Gloves of the Soul-Mage
A set of gloves crafted by none other than our friendly resident soul-mage, Tarquin. Designed specifically to give a physical attack that is effective even with his weak body.
These gloves are of simple design - leather, forearm length, and magically altered to a blackened colour. They look the same inside out as the right way around. Obviously very basic.
The malevolant mage Tarquin was, of course, picked on by the peers of his school, as are all brilliant minds. Those who are superior to others are feared by people. Those who people fear, people naturally come to hate. As a result, he was subject to many insults and acts of physical violence - yet another factor as to why the mage became so cruel as to slaughter them all.
During his many experimentations just before the discovery of his soul-leeching techniques, Tarquin crafted these gloves. He imbued the gloves with the warped powers discovered by his delving into the mysteries of the soul, plus the skills he obtained in the studying of necromancy. The outside of the gloves, when pressed against living flesh and their powers called upon by the one wearing them, Will cause intense pain to flare into the victims very bieng. The gloves are in no way fatal, and can never kill somebody, but the pain, rendered to the core of the victims essense is very incapacitating and few will be able to break free of it. This power is certainly cruel but useful, but it is not the extent of the powers in the gloves.
Tarquin is a very weak man, dispite his great magical power. He is unable to use much physical strength, and even the simple act of walking for extended periods of time is very taxing on him. These gloves help alleviate some of that weakness - anything lifted by hands in the glove, will have half the weight of what it should be. This was also so Tarquin could grip the throat of an enemy and lift him from the ground, then unleash that deadly energy into him. A most painful death, as it is torture and choking.
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One intriguing use of this glove is to allow an enemy to know what they do, then turn them inside-out and let the enemy conveniently find them. The enemy will put the gloves on then attempt to attack you with it - only to shock their very own souls. Also, since the glove is halving the weight of their hands, they will find that things are quite harder to pick up then before.
Magical Properties:
These gloves, when the torture is activated, link to the victims very soul and simply give its existence a jolt, similar to electrical shocking. Since the pain and wounding is to the soul, the damage cannot be healed barring the passage of time, and it takes some two minutes after contact is released that the pain would completely diminish.
The weight reduction used by the gloves are derived from necromatic power - the power that makes zombies unnaturally strong. All items lifted by the gloves will be half as heavy.
Yes, all these things seem quite beneficial, but rest assured, these gloves ARE cursed:
Tarquin was a young mage at the creation of these gloves, and dispite his rapidly growing power, he was subject to failure at times. A quirk in his magic forced these gloves to have a reaction against steel and wood - Steel would erode and rust with the prolonged grip of the gloves, and wood rots away as though termites were eating through it. As a result, weapons cannot be held for more than 5 minutes with these gloves on lest they shatter in the users grip, so one would be physically unarmed barring the power of the gloves themselves.
Those with the gloves on will gradually find themselves having evil desires and thoughts. Desires of inflicting pain, and of stealing power. Desires which rot through the minds of people - Though the process takes time. The gloves eventually turn the users alignment into evil. Tarquin, of course, was fairly unaffected by this, as at the time he created it, his mind was already dwelling on many evil thoughts.
One last detrimental effect occurs only to those who do not dabble in 'evil' magic and most prominently - necromancy. Prolonged use of the gloves will cause the persons skin to slowly rot, their muscles becoming effected and their minds slowly diminishing - the mechanics behind this is once again that necromatic power imbued into the gloves, which are slowly turning the user into the undead. Anyone who has a bit of knowledge in the dark arts will be able to halt this action, however, but those of good alignment will find this taking place quite quickly.
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? Responses (8)
*claps. Very good, this is an enjoyable item that i wish i had thought of first. The players would never know what hit them, but that brings up a question. how would the gloves work their corruption through a PC? wouldn't the PC have to know that he/she is supposed to gradually acted more evil? And then, wouldn't they just be able to toss the gloves to the side. I'm sure youll be able to come up with a solution, or already have one and just havn't put it down on paper.
I personally would suggest either having the gloves fall into the hands of a close NPC, or making them have a addiction that needs a saving through that rises over time. All that put aside good job. (sorry if i seem picky but you dont get better through nothing but praise)
There is no reason holding them to throw the gloves away, but Magus - would you, for example, throw away A sharp-hilted sword if it were your only weapon and you were surrounded by enemies?
Its similar to my Wraith ring - you can throw it away no problem, but you would lose what power you had gained. Many people may want to risk becoming a bit bloodthirsty for that power. Some may think that they can overcome the desire for evil and try to combat it.
Things dont have to be magically bound to someone for someone to want to keep it.
=) Thanks for the comment, however.
To have a look at Magnus's comment... I know that in most systems, but surely in the Dungeons and Dragons system, a cursed item can not be removed, unless a special spell, called remove curse is used.
Thus a player wearing these gloves, would not be able to just fling them asside, unless he could find someone to first cast this spell and then remove the gloves.
Most ROLEplayers (not DICEROLLplayers) would be quite capable in playing out the gradual change in attitude of the character.
About the item: I have the feeling that the 'inside-out' part of the description does not entirely match the 'normal' part of the description. Other then that, I like the idea of the gloves being worn inside out and thus having a reverse effect.
The 'inside-out' part was actually something I thought of after I had written out most of the item, and I just threw it in. It would probably just be better as a separate comment, probably, but I wont bother changing it now. =)
I like it, are they warm? Cause, you know, I could use a pair of gloves soon.
Interesting. A nice thing for a minor villein to have, and have looted from him.
Not bad! I like items that interact with the unseen like this. And Gloves.
I would go so far as to allow the wearer to inflict spirit damage through punching with these gloves.