Topic: "Themed" magic items

[GrumpyOldFart]

I like the idea of the item itself reflecting what it does. Especially if its very existence constitutes a snarky comment, it helps keep your players from taking themselves too seriously. To be sure, I run a campaign that's pretty heavy on gritty realism as far as the situations they find themselves in, and I tend to feel like if my players aren't "in fear for their lives" during most combats I'm not doing my job, so taking themselves too seriously is an issue for me that might not be for others. A lot of times the base items of my magic items serve as comic relief.

Examples:
Red rubber fireball.
Fire bucket of endless water.
Ubercool mirror shades of Long Eye.
Amazingly ugly hawaiian shirt of distraction.
17,000 year old nacho cheese dorito of luck (Still uncracked).
Rock Star style leopard skin trousers of Aura.
Jar of ointment: Wipe it on your upper lip, it renders it immobile and gives you a bonus vs. Fear spells. "Stiff upper lip of courage."
Incredibly thickly padded tunic, "Stuffed shirt of Diplomacy."

Another fun thing is to make a magic item that yes, it's useful, VERY useful. But it's something that half your party would not want to be caught dead using. "Red satin teddy of healing" is a good example. So is "thong bikini of underwater movement" (gotta wear both pieces).

[GrumpyOldFart]

The mirror that sees into the future... but only a little way.
You know this because of the words across the bottom:

"Objects in mirror are closer than they appear."

[Jason Coplen]

 

[damilano]

How about Igor Thrashpot's Magic Eight Ball of Occasional Scrying?

A dark, mysterious globe... the symbol for infinity etched into in a pearly white ring on its outer surface... opposite this powerful sigil is a small, unbreakable round window.  Is it Laen?  Eog?  None can guess.

Afloat within the odd, blue liquid that seems to fill the bizarre receptacle is a twelve-sided solid; each face is that unholiest of shapes... a pentagon!

Igor Thrashpot, faced with a decision that could mean life or death, consults this eldritch artifact.  Withdrawing the sparkling orb from his crimson robes, he furls his brow and carefully formulates his query:

"O Magic 8 Ball!  Herald and oracle of forces both mickle and arcane!  Does the terrible Bomaynee and his band await us in the cliffs above?  Speak, O 8-ball, and be not silent!  Hear us in our need, and bestow upon us the wonder and favor of your Occasional Scrying power!"

With a mighty thrust of his pale, gnarled hand Thrashpot shakes the 8-ball, gives a ululating cry, shakes it again, and again!  At last, peering down from beneath his thick salt-and-pepper eyebrows, he waits for the dodecahedral declarer of doom to settle itself against the window.  The party gathers round, an odd blue light shining from the window and reflecting upon their hopeful faces.

A cryptic message forms upon the face of the pentagon, and strange characters appear on its surface; barely discernible at first, but resolving into a message in the common-speech, a missive from the Place Beyond!  Thrashpot's quivering, bloodless lips purse as he whispers the secret message of the Spirits to his compatriots:

"Message Unclear.  Ask again later."

Usable once per day, Thrashpot's Magic 8-ball gave a 1 in 12 chance of delivering a truthful answer to one yes-or-no question.  The rest of the time, it would give a stock 8-ball answer such as the one cited above.  The fun part (for the GM) was when the 8-ball gave a simple "Yes" or "No".  Since the players could not see the d12 roll, they had no way of knowing whether they were receiving a truthful "Yes" or "No", or whether they had failed the d12 and thus were receiving a random  "Yes" or "No".  Of course, sometimes on truthful replies, the 8-ball would add enough detail and verbiage to let the players know their magic item had indeed worked.

We actually kept a Magic 8-ball at the gaming table for this purpose.

Bet some of y'all have thought of that already, though.

CMC

[providence13]

This might be a few months old... but if Douglas Adams wrote fantasy it may sound something like this!


If you ever get a chance, read the old AD&D module Castle Greyhawk. I have no idea why it was even made... but it is funny.
"Indiana Gnome"
"Drider Man"
Area 29."Obligatory Secret Treasure Guarded By Equally Obligatory Secret Monster"
"Bandwagon: God of Truth In Advertising"
Priests of the organization W.A.S.P. "We Are So Powerful"
Area 4."The Room That Lets The Party Make It To The Next Set Of Rooms"
Area 11. "The Gate To The Rest Of The Place"
"The Mithral Knife Of Greyhawk"
"Ye Secret Tom of Inestimable Knowledges" A tomcat who, if you play with it, will give you clues...
Actually, most jokes are for the GM!

[damilano]

Love 'em. 

I think a good dose of humor is critical (pardon the pun) to good gaming, and I attempt to inject it whenever I can -- not just in magic items but also in (perhaps especially in) NPCs:

The semi-literate city guardsman who deliberately mispronounces every name to startling effect.
"All right, Balding Fast!  What's your business in Maethelburg?"
"Umm... that's Baldifast, sir  To rest in the inn from our journeys.
"And your friend over here... this Trash Pit.  What about him?
"That's Thrashpot, goodman Guard.  Thrashpot."

The pair of wandering merchants who sell used items from the back of their wagon.
Maury: Oy!  The boots you have, and so nice!  But something's missing."
Saul: "Missing, yes... the gloves!  You've got to have the gloves!"
Maury: "Look!  Like this, you can't get any more.  They don't make them like this nowadays, with the fur, and the leather, and the stitching!"
Saul: "A work of art!"
Maury: "And with the boots and the gloves, you've got to have the cape."
Saul: "And the belt!"
Maury: "Matches so nice!  With this, you'll look like a real adventurer!"
Saul: "No, not an adventurer... a warrior!"
Maury: "The boots and the gloves and the cape and the belt!  Feel that material!  Like this, can you get?
Saul: "No you can't get.  You can't get!"
Maury: "But still... I'm not seeing it.  Saul, are you seeing it?"
Saul: "See it?  It's jumping out at me!"
Maury: "The hood!:
Saul: "Oy!  The hood, the hood.  And such a hood!  Lightly used, well cared for!  And such a match for the cape and the gloves and the boots and the belt!"
Maury: "Like they were made for each other!"
Saul: "Made for each other!"
Maury: "With the hood and the gloves and the cape and the belt, you'll look like a true warrior!
Saul: "May God seal my lips forever if I lie."
Maury: "Like a true warrior!  Powerful!  Stylish!"
Saul: "No, not a warrior!  A hero!"
Maury: "Not a hero... A SUPER hero!"
Saul: "So true!  A SUPER hero, you'll look like."
Maury: "But the cloak..."
Saul:  "Oy!  The cloak!"

And so on.

CMC

[Right Wing Wacko]

I definitely would sit at your table GOF!

[damilano]

I definitely would sit at your table GOF!

What's GOF?

[Right Wing Wacko]

I definitely would sit at your table GOF!

What's GOF?

GrumpyOldFart

I was saying I would enjoy playing in his group...

[damilano]

Ah, yes, now I see... and agree!

Dawn comes over the Marblehead, as they say in Massachusetts!

CMC

[Right Wing Wacko]

 

[Maelstrom]

I've been thinking of a series of potions in pop top metal cans.  Whoop @ss #1 up to 5 or whatever.

Can 1 grants something like Boost Quickness, Agility, Strength and Constitution, a +5 bonus to DB and OB (on top of the bonuses from the boost spells) for 1 round.

Can 2 grants same except spells scaled by 1 level (giving +10 bonus to stats) and +10 bonus to DB & OB for 1 round then a +5 bonus for 1 round.

Can 3 follows similar progression.


Give the characters something to fear when the NPC says, "Don't make me open this can of whoop @ss!" with a big #5 on the side of it.

[markc]

Maelstrom;
 Then of course you can have the faker cans also. So the PC's never know if they are really dealing with a rean can or not.

ie superman can of #100 or #1,000,000
MDC

[GrumpyOldFart]

Or you can have the cursed can o' Whoop-@ss which, when popped, summons and releases a dozen berserkers who proceed to attack everyone and everything, including each other and you. They'll keep going until either they're all dead or the one left has killed everyone and everything, in which case he'll commit suicide out of frustration at having nothing to attack.

Having fun with magic items is a really good way to get even with gamers who are being a pain, too. For example if your uber-macho Dwarven Fighter player is getting on your nerves, few things say "don't mess with me, you won't like what happens" like a Catholic Schoolgirl Miniskirt of +20 Defense showing up in treasure.

Of course, he doesn't have to wear it...

 

[Marc R]

Heheh. . .like the "Very offensive to everyone Mask, that grants +10 to any weapon skill."

[providence13]

a Catholic Schoolgirl Miniskirt of +20 Defense showing up in treasure.

On a similar note..
Running the old "River Running" adventure for a group. A certain grandmotherly figure in the Dorwinian Wood had a magic shawl of Faceshifting (always smells like lavender), magic pearl earings.. very grandmotherly stuff. The party had no problem with the treasure.
Next, I might try those Pink Leg Warmers of Speed.

[Marc R]

The really smelly shoes of jumping.

[GrumpyOldFart]

Garlic Sausage of Diplomacy.

Indian Ghost Pepper Hot Sauce of Silence.

Bean Soup of Tear Clouds.

[GrumpyOldFart]

The ogre-sized chainmail bikini that protects as a chain hauberk.

Even imagining the person that it would fit actually wearing it might be enough to clear the table.

 

[GrumpyOldFart]

Schrodinger's Spellbook: It contains one spell. It contains every spell ever written. It contains no spells.

All at once... until you open it and the waveform collapses.

Roll d100. On a 01, it's blank. On 02-00, it contains one random spell, from any list/sphere/school/profession, including spells your players have researched that are unknown to anyone else.