Items With Personality
Hello everyone, and welcome to Magic Market, the article which aims to give you something really special you won’t find on just any magic item shop’s shelves. This week, we’re going to be departing from the norm just a little bit, and instead of providing you with all-new items, I’m going to let loose on you a handful of cool intelligent items I created just for this special occasion. Just so you don’t get all bored and disappointed, I’ve given each of these items a unique power in addition to personality descriptions. So without wasting any more time, let me get to the matter at hand.
Benin the Lecherous Hat
![Benin, the Lecherous Hat]](Images/20120503/Benin the Lecherous Hat.jpg)
Dominate Person: Once per day, Benin can force any creature whose attitude toward the wearer is helpful or higher to become the wearer’s willing slave, as though affected by the spell dominate person, except that the effect lasts for one hour. A DC 19 Will save negates the effect.
Origins: Benin, the Lecherous Hat is an unusually vibrant intelligent hat of disguise. In an age now long past, in a minor border kingdom in a forgotten part of the world, there lived a great and righteous king, wed to a queen whose beauty was like the sun at the height of summer. The king and his queen were both beloved, by the simple peasant folk and by the civilized nobility alike. Secretly, however, the couple harbored a terrible secret: the queen was unloved by her husband and longed for true companionship. Not wanting to hurt the king, she sought her romance with a blacksmith’s son while in disguise. All was going well, until the scheme was discovered by the king’s wicked and ambitious sister.
Herself a great witch, the king’s sister created this hat from an ordinary hat of disguise and the soul of a demon of lust. Under the ruse of championing true love, she then presented the wondrous hat to her sister-in-law as a gift to aid her in her excursions. After she donned the hat, the demon soul went to work, whispering poisonous thoughts to the queen, subtly subverting her will and leading her to ever greater disgrace. Realizing what was happening to her, the queen tried to throw the hat away, but the item overwhelmed her and completely subverted her will. While under Benin’s horrible influence, the queen was forced to give herself to every man in the village. Of course, word got around to the king in short order and he put a stop to the affair. Benin, still in control of the queen, mocked the king when he demanded an explanation, and so his wife was sentenced to die by fire. Suddenly fearful for his existence, Benin told the king of his sister’s role in this betrayal. Seeing the true circumstances, the king ordered his treacherous sister and her foul hat buried alive in a pit of serpents, and ordered his wife exiled for her infidelity.
Years later an ogress discovered the pit and the remains of the magic hat, which she used to satiate her own appetites. Since then, the hat has passed hands many times, leaving a wake of debauchery behind it.
Personality: Benin is a spirit of lust and is deeply perverse. He often uses his powers to “disguise” his wearer as more comely versions of themselves dressed in highly revealing and erotic clothing. His primary motivations are to humiliate his wearer and corrupt him or her into a debased, lust-crazed beast, barely recognizable as human. Completely evil, Beninoften finds himself actively working against his wearer to serve his own perversions.
Captain Georg, the Unlucky Navigator
Experienced Navigator: While you wear Captain Georg, the Unlucky Navigator, you are prevented from becoming lost.
Origins: Captain Georg, the Unlucky Navigator is an intelligent ring of swimming. Georg was once a great sea captain, and in the past he charted much of the world’s oceans and seas. One day, while exploring a particularly exotic and foreboding sea, a mighty storm struck his trireme and cast the captain into the sea. Not knowing how to swim, Georg would surely have drowned if not for the intervention of a mermaid who offered to save his life if he would spend all his remaining time with her. Desperate and running out of air, Georg agreed to spend the rest of his life with the beautiful mermaid. Smiling sweetly, she breathed air into Georg’s lungs, granting him the ability to breathe water as she did so.
Upon seeing the creature up close, Georg became horrified to discover that she was actually an ugly sea hag. Still bound by his word, Georg stayed with the hideous creature and over time grew to love her. For a while they lived happily, until one day Georg’s son, Heath, learned of his father’s fate and tracked down the sea hag. Furious that the hag had kept Georg from his mother, Heath slew the witch, thinking to carry his father back to his home. When they surfaced the water, however, it was discovered that Georg had lost the ability to breathe air and he began to suffocate, cursing his son for bringing him to this fate. Heath became angry, and shouted that he merely wished to carry Georg back to his home where he belonged. Heath’s shouting was overheard by a sea dwarf sorcerer, who offered to grant Heath’s wish in exchange for a pouch of gold. Unable to watch his father suffocate, Heath eagerly agreed to the dwarf’s price, begging the dwarf to allow him to safely carry his father home, over land, sea, or air, and to always keep him safe like a child in his hand. After taking the coin pouch, the dwarf spoke words of magic and transformed Georg into a ring of living gold. Unaware that his father would retain his senses and memories in this state, Heath became panicked, pleading with the dwarf to turn his father back. The dwarf insisted that the boy need only provide him with another bag of gold and he would make it so. Unfortunately, Heath had given all his gold to the dwarf the first time, and he had no more to give. When the dwarf explained that if that were the case, he would not return his father, Heath became struck with such terrible grief that he drowned himself. Confused by the way of humans, the dwarf left Georg in the sand and returned to his home with his bag of gold.
Personality: Georg is blustery in the manner of sea captains and speaks with the authority of one who has shouted orders across many a deck in his lifetime. However, Georg’s past is colored heavily with tragedy, and he tries not to get too close to any individual lest he or she should meet as tragic an end as the sea hag he loved or his own son, both of whom died before his eyes. Georg will also not suffer any individual to drown and will go to the greatest of lengths to stress marine safety.
Gurdiur
Invulnerability: Once per day, Gurdiurcan make its wielder invulnerable for 1d6 rounds, granting him DR 20/- and spell resistance equal to 10 + twice the wielder’s Hit Dice. At the end of this duration, Gurdiurteleports to a random location on the same plane, as though with the spell greater teleport.
Origins: Gurdiuris an intelligent +5 heavy steel shield. Gurdiurbegan life as a sword commissioned for a cruel and warlike baron. When the iron was being forged, a faerie queen who opposed the baron’s unabashed wickedness hid in the forge and whispered to the iron as it was formed. She taught it of good and evil and of all the things worth protecting, and instructing that it should only take action to do what is right. She then imparted some of her own magic into the metal. To the blacksmith’s surprise, try as he might, he could not form the molten metal into a sword. On a whim, he formed the iron into a shield instead and was rewarded with as fine a kite shield as any had ever seen. The baron was furious and he ordered his retainers to kill the blacksmith. Frightened for his life, he raised the shield to protect himself against his attackers. To his amazement the shield seemed to act on its own, turning every cut and frustrating his assailers to no end. After one day and night of constant fighting, the edges of the swords dulled to uselessness and the baron’s men were forced to give up their assault.
During this time, some of the villagers attracted the attention of a passing prince. After hearing of the happening, the prince arrived just in time to hear the baron send for more fighters, and leapt straight into action without any hesitation. He rescinded the baron’s order and chastised him and his men with a cane before seizing their lands and titles, and exiling the baron to a land across the sea. In gratitude for his life, the blacksmith gave the prince the splendid shield as a gift. Gurdiur would serve the noble prince in his quests for 11 years, keeping him safe and providing him with a valuable tool to protect the innocent.
In time, the shield passed to the prince’s son, who himself had become a great and valiant knight. In short time after receiving the shield, the prince’s son carried it to crusade against a great host of heathens. Put in charge of a great army of well-equipped knights and devout warriors, the crusader left his home for heathen lands. When he met the foes, who were a filthy lot of desperate rabble, armed with crude weaponry, he was sure of his coming triumph. In the first days of the conflict, generals from both sides met at a summit to discuss the terms of the coming war, and while many of the lesser generals found the heathen host to be a cultured and decent people, the prince’s son could not be dissuaded from his path. When later his lieutenant asked him if he felt what they were about to do was wrong, he responded that though at several times he felt an overwhelming desire to negotiate and bring this to a peaceful end, he knew this to be a temptation by the enemies of their god, and that they must remain on the path set out for them by their god. During that night, the shield left the devout crusader, but before it did so he felt a feeling of absolute invincibility, and so when the morning came he utterly destroyed the heathen host, protected only by his faith.
Personality: Gurdiur is a deeply moral individual who cannot stand to see harm come to the just or innocent, and will go far out of his way to ensure that situations resolve themselves with the least possible bloodshed. He even prevents his wielder from killing evil creatures if they have not been given the chance to surrender first. Lacking the ability to speak, over the years Gurdiurhas become a master of communicating empathically, using feelings as others might use languages to convey a wide variety of thoughts and sensations in a way which is more visceral than traditional speech.