Librams and other Cosmetic Accessories in the Works!

If you're a very new player, or if you just have the memory of a goldfish, you might not know about Relics.

Before Mists of Pandaria, players had a third weapon slot - the ranged slot. All the cloth casters - Warlocks, Priests, and Mages, would equip a wand in that slot, which at the time was ranged-only. Hunters would put their main weapon there, but would either carry a staff or pole arm, or even dual-wield daggers, swords, axes or fist weapons in their main and off-hand slots. Warriors and Rogues could then use Crossbows, Bows, and Guns, or they could fill that slot with the now-defunct Thrown weapon type.

But Paladins, Shamans, and Druids - and after Wrath, Death Knights - would get a Relic to put there.

Relics were really weird. First of all, each of these classes had a different kind of relic. Druids used Idols, Shamans used Totems (which were different from the totem items they originally had to carry in their inventory to perform totem spells, though at some point they made the equipped totem count for those four, so that you no longer had to eat up four of your inventory spaces,) Paladins used Librams, and Death Knights used Sigils.

From Classic through Wrath of the Lich King, these Relics had unique effects. A relic would enhance particular abilities. For example, the first Libram I remember getting on my Paladin enhanced the block chance provided by Holy Shield, which was once a core ability for Protection Paladins.

It also took a long time before you'd see these items - while ranged weapons and wands would pop up pretty early (immediately for hunters, of course,) you likely wouldn't even see a relic until you were past level 50.

In Cataclysm, probably because they would be far less of a nightmare to balance, relics were changed so that they would simply provide certain stats and have a single prismatic gem socket with no bonus.

With Mists' elimination of the ranged slot, the Relic was lost.

Yet for years, Paladins in particular had wanted to see the Librams they were carrying. Since WCII, Paladins had always been shown wearing giant Holy Books attached to their belts. Yet the equipped Librams were never visible on the character.

Well, here's the exciting news:

Blizzard is working - somewhat tentatively, so we don't know when this will go live (and it may never, but here's hoping) - on creating cosmetic, equippable items that go beyond our ordinary armor and weapons.

The most obvious example, is of course the Paladin's Libram, but they've also shown some other ideas, such as a quiver for Hunters (something that actually used to be in-game, though this looks like it will be cooler-looking) and the option of either a hidden shoulder-dagger or a pack of poison vials for Rogues.

This is truly in an embryonic stage of development, but considering how wildly successful transmog has been, I think opening up new ways to customize the looks of our characters is a great idea.