Ringing False
Hello, and welcome to the latest and greatest installment of Magic Market, your one-stop-shopping destination for all things magic item. In honor of our upcoming release of The Ebon Vault: Power of the Ring, coming out this Monday, June 18th, packed to the brim with all kinds of new and exciting magic rings, I thought I’d give you a taste of what’s to come. The following magic rings aren’t from The Ebon Vault: Power of the Ring, though. “Why not,” you ask? The answer is simple: because they’re cursed! (For those of you who responded with “Well, why are they cursed, then?” – good for you. The answer is that after filling up The Ebon Vault: Power of the Ring with as many cool and exciting rings as we could, I more or less ran out of ideas for cool rings for the time being…except for cursed rings. Which brings us back to today’s items).
Inescapable Ring
These rings are always quite gaudy, and incredibly ostentatious, with many precious gems set into them. Most of the time, they are fashioned so that the band of the ring appears to be an open mouth, and that the ring is swallowing the wearer’s finger. The ring does not seem to do anything when worn, and, in fact, does not radiate a magic aura. However, once the wearer tries to remove it, he’ll find that he is completely unable to, and the harder he tries, the more the ring bites into his finger.
There are two ways to remove an inescapable ring. The first is to disable the ring, either with a mage’s disjunction spell or by bringing it into an anti-magic zone, etc. A remove curse spell is not powerful enough to allow the ring to be removed. The other way is to sever the finger on which it is worn. This deals 1d4 points of damage and 1 point of bleed damage, and may have an impact on the wearer’s ability to use that hand unless the finger is restored (such as with the spell regenerate).
Though an inescapable ring cannot be removed, it imposes no other penalty on the wearer, except for denying him one of his magic ring slots. In theory, if the wearer could find someone who were capable of enchanting a ring that was currently being worn, the wearer could overcome this difficulty by having the inescapable ring enchanted with whatever magical effects he would want to have.
Ring of Certain Location
These rings are often made of gold, and always bear a compass rose for decoration, usually studded with myriad gems. A ring of certain location always comes in pairs: a master ring, and a signal ring. As long as the signal ring is worn, the wearer is always capable of finding north by spending a full-round action to concentrate. Any attempts to discern the magical properties of the ring, short of a legend lore spell or more powerful magic, reveal only this property.
In addition to this ability, though, the signal ring also serves to constantly alert the wearer of the master ring to the signal ring’s exact location. The wearer of the master ring treats the location of the signal ring as familiar for the purposes of spells like teleport, and imposes the maximum possible penalty on the wearer of the signal ring for the purposes of spells like scrying.
Ring of Energy Alignment
These rings vary widely in appearance, though there is usually some indication (such as a fire motif, or an engraved lightning bolt) as to the energy types it is associated with. A ring of energy alignment functions as a lesser ring of energy resistance, except that it also makes its wearer vulnerable to one of the other four energy types (acid, cold, electricity, fire). Both the type of energy the ring is resistant to and the type that it is vulnerable to are determined when the ring is created and cannot later be changed, and they cannot be the same energy type.
Ring of Golden Form
These rings are always plain, unadorned bands of gold. As soon as the ring is donned, its wearer’s skin takes on a faintly golden hue, which resembles little more than a healthy tan. He also gains damage reduction 2/adamantine.
Each day the ring is worn, however, the wearer must succeed on a Fortitude save (DC 22) or take 1d2 points of Dexterity damage, as his skin slowly hardens and turns more and more to gold. This ability score damage cannot be healed so long as the ring of golden form is worn, though it vanishes immediately should the ring be removed (see below). For every 2 points of Dexterity damage inflicted by the ring, the damage reduction it grants increases by 1. If the wearer is reduced to 0 Dexterity in this way, he is permanently petrified, as the spell flesh to stone, except that he is turned to gold, instead.
Once donned, a ring of golden form can be removed only by casting remove curse, or similarly powerful magic on it, or by severing the finger it is worn upon. This deals 1d4 points of damage and 1 point of bleed damage, and may have an impact on the wearer’s ability to use that hand unless the finger is restored (such as with the spell regenerate).
Ring of Misty Form
These rings tend to be made of ivory, and adorned with pearls. They typically bear engravings that resemble clouds of blowing wind. As soon as a ring of misty form is donned, its wearer is affected as though by the spell gaseous form, except that all of his gear remains solid, falling to the ground and out of his possession. This includes the ring of misty form. Further, this transformation is permanent, unless the caster is affected by remove curse, or equally powerful magic.