“ These magical boots empower the wearer with several abilities at once. Wondrous leaping, water-walking, and even flying! Yet the boots possess an insidious curse upon them as well. A deep and almost unfathomable (by others) feeling of listlessness, boredom, and even apathy affects the boots' wearer at all times whenever they are donned. Magic will not dispel the effects.
And so while the wearer of the boots can perform great feats of action during combat or at other opportune times and key moments, they'll never really want to do so, complaining 'Meh, what's the point of it all anyway?' or 'I would fly up and save us all guys, but sigh, maybe uhm, soonish, mkay? Bit bored by this whole burning tower at the moment.'
Naturally the boots wearer's fellow PCs will grow quickly frustrated with this arrangement. There have been numerous occasions when one angry PC literally tears off the boots from his companion's feet in anger, and dons them in turn, only to immediately suffer from the same effects.
The solution lies in constantly 'motivating' the boots' wearer with successful rolls, involving threats, flattery, fiery speeches, or even bribery.”
“ The cliff-hunters ride sheer-stalkers vertically down the cliff faces to reach the nests of birds and steal their eggs for sport. Sheer-stalkers are vicious agile lizards about the size of large komodo dragons. They must be muzzled and harnessed, but even so there have been some nasty incidents...”
“ Near a major city, a mirror image of the place has appeared. This strange double is infested with hostile insectoid humanoids that appear to match the city folk in numbers and armaments. The humans' diviners have determined that the secret of the city's appearance can be found within the double's college of magic, so heroes are needed to explore within this mirror city and discover what has drawn it from its distant realm. There isn't much time to spare, as the bug folk find their mammalian counterparts unnatural and blasphemous, and plan to destroy them.”
