Looking for wonderous items that do misc things.

[Clockwork_Mage]

As the title suggests, I am looking for wonderous items that do weird, vaguely useful, and random things. I am playing a bard that has taken a vow of peace so anything combat related is pretty much out of the question. Examples of wonderous items I am looking for include, Sustaining Spoon, Marvelous Pigments, Lyre of Building, etc. No limit on books just no Dragon Mags. If you just give me the name of the item and what book I can find it in and that would be plenty :)

[DarkSoul]

Start by looking through the Magic Item Compendium. There are a lot of strange items in there.

[The Viscount]

I'm a fan of the War Mug of the Ogre Magi, which cannot be spilled or poured from. It only dispenses the liquid it holds when you intentionally drink from it.

[RolandDeschain]

Immovable Rods can be fun, and if used creatively can offer a bit of battlefield control.

A Rod of Robes for some Batmanesque action, is also pretty dope.

[fyleisch]

There's the Eversoaking Sponge - a sponge that can destroy 225,000 gallons of water per squeeze - useful if you want to wipe a lake out from existence.

The Fruit Blossom spike, when hammered into a tree, makes it grow and drop a huge amount of fruit. Unfortunately, this kills the poor, exhausted tree.

Gloves of Brachiation let you swing through the trees like a monkey.

The Arms and Equipment Guide has a lot of good ones.

[PraxisVetli]

Gloves of Brachiation let you swing through the trees like a monkey.

I never knew how badly I wanted this until now.
Where is it?

[Elkad]

There's the Eversoaking Sponge - a sponge that can destroy 225,000 gallons of water per squeeze - useful if you want to wipe a lake out from existence.

A case of using a measurement that sounds like a lot, until you compare it to an actual lake. It's only .7 acre-feet. Or 30 10' cubes. Or a third of an Olympic pool.

[Alex12]

A case of using a measurement that sounds like a lot, until you compare it to an actual lake. It's only .7 acre-feet. Or 30 10' cubes. Or a third of an Olympic pool.

See, the thing is that it's not a single-use item. Stick it in lake, almost a quarter-million gallons of water are soaked up. Squeeze sponge, water is destroyed. Then do it again until the lake is gone.

[Albions_Angel]

Lake Michigan (as an upper limit) contains 4920 KM^3 of water, or 1.3E15 US gallons (1.0 UK gallons).

Assuming that squeezing the sponge is a free action, thus meaning you can do more than 1 every 6 seconds (I can squeeze a sponge without cramping roughly once every second, or 6 times a round) we can calculate how long it would take.

At 225000 gallons a squeeze, Lake Michigan is gone in 5.8E9 squeezes, or 5.8 Giga Squeezes.
Assuming one squeeze a second, thats 5.8E9 seconds, or 1.6 Million earth hours, or 184 Earth years (3600 seconds in an hour, 25 hours in a day, 365 days a year).
Now, you can half that if you have 2 sponges. 92 years.
With that amount of time, its unrealistic to assume that haste has any effect.
It also assumes you dont have to move as the water level falls, or that you have to eat, sleep, or rest your hands.

Sounds pretty tough, until you remember the lifespan of an elf. Suddenly, as an elf can reach a max age of 750, 92 years constitutes just 12% of their lifespan. Or the equivalent of 14 years as a human. People have had longer displays of faith.

Now, thats an upper limit. Many lakes are much smaller. On the other hand, you probably arnt looking at any reasonable timescale in game. Even a small lake will be on the order of weeks, if not months.

[ATHATH]

Lake Michigan (as an upper limit) contains 4920 KM^3 of water, or 1.3E15 US gallons (1.0 UK gallons).

Assuming that squeezing the sponge is a free action, thus meaning you can do more than 1 every 6 seconds (I can squeeze a sponge without cramping roughly once every second, or 6 times a round) we can calculate how long it would take.

At 225000 gallons a squeeze, Lake Michigan is gone in 5.8E9 squeezes, or 5.8 Giga Squeezes.
Assuming one squeeze a second, thats 5.8E9 seconds, or 1.6 Million earth hours, or 184 Earth years (3600 seconds in an hour, 25 hours in a day, 365 days a year).
Now, you can half that if you have 2 sponges. 92 years.
With that amount of time, its unrealistic to assume that haste has any effect.
It also assumes you dont have to move as the water level falls, or that you have to eat, sleep, or rest your hands.

Sounds pretty tough, until you remember the lifespan of an elf. Suddenly, as an elf can reach a max age of 750, 92 years constitutes just 12% of their lifespan. Or the equivalent of 14 years as a human. People have had longer displays of faith.

Now, thats an upper limit. Many lakes are much smaller. On the other hand, you probably arnt looking at any reasonable timescale in game. Even a small lake will be on the order of weeks, if not months.
What if you make some Sponge-Squeezing machines (constructs that can activate magic items)?

I have a new idea for a villain now.

[Grod_The_Giant]

What if you make some Sponge-Squeezing machines (constructs that can activate magic items)?

I have a new idea for a villain now.
I feel like at some point it's easier to just spend a few days swimming to the bottom and opening portals of some sort

[Erik the Green]

Maybe it doesn't count as misc. things from one item, but I've always had a soft spot for the various wondrous figurines, even if they aren't necessarily the most straightforward option for doing this or that. A little careful purchasing can get you a scout, a messenger, emergency backup in a fight, or short-term transport. A bronze griffon, frex, is a much cooler emergency dustoff than a boring old wand of fly, and it doesn't run out of charges, and it can fight a little. All that for 10K versus 11250 for the wand. And nobody has to UMD the griffon, either.

[Traitoreous]

The Robe of useless items. I have seen several in one of our campaigns. It is like the robe of useful items, but with extremely random crap. I think you can get rotten fish out of it. It is probably in home-brew section of dandwiki.com.

[Chester]

A Rod of Wonder (DMG p. 237) is "a strange and unpredictable device that randomly generates any number of weird effects."

[Fizban]

Magic Item Compendium
Cape of the Viper: snakeform ought to be good for getting into small passages even if you aren't biting people (it's bad for combat anyway)
Rod of Frost: can put out fires and create ice bridges, deals damage but again not really good for combat.
Rope of Stone: it's a rope that turns into stone and back, I don't even. Make weird shapes.

A bit more combat oriented:
Ring of the Forcewall: if you're not using actions to fight, using actions to make walls of force is awesome.
Vanisher Cloak: turning self/other invisible is good
Transposer Cloak: switching places with people is also good

Tome of Magic: Dark Lantern, makes the area dim. Obvious tactical uses but also just creepy.

Races of Faerun: Blue Quartz Eagle, flying scout figurine, you can see through it's eyes.

Shining South: makes a long lasting wind, usually for propelling a ship but also good for annoying people on land.

Sandstorm: Bottle of Endless Sand, does what you think it does, and Waterskin of Deluge, which makes a Flashflood 1/week (massive volume of water) and can be destroyed for an extra.

Cityscape Web Enhancement (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20070314a): Guardian's Lantern, which lets the bearer detect weapons (ought to be useful for a pacifist), and Duo-Dimensional Jug, which is probably more what you're looking for with it's hidden extradimensional jug for trick pouring.