For our present purposes, LotFP magic items:
- Are utterly unique: Only one of the item exists.
- Are not anything intentionally created for a practical purpose. These are generally "alien" items that have fallen through dimensional wormholes and have strange properties on Earth, or are items that have soaked in magical energy quite accidentally or are the work of a complete lunatic.
- Are dangerous or unreliable to use or perhaps even to possess.
- Do not do replicate or reference existing spells, nor reference already-known monsters, demi-humans, or clerics or deities.
- Are visually Interesting (each item will get an illustration by Aeron Alfrey).
- Do not exist on a meta-game level simply to give characters power or make adventuring easier.
- Are not items which give combat modifiers.
- Contain left-turn, chaotic surprises that prevent a Referee from confidently predicting the item's impact on a campaign. (new bullet point!)
Items which have appeared in print or on the internet will not be accepted - they must be original work that will appear for the first time in the Ref book. Submissions must be your own original work.
Remember that LotFP leans towards horror and many LotFP campaigns feature settings where the average person has never encountered real magic and have no real reason to expect to, and items which recognize (or at least do not contradict) these things are more likely to be chosen.
Some good examples of LotFP-style items can be found in the LotFP adventures The God that Crawls (especially the Chariot of Unreality) and Tales of the Scarecrow (I can get PDF copies of these to you at no charge if you have professional RPG credits to your name). Things that would fit in Grant Morrison's run of Doom Patrol, early Clive Barker, Bizarro fiction, and that sort of thing will be more likely to be chosen.
We want to blow minds here, presenting things to people they not only would never have thought of on their own, but would never believe that anyone could think of them. Leave people wondering what the hell the items would do to their game if they dared introduce them. (an example of a magic item made for the book and the process it went through from start to finish is here)
No upper word limit, but the item and description should have some meat and substance to it.
Accepted submissions will be paid 25€ each (almost 500 words if we go by current per-word rates from the top companies in this industry), plus one copy of the book (one per contributor). LotFP will retain exclusive publication rights for two years from time of payment, after which we retain the rights to print and reprint in the LotFP Ref book (and only the LotFP Ref book) but aside from that caveat rights revert back to you. Unaccepted submissions get nothing, but you're then free to use the item in your own work or post the thing online.
Submissions must be in by February 15. Payments will be made for chosen items by February 28 but you will need to invoice me for the fee before I pay it.
I want 50 items for the book, but I'll for less than 50 if submissions aren't good enough. If there are more than 50 great submissions, I'll see what I can do to take more.
Questions to lotfp@lotfp.com, submissions to lotfp@lotfp.com with the subject line MAGIC ITEM.
ONE ITEM PER EMAIL PLEASE. If you have more than one item to send, send them each in a separate email. If you re-do or revise an item, send the entire text in a new email, not just the changes.
(you can discuss this post and the open call and everything related here)