Special Items: Magic and Artifacts

The Curse of the Unseen

This cursed scroll was taken from Wendell Redstar, a prophet of the True Family captured from the Stigmas di Cristo. The first person to read it gains a paranoid regard for normal noises. Any noise with no attributable source is an ill omen, a creature sneaking up on them or a trap about to spring. The character can neither sleep, rest, nor concentrate for longer than a few minutes at a time. A willpower roll is required to cast spells and there is a penalty of one to all actions and reactions.

The scroll is in anagram. It begins:

Oh say unlove dances all. Or one way unveiled. The thought wind misses scorn and deals red ink, or drowns your grand, sour rank. Shy fool she rushed vanished fear where love and brewer drape mask.

Here rest the thin, roving flutes of your wild free rosin. Yes say revenant moon mice ate lies.

Unscrambled, it would read:

No candle shall save you. No dawn relieve you. In the darkness, around corners, through doors and misty windows, dangers lurk. You shall never be free wherever shadows form and dark shapes hide.

For you, the night is forever filled with unseen terrors. Every noise is an enemy come at last.

However, the text disappears on being read, so they’ll only see the scrambled text once and are unlikely to decipher it.

The Demon’s Head

The Demon’s Head was specially constructed to hold the Demon’s life force and still retains magical properties after the Demon is gone. The head is evil, and assists evil works. An evil person bearing it gains a bonus of 2 on all reactions, and a bonus of 20 survival. A good person bearing it has a penalty of 3 on all actions and reactions. Its bulk is 15.

The Demon’s Head may be destroyed by a person good, strong, and pure of heart. The destroyer must be Ordered Good or Chaotic Good with a strength of at least 20. They must be dedicated to and stringent in their application of, their moral code.

The Elven Sword

This is a +1 sword (+1 to attack and +1 to damage). Its possession grants the bearer a bonus of 2 to perception rolls. Elven swords are used by Rivelaelfte leaders and those on important missions for the Rivelaelfte.

The hilt is gemmed. The blade is slightly banged up, but remains in fine shape. It is marked by the symbol of the Rivelaelfte.

The Marrow Cross

Formed by the combined strength of soul of the victims of the Order’s depredations in its degeneracy, the Marrow Cross will grant a bonus of 2 to any attempts to exorcise demons; it will also grant a bonus of 2 to any attempts at turning undead. It also has the ability to grant power in weakness: in a place of power aligned to Evil, the Marrow Cross will reverse the penalty for using the place of power for Good, turning it into a bonus.

Powder of Darkness

A leather bag inscribed with a circle and a lopsided five-pointed star in the manner of Ralph Steadman. The powder inside is enchanted with Dead Night at level 4. This means that it has a diameter of nine yards and lasts eighty minutes. It automatically centers on whoever tosses the powder in the air, or the object it is tossed upon.

The Ring of Lemordin

Silver, translucent, with finely engraved hares that float just below the surface of the metal, this ring is imbued with the escape spell with a trigger and a delay. The spell is triggered if the wearer successfully attacks or is successfully attacked. It is delayed by d10 rounds. It is at the twelfth level of effect. See the description of escape for details, but the spell causes the wearer to teleport to the furthest surface within d1000 yards in a random horizontal and vertical direction. Once triggered, the spell is on the character; if the ring is removed, the escape still occurs. While the delay spell is active and the ring is worn, the hares seem to jump about in a circle around the ring. The ring may be used twice per day.

The ring has indestructible object at 12th level, for a bonus of 12 to reactions against destruction or damage.

The ring is extremely old, and predates the cataclysm. Ensender inherited it seven hundred years before his death. Ensender was a high elf, that is, alive before the cataclysm. He was 1,300 years old at his death in Illustrious Castle.

The Scepter of Tragos d’Illus

The scepter holds Tragos’s rib bone. His shell is tied to the scepter. His ghost doesn’t haunt the castle, it haunts the scepter. On nights of the full moon, Tragos will appear as an apparition. On All Hallow’s Eve he will appear as a full-fledged phantasm.

He’s a relatively willful ghost, even as an apparition, and will not appear so often to the same people as to make them less afraid, or encourage them to become more prepared for his Hallowe’en assault.

If his ghost is successfully destroyed, Tragos’s body will decay a hundred years in a few minutes time. Tragos’s body may not be destroyed except by destroying the scepter or Tragos’s ghost. Tragos may not venture further than 300 yards from the scepter. If the scepter is transported more than a mile from the body (or vice versa), the body will appear to go dormant (bugs and maggots will crawl away) but will not decay.

The scepter was created as an aid for summoning and controlling demons, but is tied to Tragos. For him, it gives a bonus of 3 to demon summonings and other demonic spells and rituals. For others, it gives a bonus of only 1.

Tragos’s apparition: Ordered Evil; undead 5; survival 33; move 20; defense 2; shapeshifting, immune to non-magical weapons; cold fear; magic resistance 5.

Tragos’s phantasm: Ordered Evil; undead 7; survival 43; move 20; defense 2; shapeshifting, immune to non-magical weapons; cold fear, illusions; magic resistance 10.

The Shield of Annis

Arthur Wells was born in the 881st year of the Cataclysm. He was left-handed. He disappeared in 909 AC, after leaving Crosspoint for Black Stag. Any male member of the Wells family will recognize the Shield, and any member or friend of the family will recognize the crest of the Wells. On the shield is embossed a well on a hill, and the morning sun. This is a +1 shield that had been handed down in the family since it was blessed by the prophet Robert Annis over four centuries ago.

The Spellbooks of the Order of Illustration

Three of the Order’s spellbooks survived the botched summoning. The Order were mnemonic sorcerors. Each is bound in leather, with a pyramid inscribed on the cover. The tenth volume has an eye inscribed in the pyramid.

The Staff of the Dove

A golden staff head, of a dove in flight with an olive branch in its beak. It is worth around 900 shillings without regard to its spiritual qualities. This Christian staff contains two fourth-level spirits of healing. It may be used twice per day (once for each spirit) by any creature of Good moral code. The default manifestation is restore/deplete vitality, and any Good creature can use it to that effect. Prophets may manifest any fourth level and lower healing manifestation.

The golden staff head was a gift to the Order, given by the prophet Hanthur a century after the Order’s founding.

The Undeath Wand

Legend places the wand’s origins in Hell. It is covered in Greek inscriptions identifying it (to anyone who knows Greek, which no one does in Highland, or to anyone with the appropriate spell) as having been granted as a boon by Ekdulon (a demon of Hell) in exchange for meritorious service. The wand dates back to the ancients.

It radiates evil to any means of detecting moral code, and touching it to (or being touched by) a truly good person will cause d4 points damage per round. A short touch, as in combat, will cause 1 point of damage.

The wand gives a bonus to sorcerors of three levels for purposes of casting summonings and a bonus of one level for purposes of casting divinations.

The wand gives anyone with the Turn Undead specialty a bonus of three levels on attempts to control undead.

There is a ritual, which the Illustrators had not acquired, that allows those who worship the Night God of Death to double those bonuses during special times of the year, of which All Hallow’s Eve is one.

The wand is made of a dark, nearly black, ivory-like material with grains of brownish-red. It was a gift from Wendell to the Order. He gave the Order the information they needed to retrieve the wand from ancient ruins.