Entad (TUTBAD)

In the world of This Used to be About Dungeons, an **Entad** is a unique magical item created by a Dungeon. In this, they are distinguished from ectad materials (which are harvested from dungeons but come in standard types and are largely interchangeable); and from magic items that can be deliberately created by Wizards, Sorcerers etc.

Like everything else in the dungeons, Entads are generated randomly; with some inspiration taken from the surrounding Hex and the dungeoneers entering, and at a "power level" informed by ambient magic levels and the Elevation of the dungeoneers. Entads are the primary resource extracted from dungeons, and serve to soak up much of the excess magic channeled into the dungeon.[*citation needed*] It's estimated that 80% of the profit in dungeoneering comes from 20% of the items.

## Abilities

Although every entad is unique, there are some patterns. For example, travel effects are weakly associated with brooms, carpets, boots, watches, rings, and drinks. Entads generally can't be disassembled without breaking them.

The following abilities have been noted as rare:

* Looking into the past (postcognition). Doing so without any drawbacks is even rarer. It's rare enough that Alfric's family only had one on hand, which was bound to his mother and fairly limited; but common enough that they would be brought in for serious criminal investigations, and that a sufficiently wealthy person could get their hands on a fairly comprehensive selection if they were determined enough.
* Interfering with Party or Guild communications.
* Mental effects (Outright mind-reading and mind-control are implied to be impossible by the will of the Editors.)[*citation needed*]
	+ Boosting memory
	+ Memory-altering attacks
	+ Entads which enhance skill (these also tend to be fairly narrow)
	+ Sensing emotions, or anything remotely adjacent to mind-reading. For example, a coin which vaguely sensed whether people were positively or negatively disposed towards you was worth over a thousand rings. Despite their rarity, such entads might be brought in by the state of Inter for a serious murder investigation.
	+ Mental illusions
* Interfering with the Census; this is even rarer than looking into the past, with Alfric only being aware of two examples in history. Pulling data from the census is also rare, but much more common than altering it.
* Permanent bodily alterations.
* Time manipulation is called out as notably "good", and Isra's bow as "world class", mainly due to the obvious potential combinations with other entads.
* Turning a person into an inaminate object (which allows for cheating the party size limits on Dungeons, Chrononaut auto-reset on death, etc.) Often quite risky to use.
* Magic arrows that return to the user in addition to a useful primary effect.
* Entads with multiple seperate parts, magically linked together. (More common for communication entads.) 100 linked entads would be extremely bizarre, although not literally unprecedented.
* Travelling between continents.
* Travel entads that can cut out travel times completely.
* Interacting with Leylines.
* Entads which grant strength are noted to be rarer than storage entads.

## Binding

When taken out of the dungeon they originated in, entads can "bind" to the Party that recovers them or, more rarely, to an individual party member. The odds of an item binding to you are very slightly increased if you're the one carrying it when you leave, but it's almost entirely random and uncontrollable. Only the bound owner(s) can use a bound entad (which, obviously, makes bound entads much less useful financially), and it becomes completely useless when they die. A Sorcerer or Wizard can usually tell when an item is bound and who owns it with their magic sight, although this may require people to play around with them a bit to be obvious.[*citation needed*] On the occasion the Settlers found 100 entads in a single dungeon, approximately 20 were individually bound and 5 party bound; a higher percentage than expected.

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Many people got into dungeoneering for the

money, and you could make good money, but it wasn’t as simple as going

into the dungeons and pulling out immense wealth, not normally. The

general rule was that eighty percent of the wealth came from twenty percent

of the items, and people tended to talk about their best finds rather than the

runs of bad luck. Worse, being properly equipped was necessary for

extracting value from a dungeon, not just in terms of fighting off the

monsters, but in moving all of the things inside the dungeon out. This party

had rented entads for that purpose, then never ended up using them, which

was money down the drain. Then, when they decided to stop renting the

entads, they ran into a good entad that they were physically incapable of

pulling from the dungeon, much to their distress. They’d tried to take it

apart into pieces, but that generally just broke an entad, depending on what

you were taking off. The entad, worth perhaps a hundred thousand rings,

had broken. - Chapter 69: Undone II
2. ↑ “Entads are the first priority,” said Alfric. “There’s not really a limit to how valuable they can be, but I would be surprised if we found anything that

was astounding. What I’m really hoping for is travel, which is most associated with brooms, carpets, boots, watches, rings, and drinks, but it could be anything.”

“You memorized all that?” asked Verity.

“Sure,” replied Alfric. He moved over to the crushed display cases and began moving things aside, being as careful as he could. “Not on purpose, I

didn’t sit down to do it, but I read enough that I picked it up. Different effects have different associations. It’s not completely random.” - Chapter 7: Songbird
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Many of their best resources had been exhausted in the first day — which was actually a great many days, thanks to chrononauts. Looking into the past was a quite rare ability for an entad to have, the same as the ability to affect party channels, guild messages, or things like that. Doing so perfectly was even rarer. - Chapter 134: The Last Days II
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 ["]Presumably she was jamming the party channel with some other entad, which is alarming given how rare that kind of power is.”

“Says the man who’s been usin’ half the world’s supply of pastwatching entads?” asked Hannah.

“That’s overstating it,” said Alfric. “But yes, it is alarming that Cate has power equivalent to one of the larger chrononaut clans, especially without being a dungeoneer herself. And from what we know, that’s only a lower bound on what her power is.” - Chapter 134: The Last Days II
5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 “There are some post-cognitive entads that could be employed to catch whoever was responsible, but my family doesn’t have any to loan, not with the right time frame, and the authorities wouldn’t be called in for something like this where the outcome was mostly inconvenience. It seems a little doubtful that the day will be reset, but there’s always a chance, I suppose.”

“Post-cognitive?” asked Mizuki.

“Knowledge after the fact,” said Hannah. “Bein’ able to look at a scene and see what happened there days, weeks, or even months ago.”
“Off the top of my head, my mom has a piece of glass that allows you to see whatever was going on exactly three hours before,” said Alfric. “Even that was pretty rare, and you’d need to know where the release happened.” [...] “Hard to murder someone and get away with it,” said Hannah. “First off, the chrononauts, but second, murder is the sort of thing that gets Inter involved, and when they come ‘round, they’re usin’ all kinds of entads, tryin’ to see into the past and pull thoughts from heads and … well, all that stuff.” - Chapter 53: Siege Songs
6. ↑ She’s got a significant portion of Inter’s ability to watch the past, spending loads of money, some of it borrowed from relatives. It’s a really pretty rare ability, as is information gathering, but we’ve got lots of stuff. - Chapter 133: The Last Days
7. ↑ “I have a rare entad,” said Cate. “It blocks the party channel. Stores it, actually, but the effect is the same. I wanted a private conversation, and this helps to ensure that.” - Chapter 135: The Last Days III
8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 “Like an imaginary garden?” asked Verity. “I asked Isra, and she didn’t see me move. It was like a mental thing. An imaginary garden.” She shrugged.

“Mental effects are very rare,” said Alfric, frowning. - Chapter 25: A Post-Dungeon Pickle
9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 “There are memory entads,” Mizuki offered.

“They don’t typically work across undone days,” said Alfric.

“Really?” she asked.

“We still train memory, there’s a lot you can be very accurate about,” said Alfric.

“Why don’t they work across undone days?” asked Mizuki.

“No one really knows,” said Alfric. “It’s a blessing and a curse. We can’t use entads to boost our own memory, but we also can’t be affected by any kind of memory attack. Both of those are really rare though.” - Chapter 134: The Last Days II
10. ↑ She wondered, idly, whether this particular lute might help her learn faster. There were very rare and very particular entads that could make a person better at something, so she supposed that it was possible. When she played, she was effectively playing eight lutes at once, so perhaps an hour of practice with it might equate to eight hours of normal practice. There was no simple way to test that though, and she wasn’t going to reduce her practice time, not with the concert looming. - Chapter 87: Composition
11. ↑ The coin gives some measure of emotional understanding of the people around you.”

“Does it?” asked Alfric. “Rare, that. I’m glad we didn’t sell it.”

“It’s not terribly much more than weal and woe by way of emotional manipulation, non-specific and easily confounded,” said Filera.
“But you’re right, it’s rare, and my guess, based on what I know of the markets, is that it might go for at least a thousand, even if it’s horribly imperfect.”

“Even the best are imperfect,” said Alfric, frowning. “A thing like that is the closest we might get to mind-reading, and entads are notoriously terrible about it. They read circumstance more than base truth.” - Chapter 70: Undone III
12. ↑ “In Plenarch, in Liberfell, in every hex around Pucklechurch,” said Alfric. “It’s technically possible that she’s cloaked from the census, but things that interfere with the census are extremely rare, even more so than pastwatching. There was a species of rabbit that would show up on the census, and an entad that would add people to it, but — I’d have to go read a book to see, I guess.” - Chapter 134: The Last Days II
13. ↑ “Would it be possible for someone to hide from the census?” He fully expected the answer to be no, but he wasn’t sure, and he’d waited in the queue for long enough that he wanted to get *something* from this meeting.

“There are entads that interact with the census,” said the censusmaster. “They’re rare, but they’re out there. The most common form draws information from the census in one way or another, but a few do alter the census information in various ways. I would have no way of knowing except by being able to draw conclusions from a conflict between reality and what the census tells me. If you have an example of that, let me know. It’s not illegal per se, but it makes my job more difficult.”

“So,” said Alfric. “Plausibly, someone could be in the hex and hiding from the census?”

“It’s unlikely, but yes,” said the censusmaster. “I would have no way of knowing. The census is imperfect in that regard, a valuable tool but not the all-seeing eye that some people say it is. Now, I need to get home to my wife and children, is there something else you need me to look up?” - Chapter 101: The All-Seeing Eye
14. ↑ “Entad effects usually aren’t permanent, for bodily effects,” said Alfric. “If there were one that gave you an extra finger on your hand for the rest of your life, it would be one of the really rare ones.” - Chapter 6: Henlings
15. ↑ “The world slowed down and I walked with the arrow.”

“Time manipulation?” asked Alfric, raising an eyebrow. “That *is* good, even if it just lets you take a breather.”

[...]

It’s very powerful,” said Alfric. “We’ll need to see how it binds, if it does, but … it’s world class.”

“Meaning best in the world?” asked Mizuki.

“Yes,” replied Alfric.

“It doesn’t seem that good,” said Mizuki, giving the white longbow a skeptical look.

“Entads compound,” said Alfric. “If you have a good one, then mixing it with a second good one can make for a much more powerful result. Take a bow like that one, add in a quiver that lets you shoot faster or with more arrows, or that generates arrows, mix in an amulet that gives you constant low-grade healing, a dagger that takes time to charge … it’s not only powerful by itself, there are a lot of common effects that it makes more powerful, to say nothing of the rare effects.” - Chapter 6: Henlings
16. ↑ “Wait, you can get around the limit of five?” asked Mizuki. “Why have we not been taking extra people in?”

“You need the right kind of entad,” said Alfric. “Extradimensional storage doesn’t work, but there are a select few entads that turn people into something that’s not, per the dungeons, a person, which means that they can slip through and be reconstituted into a person. It’s a rare thing for an entad to do, and usually pretty dangerous for those involved, so doing that with hundreds of people … I don’t see it.” - Chapter 135: The Last Days III
17. ↑ <I need better arrows,> said Isra. <This is the second fight where penetration has been an issue.>

<Keep it in mind for next time we go shopping,> said Alfric. <But arrows make finicky entads.>

<Why?> asked Isra.

<Required powers,> Mizuki answered for Alfric. <Let’s say you have an entad arrow. You can fire it and that’s all good, right? But in battle, you want to fire more than one, and so either you have to go run and get your magic arrow in the middle of battle, which sucks, or the arrow needs to have some kind of thing where it will return to you. So if you want an arrow that blows a fireball-sized hole in something, it has to have two powers, not one.>

<Good summary,> said Alfric. <Very possible, but somewhat rare.>

<A fireball arrow I would have to retrieve wouldn’t be terrible,> said Isra. <I could use it once per battle.> - Chapter 110: Slop
18. ↑ <How do you tell if an entad is linked?> asked Mizuki. She was looking at the lutes. <I mean, can you, without testing?>

<Links are rare,> said Alfric. <A hundred being linked would be … not unprecedented, I don’t think, but very notable. Especially at this elevation.>

<Welp,> said Mizuki. <That was my only contribution.>

<It was a good one,> said Alfric. Sometimes entads *could* come in parts, especially common for those with a communication effect. A hundred, and all lutes, would be extremely odd. - Chapter 126: Dungeon Dreams
19. ↑ “The whole house is spread out over Dondrian,” said Alfric. “Or places that are close to Dondrian. The doorways on this level can all be used as much as we want, so we leave them open.”

“But they’re all different?” asked Mizuki.

“Two of them are the same, actually,” said Alfric. “A pretty rare entad set, and with the bonus of being straightforward, limited by weight but not so much that it ever shuts down. The workshop area — well, you won’t have to worry about it. The other one,” he pointed at the one termed the ‘nature’ area, “requires a blood sacrifice, but dad does that every month, and we eat the goat afterward.” - Chapter 55: Carving a Path to Dondrian
20. ↑ <I mean, we’re going for a trip to Dondrian, right?> asked Mizuki. <And with the right entads, Kiromo is next door.>
<Some very expensive entads,> said Hannah.
<Sure, but we’re bound to have some in a bit, right?> asked Mizuki. <Even if we have to sell them or whatever, we could do a trip to see my family before we did.>
<I think you underestimate how rare they are,> said Verity. <Hex to hex isn’t much of a problem, and province to province can be done without spending an outrageous sum, but you’re talking about Kiromo.> - Chapter 48: Dungeon Denizens
21. ↑ “Well, yes, that too,” said Alfric. “Right now, we’re looking at the low-hanging fruit, the simple ones like the Pucklechurch dungeon that shouldn't cause problems. But the more we do, the more we’ll end up ranging, and there’s travel times to consider until you get a travel entad, or can purchase one. Even then, it’s pretty rare to be able to cut out travel times completely. Ideally you’re able to chart a path that allows a dungeon a day or sometimes, two, but that can only last for a limited amount of time, because there aren’t that many hexes in the world, and a lot of them are either impossible to get to or too dangerous to attempt.” - Chapter 13: The Nature of Travel
22. ↑ “And leylines,” said Hannah. “That would make four.”
“Leylines are for leycraft and cartiers,” said Alfric. “It’s pretty rare for an entad to interact with them. And the natural portals are the fifth, if we’re counting extras, but then we should also include ships and things.” - [https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/45534

	* Entads which appear weak but radically increase in value when their true function is analysed by a Cleric of Qymmos.<ref>He wasn’t sure exactly what she wanted from this, but he was willing to indulge her if it meant that she would spend some time identifying entads for them. It was somewhat rare for an entad to dramatically rise in value when a cleric of Qymmos had a look at it, but there were definitely exceptions to that, including those with command words, or those whose apparent function cloaked a deeper, richer function. - Chapter 39: Holy Numbers
23. ↑ Isra shrugged. “I like hunting.” She looked over the entads. He was relieved that she seemed perfectly capable of reading, which had been in question given some of the peculiarity that clearly accompanied her upbringing. “Storage would be good. Something to help carry a deer.”
“Strength could do that too,” said Alfric. “But they’re more rare. Might help you get more draw from the bow though.” - <Chapter 11: Agates Among the Stones/ref>

	* Creating food (Verity's family had two, and Alfric's family has a whole dining room full, a testament to their wealth.)<ref>“Perhaps once we’re in Liberfell, we can look at gettin’ somethin’ like a magical spoon that’ll make whatever meal you want.” That was wishful thinking, because it was likely to be far too expensive. “I suppose if I’ve got a list of what I’m after, it’s for somethin’ that would make food.”
“I want a hot meal,” said Verity with a sigh. “If you could just lift a cloche up, and find something waiting for you.”

“Food replacement is rare, ay,” said Hannah. “And a good thing too, or what would the farmers end up doing?”

“My family had two of them,” said Verity. “Mostly for emergencies, though. Entads, not farmers.”

Hannah whistled. “Must have cost them a fair few rings.” - Chapter 25: A Post-Dungeon Pickle
24. ↑ A house like Alfric’s would be beyond the dreams of most people, especially given how much magic was built into it. Having bits of the house in different areas of the region allowed for fast travel by all the members of the household, beyond just the aesthetic functions. Dining being provided entirely by entad … well, it depended upon the quality of the food, but from the things that Alfric had said about his family, Verity had very little doubt that it was in excess of anything she’d had before, putting trained chefs to shame. Yet they didn’t *act* particularly rich. - Chapter 56: The Family Vault
25. ↑ If it was unbound, which they wouldn’t know until later, then it was probably worth quite a bit, since storage entads were always in demand. If it bound to one of them, which could happen but was fairly rare, then it would make for a particularly good item, one that he would try to get for himself: you had a better chance of personal binding if the entad was physically on you as you left. But the best case scenario, at least for Alfric, was that it was partybound, because that would mean that they would have much more incentive to keep the party together.

[...]

“Then how do we get it not to bind?” asked Mizuki.

“We don’t have control of that,” said Alfric. “The most you can do is have specific people carry out the entads, because they’re very slightly more likely to bind to whoever carries them when they cross the threshold, but that’s about it.”

“I want the bow,” said Isra. It had found its way back into her grip.

“It would be best for you to carry it out, yes,” said Alfric. “But splitting the pot isn’t usually done until everyone is outside. It’s hard to put value on things if you don’t know how or whether they’re bound.” There were some parties, he knew, where there was extensive discussion on who carried what, which usually meant testing done in the dungeon, but that wasn’t how he’d envisioned his ideal party.

“So I can take the spoon out with me?” asked Mizuki.

“We’ll divide them up equally for the trip out,” said Alfric. “Personal binding is uncommon, but if it happens, then we’ll deal with it.” - Chapter 6: Henlings
26. ↑ At some point Alfric and Mizuki pulled more lutes out of the chest, making sure that they were ready and available. This was partly so that Mizuki could check which of them were party bound and which were bound to a particular person. Binding was uncommon but not rare, and after some testing, largely by having people pick the lutes up and then put them down, Hannah was given three of the lutes. Isra had the most bound, at seven, but in total, perhaps a fifth of their total supply of lutes were individually bound, and another five were party bound. That was higher than Alfric had expected, and would cut into their ability to offload the lutes into entad shops. - Chapter 132: Lutes