A set of armour, fashioned out of bone and metal.
The firelight flickered across the walls of the underground lair, home to the necromancer known as Ghavanas. Bodies were strewn all around the ground, their innards open for all to see. Here and there, if one looked closely, one would see that each body was missing a bone.
The words of ancient power flowed from his lips, calling forth the spirits held captive within the glass orb in his hand. As the mutters grew louder and more urgent, the wails of the bound souls became unbearably loud, then suddenly stopped, the sources of the wails having been bound within the set of armour lying on the table in front of Ghavanas.
It was an exquisite piece of art, the result of hours and hours of laborous hunting and spellcrafting. The bones from the bodies had been crafted into the making of the chestpiece, giving it the appearance of a set of ribs open to the air. This was the culmination of his life's work, and he was sure it would make him a living god among men.
Magical Properties:
Much to Ghavanas' chagrin, the armour does /not/ have the ability to make one a god amongst men, but instead is cursed, the result of his binding the captured souls unwillingly into the armour. The armour is actually quite effective at blocking most normal attacks, but instead of protecting the wearer from all attacks, magical and mundane, the spirits within the metal actually lower the wearer's natural arcane defenses, doubling the effects of all harmful spells against him. The armor is also unable to be removed from the wearer by any normal means, though divine help might allow it to be removed.
The non-magical effects include not being able to sleep due to the wearing of heavy armour, and being just plain exhausted from wearing full armour all the time (Not to mention the looks people will give you for walking around with necromancer armour on).
Creator's Note: This item is intended to be a cursed item for characters who are getting a bit too big for their britches. A bit nasty in it's effects? Yeah, but that was the idea. Also, it opens up some storylines as to how the poor fool is going to get the armour off. Enjoy, because your players won't!
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I like the way it does the reverse of what it was supposed to. 3/5
Poetic justice? A good item.
4/5. I liked it. :)
4/5, that is one nice item to use.
The armour has a nice dualistic vengeance thing going for it.
Good one Chaosmark!
Muchos gracias AG. Coming from my GM, a comment like that holds quite a bit of weight.
Updated: Merely adding the 2nd category
I get to vote again! Yay!
I like this item. It seems fair to me and a nice little curse for people to have to deal with. What if someone in the armor could be turned as well. Maybe they come to a temple to try to get it removed, and the priests turn him. You could torture your players almost comically by having the only people who can help remove the armor perpetually keeping him at bay. ;-p
Great idea. Different and handled well.
Forgot my vote. Thumb up.
I saw the 3.5 vote and was worried this wasn't going to be good. That total vote doesn't do it justice. I love duality among items that are magical. Bad but good. Its great.
An excellent item. Can easily see an NPC being the first wearer and being a nastyl melee combatant, but when the spells come out, he falls like a house of cards.
PC's loot the body, and get what they deserve if they try the nasty armor on.
BTW Zylithan The turning idea is great! Now I have to figure a way to bring it into my campaign...
I ran into this through the random list and I love it. Great job on this. It has great use.