Encyclopedia Magica: 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 thats 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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Well, the first artifact I've come across while converting the Encyclopedia Magica to 5e. for an artifact, it is much less of a powerhouse than other artifacts presented in the DMG, leaning much more strongly on the plot device angle. Still, as far as plot devices go "the seemingly benevolent entity that turns out to be super evil once set free" is a classic.

Encyclopedia Magica: 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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Not too much to add here. Another magic item converted to 5e from the old Encyclopedia Magica. Thematically similar to something like Daern's Instant Fortress or the Magnificent Mansion spell, this one comes with a bit of a curse for when you don't want your PCs to rest too easily.

Encyclopedia Magica: 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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Nothing too terrible fancy here for the next entry in the Encyclopedia Magica. Following the Accelerator, it seems like another item well suited for a Spelljammer campaign, or at least some variety of plane-hopping adventure.

Encyclopedia Magica: 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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So, here it is! The next item on the list while converting the second edition Encyclopedia Magica to 5e. This one is a bit more dangerous than a fancy magic calculator. It is intended for use with the Spelljammert setting, but there's really no reason why someone couldn't just drop that requirement for any old ship-based campaign, or even use one as static defenses for a castle. Originally, the item just slat out stated that if you fired a creature they died, though I kind of like the idea of a Barbarian delivery service, or maybe even for use by some bad guys who have helmed horrors (immune to force damage) on hand for a particularly flashy boarding action.

Encyclopedia Magica: 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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So, Starting off short and sweet with a fairly simple item. The plan over all is the convert as much of the Encyclopedia Magica into 5e-compatible content as possible. Right now, I'm starting with Volume A-D right from the top with the Abacus of Calculation. There isn't a whole lot of complexity here, just a useful little magic trinket that might come in handy under certain circumstances.

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.

  

Session Zero

Hokay, so here goes. I've been toying with the idea of starting a blog for what feels like an age and a half. Somewhere within the jumble of reading about the differences between WordPress .com vs .org and web hosting and domain names I happened to stumble across a reddit thread with some very pointed advice: go write. Stop reading about blogging on Reddit, stop agonizing over every detail of the process, start up a blog and just start writing. So while I still plan to keep looking up ways to develop, grow and otherwise craft an overall better blog, I’ve decided to take that bit of advice to heart. At the end of the day if the biggest mistake I make is starting out sub-optimally rather than never starting at all due to analysis paralysis, that’s something I can live with.

At any rate, I suppose I should use this initial post to introduce myself and the purpose of this blog.  I am Azzy, an avid TTRPG player and perpetual DM. I have been a fan of Dungeons and Dragons for just about two decades now, with the third edition being my main edition for a lot of my early days. As a DM, I have almost exclusively run games using the current edition (5e as of writing this).

That brings me to the intended content I’d like to write about. While DMing, I’ve had to cobble together quite a bit of homebrewed solutions to scenarios real and imagined, and older editions are one of my go-to sources for inspiration. This led to me making quite a few conversions of older content from 3/3.5 to 5e. Inevitably I stumbled across DMsGuild, which allows homebrewers like myself a place to publish brews which use quite a bit of official Wizards content. I started with a conversion of the entire 3.5 spell compendium to 5e and have a laundry list of other older content I can’t wait to formally write up and publish as well. Now with that completed and behind me, I’m looking towards some actual old campaigns that might like to see the light of day in a new edition.

Well, I suppose that's about all I have for now, so I should get back to making monster stat blocks and battlemaps. Thank you to anyone reading and I promise to try and learn some better ways to wrap up and conclude blog posts!