Looking for some advice for magic items in a low magic setting. The setting is basically a fantasy version of England circa 400AD right after the Roman pullout.
My PCs have just defeated an ancient evil – a member of the pre-human Old Ones (a kind of mishmash between a bipedal cat, the Irish Formorian, and the Fair Folk). This Old One was a body jumper that possessed townsfolk and forced them to murder one another.
After nasty, knock down, drag out fight, my PCs were able to kill it and harvest its giant claws. Now what do they get?
When you send your spirit into the catspaw and leave your body insensate, ask the GM what life forces are nearby. When you force your spirit into a life force, roll +CON. On a hit, you replace the life force’s spirit with your own, capturing its spirit in the catspaw. On a 7-9, hold 2. On a 10+, hold 3. While you have hold, you remain in control of the life force and its spirit remains bound. Lose 1 hold each time…
– Your host’s body suffers pain or harm
– You fall asleep in the host’s body
– The host’s body comes in contact with cold iron
When you run out of hold, your spirit returns to the catspaw and the host’s spirit is set free. Normally, the host’s spirit returns to its original body and you can then return to yours.
Normally.
Did the claws do anything special when the creature was still alive? Also, what do they look like? Cat claws, I assume?
You could reinforce why the setting is low magic (and why harvesting the body parts of elder evils is a bad idea) by giving it a powerful effect with a very nasty complication. Maybe something like what the Dragonslayer compendium class does:
~You can add +1 to any roll where invoking the strength of an Old One would be helpful, but whenever you do so roll 1d4. If you roll a 1, you succumb to cruelty, arrogance or unnatural hunger and must act accordingly. Feel free to make this especially biting on a miss.
On the other hand, it might mainly be a prestige item with no particularly extraordinary effects (at least when compared to a higher-magic setting). Making them weapons with the Messy, Magic and Intimidating tags might be enough.
Or you could be more generous. Piercing / Ignores Armor isn’t overly complicated, but would be a very big deal in a low-magic setting like you describe.
whatever it does…. there will be people that covet it and will come after it.
The first time you eat one of the claws of the Old One, roll + CON. On a 10+ take both, on a 7-9 choose one :
* Cats speak with you and see you as a friend unless you prove otherwise through your actions.
* When you stand in sight of and downwind from a settlement the GM will tell you the worst crime committed therein by anyone still residing there.
On a miss the magic does not take effect… but you did just swallow a huge, razor sharp claw.
Mix a bit of Grendal and a bit of traditional faerie myth together.
The older and more evil beast that spawned The Body Taker has come and possessed all the villagers and taken them to a dark and unseelie faerie place.
The beast uses it claws to tear a portal in reality and has fled back the way, but fortunately the party had a “spare set”
They can use the to follow and rescue the villagers … If they can defeat the older beast.
A Druid can tell them and there are tasks they can achieve to weaken it and make their job easier.
The Horn of the Beast of Boganniuch is known to harm it – but you have catch it and either take the horn, or convince the beast to let you have it.