Thank the kid in the braiding shop for coughing all over everyone! 😡 Now, I've had a pretty gnarly cold for the last few days, probably since Friday morning....
I had a fever of 100.8°F this morning. When I was awake, I was totally in cold sweat.
When you live in the butt crack of Illinois and Missouri, you know the seasons are consistently inconsistent.
Now for the "fun" part.
On Friday, I kept sneezing in triples and even four or five times in a row. Even when I induced, it was like six or eight times in a row... And EVERYTHING was messy.
So low-key I’ve had this done for a while - a couple weeks or so. But I wanted to have more than one item to show for all the delay. Aaaaaannd things didn’t happen that way. I also wanted to brew the Demonic Wishing Eye. I still might, but I can’t seem to reconcile A) being true to the source material and B) an item that isn’t 2e-tier levels of “lol fuck balance.” Like I could make it an artifact probably, but even then - infinite invincible shapeshifting clones is hmmmmmm.
Well, enough griping. Here’s a thing!
~
The Evergreen Crown
Wondrous item, legendary (requires attunement)
A tricorned, ruby-studded crown. Fancy-looking, but unassuming - except for a constant whispering presence, just quiet enough that you can't make out what it's saying.
On top of immunity to cold damage, the Evergreen Crown grants you access to certain spells per level. If you Know spells, you always know these spells, and they don’t count against your Spells Known. If you Prepare spells, you always have these spells prepared and they don’t count against spells you’ve prepared for the day.
The Evergreen Crown grants the following spells by level:
Cantrips: frostbite, ray of frost
1st level: armor of Agathys, ice knife
2nd level: Snilloc's snowball swarm, warding wind
3rd level: sleet storm, wind wall
4th level: control water, ice storm
5th level: cone of cold, conjure elemental
6 level: investiture of ice, wall of ice
7 level: whirlwind
8 level: control weather
9 level: storm of vengeance
Curse. This item is cursed. Every time you use a non-cantrip spell granted by the Crown, you must make a Wisdom saving throw equal to 10 + the spell's level.
For spell levels 1 through 3, success means nothing happens. On a failure, you are inflicted with a form of short-term madness (see the Madness Effects tables in the DMG p.258).
For spell levels 4 through 6, success means short-term madness, while failure means long-term madness.
For spell levels 7 through 9, success means long-term madness, while failure means indefinite madness.
To break attunement with the crown, you must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw. If you fail, you succumb to the whispers of the crown as it promises to teach you more of winter's secrets. This save is equal to 8 + your level.
Attuning to the crown also produces a number of alarming physical changes. The wearer's skin turns blue; their body temperature drops to thirty degrees Celsius, or eighty-six degrees Fahrenheit; their nose grows long and pointed; their hair turns white; and if the wearer identifies as male, they grow a long white beard. If you manage to break attunement with the crown, these changes fade in a matter of 1d4 weeks.
Freezing Hunger. Without a live host or a source of magical containment, tremendous cold spreads from the Evergreen Crown at a rate of a mile per year, transforming all non-magical terrain in this radius into frozen tundra.
People affected by the Polar Vortex in the US have taken to social media to show how plunging temperatures have affected their daily lives and homes. From frozen hair to frozen clothes, the weird photos are going viral.
This is both terrifying, and hilarious. Stay safe y’all
Okay, so this isn’t trenchfire, or anything puke related, but it’s the Important Birthday Week in my family (literally everyone is born in may except me, whoops), so I needed to detour and write something for the dad guy.
SO. When I was a kid, and my cousin and I would ask my dad (or any of my uncles) for a story, we’d get this:
“It was a dark and stormy night. The rain came down in torrents. And the buccaneers said to the buccaneer king, ‘please, tell us a story!’ And this is the story he told: It was a dark and stormy night...etc. etc.”
IT WAS MADDENING. And we were discussing recently how the opening just sounds SO GOOD. You’re like ‘YES OMG STORMS, BUCCANEERS THIS STORY IS GOING TO EFFING ROCK MY SOCKS’.....and then it didn’t.
So because my dad’s turning older, I decided to return the favour and actually write the dark and stormy night story, with some input from my creative outsources. So if you’ve nothing to read while you’re waiting for more puke to ruin your life, here ya go:
It was a dark and stormy night. The rain came down in torrents. And the buccaneers said to the buccaneer king, "Please, tell us a story." And this is the story he told:
" It was a dark and stormy night; the rain came down in torrents. The buccaneer king sat on his buccaneer throne and told a dark, dark tale. And this is the tale that he told:
It was a dark and stormy night; the rain came down in torrents. Splash! ‘Cross the bridge o'er the rushing depths in the icy black of the night.
In the warmest glow of the tavern bright, buccaneers sat round. Horns of mead and the heat of the fire kept the ice of the night at bay.
Far to the back of the back of the tavern bright, a lone man sat unwatched. Head hung low, ears pricked up tight to the lilt of the old king's tale.
The old king told of a maiden fair, wed in the blush of youth, with hair as bright as the stars at night and eyes like the grey of the storm.
"Her lover's eyes were the green of the sea, his hair as the raven's wing. And his heart was as dark", so the old king said, "as the black of the icy night".
"O'er twice seven times of seven days the lovers had been wed. Blissful, content, and full of joy to share their marriage bed.
And as the night closed in on the hundredth day, the maiden said to her love, "Take me down to the sea tonight, where the gulls cry over the cove."
They walked along on the briny sand, and over the wood of the bridge. They quarrelled there in the evening light, beneath the shade of the ridge.
The young man's heart was black and cold as the icy depths of the night. He slew his love on the deck of the bridge, 'neath the glow of the starry light.
He tossed her body over the side of the ancient bridge. He watched as his love floated down to the depths, to the arms of the changing sea.
He hurried away and the night gave way to the grey of a morning chill. The folk of the town heard naught but the sound of his wailing and lament.
"My love has drowned!" he cried to them all, "I have lost my heart this night. It slipped 'neath the waves of the icy sea as I saw my lover fall."
The maiden's loss was mourned by all, naught but her praise was sung. And the icy waves lapped the rocky shore, so they thought the thing was done.
But the cold dead hand of the maiden fair still waits beneath the sea. Her watery eyes watch the cloudy sky as she waits for her reckoning.
The lone man's eyes are sparkling bright as the king's voice fades away. "A lie!" he cries, in the tavern bright, "I tell you that woman is dead.
For I know the man of which you speak, and I know the tale you tell. 'Twas the lash of the waves, not the hand of her love, what put that maiden in her grave."
"Call me a liar?" the old king cries, puffed up with righteous ire, "I'll show you, boy, you'll never dare to speak cross of my tales again."
The lone man leaps to his feet and runs out into the icy night. The rains lash down and the cold winds gust through the door of the tavern bright.
The buccaneers are quiet round the light of their evening fire, save one lone man at the back of the hall, who now raises his captain's ire.
"Who are you, to tell this tale?" he cries as he leaves his chair. Then he dashes out to the cold and wet, of the stormy evening air.
The young man runs down the muddy track, away from the buccaneer hall. Through the driving rain and the lash of the wind, through the icy squall.
Till he comes to the bridge o'er the icy depths and he screams at the wild night. "You're dead, fair maiden, I killed you myself, you're a ghost, and nothing more."
The night was cold and stormy, the deck of the bridge was slick. The lone man was swept off the icy bridge, as sure as quick was quick.
Was it wind and rain or icy hands that dragged him to his death? We'll never be sure but I tell you true, that a cold laugh split through the storm.
Whether wind or rain or maiden fair that raised itself that night, the lone man was lost to the raging sea, he was lost forever from sight.
In the tavern bright, in the buccaneer hall, at our hearth by the fire, the men they shiver and nod. ‘Tis a fearsome thing, the hate of a ghost, to exact such vengeance dire.
It was a dark and stormy night. The rain came down in torrents. And the buccaneers said to the buccaneer king, "Please, tell us a story." And this was the story he told:
lemsip
3 different types of viamins
cod liver oil
the cough syrip that begins with a ‘b’
nasal spray
fennel tea
potters cough pastilles (strawberry)
lockets (strawberry)
