Blur

Written for the LotFP magic item contest. Didn't make the cut. Enjoy.

It's got weight to it, that's for sure. About the heft of a good blade, but you can't quite describe how it feels. It shifts, the texture, but you never feel it move. You can't even remember, really, how it's different from before. And describing how it looks? It hurts to look at - you can't focus on it. It's just an indistinct blur, like something caught in your eye. Sometimes you can catch a sideways glance - a scrimshawed ebony bone, another time an iridescent lump of twisted slag. It sits on pools of water, not breaking the surface tension. I think it's no smaller than your fist, no bigger than a melon. As for what it does? Well...

[It can hear the players, and responds to them, not the characters. If the players suggest using it, the effects begin. Roll for what it effects, how it is affected and the localization. Effects last for 2 hours unless specified otherwise. The localization describes the scope of the thing affected, e.g. all animals in contact with the holder of the Blur ignite.]

d20	What it affects	The effect itself
1	Animals.	Ignite – bathed in pale, sickly flame. It will burn until it is destroyed. The flame does not spread, and leaves no product. It cannot be extinguished.
2	Fire.	Grow – rapid, painful growth or expansion. Sinews whine, bones crunch. Brick cracks and stone screams. Metal squeals. Lungs burst as the air expands. Continues for 1d100 minutes.
3	Light.	Dissipate – begin to fade out. First it loses colour, then solidity. Soon it is as a ghost, and then it is gone. Forever.
4	Sound.	Recur – it forms a loop upon itself. Physical things become floating rings as they collapse into themselves before being thrown back out continuously. Air, water forms dangerous vortices. Light forms bizarre illusions. Dreamers never awaken.
5	Dreams.	Afflict – Living things break out in a myriad of disease. Buildings become decrepit and rotten. Air stale, light somehow stagnant. Dreams to nightmares, and nightmares something worse.
6	Aquatic Life.	Return – Forcefully shunted to the point of origin, obliterating whatever else currently occupies this point.
7	Spirits.	Wander – scattered across an area – roll again on Localisation.
8	Disease.	Mark – it takes on a touch of the blur. People struggle to accurately describe it, or even look at it.
9	Soil.	Ponder – it gains a mind operating on the level of a god if it had none. It will remember everything it has been present for. If it already has a mind, it is lost to thought. Forever.
10	Water.	Empathise – roll again. X now treats Y with the greatest of respect. Negotiations always favour Y. Y’s problems are understood on a deep level.
11	Gasses.	Revile – roll again. X now despises Y with a passion like no other. X will attempt to destroy Y. Nothing can stop X in this attempt bar total obliteration itself.
12	Buildings.	Transition – roll again. X becomes Y, and Y becomes X. This process is slow, and painful. Reality creaks.
13	Writing.	Solidify – it crystallises, hardens. Smaller living things die as they completely solidify. Buildings become fortified. The temperature plummets as air reverts to its solid form.
14	Bones.	Liquefy – it flows, loosens and becomes as a liquid. Things revert to liquid form, or gain one. Towns are lost in the deluge of liquid stone. Animals drown and freeze on the liquid air.
15	Food.	Negate – the blur produces the antithesis of it, emanating it in waves. The spectrum on the other side of darkness. Un-animals. The music lurking beyond the threshold of silence.
16	Drink.	Repair – all damage is repaired, all wrongs righted. It returns to peak condition, as if it had never been used.
17	The holder of the Blur.	Banish – it will never return to this localisation. There is a distinct line it cannot pass through. All examples of it are forcibly shunted out of this exclusion zone.
18	Blood.	Commune – all will listen to it for a period no less than 1d100 hours. All within the localisation hear it. It is understood entirely.
19	Heavy Metals.	Congregate – all of the examples of it are gathered into a single spot within the localisation. They are compelled beyond all other callings.
20	Plants.	Nothing – the Blur does nothing. It rests.

d12	Localisation
1	Only that which is in direct contact with the holder.
2	Arms reach away.
3	A couple of good strides.
4	Stone’s throw away.
5	Five minutes’ walk away.
6	Other side of a village.
7	Other side of a city.
8	Distance between two towns.
9	A continent.
10	A planet.
11	A solar system.
12	This reality.