Strange Magic Items – Truenaming

This expansion for the stellar, critically-acclaimed Strange Magic-book clocks in at 12 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page SRD, leaving us with 10 pages of content, so let’s take a look!

Wait…before we do: In case you haven’t noticed: My name’s on that cover. I am one of the authors of this book. I am writing these lines since I was explicitly asked to by some of my readers. Hence, this will not be a review – there will be no rating or the like – consider this, instead, to be basically a kind of overview of what’s in this pdf, all right? As such, I will try to take out as much emotion as I can possibly can – so expect none of my usual snark, cynicism or gushing here, all right?

Great! This pdf contains new special qualities: One for armors (which provides a reflexive deafening effect that also acts as a minor debuff for the wearer’s recitations) and 3 shield special qualities. Acoustic shields do not fracture in their armor check penalty when receiving a recitation and recitations on the wielders get a slightly prolonged duration. Contingent Speech and its Greater brethren, at +1 and +3, respectively, can store low-level recitations from the Codex of Heart and Mind. The pdf also contains 5 qualities intended for weaponry. Nameseeker weapons attune themselves to a given target damaged and deal additional damage versus said foe. Truesong weapons provide a bonus to recitation checks, while truenamers can channel (at -4 panelty) their voices through a warbling weapon, even while strangled, drowning, etc. Wordbane weapons are particularly efficient against foes subject to an ongoing recitation and wordforged weapons can permanently carry a low-level recitation from the Codex of Artifice permanently – but only one.

The pdf contains 3 specific magic items, the first of which would be the Instigator’s Flunky, an earthbreaker that comments your attacks via the truenaming equivalent of “Ohhh, did that hurt?” and similar statements. This cronyism enhances the damage caused by discordant instigators and additionally, the weapon allows for temporary modification of the Law of Finite Malleability. The Sinkhole of Banes may well be the sorriest-looking spear in existence and can absorb a Discordant Zone’s condition dispersal’s condition to then channel it into the creature hit. However, should the spear be broken, it instead affects the wielder…so tread carefully. Finally, the Songbird makes ample use of the new qualities herein and improves when it witnesses a recitation of a sufficiently high level being recited and the bonuses of the dagger may actually be used in recitation, somewhat akin to defending weapons.

This pdf also contains three shields – Comeuppance is a tower shield that can store recitations of the Codex of Heart and Mind or the Codex of Artifice and channel them into counterspells, while The Echoing Wall can also store recitations – but it may add the stereo inflection to it once unleashed…provided the wielder is one target and the other is within 10 feet. And then, there would be the highly complex Portable Watchtower. Ramming this shield into the ground generates a comfy, nice…stone watchtower…including a stone archer that does your job for you. And yes, this is powerful, complex and well-executed. And no, you can’t use it more than 1/day this way. Oh, and yes, the tower can store recitations, modifying the greater contingent speech quality upon being deployed.

The pdf also introduces artifices – basically the wands of truenaming, with concise costs. The pdf also features a wide array of unique items in the potion, scroll, etc. category. Baneful Pamphlets allow scions of discordia using their condition dispersal to split conditions between targets, witha total of 4 subtypes of potency. The book of concatenated recitations allows you to combine lower level recitations into one (with, obviously, strict limitations), while the cloak of the loquacious has a surprising array of uses, including a reflexive volatilize. A total of 5 variants of fountainless inkpens can be found as well, while the gloves of redirected ire allow you to penalize foes if you botch according to the Law of Croaking Failure. Heckler’s Immunity comes similarly in three variants and allows you, should you inadvertently recite the reverse of your intended recitation, use a refreshing pool to ignore this reversal. And no, they can’t be abused. Magic dogtags to enslave creatures can also be procured. Platypus talismans help you recite defensively (the universe is looking away in shame), while wearers of porcupine talismans may ignore the Law of Croaking Failure once per day for the chosen recitation.

Profane Signets deal minor sonic damage to adjacent creatures if the wearer is subject to a recitation. Simian chokers are modeled after the famous “no evil”-monkeys and can affect targets nearby with negative conditions, while singing shards can 1/day set a DC-modifier for a recitation with one inflection as +0. Finally, the truelixir is basically a wild-card 1st-level potion.

Conclusion:

Editing and formatting are top-notch – I noticed no glitches. Layout adheres to Interjection Games’ classic two-column b/w-standard and the pdf has some b/w-swirlies and symbols as artwork. The pdf has no bookmarks, which represents a minor comfort detriment, but one I think that can still be endured at 10 pages.

Sooo…do I consider this a must-have addition to Strange Magic? Yes. Am I happy with my own output for this one and Bradley Crouch’s own unique ideas? Yes. Will I rate this? No. Should you have this pdf, drop me a line and tell me whether you can guess which ones I wrote…or just talk to me about the book.

Thank you for your attention and reading this somewhat unorthodox article – I hope it wasn’t to bland for you!

You can get this supplement here on OBS and here on d20pfsrd.com’s shop!

You can get the whole subscription here on OBS!

You can also get a subscription and have Bradley design your very own custom class/supplement here on his patreon!

Endzeitgeist out.

Comments