Fun times, phone times.

So, our hot water heater shut itself off again sometime between Saturday and Sunday. Since this time it had the good grace to do it at a time that doesn’t coincide with an impending seaboard-paralyzing blizzard with attendant actual plumbing and heating emergencies plus travel impediments, it will probably take less than a week to get a plumber in. On the other hand, since this is twice in such rapid succession that the cutoff has been tripped, I presume it will call for more than resetting the breaker. So who knows what the situation will be there.

Also yesterday, my phone died on me completely. I had it in the pocket of my jacket. I looked at it just before getting up from the dinner table and it worked fine and had a sufficiency of charge. A few minutes later, I tried turning it on in the living room and got nothing. Wouldn’t tap on. Wouldn’t respond to the power button. Wouldn’t respond to a USB cord being plugged in. Wouldn’t respond to inputs from the headphones. Wouldn’t do a soft reset. Wouldn’t even come on for a hard reset. Left it charging for a while, no change.

Even though my phone, like so many phones these days, is not designed for the battery to be consumer accessible, the next step in my general troubleshooting flowchart was “remove and re-seat the battery”. So I figured out how to take it apart (that took some doing) and how to re-seat the battery (that took even more doing), and when that produced no change, I started delving deeper and discovered a loose connection, which I fixed. Lo and behold, it turned on.

I’m sure I voided the warranty seventeen ways to Sunday doing that, though I did plan on replacing my phone within half a year anyway. I feel like I might have to be prepared to move that timetable up a bit as my ability to patch up the interior of an electronic device does have limits. My phone is insured, so I could have gotten a comparable replacement for cheap, but I kind of have an inverse psychological version of the serenity prayer going. In order to accept that I can’t change the water heater, I had to have something that I can change, and I can troubleshoot an electronic device.

On the subject of acceptance and change: I have sold more copies of my D&D stuff with less advertising effort than I have ever sold of anything else in the same timeframe. Even ignoring all of the sales of the $1 “feat value pack” thing I made specifically to break into the top 10/top 5 (it’s still in the top 10, and has been intermittently in the top 5 for most of the days it’s been out), this is true. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised by this, as my most successful work has always been gamer-related, and I have spent the vast majority of my life immersing myself in RPG design for free, but it’s still  a bit of a revelation. It also does a lot to kick latent impostor syndrome to the curb. I’ve been a little apologetic about how much of my output right now is D&D stuff, but man… it’s fun and it looks like it has the potential to pay the bills. If nothing else, embracing that will mean that the energy and spoons and creative cycles I spend dithering over how much is too much will be freed up for other things.

Originally published at Blue Author Is About To Write. Please leave any comments there.

Magic Items (D&D 5E)

The following three magic items are intended for use in 5th Edition Dungeons & Dragons. They are presented here as a preview of my upcoming supplement, Armoury of Enchantment, which will be added to my other titles currently available on the DMs Guild.

Footwear of the Windrunner

Wondrous item, very rare

These boots or sandals allow the wearer to run—not walk, not stand, but run—on thin air. They seem ordinary when worn, until the wearer takes the Dash action. Doing so gives the wearer the ability to run on thin air. Ascending by 1 foot requires an additional foot of movement, descending is treated as normal movement. The wearer falls if knocked prone, or at the start of their turn if they do not immediately take the Dash action again. If the wearer jumps while wearing these shoes, a DC 15 Dexterity (Acrobatics) check is required to avoid falling at the end of the jump.

Potion of Cosmic Revelation

Potion, rare

Also known as the elixir of the third eye or the potion of mind opening, this potion bestows upon any creature who drinks it the effects of the contact other plane spell, some 2d4 minutes after it is imbibed. The potion renders the drinker catatonic (unconscious, for all purposes except the spell) for the duration of the spell (1 minute). A creature who is not seated when the effect hits falls prone.

If the drinker does not have any 5th level spell slots, the saving throw called for by the spell is made with disadvantage, but even on a failed save the drinker can ask 1d4 questions before taking the damage and succumbing to the mind-shattering effects of the spell.

Sapphire Bird Ring

Ring, very rare

The first sapphire bird ring was created by a high elf wizard of an age long past. This wizard, whose name and identity have not been lost, was known for possessing an unusual reverence for the beautiful things of nature, even for an elf.

This ring bears a device that resembles a bird with two exquisitely cut sapphires for eyes. With a mental command and an action, one or both sapphires can be ejected from the ring, at which point they turn into a crystalline construct resembling a bluebird. Use the statistics for a raven, minus the mimicry ability, but the creature is a construct, not a beast, and has only 1 hp. The birds glow with an inner light, shedding bright light in a 10 foot radius and dim light for another 10 feet. If one of the birds takes any damage, it shatters into brittle blue glass immediately. If a bird is destroyed, its gem will reappear on the ring after 1d6+1 days. Until that time, it cannot be re-summoned.

While they exist, the bluebirds are bound to the ringbearer can communicate with, control, and see through the senses of either bird as if it were a familiar, (as described under the find familiar spell), though the birds cannot deliver spells or use the Help action. The wearer may also cast the animal messenger spell at-will, using one of the birds. The birds always return unerringly to the ring after delivering their message.

A bird created by the ring cannot be banished as a familiar would be. If touched with the ring, as an action a bluebird can be turned back into a gemstone, which rejoins with the ring.

Originally published at Blue Author Is About To Write. Please leave any comments there.