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.

Orchestral bestiary

The orchestra went mad while struggling through the Sequenzas. They turned feral and fled into the formal gardens. They live there now, eating whatever they can hunt or forage. You can hear them late at night, playing strange and discordant requiems.

It's only surprising it didn't happen sooner.

Flautist

A skinny woman in a tattered gown, dirt streaked under her wild eyes like war paint. She taught herself to fire darts from her flute. They're smeared with toxins she collects by milking plants in the poison garden.

AC 6 [13], HD 1* (4 HP), ATT 1 x dart (1d4 + poison), THAC0 19 [0], MV 120' (40'), SV 12 13 14 15 16 (F1), ML 10, AL Chaotic, XP 13, NA 1 (1d3), TT R

Specials: Poison. Death in 1d6 rounds, death save negates.

Tuba player

A tremendously fat man, his shirt buttons strain to contain him. He stalks, barefoot, like a predatory building and uses his tuba to fire actual cannonballs. Where did he get them?

AC 5 [14], HD 6 (27 HP), ATT 1 x cannonball (1d10, full round reload), THAC0 14 [5], MV 120' (40'), SV 10 11 12 13 14 (F6), ML 10, AL Chaotic, XP 275, NA 1 (1d2), TT T

Cymbalist

This one was probably a bit loopy even before that fateful day. His tuxedo is stained with blood. He's filed the edges of his cymbals and teeth to razor-sharpness. He giggles and whispers to himself while he uses them both.

AC 6 [13], HD 3 (14 HP), ATT 2 x cymbals (1d6) or 1 x bite (1d6), THAC0 17 [2], MV 120' (40'), SV 12 13 14 15 16 (F3), ML 12, AL Chaotic, XP 35, NA 1 (1), TT S

Triangle player

No-one's afraid of the triangle player. His only job is to go ting! No-one respects him. Even the other musicians push him around. Maybe that's why he ditched his triangle and picked up an axe. 

AC 5 [14], HD 2 (9 HP), ATT 1 x axe (1d6), THAC0 18 [1], MV 120' (40'), SV 12 13 14 15 16 (F2), ML 10, AL Chaotic, XP 20, NA 1 (0), TT P

Cellist

If a wandering martial arts sage saw this guy fight, they'd immediately adopt the cello as their clan's signature weapon. He can swing it like a mace, stab with the end spike or fire arrows from the strings. I think he's been secretly planning to murder the brass section for a long time.

AC 7 [12], HD 4 (18 HP), ATT 1 x swing (1d6) or stab (1d4) or arrow (1d6), THAC0 15 [4], MV 120' (40'), SV 10 11 12 13 14 (F4), ML 10, AL Chaotic, XP 75, NA 1 (1d3), TT R

Violinist 

The orchestra's diva. Everything is done with a little flourish. Even swinging that violin bow at you like a sabre.

AC 5 [15], HD 5 (23 HP), ATT 1 x bow (1d6), THAC0 15 [4], MV 120' (40'), SV 10 11 12 13 14 (F5), ML 10, AL Chaotic, XP 175, NA 1 (2d3), TT T

Conductor

Wild-haired, twitch-eyed, muttering in German. He hates his musicians as much as he hates you.

AC 3 [16], HD 7 (32 HP), ATT 1 x baton (1d6), THAC0 13 [6], MV 120' (40'), SV 8 9 10 11 12 (F7), ML 10, AL Chaotic, XP 450, NA 1 (0), TT T

The why of Witches

A set of tables for rolling up a witch's situation and motives. She could be ally or antagonist. 

This witch is (1d6):

1. A girl barely in her teens
2. A young woman
3. A middle-aged woman
4. A crone
5. An ageless creature cloaked in illusion
6. Just a voice from a shadowed corner
   

Who specialises in (1d6):

1. Potions
2. Protective charms
3. Reading the future in a glass
4. Curses
5. Spells to soften the heart and lull the will
6. Controlling animals
   

And lives in (1d6):

1. A hut
2. A tidy cottage
3. A ruined castle
4. A tree
5. A swamp hovel
6. A cave
   

She turned to witchcraft because (1d6):

1. Every woman in her line passes the knowledge to a daughter
2. She wanted to harm an enemy
3. Her community needed a wise woman
4. It gave her the power to control her fate
5. She had the gift from birth
6. A family member needed supernatural healing
   

Her customers are (1d6):

1. Followers of a suppressed religion
2. Local town-folk
3. Criminals
4. Adventurers
5. A high-born family
6. Unseen things of the forest and field
   

And they want: (1d6):

1. Visions of the future
2. Protection for a hidden enterprise
3. Revenge on a third party
4. Advice on personal problems
5. Health tonics and herbal remedies
6. Spells to ease their way to a goal
   

Her biggest problem is (1d6):

1. A demon suitor
2. A paranoid official
3. A zealous priest
4. A rival magic-user
   
5. A corrupted spell
6. An evil fate
   

Her biggest advantage is (1d6):

1. A protective amulet
2. A hidden sanctuary
3. A rich customer's secrets
4. A way of travelling that can't be followed
5. The good will of the land itself
6. A chest of gold
   

Her ally is (1d6):

1. A forest spirit
2. A fierce familiar
3. A grateful community
4. A minor demon
5. A skilled criminal
6. A fellow witch
   

Her interest in adventurers is (1d6):

1. Obtaining magical components
2. Delivering magical items
3. Protection
4. Acquiring 'servants' who won't be missed
5. Cleaning up a magical accident
6. Because sometimes a stab wound is the best curse there is

Click here to randomly generate:

(Thanks to Spwack of the Slight Adjustments blog for the generator code.)

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.