Creating an Artifact

Use this procedure when the fiction asks for an artifact and nothing in the published catalog fits — or when you have a half-formed idea and want the dice to fill in the gaps. The output is something you can hand a player: a magic-item description, a custom move, a steading improvement, or a minor or major arcanum card.

Reach for it during prep, between sessions, or — sparingly — at the table when a PC opens a tomb the catalog didn't anticipate. The five steps work as a checklist: each table you roll narrows the artifact further. Skip rolls where you already have an answer.

1. Origin and theme. Roll Artifact Origin for who or what made the thing. Then pick one or more themes from that origin's compendium entry; the themes color every other roll.
2. Nature. Roll Artifact Nature for what kind of artifact this is — mundane, strange material, priceless, extraordinary property, spirit-bound, lore-bearing, or magical. Each result routes you into one or more sub-tables before you ever pick a form.
3. Form. Roll Artifact Size, then Artifact Form Category, then either the Artifact Common Form or Artifact Less Common Form table. Interpret the result through everything you've established. A Forge Lord lamp is a furnace-lantern; a Tempest Lord lamp is a sky-beacon.
4. Synthesis. Picture the artifact. Fill in missing details and start making final decisions: what is it exactly, what was it for, how did it get here? Discard or reinterpret earlier rolls where the picture demands it — the tables are there to spur creativity, not bind you.
5. Write-up. Choose the shape that fits the artifact's weight in play.

• A brief description and tags — twenty words or so.
• A detailed description — title, tags, a few sentences on what it is and what it does.
• A description plus one or more custom player moves, each with a trigger and resolution. Author with Writing Custom Moves.
• A steading improvement — something that, with time and effort, grants the village a lasting benefit.
• A minor arcanum — a card with discovery requirements on the front and unlocked benefits on the back. The Seeker explicitly draws minor arcana into play.
• A major arcanum — a half-page playbook insert with unlockable moves and consequences for invoking them.

Write as much as you find helpful. Anything you hand the players — tags, descriptions, moves, arcana — should be clear and concise. The artifact's full history, the nuances of how it works, where else it might appear: that's for your eyes, to inform how you introduce it. If the artifact is likely to make trouble, write it up as a threat too (a MacGuffin, probably, or maybe a magical entity).

The sample artifacts throughout Book II — Laoj Daveth’s Galvanic Infusion, Old Mother’s Wine, Aalz Galt’s Sudden Sinkhole — were generated this way. Read them as you work. For Value guidance, see Book I pp. 92-93.