Magic item (Dungeons & Dragons)

In the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game, a magic item is any object that has magic powers inherent in it. These items may act on their own or be the tools of the character possessing them. Magic items have been prevalent in the game in every edition and setting, from the original edition in 1974 until the modern fifth edition. In addition to jewels and gold coins, they form part of the treasure that the players often seek in a dungeon. Magic items are generally found in treasure hoards, or recovered from fallen opponents; sometimes, a powerful or important magic item is the object of a quest.

1st edition AD&D
In the first edition, all artifacts are classed as miscellaneous magic items, even ones that are weapons, armor, or rings. Each artifact has a certain number of Minor, Major, and Prime Powers, and of Minor, Major, and Side Effects which trigger when the item is acquired, or its Major and Prime Powers are used. The powers and effects are selected by the DM from a set of lists, so that players cannot predict the artifact's powers.

2nd edition
In 1994, Encyclopedia Magica Volume One, the first of a four-volume set, was published. The series lists all of the magical items published in two decades of TSR products from "the original Dungeons & Dragons woodgrain and white box set and the first issue of The Strategic Review right up to the last product published in December of 1993". The books total more than 1500 pages across the four volumes and each volume contains over 1000 magic items. There was "no attempt to correct rule imbalances, edit entries, or even match game mechanics to one particular edition of the game".

3rd edition
The 3.5 edition book Magic Item Compendium (2007) was a capstone book that reprinted, updated, organized, and regularized "numerous 3e magic items". Andy Collins, the lead designer on the project, "started this process by identifying the 'big six' magic items that took up the majority of characters' item slots: magic weapons; magic armor & shields; rings of protection; cloaks of resistance; amulets of natural armor; and ability-score boosters". Collins "identified the reasons that these [magic] items were particularly well-loved: they were cost effective, they could be improved, there was nothing else as good in their slots, they were simple, they didn't take time to activate [and] they provided effects that were required for characters to stay competitive". With this in mind, the designers then pulled items from all the 3rd and 3.5 edition books and "after looking through about 2000 magic items, they looted the best 1000 or so".

The Magic Item Compendium also showed some early hallmarks of 4th edition design: items were marked levels and some items appeared at multiple strengths. It also introduced the idea of item sets, where items of a set would improve as more were collected, which would then reappear in the 4th edition book Adventurer's Vault 2 (2009).

4th edition
Ritual scrolls are single use consumable items, each of which contains a specific ritual (4th edition's equivalent of non-combat spells), halves the time required to perform that ritual and allows it to be performed without a ritual book. After it has been expended, a ritual scroll crumbles to dust. Unlike the scrolls of previous editions, 4th edition's scrolls are not classified as magical items.

5th edition
The 5th edition Dungeon Master's Guide introduced the concept of Item Rarity, in which magic items are given a rating between Common, Uncommon, Rare, Very Rare, and Legendary to denote the frequency in which this item is expected to be found within the game. The only Common magic item to appear in the Dungeon Master's Guide is the Potion of Healing, with an additional list of Common items appearing in the supplementary book Xanathar's Guide to Everything. Artifacts act as a 6th Rarity category for items, such as the Hand of Vecna or the Wand of Orcus, in which there is only one of this item in existence. The categories of magic items in 5th edition is Armour, Potions, Rings, Rods, Scrolls, Staffs, Wands, Weapons, and Wondrous Items (Which acts as a miscellaneous category). Some items require attunement to be used, limiting the number of items a character can benefit from at once to 3 attunable items.

Major artifacts
Major artifacts include the ones in the following table. They are generally unique and exist for a specific purpose. Less powerful or potent artifacts, or ones that are not unique, are generally called minor artifacts.

Other fantasy stories

 * The Hand and Eye of Vecna bear a similarity to items appearing within Michael Moorcock's Corum novels: A left hand and left eye which are able to grant whoever replaces their existing hand and eye with them unusual powers.
 * Ioun stones (pronounced EYE-oon ) are based on similar artifacts from Jack Vance's Dying Earth series. When functioning, they float in a circular pattern around their bearer's head, and grant various benefits based on their color and shape Two stones of the same type will repel each other, and when drained of power, a stone becomes a dull grey, but still possesses the characteristic floating. While useless to a mage, burned out stones can still yield a single psionic power point to a psionic character in 3rd and 3.5 editions. In the original Jack Vance stories Ioun stones are highly prized by arch-magicians, and are acquired from a race known as the archveults, who mine them from remnants of dead stars (in his book Rhialto the Marvellous). In 2E Dungeons & Dragons it had been conjectured in Dragon magazine that Ioun stones instead come from the Positive Material Plane. Dragon #174 featured an article that included many dozens of new types of ioun stone, as well as an article about an elemental lord who hoards ioun stones on his home plane of radiance.  Under 3.0/3.5 editions of the rules they are instead manufactured by spellcasters in the same manner as other magical items.
 * The Vorpal Sword is taken from Lewis Carrol's poem "Jabberwocky". In Dungeons & Dragons, the sword has specific properties relating to beheading, which is the method the blade in the poem uses to slay the titular monster.

Folklore and mythology

 * The Carpet of Flying is based upon Magic Carpets, which originate in Persian myths and were popularized in media through 1001 Arabian Nights and other adaptations.
 * Winged Boots bear a similarity to the Winged Sandals worn by Hermes in Greek Mythology.
 * The Broom of Flying is based upon Wiccan Rituals and artwork depicting Witches soaring through the air while riding Broomsticks.
 * The Mirror of Life Trapping, a mirror which can steal and trap the souls of living persons, evokes the superstitions of several cultures surrounding mirror's ability to steal souls. During the Jewish mourning process of Shiva, mirrors in a house are to be covered in order to prevent the soul of the deceased from being trapped within them.
 * The Flametongue, a sword with a blade engulfed in flame, is similar to other flaming swords appearing in mythology. Some examples of these are Dyrnwyn of Welsh Medieval tradition, and in some writings the Sword of Surtr is described as being flaming.