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Items / Relics

Relics In Your Own Campaign

Source Pathfinder #128: Songbird, Scion, Saboteur pg. 77
To implement relics in your own game, you can use the Taldan items presented here, adjusting their themes and details as necessary. Alternatively, you can adapt scaling items from Pathfinder RPG Pathfinder Unchained or create your own items to suit your needs.

You’ll also need to set up potential triumphs the PCs can achieve to unlock the relics’ abilities. These triumphs should happen every 2 to 3 character levels. A triumph should always be linked to the achievement of a major goal within the campaign’s storyline. Include less frequent triumph events if the PCs are highly likely to succeed at all of them. If there’s a high chance the PCs will fail to achieve a particular triumph, you might include another triumph event fairly soon after. You can always alter future triumph events if items are looking like they’ll outpace the rate of one triumph every 2 levels. The theme of the relics you include should match the themes of the campaign. This doesn’t mean their mechanics and powers need to correspond exactly, but the more history and flavor, the better.

Relics work best in a campaign that has clear goals and major events. These might be goals that you’ve built into the game, but it’s also highly satisfying for players to define their own goals. If you make relics that are designed for a purpose that matches the purposes of one of the characters, you’ll set up a stronger bond and unity of purpose for that character-relic pair.