My NaGaDeMon Epic Fail :(

OK, so 30 Redcap Magic Items in a month seemed achievable right?

Wrong. 😦

Life does that – sickness in the family, unexpected pressures at work, trying to buy (and sell) a house while planning a trip to Europe etc etc.

Although it doesn’t excuse anything, I notice that the other attempts at NaNoWriMo / NaGaDeMon similarly stalled. (Although Timothy’s “Vanilla Covenant” project seems to be faring well, even though he is the first to admit he’s not really playing by the rules).

Still, it was a real fun start and one post and page per week on this blog wasn’t a bad achievement compared to some of the months I’ve been blogging. I’m really proud of the makila (walking sticks) and lickstone concepts – sure I lifted the latter concept completely from Timothy and just rebadged it for ArM5, but it seems a given to me that magical golden dental plates are a must for any self-respecting fashion conscious 13th century Redcap! 🙂

I found by focusing on a particular topic I actually managed to accumulate a lot of interesting ideas that I’ll hopefully use in the future – tattoos, Faeries as Items, magical feathers and much much more – perhaps even Marco’s amazing Faerie shoes. It also got me thinking about some other concepts: low-level common items with basic magics, the role of hedge magic items for Redcaps, mutable items complements, guidelines for single-use items and their replacements, Redcaps using stories as items, Faerie Item Companions, the interaction between Faerie charms and Redcaps… I think there’s actually a lot to be explored here so I do want to eventually write a full 30 posts / pages on Redcap magic items.

On a technical note, I also learnt quite a bit more about blogging style and formatting, which I think will help as I evolve the rest of the blog and go back and correct some of the issues I had initially with formatting exported text from cut files of supplements or Sub Rosa articles.

Thanks to those who commented on the Atlas Games forums or here on the blog!

#5 Not Just any Old Tarnkappe

Alberich wearing the Tarnkappe and vanishing (Wikipedia)

Magic cloaks are a very common trope in many fantasy settings and have been made popular recently by several book series and their movie adaptions such as the famous Harry Potter franchise. Cloaks of invisibility such as Harry’s were standard fare for thieves, rogues and other stealthy types since the earliest days of role-playing.

Perhaps the earliest recognised appearance in recent fantasy literature is Frodo’s elven cloak that inspired the classic cloak of elvenkind mentioned above, but this is almost certainly based in part on the original Tarnkappe (German: “magic cloak”, although often misrepresented as a helmet or Tarnhelm as in Wagner’s Ring Cycle) that is stolen by the hero Siegfired from Alberich the dwarf in the Nibelung Saga.

Although undoubtedly useful, an Invisibility Cloak is perhaps not as well suited as a Redcap magic item, even thought the basic spell used, Veil of Invisibility (ArM5, page 146) is only a PeIm Level 20 spell. Invisible characters still cast shadows, make noise, and leave footprints – but more importantly invisibility is relatively unsubtle and marks the wearer as plainly a user of magic as opposed to more subtle effects that can assist a traveling Redcap which are less likely to draw the suspicion of mundanes.

Examples and ideas for this type of magical clothing can be found here.