No treasure hoard is complete without a set of gemstones to catch a delver's wandering eye. These precious jewels are highly sought after—for trade, for crafting, and for magical components. But how do you determine the value of all your gemstones?
This chapter introduces gemstone qualities and rules on how to use them.
A gemstone comes in one of six qualities—cloudy, clear, pristine, royal, lucent, and astral. The higher the quality, the more valuable the gemstone is.
To appraise the quality of a gemstone, you must succeed on a DC 20 Intelligence (Investigation) check.
Jeweler's tools can help you to appraise, cut, and polish gemstones. If you are proficient with jeweler's tools, add your proficiency bonus to your appraisal check.
If you are also proficient in Investigation, you can make your appraisal check with advantage.
You can cut a gemstone to improve its value and unlock any latent, magical properties. It takes around eight hours to cut and polish a single, tiny stone.
Make a Wisdom check against a DC determined by the quality of the stone—if you fail, the gemstone shatters and turns into arcane dust worth half of its uncut value.
You can upgrade a cut gemstone's quality to a higher cut gemstone. To upgrade, make a Wisdom check against a DC determined by the quality of the stone increased by +3. If you fail, the gemstone shatters and turns into arcane dust worth half of its uncut value. For example, a Cut Lucent gemstone can be a Cut Astral gemstone with a Wisdom check of 28 or higher.
Arcane jewels are the collected term that pretain to gemstones that have been carefully cut, shaped, and inscribed with magic runes—often by a wizard or artificer.
When an arcane jewel is socketed into a weapon or piece of armor, that item is imbued with a permanent magical power—a new damage type, elemental resistance, improved accuracy, a new spell, etc.
Arcane jewels brim with magical power—transform your mundane weapons and basic armor into magical, customized artifacts.
To use an arcane jewel, you must socket it into a piece of equipment. There are three steps to this process:
Pick an Item: Choose either a) a weapon or b) a piece of light, medium, or heavy armor. Your item must have fewer than three currently-socketed jewels.
Pick an Arcane Jewel: Choose an arcane jewel that is appropriate for your item. You can't socket the same type of jewel into the same item more than once—so choose carefully.
Use your Tools: Spend one hour and a set of tinker's tools (or other tools appropriate for your item—smith's tools, weaver's tools, etc.) to socket your jewel. You must be proficient with your tools to do this.
When you socket an arcane jewel into an item, the jewel provides no magical benefit until you attune to the item.
Once a jewel is socketed, it becomes an innate part of the item. To remove a socketed jewel, you must spend eight hours working with an appropriate set of tools. Once you unsocket a jewel, the jewel can be reused.
Alternatively, you can spend only one hour to shatter a socketed jewel directly. This removes the jewel from the item, but renders it worthless—the jewel can't be reused.
Some jewels—such as jewels of spellbinding—can store a spell and allow you to cast it at a later date. When you cast a jeweled spell, the following features apply:
Command Word: You must speak a command word to activate the jeweled spell.
Spell Slots: You don't expend any spell slots when casting a spell from a jewel.
Class Restrictions: You may cast the spell even if you are not a natural spellcaster.
Components: You may ignore any uncosted spell components (verbal, somatic, and material).
Saving Throws: If your spell requires a target to make a saving throw, the DC depends on the quality of your jewel—royal (DC 13), lucent (DC 15), and astral (DC 18).
Charged jewels can be used only a few times before they run out of magical power and become dormant.
To spend a charge, you must speak a command word. The jewel must be socketed into an attuned item, and you must be wearing or holding the item to command it.
Choosing your Command Words: When you socket a jewel into an item, you may decide what its command word is. This overrides any previous command word assigned to the jewel.
Recovering Charges: A socketed jewel in an attuned item recovers all expended charges when it's owner finishes a long rest.
Across your adventures, you may discover gemstones of a particularly high quality—royal, lucent, and astral stones.
If you're proficient with both a) Arcana and b) jeweler's tools, you can create your own arcane jewels from these cut gemstones. There are three steps to follow:
First, you acquire the relevant crafting recipe for your jewel. Each jewel needs a specific type of gemstone as described by its recipe.
Next, you must acquire a suitable gemstone. An arcane jewel requires a particular type and quality of gemstones—pick the right stone for your intended jewel.
Your gemstone must be a) cut and b) either royal, lucent, or astral in quality (as specified by your jewel).
It takes 8 hours of careful work with jeweler's tools to turn a cut gemstone into a jewel, at which point you can make an Intelligence (Arcana) check against the quality of your gemstone: royal (DC 15), lucent (DC 20), or astral (DC 25).
Critical Success (+10 or more): You crafted an arcane jewel and salvaged a small amount of gemstone dust. This dust can be used as a crafting material with the following properties:
Rarity: Rare (Royal), Very rare (Lucent), or Legendary (Astral)
Substance: Stone
Element: Choose one that suits your gemstone
Success: You crafted an arcane jewel. It holds magical energy and is now ready to be socketed.
Failure: You cracked the gemstone—it can't be turned into a jewel, potion, or oil.
Critical Failure (−10 or more): You've made a huge mistake—the gemstone cracks and its quality is reduced by one step.
These are common arcane jewels that can be crafted for your weapons and armor. Use these recipes to create your jewels and empower your equipment.
Awakened arcane jewels are the next step in arcane jewels. These are the gemstones that have 'awakened' potential so that they can be used for various arcane circumstances such as spellcasting enhancement or modification.
These are the rarer awakened arcane jewels that can be crafted for your weapons and armor. Use these recipes to create your jewels and empower your equipment.