Herbal Remedies are fluid mixtures or salves that have magical healing properties. They are generally made with very little magic, using only what is required to enhance the natural properties of the ingredients. Herbal Remedies can usually be purchased for 10 gp per dose. If a given Herbal Remedy costs more, it will be listed in the item’s description.

To create an Herbal Remedy, a character must have a mortar and pestle and a small bowl or pot for boiling and/or mixing the ingredients. The character starts off using 1 fluid ounce of clear water and the choicest parts of the appropriate plants (requires a Craft: Herbcraft skill roll, TN 20, to know what plants are required for each remedy). It takes 40 + 2d10 minutes to create an Herbal Remedy and at the end of the time, the character adds 1 dram of Essential Salts and makes a Magecraft: Alchemy skill roll (TN 20) in order to activate the magical properties of the remedy. Once prepared, the remedy must be used or stored in an appropriate air-tight container within 10 minutes or it will lose its potency. So long as it is in an air-tight container, it will remain potent.

The following are just a few sample magic items that the GM can use when determining treasures for creatures and other foes of the PCs.

It is important to note that Novus incorporates the concept of the body having seven focal points of spiritual energy (chakra) and that these focal points will attune to magical items that the character may be carrying. This limits characters to being attuned to no more than 7 magical items at a time.

This attunement process will normally take the character having the item with himself or on his person for a minimum of 24 hours. This attunement process is automatic and requires no rolls on the part of the player. However, this does not give the character the information required to use the item. That requires a Magecraft roll (see p. 24) and if the item has not automatically attuned to the character, the Magecraft roll, if it was successful, will allow the character to do so automatically.

Single use magical items, such as potions or scrolls, never require the character to be attuned to the item to be used. These sorts of items will never use one of the available seven slots.

Items with abilities that operate constantly, such as most magical weapons, also don’t require attunement before use, but they will take up one of the available seven slots. It should also be noted that up to 10 magically enhanced missiles of a singular type will take up one of the available slots (i.e. 10 Orichalcum (p. 117) arrows fill a single slot, 11 would require 2 slots).

It does not matter what the seven items allowed are. They could all be rings or amulets, wands, daggers or whatever items that the character wishes.

Treasure Table Key

Money (cp, bp, sp, gp, pp): These are the various types of coins. They are listed on the table from lowest denomination to the highest. Since copper pieces are the lowest denomination of coin, it is presumed that a character would only have a few of them on his person, carrying the more common bronze piece except for those few instances where copper is needed.

Gems: Valuable stones of any sort. Suggested total value of all gems is 1d10 gp times the level of the creature or character who has the stone. This value should be divided among the number of gems found.

Jewelry: Various items created from precious stone and/or metals. Suggested values for all pieces of jewelry found are 1d100 gp times the level of the creature or character that has the item. This value should be divided among the number of items of jewelry found.

Combat: This is armor, shields or weapons of a magical nature. The “+” means that the item or items may have higher than a +3 bonus to hit or damage, or that it has bonuses to both, or that it might have other additional abilities. The “++” means the item or items definitely have additional capabilities in addition to their bonuses.

1 Use Item: This is an herbal remedy, a potion, a scroll, or some other item that is consumed by its usage.

Minor Item: This is an item that is enchanted with charges, with each charge allowing one use of the item, or items that are permanently enchanted with a single ability or bonus. Minor items can also include items that only have a limited number of uses per day. Charged items must be magically recharged in order to regain their ability to be used again.

Major Item: Major items have from 2 to 4 permanent magical abilities or bonuses. This is usually one primary ability, with one or more, lesser secondary abilities. This can include abilities that have charges that automatically regenerate over time, or limited uses per day on the secondary abilities, etc.

Artifact: Artifacts are items that have multiple permanent abilities of kind considered to be “primary” for Major Items.

Treasure Table Notes

There are two main types of entries on the Treasure Table. The first is a basic dice notation (i.e. 2d10 or 2d10+5) which means that you should roll the dice and that the result is how much of that type of treasure the creature is likely to have.

The second notation (i.e. ≥15—1d10) has 2 parts. The first part is the basic chance of the creature having that type of treasure. A listing of "≥15" means that you should roll 2d10 without any modifiers, and if the total is 15 or greater, then the creature has that type of treasure, and the section on the other side of the dash (i.e. 1d10) is used to determine how much of that particular type of treasure the creature has.

The Treasure Table included dice notations other than d10, however the only dice that you will need in using the Treasure Table are your d10s. The variant dice sizes can be handled through the application of a little math as follows:

When characters go adventuring, one of the primary reasons for doing so is for finding treasures. The following section will give you some guidelines for determining how much treasure a foe might have based upon their level.

Animals and creatures will likely only have such treasure in their lairs, if they brought prey back to their lairs to consume them. Intelligent creatures and beings, such as Goblins and Orcs, are much more likely to carry their treasure on them. As GM, you should determine what treasure the creature has before an encounter as intelligent creatures are quite likely to be using any magic items that they might have that are appropriate to them.

The following table gives the likelihood of a creature having a given type of treasure based on its level, and if so, how much treasure. However, we are not giving you “random treasure tables” because it is felt that you, the GM, should determine the actual items based upon your setting and campaign and how rich you prefer the game to be. Remember, this table is only meant as a guideline, and you, the GM, should feel free to deviate from it as circumstances require for your particular game.

It is also important to remember that this table is meant for determining the wealth that an individual is carrying on his person, or that can be found in the lair of a non-intelligent creature. For intelligent creatures, such as Dragons, this table is far from adequate and the GM should use his judgment in determining what sorts of treasures might be found.

A nest of Giant Wasps rarely has more than a dozen of the creatures. The queen stays in the nest with one or two workers, while the rest hunt for food. These nests are usually found in caves or abandoned buildings large enough to hold all of the Giant Wasps at once.

Giant Wasps attack by repeatedly stinging their prey, which they then carry back to the nest for the queen and any larvae to feed upon. Giant Wasps are able to carry up to 4 times their weight in flight, allowing them take home some rather large prey, considering their size.