Ardasalf the Plane to Plane Salesman
Hello everyone; I would like to welcome you to this week’s Masters and Minions. With April 1st coming up I would like to give you all an April Fool’s themed encounter for all levels.
You find before you a wooden door—no walls, just the door and its frame. The door opens out to you, all you see beyond it is swirling mist. The mist only appears on the side that opens out to the PCs and walking through the side without mist doesn’t accomplish much of anything. With detect magic the PCs can tell that the mist has a strong magical aura, and with a successful Spellcraft check, they know that the aura is conjuration (teleportation).
If the PCs brave the swirling mist and go through the door they find themselves in a vast chamber with shelves upon shelves of magic items. They also find their own magic items and any spells cast on them suppressed by an antimagic field. Moments after entering the shop they hear the sounds of approaching footsteps, and shortly thereafter they find a very jovial man wearing blue robes with green trim. His robes are adorned with many different holy symbols (around 40 or so), many of which the PCs won’t be able to identify. He seems very excited to see the PCs, explaining that he hasn’t had a customer in sometime. The man introduces himself as Ardasalf, the Grand Imperial Historian and owner of this trans-dimensional shop. If asked about the antimagic field or why they are unable to leave with an item he explains that they are just a few of his counter measures against would-be thieves. If allowed to he will talk for hours about any item’s history or even its cultural and religious significance. If violence breaks out then the PCs find themselves back where they found the door, but now the door is gone. When a PC leaves the shop willingly (i.e. not being thrown out due to a fight breaking out) there is a 50% chance that the door is gone; this chance repeats until the door is no longer there. However, the door being gone doesn’t affect the PCs ability to leave the shop. If the PCs try to take an item out of the room without having paid for it, they find themselves reentering the shop right as they leave, and they are unable to leave till they either purchase the item or put the item back.
Ardasalf’s shop has almost any item you can think of: a +1 adamantine greatsword that functions as +3 vicious adamantine greatsword when wielded by a half-orc paladin, a -2 cursed sword, a monkey’s paw (come back this Friday for more on that one) and many more. Ardasalf also has one artifact—the Codex of the Infinite Planes,though it is not for sale.
There are a few items that Ardasalf hasn’t had time to completely identify, like the ring of partial invisibility and the potion of “heroism” just to name a few; you should also make up a few of your own joke items. These joke items should usually cost half the price of the real item they are being mistaken for.
Ring of Partial Invisibility
Ardasalf doesn’t refer to this item as a ring of partial invisibility. Ardasalf says that it seems to be an ordinary ring of invisibility, though he says something seems off about it. Instead of making its wearer invisible, the ring itself and its wearer’s worn items (including their clothing) become invisible.
Cost: 10,000 gp (Ardasalf charges half the cost of a normal ring of invisibility and will refund them if they return to his shop with the ring wanting their gold back, because he is unsure of whether the ring really works)
Potion of “Heroism”
Ardasalf says that this potion appears to be a potion of heroism, except that it has a much more powerful aura than it should have. When drank the potion deals 100 points of holy damage to any evil aligned creatures within 100’ (Reflex save DC 23 for half) of the person who drank the potion (this includes the person who drank the potion if he is evil).
Cost: 750 gp