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Bloodlust
🕑 Added 2022-09-22 16:01:01 +0000 UTCGreetings adventurers!
We were snooping around an old barn where we absolutely had permission to be. You see, we heard from a local that there was something “funny” about that place so of course we had to go take a look. With our goggles firmly on, we searched high and low to find the source of the weird magics in this place when we heard it call to us. Below the floorboards of that very barn, we found this brutal looking broken blade. The honeyed words it whispered sound too good to be true, so use it at your own risk.
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Design notes from Matthew:
Yes, we’ve been watching a bit too much of a certain show. Look, this is such a cool concept, we couldn’t help but put our own little spin on it. I love taking items and granting them power at a cost. There’s something inherently interesting about the “push your luck” style that comes along with it. You never know when things could go from bad to worse and it’s on you for how far you want to push that envelope. You could do more and more damage, but it might drain you any time.
There’s an obvious choice that comes with this weapon where you push it to 60 and then stop draining strength from people as you stop dealing extra damage. That’s totally reasonable and I could see some folks going for that and never moving beyond it. The problem comes when it would be really beneficial to hamper something’s strength after already getting to that place. Do you push your luck with exhaustion or do you try to fight through?
The interesting choices that are inherent with a mechanic like this just give me all the good vibes for a cursed item. I’m not usually a big fan of cursed items, but when I can make them a choice to engage with, I think that’s where the sweet spot lies. I picked 60 as the final breakpoint as well as a 60-40 chance of exhaustion felt about right. The odds are stacked against you, but you still could be okay for awhile. Eventually, things will catch up though.
Illustration notes from Fernando:
It’s always hard to strike a balance between paying homage and copying when it comes to these items inspired by other media we love. We want to stay true to the identity of the item, but we also want to be original, make it our own, and not flat out copy someone else’s idea.
I definitely didn’t want this weapon to look like the one on the show, we figured we could make it feel similar with the mechanics but still make it look like the type of stuff we make.
We also didn’t go through a ton of different designs for this one, I had a pretty good idea in my mind of what this should look like and Matthew liked the very first sketch I did (with a pen, on a pos-it). I wanted to have the aged, twisted iron look to give it some texture and make it look more organic, I also wanted the shape of the crossguard to look like a skull but I wanted it to look like a design, not like an actual skull someone just put a sword through.
I also wanted the blade to have “channels” that ran the blood from the blade into the crossguard and reservoir in the pommel, having the blood flow behind the skull’s eye sockets wasn’t part of the original design, it kind of just happened on its own so I chose to highlight it since it added to the heavy metal album cover feel of this item.
Overall I’m very pleased with the result, I hope you are too!
The temptation that comes along with power is an interesting dynamic to try to portray when it comes to a magic item. There’s always the chance to get it wrong and end up with something that just feels overly punishing to use. This one though, I feel we nailed that balance. Hopefully you feel the same. May you tempt your players with it!
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Stay strong,
- Fernando & Matthew
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Chelsea Larson Art
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