On magic, and magic stuff, and stories and games.

[theweaselking]

My most favouritest "magic item" ever, from any medium, from any setting, is from Assassin's Creed 2.

In Assassin's Creed 2, you can eventually gain The Medici Cape. It is a cape, in the colours of The House Of Medici. It marks you as favoured by Lorenzo de Medici.

It has one and only one power: Wear the Medici cape, and your "notoriety" does not go up, ever. The guards do not see you commit crimes, ever. No law enforcer in the city of Florence will take any notice of you at all, unless you are currently trying to kill him right now. And even then, his friends won't see you.

This is my favourite magic item in the history of magic items.

What's yours?

Comments

[alephz.livejournal.com]

I've always been very fond of Felix the Cat's Bag of Tricks.

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

I've liked the Staff of Onan in Diablo just for the name. With it, you can conjure up a golem and, ahem, play with yourself, ala the sin of the same name.

[drcuriosity]

Casa de Medici: Fear is Magic.

[herewiss13.livejournal.com]

It's not quite "Magic" but ought to count. The Lazy Gun from Iain M. Bank's "Against a Dark Background."

The only weapon ever to display a sense of humor.

Created by a long-lost civilization, it weighs 3 times more upside-down than right-side up. It destroys whatever you fire it at, but never the same way twice. Try to test it on a prisoner and maybe giant electrodes will materialize on either side and electrocute the person...or he'll be riddled with bullets or a meteorite will fall from the skies and crush him. Cities targeted by the gun might be smothered by a lava flow, or be swallowed by the earth, etc. etc.

Trying to destroy atoms (by focusing the targetting lense through an electron microscope) result in quantum black holes.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

The Medici Cape isn't "magic" per se.

It's just that, while wearing Lorenzo de Medici's colours, NOT ONE of Lorenzo de Medici's guards would dare to notice you.

Vitriolic Crux

[disgruntledgrrl.livejournal.com]

Science is magic at a high enough level.


I still miss many of the guns from the first Borderlands.

[sebkha.livejournal.com]

The dubstep gun.

[andrewducker]

Dammit. Now I want a dubstep gun.

[lafinjack.livejournal.com]

The Photoshop clone tool.

[anton-p-nym.livejournal.com]

Not really magic, more "weird science", but Armed and Dangerous's "Landshark gun".

-- Steve was also rather fond of that game's "Topsey-Turvey Grenade". Not a particularly brilliant game, but it had hilarious weaponry.

[lafinjack.livejournal.com]

[22:13:09] bswinburn: The dalmation jumped through a closed window smashing the glass to get at my brother and I one day when we were playing in the front yard.
[22:13:16] bswinburn: My dad eventually had to put the dog down.
[22:13:48] bswinburn: I don't think I've ever been so terrified of any animal, even when huge moose where trying to smash through frozen trees to attack me.
[22:14:27] LafinJack: you were right to be terrified, mooses spit venom
[22:14:44] bswinburn: Common misconception, spork.
[22:15:00] bswinburn: They don't spit it, they spray it through tiny holes in their antlers.
[22:15:12] LafinJack: few have lived to tell the tale
[22:15:34] bswinburn: Sho 'nuff.

[scifantasy.livejournal.com]

There's a matching cape for Venice, and the Auditore family cape, that (for ultimate challenge) sets your notoriety permanently to 100%.

[nsanity-au.livejournal.com]

if only the game had an even remotely challenging combat system...

[aeduna.livejournal.com]

Warehouse 23 had a crystal bell, when you rang it and made a wish, it came true. No GM wrangling, no word tricks, what you wanted happens. And someone you kinda met one day dies. Ring it again, wish, etc yay. And someone you've run into a couple of times dies. Ring it again, wish, and somone you've known on an off for a while, not a friend but a regular aquaintence, dies.... then a friend..... then a family member.... And you couldn't throw it away, only give it away.

[ipslore.livejournal.com]

And that's only the overt catch! The hidden catch is that giving it away qualifies you as, at the very least, 'someone you kinda met' for the new owner.

[lurkerwithout.livejournal.com]

Mulehide Cords for Pathfinder. +8 Strength only for figuring carrying capacity. Because I hate tracking encumbrance.

[nomadmwe.livejournal.com]

Ages ago, I was in an Eberron game. My wife was playing a Shifter Monk. My friend was playing an Artificer, and the chopshop we had going for magic items was great. One day, he tripped over Shifter Braids in some rulebook or another, and our life was changed forever. They were dirt cheap - like 40 gold and 8 xp to produce, one use each. Any time the wearer used their racial Shifting power, it let them become size Large.

Besides being appallingly gross on a Monk, these will always remain my favorite items solely because of all the Apache Chief references. Also, the Hawkman Lawyer "Grow Large" references that they allowed.

..also because my wife then asked, "Can I take the monster feat Swallow Whole and when I'm shifting, just eat halflings in combat?" :D

[cleodhna.livejournal.com]

Why has no one yet mentioned the Head of Vecna?

[ashbet]

*chortling* :D

In the spirit of the Medici Cape, the "Secret Boots" from "Castlevania: Symphony of the Night" -- their description: "Discreetly enhances height!"

Exclamation point in original ;)

-- A <3

[ipslore.livejournal.com]

And IIRC, they actually do make Alucard's sprite one pixel taller!

[evcelt.livejournal.com]

In a similar vein, the "ugliest t-shirt in the world" from William Gibson's "Zero History".