Mystwalker

Mystwalker

Major Artifact

Aura overwhelming conjuration and transmutation; CL 25th

Slot ring; Price — (artifact); Weight —

DESCRIPTION

Mystwalker is a large ring of dark, tarnished silver. Its band is engraved with stylized fleur-de-lis motifs, while its setting holds a small bluish-gray stone carved into the likeness of an unblinking eye. Six claw-like prongs clutch the stone in place, flanked by two tiny skulls. Though inert when stared at directly, the eye often seems to shift and watch its bearer from the edge of vision.

Mystwalker is completely immune to all divination effects. It does not register under detect magic, identify, or similar spells. Any creature attempting to divine its properties through magical means is struck with a debilitating migraine, taking a –4 penalty on attack rolls, saving throws, and skill checks for 7 days (no save).

While worn, Mystwalker grants the bearer immunity to all fear and fear-like effects, including supernatural and magical fear. In addition, the ring subtly manipulates fate around the wearer, granting a +5 luck bonus to Armor Class. This manifests as improbable circumstance rather than skill - attacks narrowly miss, footing shifts at just the right moment, and weapons glance aside at the last instant.

Mystwalker’s primary power allows its bearer to traverse the Mists between worlds. By willing a destination and traveling on foot, the wearer (and up to six additional creatures within 10 feet) enters a mist-shrouded passage and arrives at the intended location after 1d4 hours. This effect bypasses all planar barriers, including effects that seal domains or prevent planar travel. The wearer instinctively knows when the destination has been reached.

The ring is cursed and bonded. Once a creature becomes its bearer, Mystwalker cannot be permanently removed. Though it may be taken off, stored, or even given away, it will inevitably and imperceptibly return to the bearer’s possession. Only the bearer’s death ends this bond.

In addition, misfortune dogs the wearer. Three times per day, the DM may force the bearer to reroll any successful attack roll, saving throw, or skill check, taking the worse result. Minor inconveniences - spoiled drink, broken straps, ill-timed stumbles - occur frequently but have no additional mechanical effect.

LORE

Mystwalker is widely believed to predate the current structure of the multiverse, its creation attributed either to entities older than the gods or to the inscrutable Dark Powers that govern the Mists. In either case, the ring embodies a paradox: it grants absolute freedom of movement while binding its bearer to a fate of creeping, persistent misfortune.

Unlike many artifacts, Mystwalker does not destroy its bearers outright. Instead, it engineers sequences of improbability - small, almost trivial disruptions that accumulate at precisely the worst possible moments. The resulting pattern is unmistakable: embarrassment, inconvenience, and failure delivered with uncanny timing, as though the ring itself possesses a quiet, malicious sense of humor.

The case of Viscount Gilles Brideau of Dementlieu remains one of the earliest recorded examples. Known for his size and excessive body hair - earning him the nickname “the Bear” - Brideau used Mystwalker to conduct secret trysts across domain borders. His reliance on the ring bred carelessness, and in a final act of absurd irony, he was mistaken for an actual bear while traveling through the wilderness and slain by a hunter’s arrow. Scholars note that the ring did not place him in danger directly; rather, it ensured that he would be in precisely the wrong place, at precisely the wrong time, for such a mistake to occur.

A more illustrative example of the ring’s subtler cruelty is found in the account of Urbano Zito, an enforcer in Borca. Over the course of a single evening, Zito suffered a cascade of humiliations: forgetting his favored weapon at a crucial moment, narrowly avoiding death beneath a speeding carriage only to have his cloak caught and be dragged through the street, losing his hat in the chaos, and finally stepping into a foul patch of horse filth that ruined his boots. When he returned to complete his task, he discovered it had been rendered pointless. Individually, each incident was minor. Together, they formed a pattern of escalating frustration and wasted effort - a hallmark of Mystwalker’s influence.

The tale of Duke Aden Froth of Waterdeep demonstrates the ring’s longer game. A wizard and merchant of some success, Froth used Mystwalker to traffic in exotic goods between worlds, including relics drawn from the Mists themselves. For nearly two years, his ventures prospered. Then, through what records describe as a “series of administrative misunderstandings,” he was arrested for the sale of contraband and transported far from his home to a Falkovian work camp. No single error explains his downfall; rather, a chain of small misjudgments, miscommunications, and ill-timed circumstances converged to end his enterprise. His ultimate fate is unknown, but Mystwalker survived him, as it always does.

Other, less well-documented accounts reinforce these patterns. Wearers report spoiled wine at celebratory moments, broken straps during critical journeys, misplaced tools, sudden stumbles, and objects failing at inconvenient times. Witnesses often dismiss such events as coincidence - until they begin to occur with unnatural frequency around the same individual.

Scholars who have studied these accounts agree on one point: Mystwalker does not create catastrophe. It arranges inconvenience. It nudges probability just enough that the bearer’s own plans unravel under the weight of poor timing and minor failure. In this way, the ring ensures that even its greatest gift - freedom of movement - is never entirely free of consequence.

And yet, for all its petty cruelty, Mystwalker has never succeeded in fully breaking a bearer. It frustrates, humiliates, and derails, but it does not end the story. Whether this is a limitation of its power or a deliberate choice remains a matter of debate among those few who have pieced together its history.

Despite persistent speculation among arcanists and planar scholars, Mystwalker has never demonstrated provable sentience. Its effects often appear deliberate - its misfortunes timed with uncanny precision and its influence unfolding with a consistency that suggests intention rather than chance. Many who have studied the ring describe the distinct impression of being observed or subtly guided, as though the artifact itself takes quiet interest in their actions. However, all attempts to confirm this through magical means have failed. The ring remains wholly impervious to divination, and no spell, ritual, or psychic probing has succeeded in eliciting a response or revealing a consciousness within. As such, Mystwalker occupies an unsettling category: an artifact that behaves as though it possesses will, yet offers no evidence that such a will truly exists.

RESEARCHING MYSTWALKER

Knowledge of Mystwalker is fragmented across many worlds and libraries. A character may research the artifact using Knowledge (arcana), Knowledge (history), or Knowledge (the planes).

DC 15

Mystwalker is a ring associated with the Mists and allows its wearer to travel between distant locations or even different worlds.

DC 20

The ring grants protection against fear and seems to manipulate luck around its wearer, both aiding and hindering them.

DC 25

Mystwalker cannot be permanently removed once worn. Misfortune consistently follows its bearer, sometimes subtly, sometimes at critical moments.

DC 30

The ring allows travel through otherwise impassable barriers, including sealed domains and planar boundaries. Its effects function through deliberate movement rather than command words or gestures.

DC 35

The bearer can bring additional creatures through the Mists, provided they remain close. Many past bearers suffered ironic or humiliating fates tied to minor misfortunes rather than direct danger.

DC 40

Mystwalker is completely immune to divination, and attempts to magically analyze it result in debilitating backlash. Its origin likely predates the gods or is tied directly to the Dark Powers.

DC 45+

The ring can only be destroyed if a Dread Lord is wearing it when slain precisely on the border between two domains. Under these conditions, Mystwalker vanishes permanently. Accounts of its past bearers and their downfalls can also be uncovered at this level of research.

USING MYSTWALKER IN A CAMPAIGN

Mystwalker functions as both a powerful narrative tool and a subtle source of tension. It allows near-unrestricted travel between locations, domains, or even campaign settings, making it ideal for linking disparate adventures or introducing planar exploration.

However, its curse ensures that such freedom comes at a cost. The DM is encouraged to introduce complications not as outright punishment, but as ironic twists of fate - successes that unravel, plans disrupted by trivial oversights, or victories soured by timing. The artifact works best when its influence feels like coincidence rather than overt interference.

ADVENTURE SEEDS

What Happened Here?

The characters discover a dead goblin deep within an isolated wilderness. The creature is wearing Mystwalker, its clothing reversed and a human-sized boot strapped to its head. There are no tracks, no signs of struggle, and no clear explanation - only the unsettling implication that the ring’s influence extends beyond simple misfortune.

A Very Bad Idea

Mystwalker appears for sale in a disreputable shop at an absurdly low price. Once acquired, the characters gain unprecedented freedom of movement, quickly drawing the ire of powerful figures whose boundaries they violate. Pursuit escalates from agents and assassins to the personal attention of a domain ruler who seeks the ring for themselves.

CONSTRUCTION

Requirements Artifact; creator unknown;

Cost —

Mystwalker cannot be created by mortal means.

DESTRUCTION

Mystwalker can only be destroyed if a Dread Lord wears the ring and is slain precisely upon the border between two domains. When this occurs, the ring vanishes utterly and does not reform.

Kelwyn Speaks on Mystwalker:

“I’ve always found Mystwalker to be a clever little thing - persistent, too. It has a way of making itself known at the most inconvenient moments, though I can’t say I mind that overmuch. A spilled glass, a missed step, a door closing just before I reach it - these are hardly tragedies. They’re texture. Life has always had a sense of humor, and I see no reason to take offense when it expresses it. That said, I do take issue with ownership. The ring seems to think it has a claim on me. It does not. I do not wear leashes, however artfully designed.”

“The trick, you see, is not to remove the ring - that is where most people go wrong. It resists that sort of thinking rather effectively. No, the solution lies in stepping sideways rather than away. The bond it enforces depends on certain assumptions about where you are, and more importantly, what it means for you to be somewhere. Adjust those assumptions - just slightly - and the bond loses its grip. It still exists, of course. I’ve not broken it so much as made it… irrelevant.”

“It does still try, from time to time. I’ll notice the old patterns - a moment of poor timing, a minor inconvenience creeping in where it might amuse itself. Less often than before, but not entirely gone. I suppose that means it still considers me its bearer, in some distant, technical sense. I don’t begrudge it that. There are worse things than being fondly remembered by an artifact with a sense of humor.”

“As for consequences?” A faint smile. “If something wishes to follow me across worlds, across boundaries that most things cannot even perceive, it is welcome to make the attempt. I have found that persistence, while admirable, rarely survives repeated exposure to impossibility.”