Welcome back to another installment of “MtG to D&D,” the semi-regular segment were we take a card from Magic the Gathering and turn it into an item for use within your 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons game. Similar to the last installment we’re going to take a look at an item that cannot be used by your player characters in a traditional manner. Unlike the last installment, they are less likely to end up on the wrong side of this item.
Today I decided to take a look at The Pentad Prism. This card enters the battlefield with a number of charge tokens based on how many different types of mana were tapped to cast the spell. The owner can remove a charge token from the card in order to add any one color of mana to your mana pool. This got me thinking of how different types of magic interact with each other within Dungeons and Dragons. Thematically a cleric’s magic couldn’t be any more different from a wizard or a bard within the game world. But at their core they are all governed by spell slots and spell levels. So I started to consider how an item that any type of spellcaster could potentially benefit from and hit upon the following idea.
And there you have it. It’s less of a traditional magical item and more of a set piece that you could set a settlement or even an entire game around, especially one that heavily features casters. And yet, it’s still simple enough mechanically that it can be represented as a wondrous item within the game world. How would you insert this item into your game world?
Ben Erickson
