Monday, September 10, 2012

Axe-Boots of Door Kicking

Often found in the occasional Dwarven tomb buried with those warriors who subscribed to this unusual fashion trend, Axe-boots of Door Kicking are a rather garish accessory designed for those who have a particular loathing for wooden doors of all types. Though not often prone to dancing, the dwarves of the Diggerbollox clan at one point developed a peculiar type of partner dance using these axe-boots that required a modicum of grace and skill in order not to prove fatal for bystanders.




In Basic D&D, it requires a 1 or 2 rolled on a d6 to force open a stuck door (which tends to be most of them). Wearing Axe-Boots automatically increases that chance to 1 through 4, strength bonuses/penalties applying (though still no greater than 1-5). What's more, the door is destroyed and no longer prevents passage until repaired, making for easier flight from the dungeon if needed (though also easier for those chasing).

However, on a 6, the kicking character does not in fact manage to break the door, and their boot is stuck at kicking level, making things awkward, especially if a creature, hearing something, decides to open it from the other side. It takes a least a round to pull the foot free from the door.

Other disadvantages to wearing Axe-Boots might be easy trackability, slower speed, occasionally challenged to dwarven dance-offs, and the potential for inadvertant haircuts or decapitations when the Axe-Boot wearer is drunkenly swinging from chandeliers.

If a pair of Axe-Boots are found, there is a chance they are magical, consult the chart below:

  1. A normal, mundane pair of Axe-Boots.
  2. A normal pair of Axe-Boots, except with heels.
  3. These Axe-Boots are fucking fabulous.
  4. These Platform Axe-Boots add 6 inches of height to the wearer, as well as increased pimpitude.
  5. The rare alternate, a pair of Hammer-Boots. Wearer can always be heard coming on all but the softest ground, but Hammer-Boots work on stone doors as well as wooden.
  6. These Axe-Boots are specially engineered for groin kicks and can be used as a 1d6-damaging weapon if a week is spent practicing with them, doing triple damage on criticals against sensitive-groin-possessing enemies.
  7. These Axe-Boots have a minor enchantment to enhance the dancing of the wearer - Any dancing they perform will be of such consummate skill as to impress all observers, however there is a 10% chance that any combat will be interpreted by the boots as an excuse to start dancing.
  8. These Axe-Boots work as +1 weapons, as listed as above, and are considered highly valuable.
  9. If worn by a non-dwarf, these cursed Axe-Boots cannot be taken off, and unless remove Curse is cast, in one week the wearer will gradually turn into a dwarf with an overwhelming hatred of all wooden doors everywhere. If worn by a dwarf, they function as regular +1 Axe-Boots.
  10. Axe-Boots of Portalmancy. There is a 5% chance that these Axe-Boots, when destroying a door, opens a 2-way teleportation portal (on a 1-2) to the entrance of the dungeon, (on a 3-4) to the nearest town or city, (on a 5) to a random door on the next level of the dungeon, if there is one, (on a 6) directly to the most powerful creature in the dungeon, though surprise chance is doubled. The portal lasts for one hour.

3 comments:

  1. This post alone has convinced me to follow your blog.

    These will find a way into one of my games...

    ReplyDelete