Building Bhakashal - Magic Item Creation

So my Friday group finished off an adventure, leveled up, and decided they wanted to do something with their down time between adventures. In Bhakashal, when you are between jobs, you can spend loot on various things, train, research, etc. The party is on average 7th level (some 8th, some 5/6th), so they have a decent amount of wealth.

They decided they wanted to make magical items. 

In Bhakashal if you want to make magical items, you need a few things:

1. A finely made physical item like a ring or a wand, the PCs pay for this, generally in the 1000-2000 gp range in cost.

2. A fantastic component (e.g. dragon heart) that is used to make the ink for a spell related to the effect to be gained. The referee picks the spell that best matches. So for example, for a flame tongue sword the spell might be fireball, or for a dragon slayer sword, you would use the dragon heart to make ink to pen a Death spell. The PCs pay to have the component made into the scroll spell, that’s 200 gp per level of spell. There are odds for success and failure for this process, if they roll a fail, there are odds for a harmful result.

3. A casting of Enchant an Item, it takes d8 + 2 days, then 24 hours to cast the spell from (2). That spell takes 1 hour per level to cast. So if it was the Dragon Slayer sword and a 6th level Death spell it would take 6 hours to cast. The caster rolls their “to know” + level as a percentage roll to successfully cast the Death spell. If they failed, they would take another 6 hours to try again. They could fail at most 3 times, on the 4th failure it would be 24 hours and they would have to stop and recast the whole Enchant an Item spell. The cost of this process is 200 gp per day of casting. Note that a failure to cast the Death spell in this case would lead to a potentially harmful result. 

4. A library and laboratory. Both take years to put together, so they will usually appeal to their patron to use their. The spell casting costs for Enchant an Item assume that a library and lab are available. If the PCs have their own those costs would be waived. 

5. Protection - a spellcaster is vulnerable while casting Enchant an Item, so must be protected. The party can be charged for this (200 gp per day of casting) or they can provide the protection. The caster will generally have other forms of protection beyond the party, but there is a need to have the caster watched by a live defender the entirety of the casting time, as any break in the process will ruin the casting. The process takes time, and it is not ‘hand waived’ in Bhakashal, there are costs to spending extended periods of time doing things. 

So, the first step had the party pooling all of their loot, paying for leveling up, and then taking what was left as the war chest to make magic items, this was 8550 gp, left over after paying 26,250 gp in leveling costs. They decided to have three items made from monster parts they had found over 6 months or so of game time. They had two items created to act as the base for these castings, a pair of bracers (800gp cost to have made) and a wand (1000 gp to have made). That took a week.

First step in making a magic item is to pen a scroll spell that reflects the item’s nature, the spell used during Enchant an Item to give the magical power to the item. To pen that spell you make ink out of the monster part and squid ink.

They needed three scroll spells penned, one for each item, some items that have multiple powers (e.g. a wand of fire) would require multiple spells, some items only need one. They asked their patron and he recommended them to Mharal the Ivory, a warlock at House Magnar that owed him a favor and could pen the required spells. 

This part is role played. The three party members that wanted items made went to Mharal, we rolled for random encounters on the way to his tower, but none came up. They brought him the material components to scribe the spells, e.g. monster parts that would be made into ink for the spell scroll. Mharal agreed to scribe the spells immediately, despite his obligations to several other warlocks, to show respect to Quin Faal and pay back his debt. The party promised to tell Quin Faal of his generosity. 

Mharal has a 72% chance to scribe spells successfully. The first scroll was for a pair of bracers of defense, made with werewolf blood, the ink was used to pen a Shield spell. Mharal takes the werewolf blood and adds it to a concoction to make the ink, and he pens the spell, it takes 2 hrs per level of spell for the process (an hour for ink preparation, an hour for scribing). I roll a d30 for a potential encounter during this process, no matter how many hours it takes.

The idea is that the odds of an encounter should be low, but not impossible. This is a warlock doing their magic in their own home/lab/tower, it should not be the kind of place where things happen all the time, but it is totally in the realm of possibility that something could interrupt this sort of shindig. However, the more hours they will be committed to casting a spell, the more precautions they would normally take. To reflect this there are low odds (1 in 30) but they apply no matter how many hours it takes to scribe an individual spell. 

So 1 in 30. I rolled, nothing came up. He rolled under his casting odds (72%), and the spell was successfully made. Shield done for casting to make the bracers.

Next up was the displacer cloak, made from the hide of a displacer beast. Mirror image was the spell, and a strip of the hide was used to make the ink. This one took 4 hrs, as a second level spell, and Mharal once again rolled under his odds. I rolled a 1 in 30 chance of an interruption, nothing came up. Mirror Image was done for casting to make a displacer cloak.

The last one was the most spectacular, the party had defeated a medusa and severed her head, keeping it for several months. They had planned to use it to petrify victims, but were too afraid to accidentally petrify party members when taking the head out of the bag, so they hadn’t used it at all. They wanted to use the head to make a wand.

Mharal had to pen a reverse Stone to Flesh spell to make that wand. As a 6th level spell, it would take 12 hours to cast, and he had already worked for 6 hours. They decided to wait for the next day. 

First thing the next morning they returned and Mharal spent 12 hours preparing and scribing the spell. He failed his roll to successfully pen the spell, but not wanting to shame himself in front of the representatives of Quin Faal the Iolite, and wanting to fulfill his obligations, he used the Bhakashal luck mechanic to use his own HP to change the roll. This cost him half his HP, so it exhausted him, but it did the trick, and the spell was scribed. 

Mharal collected his fee, 200 gp for Shield, 400 gp for Mirror Image and 1200 gp for the reverse of Stone to Flesh, 1800gp total.

The party returned home for the night. 

The party thief and the two party tanks spent this time recruiting henchmen and sorting out retainers while the remaining party members went to Quin Faal and he sent them to Logoroth the Opalescent, a 7th level warlock of House Quannar and one of their patron’s trusted allies.

Logoroth has a 73% chance to cast Enchant an Item and his saving throw versus magic is 8, so he has to roll an 8 or higher on a d20 for the enchantment to “take”. 

Logoroth informs the party that this will take a minimum a week, and at most a month. He has reserved the next month, they are going to do the casting at his personal tower, a small three story affair in the Ward. He has two Jugyi guards at the front door, a trio of giant spiders on the roof, and fire traps set up on all the stairs of the tower. He asks for the party to send one person for each item casting to personally protect him while he casts. They agree, saving themselves 200gp per day of casting in costs. He quotes his prices, then they decide to create the Bracers of Defense first.

Logoroth is given the Shield spell. In Bhakashal (like in AD&D 1e) a warlock can cast any warlock spell from a scroll, whether they have it memorized or not. The first step is to roll to determine how many days it takes for Enchant an Item to cast, in this case we rolled 8 days. Each one of those days we roll a 1 in 30 chance of some sort of encounter occurring. I rolled for all 8 days and no encounters came up!

Next step was to roll for the casting of Enchant an Item, which succeeded. 8 days of casting, now they had 24 hours to cast the required spells. Fortunately Shield is a first level spell, so if he failed in casting he could try again multiple times, as the spell only takes an hour to cast. 

I rolled for a potential encounter during the 24 hour period to cast the Shield spell, none came up. Logoroth rolled successfully for the casting of Shield, and the party priest now had a pair of Bracers of Defense AC 7 made from werewolf blood. The Bracers complete, the party paid Logoroth 2600 gp for the work.

Logoroth rested a day, then the party returned to have the next item made. No encounters were rolled on the way to Logoroth’s tower, and they brought him scroll with Mirror Image. We rolled and this casting took 6 days, less time than the casting for the bracers. We rolled for the casting of Enchant an Item and it was successful.

I rolled for encounters for those 6 days and nothing came up. Then they had 24 hours to cast Mirror Image into the cloak, each casting of the spell taking 2 hours. I rolled the 1 in 30 chance of something happening, nothing came up. Then the first casting failed, I rolled for a potential harmful result, but that didn’t happen. The second casting also failed (Logoroth’s odds are 73%), again with no harmful result, and I considered having Logoroth spend HP to change it to avoid losing face, but he failed by enough that the effort might have killed him, so I decided against it. The third time was the charm, and the spell took, with 18 hours remaining.

The party now had a displacer cloak. As they had the “item” for this casting (the displacer beast hide) and rolled fewer days to cast, it was cheaper, 1200gp.

They returned the next day for the final item, the party magic-user accompanied Logoroth for this casting. We rolled 8 days for the basic casting of Enchant an Item. For each day there is a 1 in 30 chance of an encounter. On day 4 it came up. I had prepared a table of possible results if an encounter came up during the casting:

1. Interruption by one of Logoroth’s people

2. Attack by rival

3. Intrusion by thief

4. Attack by imprisoned monster (demon, devil, extraplanar being)

I rolled a 3, intrusion by thief. I decided that the Brass Blade Thieves Guild had caught wind of Logoroth’s multiple item creation plans, and sent a thief to sneak in a steal items while Logoroth was occupied with the casting. A 5th level Togmu (frog person) Spider (Bhakashal thief) named Olgam the Viper, with a +1 Sword, a Ring of Invisibility and a potion of Fire Resistance.

Olgam won surprise, and snuck up invisibly behind the party magic user, whispering in his ear and threatening to run him through if he reacted in any way. He whispered a response, telling the thief that he had a spell upon his person that would shock him if he touched his body, I rolled a reaction to see if the thief believed him, he did, and backed up a step, when the magic-user heard the step back he swung around and struck the Spider. He rolled a crit! He chose to have the Spider knocked backwards as his effect.

He then took out a handful of spiderwebs and cast Web, hoping to catch the thief, but it takes time to cast, and I rolled to see what the thief was going to do to react. He ran towards Logoroth, wanting to try and slay him before he could react, and knowing he would not take his hands off the wand unless he had to. Given the casting time, the Web spell did not catch the Spider!

The magic-user guessed that the thief must be going for Logoroth as the Web had not caught him, and he turned to cast Web again, this time in a thin (10’) wall between him and Logoroth. We had to do some quick math to see if the Web could catch the thief but not Logoroth, and it was possible. He cast the spell, and the Spider failed his save, caught by the web!

The magic-user has a Ring of Free Action, so he walked through the web to the Spider and gave him an ultimatum, tell him who sent him and why he was here, or he would be killed on the spot. I rolled a reaction, and the Spider came clean. The magic-user had the power to kill him while he was trapped in the web, but chose to spare his life. I rolled a reaction and the Spider was so grateful that he vowed to serve the magic-user as a henchman for the next month in gratitude. 

That was unexpected, but fun. Olgam the Spider is now part of the party.

We rolled for encounters for the remaining days and none came up. Since Logoroth was not interrupted, we rolled and Enchant an Item was cast successfully. Now it was the final 24 hours. Logoroth had to cast the reverse of Stone to Flesh from the scroll, which would take 6 hours to cast. That roll was successful, and the party had a Medusa Wand. 8 days of casting cost 1600gp. They paid and left with their last item, a wand with 61 charges.

Total costs for the manufacture of three magic items:

Wand and Bracers - 1800 gp

Spell scribing - 1800 gp

Enchant an Item casting 

1600 gp

1200 gp

1600 gp

8000 gp total

34 days

So it cost them 8000gp and about a month of gaming time, but they now have three new magic items. The costs here are manifold, they needed to leverage existing relationships (with their Patron, with their Patron’s allies) to secure resources (someone to pen their spells, someone to cast Enchant an Item), to spend time and risk potential encounters, to slay monsters (4 werewolves, a displacer beast and a medusa) and collect their parts, and to spend copious amounts of gold. It took them until they were in the 6-8th level range before they had the spare gold and the alliances to achieve this. 

It was a fun session, each roll was exciting as failure could lead to harm, or at the very least could cost them more gold. If the casting of Enchant an Item or any of the individual spells had failed they might have not had the wealth to continue. 

Now we will see if they all die using their shiny new items!