The Hands of the Master

Full Item Description

A pair of finely crafted leather gloves of utmost softness. The leather does not appear to be that of any identifiable creature.

History

This pair of enchanted gloves where created by the heretical Dwarven priest Tharken. He felt that the use of metal to carve and gouge stone a blasphemy, and instead sought to shape stone as a potter shapes clay. After much research into the ways of stone and great amounts of prayer, the means to make such gloves was revealed to him. In these gloves was placed a seed of the power used to create the world. As such these gloves are considered a holy relic by the Dwarven sect that Tharken established.

Alas, his sect was not a powerful one within the Dwarven society and could not command armies of defenders to hold their temples. And so it came to pass that the main temple fell to a raid by humanoid forces, the gloves joining much of the other treasures within as loot.

Magic/Cursed Properties

Normal stone provides only as much resistance to the wearer’s hands as would soft clay, and will spin on a potters wheel if it will fit and both hands are in contact with it. Only enough stone is effected to allow for manipulation- a whole wall would not soften and collapse at the touch of these gloves.

The user can make holes, remove fittings with ease and even cut pillars. They do nothing to reduce the mass of the stone, so it is quite possible for the wearer to be injured or killed when working with large amounts of stone.

The grain of stone is not changed by manipulation of the glove which makes an interesting visual affect – similar to parametric textures in 3D rendering packages. This leaves objects with the impression of being carved out of a single piece of stone.

The gloves function ONLY in direct contact with stone – tools and weapons will find stone as unyielding as ever.

Animated, but not living stone is subject to the same effect, allowing golems or other animated stone creatures to be fought in melee quite effectively – they can be torn apart by the wearer.

Living stone (elemental creatures, etc) is not as easily affected - it is treated as normal flesh.

Substances such as Glass, Brick and concrete are not effected by the gloves – only natural stone.

Other uses include:

Making sling and catapult ammunition.
Burrowing through stone (waste material still needs to be removed, so this is slow!)
Create caltrops on stone floors simply by pinching and drawing it into a point.
Create and conceal hiding places within stone walls that are virtually impossible to locate.
Scooping out handholds in cliffsides.

Plot hooks

A stone sculptor named Mulikin has recently been named the winner in a kingdom wide competition for stonework. His work showed striking grace and style beyond all of his other rivals – things that others thought impossible but were easy once you could manipulate it like clay. Sorcery, of course, was not allowed in the competition, but the divine nature of the gloves, tied to the forces that created the world in the first place, left no trace of magic above that present in all things.

However, shortly after his victory, a rival sculptor (Thurnak the Old) hired a thief to discover Mulikin’s secrets. The thief, upon discovering the secret, stole the gloves for his own use – it would make many of his tasks easier!

So, we can have the PC’s being hired by either sculptor – Mulikin to retrieve his gloves and preserve his secret, Turnak to find the thief who has not lived up to his side of the deal, or even a member of the Dwarvish sect who saw Mulikin’s work and is trying to recover the gloves as well