Writober! Diamond! Shadowdark Post-a-Day In October

This month is Drawtober: 31 drawing prompts related to the Shadowdark RPG, 1 a day, throughout October. But I’m borrowing the prompts for short essays. Today’s prompt is “Diamond”.

How are diamonds important in your game?

For characters, they give a way to carry the equivalent of a lot of currency in a smaller form. BTW as a GM, stealing the loot shouldn’t be vindictive but can be a plot point. You can also mitigate loot by having a merchant/jeweler lowball the estimated value of the diamonds. This is even legitimate: a large number (and even 5 can be a large number) of diamonds added to a town’s economy can lower their relative value.

For spellcasting characters they can serve as spell components for specific spells. Although the book doesn’t use this (or any components) you can add some special components for particularly powerful spells or to make a spell into something like a ritual–longer time to cast it, but no spell check needed. Or use them for unique/unusual spells or allow the caster to cast a higher level spell than normal. (Yes, 3rd level wizard, you can cast teleport but it takes hours to cast and you need _____.)

For martial characters diamonds can be added to the tips of weapons to pierce armor or shells more easily. How are they added to and secured to the weapon, especially in medieval times? That’s were magic comes in of course. Such weapons may grant a modest bonus (or not) but also subtract all or most of a foe’s AC that comes from armor, thick scales, a shell, etc. That isn’t too hard to calculate/guesstimate, but is one more thing for you or the player to track.

However, these special components and magic items add some uniqueness and a sense of wonder. Those of us playing these games for years are trying to get that feeling back–what it was like when we first played the game and everything was new and a little mysterious. We didn’t know what that bat-like magic robe likely did; we didn’t know the special abilities of a specific dragon or undead creature (even a weak one). Remember the first time you fought a zombie, and it stood back up? Or the first time a treasure chest turned out to be a mimic? We all want some of that feeling again. Even if you’re new to the game, these things make you think “Oh wow, I want more!”

Here are our previous Writober posts so far:

1. Torch – Rules for magic torch items (each is a single use magic effect spell like alarm or detect magic).
2. Skull – Goblin shaman who can turn victims’ skulls into ways to store spells.
3. Fiend – Lists of talents that Devils & Demons typically have for making your own.
4. Shadow – Easy ways to make other creatures into shadows.
5. Contagion – Discussing the purpose of diseases.
6. Valkyrie – A new 3rd party class.
7. Toadstool – A new 3rd party ancestry.
8. Witchlight – Alternate sources of “witchlight”.
9. Luck Token – Alternate ways a GM may allow a luck token to be used.
10.  Rage – The signature ability of a Barbarian class.
11. Altars – Ways to amplify priest spells into rituals when using an altar.
12. Pit Trap – Several ideas to spice up the good old pit trap.
13. Death Slug – Looking at the Death Slug’s deadliness and how that’s similar to old-school and low fantasy games.
14. Evil Eye – Various types of “Evil Eyes”: magic items, monsters, or curses.
15. Morzo Moth – A look at the Morzo Moth’s talents/actions makes one see the variety of the Western Reaches book’s monsters.