Der D&D5 Schatztruhen Thread hat mich gerade daran erinnert, dass ich eigentlich mal vorhatte, meinen pitch für Raggis Item-Contest hier zu posten... etwas spät.
Vielleicht kann damit ja jemand was anfangen. Wer hat damals denn sonst noch so mitgemacht und was waren eure pitches?
The Dishammer[Illustration: I picture a shot from below showing the dark inside of a church bell with a strange and awry whitish clapper hiding in the shadows.]
Some peasants, preferably of a village that the PCs own, know or govern, dig up this object...
Rigid and heavy, it is about three feet long and cone-shaped, resembling a club or hammer but with a twisted form and with strange cavities and growths on it. Its color is milky, somewhat like a bone, although it most certainly doesn’t look like any bone an NPC or PC would’ve ever seen. Some parts of the surface on its narrow end are rather soft to the touch, but without elasticity. A faint resonating sound is always about the Dishammer, sometimes as if echoing the surroundings, sometimes joined by other, stranger voices. There are slight vibrations throughout the object too. Driven by their rustic naiveté, they carry the item to their little village and the populace quickly decides to replace with the strange find their church's iron bell-clapper [not the testicular deformity, gee, what is it with you people], which recently had to be given away as a tithe, because the crops had failed that year.
And all the villagers soon rejoice as ye olde churchbelle is rung again - now sounding strangely like Abigail’s intro piece Swing your Hammer
http://nuclearwarnowproductions.bandcamp.com/track/swing-your-hammer.
Of course it doesn’t take long until weird things start taking place in the village and its surrounding country, which clearly have nothing at all to do with the strange new bell-clapper [really, I'm telling you, it's like your balls are being choked or something. Oh wait, it's about the item again].
Here are d8 long-term effects of the sounds produced by the Dishammer (e.g. when rung in a bell):
1 People start worshipping strange voices in the wind and are obediently cutting certain bones out of their ears as a sign of total devotion.
2 Villagers develop weird phonic ticks, where they produce unearthly resonances between words [DMs: Act those out!]. Also everyone seems to know every word the PCs exchange with any other villager, just as if they overheard the actual conversation.
3 The Dishammer becomes a sexual fetish for a crazed cult, possibly until some horny bastard tries to masturbate with it and bad things happen.
4 A portal across time and space is opened in the church, leading to a prehistoric time where giants wielding powerful magic ruled the earth.
5 An object similar to a huge kneecap is seen hovering above the village on stormy days, bringing forth a weird humming. People start vanishing.
6 Children are born with big bony structures continuing to grow out of their ears like antlers having to be cut back every other week.
7 Zealous alterations of the village’s buildings begin. Soon all the houses and barns form a huge ear-like shape with the church tower as the ear canal. This can be observed from a nearby hill. In the churches cellar, a strange fleshy tunnel opens, leading into warm depths below.
8 The pleasing and seductive sounds of the refurbished bell draw more and more people to the village and the population grows fast and extensively. Roll again on this table.
But what if the Dishammer is taken out of the church-bell by PCs looking into the oddities surrounding the village or it is them, who dig up the item in the first place? Well, let’s look at what the Dishammer actually is: Way back in darker and colder times a punishment took place. A sorcerous giant of old was ripped apart by angry followers and pieces of his body, each retaining some part of the giants mind or consciousness were strewn all across the earth. The Dishammer is one of these parts, the malleus, a hammer shaped bone out of the giant's ear, to be precise.
[Included for your convenience:
]
The consciousness retained by it has been asleep for a long time, but will slowly awaken if the bone is put into considerable motion - used as a weapon or in a bell or else. If someone is holding it in his hand and swinging it, it will take d4 swings for the mind to awaken. Dropping it also counts! Subjecting it to loud noises - screams of battle in a fight, music nearby, a crowded marketplace or inn - will immediately awaken it. Just carrying it around in a belt or backpack, the mind awakens in d4 days. During the awakening and afterwards the sounds and vibrations produced by the Dishammer become more noticeable.
Here are d8 immediate effects when swinging or dropping the Dishammer:
1 d4 creatures within 30 feet have a random articular joint resonating with the bone and bursting in a spray of blood and cartilage.
2 It unexpectedly bounces back and hits the wielder quite heavily, possibly breaking his nose. That counts as a second swing of course as far as the process of awakening is concerned.
3 A fading voice reciting verses from Lucans Pharsalia (the scene with the Thessalian witch Erichtho!) can be heard resonating from the Dishammer.
4 Remains of an ancient spell-born virus carried by the giant-sorcerer infect d4 spells of one nearby magic-user, who then becomes infectious himself.
5 Some leftover giant-cerumen comes off of it. It's massively hallucinogenic and tastes like liquorice.
6 Blood and bony splinters start dripping out of the wielders ears. Pieces of his own shattered malleus form a hideous face in the blood on the ground.
7 An enclosure inside the upper right of the Dishammer is cracked open. Inside it lies, suspended in a slimy fluid, a living embryo possibly growing into some strange parasitic animal of old, if kept alive.
8 d4 creatures within 30 feet suffer some sort of fit and start bashing themselves against nearby surfaces in perfect synchronization for d6 minutes.
Once the mind is fully awake, it starts to merge the Dishammer and its wielder, who will be in excruciating pain during the process and uses his or her flesh to form a huge Ear around itself and the hammer-bone, joining everyone who subsequently touches the growth. They all stay conscious to powerlessly watch. The finally formed ear will listen for the voices of its fellow minds and try to coerce people into bringing other body parts to it, so the giant-sorcerer can be rebuilt.
If the Dishammer is destroyed, a feat not easily accomplished, the consciousness inside possesses the mind of the nearest living creature, that subsequently starts talking in a strange, resonating language and embarks on a frantic search for other parts of the giants body.
[Oh… and if somebody knows the band, immediately put on
Vintage Addiction and give out some cheap canned beers!]
Thema: [LotFP] Items, #RaggisRejects (Gelesen 835 mal)
