Chapter 4:

Creating Magical Items

Holy Water The Complete Priest’s Handbook gives rules for creating holy water. This section contains more detailed rules for high-level campaigns.

Any cleric or specialty priest with access to the required spells can create holy water once a week, provided a suitable font is available. The required spells are: create water, purify food & drink*, bless*, chant, and prayer. The spells marked with an asterisk are used in reversed form to create unholy water.

The priest must spend at least eight hours praying and meditating before casting the spells in the listed order. Any delay between finishing the casting of one spell and starting the next ruins the ceremony. The character must maintain the chant spell for one turn. Afterward, the cleric must rest at least eight hours before casting any spells. If forced into combat during this time, the character suffers a –4 penalty to all attack rolls, saving throws, and ability checks.

A font is a specially blessed (or cursed) basin made of precious metals contained inside an elaborate case or pedestal fitted with a cover. A particular font can be used only once a week, and a temple or other religious building can contain only one font. Particularly large buildings might contain one font per wing or floor, at the DM’s option.

A font’s maximum capacity for creating holy water depends on its cost—the more rare and expensive the font, the more favorably the deity to which it is dedicated looks upon it.

The create water spell normally produces more water than a basin can hold; the extra water is either channeled away or assumed to be magically dissipated.

Holy Water Font Costs

Capacity	Basin	Pedestal
6 vials	1d6x10+120 gp	200 gp
8 vials	1d6x50+1,000 gp	350 gp
10 vials	1d6x100+1,800 gp	500 gp
14 vials	1d4x500+5,200 gp	750 gp
18 vials	1d4x1,000+8,000 gp	1,000 gp
24 vials	1d4x1,000+15,000 gp	1,250 gp
32 vials	1d4x1,000+18,000 gp	1,500 gp
40 vials	1d6x10,000+50,000 gp	1,750 gp
50 vials	1d10x10,000+100,000 gp	2,000 gp

The basin and pedestal must be specially designed and fashioned; the process requires 2d4+2 weeks.

Holy water loses its potency if removed from the font for more than one turn unless it is placed in a specially blessed crystal or leaded glass vial. Each vial holds a quarter pint of liquid and costs 5 gp. (Copper-pinching characters can sell empty vials on the open market for 1d4+1 gp each.)

A font can be defiled and made useless for creating holy water (and for magic font spells) by touching it and casting a curse spell. Fonts can be nonmagically defiled by placing anything repugnant to the deity to which the font is dedicated to within its confines.

A defiled font must be entirely remade. The font cannot be cleansed or restored, except by a wish, though the materials in the basin can be recycled and used in a new basin for 1d4+1x10% of the original cost. For example, Delsenora’s temple has a font that can hold 32 vials of holy water. The initial cost was 21,000 gp for the basin plus 1,500 gp for the pedestal. If the font is defiled, the replacement cost is 1,500 gp for the pedestal and 20–50% of the original basin cost. Delsenora rolls a 2 and must pay 30% of the original cost—6,300 gp.

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