Armor

Dragon by Dragon – January 1982 (57)

/ jstater

Wow – 1982. I was ten years old (well, nine in January) and still a couple years away from learning about Dungeons & Dragons. Thirty-six years ago – much as changed, and much has not. I guess all these years later, we can be happy that people are still playing D&D and AD&D and other “old school” games. Let’s start the new year by looking at the new year in 1982 in gaming …

Let’s start with the cover, because it’s pretty different from the traditional fantasy fare. We have a woman, maybe modern, knitting dragons (or something like them) onto a blanket  and the dragons are becoming real and flying into the fireplace, all while a strange painting of a man or woman looks on. The tragedy is that I can’t quite make out the signature, and I didn’t see the artist’s name in the magazine.

Update: Nathan Irving writes me to let me know the artist is Dean Morrissey, who provided covers for 16, 18, 28, 60, 84 and 91.

The first big article is “Modern Monsters” by Ed Greenwood. It’s a great article, giving modern (in 1982) vehicles and firearms stats for D&D. The article also goes into some of the pitfalls of pitting “medieval” characters against modern characters. It really all goes to the point that jumping from one reality into another was assumed to be a regular feature by our elders in the hobby. Here’s one insight you might enjoy:

Magic will ultimately determine the fate of an AD&D party in a modern setting. It is the party’s “heavy artillery,” and must be expended with caution, for it is not wholly renewable. Magic users without spell books will be unable to regain their spells.

Lenard Lakofka presents some useful ideas and tables in “Shield and Weapon Skills”, including this insight about shields after he watched some folks from the SCA put on a demonstration of medieval fighting:

Fully 60% of the blows are caught by the shield. Second, a trained fighter who normally uses a broadsword is a much poorer fighter when using a battle axe for the first time. To place these facts in terms of AD&D™ rules, some minor rule changes are proposed. A shield will now give +2 to armor class instead of just +1.

He also presents some rules for determining how long shields last in combat. My favorite scheme is for shields to have to make an item save whenever an attack roll is a natural ’20’.

The tables I mentioned are for determining an NPC’s weapon proficiencies, but they could also be used to determine an NPC’s armaments.

In the “Sorcerer’s Scroll”, one E. Gary Gygax presents some more details about the Greyhawk setting – a good read for those who use that campaign setting.

In “In Search of a James Bond”, Mark Mulkins covers how in a TOP SECRET game one could work for three different operational bureaus at the same time without sacrificing experience points. What Mark covers in three pages I would just hand wave.

Up next is an article I kinda dig called “Random Magic Items” by Pete Mohney. It’s a collection of some groovy little random tables for generating magic items. I’ll generate three of them now:

1) A magic girdle, not cursed, that gives a +1 bonus to all saving throws.

2) An amulet shaped like a double-headed axe that allows the wearer to control animals once per week.

3) A hat that provides a +1 bonus to intelligence – we’ll call it a thinking cap.

If you’re a player of DragonQuest, this issue has an article about magicians by Jon Mattson. Since I’ve never played the game, I can’t comment on the merits of the article.

This issue’s Giants in the Earth covers a couple characters I don’t know – C. J. Cherryh’s Morgaine and Vanye (with art by Jim Holloway) from the books Gate of Ivrel, Well of Shiuan and Fires of Azeroth, Lynn Abbey’s Rifkind from Daughter of the Bright Moon and The Black Flame, and two characters created by Robert E. Howard – Belit and Dark Agnes. Howard. Belit is a Chaotic Evil 10th level fighter in this write-up, though I would probably go Neutral Evil given her devotion to Conan since I conceive of Chaotic Evil as being utterly self-interested.

The special feature of this issue is an AD&D adventure called “The Wandering Trees” by Michael Malone. It is intended for characters level 6th to 9th. The adventure begins thus:

Long ago, so far back that even the elves are not sure when, Termlane Forest was the home of a tribe of tree-worshipping men. These men built a great temple at the heart of The Forest, where they worshipped their mysterious tree-gods.

The adventure concerns a forest of moving trees with only two safe ways through, and a lost temple somewhere in between. It’s a hell of a dangerous forest, so beware. The adventure also includes stakes for the Phooka.

In “Up on a Soapbox”, there are two essays – one by Brian Blume on the problems with playing evil characters in games, and another by Roger E. Moore on the benefits of playing rpg’s with women.

Michael Kluever has an interesting look at “The History of the Shield”. It’s a good primer for those who like to get crunchy. It’s not a short article, and it is well researched with a useful bibliography.

There’s a great insight into 1982 geekdom in “The Electric Eye”, namely the results of a survey regarding to what high tech goodies readers of the magazine had to play with. The results:

  • 46% have an Apple II or Apple II+
  • 38% have a TRS-80
  • 20% have an Atari 400 or 800
  • 9% have a CBM
  • 6% have no computer
  • 6% have a S-100
  • 3% have a North Star
  • 3% have a VIC
  • and 20% have some other computer

The bottom line, apparently was:

Who is the average Electric Eye reader? He’s a 17-year-old male high school student. He has owned a 48K Apple-l I+ with a disk drive, a printer, and a joystick or a paddle set for about a year. He has spent a little over $100 on software, but he mainly either copies out of magazines or does it himself. He reads The Electric Eye for the program listings and reviews, but he is also interested in other facets of computer gaming.

As always, I leave you with Wormy

Save

Thinking About Armor

/ jstater

While playing with Blood & Treasure’s second edition, I was thinking about armor and it occurred to me that you could characterize the armor table as follows (with AAC standing for Ascending Armor Class, and DAC standing for Descending Armor Class):

Leather = AAC 12 / DAC 8

mixture of leather and metal, but mostly leather (like brigandine) = AAC 13/ DAC 7

mixture of leather and metal, but mostly metal (like jazeraint) = AAC 14 / DAC 6

Metal mesh = AAC 15 / DAC 5

mixture of mesh and solid, but mostly mesh (like mirror armor) = AAC 16 / DAC 4

mixture of mesh and solid, but mostly solid (like plate & mail) = AAC 17/ DAC 3

Solid metal = AAC 18 / DAC 2

The values above are for a full or almost full suit of armor – from shoulders to lower arms and torso down to knees. For half-armor – shoulders to upper arm, maybe covering upper legs – you deduct a point from the Armor Class value. You could probably take it further, and drop the bonus by 2 for “quarter-armor” for those punk barbarians out there who like to accessorize with armor without really committing to it.

A shield still gives the normal 1 point bump (or in Blood & Treasure, a 1 point bump for bucklers, and a 2 point bump for larger shields).

The point of this would be to make it easy to figure out what protective value different types of armor should have – not just real armor that doesn’t show up on the old leather-mail-plate table, but also illustrations of fantasy heroes and heroines in the fantastic armor artists often dress them.

Also …

GRIT & VIGOR

In print

200 pages of rules and ideas for modern adventures

Gunslingers, daredevils, private eyes, samurais, scoundrels and even scholars!

Hard cover $26.99 | Paperback $18.99

As always, if you purchase a hard cover and email me the receipt, I’ll send you a download link for the PDF

 

Beware the Used Armor Salesman

/ jstater / 5 Comments
Image from Wikipedia

The difference between life and death for a low level warrior can turn out to be the difference between chainmail and platemail. The problem for the novice adventurer, of course, is a lack of funds. Platemail is expensive. In order to earn enough coin to buy it, a warrior has to stick his neck out enough that he might lose it.

Another option might be used, cut-rate armor. Plenty of warriors kick the bucket every year, and plenty of suits of old armor are dragged out of dungeons every day (well, presumably), so clearly used armor is widely available, and just as presumably, that armor is going to be cheaper than a new suit.

Any purchaser of a used car, though, knows well the dangers. Maybe that suit of platemail you just bought cheap is a lemon – maybe it is way more trouble than it is worth.

The following tables are a way to determine just what is wrong with that cheap suit of armor a character just bought.

Every used suit of armor comes with 1d4-1 defects. In this system, a used suit of armor sells for a base 10% discount, +10% per defect. This represents the lowest price the salesman will accept. Naturally, they’re going to try to get more than that. I’ll let you handle the haggling yourself.

Leather-Based Armors (leather, studded leather, ring mail, scale mail)
1. Loose studs – studs, bolts or scales on the armor are loose; every hit you suffer in combat has a 1 in 6 chance of reducing the armor bonus by 1 as several pieces fall off.
2. Loose fit – the armor rides down with wear, imposing a -1 penalty to Reflex saves (or saves vs. rays and dragon breath) and reducing movement by 5 feet
3. Poor workmanship – armor bonus is one lower than normal
4. Squeaky – armor squeaks in a cool environment (like most dungeons), imposing a -2 penalty to move silently checks (or a -10% penalty, depending on the system you use)
5. Stench – the armor just don’t smell right, especially once it’s been on for a while and warmed up – imposes a 1 point penalty to surprise foes (or a 2 point penalty if those foes have sensitive noses)
6. Tight fit – the more you wear it, the more is chafes, imposing a -1 penalty to hit in combat and reducing movement by 5 feet
7. Weak buckle – every time you’re in a fight there is a 1 in 6 chance per round that it snaps or falls apart, imposing a -1 penalty to the armor’s armor class bonus and a -1 penalty to hit
8. Cursed – suit is -1 cursed armor

Mail Armors (mail shirt, chainmail)
1. Jingle – armor jingles and rattles, imposing a -2 penalty to move silently checks (or a -10% penalty, depending on the system you use)
2. Loose fit – the armor rides down with wear, imposing a -1 penalty to Reflex saves (or saves vs. rays and dragon breath) and reducing movement by 5 feet
3. Loose rivets – every hit you suffer in combat has a 1 in 6 chance of reducing the armor bonus by 1 as several links fall off.
4. Poor workmanship – armor bonus is one lower than normal
5. Tight fit – the armor just doesn’t let you breath, imposing a -1 penalty to hit in combat and reducing movement by 5 feet
6. Weak backing – any hit with a weapon that deals more than 3 points of damage causes links to break and stick in your flesh
7. Weak buckle – every time you’re in a fight there is a 1 in 6 chance per round that it snaps or falls apart, imposing a -1 penalty to the armor’s armor class bonus and a -1 penalty to hit
8. Cursed – suit is -1 cursed armor

Plate Armors (banded mail, splint mail, platemail, plate armor)
1. Creaks – armor creaks and groans, imposing a -2 penalty to move silently checks (or a -10% penalty, depending on the system you use)
2. Loose fit – the armor rides down with wear, imposing a -1 penalty to Reflex saves (or saves vs. rays and dragon breath) and reducing movement by 5 feet
3. Loose rivets – every hit you suffer in combat has a 1 in 6 chance of reducing the armor bonus by 1 as several links fall off.
4. Poor workmanship – armor bonus is one lower than normal
5. Tight fit – the armor just doesn’t let you breath, imposing a -1 penalty to hit in combat and reducing movement by 5 feet
6. Weak buckle – every time you’re in a fight there is a 1 in 6 chance per round that it snaps or falls apart, imposing a -1 penalty to the armor’s armor class bonus and a -1 penalty to hit
7. Visor – the visor on the helm has a tendency to slam shut; whenever you attempt a task check or saving throw outside of combat there is a 1 in 6 chance that this happens, imposing a -1 penalty to the roll
8. Cursed – suit is -1 cursed armor

Dragon by Dragon – March 1979 (23)

/ jstater / 6 Comments

I haven’t delved into an old Dragon for a while, so I thought tonight was as good a night as any to do a new “Dragon by Dragon”. What does March 1979 have in store for us?

I often like to start with an ad, and this one has a dandy for Fourth Dimension, the game of Time and Space. You get to play a Time Lord in this one, with an army of Guardians, Rangers and Warriors. No dice in this game – all about the strategy.

In terms of articles, the first one up is about playing EN GARDE! (love the days of capitalized game names) as a solitaire game. Folks might find a use in the Critical Hits table.

Die Roll. Result (Damage Points)
1-10. Light Leg Wound (Base 20 + 16-sided die roll)
11-20. Light Left Arm Wound (Base 20 + 16-sided die roll)
21-30. Light Right Arm Wound (Base 20 + 16-sided die roll)
31-40. Light Head Wound (Base 20 + 16-sided die roll)
41-50. Light Body Wound (Base 25 + 16-sided die roll)
51-60. Serious Leg Wound (Base 50 + 120-sided die roll)
61-70. Serious Left Arm Wound (Base 50 + 120-sided die roll)
71-80. Serious Right Arm Wound (Base 50 + 120-sided die roll)
81-90. Serious Head Wound (Base 50 + 120-sided die roll)
91-99. Serious Body Wound (Base 100 + 120-sided die roll)
00. DEAD

Love the 16-sided dice and 120-sided dice – not sure how that was accomplished, though I’m sure a dice whiz can inform us in the comments. If modifying for use in “traditional fantasy games”, you could maybe replace “Base 20 + 16-sided die roll” with 6 + 1d6 or something like that.

Next is some fantasy fiction by Gardner F. Fox – “The Thing from the Tomb”. The first paragraph goes thus …

“Niall of the Far Travels reined in his big grey stallion, lifting his right hand to halt the long column of riders who followed him across this corner of the Baklakanian Desert. In front of him, and far away, he could make out a dark blotch on the golden sands toward which he was
moving.”

Jeff P. Swycaffer presents “Mind Wrestling”, a variation on psionic combat. To be honest, I still regret not throwing in a psionics appendix into Blood & Treasure. The idea here is that two people are attempting to push a cloud of power suspended between them into their opponent’s mind. The system uses a double track to represent the “field” of combat. Attackers secretly declare an outside or center attack, defenders secretly divide their Psionic Strength between outside and center defense, and then the attacker’s Psionic Strength (+40 or doubled, whichever is less) is compared to the defender’s strength. If a ratio of 2:1 is achieved, the marker is moved one space. If a ratio of 3:1 is achieved, it is moved two spaces. The attacker then has his psionic strength returned to normal and loses 3 points, and the defender loses twice as many points as his marker was pushed back. Simple system, and would probably be a fun game-within-a-game, especially for psionics-heavy campaigns.

Carl Hursh has rules and guidelines for water adventures on the Starship Warden. Lots of monster stats, including craboids and gupoids.

Michael Mornard presents notes on armor for fantasy games, maybe the first article to talk about how D&D armor and weapons is heavier than real armor and weapons.

Gygax’s Sorcerer’s Scroll presents the random generation of creatures from the lower planes – always a fun one, and I highly suggest people use it when sicing demons of various types on their players. You can either use it to generate additional “types” of demons, or use it to alter the appearance of existing types.

James M. Ward presents an article I’m excited about – Damage Permanency (or How Hrothgar One-Ear Got His Name). This system is used when a person is reduced to 1 or 2 hit points. When this happens, there is a 50% chance of no permanent damage, a 20% chance of needing magical healing to heal properly, and a 10% chance of being maimed unless wish or a 5th level or better clerical healing spell or device is used.

What follows are a number of tables – one to determine the area of the body damaged, and tables for each body location to determine what happens. Head damage, for example, is as follows:

1-12 Hearing Loss
13-24 Sight Loss
25-36 Speech Impaired
37-48 Charisma Impaired
49-60 Intelligence Impaired
61-72 Wisdom Impaired
73-88 Fighting Ability Impaired
89-100 Spell Ability Impaired

Of course, more detail follows. “Spell Ability Impaired” mean that the person loses one level of spell ability – i.e. a 3rd level magic-user would have the spells of a 2nd level magic-user.

The Design Forum features “Dungeons and Prisons” by Mark S. Day. Essentially, it covers the idea that dungeons should have some prison cells, and gives a few notions about how one might use them.

And that does it for Dragon in March 1979 – a useful little issue. One parting shot …

Ah – the good old days were just getting started in 1979!

Soon, I’ll review the latest adventure offering from Tim Shorts – Knowledge Illuminates!

Armor Up Like a Barbarian

/ jstater / 6 Comments

Once upon a time, there was pretty realistic armor floating around in the fantasy realm – the stuff you would expect out of folks who did a little research at the local library. And then the 1980’s arrived on the scene …

In the spirit of ridiculous, barbarian-style armor, I present the following scheme:

Armor is for cowards, and nobody likes or respects a coward – not buxom serving wenches, not grizzled men-at-arms, not squirrely thieves, not fat merchants and certainly not the local lord with a quest that needs fulfilling.

In old school parlance, being unlikable = low charisma.

In a barbarian milieu, armor = cowardice.

The barbarian uses piecemeal armor. Each fledgling barbarian hero can decide, at character creation, to buy as many pieces of armor as they like – well, up to 8 anyways. Each piece costs 25 gp, improves one’s Armor Class by 1 and reduces their charisma score by 1. A barbarian cannot allow their charisma to fall below 3, so starting out with low charisma puts a solid ceiling on how much armor you get to wear as a barbarian. This doesn’t sound fair? By Crom, barbarians don’t whine about life not being fair – go be paladin you lousy #$%#%.

For each piece of armor you order, you roll on the following table – after all, only a real poser would actually go out and buy mismatched, piecemeal armor – barbarians pick it up off the bodies of the slain.


Note: Bits and straps of leather don’t count here – just metal. Leather up all you want.

1. Helm (5% chance of wicked horns – if you have horns, you keep your point of charisma)

 

2. Sabatons (if this is your only piece of armor you lose an extra point of charisma – what kind of dork walks around with nothing but metal shoes)

3. Breastplate or shirt or mail or scales (+2 AC and -2 charisma)

4. Arm (right or left, your choice sport)

5. Leg (right or left, you choice sport)

Always protect yer fightin’ leg!

6. Shield (why does a shield dock your barbarian street cred? Because you should be wielding a honking big two-handed sword or axe, jerkwad)

7. Shoulder guards (if your charisma is still 15 or higher, you can add a cape; otherwise it would just make you look like a stupid poser)

8. Gauntlet (5% chance of being spiked, which grants +1 bonus to damage each time you score a hit in combat)

9. Mail Loincloth (add mail brassiere if female, unless you want to kick it amazon style)

[You can Google “chainmail loincloth” on your own, chief]

10. Disc Armor (not as dorky as a breastplate, but still shows a lack of self-confidence, which is like a taped up pair of eyeglasses to a barbarian)

You can scrounge other pieces as you adventure, but note – adding a piece still means losing charisma, which means fewer retainers, lower reaction checks and probably some kind of penalty to carousing.

Don’t worry Conan, we can forgive the horned helmet … just not the acting

Three (or Six) Dual Helms

/ jstater

Dual helms are constructed in pairs and are connected to one another through subtle strings of being that float through the ether.

Gemini Helms
When little used, Gemini helms allow the two wearers to swap abilities. One category of ability can be swapped at a time for up to 1 hour in a 24 hour period. These categories are as follows: fighting ability (i.e. attack bonus), strength, intelligence, wisdom, constitution, dexterity, charisma, hit points (damage stays with the person damaged, though, so a person who normally has but 20 hit points and swaps it with his comrades 50 hit points will die when the switch it over if he’s taken more than 19 points of damage), saving throws (all categories, if applicable), prepared/memorized spells and spell casting ability and special abilities (i.e. a thief could swap his special thief abilities for a ranger’s special ranger abilities).

Each time a pair of people use the helms, there is a cumulative 1% chance of a feedback, up to a maximum chance of 12%. If a feedback occurs, consult the following table:

ROLL D10
1-6. Memory Swap: Particular memories swamp between the people – perhaps memories of their parents.

7-9. Personality Swap: This could also count as an alignment swap.

10. Combination: The pair average all of their ability scores and lose half of their class levels (-1), gaining half of their comrade’s class levels +1. In other words, a 6th level fighter and 8th level combined would turn into two 4th/5th level fighter/thieves.

Puppet Helms
Each of these helms acts as a helm of telepathy. It also gives its wearer the ability to impose his will on the wearer of the other puppet helm. When this battle of wills occurs, both players should roll 1d20. Whichever rolls the furthest under their charisma score wins the battle and can force their companion to do or say one thing that takes no more than 1 turn (10 minutes). The winner of this contest of wills suffers 1d3 points of charisma damage, the charisma damage disappearing after 8 hours of sleep.

Helms of Summoning
The wearer of one of these helms can remove it, strike it with a small platinum rod and say “Come Hither!” and their comrade appears beneath the helm (and no, not if you’re holding it over the edge of a cliff or under water – don’t be a pain in the ass). The other helm appears on the summoner’s head when his comrade appears. These helms can be used once per day, but with each use there is a cumulative 1% chance that the summoned comrade will actually be their double from another reality. This chance re-sets at the next full moon. If an alternate comrade appears, use the following table to determine what shows up:

ROLL D6
1. Zombie: Retains a feral intellect, thoroughly chaotic. Fights with as many Hit Dice as the person had levels, but loses any special abilities. Those who lose more than half their hit points to the zombie’s attacks must pass a saving throw or become a zombie themselves. Remove disease cures them, but only inflicts 1d6 points of damage per caster level to the summoned zombie.

2. Demonic: Has the abilities of the person summoned (or the reverse, if they were a cleric or paladin), but with a demonic cast and a chaotic alignment. The summoned demon is immune to fire and mind reading and has bat wings that give it a flight speed of 12.

3. Hulk: Summoned person is much larger than normal, with double the strength (or strength bonus, to keep it simple) and an intellect of 1d4+2. Might start calling the summoner “George” and develop a strange fascination with small, furry mammals.

4. Reverse Gender: Summoned person is of the opposite gender. All abilities stay the same, but personality might be slightly altered.

5. Evil Twin: Appears to be the person summoned, but is secretly chaotic and smart enough to realize the situation and use it to their advantage. If the summoned person was chaotic, the evil twin will attempt to kill and replace his or her double. If male, will eventually grow a goatee.

6. Lycanthrope: Summoned person is a lycanthrope (Ref’s choice).

PARS FORTUNA Preview – Weapons and Armor

/ jstater / 1 Comment

Here are the pages I’m using to illustrate the basic weapon and armor types in PARS FORTUNA. Telecanter is doing something very similar on his blog.

 

 

Today I’m adding a few more monsters to PARS, working on the mini-sandbox and level 1 dungeon that are included with the rules, writing more encounters for Western Venatia (I’ll probably post a few tonight) and getting some work done on Hexcrawl Classics #2 – The As-Yet Unnamed Region that Might End Up Having “Badger” Somewhere in the Title. It feels good to be productive.

Pars Fortuna Preview – 12 Magic Armors

/ jstater / 4 Comments

For PARS FORTUNATM, I wanted to do something slightly different with magic items. To that end, I kept the concept of potions and scrolls (in a slightly tweaked format), but I decided to make all other magic items unique. I’ve used the treasure system in Swords and Wizardry quite a bit in producing my NODTM sandboxes, and so I knew that magic items in Swords and Wizardry are, by the rules, rare enough that unique magic items should work. After all, if the magic items in PARS FORTUNATM were not unique, it would have been pretty tricky to randomize them. Here, then, is the master magic item table, and the items in the Armor category.

TABLE 44: OTHER MAGIC ITEMS

1 Armor
2 Bauble
3 Cube
4 Raiment
5 Shield
6 Staff
7 Sword
8 Weapon – Melee
9 Weapon – Missile
10 Miscellaneous

Armor
Most magical armor carries an enchantment of +1 to +3. This bonus applies to the wearer’s AC, thus +1 light armor would give one a +3 bonus to AC rather than the usual +2 bonus. Magical armor resizes itself to fit its owner perfectly.

TABLE 45: MAGIC ARMOR

1 Hospitaler’s Helm
2 Ymbrym’s Bulwark
3 Champion’s Cuirass
4 Armor of Orth
5 Sollerets of ESP
6 Scales of Faduz
7 Hoden’s Mail
8 Crusader’s Breastplate
9 Gauntlets of Kriusaichon
10 Ruby Scales
11 Zena’s Robe of Spells
12 Emperor’s Armor

Armor of Orth: Orth was a kyssai scoundrel who have his life protecting a village from raiders. His armor was blessed by his heroism, and has long been lost by the champion of that forgotten village. Orth’s armor is a suit of leather armor (+1 light armor), the breastplate being stamped with a cornucopia. When the right fist is held aloft, the armor glows with light as bright as a torch. When the left fist is held aloft, the wearer and his comrades are immune to mind effects.

Champion’s Cuirass: Forged by the ilel and then lost during one of their many wars, this blue-steel cuirass is +1 medium armor and creates a 10-ft radius zone of magic resistance (10%) around the wearer.

Crusader’s Breastplate: This breastplate is washed in gold and has crimson leather straps. It counts as +2 medium armor and allows the wearer to control flames, making them brighter, snuffing them out, or causing them to leap at targets (treat as missile attack, 1d6 damage). The wearer gains a +2 bonus to save vs. fire.

Emperor’s Armor: This suit of plate armor is made of silvered steel, and the breastplate is marked with a noble crest of a hhai rampant. Owned by an ancient emperor of Vex, it was lost during the coup of the ilel, and it is prophesied that the person who will overthrow the ilel will come wearing this armor. Volzaar’s armor allows the wearer to fly (movement of 12), and the owner of the armor does not age. In daylight, it can be commanded to dazzle all in sight (saving throw allowed to negate the effect) once per day.

Gauntlets of Kriusaichon: These black boiled leather gauntlets allow the wearer to make a level drain attack with their touch. Treat this as a normal melee attack. Each time a level (or Hit Dice) is drained, the wearer permanently loses 1 point of charisma, their appearance becoming more ghoulish and unwholesome.

Hoden’s Mail: The famed olvugai adventurer Hoden wore this expansive coat of mail. The mail acts as +2 heavy armor and, on the wearer’s command, casts the spell Invulnerability.

Hospitaler’s Helm: This conical steel helm gives its wearer the ability to heal 2d6 points of damage with a touch once per day. The wearer, unfortunately, is struck with deafness while wearing the helm.

Mail of Ymbrym: Ymbrym was an olvugai smith of the highest order and arrogance. The coat of mail that reaches to the ankles and shines with an inner fire. It is +1 heavy armor and grants the wearer immunity to magical ranged attacks of level 1 to 3 (i.e. cantraps). Unfortunately, the wearer becomes an overbearing know-it-all while in the mail.

Ruby Scales: This +3 medium armor is composed of crimson-tinged scales of metal on a leather backing. On the chest, the armor is bejeweled with three perfect rubies that blaze with an inner fire. These rubies enable the wearer of the armor to cast three Maledictions. As Malediction is cast, a ruby loses its sheen. When all three have been cast, the armor disappears.

Scales of Faduz: Forged by the infamous osk smith Faduz, this +2 medium armor of lacquered black metal with gilded edges allows the owner to shape shift into the form of a beast. The chosen form cannot have more Hit Dice than the wearer of the armor. It has the side effect of making the wearer look more bestial.

Sollerets of ESP: Sollerets are, basically, armored shoes. This pair is made of steel and has long, pointed toes. The wearer of the sollerets gains the ability to read people’s minds, but each time this power is invoked, they develop a painful, ugly boil on their face. These boils effectively lower the wearer’s charisma by 2, and last for 1d6 days.

Zena’s Robe of Spells: Zena was a magician of olden times, claimed by all the magical races as one of their own. Her robe is made of thick leather, and acts as +3 light armor. Once per day, the wearer can cast any spell of a level equal to or lower than their Hit Dice.