BerzerkerUnit
2021-11-29, 10:30 PM
Aloha, I hope you’re all playing some great games when the opportunity arises.
Disclaimer 1: This system requires some conversations with players and DM. So it’s not ideal for pick up games (unless against all odds it becomes so widely loved it challenges the standard. Pls like and share)
Disclaimer 2: this is for high fantasy/high power games. As written Players can essentially pick any magic item/s and potentially get access to it at crucial moments in-game. The idea is that when they achieve the specific goal that item was granted to help with, the item goes away. So if a wizard swears themselves a Staff of the Archmagi, that might help with one dungeon, then it’s power poofs out. That is my bag, baby. If that’s not your bag, enjoy the fluff.
The Meaning of Oaths
To live is to be beholden to the fate you forge by turning thought into action.
The gods of this world were birthed when the mind of existence was birthed and contended with its mirror for the right to persist.
From that first agreement, an oath that existence could Be but all would eventually return to nothingness, came the gods of energy, space, and time. Twixt them came oaths that time would flow in one way, for energy to slow and cool into matter, for time and space to expand and contract as matter and energy dictate. Countless more oaths, each embodied by a new god, until worlds are created and mortals to fill them. And so knowledge among gods that mortals must die, and in their passing the relevance of the gods will be lost is a closely guarded secret.
In a world built on relationships codified with oaths, mortals are no less bound. A mortal that swears by their true name becomes bound to a fate they forge, committing to action in its pursuit. Those that succeed are known as heroes villains, those that do not, cursed by the fate they failed to grasp.
The Making of Oaths
The gods are not cruel (save those that must be). A poorly chosen phrase, the blatherings of a drunkard do not an oath make. To truly make an oath it must be ruminated on. Ample thought can be done in as little as an hour, but an oath is meaningless if its intent is unclear.
The goal has to be specific and achievable. A peasant farmer swearing to kill the god of agriculture for a poor yield, no matter how fervent, will fail. To kill a corrupt king may require you to wage war on a nation, impossible for a lone warrior, but killing a king is simple murder, that can be done by any peasant of sufficient motivation with their bare hands and luck on their side.
An oath sworn with no expiry is also not binding and therefore powerless. Mortal lives are temporary and you must clearly define the measure of it you will sacrifice for your goal. The time by which you must accomplish your goal should be reasonable. Further, the longer it takes, ie how much of your life you are willing to dedicate, the more tightly bound the Oath is to your own fate and the more power it can accumulate to help you achieve it. All of existence hinges on a single promise, thus everything in existence wishes for such promises to be kept.
An oath must be sworn on a true name and a true name is known to precious few. Most people go their whole life knowing only their own and never sharing it. Voicing one’s true name cannot be compelled with magic. Many fiends can be cajoled into revealing their true name to mortal wizards for they want to be called from the hells and abyss and the wider their name is known the more power it holds as mortals come to fear it, but they don’t want rivals or foes to know that name.
An Oath’s Power
An oath’s power is rooted in the effort of the one that makes it. Just swearing has already required one or more hours of careful consideration and the acceptance of risk to compound failure, that is enough to instill sufficient magic to render an item more or less indestructible by mortal means and grant some small advantage toward achieving the goal. The more effort that goes into achieving the goal, the closer the Sworn believe they are to achieving it, the more potent the power it grants. When the Sworn realize they’ve fallen short, that power wanes. The hammer of a paladin sworn to destroy the Lich King’s phyllactery will blaze with holy might when he stands in its vault and sees the runecovered adamantine box. He will smash it, but when the sword does not lose its oathborne enchantment, he will know it was a decoy and the blazing power of his sword will simmer back down to a lesser blessing (unless the Lich is right there in which case it’s still on like donkey kong). If they have time to rally and carry on, they will see it swell anew when they are next in reach.
Oaths Incarnate
Once sworn an oath is typically embodied by an item. Usually something is prepared, like the wings for weddings and crowns for oaths of rulership, but a notable king was known for mounting a branch over his throne and swearing by it whenever it mattered because that branch had been critical in helping him escape a tragic fate in his youth. It empowers his just rule and serves as a mighty weapon in his hands to this day.
Some oathtakers have little use for equipment and instead the terms of the oath mark their flesh. Runes, celestial script, or tableaus may decorate their skin or mark their nails and teeth. Journeyman Monks from the Tower of the Bell are known for the fanciful colors of their hair and skin, marked by secret oaths they swear daily allowing them to slay fiends and annihilate warmachines with their bare hands. Wizards are known to take oaths to their colleges or mentors embodied by fantastic creatures that serve them as spies or scouts. Rangers in service to Dragons or the Fey may have beastial companions that manifest from those oaths.
Relics Without Reason
Artificers practice a variety of special techniques to circumvent oaths, such as incorporating expensive components, monster parts, and focuses to create items that channel magic. These items (created with their infusions feature) are not permanent and are always severely limited in number and power by the Artificer’s level. As a result, virtually all non adventuring artificers are held under contract with noble houses or royal families, providing specialized kit for elite guards.
Widely famed and powerful Artificers (all but universally former adventurers or former frontline military) have their own shops and operate as free agents, renting specialized equipment to adventurers. These shops charge fantastic sums for more powerful items, a single rental may put the shop in the black for the year for such things, but day to day expenses are covered by 1st tier apprentices that can provide local hunters with repeating crossbows and miners with animated rope. The extreme convenience of these items has many wondering if the value of one’s oath is somehow cheapened by their existence.
Breaking an Oath
An oath broken brings peril. The flames you were given to scourge the corrupt will burn you twice over, the armor that turned aside blows will curse your flesh to draw every errant blade an arrow. An oath can only be broken by a Sworn’s choice or failing to accomplish the goal in the time you set. Sparing one you’ve sworn to kill, fleeing before an enemy you swore to face, failing to protect a charge, staying in bed because you’ve fallen ill and running out of time. These choices break oaths. If an assassin kills someone you’ve sworn to kill, a foreign nation topples a government you swore to clean up, these simply nullify the oath. You lose the benefits of the oath by the next dusk as your mortal belief conflicts with the reality setting in (See example 3).
Such curses last for a year and a day or until you gain such experience that your fundamental being is changed (represented by gaining a level). Wizards and those beholden to other great powers can remove these curses with relative ease, but you will have to share knowledge of your true name with them.
Fear of these curses, particularly when the powers gained were great and the time frames poorly conceived, drive some to persist in seeking goals that leading to violence and villainy. A human knight that swore he’d never fall in battle before his 100th year, with gleaming armor that turned aside giant blows, will be a sad sight at 89, still spoiling for fights because to accept peace might render him as vulnerable now as he was invulnerable at 30.
True Names
A creature’s True Name is actually a description. It fluctuates moment to moment as all the events leading up to the present have informed a thing’s present state and its current actions and position are creating ripples in the flow of time to impact things in the future. One gifted with knowledge of the True Speech may be able to infer much of a True Name in a mere moment by noting where a creature is and what it’s doing, but only the creature itself and those they choose to share the knowledge with will know the True Name in full. A creature cannot know the whole of history leading up to their existence in a moment, but they will know how they feel in that moment, and those emotions are the thread tying what came before with what will come after.
Sharing one’s True Name with another grants them unique insight into one’s motivations and meaning (advantage on Insight checks). Certain magics are enhanced by knowing a creature’s true name (scrying, summoning, teleport, etc). A wizard that knows a creature’s true name can craft scrolls all but certain to doom their target.
For an oath to make magic it needs the following.
Rumination can take as long as you like to a minimum of one hour, coinciding with a short rest. When Arthur formed the round table with his knights it was over a discussion, they swore the same oaths and holy powers were held by all.
Sworn on True Name. (the name need not be uttered, only sworn on).
Specific and Achievable. (Can vary depending on level and character).
Specific Time frame. (Aim for reasonable).
1st, create a goal your character wants to achieve. This can be tough because out of context it’s “anything” but your goal will be in the context of your game and so should tie into the plot threads your DM has established.
I don’t recommend coming in with oaths in mind, wait until the DM sets the stage.
Make it specific. “My character hates dragons, I swear to kill all dragons” is bad, that oath is driving you to hunt them actively which might not be compatible if the game is in a city or underdark etc. “I swear to cut down every dragon I stand face to face with until my dying day” is better but not great. If no dragons come up you still probably have a magic sword and can decide if you need to kill dragonborn/Kobolds and the like, or just Dragons.
2nd, choose a few items of a similar type and scaling power that you think will help you achieve that goal. Your oath, once sworn, will typically be embodied by an object. maybe celestial or primordial script flares up the side of the item creating an inscription like the one on the side of mjolnir. Or maybe golden bands flare around your wrist and the object before sinking into it signifying the binding terms. Note: outside failure to achieve your goal, or circumstantial buff loss (see examples) items never become “weaker,” their effects should stack seemlessly, but straight numerical bonuses only use the highest number. So your Sun Blade to Holy Avenger should be a radiant holy avenging lightsaber but only have a +3 to hit, not +5. I’d let the damage dice stack (d8+2d10 vs undead), but that’s me, I can see ruling the bigger dice replace the smaller one.
3rd, set a timeline. Discuss with the DM what kind of downtime they expect you to have and the overall campaign duration. If they expect the campaign to have long breaks or a module that takes place over a week, take that into account. Anything that takes longer than a year of in game time is probably at risk of being forgotten about. I’d consider the pacing of the sessions so far and estimate 3-5 sessions out, maybe less if the game has large downtimes between sessions.
4th, consider and discuss milestones. You’ve got a goal, discuss the kind of intermediary steps you’re likely to take with the DM. Rules as intended, the closer you get to achieving your goal, or the more actions you take in pursuit of the goal, the greater the power your oath grants. Ideally there will be 3. The first is always the inciting incident, you need to be able to take a short rest to consider the Oath before swearing. The last is always your all or nothing moment. Outside of those 2 you should have a “critical and necessary step in the adventure” and/or a repeatable circumstance. See the examples below.
you’re crossing a mountain range. DM says this will take several weeks of in game time and there will be hazards/exploration/random encounters.
You swear an oath to “see your allies/charges safely to the far side before the new moon.” You choose a bag of holding, a handy haversack, and maybe Daern’s instant fortresS or folding boat (either flavored to taste).
You choose milestones. 1st milestone prepping for journey. It’s during this preparation you swear the oath, the bag gets magical so it can hold all your kit. This is a critical step toward goal. 2nd repeatable circumstance, Combat, in combat the bag functions as a handy haversack making it easier to retrieve items (normally the haversack has less storage, in this case it will not, it is just upgraded to match the Bag). 3rd Descending the far side. The end is in sight, critical necessary step to complete.
-When the quest begins you have a bag to carry plenty of food and blankets. As you make progress the bag begins helping by making sure what you need is right on top. As you near the end, with the moon waning and a blizzard that’s been beating on you for days, you turn the bag inside out and it continuously unfolds into a massive pavilion that’s warm and dry on the inside giving you the long rest you need to stave off exhaustion for the final push down the mountain.
OR
-you have a chest with shoulder straps (see Kimetsu no Yaiba sister carrier or puppet princess puppet luggage). It holds A LOT, in combat it pops itself open and spits out what you ask for and shuts itself. When you get to final descent it unfolds into a massive sled with an invisible crew allowing you to race down the mountain in style and ease.
You’re looking for a lost family member. You swear to find them. You choose Goggles of Night, lenses of minute seeing, and ring of x-ray vision or Crystal ball. These are all fine, the problem is time.
This is really tough without context for the game. If you go with a true crime/Taken kind of angle where resolution of the oath should occur within 48-96 hours, you risk hijacking the first few sessions of a game unless the DM can readily roll in a kidnapping plot. (for me that’s not hard. I can always find a reason for a PC’s family to be imperiled, but for others they might not be as comfortable working off the cuff.) If you have something like “before the year is out” then it might never be touched on in a module that takes place over a weekend and your milestones might not come up. So I’d keep this in mind, wait for the scenario exposition, and then work with the DM.
That said, milestones could be “find a clue, confront a conspirator, be in the same building.” The DM may use activation of the enhanced functions to tell you “this is a clue, this is a conspirator, they’re in the building.”
You are a 10th level Bard and swear to topple the Neogi government that enslaved your people by the summer solstice. You choose Pipes of the Sewers, Instrument of the Bards, and Horn of Valhalla.
Why this is good: Toppling a government can be done in a few ways. You can put all the leaders and bureaucrats to the sword during conquest. You can economically cripple the capital and incite a revolt. You can create rumors and scandals that upend the existing political power structure.
The DM has a fleet of Mindflayer Nautiloids appear in the skies of the Neogi Capital, in the ensuing conflict the Neogi government is crushed, its survivors fleeing.
In this case your Oath might be nullified. You keep your magic pipes until dusk if you don’t find out or disbelieve. If you know what happened, you have some options.
Do you present yourself as an insurgent agent of the Neogi to fight a resistance against the illithids, and when the Neogi survivors are rallied behind you, utterly betray them, feed them to the Illithid warmachine and smile saying it’s Miller Time?
If yes, then the original oath can stay in effect. You can accept that the Neogi government you so hated is just in exile and being the instrument of their destruction is in line with your original oath.
OR
Do you swear an oath to take revenge on the Mindflayers for denying you justice? Back to square 1, but no reason your original item choices need to change.
OR
You can abandon the oath, laugh about how it couldn’t have happened to better creatures and let the adventure continue?
That kind of flexibility is an absolute necessity at the table for players and DMs. Or you eat the curse and find a wizard or priest you can trust to get rid of it. If your game is prone to years of down time, it might not even be an issue.
Mechanically, knowing a True Name is the equivalent of having a body part for scrying and such. Adding a True Name to a scroll makes the scroll only useable on the named creature and forces a reroll, take lowest (so knowing fiend’s truenames is particularly handy). Good, but not broken in the least.
This is a setting concept I know I’m stealing half from Earthdawn to allow some kind of “legendary at low level” magic items. Just watched Treantmonk’s vid on items, he’s not wrong (thought the degree to which he isn’t is a matter for debate).
Inspired by Earthdawn and the Oathbow, baked into a setting norm is the concept of “Oaths/Pacts/Covenants/Curses/Taboos” etc.
Essentially, this is collectively known as Fateweaving. Not everyone can do it, but every PC can. The nature of the weaving a class may use might be called something else, like Warweaving for fighters, etc. Whatever it’s called, the PC is binding their fate to the item but also binding themselves to a fate. That can bring risks.
When your PC gets a piece of equipment of exceptional history or quality they can ritually empower it for a specific purpose. A vague oath is wind. It has to be clear, achievable, and timed. As you take certain steps toward achieving that goal the item will grow in power according to your alignment.
Swear to kill a corrupt king before the year is out, the sword might add a d4 fire 1/turn and eventually, as you kill other corrupt officials or just avenge those the corruption hurt, it may grow into a flame tongue to scourge the wicked and in your final confrontation become a vorpal sword. Or maybe the Vorpal Quality manifests whenever you’re face to face with a creature that holds sway over others, the flames reserved for their pawns.
But! Find out the King is an unwitting pawn (a thing the sword may tell you!), well you still have to kill him, or suffer some ironic backlash, like becoming vulnerable to the flames your oath once granted you or be destined to lose your head to a crit.
Swear on your staff for revenge on your rival and it may become a serpent sting or staff of the constrictor. But forgive your rival, that staff and all staves you take up and any stray branch in your path may become snakes that bite you.
The idea is that these items are not found randomly or bought (pardon, just vomited in my mouth) but acquired out of great desire or need. They grant players some choice without being a candy store.
I know there are hundreds of these “fixes” but this presents what I think is a unique opportunity: built in resets between adventures.
Once the goal is achieved the item returns to a fine but mundane item. So when the quest is over, when you finish the module it’s back to basics and the players can reinforce their own interest in the plot of their next adventure with new oath.
Swearing to be the best X that ever was is too vague. Swearing to be better than that guy is better. Swearing on your spellbook to master a particular spell by the next harvest, better. That could turn it into one of those sweet spell school grimoires from Tasha’s.
Ultimately, you can tailor how the items unlock their greatest powers with conditions or taboos. Now you’ve potentially given your PCs several different items but also made it impossible for them to make use of them all at once.
Now I’m not a monster, magic shops can still be a thing. Artificers are an excellent stop gap. Imagine Artificers as digging deeply into this magic and mastering such fateweaving that they can grant items to others, now a guy that rents out such items. Imagine a guy that might have bargain basement rates for such rentals bc he’s in hock up to his neck and when the loanshark comes to collect he cuts the magic to your rentals mid journey so he can give something to the loanshark.
Then you come back for a refund or to demand payment for the dead party members when the boots of flying cut out over a chasm, and he tells you he’ll give you amazing stuff for free if you “take care of” some guy he owes money to.
This is something I’m whittling down into mechanically viable form.
Disclaimer 1: This system requires some conversations with players and DM. So it’s not ideal for pick up games (unless against all odds it becomes so widely loved it challenges the standard. Pls like and share)
Disclaimer 2: this is for high fantasy/high power games. As written Players can essentially pick any magic item/s and potentially get access to it at crucial moments in-game. The idea is that when they achieve the specific goal that item was granted to help with, the item goes away. So if a wizard swears themselves a Staff of the Archmagi, that might help with one dungeon, then it’s power poofs out. That is my bag, baby. If that’s not your bag, enjoy the fluff.
The Meaning of Oaths
To live is to be beholden to the fate you forge by turning thought into action.
The gods of this world were birthed when the mind of existence was birthed and contended with its mirror for the right to persist.
From that first agreement, an oath that existence could Be but all would eventually return to nothingness, came the gods of energy, space, and time. Twixt them came oaths that time would flow in one way, for energy to slow and cool into matter, for time and space to expand and contract as matter and energy dictate. Countless more oaths, each embodied by a new god, until worlds are created and mortals to fill them. And so knowledge among gods that mortals must die, and in their passing the relevance of the gods will be lost is a closely guarded secret.
In a world built on relationships codified with oaths, mortals are no less bound. A mortal that swears by their true name becomes bound to a fate they forge, committing to action in its pursuit. Those that succeed are known as heroes villains, those that do not, cursed by the fate they failed to grasp.
The Making of Oaths
The gods are not cruel (save those that must be). A poorly chosen phrase, the blatherings of a drunkard do not an oath make. To truly make an oath it must be ruminated on. Ample thought can be done in as little as an hour, but an oath is meaningless if its intent is unclear.
The goal has to be specific and achievable. A peasant farmer swearing to kill the god of agriculture for a poor yield, no matter how fervent, will fail. To kill a corrupt king may require you to wage war on a nation, impossible for a lone warrior, but killing a king is simple murder, that can be done by any peasant of sufficient motivation with their bare hands and luck on their side.
An oath sworn with no expiry is also not binding and therefore powerless. Mortal lives are temporary and you must clearly define the measure of it you will sacrifice for your goal. The time by which you must accomplish your goal should be reasonable. Further, the longer it takes, ie how much of your life you are willing to dedicate, the more tightly bound the Oath is to your own fate and the more power it can accumulate to help you achieve it. All of existence hinges on a single promise, thus everything in existence wishes for such promises to be kept.
An oath must be sworn on a true name and a true name is known to precious few. Most people go their whole life knowing only their own and never sharing it. Voicing one’s true name cannot be compelled with magic. Many fiends can be cajoled into revealing their true name to mortal wizards for they want to be called from the hells and abyss and the wider their name is known the more power it holds as mortals come to fear it, but they don’t want rivals or foes to know that name.
An Oath’s Power
An oath’s power is rooted in the effort of the one that makes it. Just swearing has already required one or more hours of careful consideration and the acceptance of risk to compound failure, that is enough to instill sufficient magic to render an item more or less indestructible by mortal means and grant some small advantage toward achieving the goal. The more effort that goes into achieving the goal, the closer the Sworn believe they are to achieving it, the more potent the power it grants. When the Sworn realize they’ve fallen short, that power wanes. The hammer of a paladin sworn to destroy the Lich King’s phyllactery will blaze with holy might when he stands in its vault and sees the runecovered adamantine box. He will smash it, but when the sword does not lose its oathborne enchantment, he will know it was a decoy and the blazing power of his sword will simmer back down to a lesser blessing (unless the Lich is right there in which case it’s still on like donkey kong). If they have time to rally and carry on, they will see it swell anew when they are next in reach.
Oaths Incarnate
Once sworn an oath is typically embodied by an item. Usually something is prepared, like the wings for weddings and crowns for oaths of rulership, but a notable king was known for mounting a branch over his throne and swearing by it whenever it mattered because that branch had been critical in helping him escape a tragic fate in his youth. It empowers his just rule and serves as a mighty weapon in his hands to this day.
Some oathtakers have little use for equipment and instead the terms of the oath mark their flesh. Runes, celestial script, or tableaus may decorate their skin or mark their nails and teeth. Journeyman Monks from the Tower of the Bell are known for the fanciful colors of their hair and skin, marked by secret oaths they swear daily allowing them to slay fiends and annihilate warmachines with their bare hands. Wizards are known to take oaths to their colleges or mentors embodied by fantastic creatures that serve them as spies or scouts. Rangers in service to Dragons or the Fey may have beastial companions that manifest from those oaths.
Relics Without Reason
Artificers practice a variety of special techniques to circumvent oaths, such as incorporating expensive components, monster parts, and focuses to create items that channel magic. These items (created with their infusions feature) are not permanent and are always severely limited in number and power by the Artificer’s level. As a result, virtually all non adventuring artificers are held under contract with noble houses or royal families, providing specialized kit for elite guards.
Widely famed and powerful Artificers (all but universally former adventurers or former frontline military) have their own shops and operate as free agents, renting specialized equipment to adventurers. These shops charge fantastic sums for more powerful items, a single rental may put the shop in the black for the year for such things, but day to day expenses are covered by 1st tier apprentices that can provide local hunters with repeating crossbows and miners with animated rope. The extreme convenience of these items has many wondering if the value of one’s oath is somehow cheapened by their existence.
Breaking an Oath
An oath broken brings peril. The flames you were given to scourge the corrupt will burn you twice over, the armor that turned aside blows will curse your flesh to draw every errant blade an arrow. An oath can only be broken by a Sworn’s choice or failing to accomplish the goal in the time you set. Sparing one you’ve sworn to kill, fleeing before an enemy you swore to face, failing to protect a charge, staying in bed because you’ve fallen ill and running out of time. These choices break oaths. If an assassin kills someone you’ve sworn to kill, a foreign nation topples a government you swore to clean up, these simply nullify the oath. You lose the benefits of the oath by the next dusk as your mortal belief conflicts with the reality setting in (See example 3).
Such curses last for a year and a day or until you gain such experience that your fundamental being is changed (represented by gaining a level). Wizards and those beholden to other great powers can remove these curses with relative ease, but you will have to share knowledge of your true name with them.
Fear of these curses, particularly when the powers gained were great and the time frames poorly conceived, drive some to persist in seeking goals that leading to violence and villainy. A human knight that swore he’d never fall in battle before his 100th year, with gleaming armor that turned aside giant blows, will be a sad sight at 89, still spoiling for fights because to accept peace might render him as vulnerable now as he was invulnerable at 30.
True Names
A creature’s True Name is actually a description. It fluctuates moment to moment as all the events leading up to the present have informed a thing’s present state and its current actions and position are creating ripples in the flow of time to impact things in the future. One gifted with knowledge of the True Speech may be able to infer much of a True Name in a mere moment by noting where a creature is and what it’s doing, but only the creature itself and those they choose to share the knowledge with will know the True Name in full. A creature cannot know the whole of history leading up to their existence in a moment, but they will know how they feel in that moment, and those emotions are the thread tying what came before with what will come after.
Sharing one’s True Name with another grants them unique insight into one’s motivations and meaning (advantage on Insight checks). Certain magics are enhanced by knowing a creature’s true name (scrying, summoning, teleport, etc). A wizard that knows a creature’s true name can craft scrolls all but certain to doom their target.
For an oath to make magic it needs the following.
Rumination can take as long as you like to a minimum of one hour, coinciding with a short rest. When Arthur formed the round table with his knights it was over a discussion, they swore the same oaths and holy powers were held by all.
Sworn on True Name. (the name need not be uttered, only sworn on).
Specific and Achievable. (Can vary depending on level and character).
Specific Time frame. (Aim for reasonable).
1st, create a goal your character wants to achieve. This can be tough because out of context it’s “anything” but your goal will be in the context of your game and so should tie into the plot threads your DM has established.
I don’t recommend coming in with oaths in mind, wait until the DM sets the stage.
Make it specific. “My character hates dragons, I swear to kill all dragons” is bad, that oath is driving you to hunt them actively which might not be compatible if the game is in a city or underdark etc. “I swear to cut down every dragon I stand face to face with until my dying day” is better but not great. If no dragons come up you still probably have a magic sword and can decide if you need to kill dragonborn/Kobolds and the like, or just Dragons.
2nd, choose a few items of a similar type and scaling power that you think will help you achieve that goal. Your oath, once sworn, will typically be embodied by an object. maybe celestial or primordial script flares up the side of the item creating an inscription like the one on the side of mjolnir. Or maybe golden bands flare around your wrist and the object before sinking into it signifying the binding terms. Note: outside failure to achieve your goal, or circumstantial buff loss (see examples) items never become “weaker,” their effects should stack seemlessly, but straight numerical bonuses only use the highest number. So your Sun Blade to Holy Avenger should be a radiant holy avenging lightsaber but only have a +3 to hit, not +5. I’d let the damage dice stack (d8+2d10 vs undead), but that’s me, I can see ruling the bigger dice replace the smaller one.
3rd, set a timeline. Discuss with the DM what kind of downtime they expect you to have and the overall campaign duration. If they expect the campaign to have long breaks or a module that takes place over a week, take that into account. Anything that takes longer than a year of in game time is probably at risk of being forgotten about. I’d consider the pacing of the sessions so far and estimate 3-5 sessions out, maybe less if the game has large downtimes between sessions.
4th, consider and discuss milestones. You’ve got a goal, discuss the kind of intermediary steps you’re likely to take with the DM. Rules as intended, the closer you get to achieving your goal, or the more actions you take in pursuit of the goal, the greater the power your oath grants. Ideally there will be 3. The first is always the inciting incident, you need to be able to take a short rest to consider the Oath before swearing. The last is always your all or nothing moment. Outside of those 2 you should have a “critical and necessary step in the adventure” and/or a repeatable circumstance. See the examples below.
you’re crossing a mountain range. DM says this will take several weeks of in game time and there will be hazards/exploration/random encounters.
You swear an oath to “see your allies/charges safely to the far side before the new moon.” You choose a bag of holding, a handy haversack, and maybe Daern’s instant fortresS or folding boat (either flavored to taste).
You choose milestones. 1st milestone prepping for journey. It’s during this preparation you swear the oath, the bag gets magical so it can hold all your kit. This is a critical step toward goal. 2nd repeatable circumstance, Combat, in combat the bag functions as a handy haversack making it easier to retrieve items (normally the haversack has less storage, in this case it will not, it is just upgraded to match the Bag). 3rd Descending the far side. The end is in sight, critical necessary step to complete.
-When the quest begins you have a bag to carry plenty of food and blankets. As you make progress the bag begins helping by making sure what you need is right on top. As you near the end, with the moon waning and a blizzard that’s been beating on you for days, you turn the bag inside out and it continuously unfolds into a massive pavilion that’s warm and dry on the inside giving you the long rest you need to stave off exhaustion for the final push down the mountain.
OR
-you have a chest with shoulder straps (see Kimetsu no Yaiba sister carrier or puppet princess puppet luggage). It holds A LOT, in combat it pops itself open and spits out what you ask for and shuts itself. When you get to final descent it unfolds into a massive sled with an invisible crew allowing you to race down the mountain in style and ease.
You’re looking for a lost family member. You swear to find them. You choose Goggles of Night, lenses of minute seeing, and ring of x-ray vision or Crystal ball. These are all fine, the problem is time.
This is really tough without context for the game. If you go with a true crime/Taken kind of angle where resolution of the oath should occur within 48-96 hours, you risk hijacking the first few sessions of a game unless the DM can readily roll in a kidnapping plot. (for me that’s not hard. I can always find a reason for a PC’s family to be imperiled, but for others they might not be as comfortable working off the cuff.) If you have something like “before the year is out” then it might never be touched on in a module that takes place over a weekend and your milestones might not come up. So I’d keep this in mind, wait for the scenario exposition, and then work with the DM.
That said, milestones could be “find a clue, confront a conspirator, be in the same building.” The DM may use activation of the enhanced functions to tell you “this is a clue, this is a conspirator, they’re in the building.”
You are a 10th level Bard and swear to topple the Neogi government that enslaved your people by the summer solstice. You choose Pipes of the Sewers, Instrument of the Bards, and Horn of Valhalla.
Why this is good: Toppling a government can be done in a few ways. You can put all the leaders and bureaucrats to the sword during conquest. You can economically cripple the capital and incite a revolt. You can create rumors and scandals that upend the existing political power structure.
The DM has a fleet of Mindflayer Nautiloids appear in the skies of the Neogi Capital, in the ensuing conflict the Neogi government is crushed, its survivors fleeing.
In this case your Oath might be nullified. You keep your magic pipes until dusk if you don’t find out or disbelieve. If you know what happened, you have some options.
Do you present yourself as an insurgent agent of the Neogi to fight a resistance against the illithids, and when the Neogi survivors are rallied behind you, utterly betray them, feed them to the Illithid warmachine and smile saying it’s Miller Time?
If yes, then the original oath can stay in effect. You can accept that the Neogi government you so hated is just in exile and being the instrument of their destruction is in line with your original oath.
OR
Do you swear an oath to take revenge on the Mindflayers for denying you justice? Back to square 1, but no reason your original item choices need to change.
OR
You can abandon the oath, laugh about how it couldn’t have happened to better creatures and let the adventure continue?
That kind of flexibility is an absolute necessity at the table for players and DMs. Or you eat the curse and find a wizard or priest you can trust to get rid of it. If your game is prone to years of down time, it might not even be an issue.
Mechanically, knowing a True Name is the equivalent of having a body part for scrying and such. Adding a True Name to a scroll makes the scroll only useable on the named creature and forces a reroll, take lowest (so knowing fiend’s truenames is particularly handy). Good, but not broken in the least.
This is a setting concept I know I’m stealing half from Earthdawn to allow some kind of “legendary at low level” magic items. Just watched Treantmonk’s vid on items, he’s not wrong (thought the degree to which he isn’t is a matter for debate).
Inspired by Earthdawn and the Oathbow, baked into a setting norm is the concept of “Oaths/Pacts/Covenants/Curses/Taboos” etc.
Essentially, this is collectively known as Fateweaving. Not everyone can do it, but every PC can. The nature of the weaving a class may use might be called something else, like Warweaving for fighters, etc. Whatever it’s called, the PC is binding their fate to the item but also binding themselves to a fate. That can bring risks.
When your PC gets a piece of equipment of exceptional history or quality they can ritually empower it for a specific purpose. A vague oath is wind. It has to be clear, achievable, and timed. As you take certain steps toward achieving that goal the item will grow in power according to your alignment.
Swear to kill a corrupt king before the year is out, the sword might add a d4 fire 1/turn and eventually, as you kill other corrupt officials or just avenge those the corruption hurt, it may grow into a flame tongue to scourge the wicked and in your final confrontation become a vorpal sword. Or maybe the Vorpal Quality manifests whenever you’re face to face with a creature that holds sway over others, the flames reserved for their pawns.
But! Find out the King is an unwitting pawn (a thing the sword may tell you!), well you still have to kill him, or suffer some ironic backlash, like becoming vulnerable to the flames your oath once granted you or be destined to lose your head to a crit.
Swear on your staff for revenge on your rival and it may become a serpent sting or staff of the constrictor. But forgive your rival, that staff and all staves you take up and any stray branch in your path may become snakes that bite you.
The idea is that these items are not found randomly or bought (pardon, just vomited in my mouth) but acquired out of great desire or need. They grant players some choice without being a candy store.
I know there are hundreds of these “fixes” but this presents what I think is a unique opportunity: built in resets between adventures.
Once the goal is achieved the item returns to a fine but mundane item. So when the quest is over, when you finish the module it’s back to basics and the players can reinforce their own interest in the plot of their next adventure with new oath.
Swearing to be the best X that ever was is too vague. Swearing to be better than that guy is better. Swearing on your spellbook to master a particular spell by the next harvest, better. That could turn it into one of those sweet spell school grimoires from Tasha’s.
Ultimately, you can tailor how the items unlock their greatest powers with conditions or taboos. Now you’ve potentially given your PCs several different items but also made it impossible for them to make use of them all at once.
Now I’m not a monster, magic shops can still be a thing. Artificers are an excellent stop gap. Imagine Artificers as digging deeply into this magic and mastering such fateweaving that they can grant items to others, now a guy that rents out such items. Imagine a guy that might have bargain basement rates for such rentals bc he’s in hock up to his neck and when the loanshark comes to collect he cuts the magic to your rentals mid journey so he can give something to the loanshark.
Then you come back for a refund or to demand payment for the dead party members when the boots of flying cut out over a chasm, and he tells you he’ll give you amazing stuff for free if you “take care of” some guy he owes money to.
This is something I’m whittling down into mechanically viable form.