52 Weeks of Magic - Item 36 - Ring of the Mile

The Ring of the Mile is a curious item of dubious benefit. The ring allows the character to teleport without error, a distance up to 4 times their walking speed, within a line of sight. The ring will only carry the wearer and whatever they are carrying. If a second person is carried, their entire weight must be on the wearer, which makes the process difficult. 

The character using the ring will vanish in a puff of golden sparks and appear in a cloud of black smoke which quickly dissipates. They are very easy to spot, the difficulty in tracking them are physical obstacles and their speed. 

The ring is activated in a single segment by twisting it. The ring will function once per round for any number of rounds. 

The user will find that the ring will drain their endurance, as if they had run that distance. After 5 uses per day, the character must make a saving throw vs. Paralysis to continue using the ring. The total SAFE distance the ring can transport someone is about a mile or so. If the saving throw is made, the character must roll on the following table for each additional use:  

1-2 Staggered: On one knee.
3-4 Grounded: On both knees.
5 Prone: Face down on the ground. Can only see 60 feet forward, and 120 feet left and right. 
6 Supine: Face up on the ground. Can only see to the left and right.
7 Tears: The character can barely see. There is 50% chance of reversing direction.
8 Eyes shut: The character has lost the ability to see.

None of these effects will prevent the use of the ring, however it will make traveling in a specific direction nearly impossible. Characters will recover from any of these effects in 3 rounds. Many of the status will cause a second character to be separated from the wearer. If the second character takes up the ring, they do not start at zero; they start at the point where the other user was and may become incapacitated on the first use. 

Failing the save will cause the person to flop to the ground for 5 rounds. After this time has passed, any movement (walking, crawling, etc.) will cause the character to roll on the above table for the next four rounds.  

The Tek - October 2019 Stats

October 2019 Downloads via DriveThruRPG:
AD&D Character Sheet For Use with Unearthed Arcana - 10
Compass Rose Inn Minisetting - 10
Kobold Folly Minisetting - 9
Zero to Hero: Uncommon Commoners - 9
Swashbucklers Character Class - 4

Webstats:
Google Analytics Pageviews - 933
Google Analytics Sessions - 618
Pageviews per Session - 1.35


Stats are down this month by 9.5%. Why? Because I didn't post a lot in the first week of the month, and what I posted was Inktober materials which do not entirely match up with my readership on D&D.

Back in August, I set a goal of 750 Pageviews. Even going down 9.5%, I managed 933 page views. That makes me happy.

Downloads from DriveThruRPG were stronger this month at 42 total. If I had a $10 product, I'd be golden. Unfortunately, I don't have a $10 product, so I can just be happy over one download a day.

At the end of this month, DriveThruRPG was under attack and my downloads didn't change much. That issue is seems resolved, but it was very fluid for a while. They did a good job protecting themselves (and me) as near as I can tell.

November is typically a rough month for me. If I can hold the line at 750 Pageview, I'll be happy.

New things you can expect this month:

• A tab for my favorite podcasts
• A tab for my blog roll
• All posts, past and present, will have images added to them
• All posts, past and present, will be reedited and wordsmithed to reduce errors. 

The last is my Rebellion for NaNoWriMo. Instead of cranking out 50,000 words for a novel of dubious quality, I plan to edit tens of thousands of words to improve my website.

UPDATE Jan. 12, 2020. I've decided to at some images of my Google Analytics to this post.

September 2019

October 2019

November 2019

NaNoWriMo - Rebellion

Every year I sign up for NaNoWriMo and every year I never really finish. This year, rather than a novel, I plan on doing something functional. I want to wordsmith every blog post I have ever made and if possible, add an image for each.

I figure this task is on par with writing 50,000 words. And I think it is something I need to do anyway.

As I work on that, I will also wordsmith all of my publications and add more artwork to each.

It's a reasonable endeavor, at least more reasonable than kicking out a novel.

52 Weeks of Magic - Item 35 - Lead of Calling

The Lead of Calling is a weak magical device used by country witches and sometimes huntsmen and trackers. The Lead of Calling will allow the user to call back a lost animal within a league of the wielder. The animal will take it's sweet time responding, often as much as 3 hours, but it will come. So long as the wielder's only intent is to collar and return the animal, the animal will behave as if it was charmed.

This Lead only works on domesticated animals, which does not include cats.

If the animal is more than 3 miles away, the Lead will indicate the direction to the animal.

There is a powerful and dangerous side effect to this magic item. If the animal is killed while on the lead, the holder will be struck down as if Mazed. They will be trapped in this maze until the animal is consumed, buried or naturally decays. The maze will continuously replay the animals last moments and the character cannot avoid this. There is no saving throw. The trapped person will also experience everything the animal's body experiences in death, from two perspectives, one of being the animal and one of being the Mazed watcher. They cannot starve, die of thirst or inclement weather in this condition. They may awake with one or more phobias or insanities from this effect.

52 Weeks of Magic - Item 34 - Aerialist's Skin

Flying is a little more than throwing one's self at the ground and missing.

This week's magic item is the Aerialist's Skin. This item appears as a rolled runner made of some sort of soft parchment. It feels slightly tacky and can be either brightly colored or a natural tone. It can be found at magic academies as much as at traveling circuses. The runner is laid down along a course or under the trapeze in lieu of a net.

The Aerialist's Skin somehow contains a fractional dimension, meaning that it acts like a net or trampoline. It does not need to be suspended like a net, the falling victim's body penetrates into the fractional dimension of the Skin, rather than the cold, hard ground. The Skin's surface is soft, with a lot of give. It will reduce damage from speed or falling by 6d6 or the equivalent of falling from 60 feet. The tackiness of the surface is amplified by speed and impact meaning that a person falling onto it will not roll or bounce off.

The Aerialist's Skin is unlikely to find its way into a dungeon, but it is an interesting "consumer magic device" which the general public will have a small amount of experience with. Wizards use it to learn to fly. Circuses use it as a safety device for high wire acts. Creative thieves and thief acrobats may find a use for it in cat burglary.

The material is flammable, so usually it is wet down before use.