I remember the first D&D character that I ever played (probably 30 years ago), he was a dwarven fighter, Darden SteelForge. I imagined him as muscle-bound, bruiser, a famous smith turned to the life of adventure. My GM at the time fed into this idea and gave me an amazing hammer, polished but still pitted from the life it had. It was a family heirloom passed down for centuries, it had been used to slay dragons, it had seen wars with goblins, taken down beholders, and now that power was mine.

I met my party in a tavern, as you are wont to do, and we were off to stop some farm raiding kobolds. In less than an hour we had our first encounter with the little beasts. It was my turn, and the little bugger was cowering before me, I drew my hammer back…. and asked the GM, what special properties did my hammer give me? Better hit, more damage, maybe fire damage, that would be cool (dwarves, forges and all), and she said, “It’s just a hammer.” I was dumbstruck, “But..it slayed dragons?”, she smiled and said, “Oh. That’s just for the story.”… Crestfallen I took my swing, and missed, horribly.

We finished the adventure, losing our wizard in the process, and it was time for looting the treasure the kobolds had collected. I didn’t want to fight over the things that the other three player wanted, I looked around, and nestled in the back of the cave was a dagger, not just any dagger… a +1 dagger. “Wait a minute. You mean to tell me that this little knife does the same damage as my “heirloom” and has a better chance to hit?!”, I stared at the GM, she just shrugged. As soon as we made it back to town, I sold the “ancient hammer” to a black smith for 5 silver, and never looked back.

Throughout my years of playing and GMing, I could never understand why players and GMs got so excited over the idea heirloom items. Sure, every once in a while you’d get that player that held onto that item or weapon forever, but chances are, after the first adventure, they never used it again. About 25 years ago I was running an AD&D campaign and I wanted an enemy that would stand out. This was about the time that Star Wars was making a comeback and Episode 1 was announced, so I thought what better way than to make a fighter with a light saber. Everything I came up with made the light saber either too weak for my fighter, or too powerful if the players got it. So I adjusted the damage and properties based on the level, and the more I developed that the more I realized that this was an heirloom weapon, something that the player wouldn’t throw away at the first chance cause there was a new toy. Something that, if stolen or lost, it would feel like a piece of them went with, and they couldn’t go to the smithy and replace it.

Here you will find some of the scalable weapons and items that I have created. They are not good for every GM/player and they may or may not fit into the design of your game, but give them a look and see.

As a side note, here is what I imagine my ‘heirloom’ hammer from above to be.

Hammer of SteelForge

-Michael