Pit Fiend's Pendulum (Patreon)

Greetings adventurers!

Occasionally you find yourself in odd company when you’re working on obtaining and crafting artifacts like we are and this day was no exception.  A shadowy individual told us that he knew of a place not far from the tavern where a creature of ancient brood had fallen and that there were still remnants of the being there. Well, they didn’t disappoint, we found a pit carved into the earth and within it an axe bound to a chain, gripped by a long dead hand emerging from the ground. When we went to thank the person, they were long gone, but hey we did find a cool axe!

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Design notes from Matthew:

Alright, so yes this was a play on the Pit & the Pendulum. I just wanted to get it out of the way because the entirety of the name was inspired by it and I am completely unashamed to note it.  I love that we were able to bring it to life in such an interesting way and to get the do some theming around a pit fiend is an especially cool thing in my opinion. They’re a pretty nasty monster, but most of the writing came from one word “momentum”.

When I think of a pendulum, I think of the rhythm of the swinging blade back and forth and with that, I think of the transfer of momentum required in order to make that happen. I wanted to follow along with that for the entirety of the item. I wanted it to feel like it’s something that took strength, heft, and rhythm in order to wield effectively.

I thought of two ways to generate momentum and those are of course movement and swinging the blade itself. I think between the two, I knew that I wanted to give fighters in particular, something high level to look forward to. I want them to be able to build up their power throughout a turn and really release it on their poor foes at a high level.

Illustration notes from Fernando:

We love Spooky season so much this year we’re extending it a week LOL

I think this axe is meant to compliment the executioner’s hood, or maybe not, I don’t know; I don’t read what the other guy writes, he just cracks the whip and I draw stuff. In my headcanon they’re meant to be paired together, like anchovies and strawberries!

This one came out looking quite three dimensional, particularly the ring at the base of it, the way the light hits it and the chain casts a shadow on it gives it a good amount of depth.  I added a broken chain to the handle because it makes it look like it was dangling off something, you know, like a pendulum!

I think most people are going to think the red stuff is blood/tissue but what I was going for was a sort of “corruption” like what you see in the Horizon games; I’ll be the first to admit it looks like tissue/blood though (especially because I made it drip) and I don’t hate that :)

Getting to take a concept and flesh it out fully is one of the most satisfying things about creating magic items. I love that we can just pick something that we want to explore and then push even something small like momentum to be a full mechanic within the game. I have always said that I love items that give you a little game to play within the game and this was no exception. We hope you love it too.

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Keep it moving,

- Fernando & Matthew