Magical Item Crafting Rules

Magic Items

The first system of crafting is for permanent, magical items. This includes weapons, armor, shields, wondrous items; belts, helmets, rings, magical tools, and so on. Magical item crafting is the most open to interpretation from both players and DMs, and as such can be difficult to understand and use. Still, the axiom of this system is being able to craft whatever your heart desires - this is the compromise for its complexity.
DnD is a system of explicit rules, and these rules follow suit.
Lastly, keep in mind that there are many mechanics of magic items and the crafting process that is classified information only for Crafting DMs. You are free to test and hypothesize with your own resources, but nothing shall be confirmed nor denied.

Rarity and Value

When an item is created by a Crafting DM, its gold value will be based on its rarity. Below is the list of rarities and their market value ranges:

Special properties of an item may increase the value of an item past its rarity's threshold, though the rarity will remain unchanged.
If an item has a rarity, it is automatically magical. The minimum value of a magic item at common rarity is always 50 gp.

Crafting Materials

Crafting materials are the individual components that you combine and use to craft a magic item. They can come in many different types, from holy blessed steel to a trinket that has absorbed latent arcane energy over many years. Crafting materials, for the purposes of magical item crafting, are themselves inherently magical.
Crafting materials will vary based on; their quality, what slots they can fill (described further under Slots), what types of items they can be used for, their ability score alignment, material effects, and special material properties called mutators.

Material Quality

The quality of a material is a general representation of how powerful the material is in comparison to magic item rarities. The material qualities are:

Poor, which is around the common to uncommon rarity

Moderate, which is around major uncommon to minor rare

Superior, which is around rare to major rare

Flawless, which is around minor very rare to major very rare

Perfect, which is around minor legendary and better

Higher quality materials are more difficult to obtain, but that increased scarcity is the trade-off for assured power.

Item Types

Crafting materials may be limited to certain item types they can be used for. The broadest item types are weapons, armor, shields, and wondrous, but these can be classified further. Indeed, the higher in quality a crafting material, the more likely the item type limits will become more specific.

Ability Score Alignment

How ability score alignments of materials affect crafting an item is Crafting DM knowledge, but know that it does have a significant effect.

Material Effects

Material effects are probably the underlying details of a crafting material in which players would be most interested. Effects of materials can pull from a common effect list, but they are essentially some kind of intrinsic, metaphysical, aesthetic, elemental, or similar theme, and wholly up to the DM that creates the material. But whatever the material effect is, it will become something tangible in the crafted item should a Crafting DM deem it appropriate.

Material Mutators

Mutators is a system that may further affect a crafted item. The chances of it occurring is dependent on the mutator, but what they do and the probabilities shall remain unknown.

Slots

A magical item can be broken down into seven distinctive slots when crafting:

Creation Method

Base Material

Adornment

Enhancement

Enchantment

Spell Invocation

Special Crafter

Each of these components can be utilized individually with their respective crafting materials or methods. When crafting a magical item, the Creation Method and a Base Material are always required, but the other five are optional.
Base Material, Adornment, Enhancement, and Special Crafter can only have 1 crafting material in their slots. Spell Invocation can have multiple spells within.

Creation Method

You can think of the Creation Method as you would an item's design. It is the culmination of techniques that you use and can be considered the most flexible slot in crafting. It can be something as simple as basic smithing of metals or the sewing of fabrics, but the opposite end of that spectrum is limited only by your imagination. Some other examples can be crafting your item during a specific time of day, praying to a particular deity while crafting, or adding a personal, aesthetic mark on it.
Crafting new items from scratch inherently a mundane affair, and incurs investments that are outlined in Mundane Item Crafting Rules. For upgrading an already existing item, you can ignore them and do whatever you'd like with your item in terms of design and aesthetics.
Example: If you want to craft a magical longsword, you need to possess a longsword already or craft one from scratch. You can buy one of course, which would be a basic longsword that looks like every other basic longsword in the world. But through mundane crafting, you'll have the freedom to decide how exactly the longsword looks like and the materials its made from. If you desired to craft a fancy longsword with a focus on subtlety, you could decide that the hilt is made from interweaving leather from two different beasts, the crossguard is exactly 6" x 2" and made from steel which is painted gold and black, and the blade near the base flares out in a specific aesthetic fashion before returning to the standard longsword blade shape. This way, your longsword is unique from every other longsword when it's not even magical yet. From there, you can enchant it with crafting materials as normal. In further upgrades, you would have the option to change the sword's design in the Creation Method if you like, such as adding rune-like engravings along the flat of the blade.

Special Methods

Some specific creation methods can invoke magic by themselves, called Special Methods. The effects of special methods will vary widely. They are necessary to craft special attunement types, which are listed below. There are other kinds of special methods, like Set Crafting.
The last type, called Location and Sequence Rituals, is strictly awarded to you from the DMs. Do not enter a random location if it was not specifically noted to you by a DM as a special place to craft items.
Crippling Attunement

Attune Requirement: The item must be physically attached to the player's body before it can be attuned to.

Crafting Requirement: The item must be Rare rarity or better.

Benefit: The item can only be forcefully removed from the player by maiming them, causing permanent harm. Item rarity benefits.

Detriment: Removing the item causes permanent harm to the player, which will inflict a permanent condition, such as blindness, being rendered mute, or some other negative that is specified by the item.

Deadly Attunement

Attune Requirement: None

Crafting Requirement: A crafting material of a Superior or better quality with a death, necrotic, or an appropriately similar effect, or any crafting material associated with a Death, Undead, or Grave domain deity must be used.

Benefit: The item can only be attuned to and unattuned by a willing player. Item rarity benefits.

Detriment: If the player becomes unattuned from the item, they die. The death is almost always painless, and instant.

Powerful Attunement

Attune Requirement: The item requires 2 or more attunement slots. The slots required is denoted by a number, such as Powerful Attunement 2.

Crafting Requirement: The item must be Major Rare or better.

Benefit: Item power and rarity benefits.

Twinned Attunement

Attune Requirement: The player must attune to both items to receive both item's magical effects.

Crafting Requirement: The player must utilize two separate Base Materials in the same submission with the intention of using one each for two separate crafted items. Both items must be wondrous items or weapons, and they must be the same kind of item; two rings, two daggers, two gauntlets, etc. If a type of item cannot be functionally worn or wielded twice, it cannot gain Twinned Attunement.

Benefit: Both items are identical for all effects, except for 1 effect that is unique to each, determined by the Base Materials used. Item rarity benefits.

Bonded Attunement

Attune Requirement: Two players must attune to one item each for both players to receive the respective item's magical effects.

Crafting Requirement: The player must utilize two separate Base Materials in the same submission with the intention of using one each for two separate crafted items. Both items must be the same kind of item; two amulets, two sets of leather armor, etc.

Benefit: Both items are identical for all effects, except for 1 effect that is unique to each, determined by the Base Materials used. Item rarity benefits.

Contingent Attunement

Attune Requirement: The player must satisfy the denoted condition to attune to the item. The condition is one that is actively fulfilled, such as performing a certain action. The item cannot be attuned to by the default methods.

Crafting Requirement: The item must be Minor Rare or better, and a spell with a range of Self must be used as a Spell Invocation.

Benefit: The player is able to attune to the item by fulfilling the active condition instead of having to attune over the standard hour. If the player has all their attunement slots filled when they chose to attune to a contingent attunement item, then the player must choose a slot to force unattune from. Item power benefits.

Detriment: The spell is still counted for spell bloat.

Exclusive Attunement

Attune Requirement: The player can only attune to the item of an inclusive category of which it is a part, such as a magical longsword restricting you from attuning to other longswords. There may be other stipulations included.

Crafting Requirement: A crafting material of a Superior or better quality that is for only one item type must be used.

Benefit: Item power and rarity benefits.

Pact Attunement

Attune Requirement: The player attunes to the item regularly but can have the item fill multiple slots of the player's choice. The player can only have 1 Pact Attunement item attuned at a time.

Crafting Requirement: The item must be Major Very Rare or better, and every crafting material slot must be filled.

Benefit: The item increases in power the more attunement slots it fills.

Attunement Array

Attune Requirement: The player attunes to each item in the set regularly. The player can only have 1 Attunement Array item set attuned at a time.

Crafting Requirement: See Set Crafting(Players)

Benefit: See Set Crafting(Players)

If a special attunement requires the item to be a certain rarity, the item must be the rarity either before the upgrade or as a result of the upgrade, or it is an automatic failure.
By default, an item can only have one special attunement on it, though you can use any number of Location and Sequence Rituals for one item, assuming they're compatible.

Base Material

The Base Material is the crafting material you're or crafting the item from.
There are six common types of base materials; metal, leather, wood, cloth, crystal, and bone. These common types are available to characters for free as a standard and are not required to be in your inventory to craft with them. Steel, iron, animal leather, oak wood, cotton, glass, and so on are common. The flavor of a common material is inconsequential to the item's effects, as they do not give any mechanical benefits.
Expensive, mundane materials that you'd use as a base material, such as gemstones, exotic materials, or the mundane items themselves, are not free and must be attained and in your inventory before crafting with them. See [Exotic Materials] for more information on exotic materials.
Besides exotic materials, the other main type of base materials is magical ones. They'll still usually fall within the six categories mentioned above, but they manifest magical effects into crafted items. They can be mystical, blessed, extraplanar, and such similar themes.
As mentioned in Creation Method, making items from scratch is handled within Mundane Item Crafting Rules.

Adornment

An Adornment is a classic representation of setting something within the item for a power boost, similar to the socket concept from other RPG games. Adornments have intrinsic, thematic connections to something in Verum, such as a country, faction, region, deity, landmark, powerful individual, alliance, noble house, and so on. The inherent of adornments magic is tied to its flavor, and indeed, without it, the material could not be considered an adornment. Adornments have the greatest chance of the crafting materials to be a physical addition to the item.

Enhancement

An Enhancement material is more selective in effects than the others, as the main use of enhancements is to augment the raw or baseline power of the item. That being the case, an enhancement is more likely to upgrade what it is already there, instead of manifesting something new. Enhancements are not as rare as adornments and special crafters, but more so than enchantments and magical base materials. They have a decent chance to be a physical addition to the item.

Enchantment

An Enchantment is the rendering of magical power and represents the traditional enchanting of an item. These materials are the most diverse and naturally occurring, but those that have a physical form have the lowest chance of being a physical addition to an item, as it is the magic within them that is used to craft. The physical form is more likely to be consumed or inert.
Enchantment is the only slot that can utilize inherently magical class features and racial traits. An article that shows all the details is being worked on.

Spell Invocation

Spell Invocation is very similar to Enchantment in theme but is purely for the use of spells. For their purposes, the Spell Invocation slot can effectively encompass multiple sources of magical spells towards the crafting of the item in one slot. You can do this because sometimes using multiple spells is useful to get a combined effect, mechanically or thematically. However, they are lumped together and always treated as their base spell levels; there is no benefit to upcasting. Furthermore, you must careful to not overload an item with spells, as explained in Spell Bloat.

Common Effect List

The downside to the versatility of Enchantment and Spell Invocation is a restriction on the effects they can have, called the common effect list. The degree of restriction is based on the crafting material's quality.
Common Effect List

Damage Types

acid

astral

bludgeoning

cold

fire

force

lightning

necrotic

piercing

poison

primal

psychic

radiant

slashing

thunder

Cardinal Alignments

chaos

evil

good

law

Metaphysical Elements
The associations with damage types are to help with understanding themes and should not be presumed as a hard rule.

arcane

divine

earth (associated with acid)

light (associated with radiant)

metal (associated with lightning)

shadow (associated with necrotic)

water (associated with cold and acid)

wood (associated with poison)

wind (associated with lightning and thunder)

Emotions

anger

awe

fear

hate

joy

love

sorrow

Spell Schools

abjuration

conjuration

divination

enchantment

evocation

illusion

necromancy

transmutation

Collaboration

Enchantment and Spell Invocation are the only slots that collaboration with other players may occur within. A player, besides the submitting player, can only provide a single spell, class feature or racial trait that they possess for another's crafting request. However, this is the extent of it - it does not affect nor allow affecting any other aspect or mechanic of crafting.
NPC's cannot provide any help at all with the exception of Special Crafters.

Special Crafter

A Special Crafter is a specific NPC that can assist in the crafting of an item. What effects they have will vary, as will be the types of items they specialize in. You cannot trade their services to other players.
Special Crafters can have certain properties, the details of some of which are listed below:

• Faction Forge: A Special Crafter with this property is capable of using any bonuses associated with your faction's forge, including increased crafting speed, increased item strength, or faction forge imbuement agendas. Any items made with a Special Crafter that does not have this property will be able to use none of the faction's forge bonuses.
• Special Attunement: A Special Crafter with this property is capable of working on an item with a special attunement. The absence of this property applies if your item has a special attunement - a special crafter that does not have this property cannot be used for the item at all. However, this does not prevent you from adding a special attunement to an item in a separate upgrade after the special crafter.
• +Bonus: A Special Crafter with this property gives benefits towards the crafting of enhancement bonuses on an appropriate item, such as a +1 Longsword, or a +2 Plate Armor.
• Masterwork: A Special Crafter with this property is capable of forging masterwork items, as if they had the relevant sub-origin. This masterworking follows the same restrictions as normal mundane masterwork crafting, in that it can only be performed at the time of an item's creation. A non-masterwork item cannot be made into a masterwork.

Some special crafters can be hired from the Special Crafter Agency.

Specific Effect Requirements

Currently, there are two types of material effects that are required for certain item abilities. They are:

Bags of Holding: Requires a crafting material with the Astral effect.

Lifespan increases, abilities that prevent damage when about to be brought to 0 hp or while at 0 hp, and abilities that allow a player to remain conscious while at 0 hp: Requires a material with the Primal effect.

Progressing a Magic Item

Once you have submitted a crafting request, you will have to wait for a Crafting DM to work on it. They will go through the process on the Crafting DM's part to create the item from your request, and then they will post the item in the crafting channel in discord.
You can only submit one crafting request at a time. You must wait for your latest request to be made by a Crafting DM before you can submit another.
The submission form can be found HERE. A guide to filling it is at Crafting Process. It is highly recommended you familiarize yourself with the form before reading further.

Blueprints

When an item has been made by a Crafting DM, but you have not yet begun progressing it, it is called a blueprint. You can only have one blueprint associated with yourself at a time. If you have one blueprint already, any attempt to submit a crafting request will fail. A blueprint is no longer considered one when you first begin spending crafting days on it, or you scrap it.

Scrapping

You can scrap a blueprint or item you've submitted before you've spent any gold or crafting days on it for free at no risk. This counts as removing a blueprint from your two blueprint limit. To reiterate, once you've spent any gold or crafting days to progress an item, scrapping it is no longer free and will count as item destruction.

Using Crafting Days

By default, you spend 100 gp towards finishing your item per 1 crafting day. For factionless players, this amount is 50 gp per 1 crafting day. You may spend less than your limit, but only within intervals of 10 gp. But no matter how much you spend, even if its only 10 gp, you always use 1 crafting day.
There are other factors that can change your spending limit too, such as the use of certain crafting materials or using a faction's exclusive forge. These changes can be percentages or flat amounts.
You can only progress crafting one magic item at a time (consumables do not apply). Spending any crafting days on a second magic item will automatically destroy the first. You may also willingly destroy an item in the middle of progressing it.

Post Format

When you wish to progress an item, you will make a post in the crafting channel with the following format:

@Economy spending [X] crafting days and [X] gp on [item name], to a total of [total crafting days you've spent so far] / [the estimated crafting days it'd take to finish] and [total gold you've spent so far] / [the gold required to finish the item]

Example:

@Economy spending 2 crafting days and 200 gp on +1 Best Longsword, to a total of 2/10 days and 200/1000 gp

A Economy DM/Staff will react to your post with a thumbs-up to show that your progression has been approved and logged. Do not remove gold from your inventory until your post has been approved by a Economy DM/Staff.

Completing the Item

When progressing an item, it is complete only when the total gold you've spent on it is equal to the value of the item. The Crafting DM will give an estimated amount of crafting days that it will take for you to complete going by the standard 100 gp per crafting day rate, but as stated, you're finished only when the requisite gold is spent, not the crafting days. Example: An item that costs 1,000 gp to craft would normally take at least 10 crafting days for a player in a faction. Thus, if for whatever reason the player can spend 150 gp per crafting day instead, they'd complete crafting on day 7, instead of the estimated day 10. The format of the post would look something like this:

@Economy spending 1 crafting days and 100 gp on +1 Best Longsword, to a total of 7/10 days and 1000/1000 gp to complete the item

The reason the example above is 100 gp instead of 150 gp is that after the 6th day of spending 150 gp, the player would be at 900/1000 gp, thus only requiring 100 gp on the last day. Whereas, if the player wasn't in a faction, they'd finish on day 20/10, going by the standard 50 gp per crafting day. Once your post to complete crafting the item has been approved, you add the item to your inventory. There is no dismantling system for completed items. Once an item is complete, the crafting materials are consumed and can never be removed nor returned.

Repeat Crafting

You can attempt to craft the same item multiple times, but you will need to have the exact same crafting materials used and use the exact same creation method. And even then, any dice that were rolled by a Crafting DM in making the item will be rolled again, potentially changing the item. Thus, the chances of crafting the same exact item in all aspects will not be in your favor.

Upgrading

For you, upgrading an item follows a similar process. You need only keep track of which slots on your item is already filled with crafting materials, as upgrading is simply filling the empty slots with new crafting materials. When you fill out the submission form, you still need to state which crafting materials are in which slots from previous iterations, but mark new crafting materials added clearly, such as putting ( ) or [ ] around them. This is a matter of convenience for the Crafting DM that looks over your request, so they can know right away all the crafting materials that are in your item without having to look it up, and also know which ones are new. The cost of upgrading will be the difference between the previous value and the new value. You can attempt to upgrade magic items you find during your adventures, but they will have pre-filled slots rather than being blank slates. Lastly, magic items populated directly by Arcadum and from the [Prestige Shop] are never upgradable.

An item is unusable until you complete the upgrade.

Magical Ammunition

Crafting ammunition follows the standard process, but the gold cost is halved compared to normal magic items, and you craft a bundle of 20 instead of a singular item.

Backlog

Since you crafting an item relies on it being designed by a Crafting DM, and there is a sizeable population utilizing the crafting systems, it may take more than a week to do. But this delay lies on the DM and not you as the player, so crafting days you've gained from the week you've submitted your crafting request, and weeks afterward until the item is designed for you, will be backlogged. Any crafting days you've accrued and that have not been used you can spend on crafting the item all at once when a DM presents it to you. Crafting days you've accrued in this way are lost by the next Sunday as normal when your item has been finished and presented to you. Should you have more days accrued than what crafting the item costs, you may use those leftover days on either:

Consumable Crafting (potions, poisons, scrolls)

Academies (courses you'd be able to attend after you've crafted the item)

Example:
You gain 1 crafting day each week. You submit a crafting request in week 1. You sign-up for an academy course in week 3. Your item is finished in week 4 and costs one day to craft. You spend one crafting day to craft the item and have 3 crafting days leftover. Since you signed up for the academy course in week 3, you wouldn't be able to spend the days from week 2 on it, only the day from week 3 and 4. The leftover crafting day from week 2 you can spend on consumables.
Backlogged days are not shared between blueprints and items you're progressing. Do not try to exploit backlogged days, because it is cheating, and will be treated as such.

Failure and Destruction

Failure of crafting can come about for a multitude of reasons. But no matter the reason, the result of it is that you lose 1 crafting day by default. These reasons can include:

Not having the relevant crafting materials in your inventory

Putting more than one material in the same slot that isn't spell invocation

Wanting effects that are simply impossible to create

A deity is involved who doesn't like you, or your item

The dice rolls were not in your favor

Spell bloat

d100 Scumming

You usually won't lose your materials either, though there are some exceptions.
If a submission of yours is a failure while you are already progressing another item, it will not affect your current crafting project, but you will still lose a crafting day.

Spell Bloat

You can normally only have 1 of any crafting material in its respective slot, but the exception to this are spells for the Spell Invocation slot. The arcane energies of too many spells can overload and cause the item to be destroyed. Normally two spells are fine, but putting more will carry the risk of self-destruction. This limit will raise as the item itself becomes stronger. If the Enchantment slot has a crafting material in it, it will be counted as a spell for calculating spell bloat.
Should an item fail because of spell bloat, there is then a risk of other crafting materials being destroyed as well.

d100 Scumming

If the rolls a Crafting DM makes for your item did not go in your favor, you may be tempted to scrap the project for free and try again, hoping for new rolls again and again until you get the best possible outcome.
Let me stop you there and inform you that metagaming is bad. Don't do it.
If an item fails, or you scrap a blueprint and want to try again, you will have to change something about your request; you need to use at least 1 different crafting material, or you need to change your Creation Method significantly. If you don't do either, the request is an automatic failure.
The only exception to this is spell bloat. If and only if your item failed for this reason, you may submit the same request again. But the request will need to be the exact same, crafting materials, creation method and all. Otherwise, it will be treated as a new item.

Destruction

If an item fails due to spell bloat, or if your item's crafting progression is interrupted for any reason, then there will be a risk for the crafting materials to be destroyed too. Common, mundane crafting materials are always destroyed, but magical and exotic materials have differing chances based on their qualities and other properties.

Miscellaneous Rules and Notes

Series and Paragon Items

Crafted items that have earned recognition by a deity and blessed by them belong to a category called Series. Each deity has a unique title attributed to them, such as items blessed by Iass belonging to The Scales of Strife Series. A step up from series are Paragon items. A paragon item is a series item that stands out from the rest. Paragon items are singularly favored by deities, so only one paragon item of a deity can exist at a time.
Keep in mind that recognition by the deity is not about you, but about what you've created. Series items you craft can be lost, stolen and used by somebody else just like any other.
Every paragon item has the following universal effects, even if not specified by the item:

You cannot attune to multiple paragon items with associated deities having opposed alignments on the good and evil or law and chaos axes.

• For example, you cannot attune to a paragon item belonging to The Scales of Strife and another item belonging to the Eye of Madness, as Iass and Oloken'hai oppose each other between law and chaos.

It is encouraged that you worship [the deity], though not required to wear/wield/possess [the item]. But you must not disrespect [the deity] in any way. Doing so will force [the item] to be removed/unattuned, and you cannot attune to it until you atone yourself in his/her eyes.

This item is no longer upgradeable through magical item crafting.

Every series item has the following universal effect, even if not specificied by the item:

The item is specially recognized by a deity, and it has strong divine magic on it.

• Clerics and Paladins of the deity can recognize the influence on the item as soon as they see it
• Other followers of the deity would have to roll DC 15 Religion checks to notice
• Non-followers are not aware unless they are told in character
• Identification magic on the item will allow a DC 20 Religion check to recognize the deity's influence

The above Religion check DCs are lowered by 5 for Paragon items, as the divine magic is stronger in them.
White Pantheon

• Glory - The Shining Sword
• Runethares - The Sage's Scroll
• Vavren - The Crowfather's Flask
• Viderick - Solemn Serenity

Grey Pantheon

• Iass - The Scales of Strife
• Kaheeli - Eye of the Storm
• Oun - The Dreamer's Wisp
• Sekelcuse - The Begger's Cup
• Wondox - The Wandering One
• Ezokhine - A Silent Witness
• Matron of Fate - A Frayed Thread
• Nero - The Golden Dichotomy

Black Pantheon

• Babylon - Chain of the Master
• Olokenhai - Eye of Madness
• Wode - The Wakening Wisp
• Lorita - The Orphan
• Crowley - Clasp of Carnage

Green Pantheon

• Gazenaroc - Cacophany
• Gwaina - Spring's Grace
• Inca - Spirit Leaves
• Lorn - The Thorned Crown
• Silloway - Summer's Toil
• Talven - Winter's Wisdom
• Vinsc - Autumn's Offer

Blue Pantheon

• Astaroth - Fist of Might
• Cassius - Broken Chains
• Falaael - The Eldervale
• Raquel - The Stopped Clock
• Tilt - Loyalty's Pledge