The last drama post I did about Kuma Miko seemed to have gotten some praise, but some wished to see a Hobby Drama post that had consequences outside “people got angry over it”. So without any further delay, here’s a story about a studio that’s close to my heart, one that I’ve backed twice and seen die twice.
Note: This is a fairly lengthy drama, so forgive me if I’m not able to provide all of my sources. Most of the front half of this comes from this video, which chronicles the first half of Lab Zero entirely in Russian.
From Ahad to Mike Z
Let’s start in the beginning. Alex Ahad is a freelance illustrator who, in between other work, had created character designs for a prospective fighting game. Mike Zaimont is a professional fighting game player best known for games like BlazBlue and Marvel Vs. Capcom, but since 1999 had been coding a custom engine in his free time, which he hoped could be used for a fighting game. The two met in 2008, and the two quickly realized that with each other’s help, their dream could come true. In 2010, the two joined the newly developed game studio Reverge Labs. Joining their team was Mariel “Kinuko” Cartwright, a friend of Ahad’s and daughter of a Disney animator who helped animate games such as Scott Pilgrim vs. The World and Shantae; Peter Bartholow, who acted as CEO of Reverge as well as their PR arm; and an assortment of other animators and designers. Their goal: a fighting game in the style of Marvel vs. Capcom 2 with hand-drawn animation that they called Skullgirls.
After obtaining publishers in Autumn Games and Konami (at the time of development the Microsoft required indie devs to have a retail publisher in order to bring their games to Xbox Live Arcade), the team got to work on Skullgirls. Initial impressions were favorful - people liked Ahad’s unique character designs, the fluid animation, and the solid engine Mike Z built - but upon release, there were some concerns. The time and money needed to develop each character meant a starting roster of only eight characters, a far cry from other fighting games (the original MvC had 15 characters in 1998), and due to the team trying to get the game out, there was no in-game move list. Some were also concerned that the cast, consisting entirely of women, was too fanservice-filled, although Bartholow said that the characters were just attractive women who could fight as opposed to characters using their sexuality in battle (Ahad said that sex wasn’t his main focus, he just wanted to have monster girls fight each other). The team at Reverge Labs stressed that they would continue to update the game, with plans to add DLC if the game sold well enough. Good thing nothing could go wro-
Everything goes wrong
Alongside publishing Skullgirls, Autumn Games and Konami had previously published a karaoke game called Def Jam RapStar. Unfortunately, around March 2012, the time Skullgirls released, both parties were at the end of several lawsuits made against them - one argued that Autumn and Konami did not get the rights to some of the songs used in the game, while another claimed that the game was funded with a bank loan which Autumn Games was unable to pay back. The result of these costly lawsuits was that Autumn was unable to pay Reverge the money made from Skullgirls - this led to the entire Reverge team being laid off around July, and the future of the game in the air.
And so, the team decided on a whim to reconvene as a new development studio, Lab Zero Games. At a fundraiser for breast cancer research which included a fighting game tournament, Mike Z revealed the first DLC fighter and promised that new information about her and the team would be posted soon. This would turn out to be an Indiegogo fundraising campaign that asked for $150,000 to develop the first DLC fighter, with more characters promised if people backed enough.
In the end, $829,829 was raised in the campaign, enough to fund five DLC characters, a bevy of stages and voice packs, and other features. It was quickly becoming a cult classic.
The Skullgirls Curse
And so work on Skullgirls DLC was underway. However, a variety of events happened to befall Lab Zero during development, some causing controversy and others just annoying the team. Some dubbed this “The Skullgirls Curse”. So let’s go over some of them:

• Paypal Woes: During the Indiegogo DLC campaign, Lab Zero announced that Ahad had created around 30 prospective designs for DLC characters, and that there would be a vote to see which characters would be the two “mystery characters” teased in the Indiegogo campaign. As you would guess, this caused the Skullgirls fanbase to get heated, to the point where some stressed that they would ask Indiegogo for their money back if their character didn’t win. PayPal, who managed the funds for this campaign, was concerned about these threats and put nearly all of the money on hold. Bartholow tried to negotiate with PayPal, and was eventually able to get the funding - once PayPal was given a hefty sum as collateral.
• Bad Juju - If you notice on the list of prospective DLC characters, one character is Juju, a character who was designed by Ahad from a fan’s suggestion on a Whiteboard Wednesday art stream. Ahad seemed to like the idea of the character, and kept building her up until she became a legit character in the game. The original fan made a joke on Facebook that he’d like to be compensated for the design, which led Lab Zero to negotiate obtaining the character rights from him. They eventually worked out a contract that would give them the rights to the character, but only if the original fan didn’t reveal it until Lab Zero announced it themselves. The fan then posted about it on the Skullgirls forum the very next day, breaking the NDA immediately and making it so that Lab Zero couldn’t use the character at all.
• Don’t be (Red) Cross with me: One of the characters included in the base game of Skullgirls is Valentine. As you can tell, the two biggest features of her character are her being a nurse and a ninja - as such, her costume is decorated with red crosses. This was upsetting to the real Red Cross, which fights hard to prevent its trademark from being associated with violence - as such, when they came to the Skullgirls publisher demanding a change, all red crosses in the game had to be changed to magenta.
• #FucKonami: In November 2013, due to Konami barely helping at all with the publishing process for Skullgirls (they refused to greenlight any patch or DLC until Lab Zero tested it itself on their own time and money, they didn’t help with Microsoft’s certification process for Xbox, etc), Lab Zero dissolved their publishing agreement. This led to a massive snafu where, due to the dissolution, the original Skullgirls was taken down on consoles, and Lab Zero had to scramble to get a new publisher on the consoles side and then reupload the game as Skullgirls: Encore. It was a tangled web of issues which the above YouTube video relays, but required certification from both console storefronts and even the Japan storefront, as their publisher there was also coincidentally being dissolved at the same time without Lab Zero knowing.
• EVO 2014: During one of the largest fighting game tournaments of 2014, Skullgirls was promised a space for airing their tournament stream by controller distributor Madcatz. Lab Zero and Autumn provided a pot for the tourney, and everything was smooth sailing - until a multitude of delays made it so that the entire time Skullgirls had for streaming was replaced with Tekken tournaments. By the time these issues were fixed, only the final four matches were able to be shown.
• What’s the worst kind of ship? Censor-SHIP!: In April 2015, one of the patches of Skullgirls altered the animation of some characters, which according to Lab Zero themselves was because of their own artistic values (while they admitted that panty shots in a fighting game comprised entirely of girls is unavoidable, they didn’t want to go out of their way to show them). As you might expect, this led to a massive onslaught of negative Steam reviews and caustic tweets from people who abhor censorship of any kind. Funnily enough, this brigade started around October, six months after the changes were made, and only via word of mouth - people didn’t even notice there was a change until someone told them about it.
• Backer characters: As part of their Indiegogo campaign, some of the highest-paying backers could have their original characters put in the background of some custom stages. Lab Zero warned these backers that these stages would be a casino and a ballroom, respectively, so their OCs should ideally be designed with a formal flair. Some backers did follow this unspoken rule - ZONE, a notoriously NSFW Flash animator who helped work on the DLC characters, made a perfectly formal look for his mascot Zone-tan. As for the others, well...
• SonicFox: This isn’t included in the compilation video mentioned above as this occurred way after all the initial Skullgirls drama. Basically, SonicFox is a five-time EVO champion and one of the best Skullgirls players in the world. In May 2020, after Skullgirls was mostly complete, they were given a cameo in Skullgirls’ training stage. Of note is that SonicFox is black, non-binary, and a furry, and the character added to the game was their fursona, who has a trans rights flag in the inside of their jacket you can only see for like one frame. People reacted as you would expect. Also, one of the original backers requested to change their character as they were now transitioning, which didn’t get as much flak, so that’s nice I guess.

So as you can see, Skullgirls had a menagerie of problems and issues during its dev time. However, their Skullgirls curse seemed to have faded away, as they had a new game in store.
If I was Indivisible
Indivisible was a new project of Lab Zero, announced in 2015 as Skullgirls DLC production was nearing an end. Billed as a platformer RPG similar to games like Valkyrie Profile, it would tell the story of Ajna, a young girl whose town is stricken by tragedy and she finds out that she’s a portion of the god of creation, who has grown discontent with the world and wishes to remake it anew. Its Indiegogo campaign focused on Incarnations, party members who came from a variety of cultures, religions, and demographics not usually represented in popular culture. And as you can see by the fact that it got over two million dollars in funding, people were excited to see what Lab Zero could do. They even got enough funding to get Studio Trigger, of anime fame, to create the opening for the game.
Of course, it wouldn’t be Lab Zero without the occasional issue here and there. As shown above, some Incarnations were changed or scrapped during development, which irked some who backed because of that character specifically (not naming any names, but look in the incarnation list and see if you notice any). Backer characters were included again, and although there were more places to add them so they didn’t look out of place, you still had the occasional few that did. Critics liked the art and presentation of the game, but disliked some gameplay issues: the second half of the game became a cakewalk once you progressed far enough, it was a bit of a pain to go from one end of the map to another, especially for side quests, and a bunch of party members simply weren’t complete. Most egregiously of all, the Nintendo Switch version of the game was ported by a different company and released before Lab Zero was even aware of it - which forced them to scramble again to patch it up so it was on par with other consoles.
Still, it was a better situation they were in than when Skullgirls started. They had a legit publisher in 505 Games, people were satisfied with the base game, and Mike Z mentioned how the base game would continue to be refined with gameplay changes, small additions, and guest incarnations from other indie games. NBC even announced that Indivisible would be adapted into a television program for their Peacock streaming service. Things were looking up for Lab Zero.
Everything goes wrong... AGAIN
During the production of Indivisible, Alex Ahad was let go by Lab Zero. Not much is mentioned about it except that he was growing increasingly hostile, making it difficult to work with him, and his art was not meeting the standards for the game. He left, tried to sue Lab Zero, and eventually agreed to a sizable settlement. Mariel became the lead artistic director in his stead, and the art team had to be rearranged to compensate.
Now, as Lab Zero was preparing to transition from being employee-owned, Mike Z was made the temporary head of the studio. In June of 2020, Mike Z did an “I can’t breathe” joke during a Skullgirls livestream just days after George Floyd’s death - he later apologized for this, claiming he was trying to bring attention to the issue. Soon, more people provided proof that Mike Z has had a history of sexual harassment. Kinuko chimes in as well, noting that while she tolerated inappropriate behavior for years, when she talked to Mike Z about it, he blamed her for his actions. She talked with others in the team, who came to the conclusion that Zaimont had treated all of them like this. Some Lab Zero employees resigned on their own, while others pushed for Zaimont to resign. However, as Mike was still head of the studio, he dissolved the studio board and laid off the rest of the staff.
So where does that leave everyone?

• Ahad is still doing art on his own, and gets by with commissions and his Patreon.
• Kinuko, as well as the majority of Lab Zero, created a new studio called Future Club, which has promised to create new titles with the same art style they refined from Skullgirls and Indivisible.
• Autumn Games still own the rights to Skullgirls, and with the help of some former Lab Zero devs, created a mobile version of the game. It’s surprisingly not bad, although it’s of course stuffed with microtransactions. However, they’ve apparently made enough to fund a completely new character for the game for both the mobile and console/PC versions.
• After everything with Mike Z, 505 games put out a statement which signaled the end of all development of the game, leaving it unfinished. Mike Z has been suspended from Skullgirls streams and the like, making his future in the gaming world unclear.

There’s probably something I’ve missed in all of this, but yep. I backed them twice, both for Skullgirls and Indivisible. I don’t regret it, and I’m looking forward to whatever Future Club does, but I won’t lie - I’ll always miss what could have been.

Magic items. Objects imbued with magic in order to make them better, or even gain a completely different function. But apparently the only places they exist are in monster hoards and adventurers' backpacks.
Realistically however, everyone wants things that are better at what they do. And eventually, people get what they want.
Today i will go over some objects that are useful outside of the context of adventuring, as well as how they might change the world around them. I will not mention artifacts, since those are one-of-a-kind objects with pre-established locations, usage, etc.
While the topic has always existed, Tasha's Cauldron has added a few interesting toys to our proverbial tool box, which makes this as good a time as any to take a look and
Much like in the Spells and Society post, the rarer an item the more amazingly powerful it must be to be worthy of mention. Actually i recommend reading that post before this one. Since a lot of magic items just allow you to cast spells for free, knowing which spells alter the world gives a good idea of which items can do the same.

Uncommon

+1 tools.
That's right, +1 tools. Not +1 weapons.
Consider a guard. How much of his time is actually spent fighting? A minute every other day? That's not getting a lot of use out of his sword. Even a soldier spends weeks marching, or months guarding a fort, and then only fights for a few minutes or hours. Even if a guard has a superb weapon that doubles his combat effectiveness, it only makes him 1% or 2% better at being a guard[1]. Given a choice of uncommon item, any guard and most soldiers would rather have a Weapon of Warning to prevent being backstabbed, ambushed or caught off-guard.
Now consider a lumberjack or miner. They spend several hours a day hitting trees and rocks. An enchanted axe, saw or pickaxe would see continuous use in their hands. Not only that, magic items are also described as being "at least as durable as a nonmagical item of its kind. Most magic items, other than potions and scrolls, have resistance to all damage". This means the +1 pickaxe would be far, far more resilient to wear and tear than a mundane one, potentially being passed down for generations. And with your miners and lumberjacks being more efficient, you need less of them. Which in turn means you get to have more guards.
Another noteworthy thing here is adamantine items. They deal automatic critical damage to objects and are much harder to destroy. In other words, they're great at chopping trees and ores, bending hot metal, cutting cloth, plowing a field, etc. All while having a fraction of the wear and tear.
​
Bags of Holding, Handy Haversacks and Portable Holes.
AKA your transporty boyes.
The bag of holding is an old favorite among players, and the reason is obvious: it has a million uses.
Most adventurers use it for carrying all their junk. The bad guys in the original Baldurs Gate game used bags of holding to smuggle whole shipments to and from their iron mine base with just one guy. One of my players once put a huge boulder in it, then flew up and dropped the boulder on an enemy transport ship. And let us not forget the classic Arrowhead of Total Destruction.
All of these are perfectly valid uses. Smuggling a small object is easier than smuggling a large object. Dropping huge objects from a high place turns anything that flies into a siege weapon. And the Arrowhead, while expensive, can deal with very large threats that could level a city.
But honestly, every merchant is a smuggler at heart. After all, as long as brigands roam the roads, there will always be a need to hide your valuables in an extraplanar space small enough to fit any orifice. Not only that, the bag allows you to dump a cart entirely and just ride to your destination much faster (and therefore, more safely).
Of course not every merchant can afford a bag of holding, so this brings about an interesting topic of inequality in your campaign. Some merchants can go from A to B faster and more safely on a horse, while the majority must go with a bull-drawn cart that is slow and vulnerable. And bags of holding don't even require attunement, so once you have one and your income soars you can get another, and another... Its a serious rich-get-richer situation, and you risk running all the mundane merchants out of business.
​
Broom of Flying.
I'm gonna start this one with saying that brooms of flying and carpets of flying are overpowered. They are consistently better than items of similar rarity that provide the same benefit, like boots and wings of flying. The reason here is, in my humble opinion, the same reason why Fireball deals more damage than any 3rd level spell and most 5th level ones: its iconic.
As for the item itself, its pretty much a permanent flying speed of 50 while carrying up to 200lbs, or 30ft. speed while carrying 201-400lbs. Its a deliveryboy's dream... except not.
You see, the broom of flying isn't just a hoverbike, its also a drone. You say the command word, and it flies up to a mile a way. Say it again, it comes back. In other words, the crazy wizard in his tower can just tie some money and a note on the broom and send it to a shop, then call it back once the shopkeeper has tied the groceries to it. Poor delivery boy just lost his job.
But wait, there's more! If the broom can fly on its own, can it plow a field? Can it spin an "animal" traction mill? The answer is: yes. But there's no reason to use magic where a common animal would do, unless its a crazy high magic setting or something.
​
Decanter of Endless Water
I think anyone can see how infinite water is broken as fuck[2]. But that's not all. By speaking the command word and pulling the lid, you can cause 30 gallons (136.4 litres) of water to pour out with enough force to push a 200 pound object 15 feet. This action can be repeated every turn (6 seconds), since a decanter of endless water has no limit on how often it can be used.
So a decanter is not just infinite water, but also infinite energy provided you have enough technology to build a mill. Even more energy if you activate the decanter in a high place and use gravity to give those 30 gallons even more potential.
Do keep in mind however that in 5e there must be someone using their action to activate it every turn. In previous editions however one could leave the decanter open and it would pour water constantly.
​
Hat of Disguise
This wee cap is not game-breaking for its great usefulness, but rather for its ability to fuck the world up. Any charlatan with a Hat of Disguise can walk into a bank, guild, ship, etc. and pretend to be anyone. Sure it doesn't happen often, but when it happens the crime spree is enormous. And while there are ways to work around disguised criminals, the fact people have to work around it is an issue in and of itself.
Societies based on trust pretty much can't function. Does everyone sign everything? Do people start using IDs? Do organizations start using items or employing animals that can see through illusions? Is there an industry for door frames that detect illusions?
Even without the hat, Disguise Self is still a 1st level spell. Yet somehow the sourcebooks have no mention of how the world might adapt to the idea that you can't trust people to be who they seem to be. And if anyone with access to 1st-level spells can walk up to the king without difficulties, you wont have kings for long.
​
Ring of Mind Shielding
A great item, if you're an asshole. Keeps people from sensing your evil alignment, keeps them from reading your evil thoughts, keeps pesky zones of truth from sensing your lies, and it even makes itself invisible so nobody can notice you're wearing the "i am evil" ring. It even keeps your immortal soul from going into eternal damnation!
One thing i always think of soul-trapping items is that they're a good way for evil people to avoid the afterlife. If you're good, you want to go to Celestia, Elysium, Arborea or Ysgard. Yet if you're evil, being stuck in a ring and talking to its wearer might be better than Baator, Carceri or the Abyss.
​
Sending Stones
Another classic, unfortunately the stones were nerfed and now can only Send to each other once a day.
Still, long range communication is nothing to scoff at. And while hiring someone to Send for you is cheaper, the stones provide more privacy and can be sent to far off corners of the world where you can't afford to station a caster full time.
Expect each mayor or baron to have one of these, while someone in the capital answers their "calls". Something of a royal secretary if you will. While magic items are expensive, shaving days off of your disaster response time can be the difference between having a kingdom and having ruins.

Rare

Bag of Beans
An often overlooked item, the BoB is crazy powerful. It has 3d4 beans, each of which can trigger a random effect. Notably they have a 10% chance of creating a random potion that lasts 30 days, a 10% chance of creating 1d4+3 eggs that can permanently raise an attribute by 1[3], a 9% chance of spawning a full on pyramid with a mummy lord and appropriate loot[4], and a 1% chance of leading anywhere.
Why bother with tomes when you can get twice as many stats from a bag of beans?
​
Helm of Teleportation.
1d3 castings of Teleport every day, plain and simple. That means 9 people can travel about 14 times in a week[5].
That's a lot of potential trading to be had for sure, but why stop there?
Say your kingdom spent tons of time and money training and equipping an elite unit. You wouldn't want them to spend 80% of their time on the road and 20% solving issues right? One rare item can make your 9-men unit five times more efficient.
Adventurers are in much the same boat: small group, lots of capital invested into their gear and training, yet they somehow spend most of their time going back and forth between adventures (until level 9 if they have a bard, sorcerer or wizard in the party, past 9 if they don't). It honestly amazes me that the Helm of Teleportation is not listed more often as a must-have party item.
​
Manuals/Tomes
For those unaware: there are 3 manuals and 3 tomes in the game, each increases an attribute by 2 when used and then loses its magic for 100 years.
The #1 item on any adventurer's to-get list, the existence of the tomes raises far more questions than answers. Who makes these? Why are they not mass produced? Can i get a magically accelerated demiplane, throw the books in and recharge them in a fraction of the time? Why do people not abuse the f*** out of them?
And when i mean abuse, i mean make smart use of them. Say a kingdom has, over the course of generations, acquired 5 or so tomes. Then the ruler reads them and becomes super smart/wise/popular. That sounds like the sort of thing that would make the whole realm prosper. Do it on an elven/dwarven kingdom and the ruler can read his tomes multiple times, granting him a godlike mind.
And that's without considering the idea of immortals. Or even high level druids. Any lich or vampire could become insanely powerful, not only from being able to use each tome a dozen times, but also from having eons to look for more or even craft them[6].
One thing i really like about tomes is watching the party decide what to do with them after spending the magic. Do they auction the books? Trade with some elf for favors? Give it to a friendly vampire?

Very rare

Candle of Invocation
For 4 hours clerics and druid of the proper alignment within 30ft can cast 1st level spells without using spell slots. In other words, crazy amounts of healing. Pop one after a battle and in a few minutes your whole army will be ready for more. Or pop it during a battle, and have the Healing Word the crap out of your troops from a safe-ish distance.
​
Carpet of flying, Peregrine Mask
Carpets of flying function much like brooms of flying, except they are faster or carry more weight (depending on size). They would be a strict upgrade, except they lack the drone function the broom has.
A peregrine mask provides a flying speed of 60, but has no carrying capacity. That means if you have a Powerful Build or a similar feature it can actually carry more than the carpets.
​
Cauldron of Rebirth
If there's one thing Tasha's Cauldron has brought us, its this cauldron.
It has some minor uses for scrying making potions, but here's the deal breaker: you put a corpse in the cauldron, fill it with 10gp worth of salt (200lbs.) and it casts Raise Dead on the creature.
Resurrection normally costs 500gp. worth of diamonds. With the cauldron it costs 10gp worth of salt. Sure there's a one week cooldown, but who cares? I see two scenarios here: either a resurrection every week is more than the local demand, or less than the local demand.
If its more than the demand, that means everyone who dies of unnatural causes and has 10gp to spare gets resurrected.
If its less than the demand, that means you're raising one person every 7 days. Depending on how high the demand is you could be making as much as 500gp a week, or 26k a year. Considering that the DMG says a Very Rare magic item costs 10.000-50.000 gold, the cauldron can pay for itself in under two years. Even if the math is way off for some reason, it is still crazy strong.
Honestly, this should be an artifact. Or at least have some heavy downside. The idea that someone over at Wizards of the Coast read this and said "Ah yes, 10gp resurrection, perfectly fine" simply boggles the mind.
​
Crystalline Chronicle
Speaking of items that make things cheap, 1d3 times a day this spellbook allows you to cast a wizard spell without material components of up to 100gp.
That means two spells on average, so let's take a look at a few good options: Continual Flame[7], Magic Circle (exactly 100!), Stoneskin (100!), Teleportation Circle and Astral Projection.
The ones that stand out here are Continual Flame and Teleportation Circle. Both cost 50 and have a huge demand in the world. Where a permanent TP circle would normally consume 18.250gp worth of materials over a year, it will now cost nothing[8].

Legendary

Staff of the Magi
This is, i think, the most powerful item in the game.
Has a bunch of charges, yadda yadda, here's the important part:

1. When someone else casts a spell on you, you can use a reaction to absorb the spell. The staff then gains charges equal to the level of the spell it just ate.
   
2. It can cast Plane Shift for 7 charges.
   

This means on an average day you get 16 charges, or two Plane Shifts, from the natural charge generation. But what if you could have someone cast spells on you without spending spell slots?
There are several monsters who can cast spells at will, too many to list. But there are also a few ways for players to do it. The first that comes to mind is the level 18 Wizard feature Spell Mastery, allowing any 2nd level spell. There's also the level 15 invocation Shroud of Shadow that allows infinite casts of Invisibility. Either case allows a duo to have infinite Plane Shifts a day, which is really powerful.
As usual, trade comes to mind. But with infinite charges you might as well start a tourism agency or a hotel and/or casino that brings in people from all planes. Yet what few people realize is that Plane Shift can be used offensively in order to permanently banish anyone to any plane. Infinite save-or-die effects.
You could also just settle for a fuckton of Shifts instead of infinite, and use a warlock or four-elements monk to convert their short rest resources into charges for the staff.
Now think of the possibilities and plot hooks. Mad king banishing dissidents, Red Queen style. Alternative death sentence. A high level wizard/warlock stranded somewhere because the guy who was attuned to the staff died or got separated from him. Random archdemon bringing an army to the Material Plane a couple demons a minute.

Notable mentions

These are items i left out, but which i will get yelled at in the comments if i "forget" about them.
​
Anything that creates energy
The truth is that a lot of magic items can do that. Fire for heating things, wind or water for pushing things, etc. For an energy source to be noteworthy it has to provide a considerable amount of continuous energy, without charges or daily limitations. Otherwise you might as well just use a regular water mill or a bull.
​
Alchemy Jug (uncommon)
It creates an amount of a liquid (beer, honey, etc) every day. It does nothing that cannot be done by an amount of workers, and for it to be world-altering we'd have to go into a lengthy math argument of how many labor hours of a bee farmer are needed to make a gallon of honey, and how that compares to the initial investment of hiring a wizard to make the item.
As a general rule, if something can be done mundanely it will be done mundanely. Let the casters focus on stuff where they have an infinite comparative advantage, like flying stuff, teleportation, resurrection, etc.
​
Cap of Water Breathing (uncommon)
It allows you to breathe underwater indefinitely. Can be great if you have important stuff to do underwater, and might enable interaction with sentient water folk. But in and of itself, not a world-altering item.
​
Horseshoes of Speed (rare)
Essentially +30 speed for hooved creatures, without requiring attunement. Honestly this item does not really fit this list, but i just thought the idea of pegasi flying real fast with these was worth mentioning. Sure a helm of teleportation outclasses it entirely for travel, but that's not useful in combat.
And i really want to play a centaur monk with these some day. Unfortunately the item description specifically says you have to have four equipped to benefit, so don't even think about it you satyrs and tieflings out there.
​
Lyre of Building (rare)
At a glance this looks like a regular magic items, with nothing too weird about it. Until you look at its spell selection and notice you can cast them as an action.
Mending normally takes a minute to cast, with the lyre its an action, and you can do it at will even without knowing the spell.
Fabricate takes ten minutes to cast, with the lyre its an action. That means once a day you can turn the ground under an enemy into a spiky cage, his sword into sword parts, etc. Until the lyre came about the only way to instantly cast fabricate was with a Wish, and that is a pretty good combat use of the 9th level spell.

Conclusion

To be quite frank, a lot of these item uses are a little niche and wont work in every setting. Then again, that that is never the goal with these posts. I hope i have provided you with at least a few interesting plot hooks and other crazy ideas, whether to amaze your players or ruin your DM's plans.

Notes

[1] There is a notable exception however. If your kingdom has a group dedicated to fighting monsters, some of which are resistant to nonmagic damage, then those guys should be prioritized. Not only does the +1 weapon double their damage output in this scenario, it also prevents your kingdom from losing special soldiers that are very expensive to train and replace.
[2] Stuff like constant abuse of Decanters of Endless Water are why in my setting there is a doomsayer cult that believes the world will be flooded some day. As they say it, every time someone activates a decanter, magically creates water, creates food and water, opens a portal to the Plane of Water, etc; the amount of water in the world rises just a bit. Given enough time, everything will be flooded by it. Unless someone like, puts a Sphere of Annihilation by the shore or something. But nobody said the cult has to be right.
[3] The bag has 3d4 beans. Each bean has a 10% chance of spawning 1d4+3 eggs. That means 7.5*0.1*5.5 = 4.125 raised stats, on average. Sure I'm assuming you'll pass the DC20 save every time, but with proper preparation its quite doable. Be near a paladin, get bardicly inspired, have someone cast Resistance, find ways to reroll a failed save, etc. Since the eggs last forever, you have all the time in the world to stack the saving throw in your favor. Or just use Portents.
[4] The mummy lord could have anything, even another bag of beans!
[5] Someone will say "but what about the chance of going off target? What if nobody has teleportation circles?" To that person i say: associated object. Get a pebble every time you're in a region, and you wont need a circle. Buy a bit of silk and you can teleport to any place along the silk road. Buy a used horseshoe and you can go all over the country. Now I'm just imagining this badass-looking special-ops soldier, clad in the finest plate, wielding a blazing blade, his cloak cackling thunder... and with a rusty-ass horseshoe tied to his helmet.
[6] And thus is born the legend of Swolomon the Buff. He was once a base vampire, who got stuck in a tomb for 4000 years with nothing but a Manual of Bodily Health and a Manual of Gainly Exercise. Now he's... selling supplements or something.
[7] See On Spells and Society linked at the top for why there's a near infinite demand for Continual Flame.
[8] You can even make two circles at a time, but there's some math about it. You have 3 charges, use 2, so you should always be with one to spare. Until you roll a 1 on the d3, and then its gone. After that whenever you roll a 1 without first rolling a 3 you'll have to pay the 50gp or let the circle go to waste. In other words, you'd be paying roughly 1/6 of the regular cost.

worldnews

• tuiposa

Canada Goose Workers Allege Unsafe Working Conditions in Winnipeg Factories. “Before I came to Canada I was in Qatar and then Dubai and it’s the same here in Canada Goose: No humanity.”
Comments || Link

• iamsarahb89

COVID-19: Ice cream tests positive for coronavirus in China
Comments || Link

• PjeterPannos

South African scientists discover new chemicals that kill malaria parasite
Comments || Link

news

• i_love_anachronisms

Texas real estate agent who took private jet to D.C. charged in Capitol riot
Comments || Link

• discocrisco

Capitol rioter known as "QAnon Shaman" will be jailed until trial
Comments || Link

• bugalooflu

6 suspects in MI Governor Whitmer kidnapping plot set to stand trial in March
Comments || Link

science

• theodorewayt

Raising the minimum wage by $1 reduces the teen birth rate by 3%, according to a new study examining U.S. state-level data.
Comments || Link

• mvea

Providing workers with a universal basic income did not reduce productivity or the amount of effort they put into their work, according to an experiment, a sign that the policy initiative could help mitigate inequalities and debunking a common criticism of the proposal.
Comments || Link

• MistWeaver80

Women who are young, “conventionally attractive” and appear and act feminine are more likely to be believed when making accusations of sexual harassment. Sexual harassment often stems from hostility toward women, the desire to dominate women, or backlash against women who violate gender norms.
Comments || Link

space

• Retseciel

SLS: Nasa's 'megarocket' set to fire up engines in crucial test
Comments || Link

• m3prx

NASA InSight's ‘Mole' Ends Its Journey on Mars
Comments || Link

• clayt6

Blue Origin launched and landed its reusable New Shepard spacecraft yesterday. The test flight sent a capsule containing 6 passenger seats and a test dummy named "Mannequin Skywalker" to an altitude of around 65 miles (105 km), paving the way for commercial flights as soon as April.
Comments || Link

Futurology

• MBlaizze

Biden elevates White House science post to Cabinet level
Comments || Link

• Sumit316

Wind overtook coal as a power source in Texas last year
Comments || Link

• solar-cabin

Raising the minimum wage by $1 reduces the teen birth rate by 3%, according to a new study examining U.S. state-level data. "For each $1 increase in the minimum wage, the number of children born to women who were 15 to 19 years old decreases by 2.8% to 3.4%"
Comments || Link

AskReddit

• xX_RedWhiterITA_Xx

What's the most f*cked up thing you saw at a sleepover?
Comments || Link

• QUESO0523

[Serious] Men of Reddit, what are some questions you have regarding women's anatomy?
Comments || Link

• UncleCompton

What cinematic death would have had the best oompa loompa song?
Comments || Link

todayilearned

• rasarota

TIL Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto in 1930 and further investigated it across his lifetime. He died in 1997 aged 90, less than a decade before the New Horizons launch to Pluto. To honour his wishes his ashes were launched inside the spacecraft, making it the longest post mortem fight ever recorded.
Comments || Link

• Kingflares

TIL: In 2018, doctors found that a patient, Kendra Jackson, had a leaky brain for 5 years. After an accident in 2013, she had a daily runny nose for years and suffered headaches. She lost half a pint of brain fluid a day through her nose.
Comments || Link

• DrawFluent

TIL Patricia Demauro walked to a craps table at Atlantic City's Borgata Hotel Casino and Spa with $100. Four hours and 18 minutes later, Demauro had rolled the World Record for Craps Rolls. She rolled 154 times, the odds of accomplishing this is 1 in 1.56 trillion.
Comments || Link

dataisbeautiful

• falldarkelf

[OC] Countries that have a lower total wealth than Elon Musk
Comments || Link

• data_n_stuff

Numbers from 0 to 1000 and the SUM of their digits. Nothing special, looks cool though... [OC]
Comments || Link

• misturbusy

IMDB Ratings >5 By Language -- Are Some Audiences More Forgiving? [OC]
Comments || Link

Cooking

• CreamCheeseGoose

Green Onions for free
Comments || Link

• gigachadd

What are some of the cooking rules you break every time?
Comments || Link

• xaj13

Does anyone have a homemade recipe for the sauce they put in Taco Bells quesadillas?
Comments || Link

food

• aneela30

Chicken Tikka Masala [homemade]
Comments || Link

• _xaveywavey

[Homemade] General Tso's Chicken
Comments || Link

• JukeBoxKitten

[Homemade] Butter chicken with Garlic naan
Comments || Link

movies

• chanma50

‘Godzilla Vs. Kong’ Jumps Up To March 26 In HBO Max & Theatrical Debut
Comments || Link

• BunyipPouch

I miss going to the movie theater.
Comments || Link

• prsnreddit

After ‘Tenet,’ Christopher Nolan Wants to Film More in India and Work with More Indian Actors
Comments || Link

Art

• shelbyelizabethart

Tiger, Me, Hand Embroidery, 2020
Comments || Link

• chedilkm1

Yellow, me, digital, 2021
Comments || Link

• Cornelius_Creations

Celtic Tomahawk, Me, 80 hour Wood Carving, 2018
Comments || Link

television

• chanma50

Ethan Hawke to Play Villain Opposite Oscar Isaac in Marvel's 'Moon Knight'
Comments || Link

• holyfruits

James Avery (Uncle Phil) surprises Reginald VelJohnson (Carl Winslow) on "Family Matters"
Comments || Link

• GavinGunhold

'Last of Us' HBO Series Finds Director With 'Beanpole' Filmmaker
Comments || Link

pics

• tzx_8981

5 year old girl comforts her 4 year old brother struggling from chemotherapy.
Comments || Link

• Colder_Air

Not much but I bought my first couch for my first place and I'm super happy with it (M21)
Comments || Link

• Hary1495

I work with CGI and this is my 2nd attempt in trying create Photorealism with interiors!
Comments || Link

gifs

• arjuna20

Superman!
Comments || Link

• LittleFart

Viking animation
Comments || Link

• mtimetraveller

Catculated Attack
Comments || Link

educationalgifs

• shroomco

Launching a TBM
Comments || Link

• Palifaith

Blood type compatibility
Comments || Link

mildlyinteresting

• MissGymlow

The blossoms on my LEGO bonsai are small frogs
Comments || Link

• KnifeSpoonPuppy

This laundromat has old washing machine drums as chandeliers.
Comments || Link

• Smiling_Fox

Found a patch of moss behind a loading dock that looks like a tiny tropical island with a palm tree.
Comments || Link

interestingasfuck

• ringsofbravo

The letter my great great uncle sent his wife to let her know he survived the pearl harbor attack.
Comments || Link

• Jinno69

12,000 Year old Mammoth tusk found in Siberia
Comments || Link

• Troynoi

Spruce cone turning into knife handle [OC]
Comments || Link

funny

• quiet_island1

Will Smith's facial expressions in this scene in Fresh Prince of Bel-Air
Comments || Link

• anykindofpeanuts

Every time I visit my grandmother (84 years old) she "races" me down her driveway and gives me the V sign when she beats me
Comments || Link

• StBeals

Remember
Comments || Link

aww

• tempura_tantrum

My husband captured this photo of my dog and I. It perfectly describes the partnership I’ve built with her!
Comments || Link

• hello_claricee

Angela will be 16 on March 5th and is very exited to be alive everyday
Comments || Link

• vitoriavonb

My dog giving his biscuit to his son. The dad thought the son didn’t get one and stood by the door until I opened it so he could give to his son. I cried.
Comments || Link

Random Subreddit of the day: Bossfight

These are its 3 top posts of all time:

• Thevisi0nary

We need players for the new FCC raid boss!
Comments || Link

• A_TREE57

The Beatle, lord of all music
Comments || Link

• cointelpro_shill

Bearers of the Eternal Duel
Comments || Link