Them Bones

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).