Mordenkainen's Magnificent Emporium

Greyhawk Source

Mordenkainen's Magnificent Emporium
Cover of Mordenkainen's Magnificent Emporium, illustration by
General information
Type:	Core supplement
Code/Abbr.:	MME
Edition:	D&D fourth edition
Creators
Author:	Jeremy Crawford, Stephen Schubert, and Matt Sernett
Cover artist:	William O'Conner
Interior artist(s):	Vincent Dutrait, Emrah Elmasli, Wayne England, Brian Hagan, Jeff Himmelman, Tyler Jacobson, Michael Komarek, Howard Lyon, Warren Mahy, David Martin,Jim Nelson, William O'Connor, Hector Ortiz, Marc Sasso, Chris Seaman, Cynthia Sheppard,John Stanko, Beth Trott, Franz Vohwinkel, Eva Widermann, Ben Wootten
Publishing info
Publisher:	Wizards of the Coast
Publish date:	September 20, 2011
Misc
Pages:	160
ISBN:	978-0786957446

Mordenkainen's Magnificent Emporium (2011) is a sourcebook of magical items and equipment for the fourth edition. It is presented in-character as a catalog of magical items written by Mordenkainen's apprentices, their notes magically appearing in Mordenkainen's "master copy." The in-character text was intended by Mordenkainen as a guide to powerful magic items primarily to keep out of the hands of those who might imbalance the world. "Those that serve no purpose for me I subject to disjunction," he writes. The excerpts from Mordenkainen's copy of the Magnificent Emporium that appear throughout the text were gleaned by his apprentice Qort (originally mentioned in the parody adventure Castle Greyhawk) before Mordenkainen burnt the pages of his original and disintegrated the ash. Qort is presented as the editor of the excerpts, presenting the contents of the Emporium to a broader audience without Mordenkainen's permission. The character writes that he fears for his life for having done so.

Contents

Cover blurb

"A wondrous collection of magical treasures for any campaign.

Few wizards know more about magic than the mighty Mordenkainen, whose arcane achievements are without peer. He’s the Archmage of Adventure . . . and no stranger to unearthing hidden lore. Stand aside, Tenser! Back to the books, Otiluke! Few can match Mordenkainen's collection of magic items. Still, he hardly seems the type to settle down and open a magic shop. And yet...

Welcome to Mordenkainen's Magnificent Emporium, a wondrous collection of magic items—each one with a story to tell. This tome provides Dungeon Masters with a ready assortment of treasures to tempt greedy players, along with historical nuggets and alluring adventure hooks that set these items apart from your run-of-the-mill flaming sword or bag of holding. This book adds rich flavor to the treasures and trinkets presented within, and a dash of inspiration for Dungeon Masters looking to liven up a monster’s trove. Hold on to your magic hats—everything must go!"

Mordenkainen's Magnificent Emporium is a 160-page source book on items and magical treasures for both Dungeon Masters and players in fourth edition. Lore or other details are included for every item in the book. Along with sidebars throughout the book, each chapter starts with in-character introduction from Mordenkainen:

"By cataloguing what exists—and what is rumored to exist—I hope to be forewarned of the danger of any item when it falls into the wrong hands. Soon I will share this knowledge—if not with the world, then with the Circle of Eight. Surely someone besides myself should be armed with this knowledge. I suppose, if you are reading this, I have already chosen to share it. In that case, I hope you take what you learn here and put it to sensible use. I would not have this book used as some plunderer’s to-do list! Instead, tread lightly, act wisely, be wary, and be well."— Mordenkainen

The table of contents lists the following sections:

• Introduction
• Chapter 1: Armor
• Chapter 2: Weapons
• Chapter 3: Implements
• Chapter 4: Magical Gear
• Chapter 5: Artifacts and Curses
• Chapter 6: Adventuring Gear
• Appendix 1: Hirelings and Henchmen
• Appendix 2: Magic Item Stories
• Appendix 3: Item Levels as Treasure
• Appendix 4: Item Lists

Shannon Appelcline, author of Designers & Dragons, wrote: "Mordenkainen's Magnificent Emporium features some reprinted material. About a quarter of the magic items in the book were originally published (in a somewhat different form) in Adventurer's Vault (2008) or Adventurer's Vault 2 (2009), from the Essentials line. The Emporium also contains an article on henchmen and hirelings that had previously appeared in Dragon #397 (March 2011). Finally, the idea of implements originated with Player's Handbook 3 (2010)." />

Greyhawk references

References are made in the text to Mordenkainen, Otiluke, Bigby, Tenser, Robilar, Bigby, Evard, Rary, the Circle of Eight, Erelhei-Cinlu, Castle Greyhawk, and Maure Castle. In the narration, Mordenkainen mentions living on a world called Oerth, but notes that other worlds have magical items similar to the ones mentioned in this book.

Magic items in Mordenkainen's Magnificent Emporium connected in some way to the Greyhawk setting include:

• Blessed Armor of Kord (though this is the fourth edition Kord, who has a thunder god aspect that Greyhawk's Kord lacks in previous editions)
• Book of Infinite Spells (suggested to have once been used by Vecna as his spellbook)
• Box of Seven Demons (created by Tharizdun)
• Codex of the Infinite Planes
• Daern's Instant Fortress
• Eternal Chalk (said to be created by an apprentice of Nolzur)
• Flask of the Veiled Horde (said to be created by Evard)
• Hammer of Thunderbolts (connected to Moradin and Kord)
• Iron Bands of Bilarro (said to have been created by wizards of a long-lost empire)
• Jacinth of Inestimable Beauty
• Nolzur's Inkwell
• Orb of Enduring Magic (said to be created by Bigby)
• Quaal's Feather Tokens
• The Shadowstaff (formerly owned by Evard)
• Zax, Cloak of Kings (possibly connected to Pelor)

Non-Greyhawk references

The book also references many concepts first introduced in the fourth edition of the Dungeons & Dragons game, including the Elemental Chaos, the Feywild, the Shadowfell, primordials, the goddesses Avandra, Erathis, Melora, and Ioun, the defunct lands of Bael Turath, Nerath, and Arkhosia, and the Dawn War between the primordials and gods.

Publishing history

Mordenkainen's Magnificent Emporium was exclusively released at local game stores and was not made available for purchase through online stores such as Amazon. The book was re-released as a PDF on November 10, 2015.

Appelcline highlighted that this book nearly did not exist at all - the book "was first announced late in 2010 with a release date of April 19, 2011. Unfortunately, that put it right in the crosshairs of a series of cancellations that would eventually lead to the death of D&D 4e (2011-2012). Mordenkainen's Magnificent Emporium was thus cancelled on January 12, 2011, as part of the same announcement that moved Heroes of Shadow (2011) back a month and killed "Class Compendium: Heroes of Sword and Spell" and "Hero Builder's Handbook" entirely. That was it for those other books [...], but Mordenkainen's Magnificent Emporium was lucky enough to make it back onto Wizards' production schedule. In August, Wizards announced that it was returning as a September release".

Reception

DieHard GameFan wrote: "Mordenkainen’s Magnificent Emporium is a book filled with both fluff and crunch. You have tons of stats for new magic items and new feats mixed with the backstories and descriptions of the unique magic items. [...] Really I don’t see the need to have more than one copy of this at the gaming table. But I think there definitely should be one copy of this at the gaming table".

Appelcline wrote, on the book not being available through online stores, "though this was probably intended as a nice benefit for game retailers, it wasn't as well appreciated by fans, some of whom complained that it dramatically increased the price of the book (because they usually bought from said deep discounters)".

External links

Disclaimer:Any lore presented through the following links does not necessarily adhere to established officially published content, and the views expressed do not necessarily represent the views of the editors of this wiki.

• Wizards of the Coast Product Page and book excerpts (via the Internet Archive):
• Mordenkainen's Magnificent Emporium Art Gallery
• Hirelings and Henchmen: Mordenkainen's Magnificent Emporium Excerpts
• New Artifacts: Mordenkainen's Magnificent Emporium Excerpts

References

Bibliography

• Crawford, Jeremy; Stephen Schubert, and Matt Sernett. Mordenkainen's Magnificent Emporium. Renton, WA: Wizards of the Coast, 2011.

This page uses Creative Commons Licensed content from Wikipedia: Mordenkainen's Magnificent Emporium (view authors).

This page uses Creative Commons Licensed content from Mordenkainen's Magnificent Emporium on the Forgotten Realms Wiki (view authors.

Encyclopedia Greyhawkania Index

The Encyclopedia Greyhawkania Index (EGI) is based on previous work of Jason Zavoda through '08, continued by numerous other fans. The EGI article has a list of sources, product names, abbreviations, and a link to the full, downloadable index.

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