Magical Trinkets

[MrEdwardNigma]

((Note: My players should stay out of this thread, just to be sure. You know who you are))

So, I'm running this campaign where one of the players has come across a collection of magical trinkets that used to belong to a necromancer. He's asked me to list them all, and I have, though obviously he has no way to figure out what they actually do (if anything) except by messing around with them.

The idea is that the necromancer didn't keep these trinkets around because they were particularly powerful (in fact, if they were he would have probably used them against the player when he killed the necromancer), but because they were interesting.

So far the player has inspected three trinkets: a gleaming metal porcupine statue that is ridiculously sharp (it cut through every bag he tried to put it in instantly), a jar of goo with eyeballs in it and a small metal dragon statuette that spits a small blue flame when you press it's tail.

I was wondering what kind of trinkets the playground would come up with?

[shadzar]

You mean posibly mundane items that just happened to be the knick-knacks that the necromancer had laying around, or actual magic things?

[Shademan]

a small steel cube with two buttons. when you point it at anybody and press one of the buttons their voice grow louder to you. the other makes it lower. essentially it's a remote control! for sound...

though that might be misused.

A goblet that will refill itself with your drink of choice. in the sense that it grows legs and arms and walk over to the bottle and refills itself.

[MrEdwardNigma]

You mean posibly mundane items that just happened to be the knick-knacks that the necromancer had laying around, or actual magic things?
They are magical items the necromancer collected, not for actual use, but like someone would collect antiques in the real world. Some of the trinkets' value may even be purely historical.

[elonin]

Sounds like the necromancer is a collector. If you have an idea for what sort of collector that might help us with these trinkets. As a one off idea a comb that changes your hair color (I'd price it as an item with predistigination).

[Quincunx]

A bone press. It's based on the lever action of a fine paper embosser, but someone has welded a fine silver funnel above the embossing pad, and there are traces of bone powder in the funnel and on the pad. Some prodding will pop the bottom of the base, revealing the extra pattern discs.

Jars with dried-out residue of leather inks caked within. A bit of blood will re-form the ink. Water will merely bead on its surface.

A skull under a thin sheet of tortoiseshell set into the top of a broken music box. Between the lid of the music box and the glass is a LONG list of creatures, some with various numbers of question marks following, each name crossed out.

[JellyPooga]

Just some ideas off the top of my head

-A (real) perpetual motion 'desk-toy'

-A lantern that periodically changes the colour of the light it emits

-A rod with one black end and one white end. When picked up by the white end, the colours reverse (so you are now holding the black end).

-A magical fruit-peeler: looks like a silver petri-dish. When a piece of fruit (no larger than, say, a grapefruit) is placed in it, the peel slowly comes off in a pleasing pattern (always in one piece!)

[ScreamingDoom]

The Hellraiser puzzlebox. That should freak out your players if they've seen the movie. The puzzlebox itself might be mundane, but will any of them have the guts to try it out?

A severed (seemingly) human thumb. Odd that it doesn't rot, though...

A large tome written in a language no one understands. It has what are presumably strange spells and incantations written in it, though again in the odd language. Fortunately, it has pictures! The pictures show strange diagrams of fell, alien, boxlike machines which are operated by pressing boards of runes and seeing the result of this dread and macabre numerology on glowing rectangular windows.

A tincture of snuff.

Another book: 101 Things To Do With a Dead Body. All but one page is torn out. The last page reads: "Bury it."

A pair of magical, oversized dice which will always roll either two ones or two sixes when a command word is spoken directly prior to rolling them. You don't get to choose which is rolled.

A brain in a jar. Label: Abby Normal

A small box with a single large, red button on it which reads: Do Not Press

An autograph book containing the signatures of every significant NPC the PCs have thus far encountered (including any family members or significant others), and a lot more names they haven't. This should really creep out the players and provide nice paranoia fuel. You can use this for light foreshadowing if you want and have the PCs come across people signed in the book.

How's that?

[AslanCross]

-The shriveled hand of a famous thief who had been caught with his hand in the duke's pocket.

-A crystal ring that projects a silent image of a statue that has long since been destroyed.

-A banner of a country that no longer exists that magically flutters even without wind.

-Makeup that changes color according to the emotions of the person who applies it.

-Shoes that have little lights that flash when the person wearing them walks. (Like those that kids wear)

-A stuffed pig stomach used as a ball by a famous athlete.

-A board game that magically resets itself. Except this particular set is broken and resets in a random and messy order.

[MrEdwardNigma]

Some of these are really good. :smallsmile:

One thing I forgot to mention though, all of these trinkets were found in some shelves in a single cabinet, and are thusly pretty small.

Other than that, really good stuff. There's even an idea in here that I had actually written down myself.

I really like the perpetual motion toy too. It's not really useful for the player, but it's definitely interesting for a collector.


If you have an idea for what sort of collector that might help us with these trinkets.
He just collects magical trinkets he came across that he thought interesting, really. Sometimes with a bit of a tendency towards dark magic, but it's not really a requirement. Anyways, I already have my list, I was just wondering what interesting stuff of this nature the playground could come up with.

[Myshlaevsky]

A compact mirror which reflects what the viewer will look like as a corpse or at the moment of their death.

A full set of instruments for a fairy orchestra or band. If you want to add a macabre touch to this then have a large number of clipped fairy wings in a nearby jar.

A coin that changes when moved to whatever currency is used in the locality.

If you're not above including references, a set of seven gradually larger and deeper-sounding bells.

[Pharaoh's Fist]

A magical coin that will give the right answer to a yes/no question 50% of the time.

[Jack Zander]

A magical ring that increases the number of magical rings you can wear by 1.

A chess set that has wizards for rooks, paladins for knights, and clerics for bishops. The pieces seem stuck to the board, but may be moved mentally (as long as its a legal move) or reset mentally.

[Mongoose87]

A magical coin that will give the right answer to a yes/no question 50% of the time.

Better yet, the wrong answer!


A magical ring that increases the number of magical rings you can wear by 1.

A chess set that has wizards for rooks, paladins for knights, and clerics for bishops. The pieces seem stuck to the board, but may be moved mentally (as long as its a legal move) or reset mentally.

Does it have fighters for pawns?

[Jergmo]

Well, he was a necromancer, so I imagine he'd have some trinkets that were taken from creatures it met. Since it's a small cabinet, maybe things like...a tiny monstrous centipede in a jar of formaldehyde, or a stuffed pseudodragon.

[Adumbration]

A tiny human skull with gaping jaws, made of some strong metal but resembling bone. When something is put inside it's mouth, it bites down. If a PC happens to put a finger inside, it deals 1 point of damage. What it's actually for is biting off the ends of cigars.

A pair of greatly adorned, elaborate and well-made daggers. The trick is that the blades of the daggers affect normally everything but living flesh, to which the blades leaves no mark or damage. The ruby in the hilt starts glowing when it makes contact something alive. Made for training and mock duels.

A metallic brooch, used to fasten a cloak or a robe and made to resemble a dragonfly. When the garment is undone, the dragonfly comes to life, rises a few feet, hovering silently in place, waiting for the cloak to be grasped. Then the dragonfly becomes inanimate until needed again.

... Aaand I'm out of ideas. For now.

[Jack Zander]

Does it have fighters for pawns?

One side has CW Samurai, the other uses True Namers

[Jair Barik]

One that was mentioned in another topic by somebody was a stick that always stands upright regardless of what you do with it.

Some of my own design...

A skull that is seemingly empty but if you shake it a pair of dice roll out its mouth (these disappear after 5 seconds or if touched)

A bag of holding that makes its contents 50% heavier (though can still hold more than it should)

A bag of holding that makes its contents weightless (but can hold half as much as it should)

A red lever on a piece of stone. (this is a major artifact, all it does though is if the lever is pulled a hand appears and flicks the LG Paladin type deity of your setting in the back of the head, amusingly its major artifact qualities prevent anyone even the God's from finding the item, what it does or where the hand comes from though they remain unprotected from unrelated scries)

A compass that points to the tarrasque

A regular 6 sided dice that always rolls sevens (when ever anyone touches it having rolled it the dice falls on its side so that on closer examination all the sides turn out to be numbers from 1-6 again)

[Jergmo]

One that was mentioned in another topic by somebody was a stick that always stands upright regardless of what you do with it.

Aye, that was one of mine. Forgot all about some of the ones I posted there.

[Mongoose87]

I once gave my players a 10-foot pole that turned into a toothbrush if one attempted to pole-vault with it, and back into a ten-foot pole if one attempted to brush one's teeth with it.

[The Dark Fiddler]

A bowl of water that releases colorful bubbles every few seconds.

A fire that produces no heat (and therefore can't catch things on fire) and no light (and therefore cannot be used for illumination) but changes colors constantly, and can also have its size changed at will.

[ScIaDrd]

A decorative glass vial filled with an inexhaustible supply of whatever perfume the person holding finds most pleasing ,and/or whatever is most suitable for current weather, season, or fashion.

A bar of soap that instantly clears any dirt ,grime or unpleasant odor form the user or his clothes like a predestigaton spell when rubbed against bare skin.

Implement of dunce smiting
This object which most commonly takes the form of a long thick scroll of parchment, a disenbodied hand or a ornate fan, but can take almost any form must be attuneed to it´s user by staying in her possesion for at least 24 hours. Afterwards the user can issue it a mental command, and the implement flies at any creature in the user´s line of singht that has done or said something stupid and starts pummeling them until commanded to stop or the ,,offender" apologizes. The pummeling deals no damage, and can´t interrupt the concentration of a determined creature (such as a spellcaster working his magic) but is quite annoying.

Autonomous fan
This beautiful feather fan stars gently fanning the creature who speaks the commad word. It ca n function idefinetly but can´t create any winds stronger than a gentle breeze.

The Dancing beauty
This item appears to be a featureless but vaguely humanoid porcelain doll.
It can transform into any creatures or objects that the creature touching can imagine. It can represent up to eight creatures and many more objects as to-scale miniatures. The images can move as the originals would and can produce any manner of sound as the create sound power, as apropriate to the creatures.

A tiny glass orb filled with grey fog that turns red when the creatue holding it has forgotten to do some thing it has promised, or is supposed to do.

A wand that conjures irremovable sticky notes with any sort of nonmagical text written on them. The notes cam be removed only by tapping them with the wand.

An otherwise innocuous bracelet that can be mentally commanded to send an annoying but otherwise harmless electrical jolt to the person the wearer is touching with that hand.

[Mongoose87]

Implement of dunce smiting
This object which most commonly takes the form of a long thick scroll of parchment, a disenbodied hand or a ornate fan, but can take almost any form must be attuneed to it´s user by staying in her possesion for at least 24 hours. Afterwards the user can issue it a mental command, and the implement flies at any creature in the user´s line of singht that has done or said something stupid and starts pummeling them until commanded to stop or the ,,offender" apologizes. The pummeling deals no damage, but is quite annoying.



This could actually be useful for raising enemy concentration checks,

[DataPacRat]

Surely I'm not the only one here who knows of the Warehouse 23 Basement, http://www.warehouse23.com/basement/ ...

[ScreamingDoom]

Other than that, really good stuff. There's even an idea in here that I had actually written down myself.


Out of curiosity, which idea was it that perked your interest?

[Set]

A 50 ft. coil of leathery 'rope' that was made from a preserved ogre's intestine. It is magical, and any arcane spellcaster touching it can expend a 1st level spell as a standard action to cause it to function as if Animate Rope was cast upon it by a spellcaster of equal level.

A collection of skulls that have been affected by Shrink Item made permanant. This effect can be turned off and on by command, but the command words are written inside of the miniaturized skulls and require some form of extreme magnification (such as Eyes of Minute Seeing) will be required to read them. Some of the skulls are human, others appear to be of larger-than-normal outsiders. One is draconic, and, even shruken to 1/16th size, is used as a colandar-sized 'bowl' to contain the others. (At full size, the dragon skull is larger than a man's torso, and weighs about 45 lbs.)

A zombie Tiny Monstrous Spider. This creature has been commanded to 'just sit there,' and will take no action, not even to defend itself if attacked. If turned / rebuked / commanded or subject to the command spell, it acts like a typical Tiny Monstrous Spider Zombie.

This pair of exotic dice are made of ivory and have strange foreign markings in red ochre instead of numbers. They have been subjected to a variation of Animate Dead. They can be rebuked / commanded as a 1/2 HD undead creature, and the individual who controls them can make them roll any face up desired, even even skitter across the ground to leap up into his grasp at a speed of 10 ft. / round. Since the characters on the dice's faces are not common to any known region, the dice are sadly useless for cheating at any known dicing games...

[Lysander]

This pair of exotic dice are made of ivory and have strange foreign markings in red ochre instead of numbers. They have been subjected to a variation of Animate Dead. They can be rebuked / commanded as a 1/2 HD undead creature, and the individual who controls them can make them roll any face up desired, even even skitter across the ground to leap up into his grasp at a speed of 10 ft. / round. Since the characters on the dice's faces are not common to any known region, the dice are sadly useless for cheating at any known dicing games...

That's really quite cool. I wonder if anything that was once alive can be animated.

Here are a few sinister trinkets, seeing as its a necromancer:

*A stick of polished black wood. It will instantly wilt small plants on contact, like a blade of grass or a single flower. Although it can damage trees it can't do so more effectively than a pocket knife could.

*A red marble that produces a painful boil on any spot of exposed skin it touches for more than three continuous seconds. The boil heals on its own in a few days.

*A small black iron ring that feels cold to the touch. Whoever wears it has no heartbeat - this causes no harm, and their blood still seems to flow. Their heart resumes beating when the ring is removed.

*An amulet shaped like a medusa's head. Whoever wears it is completely blind until it is removed.

*A silver flute. Playing causes unattended bones to vibrate and jump in place. The bones cease moving the instant the music stops. Bones in animated undead are considered attended.

*A piece of translucent skin, possibly removed from a fish. It acts as a x-ray device. Looking through it shows the skeleton of creatures superimposed over their bodies.

[quick_comment]

A watch that ticks according to some arbitrary rate. It is right three times per day.

[MrEdwardNigma]

Out of curiosity, which idea was it that perked your interest?
You mean the one that I had actually coincidentally used myself, or just which ideas I found interesting in this thread?

The former would be the dice that roll a certain number all the time, the latter would be the perpetuum mobile, the thumb that doesn't rot, the ring that stops your heartbeat, the zombie spider, the biting skull, the fluttering banner or others even.

Another thing that I didn't mention, and perhaps should have, the game concerned is not D&D but freeform, so don't let those rules limit you. :smallsmile:

[Hijax]

A small notebook, bound in black leather. Anything written in it will be engraved in the owner's mind as clear as his own name. On command, the writings on any given page will be erased, together with the memories.

A small black candle that will burn like any other candle, but never melt away.

A small iron sphere that is unaffected by resistance from any liquid or gas and gravity, and will bounce on any solid surface without actually hitting it.

[deuxhero]

Ring of prestidigitation, pretty much defines what you are looking for.

[sentaku]

A small iron sphere that is unaffected by resistance from any liquid or gas and gravity, and will bounce on any solid surface without actually hitting it.

So no range penalties awesome. :smallcool:

Though it won't arc so I guess the planet is spherical eventually you won't be able to hit something.

[Hijax]

So no range penalties awesome. :smallcool:

Though it won't arc so I guess the planet is spherical eventually you won't be able to hit something.

well, the standard DnD prime is simply infinite in all directions. technically no sphere.

and you couldn't really use it as a weapon, since it's bounce off the target without actually making contact.

[AslanCross]

-A ledger of debts incurred by long-dead people with an accompanying small wind-up executioner toy brandishing a cruel, bloody axe. It never stops walking around in a circle, but you could swear the blood on its blade is fresh.

-An odd headdress with long, thin tubes coiling towards where the wearer's mouth would be. The other ends of the tubes are connected to a pair of empty canisters that smell strongly of ale.

-An animated children's story book that seems to have been defaced with macabre images toward the end.

-A collection of used cotton clumps. Each is stained with blood, pus, or some other bodily fluid.

-Pairs of dark glasses of various sizes, from an inch wide to about twice the width of a human head. All are completely identical except for their size.

[Set]

*A small black iron ring that feels cold to the touch. Whoever wears it has no heartbeat - this causes no harm, and their blood still seems to flow. Their heart resumes beating when the ring is removed.

*A silver flute. Playing causes unattended bones to vibrate and jump in place. The bones cease moving the instant the music stops. Bones in animated undead are considered attended.

*A piece of translucent skin, possibly removed from a fish. It acts as a x-ray device. Looking through it shows the skeleton of creatures superimposed over their bodies.

These are very cool. I like the flute, particularly.

[The Dark Fiddler]

A small iron sphere that is unaffected by resistance from any liquid or gas and gravity, and will bounce on any solid surface without actually hitting it.

So, no gravity means that once you get it up somewhere, it just stays there unless you physically pull it down?

I was going to say this would be useful for hiding up in the air, until I realized your gravity would pull you down, and that would, in turn, push down teh sphere underneath you.

Oh well. Still awesome.

[Hijax]

Tabletop gamer's dice
A collection of small dice(haven't seen one of those in a while)with varying number of sides(always either 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, or 20), and in varying colors. They always land on the side that will turn out the worst for the user according to the rules of the game being played.
edit:

So, no gravity means that once you get it up somewhere, it just stays there unless you physically pull it down?

I was going to say this would be useful for hiding up in the air, until I realized your gravity would pull you down, and that would, in turn, push down teh sphere underneath you.

Oh well. Still awesome.

yeah, you got that right.

[The Dark Fiddler]

Another one, shamelessly stolen from the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series of books.

Mood Flame
This special flame produces heat and light as a normal fire. However, it changes size and color based on the current mood of the surroundings. It grows the stronger the feelings, shrinks the weaker they are, and grows brighter when they are positive, but darker when they are negative. This flame never goes out naturally, but can be put out, and any new fire lit by this flame has the same properties.