Disentegrating Necklace

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This particular necklace could be worth 1,000… If you get it to the market fast enough.

Description

The Disintegrating Necklace is exactly what it means, it’s a necklace, and, after a period of time, it disintegrates, just to go back to the place where you picked it up. It’s exactly in every way a gold and diamond necklace, but if you sell it for the 1,000 gold the real one is worth before it disintegrates, you just won yourself a fairly large profit.

History

The Merchant of Kintro wanted to have a little villainous fun with his customers, making a necklace that would disintegrate within a couple hours, to make a few coins. He would then blame the disintegration on the customer, and refuse to refund the money. He took his idea to a wizard, who liked this idea. He made the item, and then thought he would have some mischief fun himself. He duplicated the necklace and placed them all over the land, and they could be anywhere. On a shelf, on the ground, anywhere.

Properties

Once the necklace has contact with a lifeform, it has two hours until complete disintegration. Run it to the merchant as fast as you can!

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Man-Eating Grapes

Murometz

A wild species, vinus homophagus, more akin to sea-grape rather than the terrestrial variety, is not a monster despite its fanciful name. The grapes, a deep purple color when in bloom, and oozing dewdrops of perspiration, like the most prized and delectable of drinking wine grapes, do however deserve their moniker. Wine made from this fruit, is deadly to most humanoids, as is the raw berry if plucked and eaten from the vine. It is the unnatural chemical concoction found within the fruit’s tart skin, which gives the man-eating grape its name. The chemical stew found inside each berry, functions as a necrotic agent, the same as found in some species of venomous snakes.

The grapes literally eat their victims from the inside out, via cell death, melting and destroying the organs in quick succession.

The tribes of Pra-Oohk Crater, of the jungles of Ghlush are known to sell the fermented “wine” of this grape to merchants of distant lands. Sadly, the taste of the concoction is divine when first quaffed, and even worse, the man-eating grape wine will never detect as poisonous via mundane means, its horrid natures somehow masking all attempts. Luckily the man-eating grapes are extremely rare, and endemic to humid jungles.

Encounter ( Forest/ Jungle ) | October 6, 2013 | View | UpVote 4xp

Comments ( 6 )

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Drackler
March 6, 2008, 21:32

0xp

A good idea, but short. the backstory could probably use some work.

Murometz
March 6, 2008, 21:34

I like it! (and Welcome!) Contact with a lifeform though? What if a cockroach crawls over it? Maybe something slightly more insidious as an enchantment?

Misanpilgrim
March 7, 2008, 14:16

This looks like a fantasy translation of a scam that was in the news a few years back, in which the scammer would write out a check, coat it with a mild acidic solution, and then cash it at a local bank. Mild acids have been used for a long time to erase parts of documents, but in this case the check would be soaked in enough of the stuff that within a couple of hours it would turn to illegible paper mush (the hope being, I suppose, that what was left of the check couldn't be used as evidence).

The backstory doesn't do enough. As written, the nameless Merchant of Kintro would be sharing a bunk with a family of dungeon rats within days, shortly after the Baron's third son bought one of these necklaces for his mistress. Either the Merchant could have a motivation (enough to risk facing the Baron's justice), or the necklace could be a more common item...

... If as few as half a dozen of these necklaces, or other similar "ghost-goods", were found out to be in the city, the customs of the area might change. Perhaps a jeweler would present his goods to the customer for inspection, and then they would settle down and discuss the price over a leisurely three-hour lunch. If the jewelry disappears during the lunch, the jeweler goes to prison.

(Plot hook: a jeweler friend of the PCs has been arrested for this sort of fraud. He was framed by a servant, or a thief disguised as a servant, who stole the necklace during the three-hour wait.)

Cheka Man
March 7, 2008, 20:15

A good idea but it needs a better motivation behind it.

Nuchiha101
August 21, 2010, 22:09

I think the price should depend on regions

valadaar
December 16, 2013, 13:21

Stuff like this would quickly generate countermeasures and guard intervention.

For example, jewellers would simply not buy from people without knowing them or having someone vouch for them.
Waiting period of >2 hours before paying for items.
etc.

It would work well a couple of times, after that the 2-hour limit would destroy its value until everyone forgot about it.

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Disentegrating Necklace

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