Hello, and welcome to this week’s issue of LoreMasters - Your regular source of inspirations, ideas, and homebrew for your TTRPG games. In each issue, I'm going to be bringing you a veritable Heroes Feast of items, spells, podcasts, streams, Kickstarters, and STUFF, so if you like this, please subscribe and pass it on to your close friends and distant relatives.
As always, the main chunk of this newsletter is a homebrew for your game and if you have any questions, comments, or thoughts, come find me on the Twitters.
(Also, please check out my work on DMsGuild)
Walkar's Wild Magic Bow
“Oi! Oi! OI!”
The voice rang out over the square, rising above the hubbub of the revellers, hushing them for a moment.
“Oi! You!”
The white dragonborn, stinking of wine and swaying slightly leered over the young halflings.
“You spilt my beer. You better pay for that!”
He placed a meaty hand on their shoulders, beginning to squeeze as another voice cut across the crowd, this one high and sharp.
“Gullen, leave them alone, hands to yourself”
He looked up, across the square to see Elga, an elf clad in the vestments of the town guard, a thin silvered bow in her hand, drawn and taught, an arrow aimed.
“Gullen, this is the last warning, get back to your table and stay there eh?
The dragonborn looked sullen for a moment, before his drunken rage reached his brain.
“Yeah, nah, Elga, eh?”
And he stepped toward her, he gait speeding to a run. With a careful time movement, she released the arrow, flying straight and true, straight into his chest, where it exploded in a shower of flower and petals, raining across the square. Gullen’s face registered utter confusion as Elga’s dropped in disappointment.
“Ah, balls”
Walkar's Wild Magic Bow
The origins of the bow are lost to time. As best the guards can figure it, Walkar was an arcanist who attempted to create a powerful bow, but his vision well out-shone his skills, and so the resulting item is as much as hinderance as a help. Any guards have tales of battles being saved by the wild magic surging through the bow, sadly not many tales tales of how it swung fights against them, mostly as they didn’t survive those fights.
It is somewhat a rite of passage for new recruits, to wield the bow in battle - as much as welcome party as a hazing ritual. Just be warned, if your captain approaches you with a shining bow and a grin, it’s unlikely to be your best day…
CHAOS!
First off the bat, this item is wildly game-breaking, just as likely to result in wiping out your players as it is to prematurely end any combat. This is entirely in it’s design. It is meant to be fun.
I love the idea of wild magic, of random effects that can bubble up in game, and wanted a way to offer that out to non-sorcerers, and I may have just watched all of Hawkeye, and so those two things became this!
It is meant for use in a fun one-shot, something to mix up the combat. Likely I’d hand this to the players just before the final battle, something for that fight only. Too long in the seductive power of this bow is going to warp your campaign.
If you find a use for this silly silly item, let me know!
Things To Check Out
This is the part of the newsletter where I bring you a few things to check out that inspired me and might inspire you
In An Instant
A RPG about photographing the end of the world? What a wonderful concept.
Pre/Post-apocalyptic fiction is rife with the violent power fantasy, the pain and suffering somehow inherent to that genre, and I love that Elijah Rane has taken that and fused it with the art sensibilities of photography. One-pages are wonderful open worlds in which to play and I can see this game rolling out in abandoned suburbia, wind-swept dying farms or the violent collapse of our cities.
The Reclusive Cartographer
Maps, I just love maps. And these are some of the best out there.
More than anything, I love these regional and world maps, seeing the river and hills flow together, the coastlines and cities, really fires my imagination for things to add to my game.
George has some wonderful maps, my highlights are this clifftop magical sword or this burning town. They’ve got patreon levels starting at £1 so well worth your time (and coin) to check out