New Magical Items

Druid characters can use the magical items generally permitted priests except written ones, such as scrolls or books. They can wear magical armor only when it is natural, such as wooden shields. Any magical weapon a druid uses must be of a type permitted to priests, as well as by the character's druidic kit and branch.

This section contains new magical items that fit the druid's role of Nature priest, keeper of the balance, and dweller in the country. In addition, a small number of the items are designed for use against druids.

Although this listing contains some powerful items, many are fairly low-key. Items like the bountiful spade, or seeds of plenty represent the kind of magical item a high-level character would create as a gift for a favored farmer or lord. Druids might offer cursed items like the necklace of beast speech to someone as punishment for wronging the Order or the land.

Creating Magical Items

The normal rules for priests creating magical items (DMG pgs. 83-88) apply to druids as well. In almost all cases, gathering the rare, unique, or impossible components and combining them properly remains more important than purchasing expensive materials; quest and ritual take precedence over the depth of the druid's purse.

The personal touch is vital: Druids must make the vessels for enchantment using their nonweapon proficiencies. Characters needn't be expert artisans, but they cannot create a magical scimitar merely by enchanting a weapon someone else has made. As a result, a druid who completes an arduous series of tasks to collect the necessary components may not actually have to spend any money to build the item, although major magical items require components easily worth the 1,000 to 10,000 gp noted in the DMG (p. 87).

Priest characters must spend up to three weeks meditating, fasting, and purifying themselves before they can enchant an item. Druids must begin this process at a sacred time, like an equinox, for the enchantment to have any chance of success. Druids purify the vessel and pray for its consecration not at an altar, but at their grove.

Potions

Potion of Plant Health. This potion vitalizes a living plant when poured upon its roots. It cures the plant's illnesses and keeps it free from natural parasites and disease for a year. During this time, the plant grows 50% better than normal, and 10% better than normal the next year. Edible fruit, berries, or sap from the plant taste unusually succulent, while flowering plants bloom exceptionally well. If a vegetable monster such as a treant or shambling mound drinks this potion, treat it as a potion of extra-healing. XP value: 400.

Sap of the Eldest Tree. Usually found in an earthen flask, this potion resembles thick corn or maple syrup. Characters who drink the sap (or bake it in a cake and eat it) will not age a day for the next 10 years! However, unlike a longevity potion, it does not make the drinker any younger. A person must consume the entire potion to gain the full benefit; if five characters share the syrup, each stops aging for two years. Additional doses are not cumulative--later imbibings supplant earlier ones. XP value: 500.

Wands and Staves

Wand of Shape Binding. Characters often use this item against druids. When hit by its multicolored beam (projected up to 80 feet), beings with the ability to shapechange or polymorph must save vs. wands at a -3 penalty. Victims who fail cannot voluntarily alter shape for 2d10 turns. Attempts to shift shape using spells, magical items, or innate powers result in failure. A use of this rechargeable wand consumes one charge per 4 HD or levels of the subject. XP value: 800.

Wanderer's Staff. This resembles a stout oaken staff, which radiates magic and, in fact, functions as a quarterstaff +1. However, its primary power is locomotion. If carried as a walking stick, users hiking at a steady pace do not tire or need sleep. Any time spent walking counts as sleep for the purpose of resting the character. If desired, the character can walk night and day, taking only brief breaks for food, drink, etc. XP value: 2,000.

Rings

Ring of the Hierophant. Only druids can utilize this ring, which enables characters to speak the language of elementals. This, the ring's lesser power, uses up no charges.

More impressively, a druid wearing the ring may shapechange into an elemental. Druids in elemental form retain their own hit points and saving throws, but otherwise possess the characteristics of a 12 HD elemental. The transformation functions just like a druid's shapechanging power this rechargeable ring even restores hit points when the druid changes back. However, transformations last only for a maximum of one hour. Each elemental form (air, fire, earth, and water) may be assumed only once per month. XP value: 4,000.

Weapons

Lunar Sickle. This weapon, a sickle crafted from silver and bound to the moon, may have been forged for druids as a symbol of the cyclic nature of time. The sickle boasts its greatest strength during the waxing moon. It has a +2 bonus from the new moon to half moon, a +3 bonus from the half moon to full moon, and +4 during the full moon. When the moon begins to wane, the lunar sickle drops to a +1 bonus. During the dark of the moon it loses all magical bonuses; until the new moon rises, it no longer affects creatures that can be hit only by magical weapons. XP value: 1,500.

Sickle of the Harvest. This sickle appears to be a normal farm implement, albeit of superior quality. If used in combat, it functions as a +1 weapon. However, its real power is as a magical harvesting tool.

Anyone who grasps the sickle and speaks in the secret language of the druids can order the sickle to harvest a field on its own. When so commanded, the sickle takes to the air and harvests up to half an acre of grain per turn. It can accept precise orders, such as, "Cut down all stalks of ripe grain within a mile, save for Farmer Dowd's field."

The sickle continues working until: three hours pass; its owner orders it to stop; or it moves a mile from its owner. Characters can also halt the sickle by destroying it or snatching it out of the air. Anyone trying to grab the sickle must make a successful attack roll against AC -4. Those who fail suffer 1d6+1 points of damage; success means a character grabs it and stops the harvesting.

Treat attacks on the sickle as attacks against a sword of dancing; the sickle, while physically unstoppable, can be affected by failing a saving roll against a spell such as fireball, lightning bolt, or transmute metal to wood.

XP value: 1,300.

Heartwood Cudgel. This club, made from the heartwood of an oak, is a club +1-- club +2 in a druid's hands. XP value: 500.

Mistletoe Dart. The body and tip of this dart are fashioned from enchanted mistletoe. Magical armor, shields, or rings give no bonus protection against it; for example, a person wearing chain mail +4 would have AC 5, not AC 1. Darts, while not innately poisonous, can be coated with any venom. Characters usually find these darts in groups of 2 to 8 (2d4). XP value: 50 each.

Armor

Antlered Helm. This metal-reinforced leather helm, adorned with a stag's antlers, allows the wearer to run like a deer, with a base movement rate of 18. Moreover, stags and deer see, hear, and smell wearers of an antlered helm as if they were stags, and react accordingly. This power makes the item very useful for hunting. XP value: 800.

Miscellaneous Magic

Bountiful Spade. Characters who use this enchanted farm implement to turn over the earth prior to planting a field receive a +3 bonus on their agriculture proficiency check for that year. XP value: 500.

Cloak of the Beasts. This plain brown cloak bears patches of many different animal skins. A character who speaks a word of command while wearing it instantly becomes transformed into a random animal for 1d6 hours. The cloak and the person's other clothing become part of the new form.

The type of animal varies with each use of the cloak's power--roll 1d100 on the reincarnate spell table (PH, p. 235), rerolling any nonanimal result. The nature of the change is identical to a druidic shapechange, except that wearers have no control over which animal form they take on and cannot change back until the enchantment wears off.

Upon returning to normal, the wearer regains 10% to 60% of any lost hit points (10d6). The cloak cannot be used again until 12 hours pass. XP value: 1,000.

Druid's Yoke. While this item looks like an ox yoke, it is small enough to fit a donkey or human. Worn by an animal, it offers no benefit. If fastened onto a human, demihuman, or humanoid, it transforms the wearer into a full-sized ox; the yoke expands to fit. The ox retains the wearer's mind, but cannot speak or use spells and becomes vulnerable to magic that affects normal animals. The effect lasts as long as the yoke stays on the wearer can't remove it, but a friendly humanoid can. A character reverts back to normal immediately after the yoke comes off. Wearers killed in ox form die; their bodies revert back to humanoid form once the yoke is removed.

XP value: 2,000.

Herbmaster's Pouch. This small bag of finely woven grass keeps herbs--including herbal magical ingredients--as fresh as if newly harvested. The -2 penalty for using preserved herbs to create magical herbal brews does not apply to ingredients kept in an herbmaster's pouch. XP value: 500.

Necklace of Beast Speech. This gold choker bears the image of a particular beast. To determine what kind, roll on the reincarnate table (PH, p. 235), rerolling any result that's not an animal.

Anyone who dons the device loses all power of speech, except with the animal species on the necklace. The character cannot remove the choker without a wish spell; a carefully worded wish might allow a wearer to retain the necklace and beast speech and regain human speech. XP value: 0.

Seeds of the Hedge. Usually found in a leather bag or pouch, these seeds resemble flower or grass seeds. A pinch of hedge seed sprinkled on earth or grass instantly causes a thorny hedge to grow. The user can decide to make this 10-foot - 10-foot - 5-foot hedge 5 feet long, 5 feet high, or 5 feet wide.

Creatures caught in the hedge's growth or trying to break through the hedge suffer 8 points of damage plus additional points equal to their Armor Class (excluding Dexterity adjustments). It takes two turns to safely cut through each 5-foot thickness. Normal fire does not harm it, but magical fire sets it ablaze in one turn, creating a temporary wall of fire effect (as if cast by a 9th-level wizard) of the same size. One bag of seeds sows three hedges. XP value: 600.

Seeds of Plenty. An ample sack holds magical seeds of the crop most important to local farmers enough to sow a single large field. The only thing unusual about the seed is that it radiates magic (noticeable if a character checks). Fields sown with this seed produce superior crops: exceptionally large plants that prove resistant to disease.

Seeds of plenty double a normal harvest, increasing a typical farm family's income 50% to 100% for the year. Furthermore, products made from the crop are superior. Porridge or bread made from a grain harvest prove especially tasty and nutritious; clothes made from flax crops have exceptionally high quality; and so on. For this reason, a known sack of seeds of plenty sells for up to 2,000 gp.

XP value: 200 per sack.

Seeds of Doom. A sack holding these seeds appears identical to one filled with seeds of plenty. However, sowing a field with these seeds leads to disaster. The night after the planting, a dense field of noxious weeds springs up, each weed 5 to 7 feet high. Anyone less than giant size passing through the weeds can move only 10 feet per round. One turn after spending any time in the weeds, those not fully covered in armor (generally, anyone not wearing plate mail or better) must save vs. poison. Those who fail instantly develop a painful rash that lasts 2d6 days (-2 penalty to all attack rolls, as well as attribute and proficiency checks; -4 penalty if wearing armor or tight clothing).

Weeds set ablaze do burn, producing a foul stench that lasts 2d6 turns (equivalent to a stinking cloud spell over the field) and leaves a residual unpleasant smell for 2d6 days. Furthermore, the black ash left behind poisons the field so nothing will grow there for 2d6 years. Uprooting the weeds manually requires 100 people working for a week, due to the weeds' fast growth. XP value: 0.

Serpent Seeds. Normally available in a packet of 1d3 seeds, a serpent seed springs up into a 20-foot tree one round after being planted in an inch of dirt, watered, and told to grow in the druids' secret language. A serpent tree has no branches; its limbs are 1d8 brown serpents with green eyes, barklike skin, and wooden fangs dripping with poisonous white sap.

While the tree cannot move, its branches can reach out up to 20 feet and follow the druid's orders. Each serpent-branch's bite is poisonous. A person who fails to save vs. poison becomes incapacitated within one turn; the character does not die, but slowly becomes transformed into a "serpent of the tree," a nonpoisonous version of the branch-snakes.

Despite its barky appearance, this new creature resembles nonpoisonous snakes of the region in appetite and attacks. While serpents of the tree are not attached to the serpent tree, they remain subject to the druid's orders, just like the tree itself.

A victim can be restored with a cure serious wounds or heal spell administered within one day of the bite. On the second day, the transformation to a serpent of the tree is nearly complete; only a wish can return the victim to normal then.

The serpent tree remains permanently where planted and stays loyal to its maker as long as it exists. XP value: 1,000 per seed.

Serpent tree: Int Low (5); AL N; AC 6; MV 0; HD 6+6; THAC0 15; #AT 1/limb; Dmg 1d4/limb; SA poison changes victims into serpents of the tree; ML 8; SZ H; XP 875.

Serpent of the tree: Int Animal (1); AL N; AC 5; MV 15; HD 2+1; THAC0 19; #AT 1; Dmg 1; ML 8; SZ S (5 ft.); XP 90.

Stone of Lost Ways. This pebble might be mistaken for any other magical stone. However, those who carry it through trackless wilderness (not following a road or path) increase their chances of becoming hopelessly lost. Having a character with a stone of lost ways in a party adds 20% to the group's chance of becoming lost, in any terrain. (See Table 81 in the DMG, p. 128.) Furthermore, two checks instead of the normal one are needed, one for each half-day's travel. The stone affects only characters traveling on the ground. XP value: 0.

Swarm Queen's Crown. This dread item resembles a gold tiara set with a piece of amber encasing an insect--usually a queen bee. The crown has a value of 2,000 gp.

With a command word, a user's body mutates into a human-shaped mass of stinging, venomous wasps, bees, and spiders: a miniature, living creeping doom. The user's new "body" contains 10 insects per hit point. For example, a character with 10 hit points becomes a mass of 100 insects.

The user attacks by touching someone (a normal attack roll). After a hit, the user decides how many insects sting or bite the victim. Either 10, 20, or 30 insects may swarm over a victim per attack; for every 10 insects that hit, the victim loses 1d10 hit points, and the wearer of the crown loses 1 hp--each insect dies after its attack. So, a character may inflict up to 3d10 points of damage per attack at the cost of 3 hp.

While in insect form, the user has a move of 3, but can climb walls and ceilings. The user cannot employ any weapons, spells, magical items, tools, or armor. The swarm, which has AC 0, suffers no damage from piercing weapons (P), 1 point of damage from slashing weapons (S), and half damage from bludgeoning weapons (B). Magical bonuses and fire inflict full damage. Every point of damage to the wearer kills 10 insects. The user remains transformed as long as desired, but the crown can be used only once per day. XP value: 4,000.

Treeship. A living tree shaped like a currach (PH, p. 71), a treeship unites the magic of druids and the craftsmanship of elves. The mast is a magical tree, from which hang branchlike rigging and leaf-sails. The roots form the hull's ribs, covered by thick bark instead of hide. A ship carries up to eight people and 5 tons of cargo. While the vessel cannot sail by itself, a crew finds it quite seaworthy and swift (seaworthiness 80%, base move 3/6, emergency move 12).

Treeships can sail only in freshwater lakes, rivers, and seas; salt water poisons them within a week. When beached on grass or soil (not sand) for more than a week, they grow additional roots into the soil and require 1d6 days of pruning to become seaworthy again. XP value: 6,000.

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