That Magic Item You’re Wielding?

I Made It.

Well, I don’t so much make them as I facilitate the creation of magic items. A lot of melee weapons, although I will branch out into other arms, armor, or trinkets.

I am no wizard, although in my youth I was briefly apprenticed to a elemental magic user. Thankfully, I quickly learned there is no money in ending droughts for dirt farmers or calling in a gentle breeze to push local fishermen out to deeper water.

The best magic items, truth be told, are not made through enchantment, but through procuring the right materials and a dedication to process.

Sure, I mean, you can hire a wizard schooled in material enhancements to whisper a few incantations while waving his hands over a ring. It may give you a point or two increase in IQ, but there’s always a chance it’ll also turn you into a giant brooding dung beetle. My business is strictly the design, production and sale of high-end products, and every one comes with a money-back guarantee for the lifetime of the user.

Well, let me show you. Take these for instance. What do you see? A simple pair of steel gauntlets, right?

First, this is no ordinary iron. It was extracted from near the planet’s core by a team of cursed spectres. They have no physical form, so they are immune to the immense heat. Of course without a body, I’m not really sure how they do it.

Had to trade for the iron with Zeelzebub, Lord of the Underworld. He wanted two lost souls and a case of Finndulligan’s Limited Mead. And Finndulligan only brews ten casks a year!

Then to render and forge the iron, I had to find a mastersmith who was down enough on his luck to agree to take the job on spec

Actually, that part wasn’t so hard. Half of the great dwarvish metallurgists of the previous age are reduced to repair work nowadays. You know Thragthar? Who forged Ghul-Cleaver? The great two-handed broadsword that sliced up hundreds of Visigoblins in the War of Five Destinies fifty years back? Not ringing any bells?

Anyway, I saw him last week, re-ringing up some human slob’s ring-mail coat.

Ring. Mail.

So I found a dwarf who owned a crucible that could withstand the alloy, and could forge the gauntlets. But before you can forge core-iron steel gauntlets, you have to make sure you’ve got at least a five gallon drum full of dragon’s blood handy to temper the metal.

The tougher the dragon, of course, the better the temper. Back in the old days, I’d send band after band of fool adventurers out to bring me back a bucket of Prismatine Dragon ichor. Ninety-nine out of a hundred would never return.

But every so often, one or two members of an expedition would make it back alive, missing a few limbs, but with the prize. I once had a smith temper a war hammer made from an alloy of indestructium and ground ogre’s teeth in a bucket of Prismatine Dragon’s blood. Gave the user so much strength a Druid could wield it, and level a mountain. Made a fortune off it. Off-world now, I understand.

Sad to say, we hunted those Prismatine Dragons to extinction, we did. Best blood we’ve got nowadays for tempering are from Crimson Curltails. Nasty little things, hard to catch, deadly, and you need eight of them for enough blood to finish a short sword. I’m a minority investor in a group trying to breed them in captivity, but honestly I don’t think it’ll work.

I tell you, this profession has an expiration date. Pretty soon, there won’t be anyone making gauntlets like these. And centuries from now, they’ll be downright rare. Adventurers will only stumble upon them from time to time in forgotten hoards or chests, buried deep in labyrinthine dungeons.

It’s the end of the Golden Age. And no one understands or appreciates it. No one appreciates me, I should say. ‘Cause who always gets the credit? The bloke who had enough treasure to buy it from me. The end user.

But he didn’t craft these fantastical instruments. He didn’t painstakingly research and orchestrate the entire creative process. He didn’t risk his own hide and money to make it happen.

No! One lucky lunkhead just swings his +5 Vorpal Blade of Enduring Light, and schnickt!, off comes the Vampire Emperor’s head. And this “hero” gets to marry the radiant and buxom Princess Amari of the United Seven Kingdoms.

And what do I get?

The guy who tracked down the last living descendant of Lord Lumen, introduced her to the heir of the Starlight Throne, then waited a year until the baptism of their firstborn son to pluck three hairs from his head?

The guy who took a sled-team of marginally domesticated Frost Wolves across the frozen Ichterian Steppes, to track down the legend of a silver meteorite that fell from the heavens, which I found buried in a heretofore inaccessible crevasse?

The guy who, very reluctantly mind you, had the last Razorchin Dragon put to sleep to harvest its blood? The guy who carted the finished product up to the top of Mount Drakthor, and unveiled it precisely at the moment when the sun reappeared following a total eclipse, so it could absorb those first few powerful rays?

Me, did I get a Princess, a Kingdom, or any public accolades?! Nope.

Just a barge full of gold coins. It’s a living, mind you, but a little recognition would be nice.