I have a new campaign coming up (kinda western/frontier/arcanepunk theme lol) and two of the characters are gonna start with some "strange-unknown-magical-item".
summary of their backstory: They're siblings, one is a wizard and another is a sorcerer. They were adopted by an old wizard man who was seeking out a protege. The wizardPC ended up his apprentice and the sorcererPC ended up the blacksheep. WizardPC discovered that the Ancient Relic(tm) that they were working on was bad-news and oldman was gonna use it for....???.... so wizardPC and SorcererPC stole it and ran off to the start of the campaign.
I know I don't want it to be something they can use without proper knowledge. I want it to be something that can be relevant throughout the whole campaign. And I know I want Fiends to play an important role as antagonists throughout the campaign.
But I have no clue what this McGuffin is gonna be yet lol ideas??
Have you got Wildemount? Look up Arms of the betrayer section.
The Arms of the Betrayers are sentient weapons forged from the souls of fiends by the Betrayer Gods for their humanoid champions. (See “Lesser Idols” in chapter 1 for more details.) These artifacts are more than just magic items. They are powerful sentient beings, filled with fury and eager to be wielded—and to spill blood.
Betrayer Artifact Properties
The Arms of the Betrayers advance in power in the same manner as the Vestiges of Divergence (see the previous section). In its dormant state, each of these artifacts has one minor beneficial property and one minor detrimental property. When the artifact attains an awakened state, it gains an additional minor beneficial property and an additional minor detrimental property. When the item reaches its exalted state, it gains a major beneficial property. See “Artifact Properties” in chapter 7 of the Dungeon Master’s Guide for more information.
Maybe there is a reason that it has brought the two to the town, maybe something ancient lies buried and trapped beneath calling out to its weapon.
you could also take inspiration from a comic series called The Sixth Gun
The Sixth Gun takes place in the old west during the late 1880s. The story centers around a set of six pistols, each imbued with dark powers. The wielder of each pistol gains an ability unique to the weapon, and is tied to the pistol until their death. The main protagonists, Becky Montcrief and Drake Sinclair attempt to collect the Six and learn their secrets. Antagonists in the series include General Hume and his four horsemen, the Knights of Solomon, the Sword of Abraham, and the Grey Witch.
A magical pistol that contains the dormant soul of an imprisoned Rakshasha king and whispers to its owner dark secrets and promises of wealth and power.
If you really want to add icing to that you could homebrew the BladeSinger class into a bulletsinger and convince your wizard to play it ;)
However you want it to? Also it might be worth seeing if you can find the details of the Runeterra content, there was an excellent Fighter subclass they released (before taking away!) called the renegade that was dex and gun based with options of being sniper focussed or pistol focussed.
Favoring speed and style over raw power, a renegade who adopts the Pistoleer form wields a small flintlock handgun. As an action on your turn, you can target a creature within 30 feet and shoot. Make a ranged attack roll against the target. You are proficient with the attack, and on a hit, the attack deals piercing damage equal to 1d6 + your Dexterity modifier.
The number of shots you can fire during a single action increases when you reach higher levels in this subclass: two shots at 5th level, three shots at 11th level, and four shots at 20th level. The shots can target the same creature or different creatures. Make a separate attack roll for each shot.
also
You equip your firearm with a targeting mechanism. If you haven't moved this turn, you can aim down your sights as a bonus action, reducing your speed to 0 and granting you advantage on all attacks you make using your Gunfighter's Form feature until the end of your turn.
It’s just a scootch anachronistic, but a soma cube made of some unknown, slightly greasy feeling metal. They grabbed the dissected pieces of the cube off a table on their way out the door and as they increase in levels, they learn first to assemble it and then to construct different shapes, each one of which corresponds to a different fiend. Building the fiend’s shape puts them in touch with it somehow. Interaction with that fiend leads them to the next shape, and thus the fiends draw them tighter and tighter into the web. Maybe the fiends even play a part in the gradual corruption of friendly old John Hammond.
Technically speaking, this is more of a doohickey than a mcguffin, but I think it works.
I have a new campaign coming up (kinda western/frontier/arcanepunk theme lol) and two of the characters are gonna start with some "strange-unknown-magical-item".
summary of their backstory: They're siblings, one is a wizard and another is a sorcerer. They were adopted by an old wizard man who was seeking out a protege. The wizardPC ended up his apprentice and the sorcererPC ended up the blacksheep. WizardPC discovered that the Ancient Relic(tm) that they were working on was bad-news and oldman was gonna use it for....???.... so wizardPC and SorcererPC stole it and ran off to the start of the campaign.
I know I don't want it to be something they can use without proper knowledge. I want it to be something that can be relevant throughout the whole campaign. And I know I want Fiends to play an important role as antagonists throughout the campaign.
But I have no clue what this McGuffin is gonna be yet lol ideas??
Have you got Wildemount? Look up Arms of the betrayer section.
The Arms of the Betrayers are sentient weapons forged from the souls of fiends by the Betrayer Gods for their humanoid champions. (See “Lesser Idols” in chapter 1 for more details.) These artifacts are more than just magic items. They are powerful sentient beings, filled with fury and eager to be wielded—and to spill blood.
Betrayer Artifact Properties
The Arms of the Betrayers advance in power in the same manner as the Vestiges of Divergence (see the previous section). In its dormant state, each of these artifacts has one minor beneficial property and one minor detrimental property. When the artifact attains an awakened state, it gains an additional minor beneficial property and an additional minor detrimental property. When the item reaches its exalted state, it gains a major beneficial property. See “Artifact Properties” in chapter 7 of the Dungeon Master’s Guide for more information.
Maybe there is a reason that it has brought the two to the town, maybe something ancient lies buried and trapped beneath calling out to its weapon.
you could also take inspiration from a comic series called The Sixth Gun
The Sixth Gun takes place in the old west during the late 1880s. The story centers around a set of six pistols, each imbued with dark powers. The wielder of each pistol gains an ability unique to the weapon, and is tied to the pistol until their death. The main protagonists, Becky Montcrief and Drake Sinclair attempt to collect the Six and learn their secrets. Antagonists in the series include General Hume and his four horsemen, the Knights of Solomon, the Sword of Abraham, and the Grey Witch.
A magical pistol that contains the dormant soul of an imprisoned Rakshasha king and whispers to its owner dark secrets and promises of wealth and power.
If you really want to add icing to that you could homebrew the BladeSinger class into a bulletsinger and convince your wizard to play it ;)
Reeeeeeally like that sixth gun idea o-o (never heard of it before!)
and I'm very intrigued to how a "bulletsinger" would work!
However you want it to? Also it might be worth seeing if you can find the details of the Runeterra content, there was an excellent Fighter subclass they released (before taking away!) called the renegade that was dex and gun based with options of being sniper focussed or pistol focussed.
Favoring speed and style over raw power, a renegade who adopts the Pistoleer form wields a small flintlock handgun. As an action on your turn, you can target a creature within 30 feet and shoot. Make a ranged attack roll against the target. You are proficient with the attack, and on a hit, the attack deals piercing damage equal to 1d6 + your Dexterity modifier.
The number of shots you can fire during a single action increases when you reach higher levels in this subclass: two shots at 5th level, three shots at 11th level, and four shots at 20th level. The shots can target the same creature or different creatures. Make a separate attack roll for each shot.
also
You equip your firearm with a targeting mechanism. If you haven't moved this turn, you can aim down your sights as a bonus action, reducing your speed to 0 and granting you advantage on all attacks you make using your Gunfighter's Form feature until the end of your turn.
It’s just a scootch anachronistic, but a soma cube made of some unknown, slightly greasy feeling metal. They grabbed the dissected pieces of the cube off a table on their way out the door and as they increase in levels, they learn first to assemble it and then to construct different shapes, each one of which corresponds to a different fiend. Building the fiend’s shape puts them in touch with it somehow. Interaction with that fiend leads them to the next shape, and thus the fiends draw them tighter and tighter into the web. Maybe the fiends even play a part in the gradual corruption of friendly old John Hammond.
Technically speaking, this is more of a doohickey than a mcguffin, but I think it works.