The Campaign Builder's Guild

Quote from: Porklet

Quote from: Stargate525The grail-shaped Beacon: Useful for attracting chaste knights.

Don't you mean "chased" knights?

Nope, I'm pretty sure he means chaste.

Google Definitions
1) morally pure (especially not having experienced sexual intercourse); "a holy woman innocent and chaste"
2) pure and simple in design or style; "a chaste border of conventionalized flowers"
3) abstaining from unlawful sexual intercourse[/quote]

Quote from: PhoenixCan you name the story with the magic hairbrush?

I have some fairytale items in there. I suppose it's okay, though I shy away from anything that's a remotely modern creation (so none of Tolkien's magic swords, please). Item's with proper names are best, but anything that feels right in a fantasy story is probably good.

I think the reference he was dropping there was to one of the Russian Baba Yaga legends.  Baba Yaga was a sort of hag/witch/giantess of the child-eating sort and one potential victim escapes by running away with the magic hairbrush and mirror and something else.  When the little kid drops the comb, it becomes a forest that Baba Yaga has to cut down before she can resume the chase.  The mirror turns into a lake.  I can't remeber what the third thing is or does.

Baba Yaga herself has a hut.  On chicken legs.  That wanders around.  And is bigger inside than out.

 As for as nothing modern, I guess that mean's Captain America's shield is out, then?

Not really magical artifacts, but praised items in the Illiad:
Aganemnons breastplate (with the face of the mdusa engraved in it)
Ajax shield (made from the skin of seven bulls and big enough to offer protection for the wearer and an additional archer)
Odysseus' Helmet (made out of boar tusks)
Odysseus' Bow (can only be used by Odysseus)
The Bow of Heracles (whose arrows were poisoned in the blood of the hydra and the poison was always deadly)
I think Achilles' armor was also praised, but I can't remember it exactly.

Pandora (technically, she was forged by Hephaistos)

A few quick Celtic additions. Maybe I'll edit them in later.

Gai Dearg - Red spear of Diarmuid
Roth Fail - magic flying wheel
Crann Buidhe - yellow spear of Diarmuid

I noticed the books heading and noticed the absence of:

The Necronomicon of the Mad Arab Abdul Alhazred - a magical grimoire that ultimately drives its users insane.

and

The Goetia or Lesser Key of Solomon the King- a book for the binding and summoning of spirits that might be called demons.


The Necronomicon might be after your medieval cut-off date.  The more credible version of its history is that the horror writer H. P. Lovecraft made up the name for his stories for the pulp magazines of the twenties and thirties.

The Goetia, while it was first published under that title in the early 1900s is descended from texts dating to the medieval era.

Baba Yaga has a huge collection of artifacts, presumably because she's the single most frequently-recurring character in Russian folklore. I'll just note some of her most famous ones:

The Dancing Hut - already mentioned, but this way it has a name. It is the single most prominent item associated with her.
Baba Yaga's club - can turn those it strikes to stone
Baba Yaga's mortar and pestle - these items are humongous; the mortar can be ridden in and it flies. The pestle is used to steer.
The Water of Life - it can return the dead to life (some say Baba Yaga guards it, but I can't find any stories which say so explicitly)


From other sources:

Lancelot's ring (Arthurian) - it protects him from magic, and was given to him by the Lady of the Lake
Ships of the Tuatha De Danann (Celtic) - These vessels can fly.
The Green Armor (Arthurian) - The wearer is unaffected by physical injury; for instance, its owner was once decapitated and simply put his head back on. Owned by Bertilok De Hautdesert, who received it from Morgan Le Fay.

Updated with all but Necronomicon. Since Lovecraft made it up specifically for his unique mythos (even if other authors later used it or tried to claim it was real, even), it doesn't fit so well here.

QuoteThe Green Armor (Arthurian) - The wearer is unaffected by physical injury; for instance, its owner was once decapitated and simply put his head back on. Owned by Bertilok De Hautdesert, who received it from Morgan Le Fay.

Cool details here. I always thought it was some inherent property of the green knight that he could do that. Was it just his armor?

How about The Shewing <Showing> Stone of John Dee?  He believed it was actually created by an act of apportation by an angel.  His seer Edward Kelley scried into it to deliver the Enochian system of magic.

Bubo, the automated owl Hephaesteus (sp?) made modeled on Athena's.

How 'bout the Mayan calendar of prophesy?

Updated with the Shewing stone.

Slapzilla, are you trying to sneak prank items on the list or are these real? I find it hard to credit that Greek mythology includes a mechanical owl named Bubo.

As I understand the Maya calendar, it merely sets the end of days (2012). Are you referring to a specific item otherwise? Can you elaborate on these or cite sources? I searched Wikipedia but didn't see anything on either.

No pranks here, chief.  Just a few things I remember from my murky memory.

True enough, Bubo the owl was Athena's companion.  I remember something about Zeus commanding her to give the owl to some hero but she had a fake one made to give instead.  I may be remembering Clash of the Titans but for some reason I think I knew about the story before I saw the movie.

The Mayan calendar predicted the arrival of the 'Man in Black' who would destroy the civilization to the day.  A great multitude even went down to the beach to meet him.  Cortez made landfall on that day.  If murky memory serves, it predicted the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand and WW1.  Not bad for a people who didn't yet know of Europe.

I'll try to source them too.

Updated with Bubo and the calendar.

Quote from: PhoenixWas it just his armor?

Yes, the armor given by Morgan Le Fay as I described, but to be fair, Arthurian legend is riddled with contradictions. There's probably a different version of the story where the Armor isn't pointed out as the origin of the magic, or even where it's explicitly not the source. I'm not aware of whether Morgan enchanted it herself, or got it elsewhere.

This list has been moved to the wiki. This way anyone can add items to the list. I think it'll be better.