This is another Fantastic Creation I have had in mind for a while now, though somewhat simpler than Beobachten, the Dragon Watching.
I have always liked the idea of wands, but the implementation in D&D has been generally lacking in my mind. Most of them time they are simply canned spells and usually have little flavor. Hanging some feathers off one or carving eldritch runes doesn’t really do much to increase the wonder in my mind.
And never mind the wand of wonder, that thing is mostly an exercise in frustration.
I wanted a fairly simple, but not trivial, magic item. Being able to simply spam a spell at low cost doesn’t strike me as very interesting. Potentially very useful, but hardly even interesting, and hardly exciting. I decided to tweak things a little.
Palavirea, the Burning Green
Campaign Role
Palavirea is an alternate wand of fireball. It is a portable source of sizzling pain for the wielder’s opponents.
This item itself is not a threat to anything, but there has at times been some contention for its ownership, and it has been linked to certain unfortunate (in some peoples’ minds, at least) events.
People generally seek it out because it is an easily portable source of green fiery death.
Relationships
The Green Burning does not have very many notable relationships.
- Palavirea is made primarily from a branch taken from a tree in the Burning Wood.
- Is believed to have been involved in the death of the Ducal family of Sal Foran.
Description and Identification
Palavirea is an 18″ long piece of fire maple (something like sugar maple in eastern Canada, but the leaves are almost always red, even when not burning), very pale gold in color and always warm to the touch. There are seven ‘buds’ on the wand, one large one on the end and six more spaced irregularly along and around the wand. When fully charged, each bud is replaced by an emerald. As charges are consumed, the buds unfurl into red leaves and then dissolve into smoke.
The fireballs produced are a brilliant green color (a little darker and richer than this Green Fire) and smell of burned maple syrup. A sticky residue is left behind that smells much the same and might taste sweet if it weren’t burned.
The current location is not established. This is a highly transportable, convenient source of fiery pain, and could end up almost anywhere.
Mechanics
This is a fairly simple device. Fully-charged it has six charges (10d6 fireball, following the normal rules), plus one charge of a 20d6 delayed blast fireball (the largest emerald, on the end).
An individual bud may also be removed and used as a 10d6 delayed blast fireball (including being set to go off after a certain amount of time up to five rounds, or thrown over a wall).
There is a limited ability to recharge this wand. A smaller bud that has been used can be replaced by holding an emerald worth 500gp or more to the now-empty bud location for one minute, at which point the wand will incorporate the new bud. One day after this has been done, the bud will be empowered and usable as a charge. The largest bud can also be replaced, but requires a 2,500 gp emerald and one week for the charge to take. The wand can only be recharged as long as there is at least one charge (of either kind) remaining; if all charges are spent the wand can no longer be recharged.
Yes! You are correct. D&D and Pathfinder have lost the sense of wonder.
It isn’t because I have gotten older and out grown my 12yo self as some would have you believe – it is because they have made magic part of the common fabric and categorized and cataloged it all so that most people know about every magic item they could possible find or buy.
Buy magic items?! Unheard of!
People don’t seem to remember that we used to create our own magic items just so the players didn’t know what the items did. Or we knew that no one else had Arneson’s source books so we could take stuff from there.
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