Zelda Items: First five from The Legend of Zelda II: Link's Adventure

Here are the first five items from The Legend of Zelda II: Link's Adventure.

Power Glove: This heavy metal glove could be a powerful gauntlet, part of a set of armor that needs to be reassembled, or an animated hand monster. This could even be a fantasy power fist for those pillaging ideas from the Fallout series. 

Cross: In Link's Adventure, the cross item provides the ability to see the undead and other invisible things. I tried to keep the overall cross shape while maintaining distance from overt Christian iconography. The name for this image in Photoshop was "Vision Cross". I imagined this item as an arcane surveyor’s tool. Planting it in the ground allows the user to see ley lines and other large scale magical anomalies. This could also be a spotlight or an invisible scrying ward. 

Boots: Winged boots really sell themselves. Most people wouldn't say no to boots that let you fly, run super-fast, or fall safely from great heights. Don't forget that these could also be cursed boots that keep a person tethered close to the ground, multiply the force of gravity on the wearer, or they always have spiders in them when you want to put them on. The more exciting and potentially obvious the enchantment of an item is, the less likely people are to identify the item before equipping.

Flute: I know this isn't a flute. Whether this is a magical or mundane musical instrument, I think it turned out pretty well. This could be a bard's signature instrument or the secret to calming the vengeful spirit of a jazz musician cut down in their prime. One could also use this to represent the various magical horn items for a setting in the golden age of jazz instead of the standard high fantasy medieval age. 

Water of Life: The water of life is a classic item used by many heroes over the ages. When it came time to draw something to capture it, I had no idea where to start. Eventually, I came up with the idea of living water instead of the water of life. Maybe the name has been mistranslated a few too many times to hold the original meaning. 

I think this would be a really interesting thing to find at the end of a quest to bring someone back from the dead. Instead of finding a crystal vial of golden glowing liquid, you find a strange morphling trapped under a cursed crystal lid. This little creature still has the power to restore life to the dead. Maybe it must be released and slain in its greater form to recover the restorative materials. Or the creature joyfully flows into the dead body. Would you ever know if it really was the person returned to life or if it was a strange alien mind wearing their body like a suit for some inscrutable purpose? Maybe it’s both. 

This is the first post in the second set of item drawings for Zelda games. Once we have all twenty items posted, I will be putting out another collected file where you can get all the item cards in one place. 

As always, use my item cards in your personal life however you would like but please don't repost without credit or reap gains from my work without my consent. 

-Ceph