A Guide to Creating Unique and Interesting Artefacts for Mordheim
As someone who's always preferred low fantasy to high, one of the best things about Mordheim is its focus on skills and equipment as a pose to magic items. On the other hand, the main attraction of fantasy is the fantastic. It's important therefore that the fantastical elements retain that quality which makes them exciting: their rarity and their ability to break the rules of the setting.
I liked the rarity of the artifacts in Mordheim, but also felt that more could have been made of them. Only having six unique artifacts felt like a missed opportunity to me.
Too many magic items in Warhammer take the form of offering a simple stats boost. Sword of +1 attack, Armour of +1 toughness. That's boring enough in WHFB, but in Mordheim it's even more obsolete: simply replicating a stats advance or a skill.
Mordheim items need to be genuinely fantastic. One of the best ways I've found of thinking about them is imagining the storyline cinematically: what would look cool? What can you actually visualise? How do you visualise a sword adding +1 to your attacks characteristic? You can't, it's too abstract. But the blade of a sword turning into a writhing serpent: that's something that I can see. So, ruleswise, what characteristics might that sword have? Well poison would make sense for a start. Maybe it could be impossible to parry, as the snake simply twists around the enemy's blade? Causing fear might be another option.
The next thing I like to think about is power level. Artifacts in Mordheim are found, rather than bought, so you don't want a single lucky find imbalancing the campaign too much. Likewise, giving a Runefang to a mercenary sergeant seems not only highly improbable lorewise, but also won't be a great deal of fun for his opponents. For the most part then, artifacts should be low powered: similar in power to a skill, with their attraction lying in their ability to perform unique actions , or unlock interesting tactical options rather than their innate powerfulness.
Having a few more powerful items in a campaign however can be fun. But lets think for a moment: if these items are of such great value and such immense power: how did they come to be lying in the ruins of Mordheim. This is one of the most fun parts: for each more powerful item try to think of a drawback or a curse. Most often this will be closely related to the items power. The serpent sword for example, if we felt it too powerful could bite it's on wielder on the roll of a 1 to hit. This adds a narrative element to the campaign on several levels. It explains the presence of the item in Mordheim: perhaps the artefact itself caused it's previous owner's death? Particularly powerful items can become integral to the campaign. A suit of powerful chaotic armour might grant powerful mutations, while also slowly turning it's wearer into a spawn of chaos.
The next type of item you can create are ones which are very situational. In WHFB, you'll often find that these items are never taken. This is largely because paying points for an item that is only useful in a certain situation is often not cost effective, especially given that in a game of only six turns there is little opportunity for the appropriate situation to arise. In Mordheim, neither of these issues are a problem. You're not paying for an item, you're finding it: so you're not going to have a problem with players not buying it, or it not being worth it's price. Secondly, in a campaign based game, there are more opportunities for the right situation to arise. These are often the items which allow the most interesting tactical possibilites.
For this example, lets stay with the cinematic theme and borrow something from Game of Thrones. The idea of warging (inhabiting the mind of an animal) offers interesting possibilites, but how could it be translated to a magic item in the Mordheim ruleset? Well what if it simply granted line of sight from the inhabited animal? That'd be pretty cool: it'd mean you could cast without direct line of sight, spot hidden enemies... nothing game-breaking, and certainly situational, but tactically very interesting.
A further way of balancing strong items is to make them one use only. This way you they might turn the course of a battle, but they shouldn't imbalance a campaign. Borrowing again from cinema, think of Jason and the Argonauts and the hydras teeth. Skeletons bursting from the ground is visually very exciting and granting that ability to a non necromantic model is pretty unique. As a one use only item it could spring a surprise on your opponent without turning your mercenary warband into faux-undead by having the skeletons turn up every battle. Tactically they'd also be quite an interesting item: allowing a weak hero to escape from a tricky spot.
EXAMPLES:
Serpent Sword of Loqec
This sword has two slender silver blades which twist around one another in a most peculiar manner. When in combat these blades take the form of a writhing two headed snake, darting, hissing and biting.
This weapon grants an additional attack. Attacks from this weapon cannot be parried, and the sword always counts as being coated in dark venom. Should the dice come up 'snake eyes' (two ones) when rolling to hit, then both attacks count as having hit the wielder.
Notes: Having decided to make the serpent two headed, this weapon effectively grants +1 attack, +1 strength (from the dark venom) and immunity to parry. That makes its quite powerful in comparison to mundane weapons which would typically grant a single benefit so building in a downside both balances it and adds flavour, but is not so crippling as to disuade a player from using it. I've also chosen to make it's description quite brief rather than specific. It's appearance might suggest it originates from the Southlands, though the dark venom might suggest a Dark Elf background.
The Wyrdstone Heart
This piece of wyrdstone has been cut and refined by an expert jewelsmith. It appears to grant it's bearer great power but it's malevolent green glow is accompanied by an incessant beating that can drive a man insane.
The bearer is counted as a Darksoul as in the “Cult of the Possessed” list for all purposes, gaining the special rule “Crazed”, allowing him to automatically pass any leadership test he is required to take. The model is now counted as “Possessed” and is affected by holy water and prayers as such. In addition bearer cannot hide.
NOTES: This one is firmly rooted in the setting, as well as giving a nod to Edgar Allan Poe. Making him a darksoul adds an interesting narrative twist, especially if it were found by a good aligned warband such as witch-hunters.
Hydra's Teeth
Most warriors finding this item would only find a velvet bag of yellowed animal's teeth and might discard it. To the educated few that would recognise it though, these items are really rather powerful.
One use only. Thrown item. Produces D3+1 skeleton warriors which must be deployed within 6" of the bearer.
Skaeleth's Eye
The bearer of this green glassy orb is completely in tune with the animals around him.
Upon finding this artifect, the warrior may choose to gouge out his own eye and replaces it with this dull greenish grey orb. The warrior now suffers from the “Blinded in one eye” injury and the artifact may not be removed. The bearer may use the line of sight of any mortal animal or forest spirit on the battlefield. Should this be used to cast a spell a result of 'snakeyes' on the casting dice will causes the animal or spirit to be taken out of action.
*This includes wardogs (both from the Witch Hunter warband and those listed in the Blazing Saddles article) giant rats (Skaven warband), trained bears (Kislev warband), as well as horses and mounts of all kinds,
NOTES: I wrote this one for my version of a Wood Elf warband. It synergizes well with their tactical play and I loved the imagery of a mage cutting out his own eye in pursuit of increased power. It required some defining of which animals could be effective as Mordheim's core rules are sometimes somewhat vague in defining animals. I like that there are lots of further possibilites with this item: what if the mage could possess the animal...cause a wardog to attack it's owner, cause a horse to throw it's rider...
Obviously, these are only my thoughts and there are lots of other ways in which you could think about artefacts but I hope some of this is useful to people. Please let me know what you think, and feel free to share your own artifacts!
Subject: Magical Artefact Creation for Campaigns 
Sun 20 Nov 2016 - 22:20
