Happy Lunar New Year 2022!

This Lunar New Year, we thought it’d be fun to have some of our staff, freelancers, and members of the community write up some magic items inspired by lunar new year to put into your Pathfinder games!

Happy Year of the Tiger, and wishing everyone a safe and prosperous new year!

Art by Mirco Paganessi

James Case

My howmi (I couldn’t properly pronounce halmeoni when I was a toddler, abbreviations were made) is a great cook, but growing up, she made Korean food very rarely (Too much chopping! Just chop chop chop! Howmi don’t wanna chop so much!). New years was always the big exception, where she’d make enough food to feed everyone for... honestly, several days. We always had to have our tteokguk first to make sure we’d have good luck for the next year, and it was always the right way to start things off. Happy new year!

Tteokguk of Time Advancement — Item 5

Consumable, Magical, Transmutation, Polymorph
Usage Held in 1 hand; Bulk L

Dumplings and rice cakes float invitingly between seaweed and egg in this comforting soup. While normal tteokguk helps you gain an extra year of age when you eat it, the magic in tteokguk of time advancement takes this a step further.

Activate [one-action] Interact; Effect Upon eating the tteokguk, you gain several years of age, morphing into an older version of yourself. Your physical appearance and personality change to those you would have at any age older than your current one. This grants you a +4 status bonus to Deception checks to pass as the chosen age, and you can add your level as a proficiency bonus to these checks even if you're untrained. Furthermore, unless a creature specifically uses a Seek action or otherwise carefully examines you, it doesn't get a chance to notice that you aren't at your true age. This lasts until morning of the next day, at which point you are temporarily immune until the next lunar new year.

Eleanor Ferron

Every new year, my dad's side of the family would gather at my grandma and grandpa's house for a large family reunion. There weren't enough rooms or beds for all the cousins, us kids would fight with one another, and of course after a few days we were all sick of being there. But they're some of my fondest memories. On New Year's Day we would make sushi and lotus root, serve kuromame and the horrible lucky fish cake (which I would begrudgingly choke down a single slice of), but my favorite was my grandpa's inarizushi—tangy sushi rice inside sweet fried tofu pockets. I struggled for ages to be able to split open the delicate fried tofu without ripping the pockets open, and was so proud of myself when I got good at it. In Japan, they are said to be favored by the rice goddess Inari and her fox servants. I didn't know anything about the myths associated with them until later; my brother must have told me when he got interested in studying Japanese culture. Grandpa probably would have gotten grumpy if we'd brought it up, but he might not have minded giving one to a hungry fox. He loved nature and animals, and would go out in the morning to garden and feed the flock of California quail who hid in the tiny bamboo thicket on the edge of his yard. They came so often we used to call them his little chickens.

You really shouldn't feed wild animals, but in a fantasy game it's harmless fun.

Shrine Inarizushi — Level 1

Divination, Consumable, Divine
Usage held in 1 hand; Bulk L

Activate one minute (Interact)
A splash of sacred sake in the rice vinegar used to prepare this sushi makes it a suitable offering to the goddess Daikitsu and her favored fox servants. You place the sushi before a shrine of the goddess Daikitsu or in a wilderness area that naturally harbors foxes. For the next hour, whenever you are in exploration mode, roll a separate Search activity check with a +1 status bonus; this does not affect your Speed. If the check succeeds, a fox appears to inform you of this discovery as best as it can, although it cannot speak.

Sen.H.H.S.

In the days leading up to Chinese New Year, my family and I often visit Songshan Ciyou Temple for our annual prayers to the gods there. Like many other temples here, Ciyou Temple hosts a multitude of Taoist-Buddhist gods under one roof. Other than just for convenience, I think it is also a testimony of variety and complexity within a culture, something I do my best to reflect in my writing.

Last year has been a full-on bumpy ride, but it was consequently highly rewarding. I learned a lot, tried a lot, and flailed a lot in the process. I’m grateful to be a member of the greater Paizo creative community as their support means the world to me. There is a lot to look forward to, and since I can’t talk about many of them right now, follow me on Twitter (@SenHHS) for when those announcements drop!

Wishing everyone a happy Year of the Tiger! *Roar*

Incense Bundle of Annual Blessings — Item 8

Consumable, Magical
Usage held in 1 hand; Bulk L

The twelve incense sticks wrapped in this bundle vary in shade and color, reflecting the deities the months are named after. Offering all incense sticks to their respective deities within a week is said to bring unparalleled luck, though gaining entry to all the necessary shrines and temples can pose quite a challenge. Those that complete the challenge gain can, when affected by a misfortune effect, automatically disrupt it as the incense wards off the bad luck. This ability can be used once a month for the next 12 months.

Jessie Lo

Hi I’m Jessie, you can find me on my Pathfinder 2e podcast @GobletsandGays and on Twitter @akinomii_art. During Chinese New Year, it is very common to give out hongbao, red packets/envelopes, to your loved ones. Usually, they contain money, which is used to wish good luck, health, and wealth for the new year. It's also common to give out red packets as gifts, which often means a red packet is reused by several people until it wears out. It has also become common to get red packets from malls, which usually have a piece of chocolate, candy or special coupons.

Hongbao of Many Things — Item 5

Conjuration, Magical
Usage held in 1 hand; Bulk L

This enchanted long, red envelope is decorated with beautiful illustrations in gold ink. The hongbao holds twelve slips safely within.

Activate [one-action] Interact; Effect You draw a randomly selected slip from the hongbao, which transforms permanently into a useful item. Until you draw another item, the illustration on the outside of the hongbao changes to one of twelve animals, matching the item pulled. Each slip can be drawn only once; after the last slip is gone, the hongbao becomes a non-magical red envelope that retains the illustration of the final slip drawn. The effects of each slip are as follows:

1. 3d4 small firecracker pellets that let out a loud squeak when thrown against a hard surface.
2. Embroidered leather armor made from oxhide.
3. A lesser healing potion, except it is applied as a balm instead of drunk.
4. A stuffed bunny dressed in red robes.
5. 50 feet of coiled silk rope.
6. A bottle of snake wine.
7. A wooden, horse-drawn wagon.
8. A musical instrument made out of a ram’s horn.
9. A collapsible metal-banded bo staff.
10. An ornate jeweled egg.
11. A small, jade, statuette of a guardian lion dog.
12. 6 delicious pork buns that function as emergency rations.

Tan Shao Han

Happy Lunar New Year! May you all enjoy roaring good fortune in the year of the tiger! Based in Singapore, Shao Han (https://www.curiouschimeras.com/) is a member of the #RPGSEA movement who has created content for various RPGs, including Pathfinder 2, Blades in the Dark, and ARC. Fun fact: Due to Shao Han being taller than most of his family, he enjoys a +1 to his Cooking Lore checks when eating yusheng, and adds the reach trait and gains the critical specialization effects on his chopsticks attacks.

Seven-Color Raw Fish Salad — Item 8

Consumable, Divination, Fortune, Magical
Price 88 gp
Usage Prepared with 2 hands; Bulk 1

An appetizer popularized in Goka, seven-color raw fish salad (qicai yusheng) is both fun and tasty to eat. This large platter of salad of raw fish, seafood, fruits, and vegetables of various hues is dressed in generous drizzlings of crushed peanuts, plum sauce, and sesame oil. During the Lunar New Year, consuming the seven-color raw fish salad (as 'seven colors' sounds similar to 'seven riches') is a grand, often messy, affair of spectacle and skill. Diners gather around the platter with long chopsticks to toss the salad, lifting the assorted ingredients as high as possible without dropping them off the table; erudite diners lead the table in uttering auspicious sayings to wish good fortune for the new year.

Activate 1 minute (command, Interact); Effect You toss the ingredients of the seven-color raw fish salad into the air to prepare the dish. You must attempt a DC 20 Cooking Lore check, with the following results.

Critical Success You manage to toss the ingredients deftly without wasting food, and your enthusiastic recitation of auspicious sayings is well received—a sign of impending good fortune! For the first month of the coming year, you enjoy a +2 bonus to skill checks to Earn Income and Diplomacy checks made to Gather Information about job opportunities.

Success You toss the ingredients adroitly, wasting a minimum of seafood, and your delivery of auspicious sayings is respectable. For the first month of the coming year, you gain a +1 bonus to skill checks to Earn Income and Diplomacy checks made to Gather Information about job opportunities.

Failure You fumble too many of the ingredients to have enough left to eat.