Saturday 24 September 2022

Magic item: Mini-iceberg maker

A pair of magic skates that freeze water to ice under your feet and are completely impossible to use safely.

When Robert Griffensmere, the youngest scion of the Griffensmere family, fell in love with the youngest daughter of the rival Dunbridge family the heads of both houses were furious. Both teens were confined to their respective households and forbidden to communicate.

The houses were separated by a wide bay which routinely froze over during winter. Robert was a strong skater and looked forward to gliding to his lover over a path of ice. But he didn't want to wait until winter. He had the household conjurer make him a pair of ice skates that would freeze the water under him as he moved.

When he tried them, he discovered that it's much easier to balance on a solid sea of ice than on two square feet of it, rocked by waves and his shifting weight. He tipped into the water and found to his horror that his skates were now frozen to an ice boulder. He was floating, but head-down. Unable to free himself quickly enough, he drowned.

The first people to investigate the floating patches of ice in the bay on a warm spring morning were a privateer crew on their way to harass shipping lanes. The captain immediately recognised the potential of what he found. He had the body lifted aboard and coated in tar to preserve it.

Now the ship drags Robert and his magical skates behind them to create a wall of mini-bergs to damage or delay small target ships.

Mini-iceberg maker

Usage: All characters
Charge: Permanent
Appearance: Two skates attached to a tar-coated corpse. When dropped in water it floats upside-down and forms ice on the skates.

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