Go to Part 1

THE BRAND OF AVARICE

The first brands of avarice was crafted by the Sorcerer Prince Ajan. The tributes paid to Ajan by his lords were being constantly jeopardized by the legendary rogue Ser Kella. Attempts to capture Kella had failed, even when aided by Ajan’s powerful magic. So Ajan crafted a brand of avarice for each of his lords — with each bearing the seal of the lord for which they were destined – and commanded them to include their brands with all future tributes as a guarantee of their payment. Ser Kella, after falling prey to the brands at least twice, abandoned his depredations upon Ajan’s tributes.

Today the brands of avarice are a relatively inexpensive form of magical protection against theft: A wizard or sorcerer will enchant a normal gold piece and place it within a pile of similar or identical coins. The owner of the coins will know to avoid this particular piece (which is usually identified with some minor marking and can be removed safely by anyone wearing a pair of gloves). However, the moment it is touched by bare flesh, the brand of avarice will bond itself to the person’s flesh and will resist all physical efforts to have it removed short of amputating the body part affected.

Depending on where the brand attaches itself, the character may be subject to a penalty on any affected ability or skill checks (this may include spells with somatic components – including dispel magic). For example, if the brand is grasped by the fingertips (as is quite likely) their manual dexterity will be affected. A common mistake is to then attempt to pry it loose with the other hand (thereby binding both hands to the coin). DM’s should use their best discretion as to what types of penalties to apply (and just how badly a character can get stuck to himself – or others).

Also note that the brand is capable of acting on more than one individual at a time. Thus if another PC, NPC, or monster were to touch the brand (or if the affected character were to touch another PC, NPC, or monster with the brand), the brand would effectively bind the two characters together at the point of contact.

The easiest way to remove the brand is through the use of a dispel magic spell (wealthier patrons will usually have the brand created by a high level wizard – making it comparatively more difficult to remove). However, even this will still leave a physical imprint of the coin’s surface on the victim’s skin. This mark will not usually impair the victim’s ability to take normal actions (although the DM may decide otherwise under special circumstances), but will continue to identify the character as the victim of a brand so long as it is visible.

Caster Level: 5^th
Prerequisites: Craft Wondrous Item, make whole
Market Price: 4,000 gp

COIN OF ALARUM

Another device for theft deterrence, the coin of alarum is more direct in its methods of persecution: When brought near coins it hasn’t been near before, it will sound a klaxon-like alarm. Typically the coin of alarum would be placed unconspicuously among the other coins of a house’s wealth, so that when a would-be thief placed it next to his personal wealth the alarm would sound.

However, as an added security measure the sound of the alarm does not appear to emanate from the coin itself – instead seeming to simply fill the air around it. The thief will assume that he has triggered an area affect, and flee – never realizing that he is carrying his own accuser with him. It may take quite some time for the victim to finally discover why the klaxon returns every time they add change to their coin purse.

The coin of alarum takes fifteen minutes to acclimate itself to a new coin. The klaxon will stop as soon as the acclimation process is finished. If a coin is removed from the presence of the coin of alarum and then returned, the acclimation process must be repeated. The coin has also been enchanted in such a way that a dispel magic spell will not only work automatically, but will also have a duration of fifteen minutes (the spell can be used to acclimate the coin without having to live with an alarm sounding). Spells such as silence will also work to quiet this pernicious little item.

Although coins of alarum can be commonly found just about anywhere today, they were originally a creation of the dragons – often serving as triggers for more elaborate magical defenses or traps. Many dragons continue to use the coins to this day, using the sound of the alarm as a trigger for a contingency spell which teleports the rest of their treasure safely away.

Caster Level: 5^th
Prerequisites: Craft Wondrous Item, alarm
Market Price: 100 gp

Go to Part 3

Here is a thing which I forgot existed. Back in June 2002, Campaign Magazine published “Gilted Fiends”, an article I had written which contained a number of cursed coins for D20 fantasy games. Back in 2011, I archived that article here on the Alexandrian. What I had forgotten is that I had actually written a direct sequel to this article which was never published because Campaign Magazine went out of business.

Without further ado, here is that article — never before seen — providing more mischievous and dangerous coins with which to plague your PCs.

Cursed items are a long-standing tradition for D&D, for a very simple reason: They’re a lot of fun. A character plagued by their cursed possession not only has the challenge of overcoming the difficulties created by the curse, but also the long-standing problem of getting rid of the curse permanently. Cursed items serve as a source of conflict, challenge, and storytelling.

But there’s a problem: Players are paranoid. Hand them a sword carved with cryptic runes and the identify and analyze dweomer spells begin to fly. They have no intention of being caught flatfooted – and nothing magical is going to escape their careful analysis. If they’re looking for it, they’re going to catch that curse before it ever gets close to them. As fun as they might be, cursed items never really get a fighting chance.

Wait a minute, though. What if they don’t think to look? Sure, the first thing they’re going to do with a dragon’s hoard is start looking for magic in every sword, staff, ring, and scroll. But…

Who casts detect magic on a pile of coins?

Nobody. When they kill the orc and loot the body, no one ever stops to consider that the bent copper piece they found was actually a Lucky Penny. And as frustrating as missed magic might be if they ever realize the truth, imagine their despair when the gold coin they liberated from the ogre’s lair turns out to be the greatest bane of all…

Enchanted coins, though, offer more than just the opportunity to slip a good curse under the character’s defenses. They can also provide the fodder for a variety of adventure themes – ranging from “good things come in small packages” to the almost ubiquitous “money is the root of all evil”. Money is a part of everyday life – for the characters and the players – so don’t hesitate to use it as a story element or adventure seed.

That being said, here are a few dirty tricks to slip into your PCs’ money pouches…

WEALTH BANE

The wealth banes were created by the Scarlet Coven – mad mages convinced that the plight of the poor would be alleviated if only the gold of the wealth was disposed of. It took the coven nearly a decade of effort to gather the wealth necessary to create the banes, and it is whispered that the treasure troves of three mighty dragons – Silvermane, Harshfire, and Blacktongue – were consumed.

In the end, the coven was successful. The result, however, was not as they intended. The wealth banes were quickly detected, and decisive action was rapidly taken against the coven. Although the coven’s leader, Kesand, would not be captured until almost nine years had passed, the “glorious” vision of the Scarlet Coven never came to pass.

A wealth bane appears to be a normal copper coin, but when placed in close proximity to a platinum, gold, or silver coin the wealth bane will transmute their metal into common copper. For every hour that a wealth bane is kept within a foot of other coins (for example, within a coin pouch) there is a cumulative 10% chance that the other coins will be transformed into copper.

Most of the wealth banes were either destroyed or are now kept – carefully – in private collections as curiosity pieces. Others, however, followed the whimsical paths of commerce and disappeared into the far corners of the globe. Often their victims never become aware of what caused the strange transformation, and end up spending the wealth bane as if it were a normal coin – passing it on to some new victim.

Caster Level: 15^th
Prerequisites: Craft Wondrous Item, polymorph any object
Market Price: 150,000 gp

Go to Part 2

IN THE SHADOW OF THE SPIRE

Session 5: The Trouble With Goblins

In which a tragedy unfolds amidst the squalor of goblins too clever for their own good, but a gateway is opened which beckons the curious while promising potential terrors in the days to come…

Anyone who’s read The Railroading Manifesto knows that I’m no fan of GMs predetermining outcomes and negating the impact of player’s choices. But sometimes outcomes can be controlled through design. (Or, in other cases, the evolving circumstances of the game world will naturally create these circumstances.)

In the case of this session, for example, Jasin was dead before the PCs were ever aware that he existed. Their effort to save him was guaranteed to fail. I didn’t know exactly how it would play out, but the sad scene in which Tee carried Jasin’s shrouded body out of Greyson House was essentially inevitable.

As a GM, you can use similar techniques to guarantee a variety of outcomes: For example, later in the campaign the bad guys will breach the Banewarrens (a crypt filled with ancient evils). In a similar fashion, the PCs never learn of their attempt until after they’ve already succeeded. Firewalling scenario hooks like this is a useful practicality (since it prevents scenarios from being unexpectedly smothered in their cribs), but also a rather natural consequence of how the world works. (The PCs have no reason to go looking for the Banewarrens until they start encountering the eldritch evils which have been released from it.)

The more general version of this boils down to a relatively simple maxim: If you don’t want the PCs to affect the outcome of something, don’t let them know it’s happening until it’s already done.

The world is a big place, after all, so there’s constantly things happening that the PCs don’t know about.

With all that being said, however, be mentally prepared for the PCs to nevertheless surprise you: That almost happened in this session. As low-level characters they had neither the power nor the resources to access resurrection magic, so it never really occurred to me as a potential option for resolving Jasin’s death. As you can see in the log, however, Agnarr struck on the idea of unexpectedly leveraging Tee’s house to pay for it. Even though that ultimately didn’t happen, the result was a beautiful crucible which had a long-term effect on Tee’s character and her relationship with Agnarr. (It also revealed her deep emotional attachment to her house; which was the one lifeline she had back to her old life and, beyond that, her parents.)

IN THE SHADOW OF THE SPIRE

SESSION 5: THE TROUBLE WITH GOBLINS

April 15th, 2007
The 19th Day of Amseyl in the 790th Year of the Seyrunian Dynasty

Tellith pointed to a man wearing a green shirt who was sitting dejectedly at one of the tables. In truth, there weren’t many others in the common room – although the bard for the night was strumming idly in one corner.

Ranthir was tired, however, and headed upstairs for some food and a good book. Agnarr spotted Cardalian (the woman he had spoken with at breakfast a few days earlier sitting in the corner) – he headed over to her and offered to buy them both dinner.

Tee, Dominic, and Elestra, however, went to go talk to the man, who identified himself as Eral Yinnick. It quickly became apparent that Eral was emotionally distraught: His son had disappeared earlier that day. He and his wife were convinced that the boy had been kidnapped by the “ghost of Greyson House”. They had told him and told him not to play near that house, but the boy seemed fascinated by it despite their sternest warnings.

“Why come to us?” Tee asked.

“Phon told me about you.” (“She did?” Tee said. “Maybe she’s warming back up to us,” Dominic suggested.) “She told me how you saved her. I went to the watch, but they wouldn’t help. I thought maybe… maybe you could do for Jasin what you had done for her. So I asked her where I could find her, and she said the Ghostly Minstrel. So I came here and I waited and…” He was babbling.

Tee, Dominic, and Elestra agreed that they should try to help if they could. Tee looked around and saw Agnarr heading back across the common room with two plates piled high with food. She suggested that Elestra should go see if Angarr wanted to help them, and she sent Dominic upstairs to check with Ranthir.

Elestra caught up with Agnarr just as he sat down to eat. She quickly outlined the situation to him. “Okay,” said Agnarr. “Just let me finish eating.”

“Finish eating? There’s a boy in trouble!”

“Fine, fine. Just give me five minutes! Just five minutes!”

Elestra turned to Cardalian. “You look pretty tough. You want to tag along?”

Cardalian shook her head and demurred. “No, I’ve been fighting rats all day. I’m exhausted.”

Agnarr paused from shoveling food into his mouth and looked over at Cardalian. “Rats? Really? You’ll have to tell me about that.”

Cardalian raised her eyebrow, “Aren’t you supposed to be eating?”

Meanwhile, Ranthir – with his food freshly laid out and his book freshly cracked – heard Dominic’s knock at his door. “Come in.”

Dominic quickly outlined the situation. “Come on, you can bring your food with you.”

“But… it’s soup!”

Ranthir forlornly put it aside, gathered his things and headed for the door.

Five minutes later, everyone was gathered with Eral in the lobby of the Ghostly Minstrel.

THE HAUNTING OF GREYSON HOUSE

The group headed up the hill towards the North Market. (“Wait, are we going up the hill to the haunted house? Or are we headed to the house on haunted hill?”) They discovered that Eral’s home – and Greyson House just across the street – were both located on Catbird Street, literally just around the corner from Phon’s house.

Agnarr realized that he now knew where Phon lived. Tee groaned at the thought of it, but she would have been even more worried if she had overheard Agnarr trying to “subtly” pump Eral for information regarding the father of Phon’s child on the way over. (Eral didn’t know anything.)

When they arrived, Eral quickly introduced them to his wife Ortesia – a woman completely overcome by her panic. They kept it short and immediately headed across the street.

(As they went, Agnarr remarked, “Hey, what are we getting paid for this?” He was met with blank states all around, and after a moment he said: “Oh. Got it.”)

Agnarr strode up onto the porch and tried the door handle. It was locked. But as Agnarr stepped back, the door began to rattle and shake and a low, mournful howl could be heard through the door.

Agnarr cocked his head to the side for a moment in contemplation, grunted, and then kicked the door open. A fetid mass of excrement, turpentine, and other foulness fell from above the door. The stench was nearly overpowering to Agnarr and Dominic (who stood just behind him), but they both steeled their stomachs against the nauseating stench.

Even as they paused to consider this sickening mess, a ghostly specter slipped out of the shadows and a hideous whisper seemed to echo through the house: “None shall live who enter this place…”

The spirit, however, had not considered the lust for battle which had been growing in Agnarr’s heart as a result of two days spent pent-up in a library and asking fruitless question. The barbarian rushed into the room, and although the ghost rushed forward to meet him, hot thews forged in the cold climes of the northern wastes proved the faster: The barbarian’s sword, flaming at his command – “For the glory!” – swept through the specter with a single sweep…

… revealing it to be nothing more than a sheet.

The sheet, reduced to a smoldering rag, fell to the floor. But what it revealed was perhaps even worse: A blood-sucking stirge, just like the ones that had nearly brought Tee and Agnarr to their ruin in the dark caves of the black reptilians. Agnarr cried out: “There’s a stirge in here, Tee!” And Tee, in panic, shouted back, “Kill it! Kill it! Kill it!”

Agnarr ducked as the stirge swooped down at him… which proved fortuitous, for at almost the same moment a small, runty goblin stepped out of the shadows in the same corner of the room from which the “ghost” had emerged and hurled a javelin at him! Both the stirge and the javelin passed harmlessly over Agnarr’s head.

Meanwhile Tee drew her longsword and rushed forward past her other companions, who were still somewhat uncertain what was actually happening. (“What the hell is a stirge?” Elestra asked, prompting Ranthir to happily elucidate her: “It’s a small, bat-like predator. Almost an overgrown mosquito, really. It feeds on its victims by plunging its proboscis into the soft flesh…”)

Tee, arriving inside the house, ducked past Agnarr and took a swing at the nasty little creature as it swooped over Agnarr’s head. She connected solidly, ripping one of its four wings completely off its body. Spurting blood, the creature attempted to attack Agnarr again, but the barbarian easily smote it to the ground in smoking ruin.

Elestra meanwhile, ignoring Ranthir’s recitation, moved into the house herself. The goblin, screaming unintelligibly in its native tongue, took a swipe at Agnarr and tried to run for the stairs. This proved to be its undoing: Elestra took it high and Agnarr took it low. The goblin’s head, torso, and legs fell in four distinct piles on the floor.

After the flurry of action, Elestra was shocked. All she could do was stare at her sword, which had seemed to dance of its own accord. The lethal, almost bloodthirsty instincts which were driving her were so strange… and yet they seemed so natural.

Tee, meanwhile, quickly took charge. “I think it was calling for help.” She set Agnarr to watch the stairs leading up to the second floor and she set Elestra to watch the only other door leading out of the room. Then she set about doing a quick search of the room, focusing particularly on the corner where the “ghost” and goblin had emerged from.

Ranthir and Dominic, meanwhile, wandered into the house as well. Ranthir, for his part, prodded the smoldering remains of the stirge: “Yes, indeed, this is a stirge. Well spotted, Master Agnarr…” Dominic, for his part, noticed that the commotion was already beginning to attract the attention of people up and down this quiet side-street. He turned and shouted, “Emergency exorcism! Nothing to be worried about!” He made sure to close the door behind him.

Tee found that the various debris and broken furniture in this room had been cunningly piled to conceal a hidey-hole of sorts in the corner of the room. It seemed likely that the goblin and the ghost-turned-stirge had hidden in this nook before emerging.

Tee then turned her attention to the door. She found it unlocked and untrapped (unlike the front door) and opened it, revealing the ruined remnants of a kitchen. In addition to a variety of trash, the rusted remains of an iron stove squatted in the corner. A trapdoor was clearly evident in one corner of the room.

Tee crossed the room and flipped open the trapdoor. She saw a ladder leading down into darkness – probably a cellar of some sort. Looking around she spotted bones scattered here and there throughout the rubbish – bones which Ranthir thought mainly belonged to small animals, although a few very old human bones were also to be found.

The group decided that it would be better to check the upstairs first before venturing down the ladder: The goblin had been trying to escape in that direction, after all. Leaving Ranthir and Dominic to guard the trapdoor, Tee, Elestra, and Agnarr headed up the stairs (with the barbarian in the lead). Ranthir nervously closed the trapdoor with his toe.

They didn’t find much of anything up there. At the top of the stairs there was an essentially barren room. Through a door they found a bedroom with a four-poster bed fallen into rotten ruin. Off the bedroom they found a closet which, judging by the smell and the piles of waste and excrement, had apparently been seeing use most recently as a toilet.

As Tee began thoroughly going over the upstairs rooms to make sure nothing had been missed, however, the trapdoor downstairs suddenly burst open and a goblin scurried out. Ranthir and Dominic were caught by surprise, allowing a second goblin to scurry out of the hole before they could react.

Dominic called out for help from upstairs, stepped forward, and began beating the first goblin with his mace – slamming it up against the wall with the satisfying crunch of broken ribs.

Tee, Elestra, and Agnarr raced downstairs. On her way, though, Tee noticed someone peering through the grime-covered front window. She hurriedly opened the front door and stepped out to discover that a relatively large crowd of people had gathered in front of the porch, and one of these on-lookers had become overly eager and was up on the porch trying to get inside. He jumped as Tee came out. “Oh! Hey there! What’s going on in there?”

“Emergency exorcism,” Tee said. “You should step back. You don’t want to be hurt.”

“But it sure sounds like something interesting is going in there! I just want to—“

Tee bared a quarter inch of steel. The man blanched. “Ah, right. Of course. I’ll just be backing away to a safe distance then. Good point.”

Tee ran back in, making sure to close the door behind her. “Sorry I’m late. Had a bad case of nosy neighbors.”

With everyone crowded into the kitchen and weapons swinging wildly, it was a cramped fit… which only seemed to help the party rapidly overwhelm both goblins.

But Dominic said that he had seen a third goblin crawling up out of the basement – a goblin who had disappeared back into the darkness when he’d seen how badly things were going for the other two. So Agnarr quickly jumped onto the ladder and started climbing down…

…but the ladder broke under his weight! (“You just had to finish eating dinner, didn’t you!” Tee called after him.) Agnarr tumbled in a painful heap on the hard stone floor of the cellar ten feet below. And, as he picked himself up, three goblins popped up from behind some crates and hurled javelins at him!

Agnarr growled deep in his throat, plucked one of the javelins from where it had lodged in his shoulder, drew his greatsword, and charged. Unfortunately it proved hard to bring his weapon to bear on the goblins, which were darting here and there behind the haphazard crates.

Ranthir scrabbled at his pack… only to find that he’d left his rope stored back at the inn! Tee pushed him out of the way, pulled out her own rope and grappling hook, and quickly secured them to the iron stove.

Even as she was finishing the knots, Elestra grabbed the rope and hurriedly dropped into the basement. She, too, charged the goblins and felt her rapier dancing in her hand…

But at just that moment, Agnarr – finally fed up with the scurrying little runts – grabbed one of the crates and hurled it to one side. This left his own swing open to gut one of the goblins, but the crate hurtled straight into Elestra’s sword and knocked her blow aside.

Tee quickly rappelled down the rope herself, landing lithely at the bottom and taking stock of what was happening. She drew her sword…

…just in time for Dominic, who had failed to get a firm grip on the rope, to fall right on top of her. Both of them fell prone just as the door on the south side of the cellar flew open and three more goblins came rushing out!

Elestra, finding herself suddenly surrounded, quickly circled around behind the goblin she was fighting, although she took a nasty blow in the process. Tee tried to scramble to her feet, but received a nasty mace blow across the top of her head which left her dazed and reeling. Dominic scrambled to his feet, as well, but found himself directly in Agnarr’s way – stopping the raging barbarian from reaching the goblins who had just arrived.

Chaos reigned for a moment, but it didn’t take long for the group to turn things around. Goblins fell left and right until, finally, the last goblin – hissing a snarl that revealed its fang-like teeth – slammed the door.

The party took a moment to assess its wounds. Some of them were bloodied. Some of them were bruised. (Dominic took a moment to heal the particularly nasty wound on Agnarr’s shoulder.) But they felt they could continue. Agnarr kicked open the door through which the goblin had fled and found…

…nothing. A small room stacked high with rubbish. There were more bones here, as well, these considerably… juicier… than the ones in the kitchen above. But no doors. And no sign of the goblin.

Tee carefully moved into the room, looking for any sign of the missing goblin. Unfortunately what she found was Jasin’s body. The body had clearly been gnawed upon and several large cuts of meat had also been removed. Dominic quickly inspected the body, but it was so badly mutilated… Jasin had probably been dead before they ever spoke with Eral.

Tee gathered the body up in a spare cloak. As she was carrying it back out to be lifted through the trap door, she noticed a hole in the cellar wall which had been somewhat clumsily concealed by a stack of crates. A hurried discussion ensued, but the group agreed that they had accomplished what they’d come for: Recovering Jasin.

Tee emerged from the front door, carrying Jasin’s shrouded body in her arms. The crowd of onlookers began to murmur, and over their heads Tee could see Jasin’s mother, Ortesia, collapse on the porch of her own home. With bowed head she crossed the street and lay Jasin’s body down. “I am so sorry for your loss.”

“But there’s still a chance we could save him, isn’t there?” Elestra said, with a note of desperate hope in her voice. “He can’t have been dead for more than a few hours. He could be healed with magic.”

Eral shook his head and stammered. “We can’t afford anything like that.”

“And we don’t have the money either,” Agnarr said.

“So that’s it?” Elestra said. “We’ve got at least nineteen or twenty hours. Don’t we want to at least try something?”

“Like what?” Agnarr said. Then his eyes lit up and he turned to Tee, “We could sell your house!”

Tee stared at him blank-faced. She blinked once. “What?”

“We could sell your house! It’s the only thing of value that we have!”

“What ‘we’ are you talking about? It’s my house!” Tee shouted. She pulled herself under control long enough to offer condolences to the Yinnicks yet again and then strode off. After a moment the others followed. Dominic paused for a moment, “Someone should call the Watch. There may be more goblins in the basement.”

HEAVY HEARTS

With heavy hearts the group returned to the Ghostly Minstrel. Dirtied and bloodied, the group headed for the stairs, hoping to get cleaned up and find some much-needed rest.

As they reached the second floor, however, the group heard a strange and mournful song echoing through the halls. Rounding the corner they saw a spectral figure playing on a lute turning around the corner. Following it they came around the corner themselves just in time to see it walk through a wall.

Ranthir knocked on the door near where the ghostly figure had disappeared, but there was no answer. He frowned in thought, “Well, my curiousity has been piqued.”

Someone suggested that they might go downstairs and mention this to the owner. At the bottom of the stairs they saw that Tellith was still on duty at the front desk, approached here, and explained what had happened.

Tellith smiled. “Ah, you’ve seen the Minstrel have you? You’re fortunate ones. Most hear nothing more than his song, and they are lucky at that.”

Agnarr growled. “Of course. The whole place is called the Ghostly Minstrel!” He threw his hands up and headed up the stairs to bed.

Ranthir asked if they might be given access to the room the ghost had disappeared into. “Of course,” Tellith said. “As long as its not occupied. Which room was it?” When he described the location of the room, however, she shook her head. “Oh, I’m sorry. That’s Cardalian’s room. I can’t let you in there.”

“Do you know if Cardalian is in the inn tonight?”

Tellith shook her head. “I don’t think so. She left earlier this evening and I haven’t seen her come back.”

The group concluded that there wasn’t really anything else they could do about their sighting of the eponymous Ghostly Minstrel, so they broke up for the evening: Dominic and Ranthir followed Agnarr upstairs, but Tee and Elestra decided it was still too early in the evening for them. Tee decided to hit some of the legitimate gambling houses she had found out about and spent her time idly wagering various sums.

Elestra, on the other hand, stayed at the Ghostly Minstrel and hung out in the common room. Spotting Steron Vsool – the paladin she had spoken with a few nights earlier – sitting by himself, she wandered over and asked if she might join him. They chatted amiably for a few moments before Elestra steered the conversation towards recent events… particularly the riot.

Elestra dropped the suggestion that there might have been a bit more to the riot than just random circumstance and bad luck, and Steron picked it up and ran with it. “That’s exactly why they arrested Helmut Itlstein, or so I’ve heard,” he said. “And I’ve heard that there have been more arrests since last night.”

“Really?” Elestra said. “Who have they been arresting?”

“I don’t know. But if I had to place a wager, I’d say the Commissar is rounding up other Republican leaders. Probably because Helmut named names.”

“But why would the Republicans start a riot at their own event?” Elestra wondered out loud.

“Maybe they didn’t,” Steron said. “The Commissar may just be using that as an excuse to round them up. They’ve been a thorn in his political side for awhile now.”

At that moment, a large ogre with bluish skin and ioun stones swirling about his head, tapped Steron on the shoulder. “Steron, may I speak with you?”

“Of course, Urlenius,” Steron said. “If you’ll excuse me, Elestra?”

Steron left. Elestra got up as a well and was about to head up to bed when she spotted Iltumar Shon coming into the common room. She waved to him and he hurried over.

Iltumar had finally figured out the riddle she had apparently given him, “Is it a sawhorse, mistress Elestra?” She agreed that it must be and complimented him on his cleverness.

Iltumar gushed and was clearly trying to impress Elestra. Elestra, for her part, was patient and friendly. Eventually, though, she made her excuses and headed up to bed.

DORAEDIAN’S SUMMONS

Tee was awakened before the crack of dawn by a knocking on her door. Cracking it slightly she found a messenger waiting for her: “Mistress Tee? A letter for you.”

Looking at the letter she saw her name written in Doraedian’s familiar handwriting. Quickly ripping it open she found a very terse note:

Tee—

I have read your most recent letter. It is of the utmost importance that you come to see me with all due haste! It is urgent!

Doraedian

Tee immediately grabbed her things and headed up the hill to Iridithil’s Home. A false sunrise was cresting the ocean horizon and casting purple shadows across the face of the Spire. Iridithil’s Home itself was still in the cool, pre-dawn air – it seemed that almost no one was stirring, yet. Tee found Doraedian waiting for her in his office with the door open.

It turned out that, as Tee had suspected, Doraedian considered the reference Ranthir had found to a “city of dreams” to be incredibly important. He explained to Tee that the City of Dreams was spoken of in the Book of Secrets: It was an ancient elven city – a center of learning in which the legendary Elders of Dreaming would gather. But it was also said to have been lost in a great cataclysm. Indeed, the true lore of the City had been lost to them and only a handful of fragmentary references were left.

“I owe you an apology, Tee. You were right and I was wrong. The path that you are on seems inextricably bound to knowledge you do not have. It is time for you to learn the secret lore of the Dreaming. First I must consult with the other elders, but within a few days I will send you word of when your training is to begin.”

Tee was overjoyed, though she kept it as contained as she might. “Will I still be able to journey with my companions?”

“Yes,” Doraedian said. “Indeed, it is imperative that you do so. Your training will be carried out when it is possible for you to find time for it. But you must discover the purpose of the path that you walk.”

QUESTIONS AND A FRESH RESOLVE

(08/20/790)

The next morning the group met for breakfast, with Tee arriving first in the common room. It was a quiet and reserved meal, with very little being discussed.

Elestra eventually broke the ice by discussing what Steron had told her the night before. Agnarr thought, if all that was true, Phon might have been arrested: If Helmut wanted her out of the way and was naming names, he could have easily named her as well.

But after that momentary burst of information, the conversation remained sullen and uncertain. The death of Jasin was still heavily felt. Eventually someone broached the issue directly, and suggested that they should go back to that house, see what the Watch had done, and take whatever steps were necessary to permanently end the goblin threat there.

As if summoned by the mere mention of their name, two members of the Watch came through the front door of the Ghostly Minstrel. They looked around, spotted the group, and headed over.

“Are you Mistress Tee, Mistress Elestra, Master Agnarr, Master Ranthir, and Master Dominic? Please come with us. We have a few questions for you at the watchhouse.”

After confirming that they were not, in fact, under arrest, the group crossed Delver’s Square with them. It turned out that the Watch had a few questions regarding the “incident” at Greyson House the night before, but it seemed to be little more than a cursory follow-up. It quickly became apparent that, while they may have checked the house, they hadn’t found the secret passage in the cellar. They had posted a guard of some sort… but how long would they stay on duty there?

The group asked if they might be given permission to go back into the house and explore the secret passage they had discovered. The watchman shrugged. But when he learned they were members of the Delver’s Guild he agreed to ask his captain. He left, and when he returned he confirmed that they would be given unfettered access to the house.

They left the watchhouse and headed toward the North Market, their hearts perhaps a little lighter with their fresh-found purpose…

NEXT JOURNAL ENTRY

Steven Brust’s Vlad Taltos novels are absolutely delightful and frequently brilliant fantasy series which starts as a simply marvelous urban fantasy and then remarkably transforms itself into something completely different and utterly thrilling. I’ve previously reviewed the first eight volumes in the series:

• Jhereg
• Yendi
• Teckla
• Taltos
• Phoenix
• Athyra
• Orca
• Dragon

This is the first installment of our kitchen sinking series, where I’ll be using Brust’s stories as an inspiration for brainstorming for a variety of unique magic items.

RUBYGAZER: A rubygazer takes the form of a tube that can fit snugly into one hand. Each end of the tube is fitted with a lens crafted from ruby crystal. If one places the tube against a wall no more than 10 feet in width, they can look through the tube as if their eye were placed upon the opposite side of the wall. The properties of the rubygazer distort both depth perception and, for reasons of complicated arcane geometry, a sense of proper scale. This imposes a -5 penalty to Perception checks while using the rubygazer and prevents the use of magically or supernaturally enhanced senses, although the view is still generally clear enough to teleport safely.

Moderate divination; CL 5^th; Craft Wondrous Item, clairvoyance; Price 7,500 gp

GAZELENS: A gazelens can be fitted to a pair of spectacles or designed to be set directly into the user’s eye. In either case, the gazelens can be used in concert with a rubygazer that is within 600 feet, allowing the wearer of the gazelens to look through the rubygazer as if it were in their possession. A gazelens is essentially useless (although very pretty) without a gazer to use it with.

Moderate divination; CL 5^th; Craft Wondrous Item, clairvoyance; Price 7,500 gp

FLASHSTONES: A flashstone can be thrown as a ranged attack with a range increment of 20 feet. (Since you don’t need to hit a specific target, you can simply aim at a particular 5-foot square.) When the flashstone strikes a hard surface (or is struck hard) it triggers the spell effect stored within it.

Creation: Flashstones are created by alchemically infusing them with brewed potions. As such they require the Brew Potion feat. Unlike a potion, there is no limit to the level of spell which can be infused into a flashstone, but only spells which affect an area can be usefully triggered. Flashstones have a base price of the spell level x caster level x 50 gp.

CANTRIP STICKS: The name “cantrip stick” is something of a misnomer because these items are not limited to containing merely cantrips. A cantrip stick is essentially a cheap, single-use wand (except that they use a command word activation and can be used even by non-spellcasters). Their cheap, easy construction makes cantrip sticks somewhat unreliable, however, and there is a 1 in 20 chance when they’re used that they will simply fail to trigger. (If this happens, there is an additional 1 in 20 chance that the cantrip stick will suffer a backlash: The cantrip stick explodes causing 1d6 points of damage per spell level to the character holding it (Reflex save, DC 15 + spell level, for half damage) and expending the stick’s charge to no effect.)

Cantrip sticks are often used by armies. In the military, it is customary to snap a cantrip stick in half once it has been expelled (because otherwise someone else might assume that there was still a charge in it).

Creation: A cantrip stick requires the Craft Wand feat and can contain any spell of 4^th level or lower. Cantrip sticks have a base price of the spell level x caster level x 25 gp.

LEYRIPPER: These spiral, fluted, hollow tubes – often carved from ebony – are designed to latch onto the ley signatures in magical items and disrupt them (literally ripping them out of the item). As an attack action, leyrippers can be targeted at any potion, wand, staff, or other item which has charges within 120 feet. On a successful ranged touch attack, the targeted item (or its wielder) must succeed on a Will save (DC 18) or lose 1d6 charges. In addition, these charges are unstable and cause a micro-explosion inflicting 1d6 points of damage per charge lost to the item’s wielder. An item cannot lose more charges than it currently has. Potions are considered to have a single charge.

Strong abjuration; CL 12^th; Craft Wondrous Item, greater dispel magic; Price 72,000 gp

LIGHTROPE: A lightrope is a six-inch length of cord which, when twirled slowly in the hand, illuminates. The amount of illumination provided by the lightrope can be very carefully controlled by the speed of the twirling. During combat, the amount of effort required to twirl the lightrope at varying speeds is represented by the type of action used to twirl it (see table.

As a full action, the lightrope can create an intense burst of light which will slowly fade over the course of five rounds (as shown on the table).

Faint Evocation [light]; CL 6^th; Craft Wondrous Item, daylight; Price 8,000 gp

LIGHTROPE, BLACKLIGHT: A blacklight lightrope operates in a fashion similar to a lightrope (requiring a free action to twirl each round), but instead of casting illumination it creates an emanation of blacklight in a 20 ft. radius. The area is filled with total darkness which is impenetrable to normal vision and darkvision, but which the person twirling the blacklight lightrope can see through normally.

Faint Evocation [darkness]; CL 6^th, Craft Wondrous Item, blacklight; Price 36,000 gp

WEB ROPE: Crafted from the thick strands of giant spider web and alchemically stabilized for durability and long-lasting use, web rope is tacky to the touch and possesses an uncanny grip. It grants a +4 circumstance bonus to Use Rope checks and a +2 circumstance bonus to Climb checks. It can also be used as a grappling hook (with the sticky end of the rope attaching itself securely to exposed surfaces). This requires greater skill (DC 15, +2 feet per 10 feet of distance thrown), but has the benefit of weighing less and creating less noise in its use.

Cost: 50 gp (50 ft.); Weight: 2 lbs. (50 ft.)

FORM-FITTING BOOTS: Footwear modified to become form-fitting magically adjusts its size and fit to the wearer’s foot. (This is a physical process which can be felt by the wearer, often with the first boot adjusting itself even as they don the second.) This is mostly a matter of comfort and styling, but such footwear does make things a little easier on the feet, reducing the damage from forced marches by 1 point (minimum 1).

Cost: This minor effect can be placed on any footwear for 25 gp.

TELEPORTATION KEYSTONES: A teleportation keystone allows its carrier to teleport into the area affected by a teleport block spell. (If multiple characters are teleporting at the same time, only one of them needs to carry a teleportation keystone in order for the entire group to successfully penetrate the block.)

Each keystone is linked to a specific casting of the teleport block spell and has no effect on other teleport block spells. Before the teleport block spell is cast, the keystone (or keystones) that are going to be associated with it must be prepared. This requires ten minutes of work per keystone and a Spellcraft check (DC 15, preparer can Take 10). When the teleport block spell is cast, the caster can make a Spellcraft check (DC 10 + 2 per additional keystone) to associate a teleportation keystone to the teleport block. If the check fails, the teleportation keystone doesn’t function.

A single teleportation keystone can be associated with multiple teleport block spells. It only needs to be prepared once, but a separate Spellcraft check must be during each casting of teleport block.

If a teleport block is made permanent, the teleportation keystones associated with it can be simultaneously made permanent by expending an additional 50 XP per keystone.

The physical form of a keystone can be almost anything (although small, smooth, oval stones marked with runes are common).

TELEPORT BLOCK
Abjuration
Level: Sorcerer/Wizard 5
Components: V, S, M
Casting Time: 1 full round
Range: 0 ft.
Area: One 10-ft. cube/level
Duration: 1 hour/level (D)
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: No

You create an area in which no teleportation spell will work, either coming in or going out.

Material Component: 10 gp worth of gold dust.

This material is covered under the Open Game License.

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