:-) Jesper
THE RING OF VANDERGAST (a.k.a. Vandergast's ring)
The Ring of Vandergast is a wonderous magical ring, forged and enchanted by the wizard Vandergast during the Golden Age of Darokin some centuries ago. Vandergast was a wizard who travelled everywhere (almost) and was delighted to visit new cultures and learn new things. He marvelled at the physical prowess of the gladiators of Thyatis, he was in awe of the spiritual devotion and reverence of the people of Ethengar and Ylaruam and he was delighted by the carefree flamboyance of the pirates of the Sea of Dread. And so, he set about to learn all that he could - from all of the people he met. Eventually, he discovered that no ordinary man could encompass so many different skills and talents and so he went on a quest to find an answer to his problems. When he returned after travelling the planes for two decades, he had created his magical ring. And with it he became a fantastic swordsman, a skilled burglar, a devout cleric of Korotiku as well as a powerful wizard.
Vandergast was buried in a tomb high in the Silver Sierras. To this day, no one remembers where it is. But every decade or so, stories reemerge about some one or other, who claims to have found it and taken the fabled ring for himself.
[GAME TERMS:] The Ring of Vandergast eliminates all XP penalities due to possessing more than one character class. All XP gained while wearing the ring, is fully counted towards one of the character's classes.
The Ring, had the ability to absolutely control all (non-sentient) felines for an indeterminite period of time.
The drawback was that each night, at midnight, regardless of where the wearer is (on a small sailing vessel in the middle of the Sea of Dread), a random encounter of Great Cats will accost the wearer and allies, without regard to morale.
The ring itself is not cursed, but there is a curse applied to the wearer, so that the ring cannot be removed. At the last known location of Jestron, somewhere in the Wyrmsteeth mountains, his army (the party was 8-12 regular players, with 2-5 characters each, most with hirelings and retainers [my dad was the single most awesome DM ever]) was searching for the fang of a Red Dragon, willingly offered, to remove this unfortunate side-effect.
When my dad stoped gaming, this adventure was still on-going, and Jestron was a 32nd-lvl Paladin. My own characters were a 12th Lvl thief named "Thud" (a nickname which stuck since 1st level, after a critical failure on a Move Silent check) and an 18th Lvl M-U called simply, Psycho--his real name was unknown. (AL: CN; 18 Int, 3 Wis--he really was quite nameworthy).
(Man, this is making me nastalgic for my dad's old games. I'm going to have to call him and ask what the storyline was supposed to have been.)
My own characters were a 12th Lvl thief named "Thud" (a nickname which stuck since 1st level, after a critical failure on a Move Silent check)...
That's hilarious!
You won't mind if I use that as an NPC in a thieves guild do you? I envision an accomplished thief who has been unable to shake himself of this nickname even though it's been nearly a decade.
I like that magic item, too. Great for a plot-hook, like Spellweaver's. Whch reminds me, good idea for a thread!
One of the things we've done IMC that I've never done before, is PC rotation. We didn't plan per-se, but it just developed and thought it was pretty neat. Since we only have two players at present, each has several character's. Some have died, some 'settled down' with a love interest, some just part temporarily for story reasons.
Anyhow, what I'm getting to is that we've had some new character's enter the game form time-to-time and I decided that their main magical item type would be rolled randomly from the 'Magical Items Main Table' on page 228 of the RC (even though we play 3.5). This worried the players at first but had trust in me that I wouldn't srcew them over.
My brother rolled 'miscellaneous magical item' for a human ranger (actually a forester trained by the Vyallia elves) and the other player rolled a 'scroll' for his fighter! So I decided to get a little creative. Btw, I have a habit on giving each magical item a true name given by it's creator, in their native language, and it's translation.
Here's the ranger's miscellaneous magical item:
[INDENT]Thonduin Diamar (Root of Under-Earth)
This simple 4-inch length of 1-inch diameter root is actually an item enchanted by the woodland elves of the Vyallia Clan. Within this little root-handle is a 3-inch thin steel blade which lies completely hidden to the eye. Holding this root-handle and speaking the elven words which mean "release the thorn of Diamar" exposes the blade. The blade only acts as a small knife and only does 1d2 damage. Speaking the words "conceal the thorn of Diamar" pulls the blade back into the root.
If the blade of this is struck into the ground or some dirt and, while still holding the root-handle, the words "give life to Diamar's root" are spoken, it springs to life and grows into a great vine-like plant (assassin vine) after 3 rounds; first round is the round it is planted, second round it is 5x5 feet, and the third round it is 10x10 feet. It is indentical to the assassin vine except that it is immobile and cannot use the Entangle supernatural ability. It will not harm the 'planter' and it remains active there until the 'planter' pulls the blade from the ground. It will be hostile to any other creature within reach.
Once the handle is removed from the dirt, the plant is instantly detached and it dies, withering and shrinking into a dry husk of it's former self. There is no limit on the number of times this can be done, or the frequency.[/INDENT]
I'll have to post the scroll later.
:-) Jesper
It is not known who originally created the artifact, but even the earliest Emperors possesses it.
The Fasces have the following powers:
It is a Vorpal Great Axe +5, although due to the awkwardness of weilding it, its bearer suffers a -4 penalty to attack rolls and a -2 penalty to AC.
It acts as a Rod of Dominion.
It acts as a Rod of Victory.
It acts as a Rod of Health.
It acts as a Rod of the Wyrm (Lawful).
Note that this hasn't been completely converted 3.5E yet, although it wouldn't take much.
That's hilarious!
You won't mind if I use that as an NPC in a thieves guild do you? I envision an accomplished thief who has been unable to shake himself of this nickname even though it's been nearly a decade.
I like that magic item, too. Great for a plot-hook, like Spellweaver's. Whch reminds me, good idea for a thread!
Go ahead! And your assumption is correct. I no longer have the sheet, otherwise I'd give you his stats. But just a little b/g, Thud was from Darokin, however his ancestery is Nordic. He is both an associate member of the DDC and sidekick to Flameflicker. He can be found anywhere from the Shires to the Wyrmsteeth. He has never been to Alphatia or Past the Sindhi/Darokin border. He is a bit naiave about "foriegn" (i.e. non-KW) cultures, and would probably gravely insult a foriegner, in an attempt to compliment them. His thieving skills are beyond par for his level. In his mid 30's by game's end (AC 1006 or so--WotI wasn't published at this point, but thats just symantics), he was married to Celeste the Swift (from Shady Dragon Inn) and had a daughter--in the keeping of her godfather (mother) Flameflicker. Due to his high CHA and connections thru both DDC and various guilds, He acted as de-facto ambassador for all of the party's nobles, including Dirk, Jestron (see above post) and Umberto the Ugly (also from AC1) who had a principality in Glantri.
His personality was VERY Darokinian--flamboyant, self confident, however he dressed and "tried" to act as if he were Nordic... which gave way to a very comedic character...
Anyway, back on topic...
Hugin, did you ever use Thud?
Hugin, did you ever use Thud?
He didn't get the chance to appear in that campaign as it ended when two of the players left, one for the east coast and the other worked on afternoons. But now that I'm reminded of him, I want to get him into our current campaign (which has two new players as well). I don't have any PCs in a thieves guild so I'd like to use him as you have presented him. It might prove extra fun since we have a PC from the Northern Reaches.
On a side note, I see that I never got around to posting that magical scroll used by a fighter. I'm at work right now so it'll have to wait till tonight. I'll just say that the player thought it was really cool and was quite proud of it.