D20 Magic Rings

The ring is the ideal vessel for enchantment. Consider its form, and its function.

It is bounded yet eternal, endlessly renewed through its cycles. The ring is like the seasons, like the generations of living creatures, like the archons' march across the sky.

It defines an interior and an exterior: what is permissible and what is excluded, order within and chaos without.

The ring is for marriage and for royalty, a thing that binds. Kiss the bride, kiss the ring, unity and authority.

From its centre all boundaries are equidistant. It is Jerusalem at the heart of all things. Bear the ring on your finger and you hold the universe in your hand.

The ring is infinity, and the ring is null (the serpent devours its own tail until nothing is left; or: turn the ring on its side). Solomon was given a ring for his dominion because in the ring is the truer image of the Lord.

Sauron, Alan Lee

D20 Magic Rings

1. Ring of Endless Vigilance: Made of braided knots of steel wires, impossible to extricate. Swear an oath on the ring to guard a threshold (a doorway, a bridge, the edge of a campfire's light, etc.) and so long as you uphold the oath you can't be moved or knocked down against your will, don't need to sleep, and won't age.

2. Signet Ring of Certain Communication: Golden, shaped like a tiny crown studded with minuscule jewels, topped with a signet bearing a mind-boggling sigil. A letter sealed by the signet ring will (by some twists of fate) always be delivered to its intended recipient, though the delivery will be much slower if the letter is dropped on a dungeon floor rather than given to a courier. The seal is also recognized as a sign of great importance by fairies, demons, wizards, and the like.

3. Toadflesh Ring: An iron ring bearing the head of a toad with an amethyst in its forehead. Your skin becomes warty and you smell and taste revolting while wearing it. If you are bitten or swallowed, your attacker must save or be stunned for a round retching (vomiting you out if you've been swallowed).

4. Hurricane Palm Ring: Whittled from pale, bluish wood, and engraved with a prayer to the spirits of the middle air. When you strike something about as big as you (or smaller) with the hand bearing the ring, it's knocked back five feet for every point of damage you deal. If the thing's much bigger than you, you're instead knocked back by the same amount.

5. Malediction Sink Ring: Forged from thick lead banded with white stone. The lead is corroded, and the corrosion patterns pareidolialy suggest moaning faces. The purpose of the ring is to absorb and contain fell magic. If you're sick, you're not contagious. If you're possessed, the possessing spirit can't leave your body of its own volition. If multiple people (including you) are affected by a spell at once, you can take what would be the effect on others onto yourself. If you touch someone or something that's cursed, you can take on the curse yourself to relieve them, though removing the ring returns the curse.

6.  Deferred Gravity Ring: Thin, dull lead, inscribed with astrological symbols. When activated your momentum is cancelled out and are unaffected by gravity. After the ring is deactivated your speed is halved and your encumbrance is doubled for as many rounds as the ring was active as you struggle under the deferred gravity.

7. Ring of Radiant Health: Made of white gold, inlaid with cross-shaped rubies. You appear to be in the prime of health at all times, and gain advantage on saves vs. death and necromantic magic.

8. Unicorn Horn Ring: Carved from lustrous, spiraling alicorn. The next time the wearer would be afflicted by a poison or disease, it is instead neutralized and the ring tarnishes to a sickly green. The ring can then be dissolved in water, and whoever drinks the water must save or be affected by the poison or disease that tarnished it.

9. Ring of the Stolen Wheel: A bronze ring with stylized spokes around its rim. While you're on or within a vessel or vehicle you can control it as if you were driving it. If the vehicle is intelligent or magical, it or its driver can contest you for control.

10. Ring of Adamantine Grip: Blue crystal carved in geometric patterns. When activated it locks the hand it's on into stasis. While it's active the hand is invulnerable but paralyzed.

11. Ring of Manual Vengeance: Bulky, dark steel, shaped like a phalange. When you die your hand pops off and seeks vengeance against your killer. Your hand is as smart as you were and can lie in wait until its target falls asleep to strangle them. When its target is dead, or if vengeance is impossible, the hand deanimates.

12. Uncoiling Serpents Ring: A jade ring shaped like the ouroboros. Three times a day you can pull a venomous snake from the ring. The snakes have no particular loyalty or affection towards you. The first snake is of normal size. The second snake is large enough that it would take two hands to toss. The third snake is too big for a single person to throw.

13. Sacrificial Chalice Ring: A jet ring adorned with thorns. The wearer can draw their own blood with the ring (taking 1 damage) to cast Purify Food and Drink on whatever that blood touches as a magic-user of their level.

14. Perfect Poise Ring: A gold ring in the shape of a stretching cat. While wearing the ring your balance is perfect. You could walk across a greased rope without wobbling.

15. Ostiary Ring: A plain copper ring decorated with the image of smiling doorkeepers opening a gate. Once a day you can knock on a door to speak with it. Doors have knowledge of their immediate surroundings and anything that's passed through them, but little else. By performing a favour for a door (oiling its hinges, removing a termite infestation, etc.) you can convince it to obey an order from you.

16. Big Hand Ring: A copper ring shaped like a broad hand encircling the finger it's on. You can make the hand bearing the ring ten times larger than normal at will.

17. Ring of the Lingering Touch: Forged from brass in the shape of a chain of arms clasping arms. By touching an object with the hand bearing the ring you can leave a glowing handprint on it. You can then expend the handprint to manipulate the object as if you were holding it for up to a round (change the trajectory of a projectile, swing a sword, pull a lever, etc.). Only one handprint can exist at a time.

18. Deathpoke Ring: Jaggedly carved from blackened bone. A living target touched by the finger wearing the ring must save vs. death or immediately rot away. Whether the target makes their save or not the finger wearing the ring rots away too, and can never be restored by any means.

19. Ring of Hypervisibility: Made of stained glass that changes colours in hypnotic patterns. Once per day you can emit a flash from the ring. Anything looking at you when the ring flashes must save or become unable to see anything but you for 2d6 rounds.

20. Ring of the Ironmonger: A hefty, soot-stained iron ring. Bears a tiny model anvil on top. Three times per day you can mold a object made of iron or steel (or a collection of such objects) no bigger than ten feet on any side by hand as if they were clay. While you're wearing the ring metal rejects you for your presumption, and you cannot wear or wield armour or weapons that are mostly made of metal (e.g. spears are fine, swords are not).