Dicember 2021 – arcane

Spellcasting always has a cost, right? — whether it’s “spell slots” or a risk of intangible injury or increasing fatigue or chipping off one’s soul bit by bit, there’s always something. And as long as there’s something, enterprising sorcerers (and just about anyone else tossing magic around here and there and everywhere) will look for ways around that cost.

Offering up some options for arcane catalysts is one way to do that in a game — and liven up treasure troves and/or siphon away hoarded funds in the process.

To use a catalyst, which will power a spell for you:

– the catalyst must be in-hand or at least deliberately touched by the caster
– 1d4 measures or discrete objects are required per spell (or per spell level, if desired and if the system uses spell levels or equivalent)
– if not a discrete object (a rose, a stone, etc), one measure usually roughly equals one pennyweight

Of course, there’s no doubt some special quality about these already special materials that makes a sample a suitable catalyst; there’s also no doubt that spellslingers will pay handsomely for them … or resort to more underhanded means.


Some sample catalysts:

01. phoenix egg-myrrh
02. angel’s tears
03. halo shard
04. tongue of skyflame
05. cobra-knight’s pearl
06. bloodamber
07. nugget of lunargent
08. blue rose of summer
09. alicorn sliver
10. distillate of chaos
11. voidspine
12. viridian maple key
13. nugget of solaurum
14. helljade coin
15. dragonsbreath
16. imperial bone
17. elemental carbuncle
18. sanctified skull-moss
19. draconitias stone
20. golden fleece