R is for Matched Magic Items

I've always been a sucker for magic items that increase in power over a series of adventures and for magic items that come in sets. The natural outgrowth of this is magic items that increase in power when used together. While I don't throw a whole lot of these into my adventures, I do always include a few for flavor. Here is one set of matched rings from a recent adventure, one is fairly common (though heavily modified from it's canonical statistics), the other has less flashy powers (and some significant drawbacks) alone, but significantly improves the first when they are used together.

PS. If you are looking for cool images as inspiration for magical rings, I highly recommend Macabregadgets -- all the skulled, horned, and tentacled rings you could possibly want.

Ring of the Ram

A ring of the ram is a darkened silver ring, one side expanding into the skull of a ram, with curling golden horns. These rings are popular among the worshippers of the demon lords Baphomet and Tittivilla, and their original creation is attributed to those beings, though many imitations have been created over the millenia. This particular ring, though it does not show its age, is one of the first and bears a faint aura of malevolence about it.

A ring of the ram has 3 charges and regains 1d3 expended charges daily at midnight. While wearing a ring of the ram you can expend one of its charges as an action to do one of the following:

• When making an unarmed melee attack with your fist, you can expend a charge from the ring to deal an additional 2d10 force damage on a successful hit and push the target 1 foot away from you per point of damage dealt.

• By touching the ring to any solid, unattended, inanimate object and expending a charge, you can attempt to break that object. The object must make a saving throw vs. crushing blow or be destroyed. This can affect up to one hundred cubic feet of material, larger objects (such as mountains or castle walls) will have a correspondingly sized section reduced to rubble.

• By expending 3 charges and striking the ground, the wearer can summon a Bulezau (a goat demon). The demon remains for 1 minute before returning to its home plane. The goat-demon servers the wearer of the ring to the best of its abilities. However, the control granted by the ring is not strong enough to overcome the Bulezau’s temper. If the demon’s rage activates, all control is lost and the demon will fight until it is killed or the summoning magic runs its course, treating the wearer of the ring as just another enemy to be destroyed.

Ring of Baphomet

A brother to the Ring of the Ram, the Ring of Baphomet is a black iron ring with a ram’s skull and curling, forked, golden horns. This particular ring was worn by a Goristro demon in the service of the armies of Baphomet that attacked Valjevo Castle during its first appearance in Hell, as a mark of servitude, tracking device, and means of keeping the behemoth siege-demon in control.

Baphomet is instantly and constantly aware of anyone wearing the ring, knowing their precise location in the planes. This locating ability cannot be blocked by any magic short of a wish or direct divine intervention (even mind blank will not protect against this). In addition, the ring’s wearer suffers disadvantage on all Wisdom and Charisma saves against spells or attacks used by demons.

While worn, the Ring of Baphomet grants the user a +2 bonus to his Strength score (this can raise the user’s Strength above 20) and advantage on all Charisma (Intimidation) skill checks. In addition, if worn with a Ring of the Ram the Ring of Baphomet augments the abilities of that item in the following ways:

• The ring of the ram always recovers the maximum of 3 charges per day (instead of 1d3).
• If the ring of the ram is used to summon a Bulezau, the wearer retains control of the goat-demon even if it goes berserk.
• The wearer can expend a charge from the ring of the ram to cast bestow curse (as a 3rd level spell).

The ring will resize to fit any wearer.