The Vault: Rare and unusal stuff for the taking

Grützi

Should be playing D&D instead
The1True said:
I'm kind of viewing this whole forum currently as an adventure incubator. Am I wrong?
So in the spirit of this very nice quote up there let's put together some fun stuff for others to use in their games ;)

Please keep the same old +1 flaming swords and potions of healing (1d6 or 1d8+2 or whatever) safely locked in your treasure chests.
What I want to put together here is a list of the crazy/fun/awesome stuff of your homebrews, your garage-campaigns and the artefacts you never dared to put into players hands.

Disclaimer:
I consider everything posted in this thread fair game for the taking. Put it into your campaigns or into your published adventures. Give credit where credit is due and everything will be fine.

Let's go people

All of the following Treasure comes from my Beyond the Wall campaign in my own setting called "Gahan"

Wyrmweed
Wherever a dragon left a part of it's essence, most often in the form of spilled blood, these strange Berries grow.

A gnarled, waist high shrub full of strange grape sized berries.
The look of the berries depends on the element the dragon was associated with:
Fire: perfectly round and dark red
Water: light blue and nearly bursting with water
Earth: of a greenish hue and wrinkled like raisins
Air: stark yellow and full of air

There are 2d10 berries per shrub.
Eating one or more berries bestows a main and a secondary effect depending on the element of the berries on the eater. Eating to many berries however will give the user a bout of so called wyrmfever.

Main Effects
Berries eatenWyrmfever?Duration
Fire​
WaterEarthAir
1no1d4 hours+1 on any attack+1 Initiative+1 AC+1 Perception
2no1d4+1 hours+2 on any attack+2 Initiative+2 AC+2 Perception
3yes1d4+2 hours+3 on any attack+3 Initiative+3 AC+3 Perception
4yes2d4+2 hours+4 on any attack+4 Initiative+4 AC+4 Perception
5yes12 hours+5 on any attack+5 Initiative+5 AC+5 Perception
6seizurewhole dayConvulsionsFever delusionsIllnessNausea
Secondary Effects
Fire:
immunity to natural cold
Water: breath water
Earth: tremor sense 5m/15ft. (seeing by feeling the tremors in the ground)
Air: move completely silent

Wyrmfever
The number of eaten berries becomes a malus on any roll except those affected by the main effect.
If someone eats six or more berries he gets a wyrmfever seizure that lasts a whole day (save against poison to halve the time).
The seizure knocks the character out cold, he/she can do little more than lay in bed and be a sorry mess.

Mixing elements:
Please do ;)
Berries of the same element stack, the limit of six berries total remains in effect.
Example:
Hagur has eaten three fire berries and 2 earth berries. He now has +3 on any attack and +2 AC for 12 hours. For that time he also has 5m/15ft. tremor sense and immunity to any naturally occuring cold.
He is also in the throes of wyrmfever giving him a -5 on any rolls that are not affected by the main effect of the berries.

The duration of the effects is determined by the total of all eaten berries except when someone eats new berries at a later time. In this case the duration for the new berries is rolled and added onto the remaining duration.
Example:
Hagur has eaten 3 berries and rolled a duration of 6 hours. After 3 hours he eats another berry, rolls a 2 and adds two hours to all active effects.


The greedy Bow of bent wood
A masterfully crafted bow made from one piece of dark wood. The bowstring is of finest silk, the grip is bound in red leather. On the whole bow a subtle carving of leaves is visible.
Masterwork
+1 on attack rolls and damage
Sneaky
If a target is unaware of the attacker he may add his dexterity modifier to the damage roll on a succesful hit
The wooden eye
Once a day the shooter can choose a wooden surface (natural or worked) he can see. For one round (6 seconds) the shooter can see the world as if he was "looking out" of that wooden surface. Any arrow shot in this time vanishes from the bow instantly and "shoots out" of the choosen surface.
Greedy
The bow has an inate greed for gold. Whenever an enemy is killed by the bow, the shooter rolls a d6. If the result is less than the current greed of the bow, all gold vanishes from the killed enemy as the bow "eats" it to fuel its abilties. The bows greed is then reset to one. IF the result is above the current greed nothing happens to the gold and the bows greed is increased by one.

Staff of Saint Reginald
A simple oaken staff, the symbol of the god of winter Zem has been carved into its knob and been filled with silver.
Effects
-1 on any attack made by the wielder while the staff is on the wielders person.
The wielder of this staff becomes immune to any damage as long as the staff is rammed into the ground, held with both hands and the wielder recites a prayer of protection to Zem nonstop with his eyes closed the whole time.
As long as these conditons are fullfilled the wielder takes no damage from any source and all damage to anyone in 10m/30ft. diameter around the wielder is halved.

The Sword of Vapor
A masterfully crafted bastard sword. The handle is wrapped in black leather, the crossguard is decorated with dark wood. On the blade, right above the crossguard, a seal showing a single teardrop made of a strange silvery metal is embeded.
Masterwork
+2 to attack rolls and damage
Flexible
Can be used one or two handed
One-handed: 1d8+2 damage, +2 Initiative
Two-handed: 1d8+2 damage + double strength bonus on damage,
Make a dexterity roll before initiative is rolled:
success - roll initiative normally
failure - act last in turn order for the whole fight
A metal not from this world
Everytime an attack is made with the sword an illusion of the wielder appears making another attack from a different angle. This confuses enemies so that their AC is considered 2 lower.
Once a day the whole sword can be made invisible. It remains invisible until it is drawn or the wielder draws someones attention to it.
 
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squeen

8, 8, I forget what is for
OK. Here's one of mine (all the good ones are damn silly)

ring of chivalrous combat --- the wearer is forced to shout out his battle plans at the beginning of each round of combat. Cursed so that it can only be removed by a lady of noble birth.
 
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Slick

*eyeroll*
Hive Armor

A Queen carnivorous beetle worn as a brooch or pendant. If given a steady diet of meat it will produce a colony of drones after 1 week, which will swarm over the body of the wearer, granting them AC equal to Chain. Sustaining Fire damage kills some of the beetles, with a 10% chance of sustaining negligible losses, a 40% chance of reducing its AC to Leather, another 40% chance of removing the armor bonus completely, and a 10% chance of killing the Queen, and thus the entire colony. If the Queen survives it will take another week of feeding to spawn replacements no matter how many drones are left.

Once per day, the Queen can be lightly squeezed to produce a pheromone-rich secretion. It can be squirted directly up to 10', or applied to weapons like an oil. If the secretion contacts flesh besides the wearer's, the beetles will rapidly crawl off of their body (depriving them of the AC bonus) and swarm towards the point of contact (stats as a standard insect swarm with +1 to hit and damage) until they are killed, the target is killed, or they have dealt a total of 15 damage (gotten their fill of meatstuffs).
 

squeen

8, 8, I forget what is for
Hive Armor
Love it! (The bad guys are getting it!)

EDIT: There's got to be some sort of movement penalty associated with having bugs crawling all over your body (eeuuuooww!).

Or maybe not...MA-GIC!
 
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Two orcs

Officially better than you, according to PoN
Fragile Orb of Cloudkill
Deadly pink vapor whirls inside this thin basketball sized glass orb. A bumpy ride in someone's pack is enough to break the orb and release the spell. May be hurled as a flask of oil if using both hands, -4 to hit using one hand.

Dentures of Insolence
Silver dentures forcing the wearer into a perfect but smug grin. -2 to all reaction rolls even when covering the face as the voice takes on a smug tone as well. Even non-social creatures are provoked by the character. Provides complete immunity to 1st level spells.

Boltcaller
Sword+1, once per day, if raised under a clouded sky a bolt of lightning stikes the blade causing 5d8 of damage and deafness (save vs blast for half and no deafness) to all creatures but the wielder within 15'. After this the sword becomes charged with electricity and functions as a sword+3 for the rest of the day.
 

squeen

8, 8, I forget what is for
Dentures of Insolence
Silver dentures forcing the wearer into a perfect but smug grin. -2 to all reaction rolls even when covering the face as the voice takes on a smug tone as well. Even non-social creatures are provoked by the character. Provides complete immunity to 1st level spells.
This one especially. Lord, how I do love the socially-inconvenient cursed stuff.
Ironically, that I can't stop smiling about this. Oh the possibilities!

EDIT: I think Slick's avatar is trying to hide the fact that he's secretly wearing these.
 
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DangerousPuhson

Should be playing D&D instead
Gnomish Exosuit

As full plate, but it's got a system of pistons and hydraulics and such, so it doubles carrying capacity, reduces fall damage by half, and provides a +2 Str bonus. The drawback? Prone to shutting down and trapping the wearer if they take a critical hit (a hose breaks off or something, must be fixed before you can take actions again).

Chalk of Passing

Can draw a door or hole onto a wall and it allows you through, as the Passwall spell. Three uses. Alternatively, can crumble the whole stick into dust and sprinkle onto yourself to become Ethereal for up to ten minutes (or until dust is washed/blown away).

Micro-Star

A fist-sized prism of tinted glass, which holds a literal star, suspended without gravity. Can't look directly at it or become blinded. If the containment prism is broken, the star has the weight of an actual star (trillions of tons), and will immediately burn an unstoppable 3" diameter hole through anything in the direction away from the planet's orbit around the sun, as it no longer moves with the planet but instead keeps a fixed spot in space. DM determines a fair amount of damage that this would cause, but I'd say it's equivalent to getting pierced by a ballista bolt or something.
 

Two orcs

Officially better than you, according to PoN
Book of Prophecy
A voluminous book of often scraped parchment. If anything is written in it the magic of the book keeps writing overnight, another page of plausible extrapolation. The better detail the book is provided the more accurate the extrapolation. The book cannot mention elements not provided by another writer. With a detailed premise each day there is a 10% chance the contents of the page deviates from reality. A deviated page has a 20% chance to deviate further the next day, then 30% and so on.
 

squeen

8, 8, I forget what is for
Here’s an idea inspired/plagiarized from from one of Ben L’s house rules he presented in issue 2 of his Dreamlands Zine. I hope its different enough to not insight anyone’s ire!

Prophetic Dream Catcher—An exotic object that causes the next night to be filled with a vivid dream that fades the instant one awakes. However, the next time the owner arrives in a new locale with significant actionable topology or objects, the dream can be recalled to some limited strategic benefit. The dream catcher must still be in the dreamer’s possession at the moment of remembrance. Optionally, the night of the prophetic dream preludes normal hit point recovery.
 
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squeen

8, 8, I forget what is for
Traveling right now. Promise I’ll post something lengthier when I return. Too quiet here.
 
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squeen

8, 8, I forget what is for
He's one I wrote this morning in the wee hours...

dagger.png

One of them I just placed in the Palace Drains I've started posting over in the Illusions thread.

I'll have a new formatting update for open critique on that too shortly (although with only 4 views, I'm thinking the world can wait...). :)
 
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DangerousPuhson

Should be playing D&D instead
The concept is decent (though I can't help but think I've seen it somewhere), but the write-up is a bit longer/more detailed than I personally care for.
 

squeen

8, 8, I forget what is for
...(though I can't help but think I've seen it somewhere), but the write-up is a bit longer/more detailed than I personally care for.
Is this a duplicate of a standard item? If so, it's 100% subconscious.

As to write-up, would you prefer something like:

"throwing dagger, burrowing: 1d3 additional damage/round with successful hit, until forcibly removed. Second throw is +3 to-hit if used as a pair against a single target."

?

The later is more akin to what the magic item write-ups look like in the Swords & Wizardry Complete rulebook. Fairly dry.

The former is what I plopped into my dungeon write-up, since I'm trying to take some of Bryce's suggestions (about interestingly detailed magic items) to heart. Still, I take your point about wordiness (clearly a weakness of mine). However, it does lose the veiled sex-magic innuendo (for what that's worth).
 
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squeen

8, 8, I forget what is for
Here's a "slimmed down" version---compromising with DP's editorial feedback. :).
daggersOfPenetration.png
Still too long?

EDIT: I simplified the mechanic and jazzed up the effect. I generally try for a mixed-bag of pros and cons for magic items.
 
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squeen

8, 8, I forget what is for
Come on DP! Don't sulk. You've been super quiet since finding out many folk here are old enough to be your grandpa father .

It was you and Bryce who advised me to write more (and post). But now I can't get a peep out of Bryce (admitly he was drunk at the time), and you've clammed up too. Even Malrex has gone mostly AWOL.

Que pasa?
 
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Malrex

So ... slow work day? Every day?
Come on DP! Don't sulk. You've been super quiet since finding out many folk here are old enough to be your grandpa father .

It was you and Bryce who advised me to write more (and post). But now I can't get a peep out of Bryce (admitly he was drunk at the time), and you've clammed up too. Even Malrex has gone mostly AWOL.

Que pasa?
I've been lurking, but just been super busy trying to wrap up projects and editing for Footprints.
 
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