Chapter SNIs

[Brynjolf]

Below is a list of Serial Numbered Items created for chapter use. These items will be just like regular SNIs, but only usable at SE TX chapter tournaments and home games. Each item will have a seperate post below to detail its powers.

Number	Item	Character	Player
0001	Ring of Missile Attraction and Protection	Sir Corlim Nightbreeze	298
0002	Gromthag's Shining Codpiece	Geka	2205
0003	Mapes	Temair Bán	2070

[Brynjolf]

Item 0001: +2 Ring of Missile Attraction and Protection.[/i]

This +2 ring of protection acts similar to a shield of attraction but with the following differences.

* All normal missiles fired at targets within 10' of the wearer of this ring will be attracted to the wearer.

* All normal missiles targeted at the wearer or attracted to the wearer will fall harmlessly to his feet.

* The +2 bonus does not apply to melee attacks or saving throws. The wearer only recieves the additional +2 bonus to his AC against magical missile attacks targeting him.


History:
Sir William Walleye commisioned this ring for his most faithful lieutenant and standard bearer, Francios. During open field combats, Francios would seek out the highest, most visible point to stand and hold the Honor Standard of his party boldly. This often made him a target for spineless enemy archers. To protect the standard and his loyal henchman, Sir Walleye rewarded his bravery with this gift.

[Brynjolf]

Item 0002: Gromthag's Shining Codpiece

This normal looking codpiece will resize to fit any creature from Tiny to Large size. It will add a little "extra size" as well. Any Male character wearing the item will be considered to have +2 COM and +1 Reaction Adjustment with regards to the opposite sex. Female characters who wear the codpiece have -2 COM and -1 Reaction Adjustment to both sexes. The Codpiece has a permanent Continual Light cast on it. Should the Light be blocked for more than 24 hours (by a Continual Darkness or similar spell), the item will recast Continual Light once every 24 hours until the Light is no longer blocked. The wearer has NO control over when the Continual Light is cast. The codpiece may also cast Sunray once per month at the wearer's bidding as long as the Continual Light has not been interrupted for at least 30 days. Once per day, the wearer can cast Light per a 9th level Magic User. Because of the constant light emanating from the wearer's crotch, when the item is in full view, called shots to the wearer's groin are made with 2 points less penalty than normal.


History:
Gromthag Finklestein, a Half-Orc Fighter known for his eccentric ways, is credited with the creation of this item which bears his name. Originally, Gromthag had a Continual Light cast on his codpiece for reasons which are better left unstated...oh what the hell, his favorite battle cry was "Look upon your doom, evildoers!" Of course living as he did in Fishton, this codpiece had entirely unexpected results. The male prostitutes of Fishton began wearing copies of the item to "show off the goods." After being propositioned for the umpteenth time, Gromthag decided to retire his codpiece; but it was too late. Rumors of a more powerful version of the codpiece arose and this item was forever linked with Gromthag's name. No one is sure who exactly created the updated codpiece. The followers of the Feeble Gawd, Gawd of Mysteries, are the most likely candidates, but no one has asked them as the biggest mystery is how to enter their doorless, windowless, teleport proof temple.

[Brynjolf]

Item 0003: Mapes

Short sword +3

Int: 17
Ego: 21
Alignment: Neutral (May be weilded by any alignment)

Detect Magic in a 10' radius
Detect evil or good in a 10' radius
Detect secret doors in a 5' radius
Read Languages
Read Magic

May communicate via speech or telepathy.
Speaks common, troll, and dwarven.

Teleport once/day - 600 lb max., 2 segment casting time.

Special purpose is to slay regenerating creatures.
When used for this purpose, it grants the owner +2 to all saves and -1 to each die of damage sustained.

History:

Circle of Sequestered Magicks Document of Record

COSM Record 2357 –B : Origins of the Fabled Short Sword Mapes

This serves as the only document of record as to the origin of the short sword referred to simply as ‘Mapes’, now safely interred with honorary Circle of Sequestered Magicks (COSM) member Robert Effluvious, also known posthumously as ‘Bob the Battlemage’.
The account of Robert (hereafter referred to as Bob) and his last moments are integral to this brief record. Prior to the event of his death, not much of Bob’s life is worth telling. However, to provide a true sense of the now legendary mage, a few summary details follow. It has been established that Bob was of less-than average ability in the magical arts and had petitioned unsuccessfully on several occasions for membership in COSM. He had a reckless tendency to over-exert his mind with spell preparation (referred to colloquially as spell-jacking) and preferred alcoholic beverages to the consumption of everything else. Lastly, and most significant to this record, Bob was hopelessly delusional. This character flaw notably exhibited itself in his adoration of a single object of worthless value: a rusted short sword not even capable of cutting a stale fart into two halves. Bob affectionately called his oxidized cudgel of a blade: Mapes. Those are the details worth telling of Bob’s true life, as gathered and dutifully recorded by the appointed council for fact-finding on Bob in COSM Record #2357, referred to as the “What About Bob” file.
So, as it came to pass on so many occasions in his life, Bob found himself and his Mapes hard pressed for coin and taking odd jobs to sustain Bob’s love of the grape. One of these jobs happened to leave Bob in the coincidental circumstance of defending the hamlet of his birth, Westshire. A local ruffian calling himself Lord Foul had come into some charm of magical nature that allowed him to command others to his will, bending them toward the evil side of life. Quickly they began to impose Lord Foul’s wretched policies of pillaging, raping and murdering upon the locals. Enter Bob and a foolish band of five other souls all calling themselves The Magnificent Six (COSM Record #2368 “Five Idiots and a Drunk”). They graciously accepted the challenge of enforcing the law and bringing this Lord Foul to justice.
The legendary account of Bob and Mapes endures to this day, describing the assault on Lord Foul’s Keep as a master stroke of cunning. COSM investigation has found otherwise. The truth of it is that five unknowns and a drunken battle-mage equipped with fore-mentioned ‘weapon’ went right up to the Keep’s portcullis and demanded to see the “filthy piece of evil detritus, called Lord Foul”. There was some harried exchange of words, until Bob let loose three magic missiles in a fit of impatience. It was later learned that he was actually capping his wineskin while mumbling the words to the spell in sing-song fashion. Fighting quickly ensued and the Magnificent Six managed to force their way through the portcullis and into the outermost Guard Chamber.
The seven minutes that followed were Bob’s last on this plane of existence. In the Guard Chamber hand to hand combat commenced. Interviews of two surviving sell-swords formerly in Lord Foul’s employ both recall Bob “cursing like a banshee while wavin’ the dirtiest sword a soul ever’d laid his eyes on’. On he went with a tirade of words, ineffectually swinging his blade as the guard he was fighting taunted and laughed at him. Both accounts agree that it was at that moment that Bob accidentally struck the wall with Mapes. The rust had so badly eaten the blade that it shattered right there. Following that, Bob was incensed. He cried out hysterically as he beheld the shards on the floor: “Mapes, my beloved Mapes! My darling, what has this puny man done to you?!” The guard saw his opportunity and severed the Bob’s arm at the shoulder. The battle-mage screamed a wail that emptied half of the bladders in that room, and all fighting in the chamber ceased. The guard who had done the deed stepped back for a moment when he beheld a red fury in Bob’s eyes. Blood sprayed the wall as the mage reached to the floor, and picked up his own severed arm. One of the sell-swords claimed it still writhed like a wicked eel from the depths of some hellish ocean. It was Bob’s calm utterance that was most unsettling to all in the room as he advanced on the guard who continued stepping away. “I will kill him for you, my darling Mapes…” And with that, he swung wide at the stunned guard, catching him in the right cheek. Bits of flesh and bone lodged into the man’s right eye, and again and again, blow after blow, Bob beat him to the floor. Repeatedly he brought the arm down on the guard’s lifeless form, pulping the head as a wide arc of blood sprayed the ceiling and floor.
So shocking was the sight of Bob and his arm that the remaining guards dropped their weapons and fell to the ground, begging for their lives. Bob’s party favored the wall simply watching, as he uttered some incomprehensible words and knelt to pick up the shards of the sword he had called Mapes, wrapping them like a small child into the folds of a blanket he had procured from his pack. Within a few moments of that, there arose a cry from further inside the Keep. Shocked to conscious action, the party immediately dispersed into the hall in search of the sound, ignoring Bob and the guards’ pleas for mercy. Those two sell-sword guards say that Bob ambled after the rest of his party. Before those two fled, they stared back down the hallway and beheld several of the other party members already fallen. For the Lord Foul kept a great horned owlbear as protector to his inner sanctum. He called this behemoth Charles. The last image either sell-sword recalled was of Bob charging at Charles with his own severed arm. He is shout of “For you my Mapes, forever!” filled their ears as Bob the Battlemage, the drunkard and delusional halfwit from Westshire, died in a blaze of entrails as the owlbear raked him clean.
In the months that followed, word spread of the massacre at Foul's Keep. To this day, some still maintain that it may have been the gawds at work, helping to carry the tale on the winds to serve as an inspiration to others in dark times. Far and wide, the fall of a heroic battle-mage and his magic sword was the talk of all common rooms. New songs were sung of Bob, who was vanquished along with his companions at the hands of a horrible beast; and not least of all, of Bob's mighty short sword Mapes, broken by what could only have been the most evil of magicks. If it had ended there, COSM could have let it rest. But soon a cruel irony followed. It seems a relative of Bob was loose with his tongue about the drunkard's applications for COSM membership. And like oil feeding flames, Bob's name was always mentioned right along with that of COSM. Before long, rumor had it that he was not only a member, but a mage of the High Council of Dragons: one of an elite few of COSM's protectors, a champion of keeping things in the universe in harmonious balance. This falsehood was now so indelibly a part of COSM's reputation that if the truth of Bob's psychotic ineptitude were known, it would have made COSM the joke of bards and fools across the land.

In response the this crisis, COSM's High Council of Dragons met, and after much heated discussion, votes were unanimous. The developing legend surrounding Bob and Mapes could be a great thing for the society if it had substance to support it. To do so, COSM would have to make Bob into the legitimate hero that the people now believed him to be. Once decided, the Council began with the destruction of Lord Foul's keep. COSM's greatest arch-mages came together in full regalia for that phase of the project. In order to build Bob's credibility, COSM had to be seen as most vengeful toward those who would kill one of their great members. That day, the arch-mages took Lord Foul and those still in his employ and teleported them to an unknown location. In that secret place, practice commenced in use of the forbidden spell Fireball Nuclear Winter. Lord Foul and his crew were ground zero.

Quietly, the remaining few who knew Bob’s true character were found and offered an early retirement from this life into the next, glorious manifestation of our existence. Those few included the two sell-swords, Bob’s chattering relative and several tavern keepers who had experienced the pleasure of dousing the flames caused by Bob’s frequent visits to their establishments. As previously noted, our Bob had the bad habit of singing vocal spell triggers in his fits of drunken stupor. One such barkeep had lost most of his recognizable face when a Burning Hands spell triggered by Bob ignited everything flammable within several feet not least of all, the barkeep.

The next step was to create the fantastic sword of legend, Mapes. The shards were recovered, having been carelessly tossed into the moat around Lord Foul’s Keep, along with the remains of Bob’s carcass, including his severed arm. COSM’s arch-mages favored a sword that would help counter-balance the growing undead and evils of Garweeze Wurld. The heaviest debate loomed around giving Mapes a sense of itself, Intelligence. Few weapons of legend were so endowed with such a singular gift as that. For it is a known fact among the wisest mages that most such weapons invariably have found their way into the hands of those lacking the force of will to wield them. Though it cannot be substantiated here, one such weapon, a sword known simply as ‘Marvin’ is reputed to have directly caused the deaths of 23 of his ‘would-be’ owners, with no record as to how many of their fellow party members were also slaughtered. And all simply because such fools failed to meet Marvin’s expectations as to carrying out his predetermined mission, indelibly made a part of the sword upon his creation.

And so, after three months of debate, the argument for an intelligent sword won out; it was perhaps a sign of COSM’s own arrogance to think that the lessons of the past did not apply to such a powerful collection of talent as ours. In keeping with COSM’s own adherence to neutrality and balance, it was decided that the sword Mapes would be given a personality comprised of both genders: male and female. It was thought that the unabashed, feral nature of the male half would be offset by the more compassionate, yet calculative nature offered by the female half. Designs for creating Intelligence are too complex to outline in this record. However, they entail such practices as weeks of heavy meditation by arch-mages, who act as the template personalities for the Intelligence that will be imbued into the metals of the weapon. Extraction of life’s blood and even the life-energies of the souls contributing to that effort are also an essential part of the closely guarded ritual. In conjunction with that ritual, COSM’s most talented metallurgists worked to scour the rusted shards, and then smelt them together with only the finest steel. The ritual magicks were then applied to the white hot metals, and as the new blade cooled, the Mapes of legend was born.

Only here then is record of Mapes’ first words, spoken to Arch Mage Balthazar Tythonus, known affectionately in his time as “The Dragon’s Fang”. In reference to the few lesser mages that served as secretary to the brilliant Tythonus, Mapes calmly spoke in the silky purr that was to become his/her signature voice: “How can you stand to be surrounded by all of these simians?” Details of the discussion that followed are known by few to this day, as Tythonus quickly ordered the others out of his chambers. He remained there, sequestered for several days, with Mapes. Hardly any food was touched, or water imbibed. On the third day, Maester Tythonus, The Dragon’s Fang, leader of COSM's High Council of Dragons was found dead. Before him, scribed in blood, known later to be his own, was a contract between COSM and Mapes. Hovering beside Mapes was an ethereal entity that the Arch-Mage Tythonus had summoned as impartial arbiter between Mapes and himself. The entity spoke in a lifeless, chilling voice and proceeded to recall the previous days’ events and to outline the contract that lay before Tythonus’ dead form. It seems that Tythonus, though a brilliant individual, had been duped by Mapes into revealing the grand deception that COSM had hoped to execute on the wurld, and of the part that Mapes was to play in it all. Mapes would have none of it, insisting that he/she was made for a unique purpose alone and would grant a worthy individual the honor of using him/her to that end. Back and forth the debate went, and egos clashed.

On the second day, the fore-mentioned entity was summoned, and deliberation as to Mapes’ future continued. Slowly, our own Tythonus became lost in the tireless onslaught of the weapon’s own will. So convincing was Mapes’ logic that the arbiter ruled in favor of the sword, and decreed that the losing party commit to the formal decision by outlining all agreed-to terms in his own blood. In summary, the agreement was simply that Mapes would only comply with COSM’s scheme if he/she were interred with the battlemage known as Bob. The place of burial was to be the most honorable type of tomb, only befitting such legends as the now great Robert Effluvious and his magical short sword Mapes. It would have to be constructed within 12 lunar months, after which Mapes would be laid to rest near Bob’s remains until such time as the gawds saw fit to call him/her from slumber to bring forth balance to Garweeze Wurld. With the last stroke of his quill, and press of the official seal of COSM, Tythonus died of a massive stroke. The entity closed his summary with a cautionary reminder that all was now a matter or record with the ethereal forces of the universe, and that failure to honor the contract would result in the fall of power and eventual destruction of COSM itself. With that, it faded from sight leaving only Mapes and the corpse. The short sword uttered only one last phrase on that day, and remained silent until its eventual burial in the completed tomb: “Well? Get to it, monkeyboys!”

Tomb construction can be referenced in COSM Record 2357-C : “The Big Dig”