Them
Bones
Jarrod
the Carver was a warrior-mage from the land of the Narve, a mountainous country
north of the One Hundred Cities. He was known for his love of chance and his
wondrous magical creations and of those creations his dice are perhaps the most
famous and sought after. He is said to have made a hundred sets of each kind
and scattered them across the world. Each of the die was crafted from the bones
of some animal or person. Many have similar effects, such as simply summoning
that particular animal (his six-sided die of the Owlbear is particularly
popular and legendary), but others are unique, some trivial, some beautiful and
some horrific.
Here
are some of his dice.
1)
The Die of Flowers
This
pyramid shaped object has four sides with an intricate carving of a flower on
each face. It appears to be made of stone but has no weight to it and if thrown
will float in the air about ten feet from he who threw it and rise to the
caster's eye-level. The effect of the die occurs in the same segment it has
been cast, lasts for 1d4 rounds and afterwards the die drops gently to the
ground.
The
first face of the die causes a storm of flowers to flow from it in a cone shape
that will fill a ten foot high, ten foot wide and thirty foot long (10x10x30)
area away from the caster of the die. This cloud of flowers will disrupt the
casting of spells, normal and shouted conversations as the flowers tend to get
in people's mouths if they are trying to speak, and ranged combat as they
completely obscure everything in the area of the cloud. Melee combat is
considered Blind Combat with an extra -2 penalty to hit for anyone in the cloud
as the flying flowers are distracting even to anyone with an ability to fight
blinded. Firing into the area of effect is also at negative modifier (-6 to
hit) as all objects in the area of effect are completely obscured even to those
looking toward them from outside the cloud of flowers. The torn petals remain
as a colorful carpet after the spell has been cast, but they are simply a
common variety though quite edible.
2)
The Dice of Caltrops (and Jarrod's Bag of Dice)
Another
pyramid shaped die of which several are normally available at the same time.
The reason for this is Jarrod's Bag of Dice (see item 3.). A Die of Caltrops
shows an icon of from one to four caltrops on its faces and when cast (or
thrown, which is the safer method) it will spread out a layer of caltrops
(either the small kind used against man-sized creatures or the large kind used
against horse-sized creatures depending on the type of Die possessed. The die that
produces the human-sized caltrops is smooth green while the horse-sized come
from a die that is mottled red and blue). The layer will be from a ten to forty
foot area centered around the cast Die. The caster of the die can walk through
this field of caltrops without risk as long as he is in possession of the Dice Bag which spawned the Die (see item
3) but otherwise he will suffer the same damage as anyone else caught within a
section covered in the caltrops.
Unlike
normal caltrops which sit and hope for someone to step on them Jarrod's
caltrops are more proactive. Anyone stepping into a 10 foot by 10 foot area
will find caltrops underfoot no matter where or how carefully they step.
Passing through the area causes 2d4 damage and reduces movement by 50% for 1d6
combat rounds unless the damage is somehow healed. Each time someone passes
again through a 10x10 section of Jarrod's caltrops they must roll again for
damage and add another 1d4 of combat rounds of movement speed reduction to
their original total.
The
caltrops from the Die have a chameleon ability that allows them to blend in
with their surroundings rendering them effectively invisible. They do radiate magic and they will appear to any type of detect trap spell. These caltrops
cannot be swept aside or regathered and remain in the area they originally
covered unless disspelled.
3)
Jarrod's Bag of Dice
In
the creation of his dice Jarrod realized that some must be crafted so that in
the casting of the die the effect would consume the die itself. In order to
free himself of the necessity of recrafting these useful objects each time he
used them Jarrod created one of his most powerful, remarkable and temperamental
magic items. The Bag of Dice is a semi-sentient magic item the least of which
(for there are many species of them) is highly valued and sought after. Each
Bag of Dice has both an intelligence and an ego. They can speak, but only to
their possessor's who they tend to adopt as pets though some treat more like
servants. Bag's of Dice must be fed. At least one spell must be fed to them
each day or a magical effect or a physical magic item. They have limited
ability of movement (hunching and crawling like an inchworm) and the more
powerful and intelligent have learned to cast spells of their own (especially
after consuming scrolls, potions and various magic items). For all the trouble
that they can be and cause, the rewards of possessing one of these Bag's of
Dice are immediate and obvious as they birth magic dice the way a chicken lays
eggs. A Bag of Dice can 'lay' one magic die per week. These dice will be found
within the interior of the bag though once removed they can be stored anywhere.
The Dice have a sense of the Dice Bag and using a magic Die without possessing
the Bag which spawned it will impose some risk upon the caster of the Die. The
normal limit of how many unconsumed Dice children a Bag will spawn before
becoming reproductively inactive in an even dozen (the Bag will create 12 Dice
and if they are unused, stop producing more, if 1 Die is used it will produce 1
more. This amount is called a 'carton'. Only 1 carton of Dice may exist at one
time per Bag).
