Tattoos, both magical and mundane, are beloved by most races of Mannaheim.
Using Tattooist's Tools
Tattooist's tools allow you to make works of art in living flesh. Mastering these tools lets you add your proficiency bonus to any Wisdom or Intelligent check you make to apply a tattoo. A tattoo artist is first and foremost an artist. That they use flesh as a canvas is just a specialization. Much of the equipment they will use is common amongst artists.
Contents
A sturdy leather case contains a selection of needles, taps and rakes, simple medical supplies needed to care for the recipient properly, and everything needed for cleaning and sterilizing equipment. It also comes with everything to blend and prepare pigments and ink. Though it does not come with ink, its weight accounts for the inks you may have acquired, which are sold separately.
Medical Supplies: This is to replace the supplies in the Tattooist's tools once they eventually run out.
Sketchbook: A book suitable for any artist to sketch design ideas with 50 blank paper pages. This is not of the quality needed to function as a spellbook.
Ink: The inks sold for tattoos are actually the inks, bases, and pigments needed by the artist to create what they need. A 1oz bottle of Ink will generally provide for a Medium sized tattoo with a little to spare. Some colours are harder to find or may require more ink in use.
Tattoo Application
The skill of the artist can have an effect on the time it takes to apply the tattoo, as well as mitigate complications.
While choices of size and intricacy of the tattoo are often freely made, they also affect the application time. Magical tattoos have a recommended minimum size.
Size
Your choices for size are Small, Medium, and Large.
Small is anything up to a hand or a foot, up to half a limb or a shoulder, half the scalp, or a quarter of a chest or back.
Medium is effectively the size of two Small ones (a limb, the shoulders, half a chest).
Large is the size of two Medium, an entire front or back torso for example.
Intricacy
Choose how intricate and detailed you'd like the tattoo to be. Your choices are Simple, Average, and Ornate.
How Long Will It Take?
A Medium sized tattoo of Average intricacy will take 2d6+3 hours.
If the tattoo is Small or Simple, half that time for each. For Large or Ornate tattoos, double that time for each.
Sessions
It may take multiple sessions to complete the time required.
A typical session lasts 4 to 6 hours. To endure each hour after the first 6, both the recipient and artist must make a Constitution Save (DC6 + hours so far).
There is also healing time between sessions of 14 days at the absolute minimum. Though, some work could be done on another tattoo, on the same or another recipient. Magical healing can reduce this time by one day per point of healing.
Efficiency & Complications
At the end of each session, the artist must make a Wisdom ability check, with proficiency for the Tattooist Tools, and with advantage if you have an assistant.
If the result is below 10, the recipient must make a Constitution Save DC10 or gain an infection/disease. Double the requisite healing time between sessions as well.
If the session was at least 4 hours long, for every 5 points the result is greater than 10 you can add another hour to the amount of time covered for the tattoo.
Quality
A proficient Tattooist won't make a bad tattoo, unless applying it on horseback, but the check might reflect some particularly beautiful artwork if the result is quite high (20+).
Available Equipment
Most of these supplies will be readily available in any decent sized town, though some items may take some searching.
Tattooist’s Tools:
Magical ink: There are magical inks that may be available for tattooing, but simply using magical ink does not make it a magical tattoo. That is a much more involved process.
Item Cost Weight
Tattooist's tools 30 gp 6 lb
Medical supplies 4 gp -
Sketchbook 20 gp 2 lb
Ink pen 2 cp -
Temporary tattoo powder 5 gp -
Black ink (1 ounce bottle) 10 gp -
Coloured ink (1 ounce bottle) 15 gp -
Magical ink (1 ounce bottle) ~100 gp -
Ink base (1 ounce bottle) 1 sp -
Stylus (empty) 25 gp -
Making Your Own
The Tattooist's tools contain everything they need to handle and use their inks, but also everything they need for mixing and preparing their own pigments into ink for use in their art.
Ink Base: This is the carrier used to produce your own ink. Pigments of all kinds can be gathered from plants and animals. Perhaps some Nature checks to gather these materials, and proficiency with a Herbalism Kit could help.
Stylus (empty ): This is a specially crafted needle used in the creation of magical tattoos.
Magical Tattoos
Sometimes tattoos are more than just for show. As with any other magical item, tattoos can be infused with magics to generate all sorts of effects. They are at advantage because they cannot be stolen or disarmed, and destroying them generally means destroying the wearer. The tattoo will continue to function even if the body is damaged or defaced.
They also have some down sides. You can't easily share the item with a friend, and magical tattoos almost always require attunement. So you are limited in not only the number of magical tattoos you can have, but other magic items as well.
Attunement
A magical tattoo, once created, is a specific kind of wondrous item which exists in a special magical needle we call a stylus. You must apply the tattoo to attune to the item.
You apply the tattoo by spending a short rest holding the stylus to your skin where you want the tattoo to appear. When complete the stylus turns into the ink that becomes the tattoo which appears on the skin and to which you are now attuned.
If your attunement to the tattoo ends, the tattoo vanishes, and the stylus reappears beside you.
A True Work of Art
What the tattoo looks like once applied depends on how it was created in the first place. The creator has a choice while crafting the magical stylus. The final product will contain the true art of a tattooist, or be customizable when the wearer attunes to the item.
The crafter can spend extra time and money on magical inks and materials to allow for the tattoo's appearance to be customizable whenever it is applied. This will result in an increase to the magical tattoo's cost of 20% or more, but no tattoo artist is required for the creation of such an item.
Alternatively, if a tattoo is properly crafted by a trained tattooist it can be drawn into the finally prepared stylus and will maintain the appearance created by the artist whenever applied. This is less expensive with no extra time and materials required. Once a physical tattoo is drawn into a stylus it is forever set as that magical tattoos appearance. Some feel this method yields a nicer result artistically.
It is not common that the magic item crafter is also the skilled tattooist, but it has happened.
Crafting a Magical Stylus
A magical tattoo is not so different from any other magical wondrous item. The same people who make tattoos can craft a magical tattoo.
All the normal costs of creating the magical item apply, and the result will be a properly enchanted stylus.
Rarity and Size
Different magical items come in different rarities, and how this plays out with magical tattoos is in determining how much space the tattoo typically takes up on the body.
There may be exceptions, but generally at common and uncommon rarity a magical tattoo is Small. Rare magical tattoos are Medium sized. Very rare magical tattoos are Large size, while Legendary ones are at least Large maybe larger.
Magical Tattoos
Gravesealer Tattoo
Wondrous item (tattoo), very-rare (requires attunement)
Draugr Bane. Your unarmed strikes deal an extra 1d4 radiant damage on a hit to undead creatures.
Greater Blade Pact Tattoo
Wondrous item (tattoo), rare (requires attunement by a Vardlokkur with the pact of the blade feature)
Beyond Limits. Your Pact of the Blade feature can now affect an artifact or a sentient weapon.
Life Bond Tattoo
Wondrous item (tattoo), uncommon (requires attunement)
Bound. A pair of tattoos which must be attuned together. Wearers can locate each other within 1,000ft.
'Til Death. While both wearers have more than 1 hit point, when one of the wearers would be reduced to 0 hit points they drop to 1 hit point instead. The other wearer receives the remaining damage which can't be reduced or prevented.
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