Mesopotamian Kettle Drums, with D&D Neeping

[kent_allard_jr]

Lately I've been reading Religion in Ancient Mesopotamia by Jean Bottéro. An interesting book, even if the subject matter rarely comes up in casual conversation. Bottéro describes the liturgy in detail;. Apparently hymns were sung to the gods, or their statues anyway (in ancient Mesopotamia they were effectively the same thing), accompanied by lyres, cymbals and kettle drums, the latter called a lilissu. Here's how the leather drum-skin was prepared:

The [cow], duly chosen and "without defect," was led in great pomp into a defined location in the temple. There, during purifications and offerings to the gods through exorcisms and prayers -- some of which were whispered into the animal's ear... -- it was sacrificed and skinned, following all rules. The skin was then tanned, no less ceremoniously, and stretched over the lilissu. (p.150)

Note that the priest had to be involved with every step of the process; he couldn't just buy a drum off the shelf and cast spells over it! And what I've read suggests this has been true for all magic items, in all times and cultures. If a priest, a shaman, or a wizard wanted to imbue an item with sacred or profane power, he had to get his hands dirty and make the damn thing himself.

In D&D terms, I'm thinking of eliminating the item creation feats, but requiring spell casters to know appropriate Craft skills for any item they build. They'd have to know Alchemy for potions, Carpentry for wands and staves, Calligraphy for scrolls, Leatherworking for belts, Cobbling for boots and so on. I would eliminate a Wizard's bonus feats, but increase his skills from (2 + Int bonus) per level to (4 + Int bonus). Thoughts?

Comments

[bigscary.livejournal.com]

Something similar, but not exactly like this, may go into the next house-rule revision for Kavia, and seems to already be in Ping's ruleset (we need to arrange for actual weapon creation, or have a forge, or suchlike, to get create new stuff.)

But entirely devaluing feats? I'm not so sure that's a good idea -- in exchange for the PERSONAL crafting requirements, more generic feats, perhaps tailored to actual effect rather than the corpus of the item, would be appropriate (Craft Attack Item; Craft Defense Item; Craft Ability/Skill/Feat/Quality Item; Craft Spell Trigger Item; Craft Spell Completion Item; Craft Spell Effect Item).

Really, I think the solution is the one that a number of settings use: an artificer/item maker/magesmith base class (Eberron's is pretty neat).

[kent-allard-jr.livejournal.com]

I dunno. Since not all mages know all spells, I think that already limits the items a spellcaster can create in a way that's similar to your categorization scheme. I agree that artificer/magesmiths are pretty neat, although (returning to Earth examples) these figures tend to appear in cultures without wizard equivalents. They'd take the place of wizards, instead of supporting them.