What Are Your Unique Items?

[Orlax]

For my current game I've given one of the characters an intelligent artifact. It is a mostly nondescript dagger. It is the blade upon which his pact of the blade is sworn. It has a number of capabilities that he unlocks as he completes certain milestones (for instance the first time the character lost its save vs the intelligent item trying to take control he unlocked the rod of the pact keeper capability), gains levels, and performs Eldritch rituals.

The blade has a couple of downsides. First and foremost, if the blade is outside of ten feet the character is blind. Also it can mind control the wielder via the normal intelligent item rules, and now also targets other than the wielder (it has mystic levels from the UA article, though it rarely if ever uses it's abilities the blade is basically an NPC under my control and it has so few fs to give). It is mostly neutral, and cares only for hunting cunning enemies, most specifically at the moment it cares only for hunting aberrations. However the powers it has are pretty awesome:

-It is a +1 dagger
-It acts as a rod of the pact keeper +1 (this will grow later along side level)
-It gives the warlock extra spells known (gives pact spells as spells known)
-gives the character bracers of armor (with a few negative consequences that only make sense in context of the campaign we have going)
-Any time a kill is scored against an aberration (creature type will be expanding soon) the damage die of the weapon scales for the following hit. It starts as a single d6 weapon after a kill it goes to 2d6, if used again for a killing blow it goes to 3d6 and so on, but as soon as it is used for aa non killing blow or against something that isn't an aberration it drops back to being a 1d6 weapon.
-scoring a crit with the weapon triggers a roll on the sorcerer's wild surge table.
-the Blade has some ability to track aberrations much like a compass.

Next two unlocks:
After defeating the boss of this upcoming session they will have a night hag's gem (can't remember the hens name out of the one they need in order to use some of their powers) he will be able to use it in a dark Eldritch ritual which will make his blade's creature type dependent abilities work on fey, and will give him cure disease as a spell known.

After finally getting his third level of warlock (currently 3 fighter/2 warlock) he will be able to set the dagger as his pact weapon, and also be able to form any weapon still and have it count as this Blade thus removing the ten feet away blindness issue and also setting the base damage of the weapon to a d12 (making that scaling on a kill thing super fun) because he's actually a great weapon fighter.

The player knows this is the only magic item they will ever really get outside of potions. We discussed it going into the game.

 

[Imaculata]

Hungry Lock-box - This tiny sentient box only closes if a new object is inserted inside of it. However, it will also refuse to open to anyone but its owner, who ever own the key. The box will growl at other people trying to touch it, and will occasionally get ticked off if it hasn't been fed a new item. It doesn't actually consume any of the items or damage them.

Telling Tapestry - Upon command the decorative figures and shapes on this tapestry can be commanded to illustrate the thoughts of the owner to anyone that is paying close attention to the tapestry.

Mumbling Marble - This small glass marble can contain one spoken word, that is spoken when the marble is broken. It will speak the word as loud as it was originally spoken, and cannot be recharged. Once a word has been inserted, it cannot be erased.

Dwarven Drinking Horn - This horn turns any liquid into dwarven ale. Shortly after leaving the horn however, it becomes the original liquid again. This does allow the owner to consume water from it as if it were ale, and with the same alcoholic effects.

Winter Closet - This locked and chained closet is a hilarious addition to any magic shop. It leads to a tiny magical winter land, contained in a small pocket dimension, that contains fierce yetis that want to escape the closet. The key to the closet is often best kept hidden. Occasionally the yetis might pound on the doors of the closet if people touch it.

The odd coin - This is a silver coin with random images on either side whenever it is pulled out. Upon throwing it, it will always land in an odd way, or not land at all. It can drop into a drinking glass, in between the floor boards, or disappear into thin air. It can even land exactly on its side.

 

[JPDeed]

"Crowfeeder" - a +2 falcata of tarnished steel that refuses to show polish no matter how much effort is put in. The hilt is carved of a tar-stained hardwood, with the crosspiece and pommel both shaped like a crow or ravens head looking upon each other with cloudy white embedded gemstones for eyes. When drawn, Crowfeeder emits a ghost sound cantrip of a murder of crows flapping their wings as they take flight. On a critical hit, the wielder is effected by a deathwatch spell for 6 rounds. The sword was once owned by a powerful, secretive being. Whoever this figure is, it has a clairaudience link to the blade and occasionally sends minions to try to take it back.

 

[Sato]

I'm introducing something in my next campaign called a "heartstone" - where the characters will wake up with amnesia from a post-ritual surgery of sorts with the crystals having replaced their real hearts. The heartstones originally belonged to infernals, and though the ritual will be interrupted, and the infernals aren't awakened in their new hosts, there's still a chance of possession. It still needs some stat work, but hopefully it'll be an interesting bit of MacGuffin.

 

[Orlax]

I'm introducing something in my next campaign called a "heartstone" - where the characters will wake up with amnesia from a post-ritual surgery of sorts with the crystals having replaced their real hearts. The heartstones originally belonged to infernals, and though the ritual will be interrupted, and the infernals aren't awakened in their new hosts, there's still a chance of possession. It still needs some stat work, but hopefully it'll be an interesting bit of MacGuffin.

Might want to rethink the name, heartstone is an actual item already, they come from night hags and a reference to them can be found in the mm

 

[Nytmare]

I ran a heavily modified (inspired?) version of the Banewarrens back in 3.5 and had some some absolutely terrifying evil artifact show up over the course of the game.

I can't remember many of them, or how many of them were actually all my ideas, but I think the one that the players enjoyed the most was one that they ended up calling the War Cleaver. It was a goblin polearm that was so big and unwieldy that it limited you to only five foot steps while you were carrying it. Any attack you made with it gave you an extra 5' step and attacked all characters in range. Also it had some kind of insane (like maybe 15-20/x4?) crit range and we were playing with someone's (I forget whose) extra gritty crit and fumble tables.

So essentially, what would happen is that the goblin chief would ride in behind his troops and draw it to force his goblin hordes away from him and into the heroes. The players had heard about the group and had spent the previous adventure or so laughing at how easy a fight was going to be against a bunch of goblins. Then the guy shows up and all of his goblins start screaming and running away from him as he unties this thing from his horse. Then in the first round of combat he cuts two of his horses and three of his men who hadn't rolled high enough initiative in half.

For the most part, most of my unique items tended to be in the realm of "we're not quite sure what it does, and we probably don't want to find out". Think more along the lines of the Monkey's Paw where using it meant you probably spent at least one night not sleeping, trying to weigh the risks vs the rewards. And even then, if you do use it you spend the next week trying to figure out a way to undo the damage that you did without using is a second time.

 

[Keyframe18]

Some restrained ideas, but flavorful I think.

-Platinum Fang: +2 Longsword – When a paladin attuned to this sword uses his divine smite, he may gain the extra damage that is normally gained from attacking undead and fiends, to dragons. Attunement required.

-Abjurer’s Bracers: Your AC is 13+Dex – If you are an Abjurer, when you cast an abjuration spell, you regain hit points to your Arcane Ward equal to 3 times the spell’s level, instead of 2 times. Attunement Required.

 

[Orlax]

-Abjurer’s Bracers: Your AC is 13+Dex – If you are an Abjurer, when you cast an abjuration spell, you regain hit points to your Arcane Ward equal to 3 times the spell’s level, instead of 2 times. Attunement Required.

Consider this idea Stolen. I have an abjuration mage in my game he's going to at least learn about these things.

 

[Lanefan]

Arrowwand - looks like a wand when you find it but doesn't do anything at all until you nock it to a bow as if it was an arrow and shoot it. Unless the shooter fumbles the shot (or rolls natural '1' to hit if you don't have fumbles) it's an automatic hit for d6+2 damage (note this damage can NOT be modified by anything), and 2 rounds later the Arrowwand reappears in the shooter's quiver. Range is 100', shooting at a target farther away just has the 'wand vanish at the 100' point and reappear in the quiver 2 rounds later.

Lan-"there's more complications to it, this is the stripped-down simple version"-efan

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I'm not normally a fan of scrolls, potions, or other limited-use items. I avoid putting them into my games, for the most part. In my most recent game, there was a significant setting detail where a magical potion was highly relevant to the activities within a certain region.

There was an Orcish warlord (whose name is irrelevant) who had conquered most of the continent, but was experiencing resistance from one tiny holdout village to the north. This village, in spite of a population only in the dozens, was able to fight off any number of enslaved salamanders and wyverns, thanks to a unique potion which gave them superhuman strength and endurance. After the party succeeded on a typical fetch quest to gather ingredients, they were each given exactly one potion to keep for future use.

This nameless potion acts like a combined Potion of Strength (Fire Giant), Potion of Invulnerability, Potion of Supreme Healing, and Potion of Flying; in addition, the hair of the imbiber grows by three feet, and the individual emits a strong golden light for the duration of the effect.