Making Artefact Cards

About a month ago, while chatting to Gabriel Roark about what we’d import from the Arduin Grimoires by David A. Hargrave, he reminded me of the idea of an Artefact Deck. Inspired, I decided to build one for my upcoming GURPS Dungeon Fantasy campaign.

I’ve hired James “Jeshields” Shields to draw some bespoke pen and ink illustrations. After the first batch arrived last week, I sat down to try my hand at some primitive layout using MS Publisher. I’ve created some prototype Artefact Cards and also a prototype A5-sized key for each item that I aim to have privately published as a little booklet.

Here’s a photo of the prototypes:

In short, each Artefact Card has an illustration on the front and a one paragraph description on the back. Each card is numbered (sequentially, starting with “001”) and also shows the weight of the item in pounds. I’ve added the illustration credit for Jeshields to the back of each card.

As you can see in the image above, I’ve also devised a template for a key linked to each Artefact Card (similarly numbered). This suggestion came from the conversation with Gabriel and allows me to keep the nature of each item secret for longer. Because each card has only a paragraph of text on the back, the players can make their own notes straight onto the card as they discover its truths.

In a moment of genius, I decided to make items like the Magical Spell Scroll or Magic Potion function with two built-in random tables on the key. For example, the Magical Spell Scroll has a 1d6 table for the language in which the scroll is written, and another 1d6 table for which magical spell is written upon it. This makes the card re-useable and gives much more longevity to one-use items like scrolls and potions.

So far, I’m enjoying the creative boost the project is giving me. There are 50 illustrations commissioned and it’s feasible to recycle some – such as potion bottles and scrolls – for multiple designs. I estimate a deck of 60 cards in play by the time we’re finished. To make things manageable, I’ve agreed to purchase the illustrations in batches of ten. This allows me flexibility and means I can commission some artefacts specific to the player characters once play begins.

Let me know what you think.