The following items are not strictly magical, but can be regarded as magical by the ignorant. Some of them are useful either for sorcerers or for those battling sorcerous creatures. All are difficult to buy and likely to be available only in a few communities that specialise in their manufacture. Unusual items are only ever offered for sale at the Games Master’s discretion.
are pitched specifically to assist with calming and controlling the chosen creature – in this case, grey and other apes. It is likely that similar masterwork musical instruments are used to control other types of creature, at the Games Master’s discretion. In each case, the instruments will only be useful to control perhaps two to four specifically named and related creatures, such as a flute that controls dogs and wolves.
Animal Mummies
Purchase Price: 108 sp. This is for the grey pipes specifically, though similar masterwork instruments could provide a similar benefit at a slightly different price.
Animals are associated with the gods, so to honour the gods the Stygians mummify animals and give them as offerings. Mummified cats are left for Bast; mummified hawks are left for Harakht. So many animals are annually embalmed in Stygia that farms often raise the animals for the express purpose of selling them, killing them and mummifying them. Animal mummies can be used as the material component of the summon beast, animal ally and children of the night spells from Conan the Roleplaying Game. Cost: 10 sp. Requirements: Profession (mummifier) 6 ranks.
Ape Pipes of Khitai
Khitan sorcerers have masterwork pipes that can control grey apes. These grant a +1 circumstance bonus to all Perform (pipes) checks, a +1 circumstance bonus to all Handle Animal checks targeting grey apes, and a +1 circumstance bonus to magic attack rolls targeting apes of any kind (any creature whose name includes the word ‘ape’, irrespective of type). These bonuses replace the usual +2 circumstance bonus to Perform checks given by most masterwork instruments. In effect, musical instruments of this kind are little different to any other masterwork musical instruments, except they
‘He brought me from the lost jungles of Khitai where the grey apes danced to the pipes of the yellow priests, and offerings of fruit and wine heaped my broken altars.’
R. E. Howard, The Tower of the Elephant
Unusual Items
Unusual Items
Black Candle of Set
Thin, greasy plumes of smoke rise from these black candles. The tallow for these candles is rendered from the body of a virgin strangled with her mother’s hair and made woman after death by her father. Each candle burning while casting a spell within 10 feet of it gives the caster a +1 circumstance bonus to his Magic Attack roll. The use of these candles puts a sorcerer in danger of Corruption (the item has a Magic Attack bonus of +2 per candle for determining the save DC). Burning more than two candles at once has a tendency to upset the magical balance of a given area and causes any spell cast to be considered a mighty spell if it is not already for determining runaway magic results. If a spell is already a mighty spell and is cast with more than two of these candles lit, then it automatically causes the requisite Will save as if it were the second casting of the spell. Manufacturing Cost: 10,000 sp per candle, which should cover the cost to secure a virgin from a kidnapper, as well as the father and mother, plus the cost to compel the father to defile his daughter’s body, plus the cost of rendering down the body.
Bowl Sarcophagi
A bowl sarcophagus is a strange black cylinder, nearly four feet in height, and perhaps three feet in diameter at its widest circumference, which is half-way between the top and bottom. These ancient bowls are generally not built anymore by anyone. The sign of Set is carved upon the lid, the scaled serpent with its tail in its mouth. Too ancient to be holy, the bowl sarcophagus is made of unearthly metal similar to copper yet harder and is said to be a
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