The Miku Magical Mirai event is an annual celebration of the popular Japanese virtual idol, Hatsune Miku. It has been held since 2013 and is known for its spectacular performances and interactive exhibits. The event showcases the latest in Miku technology, including holographic concerts and virtual reality experiences. The 2020 edition of the Miku Magical Mirai event was particularly special as it was held entirely online due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Despite the change in format, the event was a huge success, attracting fans from all over the world. The main highlight of the event was the virtual concert, where Miku performed alongside other virtual idols and live musicians.
“I’ve seen similar,” Laird said. “But there’s a little too much detail and not quite enough substance, if I may say so myself. The outer circle may be stronger, but you passed it easily enough.”
43 However, they are infamously difficult to properly bind, since they can lean into their human or Other half to defeat a binding aimed at one or the other. The idea of using HP is to signal not that it harms you, but rather that your HP pool is your stamina, thus, use of the equip will drain your stamina inner energy over time.
The main highlight of the event was the virtual concert, where Miku performed alongside other virtual idols and live musicians. The concert featured stunning visuals and mind-blowing choreography, creating an unforgettable experience for viewers. Fans were able to interact with Miku through a virtual chatroom and even request songs for her to perform.
Playing Around with Different Attunement Rules/Magic Item Ideas.
Sadly there is no TL;DR, as you need to read most of this in order to give constructive feedback. Buckle up and get on those +3 Spectacles of Reading. Also, as I forgot to mention it in my original post, I'll edit in the context of 5e.
First, some context:
So, one of my all time favorite anime series is Magi. A big factor in the series are these things called dungeons, lorded over by djinns (which are divine spirits of all the elements, not just elemental beings of air, like in D&D). When you "capture" (beat), a dungeon, that djinn puts its mark on something metal, typically a weapon, of yours and you can then call upon the power of said djinn. This thing is called a metal vessel.
The highest form of this is known as "Djinn Equip", where you can either: A) turn said metal vessel (typically a weapon) into something that embodies the djinn housed within it. This also puts an effect on the arms holding whatever it is, if it's a weapon. B) do a full body djinn equip where your entire body becomes sort of like an "avatar" of that djinn. This takes a whole ton of practice and shows full mastery over a metal vessel.
Most characters only have one metal vessel. This means they really only have to focus on one djinn's power at a time. However, there is one special character, who will not be named for spoiler reasons, that has like seven metal vessels. Some are arm bands, rings, and necklaces but a couple are weapons. Through training, they've been able to learn how to freely switch between full body djinn equips for all 7 vessels.
Here's where we link this all back to D&D:
So, me turning the djinns to D&D is fairly simple. Change djinn metal vessels into artifacts of various powerful entities, whether they be the greater deities, lesser deities, or even just extremely powerful beings, with the power scale of each artifact lowering depending on the "celestial rank" of whatever its tied to. So, say, an archdevil's artifact wouldn't be nearly as powerful as the artifact of Asmodeus himself.
However, mechanically it was a bit of a head scratcher. My initial thought was "well that'd be cool to implement into D&D, but, how? Attunement slots is something to play with, but without drastically changing them, I can't see how those would work." Then it hit me. I need sort of a hybrid system of these artifacts do take up an attunement slot, but only when in use. And when they're not in use, they're not at the power level of an item that requires attunement. Then, for flavor reasons and so that people can't just swap them around freely, I figured having a different kind of attunement for the weapons was necessary.
In the anime, it's shown that seven metal vessels is the limit, as the unnamed character, upon capturing their 7th dungeon, the djinn basically said "ok, you have enough, you can't bond with any more djinn." This is where I adapt things into funky attunement slot ideas.
This is where I provide my alternative attunement rule for these artifacts: Bonding. This would be sort of like a lengthened version of attuning. Maybe like "spend a week of downtime training with this weapon." or something like that. At base "bonding" level, the item would just be like a typical common/uncommon magical item. At higher levels, if granted this artifact by a specific deity for completing a task, perhaps it comes in an automatically bonded state or requires less time to bond with. For any Critical Role fans, this would be sort of like a Vestige in its dormant state.
Then comes the actual ability side of things. There would be another length of time for training the "djinn equip." Not sure what I would name the ability, but the idea is that whatever it is, it takes on a new form and has the abilities of like a rare/very rare magic item, one of these abilities being a passive bonus like fire resistance, or +5 to movement, or something. Just an ability that embodies the deity the item is linked to. The catch would be that in order to use a djinn equip, you'd have to have an attunement slot free, or, already be using a djinn equip, in which case, the new equip would take over. I'd have djinn equips set to a short rest cooldown. This would be like a Vestige in its Awakened state.
Finally, for full body djinn equips. Again, not sure what this ability would be called, but this would be for those who have truly and 100% mastered use of the item. The spirit of whatever deity it is would not only engulf the item, but also the user. It would change their form depending on the deity, perhaps even granting things like flying, should it give them wings. It would be treated as a pseudo polymorph/wild shape as far as gear melding is concerned. It would meld into you, but you'd still gain all passive bonuses and what not, you can still use all your abilities and activate items, you have your base stats, but you'd also get whatever buffs this form has. This would be on a once per day basis.
The way djinn equips and full body equips would work in battle is that in your normal state, you may choose to djinn equip as a bonus action, sorta like a Barbarian's rage ability, but with the aforementioned prerequisite of an open attunement slot. While in djinn equip, you can A) use a bonus to go into a full body djinn equip or B) use an action to switch your djinn equip into a full body equip. This feels like a definite action ability, as it takes quite a bit of focus and effort to do. In the anime people eventually learn to go straight into full djinn equip. I figured the way this translates would just be bonus action to djinn equip, action to full body, then you have your movement.
Still working out durations for these. In the anime, it's simple. They have a magic supply/ inner energy that is slowly sapped while they're in these forms, so they can't stay in them forever. However, in D&D you just sorta have to give things a duration and a cooldown.
Lastly, and something I forgot to mention before, as I honestly forgot about it while typing the anime context, is extreme magic. This is an uber ultimate attack that is basically a "one time use bomb" ability. My idea would be that in order to recover it, you've gotta spend a long rest or maybe like 2 to 4 hours of a long rest actively attuned to it. That way you can only restore one or two of these ultimate abilities at a time should you own multiple. Depending on the ability, I can also see just a certain amount of days recharge. I know at least one or two of the Critical Role Vestiges had abilities that would take longer than a long rest to recharge, so it's not exactly an out there idea. Either way, there wouldn't just be a limit on one specific item. I'd say as a general rule, 3 of these abilities at maximum could be used, though, as you'll read later, this limitation wouldn't really apply to how I would run these items. however.
This is where the idea with minor alterations to the game ends. You can skip this section unless you want to give feedback on a highly experimental and probably wouldn't work idea. Down below is a section detailing how I personally would run these types of items and then some closing words.
However, I did think up a possible alternative to recharge periods and figuring out durations for each form. So, in the anime, the power source that keeps these forms going is the inner energy, known as magoi, within the person. Each level of ability uses up more magoi, with the extreme magic basically taking up over half of the person's total magoi, in general, hence why it's "one use bomb." However, they're able to restore magoi. Anyone based on fire djinn can use actual fire and absorb it into their weapons to increase the length of their equip and, on grand scales, restore use of their extreme magic. Slight spoiler, at one point a volcano is forcefully erupted in order to restore use of high level fire djinn equip abilities and even multiple uses of extreme magic.
So, I'm sure the idea of a "mana pool" has been tossed around before, but my idea was tying it to HP. Basically, equip forms drain HP at differing rates, A) depending on the power level and B) depending on normal or full body. This just actively drains x HP per minute, which then, divided by 10, would give you the round by round draining rate. There would then be an option to train and build up a "pool" of this within each item. The maximum would level up much like HP and it would be recharged under certain circumstances or a certain amount per short/long rest. This would be used before any HP is drained.
The idea of using HP is to signal not that it harms you, but rather that your HP pool is your stamina, thus, use of the equip will drain your stamina/inner energy over time. Your ability to keep it up depends on your own life force, then, through the added training, you can build up a specific type of stamina related to each weapon. Or, perhaps instead of training for a pool, you could train to lessen the draining effect.
Extreme Magic would then be something that drains most of your HP. If using the "mana pool" idea, I'd say that only this pool can be used to activate any Extreme Magic ability, and that it would take about 75% of your total pool to use it. It would also require a minimum amount of mana spent, that way it wouldn't be usable until training to reach that number had been accomplished. Otherwise, I'd say that you would start at "it drains x amount of your HP" up to a minimum of 50%. The reason I use % for draining rather than a set number is that saying "oh it drains 20 HP" is like super serious in the early levels, even killing most outright. However, by higher levels, that 20 hp is like what, 1/5th to 1/10th of total HP?
Again, this is 100% something experimental that I just thought of while typing this. I don't really think it would work and it would probably add unnecessary things to keep track of. If you have any better "mana pool" ideas or unique cooldown ideas for these abilities, let me know. I think I'd have to reward creativity for trying to find unique ways to recharge their abilities.
I guess I could do a much higher numbered form of Cabal's Ruin from Critical Role. Potential Spoilers for CR: Could say like "it has x charges" with the ability to increase this number of charges. It regains x amount of charges on a short rest, and x amount of charges on a long rest. There would be a maximum amount of charges for each, and Extreme Magic would take 75% of the maximum charges. Equip forms would drain a certain amount of charges upon activation and then slowly drain x charges per round.
Could work out a system for recharging outside of rests. Maybe some could have the spell absorption ability of Cabal. Also like the idea of using some manner of HP to restore charges, as it would then link to the whole stamina thing. I'd definitely rule that you couldn't recharge past a certain point with HP, however. That way they can use HP to keep their equips up, but can't use infinite Extreme Magics.
Ok, if you're skipping the experimental section, here's where you can pick back up. To those who read through the experimental section, congrats, would love to hear your ideas on how to improve my ideas or submit your own for me to think on.
So, how would I run these? They would most certainly way overpower things if a whole party of 4 or 5 adventurers was handed 7 of these. That's 28-35 in total in the possession of a party and is NOT how I would run them. Rather, I'd run them more closely to the anime. All the main characters and big important people really only have one vessel. The use of multiple vessels is only seen in a handful characters, and even then, only one has reached the 7 limit. The others only have 2 or 3.
I'd say 2 per party member is a safe bet with a party of 5 or less. I'd feel safe giving a high level NPC a stash of 7, but just like the anime, I'd have that NPC be one of those just super powerful people that exists in the world that everyone knows of, but that doesn't necessarily help/hinder the party regularly. Maybe in a final battle, but not with every day tasks.
In final words, I realize that trying to use anime stuff in D&D is tough. Anime is meant to be overpowered, but I think as long as you treat your players as sort of the head team/squad and give them all their own uniquely OP abilities, it'll still be loads of fun. I mean you, as the DM, can just ramp up encounter to match their level of OP. Only difference is that they can't really pull some deus ex machina "power of friendship" bs to beat the BBEG.
What are your thoughts on this type of special artifact? I sorta made them a hybrid of the attunement mechanic and draw/stow mechanic with some transformation abilities. There's a lot here though so idk if this is really feasible to implement as a magic item mechanic.
Hell, would this be better as a class idea? I mean if we go back to the experimental section, that whole mana pool/inner energy idea sounds like a class resource to me. Perhaps it could be a subclass? I could see a possible monk relationship with ki.
Thoughts, suggestions, criticisms. All are open to me. Please, just no talk of "well that would be overpowered." Understand that as a DM, I don't mind throwing PCs a bone or two. I can easily throw more bones to players that feel a bit underpowered and give heaps of bones to enemies if the party seems to steamroll everything. Also ways to make the bones you throw them irrelevant in certain situations, just gotta get creative with it.
So, I'm not too worried about balance. Plenty of things that seem OP or underpowered on paper, but then you practice them and realize they're either fine or the opposite of what you thought. I'm very into high powered/high magic settings (and ya cant tell me players don't like doing super extreme epic things, as long as everyone gets their time in the spotlight), quite similar to anime, actually, so balance, to me, is an ever moving process. It's something that happens from session to session, especially with ideas like this. Also, with context, most of my playgroup are into similar things, so it's easy to just wave off balance in favor of epicness sometimes.
In addition to the concert, the Miku Magical Mirai event also included various interactive exhibits. Fans were able to explore virtual worlds inspired by Miku's music and art. They could also participate in workshops and learn more about the technology behind Miku and other virtual idols. One of the most exciting features of the event was the virtual market, where fans could purchase exclusive merchandise and artwork. This allowed fans to support their favorite artists and creators, even though they couldn't attend the event in person. Overall, the Miku Magical Mirai event 2020 was a testament to the resilience and creativity of the Miku fandom. Despite the challenges posed by the pandemic, the event was able to bring fans together and create a memorable experience. It showcased the evolving technology behind virtual idols and demonstrated the power of virtual events in connecting people worldwide..
Reviews for "Miku Magical Mirai Event 2020: A Showcase of Technological Marvels"
- Alex - 2 stars - I was really disappointed with the Miku magical mirai event this year. The performances felt lackluster and didn't have the same energy as previous years. The set design was also underwhelming and didn't add anything exciting to the overall experience. I was really looking forward to this event, but it just didn't live up to my expectations.
- Emily - 3 stars - While I appreciate the effort put into the Miku magical mirai event, I felt that it fell flat in some areas. The organization of the event was chaotic, with long lines and crowded spaces. The sound quality during the performances was also poor, making it difficult to fully enjoy the music. Overall, I think there is room for improvement in terms of logistics and production value.
- Jake - 2 stars - The Miku magical mirai event was not what I expected it to be. The ticket prices were quite high, and I didn't feel like I got my money's worth. The performances lacked enthusiasm and it felt like the artists were just going through the motions. Additionally, the merchandise was overpriced and there were limited options available. I wouldn't recommend attending this event unless you're a die-hard Miku fan.