Eight Magic Items for Selkies

I'm a bit of a selkie tragic, it's true. I have a lot of stuff written for them -- see the selkie tag, but it's a matter of getting it into a form that's presentable, intelligible, and ultimately, gameable. That's going to take a while. For now, here's some magic items a selkie might make or possess.

Some of these are items created to solve problems selkies have, such as securing their sealskin from theft, or having a weapon once one resumes human form. Others are included for the aesthetic.

If you like these, check out my dungeon. It has four more magic items, plus a few thousand words of other weird stuff for your players to find. Or you could buy me a ko-fi?

Bad Penny

Wondrous Item, Uncommon

This silver piece is obviously clipped and the lustre looks off, like the metal's been debased.

There is a 2-in-6 chance an NPC will refuse it unless it’s hidden in a large transaction.

The penny bears a subtle charm of teleportation. Regardless of whether it's discarded, given away, or used in payment, it will always return to your person after a certain amount of time. Roll a d4 to determine units of time (seconds, minutes, hours, days). The penny takes 1d6 × that time unit to return to you.

Cobble of Conversion

Wondrous Item, Rare

This flat beach cobble has a hole in it that looks naturally worn. It is astonishingly heavy.

Pouring seawater through the hole turns it to freshwater, and vice versa. The rock stores extracted salt within its mineral matrix, and will stop converting freshwater if it runs out. When found, it holds d100 pounds of salt. Seawater has roughly 3 pounds of salt per 10 gallons.

If the stored salt exceeds 255 pounds, the rock explodes in a spray of rock shards and salt. The explosion deals 10d6 piercing damage to all creatures in a 30-foot-radius sphere. A creature takes half damage if they succeed on a DC 20 Dexterity saving throw.

Driftwood Club

Weapon (club or staff), Uncommon (requires attunement)

This looks like a piece of driftwood.

You use a d8 damage die when attacking with this weapon.

You can will it to follow you when you swim. It does so in a way that appears natural, following water currents where possible. When you leave the water it will wash up some time later and distance away, though always within 100 ft and 10 minutes.

An observer can tell the movement is unnatural with an Intelligence (Investigation) check made with disadvantage, versus your spell save DC, or DC 10 if you are not a spellcaster.

Glamered Lockbox

Wondrous Item, Rare

A mossy boulder. You can hear a faint echo of childish laughter

This weatherproof lockbox requires no key, it instead has a combination lock of great cunning (DC 20 to pick or bypass).

It is glamered to look like a rock, like many such fairy charms this can be dispelled with a channel divinity attempt in addition to the usual dispel magic.

Sand Dollar Skeleton

Wondrous Item, Uncommon

A five-lobed hand-sized disc of chalk, bleached white.

This sea urchin skeleton, or test, can conjure a huge spectral sand dollar once per lunar month. This functions as the floating disc spell, except you can direct the disc to move anywhere within range (i.e. it doesn't have to follow you). The conjured sand dollar lasts until the next sunrise.

If you snap the test in half, you instead conjure twelve spectral sand dollars.

Seaglass Ring

Wondrous Item, Rare

A chunky ring of green, pitted seaglass. If immersed in water, its colour drains away.

The wearer of this ring is invisible while fully underwater. However, their body and any worn or held items become as fragile as glass.

• All worn armour is ignored, and their AC becomes 10 + their Dex modifier.
• Spells such as shatter affect them accordingly.
• If they suffer physical chips and breaks, these remain when the ring is removed.
• If reduced to 0 hp, they shatter and die without making death saving throws.

Secret Seashell

Wondrous Item, Uncommon

A spiraling seashell, pearlescent lavender, that tapers to an imperceptibly thin point.

If the owner of this seashell brings it to a place on the ocean or shore, they can perform a 10 minute ritual where they bind the seashell to that location.

After that, as long as they’re on the same plane, they can listen to the seashell’s hole and hear the ambient noise at that location. Performing the ritual again at a different location causes the shell to forget its original binding.

This is divination magic that can be blocked by measures such as nondetection or private sanctum.

Starskin Weapon

Weapon or Wondrous Item (any metal), Rare

This velvet-black weapon is decorated with dim motes of light reminiscent of stars. As you shift it, the motes slide across its surface.

Pilgrims from the firmament once visited our world, offering exotic materials harvested from their celestial home for the right to visit sites they considered sacred.

These weapons are a recent invention, born of experimentation with the now-dwindling, much-coveted supply of firmament. Dissolving firmament in aqua regia, then bonding it to a steel surface, produces a material which always shows an accurate starry sky among other useful properties. Every navigator who has resorted to dead reckoning on an overcast open sea dreams of finding one of these rumoured marvels.

While any steel object can be treated this way, daggers and shortswords are most common.

A starskin weapon has the following properties:

• It will not rust.
• It is a magic weapon that deals radiant damage instead of its normal damage type.
• It always show the stars as though its surface was a mirror that only reflects their light, and did so regardless of intervening obstacles. This allows navigation by the stars, but any ability checks to do so are made at disadvantage, owing to the limited field of view.
• The stars illuminate with dim light out to 5 ft, but are of course visible from much further away.