Discover 10 New Magic Items from The Griffon’s Saddlebag: Book One

1. Catnip Amulet

Wondrous Item, Common

Common items like this are purrfect for setting the tone of a story, or even become a player’s character-defining trinket. The Catnip Amulet acts like a wearable magnet for local domestic cats, and can even help you interact with them (bring your own Spell Scroll of Speak with Animals). It might not work on a lion (let alone a chimera’s lion head), but when you can find (and probably pet) any local’s cat, who cares?

In general, when I design a Common item, it’s always keeping harmless fun at the forefront. Regardless of when you give out an item like this, it’s always a welcome addition, and it’ll never imbalance your game.

2. Charlatan’s Wardrobe

Wondrous Item, Uncommon

A personal dream item, really: The Charlatan’s Wardrobe set of clothes lets you transform their appearance on a whim, allowing you to blend into any crowd with any uniform. Of course, the transformation is illusory, so you still have to be careful whenever you’re up to no good (never, I’m sure)—but, it does come with its own Magical Girl style sequence, so there’s that.

3. Crosier of Divine Power

Staff, Very Rare (Requires Attunement by a Cleric or Paladin)

The Crosier of Divine Power can generate its own magical power during battle at the start of each of your turns, like a dragon’s Fire Breath! You can then use that power to increase the amount of damage you deal with it (as a +3 Quarterstaff) or when you heal someone while holding it.

Items like this are fun, befittingly valuable, and introduce unique mechanics that feel good to generate and use. This staff doesn’t let you cast any new spells, so it’s a safe and fun way to empower a Cleric or Paladin to keep doing what they do best, but even better!

4. Eye of Dendallen

Wondrous Item, Rare (Requires Attunement)

The Eye of Dendallen was first made when someone asked if I could make anything gross, since, at the time, I hadn’t made anything like that! In any case, I was happy to oblige. While you’re attuned to this cute li’l guy, you can cast See Invisibility from it and even use it as a familiar!

Most of its oomph comes by way of its Curse—I won’t spoil the surprise, but it’s guaranteed to make an interesting story arc. I also didn’t know at the time, but the name I made up on the fly, “Dendallen,” has since followed the Saddlebag along in bits and pieces over the years. You can even find and try to destroy Dendallen—a powerful lich—using his campaign-agnostic setting option in the book!

5. Fire Dervish Cloak

Wondrous Item, Rare (Requires Attunement)

This was the 100th item I made! It also featured some really cool mechanics (or, hot, I guess?) that keyed off of expending Speed as a resource. At the time, that hadn’t been done, and even now it’s not terribly common.

While wearing the Fire Dervish Cloak—which crackles with harmless flames while you move—you can spin in place to create a cyclone of fire around you to damage nearby enemies! The more Speed you sacrifice, the hotter it gets!

6. Healing Ammunition

Weapon (Any Ammunition), Uncommon

With a few of these, anyone with a ranged weapon can become a life-saving healer in a pinch. A creature hit with a piece of Healing Ammunition regains Hit Points, instead of taking damage. And, since you don’t need a separate Action to use these, you can heal as many people as you have ammunition and attacks on your turn!

Sometimes I’ll include loose ideas for where an item came from in an item’s description. In this one, I suggested that these were—at least originally—made by elder Clerics of nature and hunting deities. While that doesn’t include any hard-and-fast rules for acquisition, it offers a hand to GMs on how they can integrate an item like this into their campaign, especially if the Ranger won’t. Stop. Texting. About it.

7. Shadow Ink

Wondrous Item, Uncommon

Perfect for Rogues and anyone trying to avoid a paper trail, the Shadow Ink can only be read in total darkness once it’s been penned. In a standard bottle, you’ll get enough ink to fill 10 pages with writing, which is plenty if you’re already using Thieves’ Cant!

8. Thunderous Flail

Weapon (Flail), Rare (Requires Attunement)

The head of this Flail is held onto its electrified chain with powerful magnetism, and you can separate the head from the rest of the weapon to fling it around and release powerful Thunderwave blasts. It also deals extra Lightning damage, so long as some of its charges are left! Don’t worry, the head can be pulled back and reattached with the magic of magnets!

Picture this: you swing your Thunderous Flail at the troll in front of you and release a powerful blast of magnetic force, pressing the troll backward away from you after suffering from additional Thunder damage. Alternatively, you hurl or throw the head of the Flail into a crowd of unsuspecting goblins, only to release that same magnetic wave outward from the weapon’s head to send the group scattering.

This was the first item I ever made. It was at a coffee table with my GM at the time (shout-outs to Mike), and the sketch I made for it sat on my desk until I made it six months later. To this day, I still think it’s got a cool set of mechanics! I hope you have fun with it!

9. Timber

Weapon (Handaxe), Very Rare (Requires Attunement)

Thwack! Thwack! Thwack! Timberrrrr!

With Timber, you progressively gains strength as you make consecutive hits with it! And, to reward you for your effort, it releases a powerful blast of force when you do that’s sure to help fell whatever evil—creature, tree, or both—that you’ve set your eyes on! And, if the target’s made of wood, the damage is doubled! Structures beware!

10. The Griffon’s Saddlebag

Wondrous Item, Artifact

I made The Griffon’s Saddlebag itself at the end of this first year, coming in at the 365th item! Unlike a lot of other artifacts, it doesn’t require you to attune to it. It was also designed with the GM in mind, allowing it to be given to a fledgling party and gain new spells and abilities over time as the players fulfilled quests (that the bag itself could give out, as a handy delivery mechanism for the story). Video games will have fetch quests, where you need to bring this thing to that person, and this bag has that function built right into its Magic Courier property.

Superior Holding. The Griffon’s Saddlebag is also, suitably, a leveled-up Bag of Holding, without the pesky threat of it exploding if you put other extradimensional spaces inside of it—mostly. The other space will collapse, but the items will stay inside the saddlebag instead.

Sell Magic Items. If you’ve asked me online, or seen me asked online (it happens a lot), why I don’t include prices for items, it’s because everyone has their own unique economy, and far be it from me to make assumptions. However, what the Saddlebag itself will do is let you sell items you’ve got! Items are always sold for half their base price, so no haggling! But, since this is designed with the GM in mind, it allows the players to offload unused items to make room for new ones! I am a big supporter of items with limited uses because it opens you up to receiving new ones from your GM! Let them give you cool stuff!

The Saddlebag also has Sentience! And, furthermore, it’s not the only Saddlebag to exist! That means that each bag has a unique Personality, which allows the GM to design a harmless but endlessly helpful character that can accompany the players on their adventures and help deliver whatever story the GM has in store for them.

The Griffon’s Saddlebag is also included in Book Two (and future Books, for that matter). It’s always the same, but if you’re wondering why you’re seeing double, that’s why!