How To Create Artifacts in Dungeons & Dragons
With our help you will see that knowing How To Create Artifacts in Dungeons & Dragons is easier than you think.
Artifact creation in Dungeons & Dragons lets players and Dungeon Masters equip their characters with strong magical items that have a fascinating history and legendary abilities. Artifacts have the power to impact not only the plot but also the world at large.
Artifact creation is a multi-stage process that begins with deciding on the artifact's magical characteristics and ends with creating engaging mythology that flows naturally into your campaign. This guide will serve as a wellspring of ideas for your next legendary creation, be it a weapon of tremendous strength or an enigmatic artifact.
Both humans and supernatural beings covet artifacts because of their extraordinary magical potential. Rather than being hidden riches, they serve as plot devices that advance your story, be it the search for a sacred weapon to banish evil or the destruction of a sinister ring intent on dominating the globe.
While the intricacy of the numerous artifacts in existence varies greatly, there are three things they all have in common: they are unique, their powers can only be unlocked through attunement, and there are very precise ways to destroy them. A plus three weapon strike or a toss into the Negative Plane are two possible outcomes.
Depending on the function you have in mind for the artifact, its creation does not have to be overly complex for your campaign. Unless they can't benefit from them, low-level players should stay far away from artifacts, and high-level players should be able to possess no more than one artifact per character.
Think about the purpose of the artifact in your story before you choose its style. The most typical functions of artifacts are as implements of some kind, obstacles to be surmounted, or heavy loads to be moved.
The best weapon to battle the campaign's final enemy is an artifact that functions as a tool, and these artifacts are often well-aligned. If the party's travels have revolved around locating this item, then you probably want an intricate artifact with multiple uses.
Having a sentient relic is a certain way to make players resist the urge to wield something bad. As a result, it can use magic to captivate characters' brains and lead them to perform its bidding, in addition to luring them with false promises of power.
Finally, a simple artifact will suffice if all it's intended to be is a flammable item that the party will be carrying. When utilized, these relics have an ill-defined detrimental impact, but the mission to eradicate their horrible wickedness is obvious.
Although artifacts aren't supposed to be complicated, their function in your narrative could be. A group of adventurers may be driven to destroy a cursed relic rather than use it, and this desire will likely become the central driving force of the adventure.
All you need is a name and a method to destroy it in order to make an artifact similar to this. So that you don't have to come up with a bunch of complicated regulations for the item, it would be great if it had no effects when worn maybe because it only affects fiends.
Taking an item to its polar opposite realm (from evil to good, from order to chaos) or dismantling it at its place of creation are two common strategies for destroying it.
The Horns of the Beast, an artifact from the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide, is a fantastic example of this type of item. In the fifth level adventure example, it's there, but players can't utilize it because destroying it is the only way to get it.
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Artifact creation in Dungeons & Dragons lets players and Dungeon Masters equip their characters with strong magical items that have a fascinating history and legendary abilities. Artifacts have the power to impact not only the plot but also the world at large.
Artifact creation is a multi-stage process that begins with deciding on the artifact's magical characteristics and ends with creating engaging mythology that flows naturally into your campaign. This guide will serve as a wellspring of ideas for your next legendary creation, be it a weapon of tremendous strength or an enigmatic artifact.
Explain Artifacts.
Both humans and supernatural beings covet artifacts because of their extraordinary magical potential. Rather than being hidden riches, they serve as plot devices that advance your story, be it the search for a sacred weapon to banish evil or the destruction of a sinister ring intent on dominating the globe.
While the intricacy of the numerous artifacts in existence varies greatly, there are three things they all have in common: they are unique, their powers can only be unlocked through attunement, and there are very precise ways to destroy them. A plus three weapon strike or a toss into the Negative Plane are two possible outcomes.
How To Create Artifacts in Dungeons & Dragons
Depending on the function you have in mind for the artifact, its creation does not have to be overly complex for your campaign. Unless they can't benefit from them, low-level players should stay far away from artifacts, and high-level players should be able to possess no more than one artifact per character.
The Artifact's Function
Think about the purpose of the artifact in your story before you choose its style. The most typical functions of artifacts are as implements of some kind, obstacles to be surmounted, or heavy loads to be moved.
The best weapon to battle the campaign's final enemy is an artifact that functions as a tool, and these artifacts are often well-aligned. If the party's travels have revolved around locating this item, then you probably want an intricate artifact with multiple uses.
Having a sentient relic is a certain way to make players resist the urge to wield something bad. As a result, it can use magic to captivate characters' brains and lead them to perform its bidding, in addition to luring them with false promises of power.
Finally, a simple artifact will suffice if all it's intended to be is a flammable item that the party will be carrying. When utilized, these relics have an ill-defined detrimental impact, but the mission to eradicate their horrible wickedness is obvious.
Constructing Basic Artifacts
Although artifacts aren't supposed to be complicated, their function in your narrative could be. A group of adventurers may be driven to destroy a cursed relic rather than use it, and this desire will likely become the central driving force of the adventure.
All you need is a name and a method to destroy it in order to make an artifact similar to this. So that you don't have to come up with a bunch of complicated regulations for the item, it would be great if it had no effects when worn maybe because it only affects fiends.
Taking an item to its polar opposite realm (from evil to good, from order to chaos) or dismantling it at its place of creation are two common strategies for destroying it.
The Horns of the Beast, an artifact from the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide, is a fantastic example of this type of item. In the fifth level adventure example, it's there, but players can't utilize it because destroying it is the only way to get it.
Create Advanced Artifacts
The one and only guideline to follow while crafting an artifact from raw materials is that it is enchanted with a plus three bonus if it can be used as a weapon. Beyond that, artifacts' abilities are very contextual and dependent on the lore they hail from and their function in your story.
If you want to know the powers your artifact has to offer, reading its backstory is your best bet. For instance, the Axe of the Dwarvish Lords tells a story that makes sense, even though most players probably won't use the artifact's various tool-related abilities.
In most cases, players shouldn't be able to cast your artifact's spells more than once a day. Even while certain wicked artifacts have several negative effects associated with them, some of them actually allow you to cast the same spell more than once.
Intelligent Relics
Even if not all artifacts are sentient, the ones that are most entertaining tend to be. These relics can serve as cooperative instruments of benevolence or as instruments of tyranny designed to impose their masters' desires. The 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide provides easy-to-follow instructions for creating fully complete sentient items of any kind.
- To establish Ability Scores, roll four dice for each mental Ability Score; discard the result with the lowest total and add the remaining ones. When the item and its wielder are engaged in a game of wits, these details become crucial.
- To clarify, artifacts should ideally not be neutral since that facilitates roleplaying.
- Choose its mode of communication; artifacts can either talk directly to their user, project subtle emotions, or have a telepathic relationship.
- Make up its mind: any sentient object, even if it has no intention of helping the group, should be able to see its environment. You get to pick the range and whether it can see or hear at this point.
- The primary point of contention with the artifact is its intended use, so be sure to define it. You might as well not endow an artifact with consciousness if it lacks a mission or purpose.
Making Preexisting Artifacts My Own
The 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide includes a built-in method of customizing artifacts through favorable and negative characteristics, in addition to adjusting essential aspects as you see fit.
Using the characteristics table provided in the Treasure chapter, a number of random effects are applied to all artifacts in the book.
There is a limit of four small yet useful attributes that an item can possess. The book's table can be used as a guide to help you figure them out.
Choosing alternatives that do not grant spells is recommended if the artifact already grants access to multiple spells. This will benefit everyone in the end.
An artifact is limited to no more than two significant useful characteristics. Unless the thing in question is absolutely pure, like the Book of Exalted Deeds, it is extremely unusual for it to have more than one significant positive quality without simultaneously having a significant negative one.
An artifact is limited to four minor adverse traits; nevertheless, these properties are usually more of a bother than a serious threat.
Giving a basic artifact two negative attributes is a great way to show that it is cursed without making it uninteresting to look at or use.
Last but not least, there are only two extremely harmful qualities that an artifact can possess. Some artifacts with favorable alignments also have powerful negative attributes, making them extremely dangerous for anyone trying to take control of them.
Beyond these features, you can also simply modify an existing artifact by adding or removing resistances and immunities until it is functionally distinct from the original.
If you rebrand the Wand of Orcus as the Wand of Hilarion and give it a celestial summoning theme, gamers might not even realize it was once an evil weapon.
That's all for How To Create Artifacts in Dungeons & Dragons, you just have to follow the instructions to get it and progress in this great game.
Tags: D&D Dark Alliance
Platform(s): Microsoft Windows PC, PlayStation 4 PS4, PlayStation 5 PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S
Genre(s): Action role-playing
Developer(s): Tuque Games
Publisher(s): Wizards of the Coast
Release date: June 22, 2021
Mode: Single-player, multiplayer
Age rating (PEGI): 16+
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