Bag of holding
Encyclopedia
A bag of holding is a fictional magical item
in the Dungeons & Dragons
roleplaying game, capable of containing objects larger than its own size. Since its introduction, it has appeared in other roleplaying games and media.
) or a pocket dimension, making the space larger inside than it is outside. Each bag always weighs the same amount, between 15 and 60 lb (6.8 and 27.2 kg), regardless of what is put into it. It can store a combined weight of up to forty times its own weight, and a combined volume of 30 to 250 cu ft (0.84950541 to 7.1 m3). A living creature put in a bag of holding will suffocate after about 10 minutes.
If a bag of holding is overloaded, or if a sharp object pierces it (from outside or inside), the bag will rupture and be ruined, the contents lost forever in "nilspace."
s either purposefully (especially in the case of a bag of devouring), or as a result of a failed spell in the process of creating a bag of holding.
creature; it is one of its feeding orifices. Issue 271 of Dragon
featured an article titled "The Ecology of a Bag of Devouring" that discussed the nature of such a creature.
Any substance of animal or vegetable matter put into the bag has a chance of being swallowed over time. Even a person reaching in to retrieve or place an item, after the initial time, has a chance of being completely dragged into the bag and swallowed. The bag of devouring will act as a bag of holding, but every hour it has an increasing chance of swallowing the contents. Any plants or animals swallowed by the bag in this way are transported to the creature's stomach, digested, and lost forever, while inedible items are swallowed and spat into another plane.
In earlier editions of Dungeons & Dragons, putting one bag of holding inside another would have the same effect as placing a portable hole into a bag of holding. Interactions with portable holes had the effects listed above.
HackMaster
roleplaying game (originally a fictionalized form of Dungeons & Dragons). Bagworld is another planet (possibly located on another plane of reality) that is accessed via bag devices, enabling characters to cache enormous amounts of materials. Bagworld possesses its own, apparently infinite breathable atmosphere, but no known native lifeforms; thus, a living creature placed inside is in no danger of suffocation, though death by starvation and/or dehydration is possible if the creature is not supplied with provisions. From the Bagworld point-of-view, there are a great many holes in the sky from which giants deposit and retrieve items (a creature or object that completely enters the bag device will shrink to Bagworld's scale once inside). If a bag device connected to Bagworld is placed inside another such device, the device placed inside is destroyed, and the contents of all remaining connected devices are "shuffled", with each device's contents moved to the accessible space of another (random) storage device.
video game NetHack
, a bag of holding has slightly different properties:
video game Heretic
, a bag of holding is a collectible item that permanently doubles the player's ammunition capacity.
, any item placed in a Bag of Holding is made weightless, thus lightening the player's inventory. The item description mentions that "a halfling once founded a utopian village inside his Bag of Holding, and that village continues to thrive to this day." Lesser bags of holding which reduce the weight of the contained items by some percentage also exist, both in the original game and in the sequel.
's Discworld
novel Making Money
, wizard Ponder Stibbons is placed in charge of the "Cabinet of Curiosity", which he describes as "a classic Bag of Holding but with n mouths, where n is the number of items in an eleven-dimensional universe which are not currently alive, not pink and can fit in a cubical drawer 14.14 inches (359.2 mm) on a side, divided by P." To ask what "P" is, is "the wrong sort of question." The Cabinet manifests as a "tree" of drawers within drawers within drawers, that open in an unfolding fractal
pattern of iteration
s. Iteration one is a simple cabinet, but by the time of the novel they have managed to increase the number of drawers until the Cabinet fills a cathedral-sized room (actually a standard sized room - but the wizards increased the space by decreasing time; asking how is the wrong kind of question). Each drawer holds an apparently random object. If any objects are removed from the cabinet, it ceases to work, limiting its usefulness.
Also in Discworld is the Luggage, a variant of Heward's handy haversack. However, the Luggage has the added benefit that any clothes put in will come out pressed, folded and smelling faintly of lavender
. Additionally, it will defend with murderous mindlessness anyone who threatens its owner by stomping on him/her/it/id with its hundreds of little feet.
Magic item (Dungeons & Dragons)
In the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game, a magic item is any object that has magical powers inherent in it. These may act on their own or be the tools of the character in whose hands they fall into. Magic items have been prevalent in the game in every edition and setting, from the...
in the Dungeons & Dragons
Dungeons & Dragons
Dungeons & Dragons is a fantasy role-playing game originally designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, and first published in 1974 by Tactical Studies Rules, Inc. . The game has been published by Wizards of the Coast since 1997...
roleplaying game, capable of containing objects larger than its own size. Since its introduction, it has appeared in other roleplaying games and media.
Description
A bag of holding appears to be a common cloth sack of about 2 by in size. It opens into a nondimensional space (similar to a magic satchelMagic satchel
Magic satchel is a term often used in reference to computer role-playing games. It refers to the use of a character's inventory in the game, which can often contain more items than is physically possible for the character to carry without any visible means to hold or transport them.A similar...
) or a pocket dimension, making the space larger inside than it is outside. Each bag always weighs the same amount, between 15 and 60 lb (6.8 and 27.2 kg), regardless of what is put into it. It can store a combined weight of up to forty times its own weight, and a combined volume of 30 to 250 cu ft (0.84950541 to 7.1 m3). A living creature put in a bag of holding will suffocate after about 10 minutes.
If a bag of holding is overloaded, or if a sharp object pierces it (from outside or inside), the bag will rupture and be ruined, the contents lost forever in "nilspace."
Variants
Other magical bags similar to the bags of holding include:- Lesser bags of holding: these bags reduce only part of the weight within them, usually between 10% and 50%.
- Bag of tricks: by reaching into this bag, the bearer can pull out some type of animal, such as rabbitRabbitRabbits are small mammals in the family Leporidae of the order Lagomorpha, found in several parts of the world...
s, weaselWeaselWeasels are mammals forming the genus Mustela of the Mustelidae family. They are small, active predators, long and slender with short legs....
s, ratRatRats are various medium-sized, long-tailed rodents of the superfamily Muroidea. "True rats" are members of the genus Rattus, the most important of which to humans are the black rat, Rattus rattus, and the brown rat, Rattus norvegicus...
s, penguinPenguinPenguins are a group of aquatic, flightless birds living almost exclusively in the southern hemisphere, especially in Antarctica. Highly adapted for life in the water, penguins have countershaded dark and white plumage, and their wings have become flippers...
s and batBatBats are mammals of the order Chiroptera "hand" and pteron "wing") whose forelimbs form webbed wings, making them the only mammals naturally capable of true and sustained flight. By contrast, other mammals said to fly, such as flying squirrels, gliding possums, and colugos, glide rather than fly,...
s, or even wolves, bearBearBears are mammals of the family Ursidae. Bears are classified as caniforms, or doglike carnivorans, with the pinnipeds being their closest living relatives. Although there are only eight living species of bear, they are widespread, appearing in a wide variety of habitats throughout the Northern...
s, horseHorseThe horse is one of two extant subspecies of Equus ferus, or the wild horse. It is a single-hooved mammal belonging to the taxonomic family Equidae. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature into the large, single-toed animal of today...
s, or rhinoRhinocerosRhinoceros , also known as rhino, is a group of five extant species of odd-toed ungulates in the family Rhinocerotidae. Two of these species are native to Africa and three to southern Asia....
s. - Heward's handy haversack: this backpack always weighs five pounds and is always the size of a normal backpack. It has two small side pouches that, like a bag of holding, can hold two cubic feet, much more than normal, or 20 pounds of material, while the larger central portion can hold 8 cubic foot (0.226534776 m³) or 80 pounds. The advantage of the handy haversack is that any item placed inside will be "handy", that is, located on top when intentionally sought. For example, if one were to place a dagger inside the haversack and cover it with a load of paper, upon searching for the dagger it would magically appear above the paper.
Cursed bags
Some bags outwardly indistinguishable from a bag of holding have highly undesirable qualities. They are created by spellcasterSpellcaster
A spellcaster in role-playing games refers to a creature capable of casting magic spells.See also:*Mage *Magician , a practitioner of magic as portrayed in works of fiction...
s either purposefully (especially in the case of a bag of devouring), or as a result of a failed spell in the process of creating a bag of holding.
Bag of devouring
Essentially a bottomless pit in a bag, this bag appears to be a normal sack, like a bag of holding, and seems to be a bag of holding on closer inspection. However, the bag is a lure used by an extradimensionalPlane (Dungeons & Dragons)
The planes of the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game constitutes the multiverse in which the game takes place.In the earliest versions of Dungeons & Dragons, the concept of the Inner, Ethereal, Prime Material, Astral and Outer Planes was introduced; at the time there were only four Inner Planes...
creature; it is one of its feeding orifices. Issue 271 of Dragon
Dragon (magazine)
Dragon is one of the two official magazines for source material for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game and associated products, the other being Dungeon. TSR, Inc. originally launched the monthly printed magazine in 1976 to succeed the company's earlier publication, The Strategic Review. The...
featured an article titled "The Ecology of a Bag of Devouring" that discussed the nature of such a creature.
Any substance of animal or vegetable matter put into the bag has a chance of being swallowed over time. Even a person reaching in to retrieve or place an item, after the initial time, has a chance of being completely dragged into the bag and swallowed. The bag of devouring will act as a bag of holding, but every hour it has an increasing chance of swallowing the contents. Any plants or animals swallowed by the bag in this way are transported to the creature's stomach, digested, and lost forever, while inedible items are swallowed and spat into another plane.
Bag of transmuting
This magical sack will perform as a bag of holding for 2-10 uses. At some point, however, the magical field will waver, causing precious metals and gems stored in the bag to be turned into common metals and worthless stones. Any magical items placed in the bag will become ordinary lead, glass, or wood as appropriate once the transmuting effects have begun.Interaction with other magical items
In the physics of Dungeons & Dragons, putting a bag of holding inside a portable hole will result in a rift to be opened to the Astral Plane, and both items will be lost forever. If a portable hole is placed within a bag of holding, it instead opens a gate to the Astral Plane, sucking in every creature in a ten foot radius, and destroying both the bag and hole. The contents of the bags are either scattered throughout the Astral Plane or destroyed. Placing bags of holding into one another (or within a Heward's handy haversack or vice-versa) has no adverse effects in the current edition of the game and would allow one to store an unlimited amount of items by storing bags of holding within bags of holding, potentially nested (each bag of holding being limited in total weight capacity to roughly 40 additional bags, depending on the size of each).In earlier editions of Dungeons & Dragons, putting one bag of holding inside another would have the same effect as placing a portable hole into a bag of holding. Interactions with portable holes had the effects listed above.
Hackmaster
The Bagworld is the basis of especially capacious holding devices (e.g. the fanny pack of hefty capacity) in the Knights of the Dinner TableKnights of the Dinner Table
Knights of the Dinner Table is a comic book/strip created by Jolly R. Blackburn and published by Kenzer & Company. It primarily focuses on a group of role playing gamers and their actions at the gaming table, which often result in unfortunate, but humorous consequences in the game...
HackMaster
HackMaster
HackMaster is a role-playing game produced by Kenzer & Company, being a revised expansion of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. It started out as a fictional game, a parody of the most ludicrous aspects of D&D played by the characters of the Knights of the Dinner Table comic strip by Jolly R. Blackburn...
roleplaying game (originally a fictionalized form of Dungeons & Dragons). Bagworld is another planet (possibly located on another plane of reality) that is accessed via bag devices, enabling characters to cache enormous amounts of materials. Bagworld possesses its own, apparently infinite breathable atmosphere, but no known native lifeforms; thus, a living creature placed inside is in no danger of suffocation, though death by starvation and/or dehydration is possible if the creature is not supplied with provisions. From the Bagworld point-of-view, there are a great many holes in the sky from which giants deposit and retrieve items (a creature or object that completely enters the bag device will shrink to Bagworld's scale once inside). If a bag device connected to Bagworld is placed inside another such device, the device placed inside is destroyed, and the contents of all remaining connected devices are "shuffled", with each device's contents moved to the accessible space of another (random) storage device.
NetHack
In the roguelikeRoguelike
The roguelike is a sub-genre of role-playing video games, characterized by randomization for replayability, permanent death, and turn-based movement. Most roguelikes feature ASCII graphics, with newer ones increasingly offering tile-based graphics. Games are typically dungeon crawls, with many...
video game NetHack
NetHack
NetHack is a single-player roguelike video game originally released in 1987. It is a descendant of an earlier game called Hack , which is a descendant of Rogue...
, a bag of holding has slightly different properties:
- There is no limit on the amount of material such a bag can hold.
- The bag does not have a constant weight; it varies with the items it holds.
- A cursed bag will be proportionally heavier than the items it contains.
- An uncursed or blessed bag will be proportionally lighter, with a blessed bag being much lighter.
- A bag will explode (destroying all contents) if a charged wand of cancellation, bag of tricks, or another bag of holding is placed inside; if said items are nested within a sufficient number of ordinary bags, adverse effects may be avoided.
Heretic
In the first-person shooterFirst-person shooter
First-person shooter is a video game genre that centers the gameplay on gun and projectile weapon-based combat through first-person perspective; i.e., the player experiences the action through the eyes of a protagonist. Generally speaking, the first-person shooter shares common traits with other...
video game Heretic
Heretic (computer game)
Heretic is a fantasy first-person shooter video game created by Raven Software, published by id Software, and distributed by GT Interactive in 1994. It was made available on Steam on August 3, 2007....
, a bag of holding is a collectible item that permanently doubles the player's ammunition capacity.
Neverwinter Nights
In the PC role-playing game Neverwinter NightsNeverwinter Nights
Neverwinter Nights , produced by BioWare and published by Infogrames , is a third-person perspective computer role-playing game that is based on third edition Dungeons & Dragons and Forgotten Realms rules. It was originally to be published by Interplay Entertainment, but the publisher's financial...
, any item placed in a Bag of Holding is made weightless, thus lightening the player's inventory. The item description mentions that "a halfling once founded a utopian village inside his Bag of Holding, and that village continues to thrive to this day." Lesser bags of holding which reduce the weight of the contained items by some percentage also exist, both in the original game and in the sequel.
Discworld
In Terry PratchettTerry Pratchett
Sir Terence David John "Terry" Pratchett, OBE is an English novelist, known for his frequently comical work in the fantasy genre. He is best known for his popular and long-running Discworld series of comic fantasy novels...
's Discworld
Discworld
Discworld is a comic fantasy book series by English author Sir Terry Pratchett, set on the Discworld, a flat world balanced on the backs of four elephants which, in turn, stand on the back of a giant turtle, Great A'Tuin. The books frequently parody, or at least take inspiration from, J. R. R....
novel Making Money
Making Money
Making Money is a Terry Pratchett novel in the Discworld series, first published in the UK on 20 September 2007. It is the second novel featuring Moist von Lipwig, and involves the Ankh-Morpork mint and specifically the introduction of paper money to the city...
, wizard Ponder Stibbons is placed in charge of the "Cabinet of Curiosity", which he describes as "a classic Bag of Holding but with n mouths, where n is the number of items in an eleven-dimensional universe which are not currently alive, not pink and can fit in a cubical drawer 14.14 inches (359.2 mm) on a side, divided by P." To ask what "P" is, is "the wrong sort of question." The Cabinet manifests as a "tree" of drawers within drawers within drawers, that open in an unfolding fractal
Fractal
A fractal has been defined as "a rough or fragmented geometric shape that can be split into parts, each of which is a reduced-size copy of the whole," a property called self-similarity...
pattern of iteration
Iteration
Iteration means the act of repeating a process usually with the aim of approaching a desired goal or target or result. Each repetition of the process is also called an "iteration," and the results of one iteration are used as the starting point for the next iteration.-Mathematics:Iteration in...
s. Iteration one is a simple cabinet, but by the time of the novel they have managed to increase the number of drawers until the Cabinet fills a cathedral-sized room (actually a standard sized room - but the wizards increased the space by decreasing time; asking how is the wrong kind of question). Each drawer holds an apparently random object. If any objects are removed from the cabinet, it ceases to work, limiting its usefulness.
Also in Discworld is the Luggage, a variant of Heward's handy haversack. However, the Luggage has the added benefit that any clothes put in will come out pressed, folded and smelling faintly of lavender
Lavender
The lavenders are a genus of 39 species of flowering plants in the mint family, Lamiaceae. An Old World genus, distributed from Macaronesia across Africa, the Mediterranean, South-West Asia, Arabia, Western Iran and South-East India...
. Additionally, it will defend with murderous mindlessness anyone who threatens its owner by stomping on him/her/it/id with its hundreds of little feet.