So let’s say in your adventures you help save a race of extra-dimensional beings from being annihilated and, in return, they gift you with a strange ring that doesn’t appear to be wholly in this plane. To give some context, their world is one that responds to thought and emotion much more strongly than our own, to the point that it works almost like a shared dream.
Thing is, nobody is sure what this ring actually does, but everybody who’s magically inspected the thing has stated that it’s a ridiculously powerful and dangerous artifact. So much so that it’s attracting the attention of dangerous enemies.
Any ideas what this thing actually does?
It’s the Controller’s Ring. While normally, in the beings world, reality is governed by a complex mix of the thoughts and emotions of all gathered, tempered by the strength of the will of everyone participating, the Controller’s Ring gives its wearer unilateral control. What they think and feel, is – regardless of the thoughts and emotions of anyone and everyone nearby.
In world’s not its own, the Controller’s Ring can be used in a much more limited – but still incredibly powerful – way. It can change emotions, or remake parts of the world, but its influence can be fought or changed, and is generally more limited as it isn’t in its own plane. It does this by channeling its home plane’s fluidity into the plane it currently inhabits, which is why it doesn’t seem to completely exist within the plane it inhabits.
In addition, the reason the beings gave away the ring is because its just a source of conflict – and, indeed, maybe a contributor to the conflict that found them near annihilation before the adventurers’ influence. The decision was made to remove the ring to avoid further wars, and to turn any adversaries searching for the ring away from the beings as they rebuild. The adventurers are now targets in an interdimensional game they don’t even know they’re playing, as they hold an artifact of incalculable power.
It causes the wearers desires to manifest in reality like in Crichton’s Sphere Forbidden Planet film or the TOS Star Trek episode Shore Leave. Good times!
I’d say it betrays the secret desires of any who confront you, but it’s a two way exchange it the other person is sensitive. There’s no hiding in the world of interconnected dreams. Problem is that this world is based on separation. There is a chance the ring will reveal that the two of you are literally the same person. This is very upsetting to those who pass their saves while witnessing; most report that the victim was horribly absorbed. The ring wearer knows the truth, that a blissful union has been restored.
It shapes reality to the bearer’s will, but only within the diameter of the ring. If something can pass through the ring, it can be altered utterly.
Just like the ring, the wearer can span between two worlds; his dreaming mind can travel forth in the real world as an astral projection. He can observe the world as a spirit, but the farther he travels from his sleeping form, the more the dream world begins to overlay the real world. Distances and time are harder to judge, writing and symbols appear distorted.
At far distances, perceptions of the world become like those in dreams, and may bear less or no physical resemblance to the waking world; the dreamer begins to see things represented more on a symbolic or metaphorical level – an untrustworthy person may appear as a serpent, for example
Awesome ideas!
A lot of Arcana checks going on here..
It is a wedding ring, to a spouse only you perceive. The spouse loves and obeys, but expects the same. It’s powers are beyond your understanding, but you may ask it to do anything, and it will try to find a way to fulfill your request. It will also ask things of you that seem arbitrary but possible, and you must do these things to maintain the marriage.