Kala Lurr: “So then he spun this music box, and all I saw was purple light for the next minute. It felt like my skin was burning!” Interview with the latest robbery victim, transcribed by Thimbleberry Thunkin, reporter.
Melodic Missiles is the magic item in our upcoming Goodberry Adventure Zine, Servant of the Sea God. As it is described within its stat block, it is a small music box that shoots musical notes. Almost every feature of Melodic Missiles is explosive, from its musical notes to explode upon impact, to the box itself on a failed save after expending its last charge. There is a small level of danger to using this item, forcing the characters to turn it into a strategic tool rather than a “hit and end turn” type of weapon.
When I first pitched this item to Ivo, I used Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness as inspiration. In the film, Strange battles a variant which casts musical notes through the air, causing discordant noises as it deals damage. Since the adventure is a nautical-themed one, we envision the actual music caused by Melodic Missiles to resemble something like Davy Jones’s theme in Pirates of the Caribbean.
Thinking up magic items for your adventure doesn’t necessarily have to force you to stick to a certain theme. Trying to make your items match the adventure’s theme, such as a nautical one, can limit your creativity. It doesn’t have to be a cutlass, or a spyglass, it just has to be interesting!
Originally, I wanted this item to be completely different. I first envisioned it as a “portable trebuchet” – something you could deploy onto the ground, and have it unfold and be ready for characters to use. Not a fully-sized trebuchet, mind you: one maybe ten feet tall. After a lot of brainstorming, Ivo and I decided that something like that would have to be saved for a higher-level adventure, since it would naturally deal a lot of damage. However, that led us down the road of what the deployment would look like. Something wind-up? That led us to the music box idea.
Magic items, at the end of the day, only have to be one thing: unique and fun to play with. Do that, and your players will never want to leave your table.
By Inti Navia
Magic Item by Ivo Hoying
Leave a Reply