Bulwark of the Chosen Hearth

Aura moderate abjuration; CL 10th
Slot —; Price 38,170 gp; Weight 15 lbs.

This large steel shield bears a polished face of brushed steel engraved with a single mystical rune at its center. The rune depicts five lines converging toward a common point, symbolizing individuals united through loyalty, trust and mutual care. Aside from this engraving, the shield is plain in appearance, lacking gemstones, heraldry or decorative embellishments.

The Bulwark of the Chosen Hearth functions as a +2 large steel shield.

Shared Protection (Su)

Three times per day, as a standard action, the wielder may invoke the shield's protective magic.

Upon activation, up to four willing creatures within 100 feet are chosen by the wielder. Before each selected creature appears a translucent, glowing blue force shield bearing the same rune engraved upon the Bulwark.

These force shields remain for 10 minutes.

Each force shield grants its recipient the benefits of a +2 large steel shield, including shield bonuses to Armor Class and protection against effects that interact with shields.

A creature protected by a force shield is considered proficient with that shield for the duration of the effect.

The force shields are weightless, occupy no hand and hover beside their recipients. They automatically move and adjust themselves to provide protection.

Family Stands Together (Su)

While benefiting from a force shield created by the Bulwark, each protected creature gains a +2 morale bonus on saving throws against fear effects.

If two or more protected creatures stand within 30 feet of one another, this morale bonus increases to +3.

This is a mind-affecting effect.

Unbroken Wall (Su)

The force shields created by the Bulwark are composed entirely of magical force.

They cannot be disarmed, dropped, stolen or sundered. They function normally in incorporeal encounters and provide their shield bonus against incorporeal touch attacks.

If a protected creature becomes unconscious, its force shield remains active until the duration expires.

Construction

Requirements Craft Magic Arms and Armor, shield, mage armor, wall of force, heroes' feast; Cost 19,085 gp, 1,527 XP

Lore

The Bulwark of the Chosen Hearth was originally crafted by a retired adventurer who had spent decades defending companions who eventually became his family. As age and old wounds slowed his body, he found himself increasingly unable to stand between every threat and every loved one who depended upon him.

Rather than accepting this limitation, he sought a magical solution. Working alongside enchanters, priests and artificers who had likewise found homes among companions rather than relatives, he commissioned a shield capable of sharing its protection with others. The resulting creation became a symbol throughout many communities that valued mutual support and collective defense.

Stories tell of the Bulwark appearing wherever people chose to care for one another. Adventuring companies, community organizations, refugee caravans and guardians of safe havens have all claimed ownership of similar shields. Whether these accounts describe a single legendary item or several inspired copies remains uncertain.

Kelwyn's Notes

Many warriors view a shield as an intensely personal tool. It is strapped to one's arm, carried into battle and relied upon when danger approaches. Its purpose is simple: preserve the life of the bearer. The Bulwark of the Chosen Hearth rejects this philosophy entirely. Rather than asking how best to defend a single individual, it asks how protection itself might be shared. The enchantment embodies a truth I have observed countless times throughout my travels. Few people survive life's greatest trials alone. We endure because others stand beside us, lending strength when our own begins to fail.

The shield's creators understood something often overlooked by kings, generals and ambitious adventurers. Protection is not diminished when shared. A candle loses nothing by lighting another candle. A wall does not become weaker because it shelters more than one person. Indeed, many forms of strength become greater when distributed among a community rather than concentrated within a single individual. The Bulwark transforms this principle into tangible magic. Its bearer does not hoard safety. Instead, they extend it outward, creating a circle of protection that embraces every member of the family.

I have always admired the shield's remarkable simplicity. Many magical creations seek to impress through elaborate craftsmanship, dazzling gemstones or displays of overwhelming power. The Bulwark possesses none of these distractions. A plain steel shield bearing a single rune is sufficient. The message is clear. No member of the family stands above another. No shield is gilded while another is left bare. When the force shields appear, each manifests as an identical reflection of the original. Every individual receives the same protection, the same trust and the same affirmation that they are worthy of being defended.

The sight created by the Bulwark's magic is one I have never forgotten. During my travels I once witnessed a small company crossing a narrow bridge while under attack from creatures emerging from the darkness below. The leader raised a shield much like this one and four glowing barriers sprang into existence around the others. Blue light danced across steel, stone and frightened faces alike. What struck me was not the magic itself but the immediate change in demeanor among the companions. Fear gave way to confidence. Isolation gave way to unity. They no longer faced danger as separate individuals. They faced it together.

The Bulwark of the Chosen Hearth serves as a reminder that the strongest families are not necessarily those blessed with the greatest warriors, the most powerful wizards or the deepest coffers. Their true strength lies in the willingness of each member to stand between danger and those they love. Throughout four centuries I have encountered countless artifacts capable of destroying enemies. Far fewer possessed the ability to preserve what truly matters. This shield belongs among the latter. It is not a weapon of conquest, glory or ambition. It is a declaration that when hardship arrives, no member of the family will be left to face it alone.

Watcher Bulwark

Aura moderate divination; CL 9th
Slot —; Price 22,500 gp; Weight 15 lbs.

DESCRIPTION

This +1 heavy steel shield bears an engraved likeness of a specific creature species chosen during the shield’s creation. The image is always stylized in an intimidating or vigilant manner - snarling goblins, skeletal undead faces, glaring dragon eyes, twisted aberrant forms, or whatever creature the shield was crafted to recognize. Though initially decorative in appearance, the engraving awakens when creatures of the designated species draw near.

Whenever a creature of the attuned species comes within 120 feet of the wielder, the engraved image begins to glow faintly. The glow increases in intensity as the creature approaches. At distances of 30 feet or less, the shield sheds bright illumination in a 20-foot radius and dim illumination for an additional 20 feet. The shield does not reveal exact locations or numbers, merely the nearby presence of the designated creatures.

The shield’s detection functions through most ordinary obstacles, though one foot of metal, three feet of stone, or effects that block divination magic prevent detection. Illusions do not fool the shield unless they are accompanied by effects that specifically obscure creature type.

While the shield is glowing, the wielder gains a +2 insight bonus on Listen, Spot, Sense Motive, and initiative checks made against creatures of the designated species.

Three times per day, when struck in melee by a creature of the shield’s designated species, the wielder may command the shield to erupt with radiant warning light as an immediate action. The attacking creature must succeed on a DC 16 Fortitude save or become dazzled for 1d6 rounds. Creatures with light sensitivity or light blindness suffer a -2 penalty on this save.

A Watcher Bulwark may only be attuned to a single creature category during creation. Common examples include goblins, undead, orcs, trolls, dragons, lycanthropes, sahuagin, drow, or specific outsider subtypes. Particularly paranoid nobles and inquisitors have commissioned versions attuned to humans, changelings, or extraplanar bloodlines, though such creations are often controversial.

LORE

The earliest Watcher Bulwarks emerged not from military ambition, but from communal exhaustion. Small settlements beset by repeated raids often lacked the manpower to maintain constant vigilance. Sleep became fragmented. Every snapping branch became a possible attack. Villages surviving near hostile wilderness eventually turned toward magical craftsmen for a solution that could remain alert even when human minds could not.

Dwarven clans were among the first to refine the enchantment into stable defensive forms. Orc-Watcher Bulwarks became deeply symbolic heirlooms within frontier holds, their engraved faces accumulating scratches, inscriptions, and repairs across generations of warfare. Some ancient examples bear so many carved kill-marks that the original face beneath the damage is barely recognizable.

In marsh settlements and river communities, undead-attuned variants became tragically common following outbreaks of plague and necromantic disaster. Priests mounted oversized Watcher Bulwarks upon chapel doors where their pale blue glow could warn entire neighborhoods of wandering dead approaching through fog or floodwater.

Over time, the item spread far beyond practical defense and into paranoia. Certain rulers commissioned human-attuned Watcher Bulwarks to identify spies, infiltrators, or political enemies. Others created shields attuned toward outsiders or specific bloodlines, transforming a once protective invention into an instrument of suspicion. Scholars continue debating whether the enchantment itself encourages this mentality, or merely reflects the fears already present within those who wield it.

CONSTRUCTION

Requirements Craft Magic Arms and Armor, detect thoughts, detect evil or detect chaos or detect law or detect good, creator must specify designated creature species during creation; Cost 11,250 gp + 900 XP

Kelwyn’s Notes

One discovers rather quickly that fear becomes architectural if allowed sufficient time. It settles into walls. It shapes roads. It dictates where lanterns are hung and where children are forbidden to wander after dusk. Eventually, if civilization survives long enough beneath a recurring threat, fear ceases to feel emotional at all. It becomes infrastructure.

The Watcher Bulwark is among the purest examples of this transformation I have yet encountered. It is not truly a shield in the philosophical sense. It does not primarily exist to stop violence once violence has arrived. Rather, it exists to interrupt surprise itself. The glow is less a defensive measure than a declaration that uncertainty has ended. Something feared is now undeniably present.

There is an unnerving intimacy to the engraved faces upon these shields. Craftsmen rarely depict the chosen species neutrally. Goblins become more feral. Dragons more predatory. Undead more skeletal than reality often permits. The image reveals not the enemy as it exists, but the enemy as remembered by frightened communities after funerals have already occurred. In this sense, each shield quietly preserves a history of collective trauma hammered permanently into steel.

And yet the item remains difficult to condemn outright. Entire villages have survived because a wall-mounted bulwark began glowing moments before raiders emerged from the swamp fog. Children have been pulled indoors before claws reached the threshold. Tired guards have lived long enough to raise families because the shield noticed what weary eyes failed to see.

Civilization often survives not because it overcomes fear, but because it learns how to distribute fear into manageable objects. The Watcher Bulwark is fear given discipline. Whether that is wisdom or merely desperation wearing ceremonial armor remains, I suspect, a matter history never fully resolves.

Verdant Embrace

Aura moderate conjuration and transmutation; CL 9th
Slot shield; Price 18,750 gp; Weight 6 lbs.

This +2 darkwood heavy shield appears to be formed entirely from living vegetation woven into the shape of a broad circular bulwark. Thick root fibers coil together beneath layers of broad moss-covered bark, while flowering vines slowly creep and shift across its surface even when left unattended. The interior of the shield is hollow with a nest-like cavity of soft roots and tendrils designed to receive the wielder’s forearm.

Whenever the shield is donned, the living vines immediately tighten and wrap around the wearer’s arm and wrist, anchoring themselves with surprising gentleness. Tiny thornless rootlets pierce only the outermost layer of skin, drawing minute traces of blood and bodily warmth necessary to sustain the shield’s living structure. Though unsettling to many non-druids, wearers attuned to nature often describe the sensation as strangely comforting, akin to placing one’s hand beneath warm soil after rainfall.

While worn, Verdant Embrace grants the wielder fast healing 1 whenever they are at or below one-half their maximum hit points. This healing functions only while the wielder remains conscious and in contact with natural ground, living wood, or unworked stone. The shield ceases healing entirely if exposed to dead or barren environments utterly devoid of natural life, such as blasted wastelands, areas under the effects of desecrate, or similarly corrupted terrain.

In addition, once per day as an immediate action, the wielder may command the shield to erupt outward with protective vines after taking damage from a melee attack. Tangled roots and branches burst from the shield’s face, granting the wielder damage reduction 5/slashing for 5 rounds. During this time, the vegetation thickens visibly, blooming with leaves or flowers appropriate to the surrounding biome.

The shield is considered both a wooden shield and a living plant creature for spells and effects that specifically target such materials or beings. Druids may use Verdant Embrace without violating their spiritual restrictions regarding metal armor or shields.

LORE

The first Verdant Embrace shields were cultivated rather than crafted by circles of wandering druids who served as guardians of ancient groves during eras of widespread deforestation and war. According to surviving oral traditions, these shields were not created in workshops but grown over many years from carefully shaped living trees whose roots were entwined with sacred springs and burial grounds. Each shield supposedly carries within itself faint memories of every forest that contributed to its growth.

Many druids believe the shield possesses a primitive awareness of fear, pain, and affection. Wearers often report feeling subtle movements from the vines during moments of emotional distress - gentle tightening during danger, slow warmth during grief, or faint pulses resembling a heartbeat while sleeping beside campfires beneath the open sky. Some circles teach that the shield is not merely alive, but lonely, seeking companionship through physical symbiosis with its bearer.

Among rural communities, sightings of Verdant Embrace are commonly associated with traveling wardens, healers, and defenders of the wilderness. Villagers speak of moss-covered figures emerging from forests after floods, famines, or monster attacks, carrying shields that bled sap instead of resin and bloomed with flowers during rainfall. Such stories frequently end with the mysterious guardian vanishing before dawn, leaving behind only fresh plant growth where they once stood.

There are darker tales as well. Several corrupted versions of the shield have reportedly emerged from blighted forests touched by necromancy or abyssal influence. In such cases the vines no longer heal willingly, instead feeding ravenously upon the wielder’s flesh until little remains beyond bark-covered bone wrapped within grasping roots. Druids universally regard these twisted variants with profound horror.

CONSTRUCTION

Requirements Craft Magic Arms and Armor, goodberry, barkskin, regenerate; Cost 9,375 gp + 750 XP + a living vine taken willingly from an ancient forest spirit

Kelwyn’s Notes

There are few objects more revealing of civilization’s true anxieties than the shield. One may learn much about a culture by observing what it places between itself and death. Iron kingdoms trust steel. Tyrants trust walls. Cowards trust distance. Yet the druid trusts something far stranger - reciprocity.

Verdant Embrace does not merely protect its bearer. It enters into relationship with them. It asks for blood, warmth, and closeness in exchange for preservation. The vines do not lash themselves around the arm with conquest, but with familiarity. The shield survives because the wielder survives, and the wielder survives because the shield remains alive enough to care. One cannot help but notice how unlike the philosophies of cities this arrangement truly is.

I once observed a druid asleep beside a riverbank while wearing one of these curious shields. During the night, small white flowers blossomed along the shield’s rim and slowly turned toward the warmth of the sleeper’s body as though listening for breath. I confess, dear reader, that the sight unsettled me far more than any necromancer’s tomb. Undeath is horrifying, certainly, but understandable. Nature’s affection, however - that quiet insistence that the living world might notice us, remember us, or perhaps even mourn us - is a far more intimate terror.

And yet, there is tenderness within that terror.

The forest does not love humanity in the manner humans love one another. It does not forgive. It does not pity. It does not weep at graves. But now and again, in moments of rare alignment between mortal need and living wilderness, nature appears willing to hold us gently for a little while longer before reclaiming us. Verdant Embrace is not a denial of death. It is simply the forest placing one careful hand between death and the frightened creature trembling before it.

Aegis of the Open Hand

Aura Moderate abjuration and transmutation; CL 9th
Slot shield; Price 18,320 gp; Weight 3 lbs.

DESCRIPTION

This +1 mithral light shield resembles an elegant crescent of silvered metal attached to a reinforced leather bracer rather than a conventional shield. The shield’s face is unusually narrow, leaving the wielder’s fingers, wrist, and palm almost entirely unobstructed. Thin channels of glowing blue script run along the inside rim, shifting position to mirror the motions of the wearer’s hand whenever arcane magic is prepared or cast.

The Aegis of the Open Hand was created specifically for arcane spellcasters with no martial training. Any creature capable of casting arcane spells is automatically considered proficient with the Aegis of the Open Hand while wielding it. Non-arcane spellcasters gain no special proficiency from the shield.

The shield never imposes an arcane spell failure chance when used to cast arcane spells. In addition, the wielder may perform somatic components with the shield-bearing hand as though that hand were free.

Once per round, when the wielder successfully casts an arcane spell of 1st level or higher, shimmering force briefly extends from the shield’s rim. Until the start of the wielder’s next turn, the shield bonus granted by the Aegis increases by +1.

Three times per day, when struck by a melee attack, the wielder may cause the shield to erupt into a disk of translucent force as an immediate action. The wielder gains a +4 bonus to AC against that single attack. This ability must be declared after the attack roll is announced but before damage is rolled.

LORE

The Aegis of the Open Hand emerged from a simple observation shared among many academies of wizardry: most spellcasters died not because they lacked power, but because they lacked survivability during the brief moments between spells. Apprentices learned quickly that battlefields punished hesitation mercilessly. Unfortunately, the same institutions that taught devastating magic rarely provided meaningful martial instruction. Many promising arcanists perished while fumbling with shields they had never properly learned to use.

Several wizard colleges attempted to address this problem through magical wards and protective robes, yet these solutions often proved expensive, fragile, or mentally taxing. The artificers who ultimately created the Aegis pursued a different philosophy entirely. Rather than teaching mages to fight like soldiers, they designed a shield that behaved like an extension of spellcasting itself. The shield’s weight distribution, open grip, and responsive enchantments were all carefully calibrated to complement the natural gestures of arcane practice rather than interfere with them.

The design spread rapidly among younger adventuring mages, particularly hedge wizards, itinerant scholars, and planar researchers who lacked the resources or time for formal martial training. Veteran battlemages occasionally mocked the shield as “training wheels for apprentices,” yet many quietly adopted one after discovering how useful it was during prolonged expeditions. Surviving records suggest that entire generations of traveling wizards came to view the Aegis less as armor and more as a practical tool - no more unusual than a spellbook strap or component satchel.

CONSTRUCTION

Requirements Craft Magic Arms and Armor, shield, mage armor, shield, creator must be able to cast arcane spells; Cost 9,320 gp + 720 XP

Kelwyn’s Notes

There is a peculiar arrogance among warriors who assume survival belongs naturally to the strong. Spend enough years traversing dimensions and one discovers that intelligence survives just as often through adaptation as through dominance. The wolf grows claws. The turtle grows a shell. The wizard, lacking both, learns to carry civilization itself between fragile fingers and hope nothing sharp reaches them before the incantation finishes.

I suspect this shield embarrasses traditionalists precisely because it refuses to romanticize combat. There is no grand declaration of valor within its design. No noble invitation toward glorious melee. It is practical in the most honest sense of the word. A frightened scholar wishes not to die while speaking impossible truths aloud to a hostile universe. The shield answers, quite sensibly, “Very well. Let us make that slightly harder.”

And perhaps there is wisdom in that humility. Entire kingdoms have endured not because they possessed the greatest swords, but because enough ordinary souls survived long enough to continue thinking, building, recording, healing, and remembering. The Aegis of the Open Hand belongs firmly to that philosophy. It is not a monument to conquest. It is a quiet argument that vulnerable people deserve protection too.

Shield of the Arcane Bastion

Aura Moderate evocation; CL 9th
Slot —; Price 18,500 gp; Weight 12 lbs.

DESCRIPTION

This polished steel heavy shield bears a circular boss engraved with concentric rings of silver and blue crystal filaments that faintly glow whenever arcane energy is nearby. Tiny runes line the inner rim of the shield, each representing an ancient sigil of force and precision. Though crafted for defense, the shield hums with restrained aggression, eager to answer violence with disciplined magical retaliation.

The Shield of the Arcane Bastion functions as a +1 heavy steel shield. In addition, any creature proficient with shields may activate the shield’s primary ability regardless of whether they possess spellcasting capability. Three times per day, the wielder may speak the shield’s command word as a standard action to cast magic missile as though produced by a 9th-level wizard. The missiles strike unerringly and may be directed at one or multiple targets within range as normal for the spell. The shield’s crystalline channels briefly flare with pale blue light as the missiles launch outward from the shield’s face.

Once per day, when the wielder is struck by a melee attack, they may immediately trigger a defensive surge as an immediate action. This causes a single magic missile dart to automatically strike the attacker. This retaliatory dart is treated as originating from a 5th-level caster.

The shield’s magical force effects are considered arcane in nature, but they require no spellcasting aptitude to command. Even common soldiers and mercenaries can unleash its power after learning the proper command word.

LORE

The first Shields of the Arcane Bastion were commissioned during a brutal border conflict in which noble levies repeatedly suffered devastating losses against enemy battlemages. Traditional infantry could withstand arrows and blades well enough, but arcane bombardment shattered formations and morale alike. In response, a conclave of artificers sought to create a defensive implement that allowed ordinary soldiers to answer magic with magic of their own.

The resulting shields quickly transformed battlefield tactics. Shield walls that once served merely as barriers became advancing batteries of force missiles, capable of unleashing coordinated bursts of arcane fire while maintaining disciplined defensive formations. Veterans spoke of entire night battles illuminated by streaks of blue-white energy arcing from ranks of armored infantry.

Many surviving examples bear subtle signs of prolonged magical strain. The inner metal grows warm during thunderstorms, and some shields emit faint whispering vibrations when held near wizard towers or enchanted ruins. Scholars disagree whether this phenomenon is harmless resonance or evidence that repeated force-magic exposure slowly awakens a primitive magical consciousness within the shield itself.

A peculiar tradition developed among mercenary companies that employed these shields extensively. Soldiers would personalize the inner rim with etched tally marks representing confirmed kills made by the shield’s missiles. Over decades of warfare, some shields accumulated hundreds of such markings, transforming them into grim historical records of campaigns long forgotten.

CONSTRUCTION

Requirements Craft Magic Arms and Armor, magic missile, shield; Cost 9,250 gp + 740 XP

Kelwyn’s Notes

There exists something profoundly unsettling about a shield that longs to answer injury. One expects a blade to hunger. One expects a wand to yearn for release. But a shield - ah, a shield is meant to embody restraint. It is civilization condensed into iron. It is the physical declaration that survival matters more than slaughter. When such an object begins to retaliate of its own accord, one feels the faint trembling of a boundary best left uncrossed.

I have observed soldiers carrying these implements with expressions curiously unlike those borne by swordsmen. A swordsman accepts risk as the cost of violence. The bearer of the Arcane Bastion often grows comfortable in ways that concern me deeply. They learn that protection itself can become aggression. The distinction between defending oneself and punishing others begins to erode with alarming speed when one need only raise an arm to unleash invisible death.

And yet - perhaps inevitably - I cannot wholly condemn the thing. I have seen frightened caravan guards clutch these shields while crossing corpse-haunted roads, their hands trembling less because they knew they possessed some answer against the horrors lurking beyond the lantern light. There is mercy in empowering the powerless, even if the tool itself carries uncomfortable implications.

Still, whenever I hear the sharp crack of force missiles erupting from behind a defensive line, I am reminded that civilization often survives not by remaining pure, but by teaching even its walls how to bite.

Rainbow Bastion

Aura Strong abjuration and transmutation; CL 13th
Slot —; Price 48,000 gp; Weight 15 lbs.

DESCRIPTION

This heavy steel shield bears a surface of polished silver beneath an ever-shifting layer of translucent magical color. When viewed directly, ribbons of radiant crimson, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet, pink, white, brown, black, and cyan slowly move across its face like flowing stained glass illuminated from within. Along the rim are etched hundreds of tiny names in dozens of languages - not all of them known to history - representing those who stood openly as themselves despite persecution, hatred, exile, or fear. The shield is warm to the touch whenever used to protect another creature from harm.

Rainbow Bastion functions as a +3 heavy steel shield. While carried, the wielder gains immunity to magical fear effects and a +4 morale bonus on saving throws against charm, compulsion, and intimidation-based effects. Allies within 20 feet gain a +2 morale bonus on saves against fear.

Three times per day, when an ally within 30 feet would be struck by a melee or ranged attack, the wielder may declare the shield’s Interposing Radiance ability as an immediate action. Bands of multicolored force erupt outward, granting the ally a +6 deflection bonus to AC against the triggering attack. If the attack misses, shimmering spectral light explodes outward, causing hostile creatures within 10 feet of the protected ally to become dazzled for 1d4 rounds (Will DC 19 negates). The save DC is Charisma-based.

Once per day, Rainbow Bastion may invoke Stand Together as a standard action. For 10 rounds, all allies within 30 feet are linked by radiant strands of prismatic light. During this time, allies gain a +2 bonus to AC and saving throws while adjacent to at least one ally. In addition, whenever one affected ally is reduced below 0 hit points, another affected ally within range may voluntarily take up to half the damage that creature suffered as glowing force transfers the wound between them. Damage transferred this way bypasses damage reduction and resistances.

If the wielder uses the shield to successfully protect a helpless creature, stop a hate-driven mob, defend innocents from persecution, or openly oppose tyranny despite personal danger, Rainbow Bastion sheds bright light in a 60-foot radius for 24 hours thereafter. During this time, the shield’s enhancement bonus increases to +4. This increase is a sacred effect and does not stack with similar temporary enhancement increases.

LORE

Rainbow Bastion was first forged not for kings, conquerors, or saints, but for ordinary people who simply wished to survive long enough to exist openly beneath the sun. The oldest surviving accounts speak of hidden districts, secret festivals held behind locked doors, coded songs shared in crowded taverns, and defenders who stood watch outside gatherings that the wider world considered shameful or dangerous. In those fearful years, shields mattered far more than swords. The goal was rarely victory - only survival, dignity, and the hope of seeing another dawn beside those one loved.

The shield’s shifting colors are said to represent not merely identity, but visibility itself. Ancient enchanters believed that hatred depended upon isolation - upon convincing individuals that they stood alone against the world. Rainbow Bastion was therefore crafted as an ideological weapon as much as a magical one. Its enchantments were designed to make solidarity physically tangible. The flowing strands of light, the shared protection, the emotional resistance against fear and coercion - all were deliberate attempts to transform community into literal magical force.

Over centuries, the shield became associated with traveling guardians, rebellious temple sects, wandering performers, healers, and knightly orders devoted to protecting marginalized peoples across countless cultures. In some cities, carrying the shield openly became a declaration that one would stand between cruelty and its victims regardless of law, tradition, or consequence. Entire riots have reportedly broken upon its radiant barriers without claiming a single innocent life.

CONSTRUCTION

Requirements Craft Magic Arms and Armor, heroes’ feast, shield other, holy aura, creator must be good-aligned; Cost 24,000 gp + 1,920 XP

Kelwyn’s Notes

There are artifacts born from conquest, and there are artifacts born from endurance. The distinction matters more than many kingdoms care to admit. One may build empires through domination, yes, but civilization itself is more often preserved by those willing to stand in front of frightened strangers and quietly say, “No further.”

I find this shield deeply fascinating because it understands a truth that history repeatedly attempts to bury beneath banners and battlefields - hatred is frequently less interested in destruction than in erasure. There exists a particular cruelty in demanding that another soul make itself smaller, quieter, dimmer, less visible, less honest, merely to satisfy the discomfort of others. Rainbow Bastion opposes this not through vengeance, but through presence. It transforms visibility into defiance and companionship into armor.

Most remarkable of all is the shield’s refusal to glorify isolation. Many magical relics celebrate the singular hero, the lone champion standing above lesser mortals. This artifact instead grows stronger through proximity, mutual care, and collective survival. It does not ask whether its bearer is mighty. It asks whether they are willing to remain beside those who are afraid.

There is, I think, something profoundly beautiful about an object whose greatest magical power is the refusal to abandon people when the world decides they are inconvenient to love.

Cursed +1 Shield of Dragon Attraction

Cursed +1 Shield of Dragon Attraction

It is said by the most learned of scholars and sages that, due to truly unknown aspects of magic, sometimes a magic item can become cursed simply due to the actions of it's owner. This shield is one such item, and cursed it truly is. Pray to whatever Gods you believe in that you should never happen upon it.

This shield seems to be attracted to individuals that demonstrate great stupidity, pigheadedness or simpleminded actions. This doesn't include beings with actual mental deficiencies or low INT scores, just beings that do something so incredibly stupid that the gods themselves would facepalm.

Shield of Dragon Attraction

+1 Heavy Steel Shield (Cursed)

Aura: Moderate Enchantment and Transmutation

Caster Level: 12th

Slot: Shield

Price: — (Cursed; see text)

Weight: 15 lb.

DESCRIPTION

At first glance, this battered but serviceable shield appears to be nothing more than a standard +1 heavy steel shield. Its surface is marred by dents, scorch marks, and deep gouges suggestive of repeated draconic assaults, though no mundane appraisal reveals anything unusual.

The shield functions as a normal +1 heavy steel shield until its curse manifests.

This item is drawn—seemingly by fate itself—to creatures who exhibit extraordinary lapses in judgment. It does not target the unintelligent, the inexperienced, or those with low Intelligence scores, but rather individuals who knowingly or willfully commit acts of staggering foolishness, reckless hubris, or obstinate irrationality. The exact threshold is determined by the DM, but should represent decisions so poor that even divine beings might recoil in disbelief.

Once acquired, the shield cannot be willingly discarded.

PRIMARY CURSE: DRACONIC ATTRACTION

Whenever a true dragon or creature of the dragon type comes within 1 mile, it becomes immediately and irresistibly aware of the shield’s bearer.

The creature is overwhelmed with an unshakable compulsion to locate and destroy the bearer utterly. This is not a mind-affecting effect and bypasses immunity, spell resistance, and saving throws.

Against the shield’s bearer only, affected dragons gain the following benefits:

Insight Bonus on all skill checks equal to their Hit Dice

Enhancement Bonus on attack and damage rolls equal to their Hit Dice

Competence Bonus to Armor Class equal to their Hit Dice

These bonuses apply only when interacting with or attacking the bearer.

All other creatures are treated normally and are not subject to these effects.

SECONDARY CURSE: INESCAPABLE DOOM

If a dragon affected by this curse is slain by the bearer or their allies, its body (or some catastrophic remnant of it) will inevitably collide with the bearer.

This effect occurs regardless of distance, terrain, or magical intervention, including teleportation, planar travel, etherealness, or similar effects.

The bearer takes damage equal to the dragon’s full normal hit points (as if unwounded).

A Reflex save (DC 20 – dragon’s HD) halves this damage.

TERTIARY CURSE: FORM OF THE FOOL

Once attuned, the curse spreads:

Any shield the bearer possesses transforms into the Shield of Dragon Attraction within 24 hours. This overrides all magical properties, regardless of strength or rarity, including artifacts at the DM’s discretion.

This transformation allows no saving throw or resistance.

REMOVAL OF THE CURSE

The Shield of Dragon Attraction cannot be removed by remove curse, break enchantment, wish, miracle, or even direct divine intervention.

The only way to end the curse is through repeated demonstrations of exceptional wisdom, foresight, and sound judgment.

These acts must be:

Deliberate and meaningful

Demonstrative of clear reasoning under pressure

Recognized by the DM as genuine character growth

Once sufficient acts have been completed (typically 3–5 significant instances), the curse lifts, and the shield loses all magical properties, becoming a mundane, battered relic.

~~~~~

DM Note: This item was actually born out of incredible stupidity.

I was running a D&D campaign that was taking place in a snowy wilderness, and I had a full compliment of players. The party was dealing with strafing attacks from a huge white dragon. The party's mage manages to kill the dragon in the air at the start of another strafing run, and I was all set to describe the dragon impacting against the snow, taking out trees, etc. All of the players yell that they're getting out of the way of the incoming dragon corpse... well, all but one actually, which I'll call S.

S was somehow convinced that he could just stand there and brace himself and that the characters that ran were cowards. The other players were yelling at S to get the hell out of the way, but his only retort was "The dragon won't hurt me, I have a +1 Shield." He said that in a really snotty voice, too. Multiple times the other players tried to get him to move, but he refused to budge (and kept being a little bitch about it as well).

Ok, S. You wanna' stay there? Let's do this. Let's play.

Pausing the game and going online, I worked out the mass of the dragon, the speed it was flying at, the force in newtons that it would hit with and converted that into HP damage based on other very similar attacks and effects listed within several WotC rulebooks (including D20 Modern).

(20,000 lbs, diving Spd 400 which converts to 333 ft/sec or 227mph, over the distance the characters were at, hits at 15,343 N, comparable to being hit by a train head-on or a car hitting a brick wall at 134 mph)

His character was a pink smear on the glistening snow. All of his equipment, including several valuable magic items and a suit of elven chainmail, was destroyed. One item, however, survived. His +1 Shield.

I've included this shield in every single game I've played since. It's become so infamous that my players will warn new players or visiting friends against claiming any +1 Shields that they happen to find as random treasure. You'll never find a single character carrying a +1 Shield; they would rather go without a magic shield or wait until they find a more powerful one than to risk even the slightest chance of their new shield being this shield.

Fear the DM you irritate.