abyssalbrews

Specter Scepter

Added 2024-10-17 13:23:57 +0000 UTC

Greetings adventurers!

Beyond the veil of the living lies a world of ghosts and ghouls. Things that go bump in the night and keep children afraid of what may be lurking in their closets. Now we know that the supernatural exist and haunt their places of demise or great anguish, but did you know that it was possible to not only harness, but use their powers of possession for your own benefits? It’s a bit of dark magic, so only draw your eye to this item if you’re fine with walking on the more daring side of the weave. Be careful of what else you might find there.

Our patrons get early access to all of these items as well as additional formats that are easily usable in both physical and online play for D&D and Pathfinder 2E. Additionally they get high-res art exports, easy to use text exports, behind the scenes updates, and a lot more.

If that strikes your fancy, consider becoming a Patron

Design notes from Matthew:
Creating items that pull from properties of monsters is one of the best ways to get started with creating in 5E and PF2E. I have mentioned this piece of advice before, but it’s because I completely believe in it. There’s a whole wealth of creatures with fantastic abilities and using them to get an idea of how things are written so that you can effectively communicate your own items is a great way to get started homebrewing.
I really wanted to take on the idea of possession with these versions of the item. One important thing about possessing another character in 5E is that there aren’t a lot of great pieces of guidance for how that works. What I ended up going with was a bit of wording from Suggestion along with my own understanding of how commanding another creature could go. It landed in a decent enough place, but I always suggest starting with something in the system when you’re unsure like I was. That can get you 50% of the way there.
In the PF2E version, I had a much clearer template from the abilities that specters already have to potentially possess other creatures. Most of my job here was figuring out how to apply it, when to apply it, and how often you should be able to apply it. I always recommend erring on the side of caution when giving new abilities that players often don’t have access to. Making them pick and choose when to use their “cool ability” button makes for more interesting choices in the end.

It’s been wonderful creating more spooky items for this season most spooky. We’re even preparing another set of spooky item and spooky creature for the end of the month that we can’t wait to drop in your laps. It just might hang out in your dreams though!

We highly encourage you to join our Discord server where you’ll get access to exclusive channels that have sneak peeks, behind the scenes chatter, and more.