Filippo Franco
Magwa’s Magic Item Compendium and magic items. For a role player, magic items are what shoes are for women. Objects of desire, coveted trophies, lucky finds, black hole of every gold coin obtained with blood and sweat. The Knights of Vasteel are well aware of this, having created two valuable Kickstarter projects by creating decks where each card represented a magical item illustrated with skill. Now, however, they have decided to focus on something more ambitious: take the objects described in their first deck and turn them into a hardcover book. Ladies and gentlemen, here you are Magwa’s Magic Item Compendium hardcover.
It’s not a simple copy and paste
To make Magwa’s Magic Item Compendium hardcover they not only just copied their previous idea and binded it to take money from compulsive collectors like me. There was only the image in the deck, with the back of the card deliberately left blank to write on. Now instead the items have been given a description, mechanics for D&D5e to make them not only ideas, but realities.
Furthermore, the book was not designed as a simple list of items to drool over. Let’s see what else it contains.
Concreteness! What do I find in Magwa’s Magic Item Compendium?
The book contains at least 130 unique magical items accompanied by illustration, history and mechanics for D&D5e. There are also new monsters, short stories and hundreds of common items.
The items have been divided into ten chapters based on a common thread that unites them from the point of view of a hypothetical setting in the world of Vasteel. Every chapter delves into their history with images and ideas.
On the project page there is a lot of material to view, so I absolutely recommend a tour just to admire the illustrations. Moreover it’s possible to download a free sample chapter.
There is a great variety in items and mechanics, the illustrations are very beautiful, worthy of a tome on the subject in the library of some mage tower. The thematic subdivision allows you to concentrate similar items in a few pages to facilitate the characterization work of the dungeon master. The layout is clear, simple, pleasant and highlights the quality of the artists.
Free images for everyone!
To promote Magwa’s Magic Item Compendium hardcover the Knights of Vasteel have created an interesting promotion. Those who share the link to the kickstarter campaign with the hashtag #MagwaRocks will receive free images for the app! What? Is there an app? Yup! There is a free app to digitally view the items. Although there are items that can be viewed for free, the packages have a cost. Through this offer instead you will receive a code to be able to have a pack for free (instead of paying $ 4.99) and, by doing it seven times in seven different days, you can receive all seven packages!
Unfortunately Magwa’s Magic Item Compendium is not for free
It would have been too good, wouldn’t it? The PDF version of the Magwa’s Magic Item Compendium hardcover costs $20, physical version $40 and both can be purchased for $50. With $80, you get also the two decks of the previous projects, described in this link.
Stretch goals at the moment don’t seem so easy to reach. They add more illustrations but do not increase the content, which is already made and ready. The shipping cost is not included and must be taken into account because it has its weight if you want to receive the package outside the United States.
