Adventurer’s Vault 2: Immurements…

2009 August 18
by Dante

As I mentioned during yesterday’s coverage of the Adventurer’s Vault 2 release, one of the new magic item types is a new consumable class of items called immurements. Immurements overlay a portion of the map with different, strange, or difficult terrain.  Each of these different terrain types provide a different effect, some protect, some even do damage to your enemies.

When all else fails, drop them in lava

Immurements appear to have been created by the frustrated character that just wanted to leave it all behind and drop a freaking mountain or volcano on the current battle situation.

The paragraph that describes immurements cautions Dungeon Masters to use care when allowing immurements into their game, because it essentially overrides the terrain of “lovingly crafted set pieces” that you had planned for a given encounter.  The book conjectures that this may render your set piece less memorable, but I respectfully disagree.

If someone shatters a small piece of magical obsidian and turns the Witch King’s throne room into a FREAKING VOLCANO I’m not only going to remember it, I think I’m going to squeal with glee.  Several reasons:

  1. It’s only going to last until the end of the encounter.
  2. They just used a truly powerful magical item for the ONLY time they can.  The lowest level immurment is a Level 24 item.  That’s a lot of money for a lot of power.
  3. It’s awesome, and gives you as the DM the opportunity to do the same thing to them at some point in your campaign.

Opportunity for Roleplaying

Has anyone else ever had an elf or eladrin that constantly pines away for the forest while they’re out adventuring?  I could see an immurement being an item of great worth to someone that might want to return to the trees, if even for only a short time, by using Immurement of Baleful Gossamer or Immurement of the Blood Vine.

Creating a quest around the acquisition of an immurement or set of immurements might be fun, and I can see some opportunities for making your own custom immurements (sadly, no rules in the book to do this). I could see using them as a plot piece where you have to recreate a portion of a long-lost temple to complete a magical ritual.

The options are endless!

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