Cemetary Ring

Written by Xevinaly

The Cemetery Ring is a necromatic object of great power. It's main function is to store undead in a pocket dimension, allowing them to be released with but a thought to protect the wearer. It's secondary, far more powerful function, is to enthrall undead. Many powerful undead exist, but are difficult to enthrall even for skilled necromancers. This is double so for intelligent undead, which resist thralldom at all costs. With this ring in hand, no undead is able to resist your thralldom. The ring is rumored to have other abilities that have been hidden.

Arcane and Mundane Effects

This magic item has five actions which may be taken on a turn and two passive abilities.

• Lay to Rest Enthralled undead may be stored in the ring. There is a mausoleum which can hold up to 20 undead of HD less than or equal to 6, four graves that can hold a single undead up to HD 9, two graves that can hold a single undead up to HD 12, and one grave that can hold a single undead of up to HD 15. While entombed, undead do not count towards a character's retainer total until returned to reality, which can be done as a free action.
• Walk Among the Dead To the undead, you will appear the same. Unintelligent undead will not attack you and intelligent undead will only attack if they notice that you are of the living
• Returning Home The bearer can compel the spirits of those who have been dead for less than or equal to 35 days to return to the material plane to answer questions
• End of Mourning If a corpse that has been dead for less than seven days is Laid to Rest for 100 days they return to life
• The First Seven Days If the bearer makes contact with an undead, they can be forcibly Laid to Rest. Each day afterwards, for seven days, the wearer's maximum health decreases by the HD of the captured undead. On the eight day, the bearer's maximum health is returned and the captured undead becomes their thrall. If the bearer's maximum health is reduced to zero by this ability, the captured undead is freed and the bearer dies then rises as a wraith in service to the captured undead.
• Cycle of Reincarnation Every month on the full moon the bearer earns 5% of the EXP value of stored undead
• Separate the Living from the Dead The bearer may sacrifice stored undead to create an deathly shrill wail. Everyone who hears it aside from the bearer take 2d6 damage per HD of undead sacrificed as their soul is ripped from their body, save vs death for half damage. People killed by this ability are raised either as a ghost and a zombie if under level 5 or a wraith and a wight otherwise.

Manufacturing process

The charm used to manufacture this artifact was lost long ago. Some scholars argue that the ritual used to create the ring was actually a hex connecting it to some demi-plane shard filled with strong necrotic miasma.

History

Although the creator of the ring is unknown, the last user is not. Eproulos Nightfall is suspected to have found the ring in the Tomb Complex of Ymmu M'Kursa before it's location was exposed and most valuables were looted, leaving only those guarded by the most powerful undead.
It is believed that inside the crypt Nightfall gathered several powerful undead which she used to expedite reaching her limit and later breaking it, allowing her to rank third among the top ten necromancers of the millennia despite not knowing a single necromatic spell: Nightfall was a Rouge. One of her most impressive feats was the enthralling of numbers four and eight from the top necromancers list who were liches at the time.

by Styx Jewel

Item type

Unique Artifact

Weight

9 grams

Dimensions

14.4 mm x 15 mm

Base Price

Priceless

Raw materials & Components

The ring appears to be made of common steel.