Bracers of the Folded Horizon

 

Bracers of the Folded Horizon (Greater)

Arms; Moderate Conjuration and Illusion; CL 9th

Price 115,000 gp; Weight 1 lb.

DESCRIPTION

These black, scale-patterned bracers subtly distort the space around the wearer, causing distance and trajectory to misalign.

While worn, you gain a +3 deflection bonus to AC, and ranged attacks against you take a –4 penalty on attack rolls.

Spatial Deflection (Su): 5/day; immediate action

When you are targeted by a melee or ranged attack, you can warp the space between yourself and the attacker. You gain a 50% miss chance against that attack. This effect is not concealment. If the attack still hits, reduce the damage dealt by 15 points.

Dimensional Bulwark (Sp): 2/day; swift action; duration 5 rounds

You anchor your position in space, gaining the effects of Dimensional Anchor (self only). While this effect is active, you also gain spell resistance 21 against Conjuration (Teleportation) effects. Any creature attempting to use a teleportation effect into or out of a square adjacent to you must succeed on a DC 19 Will save or the effect fails.

Master of the Fold (Su):

When you cast Dimension Door, you may act normally after arriving. In addition, you gain a +4 bonus on caster level checks made to overcome effects that impede teleportation, such as Dimensional Lock.

CONSTRUCTION

Requirements Craft Wondrous Item, Displacement, Dimensional Anchor, Dimension Door

Cost 57,500 gp + 4,600 XP

LORE

The Bracers of the Folded Horizon are attributed to the archmage Sereth Vhal, a reclusive planar theorist who rejected the conventional boundaries between movement and defense. Vhal’s writings argued that evasion was a crude concept - true mastery lay not in avoiding danger, but in ensuring that danger could never meaningfully intersect with one’s position in the first place. These bracers were his proof of concept: a wearable distortion field that subtly rewrote spatial relationships in real time.

According to fragmented accounts, Vhal vanished during an experiment involving recursive teleportation loops, attempting to “step outside of adjacency itself.” His tower was later found partially collapsed into overlapping geometries, with rooms occupying the same space from different angles. The bracers were recovered from a chamber that could only be entered by simultaneously standing in two different locations.

Modern arcanists prize the bracers not only for their defensive capabilities, but for the glimpse they offer into a more refined understanding of conjuration. Those who study them closely often come away with the unsettling realization that the item is not merely protecting the wearer - it is continuously, subtly redefining where the wearer is.