Use-Impaired Magic Items II

The previous list of “use-impaired" magic items is here. It gets a sequel because these things are just so damned fun to write. If you missed the last one or don't feel like clicking through the link, these are magic items that aren't necessarily useless,  but are inconvenient, non-intuitive, or just plain weird -- as liable to frustrate your players as help them.

Septum Piercing of Luck Exchange

This item of jewelry makes the wearer incredibly, unbelievably lucky. They have advantage on every roll they make, because things just tend to work out for them. Sounds fantastic, right? Well, there are a few drawbacks.

First, of course, it absolutely has to be worn as a septum piercing for it to work. Which doesn't seem like much of a drawback, because septum piercings are badass, right? Right, but that makes getting around all the other drawbacks much more complicated.

Image from this Etsy shop.

See, all that luck can't just be created out of thin air. It has to come from somewhere. This is why Septum Piercings of Luck Exchange always come in pairs, and have to be worn and activated in pairs. So as a result of the first two, it's virtually impossible for an unscrupulous PC to force someone else to wear the other one in the pair -- just imagine one of your players trying to say, “I sneak up and pierce his septum while he isn't looking". And tricking someone else into wearing it will likely occur to them, because the reason the second one is required is to provide a source for the luck -- the wearer of the other ring in the pair has disadvantage on all their rolls.

“Fine, fine," the PCs might say, “we'll pay some random NPC to wear the other one; surely we can afford to compensate them well enough for the inconvenience of bad luck." Well, not so fast. And don't let them call you Shirley (unless that's actually your name). At sunrise every day, the two rings in the pair switch between “lucky" and “unlucky"; essentially, the two people wearing them have to trade off on days of good luck and days of bad luck. So it balances out -- half the time you're supernaturally lucky, half the time you're supernaturally unlucky.

Naturally, PCs will try and find a way to get around this. Maybe they'll suggest hiring a henchman to wear the other one and just swapping each morning so the “lucky" one is always on the PC. First of all, ew; that's a good way to get a nasty infection. Second, well, the GM is encouraged to find any way to keep the "I only wear it every other day" plan from working. These can range from the simple to the hilariously sadistic. Some examples from various points on that spectrum:

• The enchantment “remembers" who's “supposed" to be wearing each ring, and still works the same if you swap, or refuse to wear it on “unlucky" days. Getting it to stop stealing your luck requires ending your attunement with it, and then you can't re-attune again.
• Removing one always requires passing a Will save at disadvantage.
• Just ask yourself, “how would the universe react to a sudden, and increasing, imbalance of bad luck?" Be imaginative. Maybe the bad luck starts to escape the ring, “grounding" itself in anyone nearby with catastrophic results. Maybe it just quietly builds, and builds, and builds, until something massively improbable and fatally awful happens, like the countryside for a mile around getting spontaneously sucked into the Abyss -- hey, sometimes weird planar crap just happens, and it's your bad luck that it happened at the specific place and time you happened to be. Go nuts; I'm sure you can think of something far worse than I can.

Talisman of the First Deception

The Talisman of the First Deception resembles a small egg carved of green stone, slightly smaller than a hen's egg. Careful examination will reveal small, subtle etching near the larger end that says, in some arcane script that would be familiar to any wizard in your campaign setting: 

One lie to be believed by all who hear. Single use only. -- Broneden

Attempts to identify the item will inform the PCs that it is essentially a single-shot, extra-strength, potion of glibness. It will work for exactly one spoken lie, and gives such a massive bonus to the user's Bluff check that you might as well not even roll. (After use, it cracks open, leaving the PC with several shards of green stone eggshell.)

If the PCs are exceptionally skilled, or roll particularly high on identifying the item, they may get the full picture, and information about its additional properties. Otherwise, their knowledge stops with what is above.

The creator of this helpful little device, one Broneden, went just a little bit overboard -- which is why some of these single-use talismans are still just lying around. It works, but it also produces what could be a life-long annoyance. Broneden, see, wanted to make sure that the target of the lie couldn't be set straight by someone else -- if you bluff the prison guard, and he decides to check with his superior, you're screwed -- so he added a sort of contagion effect.

Etching (transcription)

Not only does everyone who hears the lie believe it to be true (Note: everyone. Even people you're not trying to convince. Even people who know for a fact that what you're saying is false. Even people with whom you discussed this plan and whom you explicitly told “I am going to tell the following lie." Everyone), but anyone they speak to will also believe that lie to be true. And then anyone those people speak to. Once the effect gets just a little momentum going, it spreads like a plague. It doesn't even require that those affected speak about the lie -- any communication at all counts. The only person this doesn't affect is the one who told the original lie. (Which means that talking to them doesn't count for the purposes of the lie's contagion -- but talking to their party members probably does.)

The result of this, essentially, is that for the rest of the original liar's life, anyone who's spoken to someone who's spoken to someone who's spoken to someone ... and so on ... who's spoken to someone who's spoken to someone who was present when the lie was told will firmly believe that the contents of that lie are completely true. Even if they have no context for that information, have no idea who any of the relevant people are, &c. &c. If you used the Talisman to, say, convince someone you were a paladin, you will spend the rest of your life running into people who have never met you and don't know anything about you, but as soon as you introduce yourself, they'll respond with “oh, you're a paladin, right?" Because somewhere inside their head it is indelibly written that “[John Smith] is a paladin," and they know you're the [John Smith] in question, but they don't know why they know that.

Ring of Command Insects

This is one of those “exactly what it says on the tin" moments. Once a day, you can use this ring to speak with, and give orders to, any insects within line of sight. The spell wears off as soon as they've done whatever you asked them to do.

Image from this Etsy shop.

There are a couple of catches, however. First, insects are pretty dumb. Technically, by the rules, they're “mindless", so part of the ring's magic is giving them a few temporary Intelligence points just so they can follow instructions. Just a few, though, so your instructions have to be really simple for them to understand.

Second, they may be compelled to obey you, but they resent it. And they resent being briefly given an Int score just to do your bidding. While they can't not follow your instructions to the letter, they will “misunderstand" whenever possible, and honestly won't put a whole lot of effort into doing things right. So you've got to be careful with your instructions and avoid entrusting them with anything too complicated or high-stakes.

This is another item I've actually used in a campaign before; the PCs quickly came to the conclusion that having the insects do anything was liable to backfire, and just used it for information gathering. They referred to it as the “Ring of Ask Bugs".

Axe of the Apostle

This is an elaborately-decorated masterpiece of a weapon, sharp and sturdy, in every aspect the perfect axe for someone who wants to cut some seriously bloody swathes across the landscape. It is also so holy that anyone sensitive to these things can feel sheer Good rolling off it in waves. This, you see, was once the weapon of one of the greatest travelling clerics of her generation, St. Ujali, and functions as a +3 holy battleaxe.

St. Ujali showing the axe to a travelling companion.
(Actually detail from this painting)

So what's the catch? Well, St. Ujali was a pacifist. A full-on, uncompromising, “sweep the ground in front of you so you don't step on bugs" pacifist. And her axe carries on that legacy. It is physically impossible to use the axe to harm anything living OR anything with an Intelligence score -- so it can basically only be used on undead or constructs, and even then only the mindless varieties. If anyone tries to use the axe against anything that doesn't fit that description, the axe will deform and flow like liquid, shifting so no part of it actually comes into contact with the intended target. It is thus completely impossible for the axe to physically harm a living and/or sentient being of any kind, and any attempts by the wielder to get around this property of the axe are unlikely to work; the axe has been known to manifest previously-unknown properties in order to maintain its absolute pacifism.

Of course, it is an intrinsically valuable item, being beautiful, magical, and historically significant, so you could probably sell it for a good sum. Finding a buyer who is willing to pay its value might be difficult -- St. Ujali's order all take a vow of poverty, so you're not going to sell it to any temples. Really, the only realistic option is to hope some eccentric private collector really, really wants this thing. Plus, it's not exactly labelled; there's no reason the PCs would know it has historical significance unless they do some research first -- or someone makes a really good bardic knowledge roll.

Actual size.
(Image from the Smithsonian NMAI)

Talisman of Deanatification

This small duck, woven from dried reeds, can cast break enchantment. There is no limit on how often it can be used per day, or how many charges it has. However, it only works if the enchantment being broken involves being turned into a duck. If someone has baleful polymorphed you into a duck, this is exactly the magic item you need, but -- barring potential fringe cases -- that's pretty much the only situation in which it's useful at all.