In The Lord of the Rings, the elven cloaks and ropes that the fellowship received from Galadriel in Lothlorien were very helpful. The rope seemed to know when to stay tied or un-knot itself. The cloaks reliably hid their wearers from hostile eyes. In this post we examine a game mechanic for this sort of item, and go beyond it to granting physical objects personalities and even minds. Such items can function better than mundane items, but may also be argumentative, grouchy, and might have veto power over an item’s powers. The form of the game mechanic, for Realm of the Powers, takes the form of three additional spiritual talents that grant low level awareness, personality, or a full mind to the items.
The new talents
The three added spiritual talents can be translated for other gaming systems and all of them require that the character exercise the talent during the crafting of the item that is to have the spiritual component. They are as follows.
Awaken Object This talent permits a character, while crafting a physical object like a blade, rope, cloak, or other product of craft, to awaken the beginning of an awareness in the object. This leads to a rope that knots tightly then the owner needs it to and unties at a jerk; a cloak that covers its owner completely against cold or for concealment, a sword that seeks its target, gaining +1 to hit. This ability slows the crafting of objects and has substantial limits on the powers that it can grant. It is consistent and synergistic with the creation of magic items and increases to a moderate degree the strength and durability of the items made.
This talent is what would be used to craft elven ropes or cloaks from Lord of the Rings. The items in question are usually just items, but they are somewhat responsive to their owners needs and desires. They are also somewhat aware of who their owners are; if they are acquired from a treasure store or a shop there is probably some type of acclimatization required. Remember also that Golem was burned by the elven ropes, “It burns, it burns us! Nasty elves twisted it! take it off us!”
Intentional Object This talent permits a character, while crafting a physical object like a blade, shield, suit of armor, or other product of craft, to awaken an awareness and personality in the object. This ability may be used to accomplish the goals of the talent awaken object. This leads to a sword that targets by itself gaining +2 to hit and +1 damage class, a shield that adds +5 to parry and shield use rolls, armor that flexes and aligns itself to add +1 to its armor value, and so on. This ability slows the crafting of objects substantially and has limits on the powers that it can grant. It is consistent and synergistic with the creation of magic items, the crafter may permit the items personality to run the magical powers of the item or veto their use. Use of this ability in crafting substantially increases the strength and durability of the items made.
Items crafted with this talent do not speak to their owners, but they like to be used properly and have a sense of friends and foes. They can withhold their powers from wielders and wearers that they feel are not acting properly and will withhold their powers from enemies. The crafters of such items are very much woven into them — they count as personal traces for the crafter’s and the use of psychometry will reveal the crafters of such objects in the act of crafting.
Sentient Object This talent permits a character, while crafting a physical object to grant the object a mind. The object possesses intelligence, knowledge and personality as well as magic, spirit, and intuition with each group of three having the same average value as the crafter and with each statistic being no more than three points different from the crafter’s values. This ability may be used to accomplish the goals of the talent awaken object or intentional object and the added abilities for the items are the same. This ability slows the crafting of objects enormously and has the same limits on the powers that it can grant as intentional object, except that the object can have skills and talents consistent with its form or granted to its wielder. The item may be a mage, spiritualist, or intuitionist. This talent is consistent and synergistic with the creation of magic items, the crafter may permit the item’s personality to run the magical powers of the item or veto their use. Use of this ability in crafting remarkably increases the strength and durability of the items made.
This talent is the one that makes weapons that can engage in silent speech with their wielder. It the weapon has the right spiritual skills or talents, it may even be able to take over its wielder. Similarly this talent can make rings, crowns, or even boots with an agenda and sentience. The mind of the item is either fully aware, or aware when the item is wielded, at the option of the crafter. Items are sometimes given minds to ensure they are not misused. The mind of an item starts with half the point value a starting character gets and may spend them on skills and talents the character crafting it has. Items crafted with this talent are often also magical items and can be very powerful. Care is required.
Some cases
The One Ring seems consistent with the intentional object talent. It sowed chaos and tried to get back to its master, but it was not fully sentient. As noted above, the various elven objects like rope and cloaks are consistent with awaken object talent. In classical D&D, swords with minds could take over their wielders in some cases, which is consistent with the talent sentient object. Orchrist and Glamdring, the elvish swords that hate orcs and glow when they are nearby, are examples of weapons crafted with the intentional object talent.
It may be the case that a sentient object is sleeping or resting until it is activated by a circumstance or situation. Also, even if an item can control or speak with its wielder, it might not do so while learning about its master. A magic ring with several useful powers might have been crafted to function as a spy, for example. A treasure chest crafted with intentional object will tend to jam when someone other than its owner tried to open it and might make it very hard to find internal secret compartments in the chest.
If you intend to incorporate the abilities and items that these talents grant into your campaign, then you should figure out if the capabilities in question are widely known or if they are going to be a big surprise to most people. Are intentional objects something a noble or rich merchant might commission, or are people just occasionally noticing odd things about items crafted by elven smiths? There is also the question of how such objects bond with or change their owner or wielder. This is typically local to a given campaign and so, we feel, something to be left to individual referees — and keep in mind that these rules may be different depending on what the crafter put into the item.
This is Dan of Dan and Andrew’s Game Place. Let me know what you think about this post in the comments. If you get ideas from this post, give us a pointer!
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