Magical Items - Elegant rings

Not so long ago, Gillimer's Ring of Temperate Weather re-appeared again in the Weather Magic grimoire, at the Unseen University library. Since then, it is quite usual to see many wizards (specially those of the Silver Star branch) bejewelling their fingers with these nice little pieces of magic and craftsmanship, which provide a brief, albeit highly appreciated, respite from the inclemencies of the Discworld climates...

We won't go into details on the spell (it will have its own entry in the future). As to the rings, they look like this:

>look elegant ring

This ring is spinning around its axis radiating a magical aura. Looking at its revolving form, you are reminded of a blizzard, or a crackling fire. It hums softly.
The ring shines from within.
It is in excellent condition.

While worn, the ring communicates to its owner its climatic-protection properties ('You feel protected from the elements.') and will appear as a 'spinning elegant ring'. Your description will be slighty altered with an added line, as you will find yourself "encased in a translucent bubble".

The protection is limited (it seems to work when not subjected to crazy amounts of heat and cold, and doesn't work at all at the Temple of the Listening Monks' surrounding area) and doesn't last forever; casting skills probably fix the duration of the effects. After some time, you start receiving messages from the bubble (they are quite frequent, so they may not be directy related to protections getting weaker, though: 'The bubble around you flickers slightly'; 'The bubble around you flashes for a moment'), and after some more time, the ring will stop spinning. When that happens, you'll get a line like this: 'The ring glows, but then splutters and its warmth dies away'. It will lose the 'spinning' part in the simple look, stop working and present the following description:

>look elegant ring

This is a beautiful ring. It somehow combines the brightness of the sun with the delicacy of snow. It looks like it's made out of gold, but it is hard to tell.
It is in excellent condition.

You can stop wearing it at any moment, and that will also put an end to protections, as warned by the line: 'You feel at the mercy of the elements.' Once it has spent all its magic, you get, nevertheless, the possibility of recharging the ring by casting again Gillimer's spell over it.

The ring responds partially, as was mentioned in the Fabrication Classification Identification entry, to identification ("The weave pulses with soft yellow light"), but is unrechargeable except by said recasting of the spell on it. A failiure, like a first casting, will melt the ring and set the caster to sleep for a short amount of time.

10 Klein bottles / standing on a wall...

Well, it's not 10 bottles, actually. It is rather, 6. And they aren't on a wall, but in the wardrobe of my rented room, at the Apex Club...

It all began a few days ago, while I was rummaging in the basement of the AM Daily offices, buying and reading old numbers of the newspaper in search of any articles about spells and magic. The most interesting thing I found were some detailed lines about Klein bottles, how to make them and catch spells inside them, and the probability that they'd be used as a (new) spell component in the not too distant future. A year and a half has passed since publication, but this things go slow, I imagine...

For those of you that ignore totally what I am talking about: Klein bottles are the deformed product of trying to make a crystal bottle in an area with a high magical buildup.
At the western end of the Street of Cunning Artificiers lies George's glass blowing shop. If you order him a bottle after creating a big enough number of thaums in the shop (around 50-60; use a thaumometer to measure them), the result will be this:

>l bottle

This is a mind bendingly paradoxical Klein bottle which has the revolutionary property of not being able to hold anything at all, on account of having no volume. A student discovered the ingeniously intricate shape at the back of a lecture theatre, as he was trying to make a paper giraffe out of thaumic funnel paper. This one, however, has been skillfully blown from glass.

So, what can you do with this peculiar item? It won't hold liquids, but it will hold spells. The next part of the process is getting yourself a butterfly net and search for a runnaway sphere of energy, the result of failing to remember a spell from a scroll, and involuntarily setting it free.
At this stage, I had the unvaluable help of my coz Winsalt, whose general ineptitude in wizardry was put to good use in releasing spells for me. Then, the issue is to 'catch' them...

You attempt to capture the substantial sphere of energy.
The substantial sphere of energy showers your stomach with hot sparks but your floating large wooden shield swoops in and absorbs all of the blow.
Hp: 2170 (2170) Gp: 306 (371) Xp: 1212735
You swat at the substantial sphere of energy with your butterfly net but its thaumic field absorbs most of the blow.
The substantial sphere of energy wriggles out of your butterfly net.
The substantial sphere of energy showers your right arm with hot sparks but your floating large wooden shield swoops in and absorbs all of the blow.
Hp: 2170 (2170) Gp: 308 (371) Xp: 1212738
The substantial sphere of energy buzzes angrily.
The substantial sphere of energy showers your stomach with hot sparks but your floating large wooden shield swoops in and absorbs all of the blow.
Hp: 2170 (2170) Gp: 311 (371) Xp: 1212741
The substantial sphere of energy buzzes angrily.
You swat at the substantial sphere of energy with your butterfly net but its coloured haze absorbs most of the blow.
The substantial sphere of energy showers your back with hot sparks but your floating large wooden shield swoops in and absorbs all of the blow.
Hp: 2170 (2170) Gp: 313 (371) Xp: 1212744
The substantial sphere of energy showers your neck with hot sparks but your floating large wooden shield swoops in and absorbs all of the blow.
Hp: 2170 (2170) Gp: 316 (371) Xp: 1212747
The substantial sphere of energy showers your chest with hot sparks but your floating large wooden shield swoops in and absorbs all of the blow.
Hp: 2170 (2170) Gp: 319 (371) Xp: 1212750
You swat at the substantial sphere of energy with your butterfly net but its coloured haze absorbs most of the blow.
You capture the substantial sphere of energy in your butterfly net and wrestle it into the Klein bottle.

Once captured, the bottle adds an adjective to its description (a glowing Klein bottle), two lines (Not quite inside, but within the glass itself; a substantial red sphere is zipping around energetically. /It produces a warm becon of octarine light.) and, from time to time, some spam about its light properties and fluctuations (The light from your glowing Klein bottle pulsates warmly.).

Do all trapped spells look the same? The first 4 bottles or so I made, I had employed scrolls of Nargl'frob's Empyrean Spear, and the spheres trapped in the bottles all had a distinctive red colour. The regularity seemed to discard total randomness in colour, and suggested one of three possibilities:
1) All spells and their energies are red in colour
2) Nargl'frob's Empyrean Spear is red; other spells might have different colours, or share this one
3) General classes of spells (Misc., Defensive, Offensive) share a common colour

To test this, I needed to make more bottles, one more with a different offensive spell, one with a Defensive spell, another with a Misc. one. It wasn't an easy task, as I couldn't myself scribe the biggest of those (the bigger the spell, the easier to let it free), nobody was willing/able to make HEB and DKDD scrolls, and Winsalt was annoyingly capable of remembering, even with the help of repeated cross-spellchecking, spells of less than size 40. After some time, I did manage to set free and capture Grisald's Reanimated Guardian, Patient Taming of the Quantum Weather Butterfly and Stacklady's Morphic Resonator. The results confirmed the last hypothesis, as Grisald' addopted a 'green' colour, the Butterfly gave a 'multicoloured sphere', and Stacklady's the predictable red...

So, what remains now? Nothing much, really, except awaiting for the new spells that might require them to be implemented. Otherwise, their uses are non-existant for the moment: they glow (but it seems, from the AM article that they can't act as lights in spite of the glow) and can be thrown to create explosions, with no damage. I still have to test these two last characteristics, though...

UPDATE (16/08/2024): Since I last wrote this, Klein bottles have actually become a very useful tool in the wizard's kit, as they can now 'capture' spells, and while holding the bottle, they give a boost to the wizards intelligence.

Magical items - Twisted Black Amulets

Recent advances in demonology have provided us, as you well know, with a whole set of new spells. One of these is Professor Flambardie's Grim Amulet, which creates a magical amulet that protects from some of the worst aspects of devil-dabbling-in, and which is of obligatory use for two of the evil imp spells: Kelleflump's Irritating Demon and Doctor Kelleflump's Deadly Demon.

The amulet is a curious work of art, certainly worth noting:

This piece of black-stained silver isn't quite flat, and isn't evenly rounded, as though it had been warped by a fire. The spikes and hooks around the rim have a disturbingly organic look, and the eldritch runes spiralling around the face are never the same twice. Occasionally, you can make out glimmers of meaning in the runes, but the bitter, doleful words always retreat and change before your mind can do more than take a glimpse of the vast, empty infinity of unpleasant truth behind the blackened silver.
Unpleasant-looking spikes and hooks of octarine light thrust at odd angles from its surface.
It is in excellent condition.

While being used the amulet doesn't seem to accumulate any visible damage. It will, though, from time to time, cause a small amount of damage to its user ("Your twisted black amulet emits a sullen black gloom and the surface shines with frost"). And after some more time and use, it will melt away. Many hypotheses have been suggested about how and why this happens: some think alignment might have something to do with it, that the number of thaums present when the spell to create it was cast could be decisive, or that the success in the skills when casting the spell is what really cuts the cake... Nothing is known for sure. It does seem to behave like an item with a fixed number of charges, variable in each amulet (like the pickling stick, so maybe also influenced by casting skills), but it doesn't respond to investigations with Fabrication Classification Identification ("The weave abruptly writhes, throwing out nasty-looking spikes and hooks. A black stain spreads over its surface before it shifts... sideways... and disappears somewhere to the left of down.").

Some research lies, therefore ahead. Meanwhile, we'll continue with the cumbersome crafting of these strange artefacts, that show an annoying tendency to unharness all bounds and set free ugly oozing demons into the Discworld...

Magical Items - The Top Hat

At the Magic Emporium and a few places, a wizard may purchase a black top hat. Even though it isn't the kind of hat a wizard would like to wear, it certainly has a great deal of potenciality for sorcery, conjuring and general pulling-things-out-of the top hat. You may relish these effects in themselves, or in a rather more materialistic way, employ the top hat as an instrument for taskmastering...
First of all, let us take a look at the object itself:

>look top hat

This is a rather stylish black top hat. There does, however, seem to be a little more to it.
In softly glowing letters, you make out the message "Fore aye liste of ytems that canne be prodused fromme thyse hatte, juste 'list items'".
It is in excellent condition.

>list items

You can attempt to pull the following items from the hat:

Hankie - a silk handkerchief

Ball - a billiard ball

Flags - the flags of all nations

Dove - a white dove

Rabbit - a pink rabbit

We proceed in the attempt to pull things out of the hat. It isn't an easy task. With my current bonuses (c. 250 in almost all the required skills), I only succeed with the two first options: hankies (easily) and billiard balls (a bit harder). The outputs are as follows:

>pull hankie from top hat

You start to prepare yourself for the immense task ahead.
You flex your fingers over the hat and try to conjure up an image in your mind.
You picture a white silk handkerchief.
You wave your hands vigorously over the hat before delving deep in, then slowly removing your hand to reveal...
...an exquisitely embroidered white silk handkerchief.
You proceed to mop your brow with the hankie before disposing of it back in the top hat.

>pull ball from top hat
You start to prepare yourself for the immense task ahead.
You flex your fingers over the hat and try to conjure up an image in your mind.
You picture a billiard ball.
You wave your hands vigorously over the hat before delving deep in, then slowly removing your hand to reveal...
...a truly magnificent ivory billiard ball.
You throw the ball between your hands before hurling it high into the air and stylishly catching it again in the hat.

Each attemp to pull something out of the top hat costs around 30 gps. Even though there's magic involved, though, pulling things releases no thaums at all, and so may be attempted without problems even inside the Libraries (as an anecdote, I found out that even if this little magic doesn't attract the 'Thyngs', some sorts of music performing do, and aren't allowed inside those builings...). Attempts -successful of otherwise- will very quickly consume all your guild points...

Failiures can be quite unconfortable. The failiure lines you get may be of two kinds:

-In the 3rd output line: 'You suddenly stare with dismay at your fingers'.

-In the 5th output line: '...absolutely nothing!'

The effects are varied. After failing, any (or all) of these things may happen:

1) Nothing

2) Hallucinations, similar to the ones you get from eating certain mushrooms (and mushroom pizza) or from a failed Scrying: Some yellow electric whelks leap out from behind you and run around in ever decreasing circles. / Some yellow electric whelks enter and do cartwheels. / Some green floppy hats (which seem to be grinning at you) enter and clean out your ears and nostrils with a small vole. / Some green winged bananas run in singing nursery rhymes and sit down to play a game of Cripple Mr Onion. After a while, they stop and you get the closing message. "Everything looks a lot less interesting now".

3) Hair loss: You reach up to smooth your hair, and a large chunk of hair comes out. Some time later, you will receive a closing message: "Ahhhh. Your hair seems to have stopped falling out so prematurely."

4) Falling asleep: You feel very sleepy. (shortly followed by falling unconscious. The line is ‘You can't keep your eyes open anymore. You go to sleep.’). While on, you can't do anything at all, like when you contemplate. Any action attemp will be responded with a "You are unconscious. You can't do anything". You spend some time dreaming (You dream of chasing a giant carrot through a field of blue daffodils. / You dream of chasing a small hedgehog through a field of waving sheep. / You dream of chasing a small hedgehog through a field of people wearing straw hats. / You dream of chasing a giant carrot through a field of cows standing upright. / You dream of chasing a large herring through a field of corn with large, pink ears. / etc...), and this finishes with: ‘You wake up feeling refreshed.’

5) Outbursts of fear, equivalent to certain priestly rituals: A feeling of fear and panic begins to overcome you. The feeling of panic increases. You see something moving in the shadows. Your heart begins to beat faster, and you break out in a cold sweat. You're certain someone is sneaking up behind you. You hear a noise behind you and nearly jump out of your skin. The hairs on your neck suddenly stand up for no apparent reason.Your feet run away with you!. After some paranoia and room displacement, "You finally calm down".

What skills the top hat exactly tms is still a subject open to debate (and research...). My personal experience points in four directions (not in this order):

-Conjuring (by far, the most numerous tms you're likely to get come from here)
-Charming
-Binding
-Enchanting (these last two extremely rare; I might have gotten 1 tm of each in all the time I've been using the top hat).

It only remains to commend this curious piece of headwear, which has a great utility from my point of view specially out of Hoodwinker territory (being a Circle, I've got most of the Conjuring I needed for spells like MMM or TIG thanks to the top hat).

Magical Items - Zodiac Charms

We still haven't had the chance to talk about the spell Thousand Dancing Celestial Fates. Suffice it for now to know that the result of this spell is a magical artifact: the Zodiac Charm.

What's its use? I remember the comic confusion and vagueness ('an object of terrible power', 'a charm of incredible power') that described the properties of the charm both in the Help File and at Spellcheck Project. Only much later, when I made myself with one, did I start to discover things about it.

The first property of the charm is its beauty. Its description points it as a rich and seducing piece of jewellery:

> look charm

This is a magical charm. An artifact of mystical property, indeed! Octiron has been transmogrified into a strange, silverish-purple coloured, opaque glass or crystalline form, and shaped into a series of octagonal plates, linked together to form a bracelet. On the main plate, two beady eyes gaze curiously back at you with a greenish glow. The charm seems to shimmer iridescently as it reflects the ambient light. It's amazing how intricate the details are on this charm. It almost brims with the flames of sentient life. Circling the plates that form the charm's latch is a fine, spidery writing, which shimmies and shivers with subtle sparks. Perhaps this strange artifact has a use, or maybe it doesn't. Who knows? Who cares? It's shiny!

Sparks of octarine fly across the surface.

It has the hazy octarine sparkle of a magical talisman.

It appears to have something written on it.

It is in excellent condition.

The charm may be worn, and is in a perpetual state of mutation, as the animal it represents is constantly changing, but always among the 12 creatures that figure out in the Auriental Horoscope: snake, rooster, dragon, ox, horse, pig, rabbit, tiger, monkey, sheep, dog and rat. At the same time, the charm is quite a spammy piece of jewellery, which gives messages from time to time. Some of the ones I've collected are:

Violet ribbons of vapour rise from the eyes of your dragon/pig charm.
Red ribbons of vapour rise from the eyes of your dog charm.
Orange ribbons of vapour rise from the eyes of your horse/sheep charm.
Yellow ribbons of vapour rise from the eyes of your rat charm.
Orange/Green wisps of smoke pour from the mouth of your rooster charm.
Blue wisps of smoke pour from the mouth of your dragon/rat charm.
Indigo wisps of smoke pour from the mouth of your tiger/snake charm.
Yellow wisps of smoke pour from the mouth of your rabbit charm.
A tiny *roar* comes from your ox/rabbit charm.
A series of sparks dance across your sheep charm.
Smoke starts pouring from the mouth of your dragon charm and the smell of molten octiron wafts through the room.
Lightning crackles across the eyes of your tiger/horse charm.
Your rat/rabbit charm inhales its surroundings.
Your dog/rat charm exhales a bit of thaumic smoke.
Your horse charm glimmers from within.
Your rooster charm growls for all it's worth.
Your horse/ox charm emits a bright flash of colour.
Your monkey charm momentarily shines in all the colours of a rainbow.
Your sheep/monkey charm looks around with curiosity.
Your tiger charm taps you on the chest and smiles at you.
A small bolt of lightning shoots from your horse charm and chars a bit of ground

But its main use (at least, its 'magickal' use, which cannot reduce itself to 'being shiny') is as a stopper of fights and combats which you don't want to continue. To do so, one must 'gaze' at or into the charm. Automatically, the gazer will be transported into a fantasy land, and all the brawls in which he was in become suspended. The effect is quite similar to the one provocked by the spell Mugwuddle's Muddling Mirage, only that it works the other way round, trapping you in the place:

>gaze into charm

This is a fabulous land. A herd of green, nubile lemurs is flopping about on a purple swamp, while an indigo rock flops nearby.
It is a very weird nibblebing's aftermoon.
There are as many obvious exits as you could wish.
You are suddenly transported to a magical land.
You gaze into the eyes of your charm and the world suddenly grows hazy and turns upside down.

After a small amount of time, you will return to the 'real' world once again. The message changes into:

With a *POP*, reality reasserts itself.
You stand up.

You have to keep in mind that you can't 'make' the charm for yourself (like Gaelen says: 'You will, of course, have to cast this on someone else since you already know how charming you are), so you need somebody else to cast Thousand Dancing Celestial Fates for you if you're interested in the artifact. Afterwards, when you read it, you will find in it the name of the caster and he/she for whom it was cast:

>You read the pig charm:
Crafted by Tiak for Winswand.

One last thing: remember the charm is a very fragile thing, and shouldn't be worn while you're fighting; otherwise, it will deteriorate and break very soon.