Ye Aulde Magicke Item Shoppe

The power of a good list

Characters should be able to buy magic items. PC magic-users should also be able to make them (at a level, price, and time investment that sees the ability actually get used), but the magic shops are more contentious so I’m going to talk about that.

It’s an OSR truism (which has since made its way to 5th edition) that shops cheapen the magic of magic items, and therefore no item should ever be sullied with filthy commerce. I think this is exactly backwards: magic shops are exciting! A magic shop is one of the more evocative images available to fantasy RPGs. A cluttered room full of strange and forgotten curios. A mysterious merchant offering power at a price. Second-hand potions (unlabeled). Jumbled crystals, stuffed crocodiles, stacks of books, starry curtains, sorcerous burglar alarms, golem security guards, talking shop cats, and so on. It’s a button that you can hand players that they can hit for either the wonder of discovery (“what have they got in stock?”) or the pleasant anticipation of a long-term goal (“ok, I need to save up for the Sword of Blue Fire, let’s hit the lair of the lizardmen next”). Mechanically, a shop is also a way of smoothing out player problems at a cost: they don’t have a healer, but they can buy potions. They haven’t found a magic battle-axe but they can buy one… for the cost it would take to hit level 2. They can’t think of anything cool to do with that randomly generated item they found in the ogre’s cave, but they can sell it at a steep discount to that hooded old man.

I think the anti-magic-shop attitude is part of the long hangover from 3rd edition, because (I’m told) it was easy to play that game as a bonus treadmill, where you get the +2 Gauntlets of Strength in order to help you grind enough to afford the +3 Gauntlets of Strength. But you can also just… not do that. In fact, you could even not do it in 3rd edition, where I mostly used the exhaustively detailed item creation rules to make weird things like “+1 arrow with the powers of a Quaal’s Feather Token (Tree), so a giant oak sprouts wherever the arrow lands” or go “the rules allow for putting single-use powers like scrolls or potions onto permanent items like +1 swords, neato”.

Lady Winter

Magic-User 9        HP 28        AC 14        XP: 325,000        Morale 11

Str 17, Dex 17, Con 12, Int 18, Wis 14, Cha 16

Wargear: dagger +2 (Winterthorn), the Helm of Heroes, ring of regeneration, cloak of protection, pearl of power II, ring of shooting stars

Spells Prepared

1. Charm Person, Shield, Sleep

2. ESP, Phantasmal Force, Web

3. Dispel Magic, Haste, Lightning Bolt

4. Charm Monster, Polymorph

5. Conjure Elemental

Helm of Heroes

Combines the powers of a Ring of Protection, 5ft radius and a Staff of Healing (usable by characters of any class). Despite the name, the Helm of Heroes is more like an ornamental gold cap than a true war-helm and does not provide an armor bonus.

Ring of Shooting Stars

The ring has 6 charges, which are renewed each night at midnight. A charge may be expended to produce one of the following effects:

• Dancing Lights, as the spell

• Light, as the spell

• Shooting Star

• Shower of Sparks

Shooting Stars function as the spell Magic Missile, except that they burst on contact. All creatures adjacent to the target suffer half damage.

The Shower of Sparks deals 2d6 damage in a 20 ft cone.

She goes everywhere with her familiar, a winged tabby named Firespark.

Tale of the Black Sword 1 – Beautiful and Terrible As The Dawn

August 13

Ivy Almyr sets out for the Caves of Chaos, accompanied by her retainers.

Our… Heroes?

Ivy Almyr, Fighter 3

Ambrosius Blackcloak, Cleric 3

Nogi of Firedeep, Dwarf 2

Mothclaw, Orc 1

Nogi, Gimwort, and Flarkin usually end up sharing a drink together between adventures, so Ivy’s party heard about the successful raid on the hobgoblin cave. Their new target is the cave of the bugbears, on the other side of the Gorge. Nogi is unhappy to be traveling with an orc, but he is rather cowed by Ivy and Mothclaw seems servile enough.

Ambrosius is the evil priest from the Shrine of Evil Chaos. He escaped the PCs destruction of his cult with a potion of gaseous form, so nobody has actually seen him (although his vestments and wargear are extremely suspicious). Having made his lair in Rivior Blackstar’s tomb and animated the dead king’s body as a wight, he knows exactly whose spirit is bound to the raven-winged helm Ivy wears.

The party's route (they didn't miss much)

Silver Daggers 1 - No Slime Like The Present

August 13

Equipped with new maps and new party members, Eveningstar’s third-best adventuring party sets out for the Haunted Halls. In the distance ahead of them they can see that Ivy Almyr’s party is also hiking up Eveningstar Gorge today, although as they are on the east side of the Starwater they must be headed towards one of the Caves of Chaos rather than the Halls.

Elm Ringlad, Ranger 1

Oak Ringlad, Ranger 1

Flarkin of Toadmarket, Dwarf 3

Dunsell the Daring, Paladin 1

Deyla & Stonescale, Beastmaster 1 & 1HD crystal lizard

This will be Dunsell and Deyla’s first adventure. Dunsell is an idealistic (if unimpressive) young man with nothing but his sword, shield, and unswerving zeal, while Deyla is an old woman who took up adventuring late in life after adopting Stonescale, her pet crystal lizard. Crystal lizards need to eat gems and valuable metals in order to grow, and Deyla wasn’t likely to find many rubies or emeralds as a charcoal burner’s widow.

THE LOG

The 15-minute adventuring day

Session 13 - Into the Caves

August 11

Feeling frustrated by the meagre pickings they’ve had from the Haunted Halls of late, the party decides to do a bit of potholing in the Caves of Chaos. Specifically, they decide to try the hobgoblin lair that Ivy and Nogi attacked last week. While Nogi’s drunken ramblings weren’t very clear, it seems that the pair of them killed several hobgoblins before retreating. In Gimwort’s grim assessment, the goblin forces were weakened without losing any of their treasure.

Our Heroes

Trigg Sunbold, Fighter 3

Tansybell of Merry Meadow, Halfling 3

Gimwort of Greydelve, Dwarf 3

Old Dolf, Thief 4

Eldred the Enchanter, Illusionist 2

Mell of the Moonwood, Fighter 1

The party's route

Downtime in Eveningstar – Check the Job Board for New Quests

August 4–11

It is fully seven days before the party is healed again. Tansybell is surprisingly cheerful about her ugly new scar – nobody will be able to mistake her as anything other than Adventurous now.

Eldred sells the garnets and the silver comb recovered on their last expedition for 324 gp, a mere 64 gp for each of them. He then spends 100 gp having Elfarran identify the magic wand they found, which turns out to be a Wand of Fire with a single charge remaining. Fortunately their other adventuring supplies are cheap; the party rarely needs to stock up on more than lamp oil. Still, Trigg, Gimwort, and Eldred are frustrated as they go over the accounts. The rewards to be had plumbing the Haunted Halls don’t seem commensurate with the dangers.

The other parties appear to have had a rough time of it as well. The Silver Daggers returned to town only an hour after the PCs did, wounded and without their cleric, Pious Oddle. Oak and Elm Ringlad are offering their only real treasures, a pair of 500 gp garnets plucked from the dark throne of the shrine of evil chaos, as a reward: one to anyone who can destroy the statue that slew their comrade, another to whoever recovers his body for burial. Flarkin does not offer his own gem, and word gets out that he’s sold the Scroll of Summoning he took as part of his share of the treasure to Elfarran without splitting the money with the Ringlads.

Ivy and Nogi were badly injured as well. While Ivy closets herself in her room, wrapped in a black mood, the dwarf drinks morosely deep into the night, muttering about hobgoblins. The huge new gash in the would-be slayer’s face looks like it will heal badly.

Ultimately, the party and the Ringlad brothers agree to share information. Everyone spends a night at the Golden Unicorn, compiling maps and comparing adventures. They agree to leave a master copy at the inn, from which all adventurers may freely copy, and toast to a new era of adventure. A copy of the Ringlad’s offer of rewards is pinned up as well.

Session 12 – The B Team

August 3rd

Gimwort, Tansybell, Eldred, Old Dolf, and Mell return to the Haunted Halls. Trigg remains behind, still recovering from wounds taken fighting the basilisk on their last expedition.

As a reminder, I’m rolling on this wandering monster chart.

I filled in the Haunted Halls’ many un-keyed rooms with rooms from the first level of B1: In Search of the Unknown, with a 50% chance each for a monster and treasure from the relevant tables in that module.

Rooms marked “A” are keyed in The Haunted Halls of Eveningstar. Rooms marked “B” are from In Search of the Unknown. “S” rooms are from level 2 of Palace of the Silver Princess.

Our Heroes

Trigg Sunbold, Fighter 3

Tansybell of Merry Meadow, Halfling 3

Old Dolf, Thief 4

Eldred the Enchanter, Illusionist 2

Mell of the Moonwood, Fighter 1

THE LOG

The party's route

Elfarran's Shop

Back in Session 8 Elfarran’s leg was badly broken by a blow from a cleric’s mace. While she survived, the wound left her permanently crippled and she decided to retire from adventuring and set up shop in Eveningstar. Working out of an attic room of the inn of the Golden Unicorn, Elfarran produces scrolls, potions of healing, and identifies magical items for a fee.

I’m using the Holmes Basic rules for magic item creation for all of this. As a level 2 Half-Elf (in OSE half-elves are elves who level up faster in exchange for using the cleric’s slower spell progression) she can cast 1st level magic-user spells. She’s not gaining experience and won’t ever be able to cast higher level spells, but she can expand her repertoire with the rules for magical research. Even with just healing potions and scrolls of Light, however, she’s kept up a tidy business. The biggest barrier so far has been that her customers can’t afford her services as often as they’d like!

In a recent session one of Eveningstar’s NPC adventuring parties found a Scroll of Summoning that none of them could use, which Elfarran was subsequently able to buy cheaply. That scroll would probably have sat unused at the bottom of somebody’s inventory otherwise, proving the utility of having a local magic item shop.

The Sunbold Farm

EveningStardew Valley, more like

One of the conditions for Trigg being allowed to marry Emelda was that he purchase a farmhouse for her to live in. The Haunted Halls of Eveningstar has an entry for a ruined farm in the town key, so I decided he could purchase that and make it just about livable for 2,000 gp. In doing so he had to swear an oath of service to Lady Winter and pay 200 gp in taxes each month. 

In its current state the farm makes no income and Emelda isn’t going to want to live in a burnt-out shell of a building forever (especially once they discover that she’s pregnant), so I figured that I should draw up a little system for his new money sink. 

The farm is a difficult property to manage because it is attached to a sizable area of waste land. Situated near the mouth of Eveningstar Gorge, the Sunbold Farm is vulnerable to monster attacks and has lain untended since the farmhouse was burned down in a goblin raid.

Labor: each week of labor performed adds the laborer’s Hit Dice + Str or Con bonus to the purchase price for a farm upgrade. For example, as a fighter with 17 Strength Trigg would roll 1d8+2 for a week’s labor. It is not possible to recover HP while laboring on the farm.

Hired hands may be available seasonally at 1 gp per week. They roll 1d4.

Delve 11 – A Shot In The Dark

"Be bold, be bold, but not too bold"

Gimwort remains in town, recovering from the wound he received in battle with orcs on the previous expedition. Trigg leaves Emelda and joins the party on the road – he needs to make some money soon to cover his taxes and farm repairs. Their plan is to continue where they left off, exploring the side passages off of the Room of Pools.

As a reminder, I’m rolling on this wandering monster chart.

I filled in the Haunted Halls’ many un-keyed rooms with rooms from the first level of B1: In Search of the Unknown, with a 50% chance each for a monster and treasure from the relevant tables in that module.

Rooms marked “A” are keyed in The Haunted Halls of Eveningstar. Rooms marked “B” are from In Search of the Unknown.

OUR HEROES

Trigg Sunbold, Fighter 3

Tansybell of Merry Meadow, Halfling 3

Old Dolf, Thief 3

Eldred the Enchanter, Illusionist 2

Mell of the Moonwood, Fighter 1

The party's route

The Eveningstar Gazetteer

I have a bad tendency to tinker with systems and settings so long that I never end up actually running/playing the game. To combat this, I started my solo D&D game with a deliberately zero-prep approach, relying on a module and my own particular sense of vernacular fantasy to fill in the gaps on a strictly as-needed basis. Nevertheless, lore accumulates fast, and as the game has progressed I’ve steadily built up a picture of the world (or at least this part of it). It's all Vanilla Fantasy of course, but I happen to think vanilla is a fine flavor and everyone's fantasy vernacular is a little bit different. Hopefully mine is a nice vanilla bean (it makes better rootbeer floats than french vanilla, in my opinion).

Eveningstar

A small valley province on the border of the Realm, just south of the inhospitable Stonelands. In ages past Eveningstar was a petty kingdom ruled by a line of bandit kings who used the black star as their sigil.

Eveningstar’s current ruler, Lady Winter, is the king’s former lover and was installed here as a form of soft exile from court. Fortunately for the people of Eveningstar, she is also a powerful wizard and has transformed her domain into a garden on the edge of the wild waste. 

Aided by her spells, the valley is full of flowers, fruit trees, and magical animals. The most notable of these are Eveningstar’s famous winged cats, but most of Lady Winter’s designs are less ostentatious, such as helpful bees, livestock that rarely sickens, and cold-resistant fruit trees that graft easily.

Eveningstar Abbey

The monks of Lathander own a fair proportion of the land around Eveningstar. Relations between the abbey and the town are generally good, as Lady Winter is careful to honor the abbey’s rights and privileges. The abbey’s beer is famous.

The Two Rivers

A stream of clear water, the Starwater, flows through Eveningstar from its source in Lostar Lake in the Stonelands, forming a picturesque waterfall along the way. A second stream of foul, sulfurous water, known as the Goblinwater, runs out of Eveningstar Gorge and into the Briarwood. The two eventually meet by the town of Toadmarket, where they join the mighty Realmstream River.

Eveningstar Gorge

The old heathen kings of Eveningstar were laid to rest in tombs carved into the gorge walls. Monsters from the Stonelands have moved in or dug new caves in the years since then. Collectively this network of dungeons is known as the Caves of Chaos.

    The Haunted Halls

The last redoubt of the old kings of Eveningstar. The last king’s army fell to starvation and foul magic in a war with a witch-queen out of the stonelands. Old spells and cursed, immortal soldiers of that barbarous era still haunt the halls.

The Killing Keep

An old ruin that overlooks Eveningstar Gorge. A mad vampire and his small army of kobolds occupy it now, and have protected it with traps and the severed, animated hands of intruders. The keep is connected to the Haunted Halls in several places, most of which are guarded or trapped.

Delve 10 – Hobnobbing With Orcs

A reduced party sets out for the Haunted Halls: Gimwort, Tansybell, Eldred, and Old Dolf. Sassaran has left on her journey with Taravol, and Trigg is on his brief honeymoon with Emelda.

THE LOG

TURN 1 – A8: Welcoming Trap

The party heads to bronze doors that guard the inner halls and the now-routine dash past their blocked lightning trap.

TURN 2 – B31: The Room of Pools

The party turns south to explore some of the side passages of the mysterious Room of Pools.

TURN 3 – B23: Storage Chamber. “This room is used primarily for furniture storage, although it is mostly empty. There are three large oaken tables, a number of chairs, and fourteen wooden stools stacked against the walls.”

A search of the room fails to turn up anything interesting.

TURN 5 – SP31: Gaming Room. “This small, quaint little room has a game table in the center. A chess set, with a game apparently in progress (or never finished), sits upon it. A large map of a world unknown to the adventurers has been painted on the floor.”

Some of the orc survivors of Ivy’s party’s attack on the Caves of Chaos fled to the Haunted Halls. Three of them were holed up in here, gambling on chess matches and debating about what to do. They heard the PCs approaching and ambush them.