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Creating artifacts inDungeons & Dragonsallows Dungeon Masters and players to add unique and powerful magical items to their campaigns, each with its own rich history and legendary abilities. Artifacts are more than just items; they can shape the story and influence the world around them.
There are several steps to designing artifacts, from choosing their magical properties to developing compelling lore that integrates seamlessly into your campaign. Whether you’re looking to create a weapon of immense power or a relic shrouded in mystery, this guide will inspire your next legendary creation.
What Is An Artifact?
An artifact isa magical object of the utmost power, coveted by both mortals and godlike creatures.They aren’t treasure to be found, instead they work asnarrative devices that push your story forward, either to find a holy sword to end all evil, or to destroy a dark ring bent on world domination.
The many artifacts in existencevary widely in complexity, but they share three common traits:they are one of a kind, require attunement to unlock their powers, andcan only be destroyed by highly specific means.This can range frombeing struck by a plus three weapontotossing it into the Negative Plane.
Creating An Artifact
Making an artifact for your campaign hasno need to be too complicated, depending on the role you want the artifact to have.Low level players shouldn’t even be near artifacts, unless they can’t gain anything from them, andhigh level players should be limited to only one artifactper character.
Role Of The Artifact
Before deciding what type of artifact you want to create, you should decidewhat it will be used for in your story.The most common roles for artifacts are either astools to be used,temptations to overcome, orheavy burdensthat require transportation.
Artifacts that work as toolstend to be good aligned, and they are the greatest weapons tofight the final boss of the campaign.Most of the party’s adventures might have been spent searching for this item, meaning thatyou want a complex artifactthat gives all sorts of benefits.
If you want the players toovercome the temptation of wielding an evil artifact, thenyou want said artifact to be sentient.This not only allows it tolure characters with empty promises of power, it can also try toenchant their mindswith magic to directly force them to do its bidding.
Finally, if the artifact is only meant to bea volatile object that the party transports, then you just needa simple artifact.Often evil, these artifacts havea loosely described negative effect when used, but the quest for how to destroy their vile darkness is clear.
Making Simple Artifacts
Artifacts aren’t meant to be simple, buttheir role in your story can be.When a group of adventurers finds a cursed artifact, they won’t want to use it, butthey might want to destroy it, that desire becomingthe core driving force of the adventure.
If you want to create an artifact like this,you just need a name and a way to destroy it.It is best ifit doesn’t have any effects when worn, maybe because it only works on fiends, for example, soyou don’t have to make several elaborate rules around the item.
If you need help thinking about how to destroy an artifact, the two most used ways are taking it to its opposite plane (evil to good, order to chaos) or disassembling it where it was created.
A great example of such an item isthe Horns of the Beast, an artifact from the 2024 Dungeon Master’s Guide. It is present inthe level five adventure example, and players can’t use the item, sincethe only point of obtaining it is to embark on a quest to destroy it.
Making Complex Artifacts
Theonly general rule when making an artifactfrom scratch is that, if it can be wielded as a weapon,it has a plus three enchantment.Beyond that,artifacts can do all sorts of thingsdepending on the lore they are based on and the role they have in your tale.
The best way to know what properties your artifact bestows upon someone isto know its story.The Axe of the Dwarvish Lords, for example,grants proficiency with several tools(among many other things), somethingmost players might never use, butit fits with the storythat artifact is trying to tell.
If your artifactallows players to cast spells, they shouldrarely be able to be cast in that waymore than once per day.Someevil artifactsallow for multiple uses of certain spells, but that is often due to all thenegative effects already linked to the artifactin question.
Sentient Artifacts
Not all artifacts are sentient, but the most fun ones are. These artifacts can betools of kindness that offer cooperation, ortyrants that wish to bend the will of their wielders.To make any kind of sentient item, the 2024 Dungeon Master’s Guide offers simple guidelines to make a fully realized one.
Customizing Existing Artifacts
Other than changing core aspects as you see fit,a built-in way of customizing artifactsin the 2024 Dungeon Master’s Guide is viabeneficial and detrimental properties.
All artifacts in the Treasure chapter of the book havea series of random effects, chosen from the properties table found in that very chapter.
An artifact can only haveup to four minor beneficial properties. You can roll on the table in the book to help determine these.
If the artifact already gives the user access to several spells, we recommendpicking options that don’t give spells, since that will help everyone in the long run.
Formajor beneficial properties, an artifact canonly have up to two. It is rare for an item to givemore than one major beneficial propertywithout also giving a major negative one, unless the item in question is of the utmost purity, like the Book of Exalted Deeds.
Fordetrimental properties, an artifact canonly have four minor ones, but they are oftenmore of a nuisance than a real danger.
If you are making a simple artifact, giving it two detrimental properties can convey its cursed nature very easily, while still being an interesting item to have around.
Finally, an artifact can only havetwo major detrimental properties, andthey are all brutal.Even some good aligned artifacts have major detrimental properties, adding terrible dangers to anyone attempting to seize their power.
Beyond these properties,you can also just turn an existing artifact into your own thing, changing the resistances and immunities it gives until it becomes essentially a different item.
You could have the Wand of Orcus themed around summoning celestials, rename it to the Wand of Hilarion, and players might not even notice it used to be an evil item to begin with.
