Cloak of the Daywalker
Magical cloak that acts as armor. Protection against normal and magical attacks as well as holy spells. Gives creatures who are harmed by light and sunlight immunity. Give wearer the ability to become invisible at night. Sentient and cursed. See full description for details.
At the end of the second age the twelve houses of the Wampyr waged war. The battle was joined with the houses armies being bolstered by legions of undead. The war lasted two thousand years by mortal reckoning. Countless Wampyr fell and the houses waxed and waned in power through rutlessness, open battle, and subterfuge. The tide turned against the once powerful house of Yol. Seven houses were no more and the remaining four stood together steadfast against the might of Yol. The dread queen of Yol was not only Wampyr but powerful Magi and thru use of magik and a pact with the Nether gods she wrought many weapons to use against the other houses combined power. She gifted a score plus one of her finest warriors beyond that of the normal Wampyr. She sacrificed one hundred Wampyr for every one of her finest, using their lifeforce and the life force of all the souls they had taken to make the 21 powerful beyond all imagining. The Wampyr have always had fallen dwarves and gnomes among their host and magnificent weapons were crafted for use by the 21. I cannot relate the manner of weapons these were for the fell nature of them chills me to the marrow of my bones when the mere thought of their depravity enters my mind. Perhaps one day I will find the fortitude to tell of the terrible power these enchanted weapons unleashed on this world and others.
One thing I will speak of is the Battlemantles worn by the 21. More commonly known as Daywalker cloaks, they provided the 21 protection from dweomers, spells, both holy and unholy, powerful swords were rendered useless, even dragons breath could not mar its surface. The outside of the cloaks were a brilliant white, the color of bleached bone. The interior of the cloak was the color of darkest midnight. In addition to protecting the 21 from spells and steel it gave them the ability to walk the lands during the night and the DAY. When worn at night with the dark side outward, the cloak renders the wearer invisible, once the hood is raised. This is to all but the most powerful vision enhancing spells. Normal means of detecting magik will detect powerful magic in the general area but not the actual location of the individual wearing the cloak, even if they attack. During the day with the white side worn outward,, Wampyr can walk the daytime world without being harmed by the suns rays.
Good folk who seek the power rendered by these cloaks beware. For they are evil things forged by a pact tween a Wampyr queen and the Nether Gods. Some say they are sentient. Who knows? But one thing is certain: wearing one will change the spirit of the person until it is like that of the 21. Perhaps wearing the cloaks may be a way for the spirits of the 21 to possess the wearer. But who knows what hell the 21 are consigned to, and may the rot there for eternity. Nor do I know where the cloaks are to be found in this the forth age. Who knows, perhaps it's all part of a tale to scare children.
I must take my leave of you. Farewell and Godsfavor
The Immortal Scholar
Magical Properties:
Invisibility, Immunity to sunlight and holy spells, Sentience, possibly possesion, and alignment change
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? Responses (8)
Well, POG, so essentially this does offset all the vulnerabilities of vampires?
So, it will only encourage the players who choose 'drow vampire assasins with a katana' as their character - with their sociopathic behavior, the personality change will not be apparent.
Other than that - not bad for one of the first posts - you might try to put in a few returns so that it is easier to read.
Define: Wampyr. Is it just pretentious for Vampire? Or is it a subtype? or is it something else.
Insert line returns between paragraphs to make them clearer to read. Big blocks of text are hard to read.
If the immortal scholar is making an 'entry into a book', then such a notation should be done at the begining of the post.
The write up it self, though nicely poetic, is not very informative or very clear. That is just towards the description story aspect. I believe is its greatest flaw of this posting.
On another lesser flaw, you could give a bit more detail on the magical properties.
As written, it could not be inserted into an appropriate story with appropriate characters without a great deal of work or rewriting by the author. As written, it would be even harder to insert it into a game.
Still there is hope... perhaps an improving edit?
OK - the backstory is pretty good but the item is really just another uber-powerful, munchkin tool with no real downside
Only 1/5 for the item itself but the backstory is good enough to raise this to 2/5
Some advice
Try do avoid the "Armour of Protection from All Harm" or the "Sword of Everything Slaying type of thing. Instead go for low level magical items or interesting mechanical devices and/or alchemical substances that are useful to the ordinary man. Such things are generally much more useful in the long term and do not tend to unbalance the campaign.
I would have to agree with what the others above have already said. The item is certainly too powerful, especially for their to be potentially 21 of them floating around. I did enjoy the writing, but as Moon said, you should make some notation at the begining to indicate that it is a journal or diary entry of some sort.
I look forward to more of your work.
Thanks for the feedback everybody.
I left the item details pretty vague so that GM's can fill in the details themselves. In the context that I was thinking in when I made it up I wasn't even thinking of the munchkin aspects. The type of use I envisioned was the item being used against the players by a powerful vampire. Can run can't hide type deal. Or perhaps that it was being used by a good character who was trying to fight the vampy urges and find a cure. The character would then half to deal with the curse and possession affects.
Thanks again for the comments. It's been years since I played so I'm sure I'll need help in the 'making good ideas good for games' department.
I'll probably change things so that high level clerics can detect beings who use the cloak to become invisible and do things to negate the effects. Also the cloak could also degenerate after being on the prime material plane for a certain length of time.
There is nothing wrong with this per se, I think it is nicely written and if a story requires an uber powerful item than it requires an uber powerful item. Rejecting something just because it is too powerful is silly. We are not talking about board games, or miniatures, we are talking about roleplaying...collective story telling or just plain story telling. On the upside just having these in the game world raises the threat level of the world. I tempted to give this a 5 just to undue all the 'Citadel Dogma' comments.
Personally, I would keep the cloaks to their title - Daywalkers, protecting the wearer from positive energy sources including sunlight. Yes, it may make holy swords less effective, especially when combined with the Vampire's natural immunities - which are pretty powerful by themselves.
I would also make them utterly incompatible with a living wearer, as the negative energy used to provide the protection would infuse the wearer.