5 D&D Magical Items That Create Better Worldbuilding
I like worldbuilding, mechanical props, miniatures, everything that supports D&D. But not everybody enjoys long written books on the lore of the game you're running. It can become tedious for players if you overexpose worldbuilding in some capacity. This is why I like worldbuilding in other indirect ways. And this how I work around the dreaded worldbuilding issue, making people more invested in my world while spending less time writing tomes of lore for my world. These are a couple of Magical Items and Magical Items ideas I use for my D&D games to enhance worldbuilding in not so obvious way.
A Magical Newspaper (News parchments and scrolls)
It's a bit much, to be honest, but it fits me and my world that I'm building. One of the reasons is that I don't want to spend precious time-wasting on what the town crier is talking about, nor do I want to scream at the players with a bell. Having a handout(A digital one would be best) that you can update from time to time of what's going on in the world or what consequences the party had on the place is a sure way for players to indulge in your worldbuilding while they are waiting for their turn of combat.
And to be honest, I like the idea of a magical newspaper where you put silver coins in a teleportation pocket to receive your news. Of course, this item is a bit broken, but hey, it's like sending, right?
Towns Notice Board
This method is similar to the newspaper, but more for the local towns and cities. I like to use them similarly and spice up things with gossip, downtime activities ideas, and plot hooks. But it serves the main factor in my game - informs the party about their consequences on the world indirectly.
Magical Maps
Giving the party a map that updates itself serves the DM tremendously in a couple of ways. If we decide to make the whole world map and its contents, it will take a lot of work and time. If we skim on the content and only give a couple of town names, that will not be fun for a party. So what do we do? What's the perfect approach to this?
To my players, I give a Magical Item named - Arcane Navigators Map, a map that updates and reveals areas over time. Arcane Map is a handout that we can repeatedly edit, with new locations appearing after the sessions. A magical map works great if you're playing online, where you can drag and drop the map file, or if you're playing at the table, Tablets work as great handouts for people to look at the map, zoom in, etc.
The idea of a Magical Map that updates is that you can mold your world in a way that is not forced on the players, and you can adapt to what is happening in your sessions. Not only that, you don't need to have 25 locations prepared for a region. Instead, you only prepare/reveal the areas that are prepared and ready to present. And this works great when you're running a sandbox campaign of DnD because too much choice for players can cause choice paralysis, so everyone wins if you use this Magical Item in your Campaign.
Town Guides or Characters that provide News
The city guide idea works great with a magical map. Maybe the map provides a local illusionary guide for you or just a list of places to visit. In any way, this "Guide to the Town" idea in NPC or Item shape is great since players will always forget your NPC's over and over again. So why not provide them with a list of NPC's on the map from the get-go?
When I started this idea, I thought it would be a bit silly, but if you introduce it well, I think it's great not only for the worldbuilding but also for the roleplaying. Players tend to use names more often and remember smaller details, which is always an issue with campaigns if you have a lot of NPC's.
So whenever I'm making a Town/Village/City location list, I write from a perspective of a person that lives there about the inhabitants, like a local Journalist or Archivist. This method is excellent because you start to think more like this town's inhabitants, giving more freedom when worldbuilding.
Orb of Indecisive Navigation
GPS is not a thing in the fantasy world, but having something similar to it could be a fun item to give to your players, indicating where they need to go. It might be a faulty Orb of navigation, which might provide a bonus to survival rolls or a clue where to go but not entirely so that the party would figure out a way for themselves. When it's apparent that they reach their destination, the Orb might try to alert by saying "You have reached your destination" in Siri's voice.
The Orb of Navigation could also be faulty in a way where the Orb always asks for your location. This could be a "feature" or be sometimes "Hacked" by enemy wizards to know your location.
"Journal of Remembrance" - Or a "Not So Magical" notebook
This "Magical" item needs some overselling to the party. Charismatic con-artists or plain fools could sell this item to the party for not so much. But the idea of this item is to provide a notebook for a party in real life or in Virtual Tabletop as a way to encourage notetaking if they seem to forget a lot of details.
One of the functions is of this magical item is that whatever you write into this book, you will always remember unless the Journal will be destroyed. Yes, this is a Notebook, congrats party here is your prize.
When the party will laugh and settle down and start to write the NPC's names, locations, quests, and so on, what you can do after the session is to edit the said notes to the correct grammar of your NPC names, locations, or what the quest wanted from the party in a "Magical way."
"Journal of Remembrance" is a funny, useful "Magical Item" to give to the party so they would try and make some notes during the sessions, but also this could be a tool that might help your party with clarity during your games.
What is your Magical Item that enhances the worldbuilding?
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