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Listening Lizard
🕑 Added 2025-08-21 15:00:13 +0000 UTCGreetings adventurers!
Glassblowers have always fascinated me with their work. They somehow turn sand to priceless pieces of art and they do so using only the air in their lungs and a series of specialized tools. Working with something so fragile would have my nerves on end every day. I mean when you’re dealing with the magical and the arcane, at least if you mess it up, you’re probably not going to be around to deal with the aftermath. Shattered glass though? Well that gets everyone. I found myself enamored with one of the creations of a local glassblower. A little lizard that just seemed perfect for some arcane enchantment. Take a look.
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Design notes from Matthew:
I’ve always been fascinated by spy gadgetry and all of the little toys that the 007s and Inspector Gadgets get. I’ve always thought there was a bit of a gap in fantasy gaming when it came to that kind of thing. Sure you have your scrying spells and the like, but what if you just need a single use or if you don’t have access to the spell. That’s where this idea was born. The option of providing a single use listening device just appealed to me and Fernando had an awesome idea with making it a little disappearing lizard.
In the 5E version, it’s pretty basic insofar as writing goes. You give it a range and a duration and let the rest of it kind of play itself out. I always tell folks not to overcomplicate the writing when they’re putting something together for their games. If there’s an easy way to say something and get your point across without providing too much detail, take it. In this way, just giving it enough thought to put in an investigation DC for it is really all you need.
For the Pathfinder 2E version, I had to put a bit more thought into it insofar as how to activate and get the item into place. I realized it was the perfect opportunity to allow scaling off of the player character by letting them use the Conceal an Object action. It basically did exactly what I wanted it to already so I wanted to leverage that in the best way I could. I always get ideas in PF2E by just looking at the actions that are available. There’s so many that you can often find what you need quite quickly.
I’m loving getting to expand my wings a bit more in PF2E now that I’ve been running the system for a bit more time, but writing for 5E will never get old for me. They’re two very different styles of rules even though they can often have some overlap. That said, I’m just glad so many folks continue to enjoy our items. Hopefully this one winds its way into your campaigns soon.
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Keep your ears perked,
- Fernando & Matthew
