Tag: magical items

James Bond:

I’m posing as Koskov’s friend to see what leads I can get from her. You know he bought her a cello in New York called “The Lady Rose”.

Saunders:

A cello with a name?

James Bond:

It’s a Stradivarius. They all have names.

— “The Living Daylights” (1987)

I remembered this quote reading a Mastodon toot by SlyFlourish:

In a prior post I answered why there are so many irrational dungeons. The big problem is the fact that it is so difficult to build underground. The labor pools required, even if managed, would preclude keeping the structures secret. Nor can fantasy dwarves account for all the dungeons. So it must be magic. But in what form?

This magic must be accessible to a single individual, and separate from whatever class or abilities they have. Even powerful mages would lack all the kinds of magic needed. This is beyond a specialty. So its form would be a magical item. A very powerful magical item. In D&D terms, a minor artifact. Manifesting from the mythic underworld.

It would create neat hallways, rooms, stairs, sturdy wooden doors, furniture, lighting, and all the other irrational structures of a traditional fantasy dungeon. No digging. No debris. No effort, really. Malleable reality, very localized.

Using the magical item would simply be a matter of pointing it. More of a wand than a tool. Something that belongs in a dungeon, though. Something that its wielder could set down at the end of an episode of insanity, and easily take up again at the beginning of the next. Also a disguise.

An iron torch carrier. Just put it into a wall sconce when not in use.

All it lacks is a name.

Addendum: a discussion of this blogpost reminded me of the Winchester House. This magical item would single-handedly enable such an irrational structure, just underground.

Doctor Strange:

The worst ignorance is always the ignorance you haven’t been aware of. My Cloak of Levitation has served me well more times than I care to think. But now, when it becomes time to repair its torn fabric after my disastrous battle with Khat—although I am Dr. Strange, whom no living being can contest in sorcerous power, lore, or skill, I find myself realizing that I know so very, very little.

— “Doctor Strange, Master of the Mystic Arts” #78 (1987)

Used without permission.

Urthona:

As yet [Doctor Strange] is too far away to strike at—but I need wait only a short while! I have wrung every drop of magic from his sanctum sanctorum and taken it for my own! His slaves and familiars are now my hostages, and the plunder of the ages is in my grasp!

The Books of the Vishanti and of Eibon; the Orb of Agamotto, himself; the Two Gems That Are One; the Veil of the Purple Dimensions; the Scrolls of Hoary Watoomb; down to the fabled Darkhold, itself! Talismans whispered across a hundred dimensions! All in all, a fitting treasury for the Sorcerer Supreme of this plane: a sorcerer named Urthona!

Let him come!

— “Doctor Strange, Master of the Mystic Arts” #81 (1987)

Authors’ emphases. Used without permission.

Chandler Jarrell:

What’s this knife?

Kala:

The Crossed Dagger of Ajanti. They brought it to this world to kill the second Golden Child, the bearer of Justice. His death was a great loss.

— “The Golden Child” (1986)

One of the standard devices in the magical toolkit since early times, the magical sword is used to command, banish, and defeat spirits, especially in the practice of magical evocation. The Key of Solomon, the most famous of medieval grimoires, provides detailed instructions for preparing and consecrating no less than four magical swords, as well as a scimitar, a lance, a dagger, a poniard, and a collection of knives—the Solomonic magician entered the magical circle as heavily armed as a knight going to war…. Most other grimoires suggest a somewhat less topheavy collection of magical armament, but at least one sword was normally in evidence….

The use of the magical sword is at least partly a function of natural magic. Many occult traditions claim that iron, especially when sharpened, is inimical to many types of spiritual entity. The most common understandings of the etheric realm suggest that iron, like other conductive metals, can short-circuit etheric bodies that lack the protection of a physical form….

— The New Encyclopedia of the Occult

Emphasis mine.

For the Japanese, all things have a spiritual essence. And the power and beauty of swords make them a locus of strange energy. Folktales tell of swords that hum to warn their masters of danger, that leap of their own accord to battle. Of swords that can make a warrior great or that can drive the bearer mad.

— Tengu, Chapter 7

He swung his fist at my head.

It seemed the wild thrash of a desperate man, but it was not impulsive. I had fought, and been schooled in fighting, enough to read the blow, and the fact that it was not telegraphed. There was no micro expression of warning, of prior tension or bracing. It just came, expert and fluid. Just as fast, I dipped down to avoid it. But even as I did so, I was puzzled, for it was not a blow that anyone would strike with the hand, especially not a man who was clearly proficient. The move was more a sword-stroke, aimed at the side of my neck. Why strike so, with a fist?

All this I relate now in a hundred, perhaps a thousand, times the instant it took for the blow to come. It was fast, and I barely avoided it.

And in avoiding it, I found my answer.

A sword’s blade missed my head and buried itself in the side of the old clavier. It buried itself deep. The impact shook the instrument, and knocked over the glasses of amasec standing along its top.

There had not been a sword in his hand a half-second before. There had not been a place for him to conceal a sword. It had just appeared in his grip….

…His sword, which had come from nowhere as if by magic, was a blinkblade. I had never seen one, but I had read of them…. They were blades held in scabbards of what I now know is called extimate space. Bidden by their masters, they appear in corporeal reality, conjured from pocket-space….

— Penitent, Chapter 16

8. “Race you can’t win rule.” The game’s monster difficulty should increase slightly faster than the advancement of the [character], given average stats and default equipment, so as to force him to rely upon items and tactics.

The reasoning here is that if the player doesn’t have to rely on randomly-found stuff then [that stuff becomes] unimportant to play. However, if it’s required to have specific items to be successful then many games will be outright unwinnable. The balance between these two poles is what makes random dungeon generation difficult, but it’s also part of what makes random dungeon gameplay interesting….

— @Play: The Eight Rules of Roguelike Design – GameSetWatch

Thank the gods for the Internet Archive Wayback Machine, else I could not have linked to the source blogpost.

The old timers tell stories of swords that were finely wrought and yet cruel: setsuninto, killing swords. They were weapons whose inmost essence drove their owners mad. Other blades were as cruelly beautiful, but imbued with a spirit that inclined to do good. They sang in their scabbards to warn of danger; they were bright and clear and miraculous things and, in the right hands, could be katsujinken, life-giving swords.

— Kage, prologue

In folklore and saga, gifts from fairies or higher powers to a mortal prince are usually magical. A magic spear would return to its master when hurled; magic horses would convey him safely out of battle; and magic armor would make the hero invulnerable. Typically, Homer has suppressed all such outlandish protection; no hero fighting at Troy has any charm or power to escape death. Nonetheless, as will shortly be revealed, remnants of the original attributes of each of Peleus’ divine gifts are discernible in the Iliad, although transformed and turned by Homer to tragic effect….

Of the many deaths the Iliad records, no other resembles that of Patroklos. Nowhere is the pitiful vulnerability of a mortal so exploited as it is by the savage malevolence of Apollo’s blow and the hounding of the wounded man as he tries to shun death among his companions. The horror of this extraordinary scene is reinforced by the resonance of two disparate, submerged traditions. One of these concerns that magic armor, worn by the folktale predecessors of Achilles, whose fairy-tale function had undoubtedly been to render its wearer invulnerable. As has been said, Homer severely repressed any hint that the armor given by the gods to Peleus had supernatural properties, yet he allows one aspect of this ancient motif to surface here, turning it to electrifying effect—Patroklos must be stripped of the armor before he can be killed. Thus Apollo’s savage blow strikes off his helmet and breaks the corselet upon him. Patroklos is killed—slaughtered—naked.

— The War That Killed Achilles, Chapter 7

Emphases mine.

To accomplish his mysterious purposes, a wizard would arm himself with an understanding of all the interwoven occult disciplines. But before he could put this knowledge into practice, he also required an arsenal of implements to enhance his powers and protect him in his dealings with spirits and demons. Robe and headdress, sword, dagger, and wand were the foremost tools of his trade. With these and the arcane knowledge enshrined in his library of manuscripts, charts, and books, the priest of the night could span the abyss between the seen and unseen worlds.

White, not the black of fairy tales, was the proper color for a wizard’s robe. Cornelius Agrippa, the German scholar whose celebrated Occult Philosophy became a textbook for 16th-century [C.E.] mages, said the wizard should dress in a gown of the finest linen, covering the whole body from head to foot, close-fitting and tied only with a girdle. Buckles and buttons would obstruct the free flow of supernatural energy. The headdress, whether tall or flat, pointed or round, should also be white, with YHVH, the Hebrew name of God, embroidered on the front. Both robe and headdress should be adorned with sacred emblems—stars, pentacles, and circles.

Once equipped with headdress and robe, the wizard’s most vital task was to forge a sword and dagger. This operation was best conducted when the moon was rising in the sphere of Jupiter, planet of good fortune and success. The mage would then burn incense of ambergris and peacocks’ feathers, saffron, aloe wood, cedar, and lapis lazuli—the scents associated with Jupiter—and chant in the name of God, heaven, and the stars to infuse his weapons with mystic strength.

Only then could the wizard prepare his wand, the most precious of all the magic implements. A slim wooden rod, some twenty inches long, the wand was ideally cut from a solitary bush that had never fruited. On the first night of the new moon, in the hour before dawn, the magician should dip his knife in blood. Facing the eastern horizon, he should cut the shoot with a single stroke of his dagger then peel its soft green bark in the first rays of the reborn sun. The three sacred instruments—sword, knife, and wand—should then be wrapped in a silken cloth until they were required.

Delicate though it seemed, the slender wand was by far the most formidable weapon in the sorcerer’s arsenal. With it he could summon spirits, cast spells, or wreak destruction; he could make objects disappear, or reveal to the naked eye things that were otherwise invisible. If he were a beneficient practitioner, he might use the wand to liberate the victims of dark forces from the curses laid upon them….

— The Secret Arts, Chapter 7