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Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Pielorinho" data-source="post: 45448" data-attributes="member: 259">A Tour, A Legend, An IncidentThe woman introduced herself as Hayal, and took the Night Watch through the city, starting in the neighborhood just to the South.  “Pardon the smell,” she said; “The world’s finest glassmakers ply their craft along the banks of the Bindik river.  These houses are not the friendliest to travelers, and let’s move on to West Hill.“Here you’ll find more suitable accommodations – and have you yet discovered a place to stay in our city?”The party told her of the arrangement at the Racing Badger, and she wrinkled her nose.  “Oh, no.  No, no, no, not for fine and noble people such as you.  No, I shall take you to a far better inn when the tour is done – the Gold Veil.  In fact, it’s just a few blocks up this way; if you’ll follow me, you can see it.”The Gold Veil (whose name, the companions noted, was worrisomely close to the Golden Masks, their recent enemies) was a lovely, upscale inn, and Hayal quickly arranged for two rooms for her visitors.  She then continued the tour.And so on, through the city:  past the libraries and jewerly shops of West Hill, past the mansions of Silver Hill, with their rococco topiary and silver-plated gates; past the Rais’ palace, guarded by men in crimson robes; past the Northern Gate, outside of which was a Peiriti encampment selling magical trinkets; past the Temple of Mithras (Lum promised to return there soon).Outside the temple of Anahita (18), beautiful young women dressed in yellow and vermilion silks laughed and passed out pomegranate seeds to passersby.  The temple itself was a gaudily ornate work, covered in mosaics of flowers and vines and with a dome worked to resemble a pomegranate.  “You’ll notice, when we reach the Lover’s Tower, a similar design,” Hayal pointed out.And so they did:  four blocks away was a tall tower covered top to bottom in exquisite mosaics of  flowering plants.  And Hayal told them the story of the doomed lovers.Nearly one hundred years ago, the rais’ (19) vizier fathered a girl whose beauty outshone the stars.  The midwife wept at her birth, it is said, and despaired for the child’s fate; for this, the old woman was put to death.  But her premonition proved true.As she grew, the nobles of the city began to urge the vizier to marry her to them.  But he grew jealous of her beauty, and declared that she would not marry yet.His attention was focused on the greedy nobles, and so he did not see that his daughter had fallen in love with a servant from his household.  They met in secret, and other servants conspired to hide the affair.When the vizier finally learned of his daughter’s treachery, he was furious, and locked her in her quarters until he could find and kill the servant boy.  The boy disappeared, however, and the vizier, in his paranoia, had built a tower in which to house his daughter away from the lusting eyes and hands of men.But the vizier’s daughter despaired on her imprisonment, and day by day she grew weaker.  Within a week of the tower’s completion, she died.And then a curious thing happened:  the vizier’s affairs began to fall prey to misfortune.  His lands withered and died.  Every bit of advice he gave the rais turned foul.  Sickness assaulted his household.Two years later, the vizier was in ruins, ejected from the rais’ favor and with nothing to his name save his barren estate.  Rather than suffer the disgrace, he took his own life.  His property, as did that of all suicides, reverted to the state.And the next day a wealthy stranger arrived in town and purchased the tower from the rais for an exorbitant sum.  He hired the city’s best artisans to decorate it as it is now decorated.  An enchantment is laid on the tower so that the singing of a maiden flows from its height every noon and dusk.With that, the stranger gifted the tower back to the city and disappeared.  It is now known as the lover’s tower; none are allowed inside except for the groundskeeper.Hayal ended her tour and thanked the travelers for their attention.  Moments later, she was lost in the crowd.The Night Watch decided to speak with the Peiriti who were encamped outside of town, and headed for the northern gate.But as they walked that way, they heard a commotion ahead of them in the crowd.  Screams, and crashing, and the clash of metal against metal.  The throngs of the festival ran away from the screaming toward them.They surged against the tide of the crowd to investigate.NOTES18) A Rais is roughly equivalent to a Mayor19) Anahita:  a goddess of love, beauty, and fertility.  Her temples have both urban and agrarian aspects.</blockquote>

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