Axe of the Wood-friend, A System-Agnostic Magic Item

Axe of the Wood-friend

Description:  A sturdy but surprisingly light woodsman's axe, suitable for one or two-handed use.  The haft seems to be made of living wood complete with oak-like bark but somehow still provides a sure grip.  The axe-head bears elven runes that roughly translate to "Friend of the Wood" and which, in the absence of other light, radiate a pale silver light about equivalent to a torch.  Even the most basic of magical senses will detect a very strong aura of enhancement magic. 

Powers:  The Axe of the Wood-friend is a powerfully enchanted blade (+5 to attack and damage in D&D equivalencies, or on par with the most potent bonuses your campaign allows) that can cleave metal, stone, and living flesh with unnatural ease.  However, it deals only half damage (without magical bonuses) against foes dressed in leather or hide armor.  The weapon always does minimum damage (again without magical bonuses) to elves, living plants, and any kind of plant creature (eg dryads, ents).  Dead (or undead) plant matter takes damage normally, including the magical damage bonus, as do creatures with only natural armor from their hide, shell, or scales.  

Possible Origins:  These axes are creations of the elves, gifted only to those they trust - but perhaps not completely.  The first examples were given to Dwarven allies in days of yore, but many champions of other races who've done service to elven rulers and communities have been similarly rewarded.  To date no others have recreated the enchantment, and there's some doubt that a non-elf would wish to do so.

Complications:  Whenever a creature is slain by one of these potent axes, the site of its death becomes unnaturally fertile forever after to all forms of plant life.  The exact area affected varies with the size and power of the victim, ranging from about a 30' radius for a simple human man at arms up to several square miles for something like an adult dragon.  

Vegetation appropriate to the terrain and climate will appear in the area within a few days, growing with unnatural speed and becoming thicker over time.  Even unsuitable locales like caverns or bare stone will be overgrown with moss and lichen in short order.  Deserts will sprout cacti and wiry scrub, farmland will struggle with weeds and saplings even as their crop yields boom, and open plains will rapidly transform into lush groves of trees.  Actual wooded areas become denser, grander, and increasingly "elven" in nature, with exotic plants and sylvan creatures appearing seemingly from nowhere.

All this rampant growth can be controlled or even eradicated through vigorous effort, but outbreaks of swiftly-growing vegetation will recur regularly until suitable ritual countermagics are performed - something that may be violently opposed by any new inhabitants of the area who were drawn by the magics involved.

For reasons that remain unclear, none of these effects occur if the killing was performed by an elf or half-elf wielding the axe, nor do such wielders enjoy any benefits when using it as a weapon.  The drawbacks (half damage against certain targets) remain in effect.

Design Commentary:  These things are trapped rewards of a peculiarly elven sort.  They can hand these axes out to friends without fear of the weapons being turned against them, and every victory won with an Axe of the Wood-friend helps adds a little more potential territory to the elven domains.  Also, scrubbing moss off their stonework keeps the Dwarves busy doing things besides cutting down trees and annoying elvenkind.

Tar-blood Draft, A System-Agnostic Magic Item

Tar-blood Draught

Description:  A small glass bottle with a snug-fitting stopper carved out of bone.  Within is a thick black liquid that smells faintly like fresh blood.  Radiates a faint aura of transformative magic to magical senses, and any alchemist will easily identify its expected effects.  

Powers:  When drunk, the user's blood is magically transformed into a black fluid much like the potion itself for the next 1d6 x 1d6 minutes.  During this time they take half damage (round down) from any cutting, slashing, or piercing attacks and are completely immune to ongoing damage from blood loss or effects relying on blood drain, although they suffer normally from injected poisons and the like.  They don't bleed at all, not even a drop, with any wounds sealing over with a smooth, glossy black membrane that forms into more normal scar tissue when the potion effects end.    

Possible Origins:  Tar-blood draughts are an alchemical creation favored by mercenaries, swordsmen, and others who care more for survival than beauty.  Several formulas for the stuff have been independently discovered, with the most common Dwarven version needing orc blood as a component and the most common orc recipe calling for Dwarf blood.  Both can use dragon blood as a substitute (usually at extra expense) and some alchemists claim blood from a bull or similar large, powerful mammal will also do fine.  Those alchemists are invariably neither Dwarves nor orc-blooded, both of whom insist their own concoctions are superior in quality.

Complications:  While the potion is in effect, all healing effects are halved (round down) and any ongoing regeneration is cancelled completely.  

Wounds taken during use will always form scars, and if the user suffers enough damage to drop unconscious they suffer a permanent 5% penalty to all tests for social interactions where their appearance is a factor.  This penalty stacks (to a maximum of -15%) if it occurs multiple times over one's career.  The penalty might be negated by suitable clothing to hide your scars, or even inverted if dealing with a situation where those scars might impress or intimidate those you're interacting with.

Design Commentary:  This stuff's a big help if you're facing enemies with the right types of weapons and worse than useless otherwise. Note that most animal attacks will have their damage halved, but constriction and bludgeoning bypasses the potion's effects.  No creature that's gotten even a small taste of the tarry goop running in a  user's veins wants another sample, which may discourage repeated bite attacks.  Mosquitos, leeches and similar blood-sucking vermin will give a wide berth to anyone who's drunken one of these potions - at least while the effects last.

A Gentle Ending, A System-Agnostic Spell

 A Gentle Ending

Description:  A complex magical formula which requires great skill to master and impress in memory, but easily cast with just a subtle gesture after doing so.  The magic is quite specialized and not widely known.  The few groups that do employ it are often quite proprietary about ownership, in part because they know they're likely to be the first to be suspected when the spell is used.

Effects:  This spell targets a single living creature within arm's reach (5 feet if using a grid map).  Casting is nearly instantaneous, silent, and may easily be overlooked by observers, and does not make the caster vulnerable to melee attacks as many other spells do.  If the target fails to resist the spell at a -25% penalty, a complex magical resonance begins to build within their body which will strike them dead in 1d6 x 1d6 minutes.  

There are no obvious signs of the target's impending doom before then, and they are unlikely to realize the danger without magical assistance.  When it comes death is sudden, painless and the cause cannot be determined by mundane means.  Even magical methods require a contested check to determine that there was magic involved, and even then the exact spell involved is not apparent unless one is familiar with it beforehand.  

The resonance can be detected by appropriate magic or mystical senses, and may be dispelled with suitable counter-magic at any point before death occurs.  

Possible Origins:  A Gentle Ending is widely held to be the invention of some order of assassin-mages, but exactly which of the many shadowy organizations of arcane death-dealers that plague the world is the subject of much debate.  Suspects include the Cult of Violet Shadows, the Unspeaking Servants of the Qing of Quun, an nameless sect of Farthest Kuth that worships an antediluvian serpent-god, the Left Hand of the Prince of Shadows, the Right Hand of the Prince of Shadows, the Hidden Hand of the Prince of Shadows, Wononivan's Spellslayers, and at least six members of the Seventh Circle of the Guild of Quiet Dying.  And those are only the ones known to have used the spell, which by its very nature is easily mistaken for natural deaths, acts of the gods, or sudden psychic assault.

Complications:  Using this spell openly is a good way to earn a reputation as a sinister magical assassin, which may result in numerous unexplained deaths being attributed to you for better or worse.  Perhaps more dangerously, the types of people who regularly use A Gentle Ending are, in fact, sinister magical assassins, many of whom regard the spell as their private property and don't appreciate amateur outsiders using it.

There are also a surprising number of people who object to the use of magic specifically designed to secretly murder people.  Many of them own torches and pitchforks and regard mob justice as a reasonable response to inadequacies in the local legal system.

Design Commentary:  If you're playing a game that uses D&D-style magic, A Gentle Ending should be about 6th level, same as the pragmatically-named Death Spell.  A regular Death Spell is longer-ranged, enormously better at killing multiple targets, works instantly, and generally much better in a fight.  This spell is a specialized assassin's tool.  Subtle, effective even against very powerful single targets, and with some time to make a quiet exit and establish an alibi baked into it.  It's not much help when dealing with enemies trying to kill you right this very moment, though.