Lock and Key of Dalt

Lock and Key of Dalt

This is obviously a matched set. Both are made of brass with fine silver filigree. Neither appear exceptional, the lock could be installed into just about any normal door and the key would fit conveniently in a pocket or on a key ring.  While the Lock and the Key both have their own individual powers their true power is when they are used together.

The Lock

This lock is designed to protect the door it is installed in and to punish those that violate the portal.

Lockpicking:

The lock imposes a -20% to any pick locks attempt. Additionally, anyone attempting to pick it is cursed (as by a 16th level magic user) with a -10% to all future lock picking attempts.

Forcing the Door:

The lock imposes a -2 on any checks to force a door it is attached to. Additionally, anyone attempting to force the door is cursed (as by a 16th level magic user) with -1 on all future open door rolls.

Destroying the door:

The lock helps protect the door adding +1 hardness to it. Additionally, if anyone destroys the door (taking an axe to it, blasting it with a spell, etc) they are cursed (as by a 16th level magic user) so that all future portals are barred to them. Doors, drawers, windows and other portals will just seem to frequency become stuck or warped so that it requires an open doors roll to open them. If the door normally would already take an open doors roll to open then the roll is at -2.

The Key

This key will magically fit most locks and has a 5% per wielder level of unlocking a mundanely locked door.

Additionally, 3/day it can cast Knock as a 16th level magic user.

The Lock and Key

Working together the Lock and Key have two additional powers.

Locking the Lock.

Using the Key to lock the lock triggers a guards and wards spell as cast by a 16th level magic-user.

This power may be used 3/day

Linking the Doors

1/week the key may be touched to any door (including inoperable or even false doors) and a command word spoken. The wielder may then appear to open the door. This is actually an illusion, the door is not actually opened, and instead a magical portal is opened between the door touched and the door where the Lock is installed. This connection between the portals lasts for 24 hours but can be closed and reopened by (and only by) the wielder of the key. Note: in order for this power to work the key must be touched to a different door than the door with the Lock. Using the Key on the door with the Lock does not enable the wielder to create a new connection to another door elsewhere.

For example: a thief carrying the Key has been discovered in a burglary and is being chased by a group of guards. He runs down a corridor and uses the key while wrenching open and darting through a door to a closet. The guards, laughing because they know there is no way out of the closet surround the door and yank it open… only to find an empty closet. They thoroughly search the closet in case the thief is invisible but find nothing. Meanwhile the thief is safe at home and relaxing. Several hours later, after the search has died down, the thief reopens the portal and steps back ‘out’ of the closet to continue his pilfering.

Strength Bows

Strength Bows

Building Strength Bows is a closely guarded secret. Building such a bow is a long, expensive and exhausting process and so few are around. To begin the bow is composed primarily of steel specially wrought so it has a high tensile strength. Finding high enough especially high-quality iron and the other materials needed to alloy with it is difficult. The steel is reinforced with horn and sinew to control how it bends and springs. Tradition is that the horn and sinew should come from some powerful beast slain personally by the person the bow is being built for but this does not have any true bearing on the crafting of the bow. The bow must be designed as a short recuve bow, any attempt to make a long or composite strength bow will fail, resulting at best in just a normal bow or at worst with something that does work at all.

While crafting the bow the bowyer must make a crafting check with one of the following results:

Critical Failure: Bow appears to be a regular strength bow but sometime in the next month or two will snap when drawn causing 2d4+1 damage to the wielder.  

Failure: The bowyer has failed to make a strength bow but may reroll. If the reroll is successful then instead they have created a normal bow out of expensive materials, on a second failure the result is so flawed cannot even be used as a normal bow.

Success: The bowyer has created a strength bow. Strength bows can only be effectively used by an archer with a strength of at least 17 but allows the archer to add half of their Strength bonuses to hit and damage to their attacks in addition to the Dexterity bonus to hit. Additionally the bow adds half (rounded down) of the wielder’s strength bonus to hit to its range categories (e.g. a +2 bonus to hit these bows have +1, +2, and +3 to each range category).

Critical Success: The bowyer has created a marvel; a Greater Strength bow. These bows can only be effectively used by an archer with exceptional strength (at least 18/01) and allow an archer to add all of their Strength bonuses to hit and damage to their attacks in addition to the Dexterity bonus to hit. The bow adds the wielder’s STR to hit bonus to each range category (e.g. if they have +3 to hit add +3, +6, and +9 to the normal short bow range categories). Additionally, if the arrow fired from this type of bow does maximum damage against a medium or smaller target then target is also knocked prone.

Animal Spirit Guides

Animal Spirit guides

One of the Tertiary abilities of the Bright Desert Barbarians is to acquire a Spirit Guide.

The guild must be a small natural animal common to the Bright Desert: Hawks, snakes, gazelle, dogs, lizards, scorpions, spiders, and desert mice are all common spirit guides.

It is uncertain how a guide is determined. Some barbarians have guides that are obvious matches for their personality while others have guides that seem to balance some lack in their personality and yet others don’t seem to have any correlation to their personality. Still what guide someone has is a very important and personal thing for them.

While it is not required to keep your guide secret, and indeed some like to flaunt their guide, most barbarians keep their guide to themselves or to just close family and friends.  Even though the guide doesn’t always correlate to the barbarian’s personality and doesn’t have any influence over the barbarian’s behavior that the barbarian doesn’t give them, there are some spirit guilds like snakes and spiders, and especially scorpions that are considered ill aspected by others and are much more likely to not be discussed by those that have those guides.

Bright Desert Barbarians go through several rituals regarding their animal spirit guide: At around the age of six a barbarian child undergoes a ritual of fasting, meditation, and hallucinogens during which they discover what their animal is. Later in life they may undergo other rituals that strengthen that bond.

Ritual of Discovery

This ritual is performed around the age of six. The child undergoes a period of fasting, meditation and instruction with a shaman that ends in a ritual involving chanting and hallucinogens during which they discover what their animal is. The totem animal becomes a occasional but signifigant part of childs life; it may appear in dreams to offer guidance or in person to warn of danger or lead to safety. The child will have a deep fondness for this type of animal and will almost never hurt, or be hurt, by natural specimans.

Ritual of Communion

At anytime after they have earned their right as a warrior or woman of the clan the barbarian may undergo this ritual. It is a painful process involving a tattoo made with the blood of the totem animal and causes the permanent loss of 1d4 hit points (later removal of the tattoo does not negate the ability or restore the hit points). The ritual creates an ability in the barbarian to form empathic bonds with their totem creature. This does not allow them to control or speak with the creature but better understand them and with experience allows some limited communication between them through sharing feelings through this empathic link. It functions as a ranger's animal empathy, but only with the totem animal type.

Ritual of Presence   

It involves the sacrifice of 100gp of rare herbs to attract, appease, and bind the guide. This ritual mimics the wizard spell find familiar although the barbarians do not consider it magic. The 'familiar' will always be the totem animal.

Sacred Bundle

Sacred Bundle

Overview
   Sacred Bundles are found in variety of forms depending on the society. For example: it could 
   be a satchel holding trophies taken in battle, a sash embroidered with symbols commemorating
   victories, or a box of hand carved wooden icons of enemies overcome. All bundles provide a bit
   of protection to the owner, but at the warrior gains in experience and renown their bundle
   becomes more potent, granting them greater power and protection.

   Only the warrior linked to the bundle through a sacred ceremony can benefit from its effects;
   bundles cannot be transferred to a new owner. A character can only have a single Sacred Bundle
   at a time.

   Once per level, after performing a significant exploit, the warrior can ceremonially add another
   totem to the bundle to commemorate the event and imbue it with more power.

Beginning a Bundle
   A sacred bundle is bestowed in a ceremony by a medicine man when the warrior first passes
   his rights of manhood or otherwise becomes a member of a tribe. If a character’s sacred bundle
   is destroyed they can undergo the ceremony again to start a new sacred bundle if they find a
   willing medicine man to perform the ceremony.

Empowering a Bundle
   Once per level, and only once during each level they earn, the owner of a sacred bundle may
   perform a private ceremony to empower the bundle with an additional power. If the character
   starts a bundle after first level, or if they miss empowering the bundle during a level, they
   cannot ‘back-fill’ the bundle for any levels they had previously earned. Note: if a character is
   drained levels they cannot add powers to the bundle until they have regained or re-earned the
   lost levels.

   The ceremony to empower the bundle must be done as soon as possible after achieving some
   significant achievement. The player cannot ‘hold off’ doing it in hopes of a bigger fight coming
   along later. During the ceremony the character must privately pray and fast for 24 hours as
   they carefully prepare a totem to commemorate the event to add to the bundle. The character
   also sacrifices the experience points they earned for the exploit they are commemorating during
   this ceremony. The ceremony transfers the experience into the totem and bundle which is how
   it is empowers the bundle with additional powers.

   What constitutes a significant event changes depending on the character’s level and
   circumstances. A third level character beating an ogre in single combat is significant but a third
   level character working with a large adventuring party or a tenth level character working alone is
   not. If the character attempts to imbue the bundle based on an insignificant event the attempt
   fails (although the experience sacrificed is still lost). It is up to the discretion of the DM to
   determine what is significant, but the player should not be told until the ceremony is complete
   and the experience points are sacrificed.

Powers of a Bundle
   When the ceremony is complete the DM determines what power is added to the bundle. This
   normally is done by rolling on the table below. The DM should modify the roll based on how
   well the player is roleplaying the character (such as honoring cultural taboos, etc) or for just
   how significant the event really was to the character. Additionally, the DM may just pick an
   appropriate power to the event or change the result to avoid making the bundle to powerful
   for the campaign.

Stacking Powers
   All powers from table 1 below can stack. Identical powers earned from table 2 generally should
   not be stacked, however the DM may decide otherwise if the event was truly extraordinary. For
   example: A warrior defeats a Hell Hound when he is 5th level and earned Fire resistance 3, at
   10th level he helps defeat a large red dragon and the DM decides that his miraculous survival of
   the full brunt of the breath weapon is deserving of increasing the Fire resistance to 6.

   Beginning Powers: All bundles provide the owner +1 to saves, hit points, and armor class when
   they are first bestowed upon a warrior.

   Some time during their first level and each subsequent level a character can add one of the
   following powers to the bundle.

Table 1 (roll d20 or DM’s pick)
        1   No power gained (EXP is lost but failure this does not count as a power for the level
              the character can try again after another heroic event)
    2-6   +1 to Armor Class
    7-9   +1 to Hit Points
10-11   +1 to Fortitude Saves
12-13   +1 to Will Saves
14-15   +1 to Reflex Saves
      16   +1 to all Saves
17-19   Roll on the next table instead
      20   Roll both on the next table and this table again.

Table 2 (DM’s pick)
     1-5   +1 to a specific type of d20 roll (DM picks type of roll such as to hit with a bow, strength
                 checks, saves verses poisons, skill checks with for tracking, etc.)
    6-9   Protection from an element 3 (DM picks type of element)
10-11   +1 to damage rolls
12-13   +5ft to movement speed
14-15   Damage resistance 1
16-17   Luck (1/day can reroll a d20 roll)
18-19   Heroic Surge (1/day can take an extra standard action)
      20   +1 to an ability score (DM picks based on event)

Author’s Notes:
   Ever since it was introduced in the 1st edition D&D Deities & Demigods manual I’ve been
   fascinated with the Sacred Bundle. However, it was too powerful to let low level character’s 
   have access to it and, to my mind, should require extensive solo adventuring by the
   character to assemble at higher levels, which might not work for the rest of the players. So this
   is my attempt to redesign the Sacred Bundle into a relic that a character could start with right
   from first level and that gradually grows in power as the character does. Sacred Bundles are holy
   objects common in some, but not all, primitive warrior societies. DM’s should normally not let
   other characters create Sacred Bundles unless they have in some way role-played adoption into
   that society.

   It is also recommended that the society have certain taboos or codes of ethics that the character
   should follow to offset the power of the Bundle and that when rolling to add effects to a bundle
   the DM should modify the role based on how good or bad the player has conformed to those
   ethics. For example: Nanoc si Semaj comes from a culture that associates honor with personal
   valor and physical combat, but the amount of honor decreases the more you relied on the skills
   of others over your own in achieving the victory: so performing well in a battle with the party may
   be honorable, but more so if you only used weapons you made with your own hands, and less so
   with manufactured weapons, and much, much less so if you used magic to win the fight.

Talisman of Secrets

 The Talisman of Secrets

   This amulet appears as a rather plan wooden disk inscribed in the center with a Penrose
   triangle and around the edges with characters that appear to be from ancient Flan.
   However the disk is harder than iron and near impossible to destroy or even mark.
   The script around the edges seems to be some saying or long phrase, or perhaps a code. 

   It is rumored that this powerful magic item was created by Vecna himself when he was
   a mortal and it is considered a holy relic of the Cult of Vecna. Any member of the Cult
   will immediately recognize the Talisman if they see it and go to great lengths to recover
   it for themselves.

   The Talisman has three powers:
      First, anyone attempting to understand the writing around the edge of the amulet must
         make a DC 20 Will save or permanently loose a point of Wisdom.

      Second, it blocks all divinations directed at the wearer such as ESP, Detect Evil, Detect
         Lie, Mind Reading, and Know Alignment.

      Third, it the target of a divination, the wearer may make a saving throw against the
         effect (even if it normally does not allow saving throws), if the save fails then the
         divination is blocked normally as per the second power above, but if the save is
         successful then the wearer gains some control over the divination attempt and is able
         to provide false results back to the diviner. The DM may require that the wearer make
         a bluff check against the diviner’s sense motive check to determine how believable
         the falsified information is.

   Example 1: A cleric casts Know Alignment on the wearer of the Talisman who is
      impersonating a paladin of Heironeous. The wearer makes their will save, becoming
      aware of the attempt and feeds back a reading of Lawful Good to the cleric. The DM
      decides that since this was what the cleric would expect of a paladin, no bluff check
      is needed.  

   Example 2: A wizard casts ESP and attempts to read the wearer’s mind. The wearer fails
      his will save and so is not aware of the attempt, but the wizard gains no information.

   Example 3: Another wizard uses a crystal ball to scry on the wearer while he is looting a
      temple of St. Cuthbert. The wearer succeeds on his will save and is aware that someone
      is scrying on him. He sends back an image of himself asleep in an inn. The DM decides
      that since the wizard had information that the wearer was in the temple a bluff check is
      needed with a -4 modifier.