Charm of Many Things

Oh wow, this is funky

A partially finished crescent spiked moon to represent the charm of many things

An interesting thing inside the Book of Many Things, it came with an absolute ton of charms, 23 of them in fact. One to go with each of the 22 original Deck of Many Things cards, and one more, called the Charm of Many Things. This... this is intriguing, and vaguely calls to the Pathfinder Harrowing Curse. For the Charm of Many Things, "as an action, you can touch a willing creature other than yourself and bestow the effect of a single randomly determined card from the deck upon the target." Not quite like the harrowing curse, in which you get a willpower save to avoid. This thing, well, it's a charisma save instead lol (as in just talking them into wanting one. "Hey yo, do you want a really cool magic item?"). AND it's a card from the Deck of Many Things (assuming 13 or 22 card version, since the 66 card version is about 75% good), and as I've said in the Harrow page, the harrow deck is far tamer than the regular domt. And you don't need to have the deck on you. So this... this is a powerful charm.

Naturally, we had to make it lol.

Think about it before you use it though, do you really want to give the BBEG the wish spell?

Still, we have to make it lol. It's a "many things"! And honestly, I'd love to see how the players use this thing. I think I'll either play it that the players can choose which version of the deck (including harrow, tarot, hazard, etc) to apply the charm to, or it'll apply to the most recent deck that they found. We'll see how it goes when it comes up.

So, since charms in dnd are bestowed by legendary creatures, or are things received after opening an ancient tome or something, the DMG leaves it quite open, I decided to create an actual physical charm to bestow for this supernatural gift. We wanted something spikey, but good, like the kinda good and bad side showing at once. So after playing around with the design a little bit, we came up with this design, which kinda looks like a moon on one side, and crossed spikes on the other. I think it portrays the deck of many things well :D

Also it looks a little bit like a walking fish or something, something something evolution of the deck, I dunno lol. Looks cute and amusing though ^_^

Now, how to make it. We took that cardboard pressboard that we used in the deck of many more things instruction card, and cut a whole pile of copies of that shape that we wanted to create out of it, as well as some smaller side pieces to round out the charm when sanding (also this pic just looks pretty cool). And after gluing all of those together, we did just that, and began to round out and shape the charm. And then we proceeded to coat it in multiple layers of PVA glue with ample drying between, to give it a solid surface and firm up the whole thing more. Also, we needed to make the instruction tag, that will attach through the hole.

Though on that note, thinking about it, testing it, the hole through the side looks a lot better and more like a moon, rather than through the crossed spikes which definitely looks like a trilobite dragging something lol. So definitely keeping the hole on the side.

On that note, we need to make an instruction card. And, while not wanting to use the metal tag I used in the testing photos (it's my really tiny 'flat hard surface' to use a hole-punch on), I did use it as a template for size and shape, and used some convenient, quite sturdy purple plastic from a candy container as the material. Also we ended up cutting out the shape for the back of the tag, so it has a purple surround.

With that finished unexpectedly quickly (also hand-written, because I really didn't want to muck around with printing to this shape), it gets multiple coats of nailpolish topcoat for strength (four coats to be exact, and many days of drying between), and at long last the tag is attached! The woodgrain didn't show through the topcoat, which I somewhat expected, but with that topcoating it is finished! It's glossy, it's wood-tone, it's got an instruction tag, it's lookin' good. The charm of many things is complete!

Made June 20, 2024 		A piece of looseleaf with the waxing crescent moon shape and crossed spikes coming through the inside of the curve. It's partially cut out from the paper, as I forgot to take a photo before cutting it out.The back of the looseleaf pack pressboard with the earlier rectangle removed, and four tracings of the spiked crescent shape drawn on, and the template sitting above the drawings, almost looking like a handful of fish jumping out of a pool in a way.

Kabutroid holding the stacked cutouts of cardboard showing the approximate thickness that the charm will have, almost a centimeter thick. The back of the pressboard has a pile of cutouts removed from it in a nice symmetrical pattern.The charm cut out and partially beginning to be carved and sanded into shape, above a piece of cardboard with shavings, sandpaper, and the initial cutout template on it.

The two sides of the information tag, giving the details of the charm on one side, and a drawing of the crescent spikes on the other, laying on top of the candy bin that provided the plastic. The bin states Heroes - share good times, with a handful of mini chocolate bars beneath. I like the idea that the game heroes will share the good time of seeing what crazy stuff this charm could do.Kabutroid holding the slightly more sanded and carved charm with the tag attached in her hand, above the clipboard.

The charm and tag sitting on a wooden table, with the charm now being glossy smooth from sanding and layers of glue, yet with the colour of the cardboard still visible beneath the layers.The charm held up by two head pins going through pieces of wood for a stand, painted a wood brown with brush strokes to resemble wood grain. Paint tubes and a Sheffield coffee mug can be seen in the background, as well as paint palettes, one of which the charm and stand are sitting in, sitting on a wooden table.

The glossy brown charm, somewhat looking like two overlapped crescent moons with the hole on one side to attach the tag, sitting on a glossy purple surface, which was more or less the same type of container that was used to make the tag. The tag itself has some glare in the photo form the sun, but it's attached well with three chainmaille rings decreasing in size towards the tag, and looks great!