Burning Books

Please don't actually burn any books. It's just a dumb metaphor.

So What Is This About?

For awhile now, I wanted to alter how I run both magic and magic items in Knave. I love the level-less spells. I love that they take up an inventory slot via a spellbook. However, as much as I love the trope, I wasn't in love with the idea of magic being restricted to the bookworm archetype who is forever bound by the weight of having to lug around an entire knapsack worth of books (I mean come on, that is pretty awesome). So, as a quick fix, and to open up magic spells so that any young adventurer can get their hands on them, as dangerous as that may be, I've done a little ritual of my own and conjured up this button:

 

Items in the Future

This is just the first iteration of my magic item button. Hopefully, when I finish my Squirepunk   full Knave hack in the future, I'll have an even shinier button to present with that. For this version, however, all I did was take the 100 level-less spells presented in the Knave base game, and some of the common Dungeoneering Gear, copy-pasted a few dozen times, and slapped them into an html button-list-generator doodad.

Using These Items

Using Knave RAW, spellbooks follow a few simple rules. For the most part, these magic items follow the same rules, and can be used either in conjunction with spellbooks, or as an alternative to spellbooks altogether with these two easy changes:

1. Each item is given a Quality from L/3. Each time you cast a spell using the magic item beyond the first time in a single day, the item loses 1 point of Quality. At 0 Quality, the item is destroyed.

2. Each item is of exceptional quality, possibly granting bonuses when used for it's intended mundane purpose.

Why Do This? 

In reality, this felt like a really quick and dirty way to mix up interesting magic items in your game. Additionally, the introduction of tying the magic spell to a mundane item helps influence the actual spell effect, and opens it up to more inspiration as to how the actual spell can be used. Items with spells that are fantastical enough to be used in lateral thinking and creative problem solving situations, but bound to commonplace, mundane items that might actually show up in the hands of a random adventurer. Magic items don't always have to be relegated to Epic Piece of Flaming Loot. This is a good way to up the fantastic whimsy and magic without having to up the stakes and be so serious all the time. If you want more interesting magic items for your table, I wrote about some here, too.