Modicant Weapons

Modicant weapons are enchanted items capable of casting spells. They were very common throughout the Mage Wars where various groups used them to arm foot soldiers, allowing an ordinary person with no magical skills to carry out magical attacks. Though generally called weapons, the items can take any form. Among some cultures, it was popular to disguise their modica as rocks, sticks, or common household objects (it was very embarrassing to attack a village, only to be thwarted by lightning bolts cast from frying pans).

Some Modica had to be held or turned in a specific way to activate them, but most had a mental component. As a safety measure, only the person touching the item could activate it. Even the lowliest soldier could typically learn to activate a Modicant in an afternoon, so this did not diminish their use as weapons for untrained soldiers. Military Modica often took the form of weapons, armor, or jewelry.

The actual production of Modica was lost by the end of the Mage Wars, though most wizards agree it would not be difficult to start making them again at need. As technology advanced and the nature of war changed, the role of such items greatly diminished. After all, what good were Modica when guns were readily available?

Modica typically fell into two categories:

Limited

A Limited Modicant Item was one with a set number of "charges" that, once expended, left the item inert. These are thought much easier to create and were likely very common during the Mage Wars. Though precious few examples survived into modern times, wizards who have studied them suggest the mechanism is not unlike a modern scroll, which usually holds a single "casting" of a spell. They theorize that the mage who originally created a particular Modicant would have had to cast each "charge" individually.

Eternal

Eternal Modica slowly recharge, allowing them to be used forever. Many such examples still exist, mostly in museums. Another curious cause of disappearing Modica can be blamed on the Slayer Dragons, who favored them as weapons, and were typically buried with them; one famed example was Pendragon Alubus Pendergast, who carried 17 Eternal Mordicant items at all times, and owned more than a hundred. All were eventually buried with him in the Valley of Sleeping Dragons.