Acorn of Wo Mai

Acorn of Wo Mai
Wondrous Item, Artifact (requires attunement by a creature of good alignment)
Aura: Overwhelming Abjuration

The Acorn of Wo Mai is  a large lead acorn-shaped vessel almost three feet in height and encircled by golden bands inscribed with arcane characters. Though it appears to be tremendously heavy, it can be carried with relative ease. It sometimes makes a faint thumping noise and is warm to the touch.

According to legend, the Acorn of Wo Mai is the prison of a powerful fiend, summoned by powerful war-wizards before escaping from their control. Though the fiend could not be killed, it was eventually defeated and bound in irons that it could not break and imprisoned inside the vessel that would be known as the Acorn of Wo Mai. Sometime since, the Acorn was lost.

The fiend within has hearing and normal vision out to a range of 60 feet and can communicate telepathically with any creature that attunes to it that understands at least 1 language. It tries to hide its true nature and stresses the need for secrecy. The fiend is generally friendly and helpful and actively provides good advice. The fiend eventually requests that the party help to free it once it believes it has convinced them of its good intentions.

Spells. While attuned to the Acorn, you can use an action to cast the Polymorph spell. Once you have used this ability three times, you cannot do so again until the next dawn.

Random Properties. The Acorn of Wo Mai has the following random properties:
-Two minor  beneficial properties
-Two major beneficial properties

Destroying the Acorn.  The inscribed characters on the golden bands must be damaged by a +3 or stronger weapon to weaken the seal, and the vessel cast into the heart of a volcano, whereupon the fiend is released. The exact nature of the fiend is up to DM discretion, though a Balor, Pit Fiend, or something of similar (or greater) Challenge Rating would be appropriate.

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One of many items from my conversion of the old 2e Encyclopedia Magica into 5e-compatible content with my Artifacts of Antiquity collection. For a master list of all items currently converted, please check out this page.

Al-Azid's Ghostly Palace

Al-Azid’s Ghostly Palace
Wondrous Item, Very Rare
Aura: Strong Conjuration and Transmutation

You can use an action to call into existence a huge palace of fine white marble and slender minarets from the Ethereal Plane using this magical key, which unlocks the front gate. The palace is only visible at night, when its walls shine in the darkness. By day the palace is invisible from the outside, though once inside, visitors can see its features easily. The chambers within are well appointed, and gentle fountains play. Invisible musicians strum soothing tunes, and unseen servants take care of whatever cleaning, cooking, and menial chores the owner demands with a clap of the hands. 

Curse. Whoever bears the key that opens the doors to the palace is subject to a curse, cast by Al-Azid to prevent others from enjoying his mansion after his death. Each day, there is a 20% chance an invisible stalker appears and attacks the bearer of the key.

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One of many items from my conversion of the old 2e Encyclopedia Magica into 5e-compatible content with my Artifacts of Antiquity collection. For a master list of all items currently converted, please check out this page.

Air Spores

Air Spores
Wondrous Item, Uncommon
Aura: Minor Transmutation

This glass bottle contains enough spores for one use. When a creature inhales or ingest the spores, they work their way into the creature’s lungs. For the next week, the spores grow, reproduce and die, creating oxygen that the host can use to breathe when in an environment otherwise devoid of oxygen. The spores last for up to 1 week in such an environment.

In a normal, oxygen rich environment, the spores hinder the host’s regular respiration, causing it to be poisoned. After 12 hours breathing in a normal environment, the spores are cleared from the host’s lungs. Any sort of magic that removes the poisoned condition also removes the spores.

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One of many items from my conversion of the old 2e Encyclopedia Magica into 5e-compatible content with my Artifacts of Antiquity collection. For a master list of all items currently converted, please check out this page.

Accelerator

Accelerator
Wondrous Item, Very Rare (Requires Attunement) 
Aura: Strong Transmutation

This device, looking like a cross between a gigantic sextant and a cannon,  is a rapid-fire weapon designed for use on spelljamming craft. The Accelerator only functions so long as it is installed on a ship that also has a spelljamming helm installed, though anyone can attune to and operate the Accelerator.

The Accelerator’s main arm is a hollow tube with a hand-sized cup at one end. Any creature or item that is Large sized or smaller that comes into contact with the cup while the Accelerator is actively in use is magically seized and launched out the other end towards whatever the operator is aiming at. It takes 1 action to load the Accelerator and 1 action to aim and fire it. Damage from the Accelerator ignores the Damage Threshold property of objects it hits.

 Accelerator. Ranged Weapon Attack:  +8 to hit, range 750/3000 ft., one target. Hit: Both the target and the creature or object launched take force damage depending on the size of the creature or object launched by the Accelerator, shown on the table below:

Size	Force Damage
Tiny	2d10
Small	4d10
Medium	6d10
Large	8d10

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One of many items from my conversion of the old 2e Encyclopedia Magica into 5e-compatible content with my Artifacts of Antiquity collection. For a master list of all items currently converted, please check out this page.

Abacus of Calculation

Abacus of Calculation
Wondrous Item, Uncommon 
Aura: Minor Divination

This device is a simple wooden frame, about 8 by 10 inches. Several heavy wires are strung across the frame, parallel to one another. On each wire are 10 wooden balls. When mathematical formulas involving numbers are spoken near the object, the balls shift about and the answer is spoken aloud by a disembodied voice.

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One of many items from my conversion of the old 2e Encyclopedia Magica into 5e-compatible content with my Artifacts of Antiquity collection. For a master list of all items currently converted, please check out this page.

Spells of Antiquity

   

 As I mentioned before, a full 5e conversion of the 3.5 spell compendium was the first project I decided to take on. In hindsight it happened to be a pretty big one as well- over 600 spells total, published over the course of 2022 across 14 volumes.  But now it is finished and available for anyone who wants a truly ridiculous number of extra spells to choose from: Spells of Antiquity. Now, it is worth noting before I continue that each of the 14 titles is individually available as PWYW (pay what you want), which means that they’re all freely available to anyone who wants them.

Now, for those familiar with the original Spell Compendium, you might have noticed that it advertises over 1000 spells and be wondering where those 400 or so got to. That’s a fair question, and there’s a few reasons behind that:

1. Spell Scaling. In 5e, your Cure Wounds spell has that bit at the end: “At Higher Levels”, with an extra 1d8 of healing for each spell slot level beyond the first. In third edition, you had Cure Light Wounds at 1st level spells, Cure Moderate Wounds at 2nd level spells, Cure Serious Wounds at 3rd level spells, etc. Rather than spells being able to be cast at higher levels for greater effects, you ended up with a slew of spells that had virtually identical effects with the numbers scaled up slightly.

2. Redundancy. Third edition had some fairly chaotic energy, where it felt like new books were being rapid fired out there, with each new one not seeming to be aware of the others already out there. As such, there ended up a whole lot of spells that were extremely close to being identical. I figured there were only so many different ways “you grow some natural weapons” should be added in before things just start getting silly.

3. Alignment. In third edition, alignment was treated as much more than just one aspect of your character’s personality. Alignment was a more tangible force, which spells and abilities would regularly reference, to the extent that some classes were not allowed to be anything other than certain alignments (Paladins were exclusively allowed to be lawful good). A lot of those spells just didn't seem to fit, so for now at least I left them out.

4. Ability Damage. Once upon a time, reducing ability scores was considerably more commonplace than it is now. It was, simply put, a pain in the ass. This was especially true when you had an ability score reduced enough to change your modifiers, which might change everything from skills to attack rolls to spell save DCs temporarily. In general, 5e has steered mostly away from these, with several exceptions. In general, I tried to keep spells true to their flavor, even when their exact mechanics didn’t translate as well.

5. Conditions. This one is similar to spell scaling in some regards. In third edition, there were around 38 different conditions, compared to the 15 in 5e. Some of these seemed to be a continuum based on one condition. For example, where 5e has the frightened condition, third edition had shaken, frightened and panicked all as separate conditions with similar effects that got progressively more severe. As is the theme so far, a lot of that ended up getting scaled back and as such a handful of spells just ended up without a real place in the world.

So, where do I plan to go from here? Well, one of the big plans is to wait for OneD&D, then go back through everything and update spells based on whatever mechanical changes are involved. I would most likely not release it as a replacement for the current. I might also look to some spells that were not included in the original Spell Compendium for whatever reason or even go further back to see how the spell lists in 2e looked.

In the meantime, I will probably give things another round of proofreading and update files as needed.  Also, playtesting! Though I tried my best to balance things appropriately, there are definitely some wacky spells that I would want to give some more hands-on experience with before I feel completely comfortable with how they turned out. I’m looking to potentially combine all 14 volumes into one big mega-compendium, though at least for the moment that’s probably pretty far into the future.

That’s about it for now. Did I leave out your favorite spell? Do you see any glaring problems I could fix up? Is there any other more general feedback you have? Please feel free to share.