BECMI Chapter 11 – Item Creation Guidelines are Important

Going through my mother’s personal tomes while she was asleep was fairly key. I, ah, had to a lot of her personal protections on her books, then substitute my own that would act like her magic and permit her to use them without a problem, and could even be by her if she desired, even feeling like her own magic unless she was really paying attention to such matters.

Most likely she’d just assume something had changed about the spell rather than that someone had gotten rid of her own magic and substituted in their own.

One of those key items was magic item creation.

In the Matrix system, Magic Item Creation was subdivided into a cluster of Feats, where magic items of similar types operated under mutual sets of rules and could thus be enchanted fairly easily under known patterns and conditions. Magical Weapons and Armor, for instance, shared the ten-Slots paradigm and general use of Enhancement bonuses, thus empowering them was fairly similar. Potions were basically spells in a bottle, for the most part. Wands stored large numbers of spells at a specific Caster level to use when you wanted to conserve your own magic.

The most wide-open area was Wondrous Items, which could do all sorts of crazy things, and generally speaking were the most expensive things to make on a per-spell basis because of that. Still, it was fairly easy to work out the process of what you wanted to do under the overarching framework of the Item Creation Feats.

The local magic system was more fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants and ‘figure it out as you go, there’s a good Caster.’

The Chaos in the magic system meant that almost all magic items were created fairly equally, and what worked for someone was only a guideline for what MIGHT work for you. Mom’s notes on the Wands and Potions she’d made, along with one magic Sword, were a bunch of conceptualized artistic renditions of magical knowledge that had very little to do with rules and a lot more to do with how magic applied to her individually.

Very… sorcerous, as it were.

The MECHANICAL aspects were of course what I was concerned with, and meant to exploit.

In some ways, magical items were way, way easier to create here, especially some of the more powerful ones. However, minor magic items were a total pain in the arse, and far more easily done in the Matrix System.

Initial costs on prepping the item were part of this. Items had to be custom-made for the enchantment process. You couldn’t just make a Sword out of a masterwork sword, like you could in the Matrix system. Oh, no. You had to make a Sword designed to be a Sword +II from creation. Magic items were NOT meant to be upgraded as they went along. Once made, they were fixed and frozen, and if you wanted something better, you had to go get something else.

Which sucked a whole lot.

The initial ‘prep’ for a permanent item took a solid week. Non-permanent items, like Scrolls, Potions, and Wands, skipped this step. The price was the cost of materials, for the artisan to make the devoted item, for the materials needed to empower the item and prepare it, and then for the actual magic to go into the item and be bound to it.

The cost of a ‘normal’ Item was Spell Level x 1000 gold pieces, Caster Level generally fixed by the spell involved. The cost of Weapons and Armor improvement was 1000 gp x the enhancement bonus squared, so anywhere from 1k to 25k gp. Random magical abilities were assigned by spell level, just like any other items.

Chaos meant this was not a surefire success. The chance was Intellect+Caster Level, x2, - 3x Level of any spells used, or -5x any Enhancements. My Intellect was 35, my effective Caster Level was 19, meaning my base chance was 108%. I had no chance of failing multiple simple spells on any object, or making things with only +I Enhancement bonuses.

On top of that was the cost of using on non-Arms and Armor. It added a whopping quintuple the spell level modifier cost for making a magic item!

What that amounted to… was actually it was pretty damn cheap to make some powerful basic Arms and Armor, although the cost of extra properties beyond +I to +V was often prohibitive, and it generally cost a LOT of money to make anything else.

Prohibitive meant ‘use the Matrix System for those’, which I was plenty happy to do if it meant something. The Matrix System didn’t require the same amount of customization, so I could even upgrade stuff made through the current system… if it was of sufficient quality level, which it normally was not.

Typical. The skills System here was generally lacking, and the power of higher QL items was not much in evidence anywhere.

The ‘mortal limits’ of Power of Ten seemed to be in effect, however. No creating magic items with Caster Levels above 20, those seemed to be restricted to artifacts of the Immortals, if those. No Enhancement or other bonuses of any kind above +5, and the System here heavily discouraged trying to make anything that directly influenced Stats.

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But when you could make a +V Weapon for possibly as low as 12 goldweight, and a suit of Armor +V for 16 goldweight, there were some definite advantages to using the local System!

Of course, that brought up the last requirement of the local System, and that was the lack of a well-developed material component system for the raw materials to make magic items.

For instance, making a +V weapon was well known to require the teeth and/or claws of an elder dragon. +V Armor, scales from such a dragon or a similar monster with obdurate hides!

The market in such items was constant and active, and a lot of gold moved around as Casters spent money so they wouldn’t have to go search out said components themselves and put themselves in danger. Likewise, those who did go out to find such things were happy to sell off the extras if possible. It was just that reserves of such things didn’t exist, as their magical viability was limited in duration under the default magical system.

Indeed, some magical components would only work if the one making the magic item was indeed the one who harvested them!

Ugh. I definitely liked the Matrix methods better, but if I was going to be using up material components I could gather anyway…

The King Scorpion’s carapace was such a component for up to +III Armor or Shields, and I’d already arranged the sale of it to the appropriate smiths looking to make such toys. It was generating me more cash, and I never ran out of needs for that stuff.

“I understand you have something for me.”

Master Chlyfual felt the hackles rise from the bottom of his spine and nearly make him rise to his tiptoes at that voice.

It was sultry. It was commanding. It was absolutely bored of the threat he might represent, and it was absolutely in control of this situation.

He couldn’t see much of her, beyond very pale skin and some exquisite lips, and curves that found his thoughts leading urgently to the bed upstairs. Her attire was black spidersilks, shimmering and smooth, with high boots and fingerless gloves that extended back over her elbows. She had on a floor-length cloak so black it looked like a slice of the night, the hood up to conceal her hair, trimmed in crimson, as was the stitching on her attire, with a single pure white blouse underneath her embroidered sable and scarlet vest for contrast.

Over her eyes was a featureless black visor or something, possibly of obsidian, totally covering her eyes and nose and leaving him no gaze to meet.

She was also standing an inch above the floor on exquisitely turned black and crimson high leather boots, without obvious use of magic.

“Y-yes,” he confirmed, knowing without a doubt that the mysterious Lady Edge was standing in front of him, and looked even more dangerous and deadly than he had imagined. “Please allow me to fetch it from the back, my Lady!”

There was only the slightest inclination of her head, and Master Chlyfual had to resist the urge to break out in a run at what almost felt like a royal command.

There were dark things moving around her in the field of magic. He didn’t know what they were, only that they were dangerous.

He was back quickly with the order, something that had cost him quite a few thousand gold to place. Slowly and carefully, he set the wrapped bundle on the counter between them and stepped away.

The whole bundle lifted off the granite counter and unwound itself without her moving a finger. The cotton cloth and bindings fell away, and the contents within revealed themselves.

It was the vertebra of a creature with an elongated spine, over ten feet worth of bones there. The bones were dark, looking almost charred black, except they were still sleek and unbroken. The bones themselves were at least thrice the width of a human spine, but all the flesh was long gone from them, a single rope of orcish hair running through them to bind them into the correct pattern.

Her head moved slightly to fixate on the first bone, and there was a glitter of shadows moving, something jet edged in scarlet fluttering around her and the bone itself, which began to smoke crimson under her gaze.

Calmly and uncaring of his presence, her unseen but almost palpable gaze slowly and patiently examined every single bone.

When she paused the first time, on the seventh bone, his heart skipped a beat. When she paused on the second to last, his legs quivered and he almost fell down.

“It seems someone is interested in where these bones went and what they might be used for,” she remarked in a cool voice, and Chlyfual felt his throat go dry. “This is not a problem for me, but the agent you used to acquire them? He might be in a little bit of danger. I suggest you get some of your funds back from him for this little oversight on his part.

“If he gives you some grief, inform my little one the next time she comes by, and give her the name and location of your agent. I will deal with his lack of professionalism.”

Chlyfual swallowed. Malfarel was a wheeler-dealer and fixer who could eventually get his hands upon almost anything, with contacts among many of the King’s agents who visited the surface world. There were any number of people who might have an interest in who was collecting the bones of an elder dragon and what those bones might be used for. But if people heard that Malfarel was passing on items treated with tracking spells so others could follow them, the fixer’s business would evaporate quickly, and quite possibly his life.

“I will so inform him,” the alchemist elf stated firmly, bowing slightly and sweating.

“You currently owe me roughly five thousand gold for materials I’ve sent to you. How much of that debt is necessary to pay off this acquisition of bones?” she asked in a calm and unconcerned voice.

“My lady, I was charged eight thousand gold for this collection of bones,” Chlyfual reported honestly, correctly reading that any evasions would be sensed for what they were.

“Indeed? Quite the opportunist, your contact.” A black and crimson scroll of familiar pattern emerged from under her cloak and hung in the air before him. “An elder tenebrous worm’s carcass is ensconced upon here. I trust that will more than pay off my new debt to you. I leave your refund from your contact to you.”

Chlyfual’s mouth went dry. An elder tenebrous worm! He hadn’t heard of any such thing being recovered in nearly fifty years! Where had she possibly found it? He knew six elder mages of the people who would give him ten thousand gold on the spot for such a thing, without any bargaining!