D6 healing (sort of) items

1) Orihalcum knuckles of the puissant pugilist

A knuckle duster of potentially godly origin. Appears to be made of gold with veins of light running through it, and a leather strap so soft it must be angel hide. This item literally allows you to punch the wounds off people.

When used it inflicts 1d6 damage (applied before any healing), then heals 2d6 damage. Each subsequent healing of the same person per day does an additional d6 of damage and healing.

2) Flesh-mending swarm of the laughing revenant

A bottle made from a dried gourd, plugged with a leather patch and wooden bung. It contains a swarm of undead beetles, each the size of a pin-head. When shaken onto a creature, the beetles will enter through the nearest orifice and stitch wounds from the inside. Over the next day the creature will cough up the beetles, now properly dead.

Heals 1d4 per level of the user over level x rounds. Can be interrupted by turning or spells that protect against evil or undead.

3) Unfire

A flint and steel made from a dark glassy material that seems to reflect light in the wrong direction. It produces a blue-purple flame that only burns on flesh. Instead of being consumed, the flesh is healed.

Restores 1d4 per user's level. 1d6 if the weather is windy or wet. Functions five times daily.

4) Wandervine

A thumbnail-sized pale green seed. Tastes like cumin. The injured character swallows it whole. Later, vines grow from under their fingernails. Each produces a single seed. At that point their internal vine withers and the healing they received earlier is reversed.

Restores 1d4 per turn for three turns.

5) Sacrificial flock of the eagle priest

This ring is a white gold band decorated with a feather motif and a yellow tourmaline gem. If the wearer whispers the activation word to it, it summons a flock of whatever birds are closest. They fight to the death above the wearer's head, raining feathers, blood and other fluids down on them. The gory rain heals them.

Restores 1d8 + level points. Each time it's used in the same day, the die type steps down by one stage. There are fewer available birds nearby.

6) Fulminator

Fulminator is a grey-green stone the size of a fig. if swallowed (with difficulty) it waits for the user to fall to 0 HP before activating. At that point it explodes, completely vaporising the user. A round later they reform from the dust and smoke at full HP. To be used again, Fulminator must be found and re-swallowed.

Magic item: the Cruet Cart

This loaf-sized cart of tarnished pewter was made as a cruet set for a rich man's table. It originally came with salt and pepper shakers, and bottles for vinegar and oil. The vinegar bottle has been lost over time. It was created in the form of a farm cart pulled by two mules, with two caricatured peasants riding on top. When ordered, the cart will drive to the speaker's plate and season it. When idle, the peasants and mules perform one of a series of silly play-acts reinforcing their bucolic stupidity. It becomes motionless when put inside a bag or other container.

The benefit to adventurers is that the little figures will sprinkle any powder or liquid the cart is loaded up with onto anything they're told to. Holy water, lamp oil, black powder, etc. And the cart is fully capable of driving up walls and across ceilings to get to the 'plate'.

Usage: all characters.

Charges: permanent.

Appearance: A cart and figures made of once-shiny grey metal, scratched and dented.

Dice of Efwon

A magic item that causes a team of skilled goblin artisans to appear and quickly refresh the character for another round of battle.

When invoked, 1d4+4 goblins in overalls appear, with their tools. In one round they bind the character's and character's mount's wounds, repair their armour and quickly clean them. Then they vanish again. This provides the following benefits:

• Regain 1d6 hit points.
• Regain any damage to armour.
• End any detrimental physical environment effects such as being on fire, doused with acid, covered with frost, etc.

This takes one full round, during which the character must stand immobile or lose the benefit. During that round the character may be attacked, and will suffer the normal damage. The goblins automatically dodge any attack that doesn't have an area of effect or is magical. Each additional time the pit crew is summoned during the same combat there is a 3-in-6 chance that two or more of the goblins will start a fist-fight and forget what they're doing. During this and further summonings within the same combat, the player only receives healing. 

Once, many centuries ago, a goblin who was messing around with a ballista briefly became the fastest thing alive. The god of speed appreciated this sacrifice (intentional or not) and offered the goblin's tribe a blessing: as long as they kept a team ready to service his chariots at an instant's notice, their wounds would heal three times faster.

The god is long forgotten and his holy relics scattered, but the goblins still keep the pit crews on alert and still enjoy those extra couple of HP regained each day.

They're quick, but not supernaturally fast. They can clean and bandage a wound, or splint a broken limb within one round. They replace pauldrons, vambraces and greaves, tighten straps, lace boots. They wipe a character's armour down with some kind of cleaning solvent they almost certainly don't use among themselves.

Usage: any character wearing at least one piece of heavy armour. (Large shields count.) Targets self and mount.
Charges: 1d6+2.
Appearance: a pair of felted cubes connected by a short leather thong.

Crown of cats

This crown allows the wearer to summon every normal non-magical cat within level x 100 yards/metres. Familiars, awakened cats and other beings of a feline nature feel the summons, but aren't compelled to obey it. The cats take 10 - 1D4 minutes to all arrive.

It also allows the cats to understand the wearer's instructions. Roll a D6 either for individuals or the group:

1 - 3: The cats, having seen what all the fuss was about, wander off.
4 - 5: The cats watch the summoner with interest, but make no move to obey. Eventually they get bored and wander off as well.
6: The cats obey the received instructions provided they aren't dangerous, tedious, undignified or too much work.

If the crowd of cats number more than six, assume that at least one is co-operative at first.

+1 to the outcome if the orders are something a cat is inclined to do anyway, like chase a prey creature, bat something around the floor, or knock something off a high place.

+1 if the summoner is in favour with the local cats - generous with titbits and scritchies and space in front of their hearth.

For the benefit of the table, the player using this item should be encouraged to roleplay their attempts to persuade a crowd of cats to do anything at all useful*.

Crown of cats

Usage: All characters
Charge: 1D10 charges
Appearance: A circlet of braided leather studded with white opals. At the front are a topaz and an aquamarine.

* a cat 'assisted' in the writing of this post.

Magic item: Forston's Excellent Terranautical Sailboat

Forston always enjoyed the romance of the sea in books and songs. It called to him in his dreams. Sometimes he woke thinking he could hear gulls. But the actual sea made him so sick he couldn't memorise spells. What's a wizard to do? Craft a boat capable of sailing on land, of course.

The sailboat is a small vessel, comfortably seating four or squeezing six. It has a single sail and a tiller at the back. One person can operate it. For movement, it treats land like water. It's the same for anyone touching the boat, as long as the contact is palm-sized or larger. You can even splash it, although it resumes its proper shape afterwards. Oars work.

All the magic is in the keel. You could remove it and fit it to another boat, so long as it would take a similar-sized keel. Too large and the magic won't trigger.

Using the boat

Level ground is like calm water. The boat moves at about 9/10 of the wind's speed. You can tack against the wind at about 1/3 speed. Broken ground is like choppy water. Features like trees are like sudden swells. The boat will go over them, but it's a strain on the timber. And the magic does nothing to keep passengers or goods inside. Forests or cities are like storms, packed with up/down inclines. You can tack against gravity and sail up a vertical surface. Once again, it's hard on passengers.

Forston only sailed his boat once. He passed over an unexpected ditch and lost his seat. He sank into the turf while gripping the sail line, but lost it - and the earth solidified around him. He was never found.

Usage: all characters.

Charges: permanent.

Appearance: a mahogany keel banded in copper and carved with runes.

The rituals of the goddess of secrets

In the covert hours of the night, cut a branch from a tree you don't own. Saw a plank from that branch. Carve an empty circle on one side and an owl sigil on the other. Whisper a secret to it that you've never told anyone. Congratulations. Any table you place that board on is now an altar consecrated to the goddess of secrets.

Everyone has secrets they want to keep. You'd think the goddess of secrets would receive more worship. Truth is, not many people know about her. Those that do refer to her as 'our patroness' or 'our gracious lady' because they don't know her name. Most of them are thieves or assassins.

You can talk about anything at that altar. At the discussion's end, announce 'we dedicate these secrets to our lady' and let a drop of honey fall on your tongue. Spill the final drop on the carved board. Now no-one present can talk about what they've heard unless they're back together at an altar. Your voice will fail if you try. Sign language works, but she still might break your fingers for trying.

This is a obviously a tremendous boon to people who need to talk about their plans in private. It's good to know your partners can't spill the beans, even under torture. The lady might help them out there, by filling their mouths with acid or tearing their tongues in half to the root. She's serious about secrets.

But there's a price. The lady chooses one of the people at the altar to perform a task as her champion. It's usually an act of theft or violence. To keep something from coming to light, or shut a mouth forever. She sends her orders in dreams. Which are crystal-clear on the goal you've been set, but short on details like obstacles you might face. It's her nature to send you off, not unprepared exactly, but trusting you to work out the details on your own.

As you might expect, the penalties for telling anyone about this work are horrible.

If you succeed at several of these little tasks, there's a chance she'll select you for a great privilege. You'll become her priest. (No, you can't decline.) Then your job will be to move far away from everything you've ever known and found an organisation in her honour. A thieves guild or assassins lodge.

No need to tell the junior members why their order exists.

The Shaldon prison

A prison which polymorphs its prisoners into forms more suitable for selling into slavery.

The fishermen of Shaldon always enjoy a plentiful catch thanks to the town's good relationship with nearby merman settlements. The aquatic creatures guide their fishing boats to shoals where they can spread their nets. In return, the town maintains the prison and uses it to jail criminals and other unwanted visitors.

The cells are short of amenities - there's no point putting bedding down when it'll just wash away. The cliff-side prison is built so that the lowest level, where the cells are, is below the high tide line. 

The cells have spells built into their very bricks. First Sleep, to keep prisoners from panicking as the waves start to splash into their enclosures. Then Polymorph, to change them into mermen. When the tide reaches its peak, The Shaldon mermen swim in to collect their new slaves. A life of cultivating kelp awaits them.

Prisoners who make their saves and resist the Sleep spell aren't as lucky. If they're not asleep, Polymorph doesn't trigger. They're likely to drown when the air pockets at ceiling height turn stale.

There are three cells the guards don't use. They may never have been used. Instead of polymorphing the occupants into mermen, they change them into sharks. Each door is closed from the outside with a handle that must be twisted upward to open them. Each handle has a wooden float secured to it by a cord, so the doors unlock by themselves when under water. The guards don't talk about these cells.

The soul-cleansing pool

A device that drains the evil out of a person and stores it unsafely.

The abbey at Mospid town owns a curious device, a shallow pool connected by underground pipes to a man-sized glass globe. Anyone who enters the pool while it's active has all their evil thoughts and impulses sucked down the drain and into the globe forever. Once in the water, the suction applied to their contained evil keeps them from stepping out until the transformation is finished and the evil is gone. 

People who have been through the process are placid, cooperative, and completely unable to make decisions for themselves. Perfect for cloistered monks. They work the abbey's fields and dairy herds, producing the famous Mospid cheese the abbey earns so much of its income from. The abbey also accepts a small fee from the local magistrate for every malcontent they turn into a productive member of society. As the abbot himself would say, the order is doubly blessed. (And any rumours about converts working themselves to death while their careless minders sleep or gamble are vile lies and perilously close to blasphemy.)

If there's one fly in his ointment, it's the glass globe. During the first year the pool was used, the evil it contained was just a thin haze. Now it's a roiling dark cloud crackling with electrical discharges. Sometimes the globe rocks on its stone base. The abbot has it strapped in place with ropes and nets while the pool's not in use. While it is, and there are visitors watching, he has men standing around it ready to steady it as needed. They don't like touching it. It feels like doing something shameful.

Clearly the amount of evil being stored now is a problem. The abbot has been experimenting with draining evil into pilgrims. These pilgrims come to the abbey for hospice care while they die, conveniently wiping out the burden of second-hand evil. The process is difficult. Like trying to take a cupful of water from a high pressure hose. Excess evil has been leaking out into the surroundings. It causes nightmares, sickens livestock and sours milk. The abbot suspended the experiments when hostile half-human creatures started to appear in nearby forests.

The obvious solution is to close the pool down and pay someone to lose the globe out past the edges of civilisation. The abbot vetoed that idea. Mospid Abbey depends on on the money and workforce the pool generates. Instead, he's been paying wizards and sages to secretly travel to Mospid and examine the globe. None of them have had any useful suggestions yet, so he has them processed through the pool to keep the secret.

The problem is coming to a crisis point. It's the perfect time for a party of adventurers to make things better worse different.

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.

Magic item: Spoons of revealing

A magic item that can tell you where you food came from.

This item consists of three wooden spoons, each with a hole bored through the handle halfway along its length. They come with a tapering ivory rod. If the spoons are slipped onto the rod, they sit at different heights and turn easily.

If you've eaten a meal or ration using all three of the spoons, they swing to point at:

• The field or pasture the main ingredient came from
• The oven where it was cooked
• The water source used in preparing it.

If the meal was prepared without one of those things (eg. dried meat or pickled vegetables), the spoons rotate but can't settle on a direction.

Duke Buckley took a lot of pleasure in being a food snob. He squeezed his peasants for taxes to pay for the best of everything. Spices from far-away lands, meat from animals bred for tenderness, vintage wines. He had a wizard craft the spoons so he could boast that he knew every step of every meal's preparation.

He should have paid the wizard for a Detect Poison spell. Or been willing to share his meals with a poison taster. He might have lived to enjoy more of them. His last meal of braised game hen with saffron contained enough hemlock to kill a bull. Squeezed peasants sometimes squeeze back.

The assassin took the spoons as loot and sold them back to the wizard who made them. The wizard suspected that a delivery of eel fillets came from further away than the seller claimed, and was the cause of his stomach gripes.

Usage: All characters
Charges: 1d10
Appearance: Three ordinary wooden spoons and an ivory rod. A heavy mahogany base slotted to hold them.

Magic item: Latimer's ring

A hand-sized ring that creates an illusory pathway ahead of it.

The wizard Latimer was a secretive and suspicious man. His tower had many defences you wouldn't recognise until too late. The local ferry was one of them.

The river Vonne is narrow but deep and the water flows fast. The township is on one side, the tower on the other. Latimer never said he didn't want any one to build near him. But that's how it worked out.

The ferry was owned by a local named Merrick. He or one of his children operated it. They carried strangers across the river for a silver piece each. The boat was an ordinary dinghy, with space for four passengers. There was a thick rope strung over the water. The boat was secured to it by a second rope, with a metal ring woven into the end. The first rope was threaded through the ring and kept the boat from being carried away by the current if the ferryman stopped hauling.

But if Latimer didn't want visitors, the boat would reach the centre of the river and the far bank would recede into the distance until it vanished completely.

Latimer had a deal with Merrick and provided him with the metal ring. It's the physical component of the spell. If Merrick was bringing unwelcome guests, he touched it with his left hand to prepare. As the boat reached the river's midpoint, the far shore and the tower on it retreated faster than the ferry could chase them. No amount of hauling ever brought them closer.

This is all illusion, and anyone watching would see people in the boat hauling in different directions so the boat stayed where it was.

Latimer's Ring

Usage: all characters
Charges: 1d10
Appearance: 6" wide iron ring with a band of copper inlaid on the inside circumference. Has a thick frayed rope attached.

When held in the left hand, causes an illusion of the way ahead receding into the distance. Any creatures heading in that direction are confused by the magic and turned back toward the user. They never get more than a few steps away. Any number of people can hide by stepping into the illusion, but the user remains visible.

Save vs devices negates the part of the spell that hides the way, but not the part that makes people turn back to the user.

Magic item: Crystallised fruit voices

High calorie magic

You're delving a dungeon and come across a plate of crystallised fruit, good as the day the door was sealed. Do you A) avoid it, B) loot it, or C) eat it right there and then? I think the games with a C player at the table are the most fun.

(This post was originally entirely about magic crystallised ginger, but there's always someone who will tell you that ginger's awful and they don't like it. Those players are... moderately fun, in a very specific set of conditions.)

The fruit is a treat for children. It's imbued with a whimsical magic that changes the voice. For 1d6 hours after eating, the eater can only make the noise associated with that fruit. And they can't make it quietly, it's at top volume. They can eat another piece to change the sound. The only way to get their own voice back is to wait for the spell to wear off. Save vs cavities No saves. If you put this thing in your mouth and chew it, you get what you ask for.

1. Apple - roar like a lion
   
2. Pear - chatter like a monkey
   
3. Lime - hoot like an owl
   
4. Apricot - quack like a duck
   
5. Plum - bark like a dog
   
6. Ginger - screech like an eagle
7. Peach - grunt like a pig
8. Cherry - meow like a cat
9. Mandarin segment - neigh like a horse
10. Mandarin peel - honk like a goose

Some advantages are obvious. An eagle screech can be heard miles away. A roaring lion on the other side of a closed door is intimidating. You can stop someone from communicating effectively by forcing them to eat a piece.

(I left out oranges, lemons and pineapple because a lot of us like to play this game in a faux-medieval setting. Europe wouldn't have had access to those until the last century of the medieval period. Although something like pizza has existed since prehistory and popes have eaten it since antiquity. Isn't history mad?)

Magic item: Wizard in a bottle

Photo by Brent Moore, cropped.
Released under Creative Commons license.

"Friends, have you ever delved a dungeon and had to run for you lives because you didn't have magic support? Of course you have. And have you ever taken a wizard with you, only to have him claim first pick of the loot because he helped you out of a tight spot? I thought so.

"Well worry no more! Wizard-in-a-bottle™ gives you magical backup when you need it and not when you don't! Wizard-in-a-bottle™ supplies the esoteric knowledge and good advice you rely on without eating your food or grumbling about foolish hobbits*! And Wizard-in-a-bottle™ will never lay claim to a single hard-won gold piece**!"

The bottle contains an illusory wizard with real spell slots. The illusion has weight and solidity and follows instructions, making it perfect for trap-seeking or as a meat shield. Once uncorked, it has a 1d6 usage die (roll per exploration turn) or lasts until disrupted by something that would subtract HP.  Uncorking is a full-round action.

Naturally, it's expensive.

The bottle wizard has three level 1 spells, two level 2 and a single level 3. All chosen at random from the arcane spell list. It cannot memorise new spells. It's fearless, but may dispel itself early if treated with disrespect. While in the bottle it stays fresh indefinitely, but should be used quickly. The wizard that created it loses access to the spell slots they've invested in the bottle until used. They can also reclaim them at will.

Bottle wizard

AC 9 [10], HD 5* (1 HP), Att by spell only, THAC0 14 [5], MV 120' [40'], SV No saves, ML 12, AL Neutral, XP -, NA 1 (0), TT None.

Specials: Immune to all mind-affecting magic.

* Not guaranteed.
** Also not guaranteed.

The Magic Items of Ha'Dwair

I'm pretty sure everyone who plays a fantasy RPG (and especially D&D-ish RPGs) comes to the realisation that to a medieval peasant a laser gun is a magic wand, a robot is a man in armour and a spaceship is a godly chariot. Of course, that would also apply to modern objects, not just futuristic ones.

The wizard of Ha'Dwair sells his wares from a hut of sparkling glass, filled with moving images and brightly-painted runes of obscure meaning. They're reliable, if heavy, and he makes sure to show customers how to use them safely and check for remaining charges and mana. He often seems confused about what adventurers are actually doing with them, but it's worth ignoring his eccentricities to deal with a wizard who is helpful, reliable and doesn't smell like weasels live in his clothes.

Wands

When a wand runs out of mana or charges, the wizard will re-empower it for a modest fee.

Maa-ki-tah's Wand of Iron Spikes

This wand produces iron spikes from nowhere. If held against a door frame, it can spike it open or shut instantly. It makes a noise like a dragon coughing, but quieter than a hammer. Triggers an encounter check.

If used in battle Maa-ki-tah's wand is only useful against opponents in plate, or carrying a shield, or encased in tough hide. It ignores AC and does 1d6 damage.

DeWalt's Disc-Axe *

At the end of this wand is a spinning disc with intricately-carved teeth along the edge. It's devastating in battle, but its main use is quickly making entrances and exits by cutting through wooden doors, walls, floors and ceilings. If used on metal, the disc is blunted until the user painstakingly files the teeth back to sharpness. Louder than an axe. Triggers an encounter check.

Rio Bi's Self-propelling Drill

Unlike an iron-worker's self-propelling drill, this wand doesn't need to be hand-cranked. The user simply places it against the surface to be holed and presses a stud, allowing for accuracy and speed. A perfect thief's tool, it can disable locks and create spy holes. The bit can be exchanged for one of a different size with nothing more than the twist of a key. It can be kept quiet if used gently, but makes stealth impossible.

Bosh's Excellent Portable Forge

The forge is made up a of a hand-pulled two-wheeled cart, a large metal flask and the hellfire wand. The cart is light but strong and can hold the weight of several people. The flask is cold to the touch but contains alchemist's fire. If dropped from a great height, it will rupture in an explosion like a dragon attack. The hellfire wand produces a hot, bright flame that melts through copper and tin in seconds and iron in minutes. The flame should not be looked at directly, hellfire is not kind to mortal eyes. A skilled smith can use it to repair damaged weapons and armour while delving.

Armour

The wizard of Ha'Dwair's armour isn't quite on the same level as his wands. In fact, a lot of it is near-useless. What good is armour that makes you more likely to be seen? Still, he often gives it away for nothing with a wand and it's not smart to refuse a wizard's gift.

The Rigid Helm

Someone wearing the Rigid Helm can withstand mighty blows to the top of their head. It offers much less protection against lateral attacks. Rub some mud on it, it's bright orange.

The Invisible Eye-Ward

Not actually invisible, but you can see through this light-but-tough protector like it was glass. Perfect for looking through keyholes that might contain poison needle traps.

Note: Not arrow-proof.

The Vest of Revealing

This vest offers no armour bonus at all, and it's a vivid yellow and orange so bright they seem to glow. Maybe you could slit it down the sides and drape it over the best-armoured member of the party to make them the focus of incoming attacks? There's no obvious benefit to it, but the wizard insists that everyone take one.

Gloves of Improved Grip

Thin gloves that protect like thick leather gloves, offering all the convenience of ‒ look, just take them. They're free. Take them.

Boots of Hardness

Ah, now these are something special! Boots that never slip on any solid surface and have iron caps stitched into the leather. Good for fighting kobolds, goblins and other scum that love to stab an honest fighting man in the foot.

* With thanks to William Hope Hodgson