Marco's Market of Magical Merchandise, An OSR Work by Philip Reed

Magic in a fantasy campaign can be as wild and wondrous as the gamemaster wishes. I’ve personally never been a fan of roleplaying games that try to lock the GM’s imagination behind a wall of rules and “balanced” game mechanics, instead preferring those games that embrace the concept of “do anything that makes you happy, so long as the players are having a blast and the story is fun for all.”

Within this book are 100 different magic items that I created to satisfy my desires and to entertain myself. These range from moderately mundane to overpowered objects that might ultimately destroy a campaign when placed in the wrong hands (such as the hands of a player character). As I wrote the different items that you will soon encounter, my only goal was to provide the gamemaster with enough of a hook to spark their imaginations and trigger ideas that I could have never come up with on my own. I’m a big believer in trusting the gamemaster to do what is best for their own game; my job is to add new tools to the GM’s bag of tricks.

In addition to the 100 items, I’ve included d100 rumors of magic items. Rumors are true or false, as determined by the gamemaster, and should be used to add some depth to your game sessions. The PCs certainly won’t act on every rumor, but each one dropped during a campaign makes the entire setting feel more alive.

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This PDF was created thanks to the support of 1,634 backers who joined in the Kickstarter campaign for Marco's Market of Magical Merchandise. Thank you to all of the supporters for making that campaign a success!