A Player's Guide to Artifacts
Today we will look at the magic items every player craves for their character. Artifacts are the most powerful of magical items. The ultimate objects with their own personality and powers make it easier to fight those CR20 creatures when you reach higher levels.
What makes an Artifact
Artifacts have certain universal properties, while some have properties that are unique to the type of item it is. For example, a weapon will have attack and damage bonuses, but a book won’t.
Artifact Random Properties - All artifacts have at least one beneficial and detrimental property. Those properties fall into two categories - minor and major. Some minor properties sure don’t feel minor, while some major properties elicit a shoulder shrug. Tables for each category are provided in the Dungeon Master’s Guide. An artifact's maximum number of properties is four minor beneficial, four detrimental, and two major beneficial and two detrimental. Many DM’s will have you roll on these tables based on the item’s requirements. Your DM can also create their own properties, so don’t get too excited when you find an item of immense power until you have read its description.
Attack/Damage bonuses - Weapons will always have an attack bonus, and many will deal additional damage.
Attunement - You must attune to all artifacts. Seems obvious, but it’s worth mentioning. Attuning to some items will require a Saving Throw of one sort or another if you don’t meet certain criteria. Artifacts are one of the few things left in D&D where your alignment is important. Failing your save means you’ll take damage or worse. Even making a save can have you taking damage. Oddly enough, you’ll always be able to attune to the item regardless of your saving throw result.
Core Properties - This is the juicy part of an artifact. They vary wildly, and we’ll discuss them in more detail below.
Curse - Yep, it’s not all sunshine and roses when you find your fancy new toy.
Destruction - You can’t just throw the Hand of Vecna into the fire and expect it to burn. Artifacts have their own special and very difficult methods of destruction, and a select few cannot be destroyed. It’s usually the evil items or going to Hell. Why are we not surprised?
Lore - Great items need great stories. It’s important to know where such a powerful item came from. Who doesn’t love to know what other famous heroes wielded a mighty weapon? An Artifact is a character, so it should have a backstory just like yours. If nothing else, the lore for these items can make for some great roleplay and influence how the DM plays the artifact.
Personality - Certain artifacts possess sentience and personality, usually, but not limited to, weapons. Your Artifact is now, for all intents and purposes, an NPC. It just happens to be one that you carry around with you. The Artifact’s personality can make it your best friend or convince you to do things that aren’t good for your health. You’ll want to stay on the artifact’s good side too. Otherwise, it can deny you the use of any or all of its abilities.
Now that we know the basics behind an Artifact let’s look at the items themselves. Each artifact will be given an overall letter grade (A - F), and each individual property of an item will be ranked similarly to how we did it in The Player’s Guide to the Deck of Many things.
Excellent - This is the reason why you crave this item.
Good - A strong property that’s useful daily.
Meh - Positive that does little or negative that’s annoying but manageable.
Ugh - You still want the item but plan on it being an ongoing issue.
F*&k me - You may want to think twice about attuning to this item.
We’ll only be looking at core D&D Artifacts, so that eliminates items from Critical Role, Eberron, and a few other books. There are only so many hours in the day, and my kids complain when I don’t feed them.
Axe of the Dwarvish Lords
Weapon (battleaxe), artifact (requires attunement)
Seeing the peril his people faced, a young dwarf prince came to believe that his people needed something to unite them. Thus, he set out to forge a weapon that would be such a symbol.
Venturing deep under the mountains, deeper than any dwarf had ever delved, the young prince came to the blazing heart of a great volcano. With the aid of Moradin, the dwarven god of creation, he first crafted four great tools: the Brutal Pick, the Earthheart Forge, the Anvil of Songs, and the Shaping Hammer. With them, he forged the Axe of the Dwarvish Lords.
Armed with the artifact, the prince returned to the dwarf clans and brought peace. His axe ended grudges and answered slights. The clans became allies, and they threw back their enemies and enjoyed an era of prosperity. This young dwarf is remembered as the First King. When he became old, he passed the weapon, which had become his badge of office, to his heir. The rightful inheritors passed the axe on for many generations.
Later, in a dark era marked by treachery and wickedness, the axe was lost in a bloody civil war fomented by greed for its power and the status it bestowed. Centuries later, the dwarves still search for the axe, and many adventurers have made careers of chasing after rumors and plundering old vaults to find it.
See what I mean about lore being fun?
The Axe is (obviously) a weapon, granting a +3 bonus to attack and damage rolls, which is extremely helpful when fighting an angry beholder. On top of that, the Axe has all the properties of three other magic items.
Belt of dwarvenkind. Your Constitution score increases by 2, to a maximum of 20. You have advantage on Charisma (Persuasion) checks made when interacting with dwarves. If you’re a dwarf, every morning there’s a 50 percent chance you’ll have grown a full beard if you're capable of growing one or a visibly thicker beard if you already have one. If you’re not a dwarf, then you have advantage on saving throws against poison, resistance against poison damage, darkvision out to a range of 60 feet, and you can speak, read, and write Dwarvish. - Excellent
Dwarven Thrower. This magic weapon gives you a +3 bonus to attack and damage rolls. Now you know why you have the attack bonuses you do. Don’t be greedy; the bonuses do not stack. The axe has the thrown property with a normal range of 20 feet and a long range of 60 feet. When you hit with a ranged attack using this weapon, it deals an extra 1d8 damage or, if the target is a giant, 2d8 damage. Immediately after the attack, the weapon flies back to your hand. You know, just like Thor’s hammer. - Excellent
Sword of Sharpness. When you hit, you do maximum damage. Does it mean you don’t get to roll your precious dice? Yes, it does, but it also means you have a greater chance of describing how you deliver the killing blow. When you roll a 20 on the attack roll, add an extra 14 slashing damage. Then roll another d20. If you roll a 20, you cut off one of the target's limbs. You get to make up for some of the lost dice rolls and cut off a mind flayer’s arm. If the creature has no limb to sever, you lop off a portion of its body instead. Last but not least, you can have the axe shine a bright light in a 10-foot radius and dim light for an additional 10 feet. It feels like a throw-in, but we’ll take it - Excellent
Random Properties. The Axe has 2 minor beneficial properties, 1 major beneficial property, and 2 minor detrimental properties. You could be looking at being able to cast 3 spells from the axe while gaining forty pounds and not being able to smell. The benefits far outweigh the negative properties, in my opinion.
Now we get to the fun stuff. The Axe of the Dwarvish Lords core properties.
Blessings of Moradin. If you thought gaining resistance to poison was nice, you’ll be doubly excited to know that if you’re a dwarf, you have immunity to poison. Your darkvision range increases by 60 feet, giving you 120 feet total. Finally, you gain proficiency with artisan tools related to blacksmithing, brewing, and stonemasonry. I know it’s not very exciting, but proficiency in those tools can be quite helpful if you use our tools & kits homebrew system. - Good
Conjure an Earth Elemental. Once a day, you can cast conjure elemental from the Axe and summon an earth elemental. It’s a 5th-level spell, and your new best friend has 126 hit points and can smash creatures with its’ big rock hands twice on its turn. - Excellent
Travel the Depths. Once every three days, you can use an action to touch the axe to a fixed piece of dwarven stonework and cast the teleport spell from the axe. It’s limited because the stone needs to be of dwarven craftsmanship, so work on your argument that the dungeon your wandering around was made by dwarves. - Meh
Curse. With the good, and there’s a lot of good, comes the bad. The artifact comes complete with its very own curse. The curse only affects you if you’ve attuned to it and are not a dwarf. That’s probably because the curse slowly transforms your physical appearance into that of a dwarf. If you’re an elf, you’ll still be an elf and retain all your racial traits. You’ll just look like a dwarf. Make sure you undo this by using an item or spell that can remove a curse before you go visit your mom, or you may give her a heart attack. - Ugh
Destroying the Artifact. I’m not sure why anyone you want to destroy such a great weapon, but it can be done. It’s quite simple. All you have to do is to melt it down in the Earthheart Forge. I am confident when I say you won’t be strolling into Eartheart with the intent of destroying one of the dwarves’ greatest creations and not running into some resistance. It must remain in the burning forge for fifty years before it finally succumbs to the fire and is consumed, meaning someone has a long guard duty shift coming up.
Overall Grade: A
The curse is the only thing holding this back from being a solid A+. It’s not the worst curse in the world, and it could make for some fun roleplay. Whether that roleplay is your friend making fun of you or your character being in real peril, holds it back just a tiny bit.
Baba Yaga’s Mortar and Pestle
Wondrous Item, artifact (requires attunement)
The creations of the immortal hag Baba Yaga defy the laws of mortal magic. Among the notorious implements that cement her legend on countless worlds are the artifacts that propel her through the planes: Baba Yaga's Mortar and Pestle. These signature tools of Baba Yaga are a single artifact for purposes of attunement. Should the two objects become separated, the pestle appears next to the mortar at the next dawn.
That’s not lore, just a bullshit opening paragraph. It’s important to know that mortar and pestle can’t be separated, but that could easily be described below and replaced with some of the insane amounts of information out there about the mother of all hags. It’s disappointing but not terribly surprising, given the lack of lore provided in later sourcebooks.
Random Properties. Baba Yaga’s Mortar and Pestle comes with 2 minor beneficial properties, 1 major beneficial property, and 1 minor detrimental property. It’s a real positive for this item. I’ll take a 3-to-1 split all day long. -Good
The item has two individual pieces, each with its own unique properties.
Properties of the Mortar. The mortar is a Tiny wooden bowl. However, the mortar increases in size to accommodate anything you place inside, all the way up to a large creature. You can also carry a lot of gold this way, but the mortar has a major drawback. The weight of everything in the bowl and the bowl itself can get extremely heavy and cumbersome. It’s not like a bag of holding you can put a living creature in, so buy a sled and horses if you plan on lugging the mortar around after you capture an aboleth and place it in the bowl for transport. - Meh
Properties of the Pestle. The pestle is a 6-inch-long, worn wooden tool that can turn into a magic weapon. A wizard rarely dives into melee combat if they know was good for them. If they decide today’s the day to crack some skulls, you can use an action to transform the pestle into a +3 quarterstaff. The pestle in quarterstaff form has 12 charges. When you hit with a melee attack, you can expend up to 3 of its charges to deal an extra 1d8 force damage for each charge expended. Who needs the fireball spell when you can deliver over 30 points of damage with a single strike? Ask us again after the wizard’s been hit upside the head with an axe because they have a 15 AC. The pestle regains all expended charges daily at dawn. - Good
Perfect Tools. You need to hold both the mortar and pestle to use this property. Using an action, you can summon any nonmagical plant, mineral, or fluid and an amount of the material worth 10 gp or less, filling the mortar. Once you use this action, you can't do so again until you finish a short or long rest. My initial reaction when reading this was, “who cares?”. The items can also be used as alchemist's supplies, brewer's supplies, cook's utensils, an herbalism kit, and a poisoner's kit. You have advantage on any check you make using the artifact as one of these tools. It doesn’t do anything for me…yet. - Meh
Primal Parts. For this property to shine, you’ll need to combine it with the properties of the mortar. As an action, the pestle will grind the crap out of anything in the mortar. It’s great if you need to smash up some herbs for a potion or crush the black peppercorns you need for dinner. At the start of each turn, whatever is in the mortar takes 4d10 force damage. If this reduces the target's hit points to 0, the target is reduced to powder, pulp, or paste.
If you can figure out a way to trap a creature you’re fighting in the mortar, this becomes quite the deadly weapon. Such low-level spells as entangle and web can be cast to restrain someone or something in the bowl while the pestle smashes it into a pulp. I’m betting aberrations, beasts, fey, and other flesh and bone will turn into lovely paste, but constructs will become a fine powder. Even more exciting, or gross, depending on your viewpoint, is you can have the mortar separate its contents-like powdered bone, crushed herbs, and pulped organs, into separate piles. - Good
Traverse the Night. Teleportation without bothering with the teleport spell. There are some restrictions to this property. You have to be inside the mortar to activate this property, so the number of people is limited. It must be a specific destination, but you don’t have to know where it is or have been there before. The destination must be within 1,000 miles of you. It’s not instantaneous, as you arrive at the location 1 hour later or, if it is night, 1 minute later. Overall, it’s a good but not great property - Good
Bones Know Their Home. If you want to travel to a different plane, you can throw the paste of the kobold you ground up and name a location on a different plane of existence or a different world on the Material Plane. The caveat is the creature you ground up needs to be from the Plane you want to travel to. It severely limits this property, but not enough to drop into the meh tier - Good
Destroying the Artifact. The mortar and pestle are destroyed if they are crushed underfoot by the Dancing Hut of Baba Yaga or by Baba Yaga herself. I recommend not trying either of these. Baba Yaga is a fearsome creature, and the hut will most definitely try to crush you along with the mortar and pestle.
Overall Grade: C+
Baba Yaga’s Mortar and Pestle has some neat properties but is limited in scope. Many of the other properties have very specific uses. For example, if you’re an alchemist and, for some reason, you’ve lost your tools and don’t already have advantage with them, the item is pretty good. Otherwise, not so much.
Blade of Avernus
Weapon (longsword), artifact (requires attunement)
There is no lore in the description found on D&D Beyond, meaning you’ll have to buy Baldur’s Gate: Descent into Avernus if you want any additional information. Which is bullshit.
Magic Weapon. The artifact is essentially a vorpal sword with additional properties. The weapon has a +3 bonus to attack and damage and resistance to slashing damage. Where it gets fun is when you roll a 20 on the die. If the creature has at least one head, you cut one off. I love the line in the weapon’s description. “The creature dies if it can't survive without the lost head.” It does have some limitations, though. Immunity to slashing damage? You’re not cutting off the head. Doesn't have or need a head, you’re out of luck. If it has legendary actions, or the GM decides that the creature is too big for its head to be cut off with this weapon, forget about it. Hopefully, you’ll find some solace in the fact the creature instead takes an extra 6d8 slashing damage. Not as much fun, but nothing to snort at either. - Excellent.
Random Properties. The sword has 2 minor beneficial properties, 1 major beneficial property, and 1 major detrimental property, which is suppressed, while the sword is attuned to an archdevil, which you are not. A major detrimental takes it down a notch - Good
Ruler of Avernus. Ever want a devil as your BFF? With the artifact, you can use an action to try and charm a devil. The saving throw DC is great (DC 22 Charisma), and if the devil fails, they are charmed by you for 1 hour. While charmed in this way, the devil follows your orders to the best of its ability. If you command the devil to do something it perceives as suicidal, the effect ends, and you can no longer use this sword's power against that devil. - Good
Infernal Recall. You can use the sword to cast word of recall, meaning you and up to five willing creatures within 5 feet of you instantly teleport to a previously designated sanctuary. The issue is the creatures transported will appear in an unoccupied space within 30 feet of the current ruler of Avernus or a sanctuary you designate if you rule Avernus. So if you don’t rule Avernus, be ready to say hi to an Archduke of Hell. - Meh
Destroying the Artifact. Drop it into the River Styx or into the forge that created it.
Overall Grade: B-
The Blade of Avernus is adventure specific, limiting how often you’ll use some of the properties. If you vacation in Hell, it’s great. If not, you’ve got a vorpal sword that can charm devils.
Book of Exalted Deeds
Wondrous Item, artifact (requires attunement by a creature of good alignment)
The definitive treatise on all that is good in the multiverse, the fabled Book of Exalted Deeds figures prominently in many religions. Rather than being a scripture devoted to a particular faith, the book’s various authors filled the pages with their own vision of true virtue, providing guidance for defeating evil.
The Book of Exalted Deeds rarely lingers in one place. As soon as the book is read, it vanishes to some other corner of the multiverse where its moral guidance can bring light to a darkened world. Although attempts have been made to copy the work, efforts to do so fail to capture its magical nature or translate the benefits it offers to those pure of heart and firm of purpose.
A heavy clasp, wrought to look like angel wings, keeps the book’s contents secure.
Not much in the way of a backstory but a nice little description. It’s better than nothing.
You need to be of good alignment to attune to the book. Once again, alignment is important and shouldn’t be much of an issue. If you’ve been allowed to play an evil character, don’t even try it, or you’ll take 24d6 radiant damage that cannot be avoided. Ouch.
It’s not an item you can use right away since you must spend 80 hours reading and studying the book to digest its contents and gain its benefits. Plan on a minimum of two weeks before you can unlock all the artifact’s properties. If you fail to perform at least one act of kindness or generosity every ten days, or if you willingly perform an evil act, kiss your artifact goodbye. No kicking puppies, and be sure to make your weekly donation to the church. - Good
Random Properties. It’s only beneficial properties for this artifact, with 2 minor beneficial properties and 2 major beneficial properties. - Excellent
Increased Wisdom. After those 80 hours of reading, your Wisdom increase by 2 to a maximum of 24. - Excellent
Enlighted Magic. If you haven’t realized by now, this artifact is best utilized by either a cleric or paladin. Any spell slot you expend to cast a cleric, or paladin spell counts as a spell slot of one level higher. More healing and better smites. - Excellent (if a cleric or paladin).
Halo. Once you’ve read and studied the book, you gain a protective halo. This halo sheds bright light in a 10-foot radius and dim light for an additional 10 feet. Underwhelming, but hang on a second before you pass judgment. The halo gives you advantage on Charisma (Persuasion) checks made to interact with good creatures and Charisma (Intimidation) checks made to interact with evil creatures. That’s a little better, but there’s more. Fiends and undead within the halo’s bright light make attack rolls against you with disadvantage. We’re usually talking melee attacks, and the GM will be sad when they roll two dice and take the lower. Add all three of these properties together, and you get… - Excellent
Destroying the Artifact. It’s not known how to destroy the book, but you can make sure no one can use it for up to 100 years by throwing it into the river Styx.
Overall Grade: A-
The only thing holding this book back is it’s at its most useful when used by a cleric or paladin. While any good creature can attune to the book, your druid not being to take advantage of the enlighten magic property takes it down a tad.
Book of Vile Darkness
Wondrous Item, artifact (requires attunement)
The contents of this foul manuscript of ineffable wickedness are the meat and drink of those in evil’s thrall. No mortal was meant to know the secrets it contains, knowledge so horrid that to even glimpse the scrawled pages invites madness.
Most believe the lich-god Vecna authored the Book of Vile Darkness. He recorded in its pages every diseased idea, every unhinged thought, and every example of blackest magic he came across or devised. Vecna covered every vile topic he could, making the book a gruesome catalog of all mortal wrongs.
Other practitioners of evil have held the book and added their own input to its catalog of vile knowledge. Their additions are clear, for the writers of later works stitched whatever they were writing into the tome or, in some cases, made notations and additions to existing text. There are places where pages are missing, torn, or covered so completely with ink, blood, and scratches that the original text can’t be divined.
Nature can’t abide the book’s presence. Ordinary plants wither in its presence, animals are unwilling to approach it, and the book gradually destroys whatever it touches. Even stone cracks and turns to powder if the book rests on it long enough.
Best lore and description so far. If only every artifact could get this kind of information, all would be right in the world.
This artifact keeps the universe in balance. It’s the opposite of the book of exalted deeds in almost every way, starting with attunement. A non-evil creature who attunes to it must make a DC 17 Charisma saving throw. Failure and the GM now must figure out how to have an evil creature in their campaign since the creature’s alignment changes to neutral evil. Once again, you need to spend 80 hours to reap the benefits of the book. An interesting tidbit about the book; You can edit it as long as it’s about evil stuff. Not many magic items, let alone artifacts, allow you to do such a thing.
Channel your inner demons since you need to commit at least an evil act every 10 days. If you don’t, the book disappears. I also recommend not dying. Beyond the obvious, if you die while attuned to the book, an entity of great evil claims your soul. There’s no returning to this mortal coil when your soul is imprisoned. - Ugh
Random Properties. There’s a lot going on with random properties for the book, so be ready to roll some dice. The artifact has 3 minor beneficial properties, 1 major beneficial property, 3 minor detrimental properties, and 2 major detrimental properties. - Meh
Adjusted Ability Scores. You will be excited to increase an ability score of your choice by 2, to a maximum of 24, then sad when you have to decrease one ability score by 2, to a minimum of 3. For me, a decrease outweighs the increase in this situation. - Meh
Mark of Darkness. You are not just a pretty face anymore as you acquire a physical disfigurement as a hideous sign of your devotion to vile darkness. Let’s hope the GM isn’t a mean and twisted individual since they will decide how to mar your character. The mark of darkness grants you advantage on Charisma (Persuasion) checks made to interact with evil creatures and Charisma (Intimidation) checks made to interact with non-evil creatures. Again it comes down if you feel the positives outweigh the negatives. - Meh
Command Evil. Finally, something that doesn’t come with a catch. While holding the book, you can use an action to cast the dominate monster spell on an evil target. It’s an 8th-level spell and a great one to boot. - Excellent
Dark Lore. You can reference the Book of Vile Darkness whenever you make an Intelligence check to recall information about some aspect of evil with double proficiency bonus. It’s a ribbon property, but at least your face won’t melt when you use it. - Good
Dark Speech. Your party’s bard isn’t the only one that can cut you with their words. Using dark speech, every non-evil creature within 15 ft takes 3d6 psychic damage. It’s not all puppies and rainbows since you take 1d12 psychic damage too. - Meh
Destroying the Artifact. This is a strange and complicated item when it comes to destroying it. You can rip out pages and scatter them across the planes, but any evil lore on those pages eventually finds its way back into the book, usually when a new author adds pages to the tome. You can destroy the book for 100 years by having solar tear it in half, and up to 1000 years if you unearth a phrase hidden in the original text, translate it into Celestial, then speak it out loud. Of course, you die, too, since the book explodes in shiny radiant light. The only way to destroy the book for good is to eradicate all evil from the multiverse. Good luck with that.
Overall Grade: D+
The book has some neat properties, but the bad far outweighs the good. Plus, I’m not sure many DMs want you playing an evil character.
Artifacts are fun and exciting, but as we are starting to see, not all items of immense power are created equal. Next time, we’ll take a look at an item that looks like a shepherd’s staff, another evil book, and two body parts from everyone’s favorite lich, Vecna.
If you like our articles, love Homebrew, and are looking for a fun and active community to talk about all things D&D, consider supporting us on Patreon. Below are some of the benefits we offer:
Access to our Homebrew Horde with over 300 items and counting!
Vote on upcoming Deep Deep topics
Monthly online one-shot adventures
Early access to Deep Dive and Rewind Articles
Even more Homebrew in our Magic Item Monday and Monster Thursday series
Exclusive audio from our new YouTube Deep Dive series
Header Art - A-u-R-e-L
