafting Time: 10 days
Resource Burden: 4 Crafting Supply Units
Required Tools: Smith’s Tools, Tinker’s Tools or Jeweler’s Tools
Optional Tools: Alchemist’s Supplies, Calligrapher’s Supplies
Physical Components¶
- A fine silver tattoo needle
- Alchemical tattoo ink made from soot, oil, wax, and silver dust
- Claw-pattern runes etched into the needle
- A prepared tattoo stencil, design vellum, or ritual skin-marking pattern
- Optional Wizard’s Ink, Silver Root, or Spellcatch Grass
Silver is the default needle material because the item must move cleanly between three states: needle, ink, and tattoo. Other metals may be used at the DM’s discretion for tattoos of different rarity or tradition.
Magical Components¶
Choose one of the following:
- 1 unit of Lesser Force Essence and 1 unit of Lesser Transmutation Essence
- 1 force-bearing claw, tendon, or striking organ and 1 unit of Lesser Transmutation Essence
Specific Component Alternatives¶
The following specific components may replace the Lesser Force Essence:
| Specific Component | Required Amount | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| Displacer Beast Tendon or Claw | 1 component | Embodies predatory reach, distortion, and unnatural striking force. |
| Spectral Predator Claw | 1 component | Carries the principle of clawlike violence not fully bound by physical distance. |
| Force-Touched Monstrosity Claw | 1 component | A direct source of projected magical impact. |
| Comparable force-bearing claw, tendon, or striking organ | 1 component | The raw material naturally embodies projected melee force. |
The following specific components may replace the Lesser Transmutation Essence:
| Specific Component | Required Amount | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| Shapechanger Blood | 1 unit | Embodies bodily transformation and fluid identity. |
| Mimic Ichor | 1 unit | Supports adhesive, surface-bound, unstable form. |
| Phase Spider Silk or Gland | 1 component | Supports partial displacement between body, space, and striking point. |
| Comparable transformation-bearing tissue | 1 component | The raw material naturally supports alteration of form or reach. |
Consumed Supplies¶
The 4 Crafting Supply Units may be paid with suitable silver, alchemical inks, soot, oils, wax, silver dust, binding salts, rune-etching acids, sterilizing spirits, stencil vellum, tattooing tools, workshop fuel, failed test needles, or equivalent resources.
Crafting Notes¶
Force Essence creates the inky tendrils, the extra force damage, and the projected striking reach.
Transmutation Essence allows the needle to become ink, the ink to become a living tattoo, and the tattoo to return to needle form when attunement ends.
The silver needle gives the enchantment a stable vessel. The ink gives it a form the body can accept. The claw-pattern runes teach the magic how to strike.
The tattoo is not a weapon held in the hand. It is a weapon taught to remember the hand.
Gauntlets of Ogre Power¶
Wondrous Item, Uncommon (Requires Attunement)
Your Strength score is 19 while you wear these gauntlets. They have no effect on you if your Strength is 19 or higher without them.
Crafting Time: 10 days
Resource Burden: 4 Crafting Supply Units
Required Tools: Smith’s Tools
Optional Tools: Leatherworker’s Tools, Alchemist’s Supplies
Physical Components¶
- A matched pair of steel gauntlets
- Leather straps, padding, buckles, and wrist fittings
- Reinforced knuckle plates
- Silver-inlaid strength-channeling runes
Gold, brass, or copper may be used instead of silver at the DM’s discretion. Gold produces a more refined item, while brass or copper produces a rougher but functional version.
Magical Components¶
Choose one of the following:
- 1 unit of Lesser Transmutation Essence
- 1 Ogre Pituitary Gland
Specific Component Alternatives¶
The following specific components may replace the Lesser Transmutation Essence:
| Specific Component | Required Amount | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| Ogre Pituitary Gland | 1 component | A direct anatomical source of unnatural ogre strength. |
| Ogre Marrow | 1 component | Carries the creature’s oversized physical vitality. |
| Lesser Giant Blood | 1 unit | Embodies giant-blooded physical might. |
| Comparable strength-bearing organ | 1 component | The raw material naturally embodies unnatural physical power. |
Consumed Supplies¶
The 4 Crafting Supply Units may be paid with suitable salvage, fuel, alchemical reagents, silver wire, rune-etching acids, strengthening oils, binding salts, quenching materials, leather fittings, workshop fuel, or equivalent resources.
Crafting Notes¶
Transmutation Essence represents the general magical principle of bodily enhancement and physical transformation.
An Ogre Pituitary Gland may be used as a direct substitute because it is a specific anatomical source of unnatural ogre strength.
The gauntlets do not make the metal stronger. They make the wearer stronger through the metal. The steel frame gives the enchantment a shape: grip, knuckle, wrist, and exertion.
Periapt of Wound Closure¶
Wondrous Item, Uncommon (Requires Attunement)
While wearing this pendant, you gain the following benefits.
Life Preservation. Whenever you make a Death Saving Throw, you can change a roll of 9 or lower to a 10, turning a failed save into a successful one.
Natural Healing Boost. Whenever you roll a Hit Point Die to regain Hit Points, double the number of Hit Points it restores.
Crafting Time: 10 days
Resource Burden: 4 Crafting Supply Units
Required Tools: Jeweler’s Tools, Smith’s Tools or Tinker’s Tools, Alchemist’s Supplies
Physical Components¶
- 1 ★★ gemstone
- Silver chain
- Gold gem enclosure
- Silver or gold clasp
- Optional bloodstone dust, red mineral pigment, or sanctified sealing powder
The gemstone does not need to be garnet. Garnet is traditional because its red color visually echoes blood, vitality, and wound closure, but any ★★ gemstone may be used if it is properly cut and set. The choice of gem may alter the item’s appearance, but not its basic function.
Magical Components¶
- 1 unit of Lesser Healing Essence
- 1 unit of Lesser Necromancy Essence
Specific Component Alternatives¶
The following specific components may replace the Lesser Healing Essence:
| Specific Component | Required Amount | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| Troll Heart | 1 component | A direct source of regenerative force. |
| Hydra Heart | 1 component | A direct source of regenerative force. |
| Comparable regenerative organ | 1 component | The raw material naturally embodies wound closure or rapid healing. |
The following specific components may replace the Lesser Necromancy Essence:
| Specific Component | Required Amount | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| Preserved Undead Heart | 1 component | Holds life-force at the boundary of death. |
| Soul-Bound Bone | 1 component | Anchors the wearer’s spirit to the body. |
| Deathless Blood | 1 unit | Contains necromantic life-preserving force. |
| Comparable life-force component | 1 component | The raw material naturally resists final death. |
Acceptable Substitutions¶
| Required Essence | Possible Substitute | Required Amount | Reason |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lesser Healing Essence | Lesser Transmutation Essence | 2 units | Enhances the body’s natural recovery. |
| Lesser Necromancy Essence | Lesser Abjuration Essence | 2 units | Wards the wearer from slipping into death. |
| Lesser Necromancy Essence | Lesser Healing Essence | 2 units | Sustains life-force through restorative overflow. |
Consumed Supplies¶
The 4 Crafting Supply Units may be paid with suitable precious metal, gemstone cutting supplies, polishing compounds, alchemical stabilizers, sanctified sealing powder, binding salts, rune-etching tools, workshop fuel, or equivalent resources.
Crafting Notes¶
The gemstone serves as the item’s heart, receiving and holding the restorative enchantment. Red stones such as garnet are traditional, but the magic depends on the gem’s quality and cut, not its color.
The gold enclosure stabilizes the healing magic, while the silver chain and clasp bind the wearer to the threshold between life and death.
The Healing component empowers the periapt’s natural recovery effect. The Necromancy component preserves the wearer’s life-force when death would otherwise claim them.
Sending Stones¶
Wondrous Item, Uncommon
Sending Stones come in pairs, with each stone carved to match the other so the pairing is easily recognized. While you touch one stone, you can cast Sending from it. The target is the bearer of the other stone. If no creature bears the other stone, you know that fact as soon as you use the stone, and you don’t cast the spell.
Once Sending is cast using either stone, the stones can’t be used again until the next dawn. If one of the stones in a pair is destroyed, the other one becomes nonmagical.
Crafting Time: 10 days
Resource Burden: 4 Crafting Supply Units
Required Tools: Jeweler’s Tools or Mason’s Tools
Optional Tools: Calligrapher’s Supplies, Alchemist’s Supplies
Physical Components¶
- A matched pair of palm-sized stones
- Matching carved marks, shapes, symbols, or relief patterns
- Silver, copper, or gold inlay worked into each stone
- Paired resonance runes carved into the inner face or underside of each stone
- A small amount of powdered quartz, pearl dust, or other resonant mineral worked into the inscription grooves
The stones do not need to be gemstones, but they must be durable, carefully matched, and able to hold fine carving. Smooth river stones, worked quartz, agate, jasper, onyx, slate, marble, or similar materials are all suitable.
Silver is the default inlay because it carries communication, reflection, and sympathetic linkage cleanly. Copper may be used for a rougher but functional pair, while gold may be used for a more refined pair.
Magical Components¶
- 1 unit of Lesser Divination Essence
Specific Component Alternatives¶
There are no alternate essence tags for this recipe. The magic must be Divination.
The following specific components may replace the Lesser Divination Essence if they come from a creature or source whose supernatural senses, telepathy, message-bearing nature, or long-distance awareness clearly supports the item’s function:
| Specific Component | Required Amount | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| Telepathic Monster Brain, Eye, or Nerve Cluster | 1 component | Carries the principle of mind-to-mind communication across distance. |
| Divination-Bearing Eye or Sensory Organ | 1 component | Supports magical awareness of a distant bearer. |
| Messenger Spirit Residue | 1 component | Embodies directed communication between separated creatures. |
| Comparable Divination-bearing monster part | 1 component | The raw material naturally supports supernatural communication, detection, or distant awareness. |
No Essence Substitutions¶
Divination Essence cannot be replaced with Enchantment, Conjuration, Illusion, Psychic, Thunder, or any other essence tag for this recipe.
Consumed Supplies¶
The 4 Crafting Supply Units may be paid with suitable carved stone, precious metal inlay, powdered quartz, pearl dust, resonant mineral grit, rune-etching acids, polishing compounds, binding salts, alchemical stabilizers, inscription tools, failed test stones, workshop fuel, or equivalent resources.
Crafting Notes¶
Divination Essence is required because Sending Stones reproduce the Sending spell, and Sending is a Divination spell. The stones have no broader communication, telepathy, or message-network function. They do one thing: allow the bearer of one stone to cast Sending targeting the bearer of the other stone.
The matching carvings and paired inscriptions teach the stones that they are a single divided enchantment. Each stone only answers its mate.
Because the item reproduces a specific spell, the DM may require the crafter to be capable of casting Sending, to work from a reliable formula, or to have access to a teacher, scroll, spellbook, artificer, temple, or workshop that can supply the spell structure.
The stones are not two separate magic items. They are one divided enchantment. If either half is destroyed, the remaining half has nothing left to answer.
Rare¶
Non
Very Rare¶
None
Legendary¶
Holy Avenger¶
Weapon (Any Simple or Martial), Legendary (Requires Attunement by a Paladin)
You gain a +3 bonus to attack rolls and damage rolls made with this magic weapon. When you hit a Fiend or an Undead with it, that creature takes an extra 2d10 Radiant damage.
While you hold the drawn weapon, it creates a 10-foot Emanation originating from you. You and all creatures Friendly to you in the Emanation have Advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects. If you have 17 or more levels in the Paladin class, the size of the Emanation increases to 30 feet.
Crafting Time: 250 days
Resource Burden: 2,000 Crafting Supply Units
Required Tools: Smith’s Tools
Required Skill: Arcana
Optional Tools: Jeweler’s Tools, Woodcarver’s Tools, Carpenter’s Tools, Leatherworker’s Tools, Alchemist’s Supplies, Calligrapher’s Supplies
Physical Components¶
- A masterwork simple or martial weapon
- A sacred metal core, edge, head, or striking surface
- Silver or palladium inlay worked into the weapon’s holy inscriptions
- A ★★★★★ gemstone set into the pommel, haft, guard, socket, or central frame
- A sanctified wooden grip, haft, core, or scabbard component
- Oath-script, radiant runes, or consecrated inscriptions worked into the weapon
- A fitted sheath, case, reliquary wrap, or weapon stand suitable for preserving the weapon during the crafting process
The base weapon may be any simple or martial weapon, but it must be made as a legendary vessel from the beginning. A mundane weapon cannot simply be dipped in essence and become a Holy Avenger.
Metal Requirements¶
Choose one primary sacred metal for the weapon’s core, blade, head, or striking surface.
| Metal | Use | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| Star Metal | Primary weapon body or edge | Ideal for enchantment and legendary weaponcraft; strengthens and prolongs enchantments. |
| Arambarium | Primary weapon body, edge, or divine channel | Amplifies powerful magical and primordial effects. |
| Palladium | Inlay, guard, holy symbol work, or sacred reinforcement | Enhances divine magic and suits holy weapon construction. |
| Platinum | Guard, fittings, inlay, or sacred reinforcement | Refined precious metal suitable for high-order enchantment and spell-channeling work. |
| Silver | Inlay, edge wash, inscription channels, or anti-undead/anti-fiend work | Symbolically and materially suited to holy, lunar, anti-undead, and anti-shapeshifter traditions. |
A Holy Avenger should include at least one ★★★★★ or ★★★★ metal as part of its permanent structure. Lesser metals may be used for fittings, balance, pins, rivets, wraps, or decorative work, but they cannot serve as the primary legendary vessel.
Wood Requirements¶
If the weapon uses a haft, grip, bow stave, scabbard, shield-like frame, staff body, or other wooden component, choose one suitable sanctified or enchantment-bearing wood.
| Wood | Use | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| Feywood | Grip, haft, bow stave, staff body, or scabbard core | Takes enchantment readily and supports powerful magic item construction. |
| Duskwood | Grip, haft, staff body, or scabbard core | Stable for magic and suitable for binding a long-term enchantment. |
| Rowan | Grip, charm inlay, scabbard lining, or warding beads | Protective associations support the weapon’s defensive aura. |
| Oak | Grip, haft, or scabbard body | Traditional strength, endurance, oath, and sacred authority. |
| Cedar | Scabbard, reliquary case, or preservation lining | Resists decay and helps preserve consecrated materials during long crafting. |
For weapons with little or no wood in the finished form, the wood requirement may be satisfied by a consecrated scabbard, reliquary case, haft wrapping, ritual stand, or oath-tablet that remains part of the weapon’s permanent kit.
Gem Requirements¶
A Holy Avenger requires one ★★★★★ gemstone as a radiant and abjurative anchor.
| Gemstone | Use | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| Diamond | Primary radiant anchor | Clarity, purity, and brilliance make it the default gemstone for sacred light. |
| Sapphire | Abjuration and spell-resistance anchor | Suitable for stable protective magic and disciplined divine order. |
| Ruby | Zeal, divine wrath, and anti-fiend burning force | Supports the weapon’s destructive holy power. |
| Opal or Black Opal | Refraction and aura shaping | Useful for spreading the protective emanation around the wielder. |
| Pearl or Black Pearl | Attunement, oath, and divine receptivity | Holds enchantment and supports a bearer-focused sacred bond. |
The gemstone must be set permanently into the weapon, not merely used as a consumed spell component. It is the focus through which the weapon recognizes its wielder’s oath and projects its protective aura.
Magical Components¶
A Holy Avenger requires all of the following:
- 1 unit of Mythic Radiant Essence
- 1 unit of Mythic Abjuration Essence
- 1 unit of Greater or Mythic Evocation Essence
- 1 appropriate sacred relic, celestial remnant, saintly relic, consecrated oath-token, or divine weapon fragment
Essence Function¶
| Essence | Function |
|---|---|
| Mythic Radiant Essence | Creates the weapon’s extra Radiant damage against Fiends and Undead and establishes its holy nature. |
| Mythic Abjuration Essence | Creates the protective emanation and grants Advantage on saving throws against spells and magical effects. |
| Greater or Mythic Evocation Essence | Gives the weapon the force to express sacred power through a strike rather than merely glow with holiness. |
Radiant Essence is the heart of the weapon. Abjuration Essence is the aura. Evocation Essence is the delivery of divine force through the weapon’s blows.
Specific Component Alternatives¶
The following specific components may replace part of the essence requirement at the DM’s discretion.
| Specific Component | May Replace | Required Amount | Reason |
|---|---|---|---|
| Solar, Planetar, or Deva Weapon Fragment | Mythic Radiant Essence or sacred relic | 1 relic | Carries holy martial authority in a weapon-shaped form. |
| Halo Fragment or Consecrated Radiance Mote | Mythic Radiant Essence or sacred relic | 1 relic | Embodies divine light and celestial presence. |
| Saintly Bone, Martyr’s Ash, or Oathbound Relic | Sacred relic | 1 relic | Anchors the weapon to sacrifice, faith, oath, and divine judgment. |
| Ancient Paladin’s Broken Holy Symbol | Sacred relic | 1 relic | Gives the weapon a lineage of oath-bound service. |
| Shield Archon Core, Warding Angel Feather, or Similar Relic | Mythic Abjuration Essence or sacred relic | 1 relic | Supports the protective emanation and resistance to hostile magic. |
| Comparable celestial, consecrated, or oath-bound relic | Sacred relic or matching essence | 1 relic | The raw component naturally embodies holy judgment, protection, or divine martial force. |
A planar relic does not become generic essence. If used, it remains a specific sacred component bound into the weapon’s identity.
Acceptable Essence Substitutions¶
A Holy Avenger’s essence requirements are narrow. It is a legendary item with a specific divine function, not a general enchanted weapon.
| Required Essence | Possible Substitute | Required Amount | Reason |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mythic Radiant Essence | None | — | The weapon’s anti-Fiend and anti-Undead damage must be Radiant. |
| Mythic Abjuration Essence | None | — | The aura specifically protects against spells and magical effects. |
| Greater Evocation Essence | Mythic Radiant Essence | 1 additional unit | The weapon may express its striking force entirely through overwhelming holy radiance. |
Necromancy Essence is not suitable, even though the weapon harms Undead. The Holy Avenger does not manipulate undeath; it burns it away.
Enchantment Essence is not suitable, even though the weapon requires attunement by a Paladin. The weapon does not charm, compel, or dominate its bearer. It answers an oath.
Consecration Requirement¶
The final phase of crafting must involve an oath-bound consecration.
Choose one of the following:
- A Paladin capable of attuning to the finished weapon participates in the final consecration.
- The weapon is finished in a sanctified site, temple forge, holy battlefield, sacred tomb, celestial ruin, or comparable place of divine power.
- The crafter works from a complete Holy Avenger formula preserved by a temple, order, saintly lineage, celestial patron, or ancient artificer tradition.
- A suitable sacred relic is bound into the weapon during the final 10 days of crafting.
At the DM’s discretion, the crafting may require the active participation of a Paladin, a divine caster, a celestial patron, or an institution capable of supplying the necessary sacred rites.
Consumed Supplies¶
The 2,000 Crafting Supply Units may be paid with suitable legendary metals, precious metal inlay, gemstone cutting loss, sanctified wood, consecrated oils, holy incense, alchemical stabilizers, binding salts, radiant reagents, abjurative wards, quenching materials, polishing compounds, rune-etching acids, spell inks, reliquary fittings, workshop fuel, failed test pieces, and equivalent resources.
The named physical components are not optional. The Resource Burden represents the immense amount of material, failed refinement, ritual preparation, stabilizing reagents, tool wear, sanctified fuel, and wasted attempts required to make the weapon permanent and reliable.
Crafting Notes¶
A Holy Avenger is not merely a +3 weapon with Radiant damage. It is a sacred weapon that recognizes the bearer’s oath and turns that oath outward into protection.
The metal gives the weapon its legendary body. The wood gives it memory, grip, tradition, and continuity. The gemstone gives the enchantment a heart. The essences give it function: Radiant judgment, Abjuration protection, and Evocation force.
The weapon’s bonus to attack and damage comes from the perfection of the vessel and the stability of the enchantment. Its extra damage against Fiends and Undead comes from Radiant Essence. Its protective emanation comes from Abjuration Essence shaped through the gemstone and sacred inscriptions.
The Paladin attunement requirement is not incidental. The weapon is built to answer an oath. In another bearer’s hands, it may still be a legendary weapon, but it is not fully awake.
A completed Holy Avenger should have a history before it is ever swung. The recipe is difficult enough that making one is not a downtime purchase. It is a campaign achievement.