Humility for the Bold, Thieves Tricks, and Taking Tavern Brawler…

You can find the ever-growing list of “Better Than Nothing” items  over on the right. Read ’em, like ’em, share ’em, and comment.

Penitent’s Chains

The clink. The rattle. The sounds of shame and loss. Arin shuffled along behind the group, his chains making their subtle and audible reminder that he was lost and still searching for his own “found-ness”.

Wikniss, the tiny man with the fine toolkit, had offered to at least loosen them–but Arin had bowed his head and politely declined. The chaffing hurt, it was true, and he had long forgot what it must have been like to raise his hands well above his head–but, to lighten his burden was to deny it. And the gods would not allow such a thing. And Arin wouldn’t have done it even if they had.

His chains were a comfort, a reminder that he was working toward something–without them… his mind blanked… he found he couldn’t even imagine not carrying them, now. They simply were. And he was both proud and shamed by that.

System: The chains were forged by the hands of the True, himself, a god of rightness and purity. With his own hands, he fashioned a set of manacles intended to help his champions to learn their place was one of service in the world, fighting evil, not of self-aggrandizement.

The chains can only be worn by the willing. On anyone else, they are simply heavy, beaten copper chains, but on the willing they attune over the course of a night of contemplation. The manacles connect to their ankles and wrists and are separated by roughly 6 feet of unwieldy chain between the hands and between the feet (both), with one 6′ chain between the middle of those two–connecting them together. The wearer must be wearing untreated, and completely natural clothing, and nothing metal upon attuning the chains
The wearer may not benefit from magical items that are worn so long as they wear the chains. They may only use magical arms or objects that do not require being worn (generally, this only excludes armor, clothing, rings, necklaces, headwear, eyewear, etc. but not weapons, wands, ioun stones, etc.). They are also unable to wear armor due to the interference of their chains. They also make all Stealth checks at a disadvantage and may not take the Dash action anymore.

However, while the True wanted to humble his Paladins and servants, he did not forsake them. All attacks against them are made at disadvantage (before any abilities or effects that might advantage the attack, thus having it roll as normal) and all death saves at advantage and they may spend HD (as though in a short rest) for HP immediately if they succeed in saving out of death (so on the third successful save, they may THEN spend HD–as many as they have and want to use).

Once taken off, the chains may not be worn ever again and must pass to another for them to also learn the will of the True. Until another willing (not mind controlled) party wears them, the possessor (and last wearer) cannot level (though they may gain XP as normal).

Porter’s Gloves

Lernxt followed the Half-Orc around and he grumbled his stupid nonsense language at her the whole time. He thought he was hot shit, of course–a prince of thieves and a master assassin. Showing off for the rest of the group, making everything a contest between the two of them.

Men. Orcs. “Assassins”. All the same, really and he was all three–always has to be “the best”. Well, fine–let him harumph and bother about everything she did, check up on every lock she picked–she’d been stealing keys from his pouch one at a time all morning–at some point, something good was bound to come out of it.

Then it was just a matter of not getting killed.

System: Made by Manastag Reinch, an innovator in the area of general high-magic burglary (hanged twenty years ago for committing several unforgivable acts of burglary accomplished through high-magic), the Porter’s Gloves were one of his less useful, but popular enough artifacts.
To attune them, one needs to wear them for a solid week (never removing them) and steal at least one item per day, legitimately (from the unwary and unallied), worth no less than 1 sp, no more than 2 sp. The calibration of the gloves, for attunement, is very precise.

Afterward, the gloves have 5 charges and replenish 1d4 charges per day.
By spending a charge (takes 1 action, if in combat), the wearer may teleport a small object (it can be no heavier than 1 lb.) someone is either wearing or carrying on this plane from a distance away of no more than a few feet (if using a grid, adjacent square/hex). The object is randomly selected and appears in the glove-wearer’s offhand–getting a mental picture of what it is at that point.

By spending more than one charge, the player may select from a number of random objects equal to the number of charges used. So, if three charges are used, they will get to select from three random objects on the target. Noticing the loss of an item, if in hand of the target is immediate. Noticing the loss if carried is a PP DC of 25, disadvantaged if it was inside another object (purse, sack, pouch).

Olaf’s Rock

“The legends say that Olaf the Great Bearded One, chief of the hill giants of Hardar Rem Kor, had the tribe’s greatest shamans–Wallace, just shut up… alright? Look, you want to hear this or not?”

“Hah… hoo… yeah, sorry. No, really, I’m sorry, Kendel. I just–come on. Shamans of the hill giants?”

“Yes, gods damn it all, shamans. They have shamans, Wallace. And he had them bless it.”

“But–come on. We just ran off some hillies last month, you saw them. They haven’t got so much as two wits between them.”

“Do you want to hear this or not?”

“Heh… sure. Yeah. I guess. Go ahead.”

“So–the shamans blessed the rock. And with it in hand, they say Olaf beat his enemies about the head and fa–fine, screw it, fine. No. You tell a story, then. I’m done.”

System: The rock is an irregular, small boulder roughly the size of child’s head–with several worn grooves criss-crossing broken ridges of old stone. It weighs nearly 20 lbs.

By itself, the rock can be used as an improvised weapon that does 1d4+STR bludgeoning. Once attuned, however, it can be used as a +3 magic improvised weapon that does 1d4+STR bludgeoning.
Indeed, with this rock, the chief of the hill giants of old did, in fact, slaughter many of his enemies. It still bears the blood stains of foes past.