A few magic items from my campaign

I am trying to make the magic items found by my players a little different, giving them a bit of flavor and unique powers to help differentiate them. Basically I am trying to avoid the standard +1 sword, +2 shield, ring of protection, etc. followed by a yawn. As I find time and work on them I am putting them up on our wee little blog, but I would like to share them here too.

Would love to hear your thoughts on them.


Aglundir - A Magical Broadsword
The legendary +2 Broadsword forged for Groniger Firebrand, scourge of the Northern Kingdom. A beautiful sword whose blade is etched in the stylistic runes of the Vahnir, with a hilt made of a bone fragment taken from a frost dragon, and a pommel stone made from a carefully polished obsidian sphere. Twice per day when the wielder attempts to strike an enemy he may invoke the additional magic of Aglundir, the ability to heal its wielder by the same amount Aglundir wounds its victim. For example, if the wielder deals 9 points of damage and the victim can only take 7 points before being reduced to zero, then Aglundir’s wielder would heal only 7 points of damage. Should its wielder attempt to use the sword’s magic but fail to hit, the attempt does not count towards the two times per day it can heal.

In addition to the ability to heal, Aglundir will glow on command casting a blue-white light out to a radius of 5’ to 15’ depending on the desire of its wielder.


Sedra’s Fang
In the First Age the Serpent God Amun-Ka set out nest after nest of serpents whose only purpose was to poison those who lived in the holy sanctuaries of the Imperial Gods. Mithris and Ashra’s young daughter Sedra was revolted by the dark god’s attempt to corrupt places of serenity dedicated to peace. The Healing Goddess set about making her first weapon, a dagger. The legend goes on to say that she meant for the dagger was chosen so the serpents could be beheaded while the healing magic of the blade neutralized the poison. Sadly, her natural love and trust in her family meant she was blind to her brother Kydan’s true nature when she turned to him for help in making the weapon.

When the pair finished, they had made a powerful relic. A +3 dagger with the ability to neutralize poison. Kydan’s trickery though twisted the dagger’s nature. It can only neutralize poison three times per day and the person being healed must be stabbed with the dagger taking 1d4+3 points of damage in the process. Each time it is used to neutralize poison the magical bonus is reduced by 1. So, if used once it is reduced to +2, a second use reduces it to +1, and a third use renders it non-magical until the next sunrise.


Red Rings of the Sanguine Order
Crafted by the necromancers of the Sanguine Order, there are less than a score of these rings in existence. The Red Rings come in three magnitudes of strength. The first is the Apprentice Ring, it bestows a +1 armor class bonus and grants its wearer the ability to cast up to twice their number of first level spells per day. The second is the Journeyman Ring, these bestow a +2 armor class bonus and double the number of both first and second level spells that may be cast in a day. The third and most potent rings were the Master Rings. These bestow a +3 bonus to both armor class and saving throws, and also allows its wearer to double the number of first, second, and third level spells they may cast in a day.

The bonus spells granted by the Red Rings come with a price. The wearer takes 1 hit point of damage per level of bonus spell cast through the ring’s magic. So if someone were wearing a Journeyman Ring and cast 2 additional first level and 2 additional second level spells, the magus would take 6 hit points of damage. 1 for each of the first level spells, and 2 for each of the second level spells. Any damage taken from the ring cannot be healed by any magic until the following sunrise and are subtracted from the mage’s true hit points rather than any bonus hit points the caster may have as a result of a magic spell or effect. Should anyone other than a mage put on the ring, they suffer 2d6 points of damage and the ring falls off.

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These are great. Boring magic items with names that take you out of the fiction are one of my pet peeves. The Red Rings seem overpowered, though. Giving one extra spell of each level would be more than sufficient, I think.

The Red Rings are fairly potent. They were partly inspired by the old 1e Rings of Wizardry, but I put the limitation related to them dealing damage and the damage not healing until the next day to somewhat mitigate it. Although, just giving a flat extra casting slot per level also works very nicely as a compromise of sorts.