Favorite Magic Items
Favorite Magic Items
I'm compiling a list of useful and/or interesting items for use in a new campaign. This campaign will not be in Ravenloft but it has similar atmosphere and I'd like ideas for possible item curses and abilities. Thanks!
Don't touch the sunglasses.
Death makes all men equal, Life makes all men brothers. -Mournesworth family crest
Death makes all men equal, Life makes all men brothers. -Mournesworth family crest
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vipera aspis
- Evil Genius
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) and it can be used 2/day.-
lordsathien
- Agent of the Fraternity
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I created an interesting item called the beggar's cloak.
It's a ragged old and worn cloak with a few tears here and there (mending and similar effects have no effect on it). Whenever the wearer is dealt hit point damage, he only takes half that much, rounded down. The other half of the damage is converted into a reduction of hardness and then, once that hardness becomes 0, damage to the hit points of the most valuable item on the wearer's person.
It's not intended as a curse so much as to pose the question of "how much are you willing to pay to live twice as long?" I used disintegrate as the base spell in its creation. However, the Book of Vile Darkness has a spell that disintegrates the victim's most valuable magic item, so that might work as a substitution.
It's a ragged old and worn cloak with a few tears here and there (mending and similar effects have no effect on it). Whenever the wearer is dealt hit point damage, he only takes half that much, rounded down. The other half of the damage is converted into a reduction of hardness and then, once that hardness becomes 0, damage to the hit points of the most valuable item on the wearer's person.
It's not intended as a curse so much as to pose the question of "how much are you willing to pay to live twice as long?" I used disintegrate as the base spell in its creation. However, the Book of Vile Darkness has a spell that disintegrates the victim's most valuable magic item, so that might work as a substitution.
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Garudos Celestar
- Evil Genius
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Re: Favorite Magic Items
I am quite fond of Aggarath (the dagger containing a pocket domain in its hiltstone) and Maleffluent (the intelligent battle axe), both from the Castle Spulzeer/Forgotten Terror Forgotten Realms/Ravenloft crossover adventures (I've never read Forgotten Terror, but in my opinion Castle Spulzeer is well-done with excellent characters (especially Marble).
[i]"I too have begun to wonder about the legendary wisdom of our guardian angel and his pet rock."
~ Evee Beiderbecke[/i]
~ Evee Beiderbecke[/i]
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Jasper
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- Location: A cultural wasteland known as WV.
The blood coin is a cursed coin that allows the person who owns it to haggle anyone down to any price he or she wants or sell an item for any price. For EX. you could buy a +3 sword for two copper or sell a piece of broken pottery for five hundred gold. The curse is the owner of the coin then begins crying bloody tears for one hour for each GP they cheated the buyer/seller out of. This dosn't hurt the coins owner but it does cause horror checks. The coin will stay with the cursed person even if given away (it returns magicly back into the coin pouch) and can only be gotten rid of if the victum first gives away all his worldly possessions then freely gives away the coin.
My peronal favorite cursed magical item is one i made up for my group called the Ring of Beautys Truth.
This ring appears to be a simple silver wedding band with silver rose on the top. Its history is it was once the engagment ring for a young vistani woman and her giogoro bardish lover. The bard loved the vistani only for her charms and looks as he had finally found someone as beautyfull and handsome as he was. On the night they were to be wed a pack of feral wolves decended from the mountans drawn by the fire and the smell of cooked meat. While the wedding party was able to kill the wolves it was not before they mauled the bride scaring her face and blinding one of her eyes. AS they brought the bard to her side he recoiled in horror at the loss of her beauty. "I can have nothing to do with something so hidious. Be gone from my sight woman," he spat out turing away.
Infuriated the bride began laying a curse,
"If you deny the beauty before your eyes
Then take from them these simple lies
Let all you see be simple and true
untill pure beauty take this from you"
Rightly fearing the vistani's curse the groom fled into the night. For several weeks the bard felt no effects from he curse, in fact his scenes became even more accute after he left. His eyes grew more sharp allowing him to pickout the smallest of features, his ears the softest of sounds. Even his touch grew stronger allowing him to feel even the faintest of textures. only his rin proved problematic as it would no longer come off his finger. Never the less he grew to enjoy his new abilities until he began to notice his sight kept falling upon the minor inperfections in all he saw. The busty bar maid had just a little too many small blemishes on her skin and the perfume had just a little too much jasmine. The food and drink grew problematic as well as he could taste every small imperfection, every undercooked bite, every rotten grape. Over the next few months the effects grew much worse. Every face was a mash of pox marks and blemishes, the finest foods poison in his mouth, every song he played or sung was filed with discordenant notes. In the end he went mad and killed himself cutting out his eyes, ears, tounge and skin to excape the curse.
Game effects are:
1st week: +5 to spot, search, listen, disable device and appraise. All senses become more accute
3rd week Bonus raises to +10. Imperfections are now apparent if the pc rolls 5 or more over DC
5th week. bonus raises to +20. If the PC senses anything particularly hideous (Rotting flesh, bloody battle, sewage smell, diseased individual etc: ) a fear save needs to be rolled at -5 as he sees them in the rawest detail
7th week PC can take 20 on all sense based checks regardless of time. All things are now hidious in the PCs eyes. All fear checks are now automatically horror saves.
10th week. PC can now see invisible and ethereal creatures as well as seeing through all illusions. All horror saves are rolled as madness saves.
The PC will eventually go mad unless the ring is removed. To break the curse the PC must have the ring removed by someone who is physically hideous on the outside but is an innocent on the inside (Calibans and bujahs work well for this)
My peronal favorite cursed magical item is one i made up for my group called the Ring of Beautys Truth.
This ring appears to be a simple silver wedding band with silver rose on the top. Its history is it was once the engagment ring for a young vistani woman and her giogoro bardish lover. The bard loved the vistani only for her charms and looks as he had finally found someone as beautyfull and handsome as he was. On the night they were to be wed a pack of feral wolves decended from the mountans drawn by the fire and the smell of cooked meat. While the wedding party was able to kill the wolves it was not before they mauled the bride scaring her face and blinding one of her eyes. AS they brought the bard to her side he recoiled in horror at the loss of her beauty. "I can have nothing to do with something so hidious. Be gone from my sight woman," he spat out turing away.
Infuriated the bride began laying a curse,
"If you deny the beauty before your eyes
Then take from them these simple lies
Let all you see be simple and true
untill pure beauty take this from you"
Rightly fearing the vistani's curse the groom fled into the night. For several weeks the bard felt no effects from he curse, in fact his scenes became even more accute after he left. His eyes grew more sharp allowing him to pickout the smallest of features, his ears the softest of sounds. Even his touch grew stronger allowing him to feel even the faintest of textures. only his rin proved problematic as it would no longer come off his finger. Never the less he grew to enjoy his new abilities until he began to notice his sight kept falling upon the minor inperfections in all he saw. The busty bar maid had just a little too many small blemishes on her skin and the perfume had just a little too much jasmine. The food and drink grew problematic as well as he could taste every small imperfection, every undercooked bite, every rotten grape. Over the next few months the effects grew much worse. Every face was a mash of pox marks and blemishes, the finest foods poison in his mouth, every song he played or sung was filed with discordenant notes. In the end he went mad and killed himself cutting out his eyes, ears, tounge and skin to excape the curse.
Game effects are:
1st week: +5 to spot, search, listen, disable device and appraise. All senses become more accute
3rd week Bonus raises to +10. Imperfections are now apparent if the pc rolls 5 or more over DC
5th week. bonus raises to +20. If the PC senses anything particularly hideous (Rotting flesh, bloody battle, sewage smell, diseased individual etc: ) a fear save needs to be rolled at -5 as he sees them in the rawest detail
7th week PC can take 20 on all sense based checks regardless of time. All things are now hidious in the PCs eyes. All fear checks are now automatically horror saves.
10th week. PC can now see invisible and ethereal creatures as well as seeing through all illusions. All horror saves are rolled as madness saves.
The PC will eventually go mad unless the ring is removed. To break the curse the PC must have the ring removed by someone who is physically hideous on the outside but is an innocent on the inside (Calibans and bujahs work well for this)
"Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don't know how to replenish it's source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of witherings, of tarnishings."
Anais Nin
Anais Nin
Well, this is almost playing against type, but-
The Soupstone.
In many domains exists the story of Stone Soup-the tale of a clever but penniless fellow tricking heartless villagers into creating a feast(not only for himself but themselves as well)by claiming to make soup with a "magic stone". In truth, the villagers own contributions make the soup..and in some versions of the tale the experience of the shared meal created a marked and permanent change in the township and its inhabitants.
And then one day, a PC bard found a smooth, round river stone and kept it on a whim. That night as he was heating water to soften his last packet of dried beans(heating stones in a fire and dropping them in a small pot) the pretty river stone slipped from a sleeve and fell in-and the small pot overflowed with tuns of rich, creamy soup...
A storyteller by nature, the Bard knew the old fables, and upon rejoining the rest of the party, the Stone and its bounty was shared by all.
The Soupstone is a shiny, polished round stone, palm-sized and perfect for skipping, but not appearing valuable at all. The Stone does one thing and one thing only-once per day, when placed in hot water, it spontaneously generates up to four barrels of tasty and filling soups, a different kind for each day of the week. The soup has no magic save what well-crafted and nutritous foods may have on the ill, hungry and soulsick.In the hands of tainted or Evil men the Stone will not work at all.No hidden powers or curses-however it came to be, the Stone simply was what it was.
A simple, humble magic-but in the hands of this particular party, the Soupstone became a weapon as mighty as any sword or spell...they made enemies of a corrupt preisthood and a dozen petty lords, left entire peasant communities happier and healthier, helped a beseiged castle survive until reinforcements arrived, staved off an attack of starving wolves upon a Barovian town in winter(troughs of cooling soup make better prey than meat behind stout doors) and many other deeds of subtle yet far-reaching generosity.There were times the PC's managed to do more damage to the machinations of a Darklord by attacking hunger, loneliness and poverty that hunting monsters...
As one of the Players brought up last year-"sometimes people forget that RL is about Heroism in the face of Darkness.I think that's why we have trouble getting the guys enthused in this kind of thing" . Hence, a small item made one PC wander out loud if there was such a thing "as an Anti-Power".
The Soupstone.
In many domains exists the story of Stone Soup-the tale of a clever but penniless fellow tricking heartless villagers into creating a feast(not only for himself but themselves as well)by claiming to make soup with a "magic stone". In truth, the villagers own contributions make the soup..and in some versions of the tale the experience of the shared meal created a marked and permanent change in the township and its inhabitants.
And then one day, a PC bard found a smooth, round river stone and kept it on a whim. That night as he was heating water to soften his last packet of dried beans(heating stones in a fire and dropping them in a small pot) the pretty river stone slipped from a sleeve and fell in-and the small pot overflowed with tuns of rich, creamy soup...
A storyteller by nature, the Bard knew the old fables, and upon rejoining the rest of the party, the Stone and its bounty was shared by all.
The Soupstone is a shiny, polished round stone, palm-sized and perfect for skipping, but not appearing valuable at all. The Stone does one thing and one thing only-once per day, when placed in hot water, it spontaneously generates up to four barrels of tasty and filling soups, a different kind for each day of the week. The soup has no magic save what well-crafted and nutritous foods may have on the ill, hungry and soulsick.In the hands of tainted or Evil men the Stone will not work at all.No hidden powers or curses-however it came to be, the Stone simply was what it was.
A simple, humble magic-but in the hands of this particular party, the Soupstone became a weapon as mighty as any sword or spell...they made enemies of a corrupt preisthood and a dozen petty lords, left entire peasant communities happier and healthier, helped a beseiged castle survive until reinforcements arrived, staved off an attack of starving wolves upon a Barovian town in winter(troughs of cooling soup make better prey than meat behind stout doors) and many other deeds of subtle yet far-reaching generosity.There were times the PC's managed to do more damage to the machinations of a Darklord by attacking hunger, loneliness and poverty that hunting monsters...
As one of the Players brought up last year-"sometimes people forget that RL is about Heroism in the face of Darkness.I think that's why we have trouble getting the guys enthused in this kind of thing" . Hence, a small item made one PC wander out loud if there was such a thing "as an Anti-Power".
"And did she ever come out?"
"Not Yet".
"Not Yet".