Joke Items

One of the more popular throw away details in the Path of Evil Module was a bunch of gag items sold by a merchant. These were knockoffs of well known magic items of Faerun, like a fake Holy Avenger and a fake Aribeth's Ring. The idea was that famous heroes would be celebrities and there would be those who looked to them for style advice and collected their memorabilia, just like real life with celebrities.  

Recognizable for their poor construction quality, when the gag items did have enchantments, any positive enchantments were far outweighed by negative effects. For example there were the "Boots of Butt Kicking", whose description indicated they were patterned after the fashion of a famous ranger from Rashemar. The boots gave a bonus +1 to Charisma (eveyone loves you), but -4 to both intelligence and wisdom. The fake Holy Avenger was a greatsword so poorly made it had a -4 hit and damage penalty.

Anyway, with their popularity I decided to expand the selection of gag items in the campaign. Here is a selection:

Huulf's Mirror Shield: Faithfully recreated by the blind smith Huulf of the Ten Towns from descriptions given to him by adventurers, this shield is polished to a mirror shine on one side. Fortunately for basilisks everywhere, it is polished on the inside. This makes the shield a favorite of vain adventurers. No special bonuses, light shield

Huulf's Helm: Forged by the blind smith Huulf of the Ten Towns, this helmet has no place to see through, and looks like you put a pot over your head. Blindness self

 

Boots of Spud: Fashioned (no doubt by a gnome) out of a pair of dried old potatoes, the boots of spud are uncomfortable and look out of place anywhere but the most remote farm where one is not likely to be seen by anyone. If anyone does see them, they may get the urge to laugh uncontrollably. Wearer affected by slow. Tasha's Uncontrollable Hideous Laughter 2x/day

Edna's Cloak: Designed by the famous female dwarf taylor Edna Mode, the cloak is incredibly stylish. It has an annoying tendency to get caught in things. +2 charisma -2 Dexterity, -10 Tumble

Notso: "Makes a great club", Thundarr the barbarian. The axehead of this greataxe is only loosely attached, sometimes causing it to fall off in combat. Fortunately, it can still be used as a club. -2 damage.

Named Bullets: Though not magical, these bullets have various names carved into them. Among the various names, one says "[pcname]", a name you haven't heard of before and aren't sure quite how to pronounce.

Saemon's sword: So named by the Bhaalspawn who occaisionally had dealings with Saemon Havarian, this rapier is not believed to actually be Saemon's, but rather named for his penchant of running away when things got even the least bit difficult. Fear on hit, dc-20 user.

And now some screenshots:

A lighting and tile texturing experiment, not meant as a playable area, you can see the tiles don't match for instance.

Beach ruins. The Death God's Vault placeable is nifty and detailed, but so specific you really have to build around it. Some oversized jungle ruins let me hide most of the placeable, keeping the only thing I wanted, the 4 armed skeleton. This area is not fully polished.

This shot used to be Kazatharsis by Raith Veldrin (http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=NWN2PrefabAreas.Detail&id=233), It still is, only it's no longer a bone dry desert. Replacing ground textures, adding water and trees, and changing the daynight settings has turned it into a ruins in the forest. Sometimes you find a good prefab, only it needs a change of setting for your use. As you can see if you look at the original, you can get a vastly different look with only a few changes. This is a non polished shot, the texturing has changed some to make the walking paths more overgrouwn etc.