# Stat lines make an object real

> A drawing of a magic sword is a drawing. The same sword with a weight, a value and three lines of rules text is an item that exists in a world with an economy.

August 17, 2026 · https://justog.club/stories/magic-item-catalogue-illustration

Six objects in a grid, drawn in pen hatching. Under each: a name, and two or three lines of small
type — a weight, a value, what it does and what it costs you.

The drawings are nice. The stat lines are what make the objects exist.

## Why do numbers do that?

Because a number implies a system that measured it.

`3 lb · 400 gp · once per day` isn't description, it's **bookkeeping** — and bookkeeping implies a
world with weights, currency, scarcity and rules. Somebody had to decide this was worth four
hundred and not five hundred, which means there's an economy.

That's the same mechanism as
[a Latin binomial on an invented creature](/stories/monster-field-guide-illustration):
the label does the worldbuilding, not the picture.

## What are the components?

Five, all from rulebook publishing.

- **A grid** of items, each in the same lighting and scale.
- **Pen hatching** for shading — no tone, no colour, everything built from marks.
- **A name in small caps** beneath each object.
- **A stat line**: weight, value, attunement, charges.
- **One line of rules text**, written flatly, describing an effect and a cost.

The flatness is the discipline. Rules text is never dramatic — it's procedural, and that's exactly
why it's convincing.

## What makes a good invented item?

An ordinary object with one specific, slightly inconvenient property.

`LANTERN OF THE SECOND OPINION — sheds light only on things you were wrong about.`
`BOOTS OF ADEQUATE HASTE — you arrive on time. Not early.`

The pattern is: a mundane thing, a precise effect, and a downside stated as if it were a feature.
The comedy lives entirely in the deadpan of the rules text, so the drawing must be completely
straight.

## Can I use items from a published game?

No — named magic items, their descriptions and the rulebook art are the publisher's work, and this
category is heavily protected.

The format has no owner. Item plates, hatched illustration, stat blocks and the whole conventions
of rulebook layout descend from technical and catalogue publishing that predates every game using
them.

And an invented item is the only version worth wearing —
[a familiar one is merchandise for something else](/stories/tabletop-dungeon-illustration).

## Why a grid of six rather than one item?

Because a catalogue implies more than it shows.

One item is an illustration. Six laid out identically is a *page from something*, and pages imply
the rest of the book. It's the same move as a step number on an instruction sheet or a figure
number on a diagram — a fragment that implies a system.

Six is also about the maximum that stays legible at chest scale. More than that and the stat lines
drop below what the fabric holds.

## Does the small type survive printing?

Only if it's larger than a rulebook would set it.

This is the one real constraint. Real stat blocks are six or seven point; at chest scale that
becomes grey texture,
[under the weave's resolution](/stories/bold-shapes-survive-fabric).

The working version: names fully legible, one line of rules text readable at conversational
distance, and any further detail implied rather than set. Somebody reading it closely should get
the joke; somebody across a room should see a catalogue page.

## Where does this get worn?

Somewhere the other people also own dice.

That's the honest audience, and it's a good one — this is an in-group design that reads as a
handsome engraved plate to everybody else.
[Legible inside, invisible outside](/stories/team-inside-joke-shirt) is the most durable
shape a design can have.

## How do I get one made?

Describe the six items at [JustOG](/) — the object, the effect, and the cost. Pick a direction,
drag the crop frame, see it composited on the real garment, and it's made to order and shipped.

Designs other people have published are in the [shop](/shop).

Draw the lantern and it's a lantern. Price it and somebody has been selling them.