DCC Magic Items to playtest

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I don’t give out a lot of magic loot in my Dungeon Crawl Classics campaign and one of my players was just telling me she likes it that way. So of course now I have to hand out some magic loot!

The first is a way to get ley lines and places of power into the game by giving the players a diving rod. There’s several mentions of ley lines and places of power in the DCC core rulebook but not much about detecting them.

The second brings the consult spirit spell into the game, which the Judge’s section suggests as a way to drop clues and adventure hooks into the campaign. I’d rather not wait for our casters to get high enough in level to get that spell (which there’s no guarantee they would take anyway). I’ll report back after they’ve had some use. Feel free to post your experiences here or ways you have brought these elements into your game.

LEY DIVINING ROD
A forked stick that can be used to find ley lines or place of power. The user must be a wizard or elf and must concentrate. The longer the concentration period, the further away the user can find such a place. (see table below)
A place of power can only be found if the user knows a spell that would benefit (ex. fireball’s might be enhanced in a volcano). Using this drains 1d4 HP of damage for each 15 minutes (or fraction thereof) of use. Magical healing cannot be applied during this time, but any regeneration powers or spells in effect when the user begins is in effect. If the user dies while attempting to find a ley line, he or she must be buried in a ley line within a week or become a lich (NPC) or some other awful fate.

Each 15 minutes beyond what is required for the radius adds ‘+1 to the spell check for finding space.

Radius:
5 minutes = 20m
10 minutes = 50m
15 minutes = 100 meters
30 minutes = 250 meters
1 hour = 1km
1.5h = 2.5km
2h = 10km
3h = 50km
5h = 200km

There is a spell check involved:
1-10 Failure to detect presence/absence
12-13 Yes/No there is one in this general area
14-17 Yes/No presence, general direction
18-19 General Direction and Distance +/- 20 percent
20-23 Direction, Exact Distance
24-27 Location, Size and Shape of line/place of power
28-29 Location, Size, Shape and shortest route to line/place of power
30-31 As per 28-29, plus extra +2 on applicable spell checks when on the line, within the space
32+ As per 30-31, plus location of connected lines, connected places of power within 100 miles

SKULL TRUMPET
This item can be used to consult spirit (as per the spell) once per month. The user speaks into and listens to this conch-shaped bone horn that has been twisted from the skull of a powerful medium.