His Dark Materials is a fantasy trilogy written by Philip Pullman which consists of three books titled: Northern Lights (Alternatively titled The Golden Compass in the US), The Subtle Knife and the Amber Spyglass.

His Dark Materials is set in an alternative world where all humans have animal companions called daemons, which are the manifestation of the human soul. The series follows the life of young girl named Lyra who is an orphan living with the scholars at Jordan College, Oxford. As in Pullman’s novel, Lyra discovers a dangerous secret that involves Lord Asriel and Marisa Coulter. In her search for her missing friend, Lyra also uncovers a series of kidnappings and its link to the mysterious substance called Dust. The story moves between the world of the first novel, our own world, and in another world, the city of Cittàgazze.

The first book was adapted into a film in 2007, entitled The Golden Compass. The Golden Compass movie was not critically successful and the adaptations for the following two books were scrapped as a result and were never adapted.

In 2019, the books have garnered new popularity and success with their BBC/HBO television adaptation, starring Dafne Keen as Lyra, James McAvoy as Asriel, Ruth Wilson as Marisa Coulter and Lin-Manuel Miranda as Lee Scoresby. Despite the rich complexities of the novels world, the series has thus far been a fantastic adaptation to the books and has garnered heavy praise from fans, old and new. Its creators have promised to “sound every note” of the books.

As huge fans of the book trilogy, fans of the current season of the show and heck, even fans of the movie, we’ve often wondered what it would be like to play in a 5e His Dark Materials game. Many of the fantasy elements of the world lend themselves to an excellent Dungeons and Dragons game. Probably the most difficult mechanic to pin down would be how to create 5e daemons. It is a concept we’re constantly toying with and if you have an idea, we’d love to hear it.

For those of you who are fans of the books and want to bring a His Dark Materials game to life for 5th edition Dungeons and Dragons, or maybe even just dabble a few of the elements of that world into your D&D game, we’ve got you covered. We’ve created the three artifacts from the world of His Dark Materials, which the books are centered around, for 5th edition.

The Golden Compass, Subtle Knife, and Amber Spyglass all perform great feats of magic that were unattainable by a normal character in the books. Fortunately 5th edition has plenty of spell effects at our disposal that we were able to use to replicate their powerful magic for a role-playing game. These items may not be of the same “artifact” rarity in your campaign setting, they may even be things that you would be willing to throw to your 5th level warlock in your play through of Curse of Strahd, perhaps even ignoring their neccesary attunement: the rarity we chose was based entirely on the setting of His Dark Materials, moreso than that of the Forgotten Realms.

Whether you plan to homebrew a whole campaign in this setting, or just want to add to your list of neat things to find in the Realms, we’ve added these bonus items to the list of things we wanted to share with you. Let us know how the playtest goes!