My players will soon be running around the globe looking for Items of Power, however not the ancient ones from prior cycles of magic, or at least not all of them will be. I will also be having them look for items of significance that might contain magic. I am basing this off an example from one of the old magic books where a mage believed he followed an unusual totem and had initiated, had his own rituals, and some unusual spells all based on his own unique belief.

I am taking this one step further and saying what if strong enough belief in an item having power could give it power given the right circumstances (mana spike, it being made in a higher mana region, being made of an unusual material, etc.....) possibly even belief in an ideal would be enough to give an item power.

Sounds a little out there, so ill give an example.

In Indian Jones and the Temple of Doom, the chakra stones that brought the village good luck would fall into this category. The belief of an entire village for generations could have infused them with some magic.

Other items will be more famous, think of the potential items from history that could be infused by belief, a temple, an altar, a specific item like a weapon supposedly used by a great hero or even a god (Mjolnir-Thor's hammer, Alexander the Great's sword, Staff of Horus, etc......). Those are a little out there but still follows with how i'm thinking. Some of these might even be items from previous cycles of magic found and used in recent times.

Now for the reason i'm asking for some help. I've come up with a few items but could always use more. More items, what they do and maybe even how they gained their magic if it's not immediately apparrent.

Thanks in advance for the help.

Well for starters, there are the items in Dunkie's Will.

To go with your plans, in ED, many items gained magic when they gained importance. The more a particular item was used by a particular adept, the more great deeds it "accomplished", the more belief there was in it, the more power it gained. So your idea does have precedence.

Don't have any examples off the top of my head though. Try Ancient History's page though for more items in general.

Kind of an aside, but it's really weird to me to see such a heavy "fantasy" take on SR.

Don't get me wrong, it sounds like it will be a rockin' game.

Each his own. We all play for different reasons. I used to have a guy in my group that quit because the game was a mix of magic and fantasy. He likes one or the other, but not the mix. Have another guy that only plays mages, and a guy that's always been a mundane.

Sorry I forgot to add that the makeup of my group is a follower of Horus, a follower of Sekmet, and an Owl shaman. The first game of all magic users i've done, so it's very magic intensive.

I look at AH's site all the time, and the Earthdawn magic system is what gave me the idea. I will be using some of the items he has listed, but wanted some new ones as well.

The Knot Cutter
Force 3 unique focus

The Knot Cutter is supposedly the sword that Alexander used to "solve" the Gordian Knot puzzle. It is a double-edged bronze leaf-bladed sword of Mesopotamian origin that acts as a force 3 weapon focus when bound. However, anyone possessing the sword, having bound it or not, intuitively knows the fastest and most efficient solution to any puzzle or problem.
Unfortunately, the fastest and most efficient solution is rarely the best or the most elegant solution. (It tells you to "solve" your rubrics cube by painting it, for example.) Solutions provided by the sword, whenever possible, default to the use of excessive violence. If violence is a possible solution then the sword will not provide any solution other than violence.

Well, it depends on what you're looking at. An item of spontaneous magic might be:

JetBlack's Axe - A 2011 classic Matrixcaster™ hard-body seven-string electric guitar is made from long lasting carbon composites with inlays of Amazonian hardwood, with miniaturized laser mic pickups, Dikoted™ silver strings, built-in amplifier, twenty-eight independent channels of synthetic sound with on-board MIDI library, piezoelectric tapping keys with triggered virtual drum machines, and an optional synthlink jack.

Urban legend holds that part of JetBlack's spirit remains tied to the guitar, and can bring success to any musician...if it is given willingly. Needless to say, the legend goes on to describe a bloody history of theft, murder, and betrayal.

Whereas a corporate prototype might be:

The Mana Battery - The bleeding edge of focus design in 2069, this unique enchantment - in the form of a horn-shaped blown-glass amulet - is designed to store the mana charge gathered from the Absorption metamagic indefinitely, limited only by the focus of the Mana Battery.

Those are exactly the kinds of things I was looking for thanks AH and hyzmarca. Keep em coming.

You've seen this stuff, right? The outlandish artefacts et al.?

Seen "The Mexican?"

Jim Bowie's knife or George Patton's sword (he was a cavalry officer) spring instantly to mind, to say nothing of his 'pearl handled' revolvers.

check out Deadlands for more ideas on such relics.

yeah Patton was a Cav guy, but they had to give up their swords long before he became big, Make it his pistol,

Pattons Ivory handled Revolver-Force 3 weapon focus-This weapon once bound only misses 1 out of 6 rounds, though the "Hits" may not be lethal.

The Leeroy Jenkins
This T-shirt is imbued with the cursed presense of Leeroy Jenkins. No matter who wears this shirt, spirits will become hostile to the people in his immediate vicinity. No binding of spirits are possible and all spirits that are unbound will attack their summoner and people around him. The only person safe from the spirit attacks is the person wearing this T-shirt. He may gain Immunity Normal Weapons by shouting,"Leeeeeroy" at the top of his lungs.

Gordon Freeman's crowbar

Yes, I admit I did this to my players. A mage found out that a man named Gordon Freeman, even *doctor* Gordon Freeman, once designed some prototype tools that were tested in an ergonomics study and then stored. And one of those tools was crowbar, Gordon Freeman's crowbar. Said mage was friends with the team's Johnson, so when a job came that involved a prototype drone in the facility where the crowbar was stored...

Ms. J. offered a substantial bonus should the team, in addition to the primary objective, find the time to steal the crowbar. And because the mage wanted the crowbar because he wished to check the influence of belief and subconsious of large numbers of people, the team was forbidden to use any magic on or near the crobar.

You should have seen the faces of some of the players when the Johnson told them she wants them to steal a perfectly mundane crowbar...

Must....resist...urge....to.....kill.....ranged...weapon....focus......

This revolver only defeats Immunity to Normal Weapons only to pistol-whipping, I hope.

Why should it? Make it a dual natured pistol firing dual natured bullets similar to materialised alchera.

A lot of colleges have busts, statues, or pictures of the founder somewhere accessible to the student body. At Saint Olaf College, for example (yes, its a real school. I went there) there is a bust of Bernt Julius Muus in the Old Main building. Tradition holds that rubbing its nose on the way to a test will give you luck. Run with that...

Interesting back story, one of my friends grew up in the house where St. Olaf College was founded. And it turns out (according to my friend) that old Bernt was a real SOB and cheated on and/abused his wife.

The back story, if it is true, and I can't give you any proof except that I spoke with the current pastor of Holden Parish (my friend's dad) and he confirmed it years ago, could make for a dark twist to the luck.

I used to drive a 1987 Nissan Pathfinder that I got for free by a strange occurrence after the previous owner --someone close to my family, who had made a commitment a long time ago to look out for me-- died violently. temperamental vehicle, it broke down several times, notably after I would use it for some... ahem... activities of questionable morality.

It ran away on me once to. (Sure, I reported it stolen, but it was found a couple of blocks away on the day it was to be written off, completely undamaged. It ran away.)

That vehicle was involved in three different accidents since I got it. Myself or my fiancee driving. Nasty stuff that would've ripped up a Civic like it was tinfoil. Not only was no one injured, but inside that thing, I only knew I had been rear-ended at 45 klicks because of the noise. It was indestructible.

It broke down for good a couple of weeks after I bought a small, fuel-efficient commuter. Jealousy, I'd say.

Now try telling me that this thing was not possessed....

The Carver Building at Iowa State University is rumored to have a Peanut baked into every brick in it. Could be a neat focus for ritual magic.

I want to say theres a legend about the library "tiers" area but the only thing I remember is bringing a water pistol anytime I went to the fifth floor to scare away people having more fun than I was (military history papers are fun, but you should stay clothed while writing them)

How about the lamp in the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier?

Oh and Dog, my moms jeep did that whole "questionable morality" thing on me three times. Once I missed a turn I take twice a day and turned into sugar sand of all things. THAT was not fun. Watcher spirits maybe? My mom did have a client who was very into Santeria back then.

The lecturn in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room (In the white house) grants 4 extra dice to all con tests.

dabig: What lamp? I googled, I checked Wikipedia, I find no reference to any lamp at the Tomb of the Unknowns.

Demerzel: *groans*

A lovingly crafted book created by an Michigan art student with an interest in ancient languages. Bound in (cloned) human skin and filled with authentic incantations written in the artist's own blood, it's a recreation of the apocryphal Necronomicon. On gaining a physical focus at last, the combined beliefs of Lovecraft buffs, Bruce Campbell fans and generations of hoaxed library patrons transform it into an artifact of malevolent power. Astral space darkens in it's presence, the brown flaking ink seems to be contorting itself into some antediluvian script the artist never intended and the artist herself... well she's now in a home for the incurably insane. Did I use the word apocryphal? Not anymore...

No, no backstory. Gas-fueled.

Curse you, now I have that Bengals song, eternal flame, in my head.

My last campaign centered around finding 3 magic swords. The first, Joyeuse, was the sword of charlemagne. The second, durandel, was the sword of Roland, charlemagne's kinght, and the third, Ogier, was similarly related. All 3 are real world legendary swords. I pulled these together because my campaign was set in europe and I wanted to give it some local flavor, get across the idea to a group of Americans that this place has real history.

I suggest hitting up some urban legend sites for some good places to start, then hitting Wikipedia. It's hypertexting will allow you to surf related subjects until you find something that raises your interest. That's how I got my information.

UESCTerm 802.11 (remote override) 1135 08.25.2337

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"Count Roland smites upon the marble stone;
I cannot tell you how he hewed it and smote;
Yet the blade breaks not nor splinters, though it groans;
Upward to heaven it rebounds from the blow.
When the count sees it never will be broke,
Then to himself right softly he makes moan;
'Ah, Durandal, fair, hallowed, and devote,
What store of relics lies in thy hilt of gold!'"

-From The Song of Roland
(Translated by Dorothy Sayers, Viking Penguin, NY, NY, 1957)

I've twice been conquered-
Three times more,
Never again shall humanity purge me,
And never the Pfhor.

Durandal

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"You should encounter little organized resistance because Knight Errant is preoccupied. I've been introducing them to the magic of spirit bombardment."