D&D: ‘Keys From the Golden Vault’ Makes Treasures Worth Stealing
One of the best things about any heist is the loot. And in the upcoming Keys from the Golden Vault, the loot has leveled up.
It would be hard enough for a D&D adventure all about heists to be impressive if there wasn’t some kind of major treasure at the end of it. Sure, in many cases, the players are ostensibly going to be giving them back to the titular Golden Vault. But. It makes a fair bit of difference when you come to the end of a carefully planned heist and discover you’ve got a magical painting that can whisper almost any secret to you while also casting magic missiles at whoever you designate, vs. finding something like… a +1 sword.
And in Keys from the Golden Vault, some of the treasures are truly worth writing home about. If not actually getting in there and stealing them. Here’s a look at three.
Fair warning, spoilers for Keys from the Golden Vault lie ahead.
Keys from the Golden Vault Treasures – Magic Items Made Marvelous
Any successful heist should feel like it takes skill to pull off, and that it’s worth all the effort to get whatever it is the characters are stealing. Now we’re not here today to talk about how the adventure book handles the former. But as for the latter, there are some pretty intriguing items up for grabs. Assuming your party is the type who might try and keep them for themselves.
DMs may want to be prepared because players might try stealing and keeping items like Constantori’s Portrait.
Pictured above, Constantori’s Portrait is a sentient, magical painting. And while it’s demanding, condescending, and vain, it will serve its master(s) incredibly well. Its primary purpose is to observe and recall conversations, a task which at the point in the game the players might steal it, the portrait has been doing for decades if not longer.
This means it knows “an unquantifiable amount of lore” which might include secret passwords, criminal conspiracies, and any hushed secret whispered anywhere near where the painting has been hung. But t can also be assigned as a guardian, with the capability to cast a 3-dart magic missile thrice per day.
The Shard Solitaire – A Diamond in the Rough
The Shard Solitaire is a powerful magic diamond with an origin story that sounds like an urban legend:
“Long ago, someone dropped a bag of holding full of jewels into a portable hole, creating an explosive portal to the Astral Plane. A 5,000 gp diamond contained within the bag absorbed some of the portal’s volatile energy and became th shard solitaire.
The Shard Solitaire is a magical gemstone containing an extradimensional rift. There are five different types, all in all. All Shard Solitaires grant their bearer the ability to do a rift step as a bonus action. A rift step is like a misty step in that it’s a bonus action teleport that goes out to 30 feet, but you can boost the teleport to up to 60 feet by running the risk of damage if you fail a Constitution saving throw.
Each type of Shard Solitaire is capable of letting its user cast multiple spells. All can cast banishment and mirror image, but the specific types allow for even more:
The Book of Vile Darkness
Finally, one of the items featured in the adventure is none other than the D&D equivalent of some kind of Necronomicon. A book so evil that you turn evil just from touching it for too long. It is a foul manuscript of ineffable wickedness. And when you make it yours, you not only gain the ability to cast circle of death just for playing, but you also become immune to being charmed and frightened.
Of course, you also bear a physical mark of the evil power you’ve submersed yourself in. It might be horns, glossy black eyes, a forked tongue, whatever it is you get all Palpatiney. But you also gain the ability to cast dominate monster on an evil target once per day for free, as well as reciting words so evil they might blow your enemies’ minds (by dealing 3d6 psychic damage to those within 15 feet, no saving throw allowed and no hearing or shared language necessary).
All this and more await in ‘Keys from the Golden Vault’
