I like and agree with your thesis on how _treasure_ should be found and that it should have its own story and be an adventure hook in its own right. Also love the whole idea of making players think on how these weird effects can be used at all – much like with your spell list. I do wonder however if some of these come with instructions because in some cases I wonder if anyone would ever figure out on their own how to activate them. Or can you divinate that somehow?
It itches my fingers to add my own list right here but I fear that the fives of readers of my book series find this somehow and be spoilered. So I'll only put one very central item from there here:
Mr. Abdi's Lense
A milky lense of an indestructible, glass-like material framed in a ring of grey metal that cannot be scratched with a diamond cutter. If held above antedeluvian writing of the Mu civilization visually translates it into cuneiform script. Gifted by a mysterious dealer of antiques in Addis Abeba.
Also makes you wonder why cuneiform. Was the lens invented by a Sumerian guy? Does the script of Mu have some linguistic resemblance to Sumerian that makes it easy?
Yeah that's the point in my story as well: The protagonist is an archaeolinguist and he _can_ read cuneiform. But it's just a transliteration so the language still needs to be decoded/reconstructed. Unless, of course, you meet someone posessed by a spirit from that age or some such crazyness.
So, you get another long-ass comment from me :-)
I like and agree with your thesis on how _treasure_ should be found and that it should have its own story and be an adventure hook in its own right. Also love the whole idea of making players think on how these weird effects can be used at all – much like with your spell list. I do wonder however if some of these come with instructions because in some cases I wonder if anyone would ever figure out on their own how to activate them. Or can you divinate that somehow?
It itches my fingers to add my own list right here but I fear that the fives of readers of my book series find this somehow and be spoilered. So I'll only put one very central item from there here:
Mr. Abdi's Lense
A milky lense of an indestructible, glass-like material framed in a ring of grey metal that cannot be scratched with a diamond cutter. If held above antedeluvian writing of the Mu civilization visually translates it into cuneiform script. Gifted by a mysterious dealer of antiques in Addis Abeba.
Like the hook inherent in this item—translating Mu script is still hard, it’s just very tricky rather than impossible-hard.
Also makes you wonder why cuneiform. Was the lens invented by a Sumerian guy? Does the script of Mu have some linguistic resemblance to Sumerian that makes it easy?
Yeah that's the point in my story as well: The protagonist is an archaeolinguist and he _can_ read cuneiform. But it's just a transliteration so the language still needs to be decoded/reconstructed. Unless, of course, you meet someone posessed by a spirit from that age or some such crazyness.