An enchanted item for Call of Cthulhu
Rings of Dark Enlightenment are made from exotic materials, such as jade, ivory, rare wood (such as agarwood or huanghuali), bone, or meteoric iron. Each is smooth, uncarved, and unadorned by precious stones. Other than the rarity of their materials and the skillful workmanship that went into creating them, they seem rather unremarkable. In truth these rings are heavily enchanted, by methods long lost to time, and carry several supernatural effects.
Firstly, these rings choose their wearer. When someone attempts to put on a Ring of Dark Enlightenment, they must make a Hard success on a POW roll. If they fail, the ring simply doesn’t fit, seeming to be too tight. Retries are impossible; once a prospective wearer fails their POW check, that particular ring can never be worn by them. Measuring or sizing the ring won’t be consistent with the ring’s choice either. For example, if a Ring of Dark Enlightenment measures as a size 7 (17.2 mm), and someone who wears a size 7 tries it on but fails their POW check, the ring simply won’t fit them.
Likewise, they are just as hard to remove once worn. The wearer must make a POW check to remove the ring, and if they fail the ring simply won’t come off, ever. Again, no retries are possible. At such a point the only way to get the ring off is to cut off the finger it’s worn on. Once a Ring of Dark Enlightenment is removed by a wearer, that individual can never put it back on. The ring outright rejects them regardless of POW checks.
Once removed, if an effort to destroy a Ring of Dark Enlightenment is made, it simply vanishes. It always reappears 2-6 weeks later, somewhere within a 100-mile radius of where it vanished from. When it re-emerges into our world it does so in a place where it’s likely to be found, such as a swap meet, antique shop, or estate sale.
When worn, the ring provides the wearer with a powerful gift and an equally powerful curse. Firstly, it grants a Bonus Die to all Cthulhu Mythos rolls, as well as a Bonus Die to the INT checks for learning a new spell (whether from a book, through training by another person, or granted by a dark entity directly into the candidate’s mind). This makes the rings incredibly valuable to researchers, cultists, sorcerers, and mythos investigators.
However, such a boon comes with a heavy burden. The ring imposes a Penalty Die on all mythos-related Sanity checks. For example, a wearer of a Ring of Dark Enlightenment discovers a corpse on a hiking trail, a young man crushed under the hoof of a Dark Young of Shub-Niggurath. The Sanity check for seeing the body is rolled normally. A few moments later a nearby, sickly-looking, gnarled tree opens its maw to roar and uproots itself, revealing itself as the creature responsible. The Sanity check for seeing the Dark Young is rolled with a Penalty Die.
Most people who wear a Ring of Dark Enlightenment end up one of three ways. They realize what’s happening and successfully remove it. They realize what’s happening, are unable to remove it, and sacrifice a finger to be free of it. Or they continue using it until they’re driven mad. As such, most long-term wearers of these rings are insane cultists, even if they didn’t start out that way.
