abyssalbrews

Bravura

Added 2025-06-05 15:00:11 +0000 UTC

Greetings adventurers!

Cowardice is something that boils deep in the stomachs of those that lack conviction and purpose. It can betray your very weaknesses and strike at the core of what brings fear to you. There are those that reject that fear and embrace that through great acts of courage, that can change the world. It is these leaders that we look to in times of trouble and it is those who would carry such a fine staff as this one. Of course you can swap out the banners if you like. They’re mostly cosmetic.

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Design notes from Matthew:
I love the idea of standards when it comes to fantasy settings. There’s so many powerful images out there of heroes planting a banner or in some other way raising a flag over a battlefield. It’s a striking visualization and something that I’ve wanted to see more of in various campaigns over the years. It struck me when I thought about it that we’ve never actually made a standard like that. That seemed like an oversight on my part so I set out to make one how I would want it.
I’ve seen other examples that require you to actually plant the banner, but that seems a bit odd to take one of your weapons away from you and then you have to spend an action drawing another weapon. My thought instead was to make the banner itself more of a spiritual representation and let the emanation flow from that. That ways it’s still useful in that it creates a central point to rally around, but it also allows you to continue using it as a normal weapon.
In both 5E and Pathfinder, I knew that I wanted this to bolster allies against frightened conditions, but how I went about the rest of it differed a bit. If 5E, tacking some extra damage on to spell attacks for example, can actually be quite beneficial. In PF2E, the spells themselves are often powerful or have multiple pieces to them and adding extra damage there didn’t necessarily feel right. There’s a lot of nuance between what can feel good in 5E and what can feel broken in PF2E that only really comes with playing a lot of either.

Hopefully you can find that this item will bring some courage to your players in the face of the most frightening of creatures. I’m really trying to look into other item types and figure out interesting ways to bring them into your campaigns so pardon me if there’s some experimental stuff this month. Hopefully you don’t mind!

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