Deck of Chance

Deck of Chance: This deck of expensive-looking playing cards has only jokers, aces and numbered cards 2 to 8’s. Once per day, any character can draw one card from the deck. The number drawn, minus 4, is the adjustment the character takes on all ‘to hit’ rolls, saving throws, AC and any skill-like rolls for 24 hours. Aces count as 1’s and jokers count as 0’s.

Heart of Steel

Heart of Steel: When placed on the chest of a Forged Man, the heart melds into its chest cavity and grows connections throughout its body, resembling blood vessels and veins. This increases a functioning (above 0 hit points) Forged Man’s daily self repair ability by +2.

Flame Blade

Flame Blade: This specially enchanted weapon is found as a hilt or handle made of darkwood. In the hands of a Druid or Ranger the weapon’s head can be commanded to spring into existence, composed of flames. The weapon gives off light as bright as a torch and inflicts 3d4 fire damage per hit.

Armor of the Forest

Armor of the Forest: These suits of Plate Mail are carved completely from darkwood, but have the strength and flexibility of iron. When worn it functions like Plate Mail +1. When donned by a Ranger it provides an armor class of 3[17] plus magical bonuses but possesses the statistics of a Chain Shirt.

New Magic Items

A couple of the new/old magic items being added to the 2nd print of the Core Rules I thought I'd share (and compatible with Swords & Wizardry as well):

Prayerbeads of the Ages: This string of prayer beads contains a bead with the symbol of each deity inscribed on it (though some may be incomplete if found already used). If the prayer beads are used during 30 consecutive days when a divine spellcaster prays or worships to his deity and a bead dedicated to the deity is on the string, the bead disappears and the character’s Wisdom is raised by 1 point permanently. Usable by: Divine spellcasters.

Circlet of Power (-1, -2 or -3): This electrum band is worn about the head and possess a black pearl flanked by twin diamonds. While worn by a spellcaster, victims of his magic save with the penalty indicated. Usable by: Spellcaster classes.

Amulet of Magic Resistance (10%, 20% or 30%): Wearing this amulet grants the stated magic resistance to the wearer against all spells used on him. Usable by: All Classes.

Potion Miscibility

When writing the Onn Core Rules, I wanted to add this little table to the 'Potion' section of the magic items, but there was no room and I didn't want to go over my page count, even for a single page. I may add it to the Onn Companion Guide, but until then, here is the Potion Miscibility Table I use. When a character drinks a potion that has a duration longer than Immediate and at least one other potion is still in effect, the Referee can roll on the table below:

Potion Miscibility
d% Roll	Result
01 - 15	Explosion! 5d6 damage to imbiber!
16 - 25	Explosion! 4d4 damage to imbiber!
26 - 40	Poison!
41 - 50	Immiscible! Both potions negated!
51 - 60	Immiscible! Both potions reduced to half efficiency!
61 - 90	Miscible! Both potions work normally!
91 - 99	Compatible! One potion works at 150% efficiency!
00	Discovery! Potions combine for new effect (possibly not beneficial)!

It should be noted that if mixed externally, the effect will affect a 10 ft radius if applicable (such as the explosion and poison results).

A Collection of Magical Rods

Some of the Magic Items that can be inserted into any Old School-type of fantasy game (namely Original D&D, 'B/X' D&D, Swords & Wizardry and World of Onn) are the most fun. Here's a small collection of Magical Rods to add to your game:

Note: If used as a weapon, magical rods function as clubs. All spell effects are considered as if cast by a 9th level caster for the purpose of Dispelling (if applicable).

Rod, Blast: Allows a spellcaster to drain one of his memorized spells away and fire a bolt of magic at a target to a range of 30 ft with a +2 bonus on the ‘to hit’ roll. Damage inflicted is 1d4 per level of the spell drained. Does not use charges.

Rod of Health: This rod can restore 2d6+2 hit points to an individual once each day, but can be used on an unlimited number of people. Does not use charges.

Rod of Illumination: While held, this rod provides light as a light spell. Does not use charges.

Rod of Leadership: While held in battle, increases the Morale score of character’s hirelings by +1. For characters with established strongholds, improves the reactions of followers and peasantry to any decisions by +1 when held while ruling in state. Does not use charges.

Rod of Prestidigitation: Allows the user to do simple actions that mimic simple tools (such as lighting candles, fires and pipes at the snap of a finger, cut hair, shave, sew rips in clothes, etc) or produce small extremely minor magical effects (such as levitating a book, flipping pages, create a faint ball of light 1 ft radius, make his eyes glow, etc). No effect can cause more than 1 point of damage and has an extremely limited range, usually never more than 10 ft and magical effects never last more than a turn. Does not use charges.

Rod of Weapons: On command, this rod will take the form of any one-handed (or multi-handed capable) weapon until commanded to revert back to rod form. Roll 1d3 for the rod’s magical bonus. Does not use charges.

Intelligent Weapons

An oft-overlooked, but useful tool for the Referee is the Intelligent Weapon. For my games, Intelligent Weapons usually make an appearance in some memorable way. I ran a Sacrred Lands campaign (before the Termana sourcebook came out) and it mentioned that gnomes were wiped out during the Scarred Lands' Divine War. I happen to like gnomes, but I adhered to the setting's gnomes-are-a-dead-race history. Enter the Intelligent Short Sword "Seeker". Of gnomish creation, this weapon was moderately enchanted and had the mind/personality of its gnome creator. Of course no one could read the gnomish runes on the blade, or understand it when it spoke it's native gnomish tongue (no had the spells that would allow them to at that point). Eventually the character who 'owned' Seeker got in touch with his 'inner gnome' and learned alot about the dead race. The sword was even a valuable party member...to a point. Eventually though, Seeker's owner had enough of Seeker and its lamenting of 'gnoming around alone' for the rest of eternity so the dude made a wish that a gnome worthy of wielding Seeker would come to him...and *poof* there stood a bewildered and confused gnome, ready to smite the party (he was taken out of the Divine War at the moment he was about to assassinate the gnoll general responsible for wiping out the last gnomish hold...weird time travel conundrums...). It took alot of convincing, but they gifted Seeker to him and eventually they went into the sunset.

My rules for creating intelligent weapons is simple. I don't follow the whole 'has a purpose or special enemy' reasoning to creating one. Just let the dice fall where they may. I will make one suggestion: don't just randomly throw one in. Think about where it came from, what it's seen and what goals it may have. That may sound strange, but if you were trapped in an inanimate object forever wouldn't you have a hobby to keep you sane (even if it is killing orcs just for the kicks).

Intelligent Weapons

• 10% of magical swords (5% of other weapons) of +1 or greater possess an Intelligence and generally can communicate with their bearers mentally, and often (25% chance) can speak audibly.
• There is a 10% chance that such a weapon may have the ability to cast spells with a caster level of 1d4+1.
• Randomly determine the ‘race’ of the intelligence inhabiting the weapon. The weapon can impart the intelligence’s racial abilities (usually limited to detection-type abilities, but others at the Referee’s discretion) on the wearer as well.
• Randomly determine the weapon’s Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma. These scores, added together, are the weapon’s base Willpower score. If the weapon and owner disagree, the character and weapon compare their Willpower scores, plus the roll of a d20. The side with the highest total wins the contest of wills. If the weapon wins, it can force the owner to do the action it desires for up to 1 turn.