I wasn’t completely sure I should cover this brief section of an article in this series, but decided that in a half-hearted gesture towards thoroughness we should at least mention the “Prize of Erackinor.” After all, its appearance in the March 1998, issue #245 of Dragon Magazine is one of the last bits of directed Planescape material we’re ever going to see. The line has just a handful of major releases left, with most of the planar content in the future being at-times related but sadly lacking the overall Planescape tone and scope. Anyhow, this issue of the magazine was dwarf-themed, and as such its “Bazaar of the Bizarre” column, a regular feature highlighting strange magic items players might wish to make use of in their campaigns, offers up new dwarven items for many of D&D‘s game settings, including—to everyone’s surprise at this point—Planescape. 

Kevin Melka’s sole contribution to the setting is his write-up for the “Prize of Erackinor,” which is actually an interesting little addition to planar lore despite the context. Melka decided to make all of the items he wrote about be truly epic in nature, not things usable by players so much as possible goals or hooks for adventures. This is perfect for Planescape, as I for one don’t particularly care about hearing the lore behind a new +2 axe. The prize he details for Planescape is in fact an award given every hundred years by Moradin himself, chief god of the dwarves, to the best craftwork from four outer planar dwarven communities. 

The actual prize itself is just a brooch “said to contain mystical powers,” none of which are defined, but the contest between the dwarves is something a planar dwarf might wish to compete in. Conversely, it might be an item for players to defend against robbery, or perhaps even steal themselves. It’s a very simple plot device, something that wouldn’t merit notice if it cropped up in one of the actual Planescape releases, but is nevertheless kind of neat to stumble upon in a random Dragon article. It’s not worth the purchase of the whole issue, but you can check it out here https://annarchive.com/files/Drmg245.pdf for a minute or so of additional planar lore. Don’t worry, next week we’ll return with bigger releases, and in fact this is probably the shortest one of these articles we’ll ever include.