Ever want to be half-man half-horse? Probably not, but these shoes can make it happen.
Full Item Description
These are a pair of worn leather boots with iron horseshoes awkwardly nailed to the bottom.
History
Created for humans who wanted to get more in touch with nature by hanging so badly that they would hassle centaurs, the beautiful fey horse-men and -women. These oots are known to turn the wearer into a centaur slowly and painfully. It is considered a wondeful ritual by some, and a cruel fate by others.
Some say these shoes created the first centaurs and were a gift from the Seelie Court to the first humans who showed a true interest in the natural world. Some have been touched by Unseelie Powers as well. The beatiful, yet exotically warped-looking, Unseelie version of the boot carries a curse that has been known to warp a human who wears them into a grotesque crippled were-horse.
Magic/Cursed Properties
The Seelie Horse Shoes turn any human (and only a pure human) into a beautiful Centaur over the course of a week, they are a Fey gift so theres a catch: once donned they can only be removed by someone with great curse removing powers. They will transform the human even if they only happened by the odd boots by chance and had no intention of turning into a Centaur.
The Unseelie boots transform any of pure human blood into a horribly cursed were-horse. For as long as they wear the boots their head and upper body, including arms, will be that of an ugly horse. They can fix this state by removing the boots, but that may prove difficult with a horse's front legs and hooves instead of arms and hands.
On races other than pure humans the S0eelie boots can have a wide variety of effects: Elves become more beautiful with wild manes and shapelier features, Orcs become strong as a horse, and others become other odd things. However the Unseelie boots will twist a creatures features with no obvious benefits.
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This is quite the fey item, and classic in its mold.
There isn't much color or style, but it is quite a servicable item. I would of liked the time period to be shorter, or more description about how this transformation appears or the effect. I think the transformation time is a bit too long, but that is again a personal opinion.
Polish would do well, and a few more details, as Moon has noted, but it indeed smells of the fey folk. You can really see this item to exist:
"I want a horse! I want the best horse in this country!"
"Take these boots... they will help you to find the horse that you seek." :)
How does one tell Seelie shoes from Unseelie shoes? Is there magic that can do that?
A lot of polish would help. Along with consistency.
crippled were-horse, horseman,Centaur? Stick with centaur.
This needs to be read aloud. Am surprised Moon did not mention it.
So the Seelie gift to humans will make an elf prettier or an orc stronger, but a human gets a month of pain and expulsion from his species (and possibly from his village or country as well, depending on local prejudices). And that's the good version; there's an Unseelie version that's even worse.
Beware of faeries bearing gifts.
This looks like a fun item especially the warping of humans.
I agree with the sentiment that the article could use some polish and consistency. A good spell check, as well as having someone read the article over for an advanced spell check (i.e. wrong word for what you're trying to achieve) as well as some common noun/proper noun usage clarification would help. Additionally, like valadaar pointed out, stick to the same word usage for certain common nouns (I'd add horseshoe, shoe, boot switching nouns as well as the horsemen/centaur/crippled were-horse bit).
Additional details are also needed, again, how to tell the difference between the two types of horseshoes is one item. Another item of note is some clarification on exactly how these horseshoes apply their curse to the victim (i.e. does possession of the shoes lead to the curse, or must they be worn?). Color of the horseshoes, if they appear in only one, select, or multiple color options would also be nice to know. Also, it seems kind of odd that the horseshoes would make the victim beautiful as well, unless you're aiming for a pre-determined standard of centaur beauty (in which case all victims would look alike), or just a general improvement to the victim's looks.
Ditto the above comments. It's a great item idea and a more than worthy stub, but it needs to be shinier for my tastes.
Updated: Phew, that really needed a fix. Now have at it again!
I like it, Pieh. I've introduced Faerie into my fantasy campaign and can use fae-created stuff for the PCs to find. I see the Fae as a dying race, and things that create more fae would be very useful to them.