Alexander Wales Wiki

I actually think that the entad system is something that a lot of works of fantasy do anyway, it’s just not being all that mysterious about it, or being mysterious in different ways. In the original tabletop game that entads were taken from, they were created by small gods with vested interests in niche areas, but forge frenzy is another way to do it. Having magic items work like this means that you can have cool stuff that you don’t really have to explain, and there are no problems with just having things that are interesting for their own sake. - Post Mortem: Worth the Candle - Stuff to Steal

An entad is a term for a unique, non-reproducible magic item. The term is used in both Worth the Candle and This Used to be About Dungeons, and Alexander Wales has stated that it's one of the ideas he'd like to see other writers borrow and explore further.[1][2]

The word "entad" is an archaic English anatomical term meaning inward-facing, as opposed to "ectad" (meaning outward-facing).[3][4][5]

External Links[]

References

  1. Post Mortem: Worth the Candle
  2. Q: You have a "Stuff to Steal" section in the post-mortem for "the kind of things that I would see as the sort of things I’d like so see stolen and used somewhere else". Does that mean you would be okay with someone using entads, pseudomagic or exclusion zones in their own novels? What about specific entads, pseudomagic, or exclusion zones from Worth the Candle, such as teleportation keys, bladebounds, or the risen lands?
    A: So long as people aren't copying the text of the work, I'm totally fine with people writing their own stuff with those concepts or ideas in them, or as references to Worth the Candle, or even just as their own thing. You can't copyright ideas anyway, just the expressions of them. I'm always happy to hear that I've inspired someone or that a DM has cribbed stuff from the work to add to their own games. I think we're meant to take neat ideas and do our own neat things with them. - Worth the Candle Q&A
  3. Wiktionary "Entad"
  4. The Free Dictionary "Entad"
  5. Wiktionary "Ectad"