I enjoy taking everything found within the pages of Lost Mine of Phandelver and Dragon of Icespire Peak to logical extremes. It’s what I do. I’m really not like this with many things. For reasons I cannot explain, my brain is always whirring on Phandalin, and so I find myself browsing through these adventures often, searching for details I haven’t noticed before, or things I might see differently on the twenty-second read-through.

I found myself leafing through Lost Mine of Phandelver yet again today, and I spotted a detail I had not previously noticed in the introduction to Part 4: Wave Echo Cave:

The drow is searching for the Forge of Spells, where the human mages of old Phandalin enchanted dwarven weapons and gnome gadgets. However, Nezznar’s exploration has been hindered by the restless undead and dangerous monsters that lurk in Wave Echo Cave, forcing him to proceed with great caution.

The way I interpret this is: human mages labored at the Forge of Spells, enchanting works of dwarvish and gnomish craftsmanship.

So, there was a specific division of labor; something I hadn’t realized until just now. The dwarves and gnomes were busy crafting exquisite items worthy of enchantment upon the Forge of Spells, and then human wizards put in the work of enchanting them to the specifications of the crafter.

Which got me thinking: if I went through my books, which magic items would be easily recognized as dwarvish or gnomish in nature?

I don’t think it’s a stretch to assume that Lightbringer and Dragonguard would have been of dwarvish craft. Weapons and armor forged of iron, steel, and wondrous ores are kind of their thing. Searching through the Dungeon Master’s Guide, some items are a little more on the nose than others, like a Belt of Dwarvenkind or a Dwarven Thrower. But really, any armor, shield, axe, hammer, mace, sword, or other tool of war made of iron or steel could conceivably be the product of dwarven smiths.

I’d like to think that gnomes craft items that have more utility. And since the Forge of Spells implies metal craft, it doesn’t seem like the gnomes of Wave Echo Cave were busy making hats to stuff full of cantrips when the bellows were working.

That’s not to say gnomes wouldn’t craft weapons; especially small weapons for small folk. But I feel like the gnome-conceived weapons would be designed with solving a problem in mind. Like the knife-fighter who frets over throwing his blades for fear of being left empty-handed in a melee? A gnomish inventor might conceive the design for a Bracer of Flying Daggers.

For wondrous items that don’t have offensive output, eyewear strikes me as something a gnomish inventor might craft: Eyes of Charming, Eyes of Minute Seeing, Eyes of the Eagle, or Goggles of the Night.

Other metal crafted items a gnomish inventor at Wave Echo Cave might have dreamt up: Horseshoes of Speed or Iron Bands of Binding. Or perhaps any ring that was beneficial to one whose legs weren’t as long as those of the big folk, like a Ring of Jumping.

None of this matters, really. At the end of the day, what matters to most players at the table will be the what of the item, rather than the who, where, when, how, or why. But since I enjoy the narrative elements of the game more than the dice rolls, my mind goes more to the story behind an extraordinary magical item.

I think it would be fun to have some wizard at the tavern ask a character for a look at the +1 longsword hanging from the silver-chased scabbard at their belt. Then, with the sword in hand, take note of the craftsmanship, turning the blade over in their hands while carefully examining the runes and maker’s mark etched into the steel. Looking up at the sword’s owner, they could then go full-Elrond by revealing the nature and lore of the blade:

“This is Talon, blade of Aldith Tresendar, Shield of Phandalin and Warden of the Sword Mountain Vale. It is a magical and famous blade, crafted by dwarven smiths and the mages of old Phandalin upon the Forge of Spells half a millennia ago.”

That’s a lot of lore in a little space, delivered by some rando NPC wizard with an academic curiosity about a sword that caught his eye in a taproom. It’s why I love to know every blade of grass along the Triboar Trail, and why I spend so much time in these adventures. Things like this have the potential to help me to deliver pertinent lore to the players at my table without the need to shoehorn it in there another way.

Does anyone under the age of fifty know what a shoehorn is? I suspect gnomes invented those, too.

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