Return of The King (GLoG Class: Ring-Bearer)

The new LoTR set for Magic: The Gathering just came out, and—considering that the silly card game has had me in a chokehold for the last few months—it's no surprise that this whipped me into an inspiration frenzy.

Be your very own Sauron. Play a Frodo-type, and risk your personhood being stripped away. Maybe play this in a Modern setting, and have your little buddy be the bard who follows around Terry Crews in White Chicks. That's the fun of OSR: it promotes doing whatever you'd like!

Just have fun. Enjoy!

God, He's So Cool
Art by Anna Podedworna

THE RING-BEARER

+1 Attack per template

Starting Skill: 1) Metalsmithing 2) Disguise 3) Pyrokinesis 4) Battle-Planning

Starting Items: The Ring, Chain, A Newly-Forged tool (Medium, 1d8 damage), A Collection Of Old Things, Hate.

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A – One To Bind, Corruption

B –  +1 CD, +1 Temptation, Mouth of Awe

C – +1 CD, +1 Temptation, One To Rule

D – Subjugation

One To Bind

You have crafted The Ring: a lone object of incredible power, of which you are its true wielder. Only you gain benefits from wearing The Ring, and only so long as you have Ring-Bearer Templates; other creatures who wear The Ring vanish into The Ethereal Plane for 1d4 minutes.

The Ring is a part of you. It can never be destroyed except by being submerged in the fire of its creation, and you are always aware of its general location. You know if someone else possesses The Ring and can communicate with them telepathically from any distance.

Corruption

You have a pool of Corruption Dice, or CD. These work much like MD, returning to you on a 1-3 and expiring on a 4-6. Unlike normal magic, you cannot regain Corruption Dice by taking a rest, instead regain one Corruption Die whenever you kill a sapient creature with at least 1 HD. You can only have as many Corruption Dice as you have Ring-Bearer Templates.

You can use your CD to power a Temptation of your choice, or expend it as a reaction to reduce the damage of a non-magical attack targeting you by [templates] + [sum]. Should you ever remove The Ring from your person, you temporarily lose access to your Temptations until it is returned to you.

Mouth to Awe

You have acquired the skills of a talented retainer—an orator and skald—who wishes only for glory in your name. With your permission, this skald will travel from place to place, using any acquired or gifted wealth to recruit hirelings, request lodgings, and otherwise support your journey (and are undoubtedly qualified for the task). They are otherwise a loyal, helpful assistant, and speak goodwill to your name on any occasion.

The Movie Version Looks Cooler IMO, But He's Drippy Too
Art by Alex Brock for MTG

One To Rule

Great power flows through you and only grows stronger with time. You deal +1 damage with weapon attacks for each unexpended CD you possess. 

Subjugation

Your hunger has overgrown even yourself, and with such hunger comes a desire for more. By spending a week of downtime and sacrificing one of your CD you may construct a ring of power. A creature wearing one of these rings can communicate with you telepathically from any distance and gains a single CD, which they can use to cast a Temptation of your choice. 

So long as it is being worn, a creature wearing a ring of power counts as an unexpended CD for your Own to Rule ability.

Once per month, per person, you may use the Dominate Temptation on a creature wearing a ring of power without expending CD. You do not need to see the target to use this ability, and can do so from any distance. The target cannot save.

Me And The Boys
Art by Anato Finnstark

Temptations

1. DOMINATE
• Command another to do your bidding. Bend the wills of man to consciously follow your words. Target follows [dice]-word order as per Command, but cannot directly harm themself. +1 target per CD expended. Targets can Save to resist.
  
  
2. MASQUERADE
• Appear to be who you are not. Look trustworthy from the outside. You gain the appearance of a non-existent person [sum] hours, including a different voice, but your clothing and equipment remain the same. 3+ CD transforms your equipment as well.
  
  
3. OBFUSCATE
• Become formless. Peek into the world beyond. You become invisible for [sum] minutes. With 1-2 CD, you can see wraiths, ghosts, and other things in The Ethereal Plane. 3+ CD allows you to interact and speak with them.
  
  
4. ANNIHILATE
• Return to dust. Per CD, one non-magical sword-sized object you can see within 30 feet of you disintegrates. With 2+ CD, destroy an additional object for each additional die. Alternatively, target creature takes [sum] damage thrice over three rounds, and you must concentrate on this effect. You cannot take other actions while using this effect.
  
  
5. MANIPULATE
• Shape the world. [CD*5]-foot square of unworked material shifts, bends or moves to your design. Fire warps, water separates, and the earth becomes a pit. If material would directly cause harm, strike deals [sum] damage. With 2+ CD, you can hold its new position for [sum] rounds, or until you lose concentration. With 3+ CD, cause machinery to act without their controls.
  
  
6. RECUPERATE
• Fill wounds. You regain [sum] hit points. With 3+ CD, you can survive an otherwise fatal spell or injury as a reaction, returning to 1 hit point. 

Mishaps

1. CD only return to your pool on a roll of 1-2 for 24 hrs.
2. You take 1d6 damage.
3. You lose 1d6 Stability.
4. You lose control and disappear into The Ethereal Plane for 10 minutes. Something notes your presence.
5. You cannot receive beneficial magic for 1d6 hrs.
6. The nearest NPC to you becomes aware of The Ring's power and begins to covet it.

Dooms

1. The Ring tests you. It disappears from your finger to a random location within a day's travel of your current location.
2. The Ring tempts you. You cannot remove The Ring for any reason, even through magic or threat of death, and constantly fear that others may take it from you. Should the ring ever be removed at this point, you would do anything to get it back.
3. The Ring consumes you. Your body becomes warped and wraith-like, and your heart becomes inconsolable. You cannot love, nor care and look to others with kindness, for all of your desires lie with The Ring. Should you die, or your form be separated from The Ring, your soul shall finally be corrupted and your physical form shaped into incoherence. Your only reason for existing shall be subjugation, destruction, and control. You are not yourself.

Frightening, Glistening Things

Have you ever wondered why we give such importance to gemstones? 

They touch our minds. Gemstones are symbols of wealth, markers of high fashion, and icons of envy and greed. Great value is assigned to these stones regardless of their actual rarity. Their beauty encapsulates us. Watches and gowns, cars and technology: symbols of great prosperity alone to those who wield them, yet they are bedazzled all the same. Only this can elevate you. Bring your face to the limelight.

They touch our hearts. We associate gemstones with feelings of success and desire. We construct tools out of a rare few of them. We look to fiction and see examples of things that should be coveted: precious treasures to be plundered. Massive diamonds and glowing crystals are forlorn by those who own them as if the meaning of their very existence is to be wanted. Only this can make your dreams come true. Heal a broken heart.

They touch our souls. Historically, cultures have associated their shape, size, and colour with spiritual awakening. Vast theologies have been constructed to find a use for marvellous crystals, and maps have been charted of the body's gates and openings, signifying stones of all varieties as the bridge through which one can heal their entirety. Civilizations have always desired nourishment for the soul. Only this can fulfill the ultimate desire. Transcend mortality.

Gemstones are synonymous with high society, the rich and the monarchy, which is partially why they're so incredibly rare in Bromeilles. 

A Measure in Abundance

This Time, Beauty Meets Esotericism
"Heart of Lorkhan" by Helena Nikulina

If you were to acquire an enormous hammer and crack open the tallest mountains in Bromeilles, one would find a profound lack of gemstones. There would be a few, for sure—tucked away in amalgamate heaps, incoherent in placement and composition—but rarely enough to justify the dangers of excavation. This is because there are no gemstones in Bromeilles. 

That's hyperbole. 

But there really are fewurally-occurring gems on the continent! Not before The Storm Eternal and not in the four-hundred-odd years after the fact. Gisele De Roy argued that anything resembling a gemstone was swallowed before it could be pushed upward through the crust, a consequence of the continent's fractured state; The Magician Keryllion claims that it is simply the will of chaos. Luck functioning to its ultimate conclusion.

Of course, there are sources of fine stones in Bromeilles. The beauty of the high cities would suffer in status without them, nor would The Artisinal Schools have access to ripe new conduits. 

They're called Tear Stones, and they fall from the sky. 

Falling Stars

Records detailing the presence of tear stones have existed since before The Storm Eternal, with spottings noted in everything from Eldermen stories to cave drawings. The name 'Tear Stone' is a sanctioned nickname for the objects, tales claiming that the stone's design and the oddities of their condition are the results of The Moon's crying. Themselves indistinguishable from meteorites (also common sights in Bromeilles), tear stones are one of the few orbital objects visible through cloud cover. 

One astronomist, Charles Billard, makes a note of a falling jewel in one of his premier journals:

    "...Perspiring atop the observation post, it was not long—shortly after nightfall—until we first saw the object. Carving its way through the clouds like a blade through the skin, its silver streak was clearly visible, the head a glistening bolt of light. Its entire structure was clearly visible until a count of sixty-seven seconds, whereupon its tail was swallowed by the storm. Our guetteur measured flickering for an additional fourteen seconds, at which point it disappeared across the horizon..."

Silverbolt, Savior's Told, Oh Beauty Can't You See?
"The Silence Of A Falling Star" by Randy Urban

The 'tears' are, up-close, reminiscent of arthouse projects. Warped chunks of rock buffed and bleached by the upper atmosphere, momentarily turned to slag by the impact, with craters all throughout its surface. Gemstones are generally immediately visible at this stage. Similar to one you would blast out of the ground, they are fused to the rock and one another. Unrefined, they possess an otherworldly beauty. 

Rarely longer than a metre, tear stones are at most 40% jewel and 60% rock. 

Falls are uncommon affairs. A given night may have zero and a dozen unrelated events, with few tear stones throughout the night or several in quick succession. Unlike the meteoroids which share space with them, tear stones often make landfall far from civilization and are otherwise small enough to be redirected.

Artisinal Shapers will often report being offered bribes. Few will admit to actually taking them, but there is great wealth to be made in cultivating tear stones; no more organizations uninvolved with The Republic.

Strange Gems, Stranger Things

In addition to their inherent scarcity, the variety of jewels found in tear stones is abundant, with several dozen recognized stones in possession by The Republic. 

Besides their aesthetic desires, several groups ranging from The Artisinal Schools to druidic sects expropriate certain gemstones because of their inferred supernatural abilities. Some may be important or necessary for a particular ritual or simply a valuable conduit for use during spell casting. In contrast, others whisper of innate magical talents within the stones. Such claims aren't entirely unfounded, and several expeditions have been funded by The Artisinal Schools and Covens alike to retrieve whole tear stones.

It is possible for Artisans to construct an artificial gemstone through the work of The Occult. Still, such a process is tedious and dangerous and usually lacks the innate tinge of magic in natural jewels. These jewels are still perfectly useable as conduits.

Beautiful, Aren't They?
Image from The Arkenstone

Truthfully, the word 'gemstone' is inaccurate compared to our world. Other materials such as bismuth and amethyst—a metal and crystal, respectively—are also available in tear stones and are referred to colloquially as gemstones. This doesn't mean that the materials themselves aren't also classified into their respective categories or that these materials don't possess some unnatural qualities of note, but that Bromeillan understanding of the term 'gemstone' is founded mainly on the phenomenon of tear stones.

This also doesn't mean there aren't gemstones already in the ground. There are, and plenty are the result of long-forgotten tear stones finally unearthed. The occasional "natural" gem is also findable within the continent's crust, though they are few and far between, and hardly possess any of the extraordinary qualities of their cousins.