Find it, Make it, Earn it, or Steal it

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[egypt-museum]

Necklace of Psusennes I

The pectoral here takes the form of a winged scarab, sitting above a shen-symbol, with the cartouche of the king at the front. The wings are decorated with horizontal rows of precious stones. Chapter 30 of the Book of the Dead is inscribed on the underside of the scarab, in which the deceased asks his heart not to testify against him during the judgement before Osiris. The pectoral is attached to a series of beads ending in a lotus-form counterpoise.

Third Intermediate Period, 21st Dynasty, ca. 1047-1001 BC. Tomb of Psusennes I at Tanis. Now in the Egyptian Museum, Cairo. JE 85787

[birdwatchy-standaround]

everyone loves Predynastic Egyptian Terracotta Bowl with Human Feet. shout-out to a real one

[phaeton-flier]

It looks like it would be so excited to run over when you needed a bowl

[fruitpeels]

Got distracted. Saw a cool bug

[knitmeatreasure]

I haven't done this in a long time, but if you send trick or treat to my inbox today I'll give you a magical item created just for you.

http://knitmeatreasure.tumblr.com/ask

[knitmeatreasure]

(Kristi Kalis) Gilly Forsythe would love a magical item to boost her confidence in being a Loup Garou.

[[These next few are written in the style of an artificer from Magischola!  Feel free to request one – and check out magischola.com for the awesome universe and future LARP events.]]

Now actually, I have an artifact for Gilly that’s old enough I don’t know quite how it was made.  It’s a doorknob, and very old indeed; I can tell you the magical residue I can detect is vert and there are more runes hidden in the engraved scrollwork than I care to count.  I can tell you that I think there are more inside the metal, carved or painted before it was forged or sealed shut.  This is the work of a lifetime, this doorknob, and it feels that way.  Heavy in the hand, always warm to the touch, with a hum like electricity far, far away.

I can tell you that when pressed to a door, you will hear a click as it unlocks something different.  It doesn’t matter if the door is closed or open; when you turn this knob, it will open again, and it will take you to another place.

Specifically, this takes you to the place that you should be, or a place that you need to be. 

Now how do I think this will help?  Well, I have done quite a bit of experimentation with this knob, and at first I thought it was faulty; that is, it only seemed to work one in twenty or fifty times that I used it.

But then I realized: more times than not, most of the times in my life, I am exactly where I should be.

Once I realized that, once I understood, well.  Your confidence soars when you realize that you are where you should be.  You are what you are, and who you are -- right now, right here, right as you have made yourself -- for a damn good reason.  In the grand, glorious scheme of things, more often than not, you are precisely where you should be.

You could read this as a sign that you aren’t important -- that life does not particularly care where you are.  Or you can take this as a sign that you are essential -- and that wherever Gilly walks, she can carry this in her pocket, knowing she can leave, knowing she can walk away, but more often than not knowing that she is, in the end, in the precisely perfect place for her life to matter.

And, if I may add, if people turn into bastards you can always stick this thing in a sock and start swinging.  It’s frigging cast iron.  That’ll make a dent in a jackasses skull.

[knitmeatreasure]

Plant monitor. Bonus points for if it waters the plant that needs it. ~Herbology Prof Springer

[[These next few are written in the style of an artificer from Magischola!  Feel free to request one -- and check out magischola.com for the awesome universe and future LARP events.]]

All right.  First, get a sponge.  The Ina Garten rule applies -- a natural sponge is best (as spherical as possible, with a locomotis sigil on it so it can roll around) but if you don’t have one, store-bought is fine (cut it into the shape of a feather, and add a floating spell to it so it can fly around the garden).

Now, let’s get to the meat of the spell.

First: vocare aquam aeternum will eternally summon water to fill the sponge.  Remember this is a little dangerous; when creating the runes only use summoning and water runes and only add the aeternum with your will.  Nobody wants a flood.

Second: circumeo hortus -- literally ‘go around the garden’.  Use the runes to modify this a bit; feel free to be specific about visiting bushes, trees, flowers, vegetables, etc.

Third: siccitas deprehendere, and here make sure you are using very natural runes, something in tune with nature and plant life in general.  You want it to detect the garden’s dryness.  Nothing else.

Finally: adstringo majorus.  It may seem like you want to tell the sponge to give water to the plant, or to take care of the plant, but the simplest and most practical solution is best.  Have it squeeze itself out on the plant.  That way, multiple water-based spells will not get confused.

If you’re feeling fanciful, you can also add a few little charms to make it hum fairy songs to itself as it rolls around the garden -- or, especially if you are using a natural sponge, give it little stitched-on eyes and antennae and it’ll look like a snipe-shaped toy when it isn’t busy.

[evilsupplyco]

Mirror Flowers

Mirror flowers allow a swapping of physical or magical states – the undead temporarily become alive, good become evil, physical forms become non-corporeal.

The results are random, as is the duration (up to a few hours). Potion makers can narrow down the randomness to some degree, but there is always a layer of chaos involved.

[knitmeatreasure]

The Chair of Regret

The Chair of Regret is a small ladder-back chair, or in some cases a slightly frayed paisley cushion. Made from a willow watered with tears and crafted on the day of a funeral, the Chair is unassuming in appearance and easily overlooked. No matter how tall you are, the chair is slightly shorter than you would be comfortable with. The cushion, understandably, has slightly better ergonomics.

To use it, you name one thing you regret and then sit down. You experience a lifetime’s worth of regret for that event or decision, all in the span of a few minutes. Every time you would be uncomfortably reminded of the thing you regret is condensed into that span. Every time it would make you feel worthless. Every ounce of self-loathing and bitterness.

But the Chair does not simply replay these emotions and distractions for you. It consumes them. It removes them from your mind and your future. You do not forget; the memories and the lessons are yours forever. The emotions are not gone; if you choose to remember, you will be able to mourn your losses. Only the burden is removed.

Be careful. If you regret what you have never done while you can still do it, you drain yourself of potential joy.

(submitted by dhasenan - thank you!)

[knitmeatreasure]

Regarding the Two Snap To Snap To: does it only straighten actual tangles, or would it - for instance - unravel a knitted sweater as well?

It's meant to straighten tangles, but as with all magic intention is important and will is key.  If you wish to make a new sweater and need the old one taken apart, you could manage to make it work with the right tweaks.  There might be unintended consequences, but you can try.

[knitmeatreasure]

This is a very entertaining idea! May I have an item please?

The Universal Turntable: It began its life as a humble phonograph, but piece by piece it has been changed; the table itself now a soft leather, worked over with runes and oiled and stained; the needle now a spine from a manticore, the arm a bone from a sphinx’s hand, the horn a piece of shell, broken and worn soft by years of the sea’s passing where it rested on a siren’s shoal.

The magics on it mean you may put anything at all on the turntable, and gently rest the needle on it; when you crank it, the resultant music will play.

This isn’t the discordant nonsense sometimes produced by computers and modelling these days; this is pure and raw, as carefully formed as by any composer, true music with instrumentation that sometimes defies description or understanding, sounds that are unquestionably musical but perhaps stretched in a way that our ears are not fit to hear, not quite.

Dance to it, if you can.  Perhaps you will learn about whatever you’ve drawn the music from.  Sing along, if there are words; you may not know the language but you’ll pick up the syllables, and it may be a kind of magic all on its own.

Or maybe it’s just music, fit for a party, fit for the curious and the joyous and the artistic. What do you have to lose?

—

Want your own magic item?  Ask!  http://knitmeatreasure.tumblr.com/ask

[knitmeatreasure]

Your normal tumblr is magical enough. But if you had a touch to spare for me... ;)

Retuned Memory: There are stories, thousands of them, that if the light were just a little different or the music just a little off or the background radiation of the universe just a little higher or lower that you’d be able to see a parallel universe.  I don’t know if that’s true, but I do know that you can change the way your mind works with the right pitch, if you stretch that pitch through space and time.  

Plenty of witches know the right spells to change things just a little, to remember one fact, some incident now forgotten.  This artifact is far more powerful.  I do not know what it is made of; a silver-green metal, one that holds heat like gold and smells of jasmine and vetiver.  The runes on the sides are almost worn smooth; you can see them with your fingers more than you can your eyes, but be careful in doing so — you wouldn’t want to undo the enchantment.

It is shaped like a tuning fork; strike it gently against stone and it will hum; place the humming on the back of your neck, just below the edge of your skull, where it can resonate up into bone and brain and beyond.

It will take time, but you will remember everything you have forgotten, and forget everything you’ve ever remembered.  

You will still be you, and you will still have the skills you have, but in that moment, everything you’ve experienced and lost will be at your fingertips.

It can be a terrifying experience— you will not know your spouse or loved ones, but every person you’ve seen in passing and immediately put out of mind will be familiar.  You may not know the room you’re sitting in, but you will remember details of the willow tree outside your childhood home.  You will not remember your childhood home, but you will remember the squirrel that once stole your popcorn, the man that smiled at you in the drug store, the sound of your mother’s voice or the last thing she said before dying - but you will not remember she is your mother.

Context is hard.  Emotions are harder.  At least all you have to do is remember to silence the tuning fork and all will go back to the way it was.

Of course, then those truths will slip from you again — best do this with someone you trust in the room, to ask the right questions and write down the answers.  

—

Want your own magic item?  Ask!  http://knitmeatreasure.tumblr.com/ask

[knitmeatreasure]

May I have an item, if it's not too much trouble? Thanks!

Zeitan’s Fingers: There always comes a time when you must let someone else do your business for you and you’re not quite sure if you can trust them.  Spells that affect someone’s will directly are often black magic, but there are items you can use if you’d like to operate more in shades of grey.

These are false fingernails made of strips of copper and iron, hammered and cut and filed into soft, comfortable shapes.  Take a hair from your negotiator, and coil it carefully, and glue it under one of the fingernails when you put them on.

What the nails feel, your agent will feel, right in the spot where the hair used to grow.  A gentle stroke to indicate ‘yes’.  A press of the edge as a warning.  An incessant tap, tap, tap to distract them or a click of metal-on-metal to snap their attention back to focus.

One hair per nail, with the following reminders: hair grows in many places, and you have ten fingernails to work with.

—

Want your own magic item?  Ask!  http://knitmeatreasure.tumblr.com/ask

[knitmeatreasure]

Oh, yes please. My life needs more magic.

The Shield of Ivo: A small trinket indeed, and very old; as best as one can tell, it is made of ancient parchment, compressed in dozens of layers and then carved into the shape of a now unidentifiable coin, just an inch across.

This shield will quietly bend ill will around you, protecting you from its effects, leaving room for more kindness in your life.  You can call it a shield or you can call it a magnet — much like cold is really simply the absence of heat, if you believe in the innate good nature of all people then cruelty may simply be the absence of kindness.  Perhaps this treasure inclines people to kindness rather than removing their angry, ugly edges.  Perhaps this inclines you that way, and what you put out in the world is returned to you threefold.

Whatever the reasons for it working, it works.

—

Want your own magic item?  Ask!  http://knitmeatreasure.tumblr.com/ask

[knitmeatreasure]

May I have a magical item?

Liriope’s Ring: named for the naiad who is the mother of Narcissus, this ring is made of not an alloy but of hundreds of incredibly fine strands of hundreds of incredibly rare metals, each one unique, woven in a tangled pattern of infinite complexity.  

Wear it, and you will see your own reflection in the face of everyone you meet — the ways they are like you, the dreams in their hearts that match yours, the fears that you share.  Equally useful for making deals and making friends, but do be careful about using it for your own ends.  Liriope lost one child to the darkness of the mirror.  It is unlikely she would let a second meet such an end.

—

Want your own magic item?  Ask!  http://knitmeatreasure.tumblr.com/ask

[knitmeatreasure]

I'd love a Halloween item that belonged to a Monster Girl... hopefully one of the once-awesome now-maligned ones like Medusa, a Harpy, etc.

The Harpy’s Creel: an ancient reed basket, interwoven with feathers from a very old and very large bird, perhaps from the Harpies themselves.  Write the name of one who wronged you and their sin and put the writing in the basket.  Leave it out until it rains, somewhere the water will pool in the bottom.

When the rain is over, retrieve the basket before the water is dry and reach into the puddle.  The water will be surprisingly deep inside, and there will be something deep below the surface.  Draw it out, and it will be your just recompense for the sin, something whole and useful and worth whatever pain was visited upon you.

A warning, though.  Harpies deal in justice.  This can not be used to punish someone who does not deserve it.  If you try, you will draw something of your own from the water, something now ruined and beyond repair, payment for wasting their time.

—

Want your own magic item?  Ask!  http://knitmeatreasure.tumblr.com/ask

[knitmeatreasure]

May I have a magical item, please? :)

Blackheart Brush:   A brush made of bone and barbed wire and the hair of some feline species long dead.  A useful tool, this, with endless uses, of which this is only one:

To begin, you must make a potion with ingredients not hard to get, but that require planning — honey from bees who only pollinate poisonous flowers, ink made of roots dug at midnight and blood bled in autumn, cloth waxed and oiled by way of candles and lamps that lit the way for criminals.

Taken together they make dark parchment indeed, suitable for keeping awful secrets and planning assassinations.  Taken with the Blackheart’s Brush, they can be the weapon of assassination.

Pour the ink into the cloth.  Bring a ball the size of a fist, or an apple, or a heart.  Tie the pouch closed with nothing but your fingers.  Find a way in to the room in which they sleep.

Take the brush and dip it into your ink, and paint on the walls in ever increasing spirals.  Don’t mind the way it stains and oozes; when you’ve painted the final wall it will fade away, drawn in away from the light to hide in the plaster.  You will feel the brush heat up as you paint. Do not drop it, not until you are done.  Do not worry if the wire pierces you and adds your blood to the potion. Throw the last of the ink in a river, one that moves swiftly, when you are done.

When night comes and the room is dark, the death and poison and rot will come back out of the walls.  It will suffuse their mind and give them nightmares; it will burn their lungs and slow their heart.  They will die of fear or poison or suffocation — the question is not ‘which one’ but ‘which one first’.

There are many things you can do with the Blackheart Brush, and this is the kindest.  Perhaps it is good that no more can ever be made.

—

Want your own magic item?  Ask!  http://knitmeatreasure.tumblr.com/ask

[knitmeatreasure]

Oh man, I would love a magical item~! Thanks so much---

Most people name this plant the Silent Vine, though that’s not entirely correct.  There are all kinds of noises that don’t bother this plant, ones that occur peripherally or naturally.  If there was a word like silent that meant the opposite of intention or will, that’d be a much finer name.

Plant these seeds and whisper to them where they are.  Tell them what this place is for, and what activity will be occuring.  So long as the place is occupied, the seeds will grow slowly, tiny vines that curl up and flower in the spring, pale purple and blue and yellow, welcoming and fond.  Over time it will learn your rhythms, know if you only come when the moon is waxing or over weekends, and it will know when to expect motion and when to expect quiet.

Should the place become abandoned for more than its due time, that’s when the plant begins to grow.  The gentle spirals and emerald green of the vines will twist and darken; the flowers spring up and die in a matter of hours, and turn blood red, dripping petals down to coat the floor, leaving spines and thorns in their wake.  It will wrap the room to hide it away, tangle any who dare to enter.  It was fine protection for a witch’s working space should they be kidnapped or arrested or worse, and now and then it is used to wrap places that should be abandoned, where terrible things have happened, to keep them away from the world more than the other way around.

—

Want your own magic item?  Ask!  http://knitmeatreasure.tumblr.com/ask

[knitmeatreasure]

May I please have an item?

Substitute Sip: Take clay from the bed of a dried-up stream, roll it and form it and mark it with bones from a fish who died on land.  These charms can be made tiny, like slivers of fingernail, or large as a spoon.  The size does not matter so much as the use — drop it in a cup just before or after a drink is poured, and speak a quiet word.  The clay, so thirsty for its own water, will slowly drink what it is put in, and so you may avoid drinking it yourself, just miming the actions from time to time so no one else will know.  Use it to stay sober when you must, to avoid poison if that’s a problem.  These do not wear off — they become thirstier as time goes by, and it is best to keep them sealed up in glass and wax, well away from the potential for drinking all the liquid out of the air, or your skin.

The tiny ones are unobtrusive, but dangerous.  Do not swallow it — for your stomach is just another cup, one that never empties, and there is no guarantee the charm will ever be destroyed.  Its thirst will become yours, and no matter how much you drink it will absorb it before you can, becoming more and more powerful, until nothing you do will keep you alive, and it will drink every drop in your body until finally the husk that was you falls apart and leaves it exposed to drink from the very land and sky that surround it.

—

Want your own magic item?  Ask!  http://knitmeatreasure.tumblr.com/ask