Any suggestions for some infernal items and their effects? Or, more specifically, the kinds of low- to medium-level enchanted items a diabolist magus may have?
Or please let me know where I can find such things if they are out there! I had a look through ROP: The Infernal but nothing jumped out at me.
Thanks! Some nice ideas in there.
Using ROP:Infernal and its maleficia rules:
The leaden amulet - using Debauchery/Consumption General guideline, this level 15 effect adds +1 to damage and soak, and adds 1 point to the wearer's load. (5 points for 1st magnitude, +1 touch, + 1 diameter) - each +5 levels increases the bonuses/penalty by another +1. There's also an effect to add magnitude to Initiative,attack and defense with the same penalty to fatigue rolls - but I rarely make fatigue rolls in 5th edition so I suspect this is broken.
The cursed sword - Incantation Consumption 25 (base 20,+1 touch) heals a medium wound belonging to the wielder, and inflicts a medium wound on the victim. Adds a certain edge to combat, and the higher level versions get particularly deadly.
The witch's wand - Debauchery/Diablerie 20 (base 4, +3 sight range, +1 diameter duration) - pointed at a victim within sight, for the next 2 minutes the wand counts as an arcane connection to the target. Handy for boosting your penetration.
Protect me from my rival wizards - Incantation/Diablerie 15 - (base 5, personal range, +2 sun duration) - gives the caster a magic resistance of 10. Handy for allowing moderate infernalists to challenge starting magi.
Obsidian candles: disposable single use item to be used in Infernally tainted rituals granting a small bonus (up to +5) to the casting total.
They are not obviously evil, and at first the party can be asked to provide some for an older weirder mage who blames a disruption in shipping from Anatolia (but actually wants to keep this on the quieter side and not order them through Red-Caps). A while later, having completed the quest, the party discovers a half dozen obsidian candles in an infernally tainted area or even an Infernally fallen Covenant (like Rudiara).
Not a big world ending device but something to use as a springboard.
These items are mostly built using the Maleficia guidelines as items created using Effusion.
I used a new RTD for one of these, detailed below:
Grave (Equivalent to Room. Affects all things buried in a particular grave site- this is often a single person, but in the case of mass graves due to plague, gruesome crime or battles it may affect large numbers of bodies.)
Pickled Bat Wings
Debauchery/Phantasm 5 (Touch, Concentration, Individual)
A pair of wings from a black bat, preserved with a nasty pickling fluid. Eating one of the wings causes large bat-like wings to sprout from the eater's back. These allow them to fly at similar speeds to which they could run. As a phantasm, these wings dissipate upon entering the dominion or hearing the sound of church bells.
Profaned Wine
Debauchery/Consumption 5 (Touch, Moon, Individual)
This sacramental wine has been defiled with a sinner's blood. If poured into a vessel and shared with another person, the one who drinks first will gain a point of Stamina (up to a maximum of +1), which their partner loses.
Ring to Spurn the Heretic's Fate
Incantation/Effusion 10 (Personal, Momentary, Individual, +1 Complexity)
This silver ring when thrown into a raging fire will blacken and shatter. The remnants of the ring will instantly become filled with a harsh and terrible coldness. This will instantly extinguish any fire less intense than a house fire. Alternatively, by snapping the ring in half and throwing the halves into water the ring can be used to freeze water. It freezes a circle of water up to three paces wide. The ice melts as normal ice, but remains solid enough to walk on for at least an hour.
Sailor's Bane Candle
Debauchery/Effusion 20 (Sight, Sun, Group)
This candle of black lamb fat, when lit and placed in a window during a storm will cause the storm to gradually worsen over the next hour. The storm will be unable to end or calm until the sun next sets or rises. The candle will always be consumed by the end of this duration.
Dust Depraved to Wake the Dead
Incantation/Consumption 30 (Touch, Sun, Grave)
This is a bag of dust made from the bones of unburied corpses. When sprinkled over a grave, it disturbs the rest of the dead and causes them to rise up as shambling undead monsters under the power of the one who woke them. The dust is ineffective during the day and its power works until the dawn.
This magic item, like many forms of necromancy, lacks the power to disturb the dead who have received christian burial rites. However, this restriction is waived if a local religious leader or the priest of officiated those rites is in a state of mortal sin.
Most such bags have enough bone dust to raise three or four grave's worth of the dead.
This item requires a much more powerful Infernalist than the others, or a group of dedicated Diabolists using sacrifice or vis.
The following are Infernal magical items created by a sect of Ophites (RoP:I 133-134). Following a failed ritual and subsequent disfiguring burns, the leader of the sect retired from teaching at the University of Paris and has become a recluse. Furious at his demonic patron, the ex-master Quentin sought out the secrets of Binding and now scours Paris with his coven of infernalists. Any demons they find they cage with their arts and then compress into amulets and other items of jewellery.
Privately, their actions are being orchestrated by Acanthus, the Demon of Paris. Acanthus is a Duchess of the Spirits of Deceit (Might 40). The demon, having found an expelled student of the former teacher, lends him her power over lesser spirits of sickness and the legions of incubi and succubi that inhabit Paris. In petty jealously, the youth sends them to assault Quentin.
Acanthus simply watches as the infernalists give themselves over to hubris, believing that the lesser demons they face are all the powers hell has to threaten them with, while the young student dives deeper into wrath and violence.
Three items made with Goetic Binding and the evil arts of Incantation, Diablerie and Effusion.
Talismans of Protection
Incantation/Diablerie 24
Many members of this infernal sect bear protective items.These items take various forms- rings, amulets and bracelets being the most common. All share the a serpentine motif.
These talismans all share similar powers- they grant whoever wears them Magic Resistance 10 or ward them against a single non-living material, such as bone, wood or metal. Magic Resistance granted does not stack with other sources of Magic Resistance, such as Might or the Parma Magica.
These Talismans typically have Might 5 Demons of Phimosis (A&A 49) or Chaudepysse (A&A 48). Some instead contain Incubi or Succubi of the same level of Might.
An Incantation/Diablerie (or ReVI) effect with sufficient penetration can compel the bound Demon to use its infernal powers. In addition to the normal demonic powers, Demons of Disease may use Diseased Possession (A&A 45), while Succubi may use Harness the Wind or Hag Ride. Though, in the case of using Harness the Wind, it is the talisman and not the wearer who flies.
Amulet of Worldly Governance
Incantation/Effusion 25
This silver amulet is composed of a snake intertwined with an inverted crown, symbolizing the power of the occultist over the mortal world. By holding the amulet and speaking a blasphemous word, the wearer may move any object within their line of sight in any direction they please. The object moves no faster than a human could walk and this item is limited to moving objects less than a cubic pace in size.
These amulets contain demons similar to the Talismans of Protection (above). Occasionally, they instead contain Infernal Ghosts who are part of the order of Furies. These can be compelled to grant the Berserk virtue.
Chalice of Unending Sorcery
Incantation/Effusion/Diablerie 40 and 35
A finely wrought golden chalice banded with serpents devouring their own tails, this magic item holds the greatest and most terrible demon the Ophites have yet faced. The demon was bound into the chalice by a prolonged ritual and even with the sacrifice of both an innocent and one of his own acolytes, the master of the sect nearly failed.
When the chalice is filled with liquid, the eyes of the serpents banding it glow softly. Any spell or Maleficia up to level 30 with a range of Touch may be cast into the liquid, which devours it hungrily. Whoever drinks the accursed elixir is affected at once by the stored Maleficia.
The liquid itself can be stored outside of the chalice, allow it to be continuously reused and for a group of dedicated infernalists to create a vast store of elixirs. The Ophites often use this to store level 30 Incantation/Diablerie effects that grant a minor Virtue with Sun duration- giving themselves Puissant Charm or Second Sight.
This item has an unlimited number of uses per day. Additionally, the first spell cast into the chalice each hour receives a +2 bonus to the caster's casting total. Ophites often use defiled holy water as the liquid reagent of this chalice. This desecrated water contains 1-2 pawns of Infernal Vis (as outlined in RoP:I, 96). If the Maleficia cast into the liquid uses the Incantation Method, the pawns of Vis are consumed to give a +2 to +4 bonus to the casting total as well.
Bound within the chalice is a Might 15 demon of sickness and disease. An Incantation/Diablerie effect (or ReVi spell) with sufficient penetration can compel the demon to strike someone touching the chalice with its Diseased Possession power (A&A 45), inflicting the Bloody Flux, Pneumonia or Gangrene.This costs at least 3 points of Might, but the demon may spend more to allow it to re-inflict the disease should the victim recover.