Your most bizarre treasure

[legomaster00156]

It's storytime. Tell us the story of the oddest piece of treasure you've ever run across in a game, and if/how it came in handy.

For me, it was a simple, broken pocketwatch. I found it while looking through a ruined city. Despite being broken, it was clean. It made me look like a gentleman, thus bestowing upon my character a +1 to Charisma as long as he had it in plain view. Now, as this was 4e, and I was a hybrid Rogue/Sorcerer, this was actually incredibly valuable to me. I wore it everywhere, attaching it's bonus to my already significant CHA and hurling Chaos Bolts everywhere. It is my favorite treasure ever.

[MesiDoomstalker]

Not my story but one of my friends: Due to the DM rolling 4 13's in a row for determing treasure, the party's sorcerer found thousands (never determined exactly how many) of Everlasting Chalk of ever possible color there is (with a special Bag of Holding that only holds chalk). So much so, the DM explcictly stated that the Sorcerer, despite his massive Charisma and Diplomacy score, could not unload more than a single piece in any sort of settlment. Instead of trying to sell a piece of chalk at each city they came to, he simply ground a piece of chalk after ever kill. Supposedly, by the time the campaign ended, he had ground over 200 pieces and made "no measurable dent in the quantity of chalk." By that time, they had assumed the bag produced Everlasting Chalk everytime some one reached or looked in. Which is funny considering its an infinite supply of something that never runs out in the first place.

[pantoffelheld]

I've once read (somewhere on this forum) about a 'magic' coin, which has powers of divinations. It could answer any question asked, simply by assignig two answers either heads or tails and flipping the coin, The downside was that it only worked 50% of the time.

I really liked this idea If I would use it in a session, I'll probably give the players some real old coin which they can actually flip.

[Togath]

If I can count things my pc's have looted then I'd either go with a dead hyena they freeze dried with magic and now carry around, or the robes of a grimreaper themed monster(which were non magic and tattered, but I ruled provided a +1 to intimidate checks against anyone who knew the source of the robes, but the bonus rarely comes up, as they just look like tattered black robes to most people)which one of them now wears.

[Dr.Epic]

Toy train...in a campaign setting where steam engines did not exist. It was a gift from the FUTURE!!!

[TroubleBrewing]

I played a monkey assassin once who received a pineapple as a sarcastic "reward" from a noble.

He later used that pineapple to break out of the aforementioned noble's prison.

[TheCountAlucard]

There was a wood-king our group had to engage in diplomacy with. We ended up making a pact with him: he would act as a protector and patron to the nearby city, provided we in turn had a shrine built to him and didn't go screwing around with his forests.

Another proviso of this was that he would allow us influence over the elementals in his court; he asked in return for a sacrifice from the group's sorcerer.

This amounted to the sorcerer and the wood-king both taking out one of their eyes. The wood-king received the sorcerer's eye, and the sorcerer the wood-king's, implanted into the empty socket and allowed to take root.

Thus when our sorcerer summons an elemental from the wood-king's court, the elemental sees the greenish wooden eye, and know to serve the sorcerer with the same loyalty that he would his king.

[Maximus:Ranger]

A tiny mummy that came out of a tiny sarcophagus to sarcasticlly answer questions of ancient desert history if given a small amount of blood, my players dubbed him sarcophoguy. Much to their dismay they left him in the city of Kaladharma when they needed to make a quick escape.

[Pokonic]

My party once managed to kill a vampire lord. No big deal, but vampy was attacked earler (it was in the middle of a wide-spread war) and had almost nothing on him. However, they quickly learned that they now own his devoted LN Ghoul butler, who was very good at his job.

They kept him at there base, in which he used some some money that the PC's gave him to invest in several companies, and evetualy "bought" his freedom by tipping the PC's on a weapons shipment that he did not wish to occure. Still stayed with the party, and the ghoul himself has appered in several games since, always with some powerful lord or another, and in on memoral instance the uncle of a PC.

[Rorrik]

In a game I was playing we obtained a TARDIS, which was intended as a means to send us on missions hand picked by the DM across time and space. It was something straight out of Dr. Who, but man, a TARDIS!

Once in a game I ran I threw the players, who were unconditionally lawful good and low level, a wand of demon portal, which they agonized over finding a purpose for in the context of the campaign. One of the players still brings up that campaign every month or so wanting to get it running again to figure out what that wand is for.

Spoiler

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I have no idea, it was really just a clue to a side quest they passed up.

[Tengu_temp]

In a game filled with awesome and powerful magical artifacts, the party's favorite item was a bag of candy that gave almost-instant diarrhea to whoever ate it.

Yeah, we were immature kids back then. Can you tell?

[rgrekejin]

Weirdest item I've ever gotten as a player: Our group fought and killed an Immoth (from the MMII). They have the ability to scribe any spells that they have prepared into small balls of ice, called ice runes that only Immoths can activate. We stumbled upon a big pile of these ice balls after we killed it. I was playing a warlock at the time, and I had a. a crazy high use magic device check and b. Heward's Handy Haversack. I stuffed the balls of ice in the Haversack (which, since it has no air, is effectively a vacuum that allowed the ice balls to stay cold indefinitely) and used my Use Magic Device skill to cast them (since you need a 25 to emulate a race). With a warlock's deceive item ability, I could take a ten, and therefore always succeeded. I listed them on my possessions sheet as "Snowballs of Doom".

Weirdest item I've ever given a PC: In a campaign I was running, the party was investigating a house that had belonged to a recently deceased wizard. When the party wizard (who was playing a very vain woman) looked through the wardrobe, she had to roll a will save. She failed, and felt compelled to pick up a scarf that was sitting in the closet and put it on. This was entirely in character for her, so none of the other players thought much of it. But she knew that she failed the will save, and it bothered her because, for session after session, nothing ever came of it. The scarf was just a scarf. Then, finally, as she and the rest of the party walked in to an ambush being set by a mind flayer, the scarf became important. She was invisible when she was stunned by the mind flayer's mind blast. The mind flayer (also invisible) closed in to extract her brain. Just as it attached its tentacles to her fact (unbeknown to the rest of the party, who could not see either combatant) the scarf reared up and wrapped itself around the mind flayer's head, preventing it from extracting her brain and allowing her to escape. The scarf had been a good-aligned Raggamoffyn-like creature (MMII) that had simply wanted to be around people.

[gallagher]

i invented a few awesome items:
a rubber ball that nomatter how far it was dropped or thrown, would bounce back to its thrower/dropper. not an effective weapon, but a good decoy and had plenty of utility

a broken grandfather clock that was "right twice a day" so if you asked i a question at the time it was suspended on (in either AM or PM) it would make a bardic knowledge check using your int and HD as bard levels

one time i made that hat from the DnD cartoon, where the player had to make up a rhyme that involved enough of a description to make an effect. in essence it was like i was a slightly unfair genie granting a wish once a day, if the player didnt specify properly they wouldnt get an optimal result

[Jay R]

I've once read (somewhere on this forum) about a 'magic' coin, which has powers of divinations. It could answer any question asked, simply by assignig two answers either heads or tails and flipping the coin, The downside was that it only worked 50% of the time.

I really liked this idea If I would use it in a session, I'll probably give the players some real old coin which they can actually flip.

I invented a similar one for a contest for The Fantasy Gamer. A coin that has "YES" on one side and "NO" on the other. If you flip it while asking a yes/no question, it always lands on its edge.

Once* some friends of mine were given a Bag of Useless Duplication. Anything you put in the bag was duplicated, but the duplicate was useless. Magic items wouldn't work, weapons were pot metal, gems were obvious fakes, etc. That party was turned to stone. I rescued them, but took the bag and made duplicates of all their magic items, leaving them the duplicates. They spent months trying to figure out why none of their magic items worked, and eventually decided that magic items turned to stone lost their magic.

They never came after me for stealing their items because they never knew that the items were gone.

*1976, Original D&D.

[Dimers]

A rope loop of infinite mint oatmeal, paired with a ring of infinite peach brandy.

A minor divination item that detect severity of danger within the next hour (omen of peril spell in D&D 3.5), unlimited use ... but like the spell, it has a failure chance and you don't know whether the answer you get is accurate.

A coin-operated magic sword. Totally mundane until you feed a platinum piece into the hilt, at which point it becomes puissant (+2?) and deals magical cold damage. "Pay per hew", basically.

[Atcote]

Dragonborn Wing's.
This could've been cool, like that Paragon Path that gives you the ability to fly.
But I wasn't a Dragonborn.
And the wings aren't attached to anything.
They were just a pair of Dragonborn wings in a chest.
The DM even had it written down on a treasure list. Along with Gnome's toes and Elven fingernails.

I ended up looking into enchanting them. They tunnelled away from me.

It was lucky it was a campaign that had already dissolved into pure silliness or I could've been upset.

[DoctorGlock]

I was DMing and gave the party a box that whenever it was opened contained something interesting. To date, some of the interesting things included:

A hip bone that speaks prophecy
A small clockwork dragon (6 inches)
A jade 12 sided die covered in alchemical symbols that will give the recipe to any potion, but only when rolled in mercury
A red unblinking eye
A green egg covered in gold script. The yolk was red and tasted like tomorrow. Yes, my players will eat anything.

[DigoDragon]

As a fighter in an old D&D 2e campaign, I found a sword that had the ability to detect "spellcasters". The stronger the spellcaster, the more brightly the sword glowed. However, the quirk was that the sword wasn't measuring spellcasters by their magical abilities, but solely by their intelligence score.

The rogue and I figured this out and thus we used the sword as "Idiot Radar" since someone with an intelligence of 9-10 would still cause a faint glow on the blade.
The morons we conned with that sword's help...

[DaMullet]

Let's see... A ball of string that rolls to the exit of whatever building you're in, a dagger that passes harmlessly through living flesh, a visor of magic missile, a cape that flows in the wind even though there is no wind (pinned with a brooch that let you cast ghost sound, but limited to the sound of applause and catcalls).
My favorite was the Ring of Extra Rings; when worn in one of your two ring slots, it gave you the ability to wear a third ring.

[Kaveman26]

Bizzare huh? let me tale you about the Dread Parrot Roberts...

Our group made port at a coastal city after reaching level 9. There was an open air market with all kinds of goods and personalities. Our eyes were drawn to a haggard pirate with a peg leg, eyepatch and an enormous gold encrusted cage inlaid with gemstones and holding a molted very old parrot. There was a FOR SALE: 1GP sign on the cage. Intrigued we wandered over and asked...

Pirate: I be selling this bird for 1 gold piece. You can keep the cage for free. But be warned, the bird be a downright evil bugger with a wicked sense of humour and the worst scatter brain imagineable. It will help you find treasure all over the world, and trouble to boot. Be warned you must sell it to a willing buyer, there be no other way to get rid of the blasted thing.

The group's barbarian jumps all over this and flips the guy a single gold piece before we can say a word. And he is the proud owner of a cursed treasure seeking parrot...The Dread Parrot Roberts!

Within minutes he was looking for crackers to feed his parrot. The second the cracker touches the parrot's lips all hell break loose. It starts swearing and squawking like it was acid. It starts shrieking and flinging bird feces everywhere "I am a regal and proud denizen of the high seas! I do not quench my pallet with such paltry fare as a rancid wafer! I demand that my appetitie be appeased with only the finest cuisines!!!"

I was played a ranger/bard that was more or less the front man for our group and I am increasingly alarmed by the angry bird feces splattered merchants and others now giving us some very nasty looks. We throw out some hasty apologies and hightail it to somewhere secluded. We try to feed this bird everything and nothing is making it quiet down. Our wizard finally grabs a handful of silver and crams it down the bird's gullet. It instantly gets quiet and makes yummy noises, then falls asleep on the barbarians shoulder. About thirty minutes later it wakes up and in a thunderous voice tells us to "DIG like yer yellow bellied hides be at the devil's doorsteps. Put your backs into those shovels and dig at yer feet!!!"

We dig about three feet down and find a necklace...maybe 10 gold in value...hmmmm. The bird eats money...falls asleep then finds treasure.

We forcefed this bird about 10,000 gold in an hour and it took every bit of it. It fell asleep overnight and in the morning...well it crapped out a glass bottle with a treasure map in it. Five hours of real time and a week in game time later we locate the buried treasure...which is an empty chest with a bottle of rum in it. The Dread Parrot chuckles as we see this and says "Sorry boys...I needed a drink!" and it begins laughing hysterically.

We fooled around with this parrot for about five sessions. It COULD lead you to great treasure...or garbage. There was no real ryhme or reason to it. At the end of the campaign the DM showed us all the tables he made for the thing. Tons of random behvaiors and possible outcomes. We never did figure out half of what it did mostly just that it ate coins and not crackers. But it was tons of fun and completely bizzare.

[MesiDoomstalker]

Dread Parrot Roberts...

I wanna steal borrow this for a character concept (pirate-themed of course). May I?

[Kaveman26]

Absolutely I will see if i can get the tables he generated.

[Sgt. Cookie]

A small clockwork dragon (6 inches)

That is the best reason behind wanting an Item Familiar I have ever heard.

[Kurald Galain]

My favorite was a gemstone that, when a command word was used, produced a big flash of light, blinding everyone in the direct vicinity (including the party and wielder). The party eventually found a way around this, deciding on a code word for "everybody close your eyes NOW!" which was used right before activating it.

[Balain]

I posted about this one a long time ago. This magic item has become so famous in our D&D group it now makes an appearance in every game. The dm that first introduced it to a game even got a friend to draw a picture of the item.

It is a bag of holding made from a yeti's scrotum that acts like ring of sustance when sucked.

[Lea Plath]

A pot that would make fine cusine out of potatos and only potatos. Mashed, boiled, jacket, croquets, the works.

A book, bound in mouse skin, that showed the death of every mammalian vermin in 20 miles (which we used to solve a mystery).

A genie that had no magical powers, but was hard working. When we asked for enough money to buy the house we were trying to buy, he went off, started begging, eventually worked his way up to the top merchant in the realm, and gave us the money, about 4 months after we had needed it.

A trumpet thingy that gave its owner the ability to drown out any noise with an incessant buzzing.

[Calanon]

My first and what I'd like to believe my "main character" had his arm cut off when he was a child despite this he still attempted for Magic so he applied Still Spell to all his spells to avoid Arcane Spell Failure, at around 3rd level or so I managed to kill a skeleton and the party cleric told me I could get that grafted on to me (The Arm) so I could become effective. Went on this long adventure to find a guy that would graft it to my arm and eventually succeeded at around 12th level (Picking up the graft flesh feat myself). Might not mean much to you but that arm saved me so much and made it feel like I actually accomplished something

[Welknair]

Three words. Bag. Of. Urine.

[Lord Il Palazzo]

I once gave my players a glass jar containing a tiny red summoning ooze that, when shaken dances around a la flubber. The players talked about finding a wizard to sell it to, but still haven't gotten around to it.

[Velaryon]

Can't think of any that I have handed out to my players, but I can think of one that was given to another PC in a game I was in, and one I've heard stories about from another friend.

First is the Bow of Bad Luck. When an arrow is fired from the bow, it instantly disappears. The target struck takes normal damage, but the damage is caused by a random unfortunate event that happens right when they would have been hit - they trip on a gnarled root and sprain their ankle, a branch snaps off a nearby tree and falls on their head, you name it. Oddest result we ever saw was an owl dying of a heart attack as it flew by about 50 feet overhead, and falling on my fighter's head.

Another one I've been told about was the Bag of Endless Muffins. As the name suggests, you could withdraw an infinite number of muffins from it. The party this item was given to once used it to escape a pit by filling up the pit with muffins until they were close enough to the top to climb out.