Magicworks and patrons

This is a follow-up both at my thoughts about money in Dungeons & Dragons vs money in our world and magic object as artwork.

Instead of going down the path of personalizing magic objects (which was not the initial intention in the previous article, but you've to write what you have to write), I will pursue the idea of a magic object as artwork; let's call them magicworks.

Making the parallel between an artwork and a magicwork, we can see that a magicwork should have:

 


  • a patron: the person or the entity who commissioned it, and paid for the magicwork to be created in the first place
  • a craftsman: the spellcaster who actually imbued the magicwork with the magic
  • a purpose: as we will see, a magicwork is usually an expensive endeavor, so there is going to be a purpose attached to it
  • an owner: this could be the patron, but could be someone else, if the magicwork has been gifted, stolen, or lost

I will use the patrons (mostly the names) from the group patrons listed in the Tasha's Cauldron of Everything, and try to detail the rest. As I will do the list from the patron point of view, I will add the kind of financing which the patron will most probably do.

Note that while the craftsman could be working for a patron, another patron could be the one really sponsoring the creation of the magicwork.

For example, a military order could commission to an academy a magical sword; the academy would then assign the actual work to one of its members.

Academy

  • craftsman: a member of the academy itself, usually; this could be a researcher who is devising some new form of magic, and requires the sponsorship of the academy itself to finance their research
  • purpose: increasing of knowledge: "can we really bind the colors of the rainbow in a wall?"
  • owner: once the object is created, the property will usually be the academy; so I expect an academy to have all sort of magicworks, with a very special nature
  • financing: common magicworks (up to a certain point) are financed with little or no problem; uncommon or rare will require approval from the council which rules the academy; very rare and legendary magicworks are out of question

Ancient Being

  • craftsman: usually an unsuspecting member of an academy, a guild or a religious order, who will realize only after a long time the type of creature they were working for
  • purpose: increasing of power, over long term; ancient being are ancient, and so their agendas usually span many lifes of humans
  • owner: the ancient being, or those who will serve the ancient being's purpose; think of Sauron and the rings given to the men
  • financing: anything below rare is considered not worth the time of this creature

Aristocrat

  • craftsman: usually, an hired journeyman or master, depending on the resources of the noble family itself; they could come from an academy or a guild
  • purpose: display of power, gifting, maybe increasing military power, safety
  • owner: the family itself, if the magicwork was crafted for a member of the family; the recipient of the gift, if it was meant to be gifted
  • financing: common items could be commissioned just as a whim; uncommon require a little more thought, but are probably just a present for the offsprings of the family when they are a little older; rare and very rare are commissioned to show the power of the family; more than one family ruined itself over the crafting of a legendary magicwork;

Criminal syndicate

  • craftsman: a journeyman or a master who has something shady in their past, or who was kidnapped or coerced in some way by the criminal syndicate itself
  • purpose: power; money; gift
  • owner: the syndicate itself, usually either the boss of the syndicate, or some very trustworthy henchman
  • financing: common and uncommon are "business as usual"; rare magicworks are for special circumstances; very rare or legendary are best "acquired" than crafted

Guild

  • craftsman: a guilds member if this was a magic guild, or another a journeyman or a master from another guild; a guild will rarely contact someone who is not operating within the confines of a guild
  • purpose: increase of power, increase of money, gift; the magicwork is usually something which should show the power of the guild itself by being shown, or by being gifted to some potential useful ally
  • owner: the guild or the recipient of the gift
  • financing: a common item could be the right token to identify a member of the guild reaching mastership; uncommon and rare are commissioned as a display of power and wealth, as an investment because the guild requires that specific magicwork, or as a gift to a powerful ally; very rare and legendary items are out of the league for any but the most powerful guilds;

Military force

  • craftsman: a journeyman or a master from an academy or a guild, depending on the relationship of the military force itself; possible even from a religious order, in case of a military force which has some connection in that sense
  • purpose: increase of power; while a military force will sometime ask to create magicworks to celebrate the power of the organization, more often than not it will be more involved into objects of practical use for the officers and for selected soldiers
  • owner: the items will be in the hands of the single officers and soldiers, but they will belong to the military force
  • financing: common and uncommon magicworks are usually commissioned, in the form of potions or weapons; on the rare part, armors and shields are the normal choice; very rare and legendary magicworks are out of the possibilities of a military force, usually

Religious order

  • craftsman: either a member of the order (for items of more religious meaning) or an hired guild-person; religious orders will usually not resort to the academies, seeing them as rivals in looking for the power
  • purpose: increase of prestige; increase of power; gift
  • owner: if suitable, the items will be in possession of members of the order, but the ownership of those items will remain of the order
  • financing: a religious order will often sponsor the creation of potions, as many are going to look for those items from them; in those areas, a religious order will always ensure that even the most remote of its branches will have at least a couple of potion of healing; being informed of who is going to buy those magicworks will be as much valuable information as the cost to be paid for them; also, common, uncommon and rare magicworks to promote the purposes of the religious order; very rare and legendary are almost never commissioned, unless a deity is requesting, for purposes unknown to the mortals;

Sovereign

  • craftsman: a master from an academy, a guild or even a religious order; a sovereign will look for the best craftsman in their land (and abroad); it's also possible that a sovereign is employing the master full time;
  • purpose: increase of prestige; increase of power; gift; gifting an impressive magic item to another sovereign could be a display of power in negotiations; also, it could be the show of appreciation from a sovereign with respect to other nobles
  • owner: the sovereign themself, or the recipient of the gift
  • financing: common and uncommon magicworks are commissioned as token of appreciations to nobles and servants of the sovereign; rare and very rare could be crafted as a way to display the power of the reign, with or without a practical use (depending on how sensible the sovereign is); very foolish or very ambitious will commission legendary magicworks, being between the few who will be able to provide the resources required to actually bring them to completion.


Let's take now a look at cost, in GP and equivalent money, and time:

  • common: 50 GP - 5,000 EUR/USD - 1 week
  • uncommon: 200 GP - 20,000 Eur/USD - 2 weeks
  • rare: 2,000 GP - 200,000 Eur/USD - 10 weeks
  • very rare: 20,000 GP - 2,000,000 EUR/USD - 25 weeks
  • legendary: 100,000 GP - 10,000,000 EUR/USD - 50 weeks

Now, I would consider these as the minimum time required, i.e. the time which such a project will take if everything goes according to plans.

But, for anything longer than a couple of weeks, I would expect that nothing will go according to plans.

First of all, the craftsman could simply underestimate the complexity of the job at hand, for anything above the rare level. Of course, a craftsman could tell you that the job you required is going to take just a couple of weeks... which is then going to be stretched to five or ten, because, "you can't constrain magic."

Second, for very long project, the craftsman could be involved in other activities, like adventuring; and adventuring has a tendency to make you die; so, the wise patron will usually have more than one craftsman just to ensure that the death of one of them will not endanger the project.

Despite this, it's entirely possible that the project is going to be delayed, or even suspended for an indefinite amount of time. The patron could run out of money, and the project will have to be suspended until another patron can be found.

These in shorts are my thoughts. Do you have any thought about this? If so, leave a comment below.

Image credit: https://pixabay.com/users/werbefuzzy68-2264281/ from Pixabay

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