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I want to make up some index cards for the magic items that the party finds during the course of the Adventure Path we are doing. However it's not always easy to come up with some way to describe the magic item and make it unique. I was wondering if anybody out there knows of a good website or a good product that helps with the descriptive text for magic items.
Start by reading this.
The problem is, there are nearly infinite ways to describe items. Almost any adjective in the English language can be applied to most of them, and you can combine more and more adjectives into entire paragraphs of descriptive text.
Finding one simple table to do it all is problematic. If such a table exists, it will LIMIT you, not help you.
A bit of a place to start is the fact that most of the Pathfinder items already have some description in their text. You can begin with that. A Ring of Invisibility is a "simple silver ring", a Staff of Fire is "Crafted from bronzewood with brass bindings", and a Belt of Giant Strength is "a thick leather affair, often decorated with huge metal buckles", so use these short descriptions and start there.
Then just think it through:
A simple silver ring could be wide or narrow but probably has no markings or engravings (else it isn't simple). Because the ring grants invisibility, I would think it's very thin, so thin that it's almost unnoticeable on a person's finger even when the person is visible, so I might describe it that way.
The bronzewood is a funny one (it's a 3.5 material that doesn't seem to exist in Pathfinder but the staff description still uses it), so ask yourself what it might look like - I imagine it's a very hard wood roughly the color of bronze that even seems to reflect light as if it were actual metal, but still rough texture like wood and it doesn't get as cold or warm as metal does. The staff has brass bindings, metal bands wrapped around the staff at about 6" intervals to reinforce the wood. This includes a brass tip so the staff's wood won't split or crack when the user taps it on the ground if he uses it like a walking stick. And add perhaps a brass bell-shaped fitting on the other end, seemingly scorched on the inside with soot and ash as if it were regularly exposed to flame (of course this is where all the fire comes out when the staff is used).
The belt looks, in my mind, is a very wide and sturdy thick leather belt like a weight-lifter's belt, or a boxing/wrestling championship belt, studded with iron or steel fittings and a large ornate steel buckle.
It takes a little imagination but it's probably well worth it.
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I totally forgot those descriptions were there. Even though I'm new to DMing Pathfinder, I had lots of experience with 3.5 and I do remember those descriptions. So, that helps with unique magic items but what about wands. I can come up with a basic idea, like "A round steel rod, about a foot long." for a Wand of Mage Armor. However, I'm eventually going to be repeating myself. I was hoping for some inspiration for other materials for wands and maybe some unique styles of wands. Not every wand needs a unique style but it would be cool if some of them had that.
Ever read Order of the Stick? Their wands all have a little "icon" on the end of them that matches whatever the spell does.
See this one for an example. That Cure Light Wounds wand has a little blue cross on it.
Wands are a little tougher.
I think to myself, if I were a mage making wands for myself, what would I do? If I were only going to make one wand, ever, then it wouldn't matter. But I doubt I would invest in the feat to make just one. That means I need a way that I can tell them apart. Would be a sad day if I mistakenly grabbed my wand of Fireball when I meant to use Enlarge Person on my ally...
I would want something that was obvious to me. Frankly, I don't care if my enemies could look at my wand and anticipate what spell it will cast. But when I have a dozen wands in my belt and look down for that Fireball wand, I don't want to waste precious time looking for small hidden symbols or deciphering secret codes.
Nope, my wands would tell me, clearly, what they do at first glance.
The Order of the Stick wands, while comical, are the right idea. Maybe putting little icon tips on them is awkward, but I would paint my Fireball wand in reds and yellows and maybe carve the business end to look like a ball. A wand of Burning Hands might be the same color but the business end is carved to look like a hand. And a wand of Flaming Sphere would look like, well, exactly like the Fireball wand I just described so I better update THAT one to make tip look like an exploding sphere instead.
Etc.
Note that wands are supposed to be "6 to 12 inches long, 1/4 inch thick, and weighs no more than 1 ounce. Most wands are wood, but some are bone, metal, or even crystal".
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Note that wands are supposed to be "6 to 12 inches long, 1/4 inch thick, and weighs no more than 1 ounce. Most wands are wood, but some are bone, metal, or even crystal".
With the feather of a phoenix in it, the phoenix only giving two feathers, one to your wand...