Here are five items any wanderer would need from A Link to the Past.
Ether Medallion: A golden medal that gives its owner the ability to call down lightning strikes and control the weather by raising their blade to the heavens. Those that survive being struck by the lightning are paralyzed by the overwhelming power of the medallion.
Gold is as good as gold. The traveler's saying means all types of money and currency have value somewhere. When a traveler comes upon a cache of coins minted in Stormhold, they should take as many as they can carry because there will always be another money changer that can exchange those Stormhold bolts into Termina rupees or Imperial credits.
Shamans, druids, and animages the world over visit the storm-callers of Mt. Abarat with the hopes of training under the masters of storm magics. Deep inside the Imojen mountain range, many would be pupils abandon their quest when the difficulty of traversing the mountains is too great. To receive their titular powers, Imojen Storm-Callers must climb to the peak of Mt. Abarat during the height of the rainy season. Those that reach the summit find an ancient stone tablet inscribed with ancient hieroglyphics. If the prospective storm-caller is able to decipher the message, they will discover they have always known the storms' true names. With this knowledge unlocked, the climber can truly assume the mantle of a storm-caller.
Cane of Byrna: With this cane, Link can summon an invulnerable sphere of force that blocks attacks from enemies and harms creatures that touch the sphere. To obtain this cane, Link must dodge his way through a gauntlet of traps and hazards, avoiding certain death to reach the prize. Link can also simply have all the heart containers in the game with a fairy in a bottle and just run through everything, putting no care into dodging or subtlety and relying entirely on his unearthly constitution. That is a great example of giving the player a problem with what you think is one solution and having them ignore that solution entirely and come up with their own way to solve the puzzle.
A good walking stick is like an extra leg and an extra arm combined. No walker of the world should go anywhere without their trusty walking stick. Now, if your walking stick allows you to summon up invulnerable shields around yourself and others, all the better. While the protective enchantment is absolutely life-saving in some of the real dicey situations one may encounter on the road, the crook in this staff will serve a traveler far better than any fancy magic ever will. That crook will let you grab a tree branch or a cliff edge and climb up, it will let you pick up your bag by the strap when it slides down a crevasse, it could even catch a wayward root if you found yourself getting swept down a raging river in a flash flood. If I had the choice, I'd take a mundane crooked stick over a fancy enchanted straight staff any day.
The abjurer's staff allows any that wield it to summon up shields and wards to protect themself and their companions. Any mage in possession of this staff could summon the defenses of a small fortress to the battlefield in the blink of an eye. Unfortunately, the staff is currently at the center of a large fortress where is powers the magical defenses that keep the fortress safe from unconventional threats that thick stone walls and vigilant guards can do little to protect against. Since the fortress has those thick stone walls, vigilant guards, and magical wards, it would be a near-impossible mission for anyone to take the staff and live to tell the tale.
Magic Powder: The item sounds very open-ended and generally useful. In practice, magic powder allows Link to transmogrify creatures into other creatures and wake up a cranky bat spirit. Link first obtains the magic powder after bringing Maple the Witch a magic mushroom from the magical forest.
A bag with a hole is like a person with no soul, empty. If you are any serious kind of wanderer, you are going to need a trusty sack to carry your earthly belongings. Your sack needs to be durable, repairable, and you should consider it a sign of favor from the powers that be if you somehow get your hands on a sack that is waterproof. A long sturdy drawstring is a must so that you can throw it over your shoulder or tie it off on the end of your stick while you are walking the easier trails. You shouldn't trust your drawstring completely. Sometimes drawstrings can snap if snagged and some unscrupulous travelers have been known to cut the drawstrings of fellow wanderers as they slept to steal their belongings.
While this little bag doesn't look like much, it is actually the powder bag of the infamous gunslinger Two-Hands Haku. Two-Hands came from a land where everyone had four arms and four hands. Two-Hands was born with only two arms and two hands, thus the name. This circumstance of birth made life difficult for Two-Hands. They always had to rely on their speed and wits to get out of the sticky situations their mouth and wits got them into. Two-Hands didn't have the two free hands to reload guns that other gunfighters had so Haku had to find a creative solution for reloading. This little bag is that solution. Filled with mechanical sprites that joyfully reload every chamber of any pistol put into the extra-dimensional space of the bag, Two-Hands could lay down more fire than anybody. With a near endless stream of fire at their beck and call, Two-Hands got to do something most gunslingers could never dream of, retire. Two-Hands died in their old age after raising a family on a farm outside of the small town of Kamacho. They were buried with two pistols and the powder bag. Some ghoulish grave robbers tore open the grave exactly 13 days after the moment Two-Hands was buried. The guns and the pouch have been missing ever since, but rumors of their use in duels and battles continue to be spread in saloons and around campfires under the stars.
Map: The architects of the many dungeons of A Link to the Past had plans. They also left those plans in conveniently located chests within each dungeon for Link to find. This greatly assisted Link in defeating Gannon and stopping his evil plans. This small bit of administrative disobedience has been heralded as a key reason for Link's success in defeating the forces of evil.
I'd rather have it and not need it, than need it and not have it. I know some wanderers that eschew maps entirely. They say that they know all the shortcuts that aren't on any map and would only waste their time double checking a map to be sure of what they already know. I say to them, "Can you please mark all the short cuts you know on my map? Thank you very much. Would you like to share my meal of beans tonight? It is humble but satisfying." If you are traveling in a new area, or returning to a place you haven't been to in years, maps can keep you out of trouble. Maybe you forgot that a certain farmer is faster to shoot a unknown person walking in their fields than to ask if they might need directions off their lands. If you had marked that on your map, you might not have forgotten such an event. Keep your maps safe and secure and above all, make sure you remember how to fold them back down so that you don't ruin them with a bunch of new creases or, gods forbid, a tear.
There is a manicured island off the rich vacation coast that important and rich people go to live out their dreams of being adventurers. The location of this island has been kept a secret for fear of the wrong sorts of people setting up shop on an island where the movers and shakers of the world let their guard down. A map like this is given to every person who visits the island. They are enchanted to show a small glowing dot for every visitor. The map also shows where visitors can find intriguing adventures such as: save the lusty heir apparent, slay the greedy dragon, and discover the lost city of platinum. Advertisers for the resort are quick to point out the parks impeccable safety record. There have been no recorded fatalities of any visitor to the resort. Safety precautions are in place to ensure that all the visitors are completely safe as they play through whatever narrative piques their interest.
Mushroom: This cartoonish mushroom can be found in the magical Lost Woods. It is the key ingredient in Magic Powder. I drew this purposefully cartoony. As part of the card set, I think it sticks out a bit because of the stylistic difference. I am still working on finding the way I really enjoy drawing things so I am comfortable trying different methods to see if they are the perfect fit.
Mushrooms are one of the more dangerous things you can pick up off the ground and eat. A lot of mushrooms won't do anything but fill you up something nice, but some will make you go a little crazy and some will make you a lot dead. Even if you are a mycologist, that’s a mushroom doctor for those not in the know, identifying mushrooms is hard. I say, unless you are absolutely sure about a mushroom, don't eat it. You can of course pick it and throw it in your unidentified mushroom pouch. In the event you run into a mushroom doctor or even just a wise fellow road wanderer, they might be able to learn you a little something about the mushrooms for next time.
You need a fetch quest item for a potion or poultice? Send your brave adventurers into a surprisingly dangerous forest or swamp to recover a special kind of mushroom that only grows on a specific kind of rock in this area. Maybe make it a race against time by having a person get poisoned and the mushroom is the only cure or the mushroom is the secret to a puzzle that the party and their rival adventuring group both want.
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I tried to channel Gummy from the Thrilling Adventure Hour's Down in Moonshine Holler for the voice of the hobo/traveler parts.
My voice and style very much wandered with the writing of this one.
Please don't profit off my work without my consent but feel free to use this personally as you see fit.
And as always, be excellent to everyone.
-Ceph
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