Lore: The Wandering Ring

[version 1.0]

#rare, #semi-cursed, #high-resale-value

The rumoured formula for creating a proper Wandering Ring is overly complex and frankly some of it is probably of no functional purpose, aside from making the making of one too complicated to consider completing, unless you enjoy complicated things. Most don't, when you get right down to it, and so there aren't as many magic rings about as you'd otherwise expect, since most Ring-makers like to employ this trick, to make themselves feel special.

I will therefore omit the presumed steps for creating one entirely, and instead recount a short anecdote about one which I encountered, worn upon the finger of an apple merchant I met some years ago, who was nearly frozen to death high up in RazorWing Pass, by the time I stumbled upon him.

I was on a trek, looking for some mcguffin1. I was hiking through RazorWing Pass, which as you know, is entirely perilous for the unwary. Only the most able of adventurers go there. Not apple merchants, certainly - even hale and/or hearty ones.

My companions had fallen behind - my endurance was greater than theirs, and in any case, I had forged ahead to scout for dangers. I had slain nothing of consequence for the past several hours' trek, and was frankly getting a bit bored. When I saw the apple merchant's body slumped against a stone, half-covered in snow, I thought my luck was picking up, at least: there would be some loot, or a mystery, or else a clue upon him, to take my mind from the boredom.

I approached with some caution, being of course aware of the likelihood of an ambush - but he was alone, and still alive. I began to tend to him, using my well-honed skills at survival, and my rudimentary knowledge of natural healing techniques. I had an extra blanket, which was fortunately always dry, and I wrapped the shivering man in it. My companions arrived sometime soon after, and, after some minutes of searching, we found a small but comfortable cave close by, and set up camp. It was a defensible position. The wizard needed to rest to recover his magical energies. The priest was being typically aloof. The Rogue had skulked away again, somewhere - no doubt to discuss nefarious plots with the tiny lesser demon which was hidden in their coat (and which they did not know we all knew about).

As the man came to under our care, we noticed a most wondrous looking ring upon the large finger of his left hand. He told us his name was Yorl, (or Yarl, I don't recall, it doesn't matter), and that he was an apple merchant from the township of Halfway. Halfway! That was clear across the Isles, a month of hard walking, along with countless small boat trips or dangerous causeway voyages. I told him he was a liar, but he insisted he was speaking the truth. The priest asked him how he could have survived that journey - there were so many monsters and so much warfare between Halfway and these high peaks - so much encroaching ocean as well, and all the added perils thereof.

He held his hand aloft, and spoke in exhausted breath of the wondrous and tragic enchantment of the Wandering Ring...

Wandering Ring [major enchantment]

A Wandering Ring, sometimes erroneously mistaken for the lesser, though better-known, Ring of Wandering, carries a powerful magic, with its benevolent aspect drawing power from its malevolent one, in order maintain the enchantment nigh-indefinitely. 2 Sages are of mixed opinion about the Ring's objective value.

The wearer of the Wandering Ring gains two distinct and powerful aspects, which typically both emerge at the same moment, sometimes around the first full-moon following the moment the ring is put on the wearer's finger.

The first aspect is a high resistance to physical harm and the effects of Ill Fortune. This is commonly referred to as Protection.

The second aspect is a nearly insatiable need to keep wandering, typically, in either a particular compass direction, or else in reaction to the movement of the stars. This is referred to as the Ring's Homeward Sense, and the aspect is typically referred to as Compulsion.

The longer the wearer keeps the Ring upon their finger, the greater their need is to feel protected, and the greater their longing becomes to find their way finally home (for the Ring's Homeward Sense soon becomes their own).

The weak-willed wearer therefore wanders until their need to reach the Ring's home outweighs its capacity to keep them safe while attempting to do. For those of stronger mind, a battle of wills between they and the originators of the Ring continues. To what aim these devices were first conceived, is fully conjecture.

There are known to have been at least fifteen such Rings in existence, though of course the number could be much higher, as some are, by now, assumed to be at the bottom of the sea - or lost high in some distant mountain peak, or otherwise in the countless crannies and crevices of the Realms.

B.B. Butterwell's Compendium Allegoriian by B.B. Butterwell is marked with CC0 1.0 Universal

Footnotes

I think it was a map or perhaps an enchanted set of gloves that would permit my companions and I entry into whatever the map had led us to, or would lead us to... the order in which one must encounter mcguffins becomes somewhat hard to recall, once they are no longer required. ↩

This energetic pattern, sometimes referred to as the Loop Surge pattern, is most commonly seen in enchantments from the South-Western regions of the Isles, from the time period circa WiM 2400 to WiM 600. ↩