Introduction to Crafting Magic Items
This is a guide to how magic items are created in the World of Kyrn. This document will lay out general rules and guidelines and subsequent articles will have specifics as to each class of item, and when needed each particular item. The purpose of these documents is to provide a framework for the creation of magic items, and the adventures needed to acquire the material components for those items.
General Guidelines
Crafting magic items requires specific material components, many of which are readily available, but some that are uncommon or rare. The gathering of the uncommon or rare components should also involve a quest to find and acquire those items. Once the components are gathered they need to be crafted, and the skill of the craftsperson will play a role in determining the power level of the item.
All of this takes time. The amount of time to craft an item once the materials are gathered is based on the item type:
| Item Category |
Time to Craft |
| Potion |
1d6 hours / potion |
| Scroll |
1 hour / spell level |
| Miscellaneous |
3d6 days |
| Weapon |
3d6 days |
| Armor |
3d6 days |
| Ring |
3d6 days |
| Wand |
3d6 days |
| Rod |
3d6 days |
| Staff |
3d6 days |
| Other |
3d6 days |
The quality of the item to be magicked also determines the time it takes to craft. A masterwork item reduces the time by 1d6 days, while a poor quality item increases the time by 1d6 days.
Skill Checks
At the end of each day of crafting, a skill check needs to be made to determine if the crafting was successful that day. The Skill depends on the item being made, and the choices are Arcana for items that use arcane magic or Religion for items that use divine magic. In certain circumstances a Nature roll may be used for Druidic magic items. A roll of a natural 1 indicates an automatic failure, and a roll of a natural 20 indicates two successes. The DC is 15 and is modified by the following:
| Category |
Modifier |
| Not having appropriate work environment or tools |
Disadvantage |
| Have masterwork lab and tools |
Advantage |
| Made exact item before |
Advantage |
| Made similar item before |
+2 |
| Have researched or have instructions |
+2 |
| No research or instructions |
-2 |
| Never made item before |
-2 |
|
|
|
|
Example
Merridoc the Mad Mage wants to make a wand of Magic Missile. To do so he first needs to gather the materials which includes the materials for actually casting the spell if needed. Let's say the materials are a piece of wood from an Ent struck by lightning; the left forearm bone from a Elven Archer; a white diamond of 100gp value, and the ichor of a Manticore's brain. Once he has the items he can begin construction. Each day Merridoc will have to cast the spell Magic Missile, as well as do a ritual that takes 8 hours of time. At the end of the ritual, Merridoc makes an Arcana Skill Check (DC15), if he succeeds, he is one day closer to completing the wand. If he fails he loses the days efforts and must try again. If he has three failures in a row, the materials collected are destroyed and he will have to gather more before starting over from the beginning. On this check, a 1 is an automatic failure, and a natural 20 is two successes.
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