Sky-Cutting Sword, A System-Agnostic Magic Item

Sky-Cutting Sword

Description:  A straight-bladed single-edged longsword with a plain crossguard and hilt wrapped in a strange pale blue leather.  When examined under clear skies strange runic writing appears down the length of the blade.  Those able to read arcane languages can read the runes' message as "Let the Skies Bleed!"  Magical senses reveal a very strong aura of elemental and weather manipulation magic.

Powers:  The Sky-Cutting Sword has a potent attack & damage bonus (+4 in D&D terms) against all winged creatures and air elementals.  

Once per day while beneath the open sky, the wielder can spend a full round using the sword to wound the sky itself.  A lightning bolt strikes up from the ground through the user (dealing damage equal to 1d8 x 10% of their maximum hit points, or a near-mortal wound if your system uses wound levels instead) and up the blade, slashing open a gash through which an impossibly dense storm bleeds through.  A torrential downpour begins immediately, and violent winds and thunderstorms rage overhead for 1d6 hours.  The area affected starts at one mile in diameter and doubles each hour thereafter.

Rainfall can exceed 1" per hour, which is likely to cause severe flooding.  Wind speeds can reach or exceed 60 miles per hour.  Depending on the season and natural climate, rain may be accompanied by hail, freezing rain, or snow.  There is a 10% chance of a tornado forming for 1d6 x 10 minutes at some point.  There is also a 10% chance the storm will leave behind whatever bizarre Forteana the GM prefers.    

Possible Origins:  The magic involved in making one of these swords dates back to the Primordial Age when the elements themselves were at war.  Only the greatest artificer would dare to even attempt to make a Sky-Cutting Sword in the current day, and the rituals used are both lengthy (taking at least a year and  a day to complete) and likely to attract supernatural attention from various elemental entities.

Complications:  The most obvious problem is the aftermath of unleashing an uncontrolled and massively disruptive storm that may cause severe damage to the surrounding area.  Using this power in a settlement is likely to be grounds for execution, and that's if you survive the lynch mobs if you've been identified as the cause of the event.

In addition, simply carrying this blade will guarantee extreme hostility from elemental creatures of air, and from most winged creatures who recognize it for what it is.  Creatures associated with other elements my seek to obtain the blade for their own use, or plot to involve the bearer in their own schemes against elemental rivals.  

Using the "wound the sky" power almost guarantees that someone (or something) will take notice and begin seeking the cause.

Design Commentary:  Interestingly, non-elemental creatures that fly without wings aren't affected by the weapon's attack bonuses at all, although that doesn't guarantee they won't take offense at the bearer for other reasons.

Edifying Lamp, A System-Agnostic Magic Item

Edifying Lamp

Description:  A small lamp made of delicate brass filigree with lenticular panels of some strange iridescent resin.  It emits a faint odor of lamp oil despite lacking any obvious fuel reservoir.  An obvious command word (often simply "light") is worked into the pattern of the filigree.  Basic magical senses reveal a mild aura of divination magic, while more advanced techniques reveal the powers below in some detail.

Powers:  An Edifying Lamp sheds a golden light on command of any creature touching it.  It starts as just a dim spark, then a feeble candle's glow, and brightens to reach full brilliance in about a minute.  This magical light lasts indefinitely but moving the lamp in any way immediately extinguishes it.  The lamp sheds light but no heat and cannot start a fire.

Any form of mundane written information illuminated by the item will be intelligible to all viewers, although magical writings are not translated at all.  Extremely complex or alien writings may be difficult to fully grasp, and truly incomprehensible concepts will be assigned a consistent nonsense word (such as "dexitroboping") for all readers, because those Arisians really know their stuff.   Non-magical cyphers will still require time, effort, and an appropriate skill or stat check to work through, although the lantern's light will allow you to roll twice and take the better result.

Possible Origins:  These items are crafted by artificer-sages for their own uses, although they can sometimes be tempted to exchange one for rare books or other items of interest to their current studies.  Ancient lamps also turn up in monstrous treasure hoards or the ruins of lost kingdoms, and so find their way into the hands of adventurers.

Complications:  While lit (even while still brightening) creatures within its light can only speak in a whisper.  Attempts to cast magic requiring vocalization will fail 25% of the time, and bardic songs and similar "sonic" attacks or effects automatically fail.  Sounds not directly produced by a creature's voicebox are unaffected, so (for example) one can still play a musical instrument or clap one's hands normally.

Unlike many magical items, Edifying Lamps are not especially durable, and even minor damage to the lenses or filigree will ruin its magic forever.

Design Commentary:  A magical light source that translates books, can't start fires, and makes everyone in the vicinity keep their voices down.  In a really high fantasy setting larger libraries might even be entirely lit by these things.  Adventurers will doubtless find more practical uses for them, such as lighting underwater caverns, fighting monsters with sonic attacks, or nearly silencing calls for help.

Seven Days At Sea: Old Salt Candles, A System-Agnostic Magic Item

Old Salt Candles

Description:  Black candles made of a sticky tar-like substance, usually found in a container filled with seawater.  They are readily identifiable by alchemical means but radiate no magic unless lit, at which point they "burn" with a cool and smokeless flame that gives off a harsh, painfully bright white light and a strong aura of elemental and enchantment magic.

Powers:  These items cannot be lit unless they are currently damp with seawater.  Their cold white "flame" cannot start conventional fires (although it can light other Old Salt Candles) and cannot be quenched by any liquid or blown out by winds, no matter how strong.  They do not use oxygen like mundane flames and burn without smoke or dripping tallow, slowly diminishing in size over about the same burn time as a conventional wax candle.  They shed light over five times the normal area for a mundane flame, and can be seen from five times the normal distance.

An Old Salt Candle can only be extinguished by spending a full round snuffing out the "flame" with sand, soil, or simply a tight grip covering the wick - the "flame" being cool and harmless to the touch.  Regular fire will not melt this strange tallow, and they have neutral buoyancy in seawater.  They float in fresh water, which will slowly dissolve them over the course of several days.  

Possible Origins:  The rituals involved in crafting Old Salt Candles are modest hedge magic, but they do require unusual (albeit fairly common) ingredients.  Their wicks must be made of the braided hair of a sailing man, and their tallow must include the ground nail clippings, bones and/or teeth from one who's been to sea in the last fortnight.  Using rendered fat from the corpse of a mariner makes for even larger, brighter candles suitable for lighthouse lamps, although this resource is somewhat harder to come by. 

Complications:  These are a utility item found on many ships as a safety measure for foul weather, but their light sometimes attracts unfriendly denizens of the depths as well as opportunistic sea-reavers.  Because of this and their cost (about fifty times that of normal candles) they are generally burned only in emergencies where a standard flame cannot be kept alight.

Design Commentary:  Handy items for sailing men and not hard to come by near the coast, but adventurers might find them useful for exploring damp underground environs.  Carrying around a small keg of seawater to keep them moist for burning could be a bit of a nuisance, but it does offer an alternative to casting light spells.

Seven Days At Sea: Brine-Apples, A System-Agnostic Oddity

Brine-Apples

Description:  Brine-Apples are, despite their name, vine-growing vegetables created through alchemical hybridization.  They are teardrop-shaped, about 5-6" in diameter at their base when fully grown, and range from a pale blue shading to darker blue-green when ripe.  They are extremely nutritious, packed with vitamins (especially vitamin C) and high in calories, and the juicy flesh of a single apple provides adequate food and drink for a full meal for an adult human. 

Brine-apple seeds grow only when planted in soil that is submerged in at least one foot of seawater, with the seaweed-like vines sprouting to float in tangled mats near or on the surface.  The quality of the soil is unimportant (sand will do nicely) but the water must be refreshed regularly so if growing brine-apples in an enclosed space (for example, on board ship) regular addition of water (salty or fresh) will be needed.  Sunlight or its equivalent is also required, so growing these plants in the Underdark requires magical assistance.

A 30-gallon barrel or tub dedicated to growing brine-apples will produce enough vegetables to sustain a dozen men indefinitely.  Plucked brine-apples do not keep well, and dissolve into nothing but a papery skin within a day.  Their juice is little better, turning to undrinkable brine in about the same period.

Uses:  These plants are a quartermaster's best friend.  A nearly infinite supply of healthy food (and drinkable juice) in exchange for a few buckets of seawater a day is a godsend compared to hardtack and salted meat, and all you trade off is using hauling capacity for the hydroponics in place of the fresh water you'd need to carry otherwise.  Some captains even make a point of throwing spare brine-apples overboard to seed the seabed with the plant for future trips, although they don't seem to take well to growing in the wild except in fairly shallow waters (under 80 feet or so).  Because of this, it's not uncommon to encounter mats of brine-apple vine near well-travelled coastlines. 

Complications:  Anyone who subsists wholly on brine-apples for more than a week will develop a strong urge to live on or near the sea and travel the waves to distant lands whenever possible.  This "Call of the Sea" is a psychological addiction but requires tests of willpower to resist and long periods (months or even years) going Cold Turkey (avoiding both brine-apples and the sea) to break completely.

Anyone who's been using brine-apple juice exclusively for their drinking needs for a week or more will find that fresh water tastes horrible for the same period of time, requiring tests of fortitude and willpower just to swallow or keep down afterward.  This quirk only applies to fairly pure water, so "apple tars" who find themselves ashore will tend to order teas, coffee, and particularly alcoholic drinks to quench their thirsts.   

Design Commentary:  If you're planning a realistically awful nautical campaign these things are probably way too much of an easy button.  If you'd prefer to emphasize the swashbuckling, derring-do, and exploratory themes instead, a ship carrying brine-apples can realistically ignore the worst of the provisioning issues real-world ships suffered from historically.

Seven Days At Sea: Buoyant Barbs, A System-Agnostic Magic Item

Buoyant Barbs

Description:  An unwieldy harpoon head made of lusterless gray metal, with prominent barbs and pierced with a sturdy ring for a tethering rope or chain.  Like many magic items, it will subtly re-size itself to fit the shaft of most javelins, spears, or even short polearms as well as actual harpoons made for human-sized creatures.  Divinatory spells and mystical senses will detect an aura of transformation magic.  More advanced techniques will reveal the powers below.

Powers:  Any creature carrying a Buoyant Barb cannot be fully submerged by any non-magical force.  Some part of its body will always remain above water (or whatever liquid they may find themselves in) although this doesn't grant certain immunity to drowning (your head could still go under) nor does it help with other issues like hypothermia, salt dehydration, etc.

A damaging attack from a Buoyant Barb (whether attached to a proper shaft, or via an improvised attack using the barb as a clumsy dagger at -10% chance to hit) will magically lodge the barb in its target until all damage from the wound is healed (by any means, natural or magical) or the magic of the barb is dispelled by some means.  Any creature with one or more barbs lodged in it counts as "carrying" the item, and will therefore be unable to fully submerge, voluntarily or otherwise.

An unattended Buoyant Barb will itself float and cannot be forced below the surface without potent magic.

If a barb is somehow brought below the surface (most likely through magical means) its enchantment fails and the items rusts into powder within hours. 

Possible origins:  The method for enchanting Buoyant Barbs is ancient and well-known among almost all seafaring cultures, and the knowledge has even spread to fishing communities on rivers and freshwater lakes.  The process is still time-consuming and physically demanding, requiring cold-forging from a mystic alloy of various metals and alchemical reagents.  Despite this, it's common to find these items for sale (or as found loot) in lots of 1d4 individual barbs.  Ironically most accomplished artificers refuse to bother with such "trivial" magic, preferring to leave such work to hedge wizards and village wise folk.

Complications:  Intelligent aquatic creatures will often be hostile to anyone who uses Buoyant Barbs as a weapon, especially if they leave a wounded creature alive but "trapped" on the surface till they heal.  Exceptions might be made if the victim is an traditional enemy of the creature in question (eg mermen versus kraken) but in general sea-dwellers will at least attempt to confiscate and destroy any barbs they encounter, and will only use one themselves in the most dire of circumstances. 

Design Commentary:  Buoyant Barbs are obviously most useful for fighting sea monsters (who won't be able to retreat below water once struck with one) but it's also not unheard of for cautious seafarers to carry a barb (with or without a shaft) as a charm against drowning.  They can also serve as flotation devices in a pinch, and you can expect players to get creative about other uses, eg letting animal companions or pack animals swim long distances safely by strapping a barb to them so they can't sink.

A creature wounded by a barb will "shed" it when the wound heals, which often leaves unattended barbs floating on the surface afterward.  While finding one adrift at sea is vanishingly unlikely, they wash ashore eventually.  Beachcombers may turn one up now and then, particularly in regions with active whaling or aquatic monster-hunting industries.  More than one dockside bar has been regaled with stories of a marooned or shipwrecked sailor swimming to civilization after finding a "lucky charm" on their island prison. 

Seven Days At Sea: Smugglers' Oars, A System-Agnostic Magic Item

Smugglers' Oars

Description:  One or more pairs on oars suitable for use on a ship's boat, made of a smooth, dark wood of unknown origin.  They are strangely difficult to look directly at and always feel cool to the touch, even under a blazing tropical sun.  Mystical senses reveals a subtle aura of deceptive magic.  More advanced auguries reveal a strong bond between the oars in a given set (which could be as many as twelve, although a single pair is most common) which could be used to trace the location of any that are missing.

Powers:  When an appropriate number of Smugglers' Oars are used to row a small watercraft of any kind, the boat, its contents and crew are undetectable to outside observers.  It leaves no wake and causes no disturbance in the water, counts as invisible and inaudible, and even water-dwelling creatures that might track by scent or sound cannot perceive them.  Creatures that are directly affected by the boat or its crew (for ex, in the case of a collision, attacks, or spellcasting) are exempt from this stealth effect for ten combat rounds afterward, although any initial attacks would be treated as coming from an invisible enemy.  The boat takes 1d6 rounds to become invisible after rowing starts, and the effect lasts only as long as rowing continues.

This magic only functions if the boat is being rowed entirely by a single set of Smugglers' Oars, with small rowboats needing only a single pair while the largest launches or longboats might require as many as a dozen oars.  When found randomly, 75% of the time a set of two oars will be encountered.  The remainder of the time, a set of 1d6 pairs of oars (so 2-12 total) will be found.  GMs may wish to complicate things further by having some oars from a larger set missing, which will require effort to track down.  A larger set can be "broken down" to row multiple smaller craft, but sets cannot be combined to row a larger craft. 

Possible Origins:  Smugglers' Oars are generally crafted on commission from scoundrels, spies, assassins and (unsurprisingly) smugglers.  The magic required is relatively straightforward, but the rare extraplanar wood required to make even a single pair of oars is very expensive.  Enchanting larger sets to equip bigger craft is prohibitively costly, although these costs can be ameliorated by questing to acquire the ingredients for the project.   

Complications:  The primary danger in using Smugglers' Oars is the risk of collision with other water traffic due to being unseen and unheard.  This is rarely an issue when (say) landing illegal cargo on a lonely seashore, but presents difficulties in a busy harbor or canal network.  The sudden appearance or disappearance of a boatload of people and cargo in front of witnesses is also likely to evoke comment.  Many customs agents and naval crew are familiar with the existence of Smugglers' Oars and will treat anyone owning them as criminals by default.  

Design Commentary:  Light sources carried by the boat will be invisible to outside observers as long as the stealth effect is operating.  This not only helps with landings during the dark of the moon, it offers possibilities for exploring the waters of the Underdark in relative safety.  

Seven Days At Sea: Ring of the Sea-Spouse, A System-Agnostic Magic Item

Ring of the Sea-Spouse

Description:  A plain-looking gold ring.  The inside of the band is inscribed with a dozen alternating stylized images of a humanoid and a fish.  Basic magical detection will reveal a strong aura of transformative magic, with more exhaustive research or more powerful spells revealing a fairly accurate description of the powers below.  An extremely difficult lore check or very potent magic will also reveal the complications.

Powers:  Any air-breathing creature that dies from drowning while wearing this ring will immediately return to life at full health and be transformed (along with its gear and clothing) into an odd-looking fish with facial features vaguely similar to its former body.  The fish form has roughly the same size and weight as its previous body and retains its mental characteristics and memories, although it cannot speak and may be briefly disoriented.  Physical statistics and basic abilities will be based on the new piscine body.

This transformation lasts until the fish "drowns" in air, at which point it returns to life again and transforms back to its original form, coughing up the ring as it does so.  If the fish-form dies by any other means it remains dead, and anyone cutting open its body will find the Ring of the Sea-Spouse in its guts.

Only death by drowning triggers these transformations, not other forms of suffocation.  For example, the ring won't help if you go to the gallows or drop dead from smoke inhalation.    

Possible Origins:  Legends suggest that this ring may have been a gift of some deity to a former paramour.  If so that deity was less than eternally faithful, since at least a half a dozen of these rings are known to exist.  It's also possible that some mortal artificer knows the secret of crafting them and has deliberately spread the legend to improve the perceived worth of their wares.

Complications:  The "return to life" that triggers when transforming into a fish is "free" for purposes of accruing penalties for being resurrected.  Changing back to your original form by "drowning" as a fish is not, and whatever penalties your game system applies for using an "extra life" should be applied.  If your game system lacks that, I'd recommend permanently reducing the user's Constitution (or similar "how healthy are you" stat) by ten percent, rounding normally.

Design Commentary:  Narrowly applied resurrection effect that's free if you don't mind staying a fish until you find a way to transform back without dying again.  Many systems have polymorphing effects that can accomplish that, and I'd let players go questing for a ritual magic fix to accomplish it in the ones that don't.  Of course, first you have to find a way to communicate that you're actually not a weirdly-familiar fish to your friends, which offers some roleplaying possibilities.

Given the accumulating dangers of returning to one's original form, if a deity did hand these things out they must have had a thing for fish.