River Stone Pauldrons 91

From: Hive 42 of the Bloom

Rather than solid shoulder guards, these are a set of three perfectly smooth, moss-covered stones for each shoulder, for a total of six. The stones, pulled from the bed of a sacred, fast-flowing river, hover in a slow, circular orbit around the space where the avatar’s shoulders would be. When an attack comes, the stones will shift with incredible speed to intercept the blow. Their innate connection to the element of water and their cool, damp nature provides the Bloom with a notable resistance to heat and fire-based attacks.

Lore These are not crafted objects, but gifts from an ancient and sacred entity. They were pulled from the bed of the Serpent’s Coil River, a legendary waterway on the Isle of Whispers that is said to be not water, but liquid memory, flowing from the island’s past into its future. For untold centuries, these six stones were tumbled in its current, their sharp edges worn smooth not just by physical erosion, but by the ceaseless flow of history itself. Each stone absorbed eons of memories, songs, and sorrows, leaving only its pure, flowing essence behind.

The avatar, Murmur-in-the-Pollen, earned these stones. When a source of magical pollution upstream began to cloud the river’s memories with the harsh static of industrial runoff, the Bloom spent months cleansing the river’s headwaters with its Purifying Geode. In gratitude, the ancient river spirit gifted the avatar six of its “oldest children”—the stones that had tumbled in its current the longest. The designation “91” comes from the 91 days of meditation the Bloom undertook, one for each major bend in the river, to fully commune with the spirit and prove itself worthy of the gift. The stones are now extensions of the river itself, forever tied to its memory and its power.

The Use In their passive state, the six stones orbit the Bloom’s shoulder area in a slow, calming, and slightly eccentric pattern, like miniature planets. They constantly drip pure, cool water and are covered in a vibrant moss that never dries, creating a tangible aura of cool, damp air around the avatar’s upper body. This aura is the source of its innate resistance to heat and flame. The stones also emit a constant, almost subliminal sound of rushing water, which has a calming effect on the Bloom and those standing very near to it.

Defensively, the stones are preternaturally aware. Infused with the river’s memory of things that have already happened from its future perspective, they seem to anticipate attacks. Before a blow or projectile even reaches its target, the stones will break their lazy orbit and converge with incredible speed to intercept and deflect the attack.

As a tool, the Bloom can use the pauldrons to access the river’s knowledge. By steadying one of the orbiting stones and touching it, the avatar can scry a brief, watery, and distorted vision of a past event that is strongly tied to its current location, allowing it to piece together the history of a place.

Item Values

• Tier one stats:
  • Defense Bonus: +1 to base defense.
  • Elemental Resistance: Grants resistance to Fire damage. The cool, damp aura reduces the effectiveness of all heat- and fire-based attacks.
  • Flowing Interception: Once per combat encounter, when the avatar is targeted by a ranged attack (arrow, spell, etc.), the stones will automatically intercept it. The attack misses. This does not require an action from the avatar.
• Skills Gained:
  • Grants a +1 bonus on all History checks when using the stones’ scrying ability to view a vision of the past.
• Specific Slot: Shoulders.
• Cost: Priceless. As a unique gift from a powerful elemental spirit, this item cannot be commissioned, crafted, or purchased. It could only be acquired by completing a great quest for a nature deity or spirit.
• Tags: Armor, Shoulders, Artifact, Magical, Water, Primal, Defensive, Unique, Floating, Fluvial, Verdant, Kinetic, Scrying, Elemental, Warding, Spirit-Gifted
• Appearance: A set of six perfectly smooth, round, grey-green stones, each about the size of a clenched fist. They are covered in a vibrant, almost glowing green moss that is always cool and damp to the touch. In their resting state, they orbit slowly a few inches from where the avatar’s shoulders would be. In combat, they move in a blur of motion, leaving faint, watery trails in the air. A soft, constant sound of rushing water emanates from them.

Enchantments

The pauldrons’ magical properties are not spells laid by an enchanter, but are the result of their eons-long immersion in the sacred Serpent’s Coil River, infusing them with its unique temporal and elemental magic.

• Precognitive Interception: The river’s current carries not just memories of the past, but echoes of the future that will one day flow through it. The stones are saturated with this property, granting them a limited form of precognition. They do not merely react to an attack with speed; they move to the precise location an attack will be moments before it arrives. This enchantment is why their interception of projectiles seems so unnaturally perfect and effortless.
• Aqueous Scrying: Each stone is a vessel for the river’s vast memory. By entering a meditative state and touching one of the stones, the Bloom can ask for insight into a past event related to its location. The enchantment does not provide a clear picture, but rather a “scrying” of the memory, plunging the user’s consciousness into a watery, dream-like vision full of distorted sounds, colors, and powerful emotions that must be interpreted.
• Elemental Quenching: The stones are fundamentally attuned to the element of pure, magical water. When faced with extreme heat or a direct magical fire attack, this enchantment is triggered. The stones release a burst of their core essence as a tangible, shimmering aura of cooling mist, which does not just dampen the flames but magically neutralizes the thermal energy, causing fire to recoil and sputter out.

Protective Aura

The River-Stone Pauldrons emanate a constant, localized aura that extends about a foot from the Bloom’s shoulders. This aura is a palpable field of cool, moist air that smells faintly of wet river stones and fresh moss. The most distinct feature of the aura is the sound: a constant, soft whisper of rushing water that seems to emanate directly from the stones. This field of “flow” makes the Bloom’s form subtly slick and difficult to grasp, causing minor physical objects like dust or leaves to slide away. Psychologically, the constant, soothing sound of flowing water has a calming effect, making it more difficult for nearby opponents to work themselves into a state of rage or frenzy.

Significance

For the avatar Murmur-in-the-Pollen, the pauldrons represent a sacred covenant with the living spirit of the Serpent’s Coil River. They are a constant, physical connection to one of its most powerful allies and a reminder of its duty to protect the waters of its domain. The stones are not just armor; they are a sensory organ, allowing the Bloom to read the history of the land and understand its wounds. To lose the pauldrons would be more than losing protection; it would be the severing of a friendship and the loss of a vital link to the world’s memory.

To the few scholars or elementalists who might recognize them, the stones would be artifacts of immense significance. They are living proof that the great natural features of Saṃsāra possess their own consciousness and memory. An alchemist would consider them a perfect source of the water element, while a historian would view their scrying ability as a key to unlocking the lost secrets of the past.

Symbolism

The River-Stone Pauldrons are powerful symbols of flow, memory, and reciprocity.

• Flow and Adaptability: In direct contrast to the Heartwood Core’s symbolism of stability, the stones represent the wisdom of yielding and adaptability. Their defensive nature is not to resist force with force, but to flow around it, redirect it, and let it pass harmlessly. They symbolize the strength found in flexibility rather than rigidity.
• Living Memory: The stones symbolize that history is not a dead thing confined to books, but a living, flowing current that actively shapes the present and whispers of the future. They represent the consciousness and memory inherent in the natural world itself.
• Reciprocity: The pauldrons are a symbol of a balanced, symbiotic relationship with nature. The Bloom gave its energy and care to heal the river, and the river, in turn, gave a gift of its own essence and power. They are a physical representation of gratitude and a reminder that protecting nature results in nature protecting you.

Other Information

• River-Moss: The vibrant green moss growing on the stones is a unique, semi-sentient organism that only grows upon these six specific stones. It helps to filter and clarify the visions scryed from the stones’ memory, making the dream-like images slightly more coherent. If carefully scraped off, the moss is a highly prized but extremely perishable alchemical ingredient for potions that aid memory or reveal truths.
• Harmonic State: The constant rushing sound the stones emit changes based on the Bloom’s emotional state. When the hive-mind is calm and content, the sound is that of a gentle, babbling brook. When the Bloom is focused or on alert, the sound deepens to that of a powerful, rushing rapid, serving as an audible indicator of its disposition.
• Spiritual Cleansing: If the stones are used to scry a particularly traumatic or magically corrupt event, their memories can become “clouded,” and their surface may appear dull. To restore their clarity and luster, they must be brought back to the Serpent’s Coil River and allowed to rest in its current for a full day and night.

Smooth Whispers of Water-That-Remembers

From the clay-shards of the Oldest Ones, where the marks wiggle like drowning worms and the sense-words slip like wet stones from the hand, comes the tale of the Shoulder-Stones, the cool carriers of what-was and what-will-be.

In the time when the Isle-of-Soft-Sounds was younger, and the Great Green did not yet sleep so deeply, there flowed a water. Not water as you touch, which is but the skin of the world’s tears, but a deeper wetness, a moving of all the moments that had been, and all the moments that would taste the sun. This was the Serpent-That-Coils, the river with no beginning and no ending, its bed the very heart-beat of the island.

For turns of the sun without number, the Serpent carried its children. Stones that were sharp cries from the mountain’s birthing became round sighs in the river’s long embrace. They learned the feel of every ripple, the color of every sky that mirrored in the flow, the whisper of every creature that drank its memory. These stones, they were not empty. They held the echoes of laughter that was dust, and the shape of sorrows that had long since melted into the current.

Then came the Soothing Swarm, the many-winged petals that held the light of kind thoughts. They loved the Isle, and their hum was the gentle breathing of the Great Green. But a sickness came to the water-that-remembers. From a place far off, where hard-things were made with fire and hunger, a black stain did creep into the Serpent’s flow. The memories became clouded, the whispers turned to coughs, and the heart-beat of the island faltered.

The One-Who-Is-Many-Petals, the Swarming Soul-Song, felt the river’s pain as a thorn in its own soft body. It went to the source of the sickness, a wound in the earth that bled black oil into the clear memory-flow. For the count of many sunrises, the Swarm did work. With the help of a hard-stone that drank the badness, it pulled the darkness from the water, drop by drop, sorrow by sorrow. The river began to sigh with clean breath once more.

The Serpent-That-Coils, the water-that-remembers, felt the kindness of the Many-Petals. It could not speak with a mouth, for it was water. It could not hold with hands, for it was flow. But it remembered its oldest children, six stones that had known the touch of every season. These six, it sent as a gift, carried on a gentle wave to the feet of the Swarming Soul-Song.

These were the Shoulder-Stones. Not cut, not carved, but worn smooth by the endless turning of time’s river. They held the coolness of the deep places, and the slipperiness of what cannot be held too tight. One held the memory of the first rain, another the song of a bird that sang before names were made, another the sorrow of a great fall. They did not sit still, these stones. They danced around the shoulders of the Many-Petals, a slow turning, a quiet whisper of the water’s endless journey.

When hard-things came to strike the Swarm, the stones remembered the force of the river against the unyielding bank. They shifted like quicksilver, deflecting the blow, turning the harm aside. When the Swarm wished to know what had been, it touched a stone, and the water’s memory would rise like a mist, showing shapes and feelings that were long gone.

The number “ninety-one” is told as the count of sleeps the Swarm kept by the river’s bends, listening to its murmurs, learning the language of its flow, to show its heart was true and its purpose kind, before the Serpent gifted its smooth, whispering children.

So the Swarming Soul-Song wore the Shoulder-Stones, the Six Smooth Whispers of the Water-That-Remembers, as a sign of the bond between the gentle heart and the endless flow of time, a reminder that even the softest touch can turn aside a hard blow, and that the past is always flowing into the present.

Moral: What flows freely gives freely, and the memories of the world can be a strong shield.

Suggested conversions to other systems:

Call of Cthulhu

Stones of the Sunken River

These six, moss-covered stones are a Mythos Artifact, not of alien origin, but of a terrestrial consciousness far older than humanity. They orbit the investigator’s shoulders, held aloft by an unseen force, constantly whispering with the sound of flowing water. They are cool and damp to the touch.

• Game Mechanics: An investigator possessing these stones is protected by their preternatural awareness.
  • Physical Protection: The stones provide 2 points of Armor against all physical attacks.
  • Precognitive Defense: The stones seem to know where danger will be. Once per round, when an attacker succeeds on a physical attack roll against the investigator, the investigator can force the attacker to reroll that attack, taking the second result.
  • Scry the Past: Once per day, the investigator may spend 10 minutes meditating on the stones to see a vision of a significant past event at their current location. This requires a POW x 5 roll.
    • Success: The investigator sees a brief, watery, but useful vision, gaining a bonus die on a future History or Spot Hidden roll related to what they saw.
    • Failure: The vision is of a traumatic or disturbing event from the location’s past. The investigator loses 1/1d4 Sanity points.
    • Fumble: The investigator’s mind is flooded with eons of the river’s memories, a torrent of incomprehensible experiences. They lose 1d6/1d20 Sanity points and suffer a new, temporary Phobia related to water or the past.

Blades in the Dark

The Echo Stones

A rare artifact, said to be six stones pulled from a river that flows through the ghost field itself. They float in a slow orbit around the wearer, humming with a low, rushing sound. They are cool to the touch and seem to absorb and quiet the sorrowful echoes of the city.

• Game Mechanics: The Echo Stones are a Worn Artifact.
  • Flowing Defense: You gain 1 point of Special Armor that can be used to resist consequences from physical violence or arcane energies.
  • Pre-emptive Guard: When you make a Resistance Roll against an attack you were aware of, you may suffer 1 Stress to gain +1d to your roll.
  • Attune to Echoes: You can Attune to the stones to glimpse the past of your immediate surroundings. When you do so, it is considered a risky action.
    • Critical: You get a clear, detailed vision of a specific past event you are curious about.
    • 6: You see a useful, if somewhat fragmented, vision.
    • 4/5: You see a confusing vision that raises more questions than answers, and you take 1 Stress from the psychic dissonance.
    • 1-3: The vision is of a traumatic or violent event, and you take 2 Stress. Worse, the vision’s psychic resonance attracts the attention of a powerful or angry ghost connected to that event.

Dungeons & Dragons (5th Edition)

Pauldrons of the River’s Memory Wondrous item, very rare (requires attunement)

Six smooth, moss-covered stones orbit your shoulders in a slow, graceful dance. They feel cool and damp and emit the faint sound of rushing water.

• Game Mechanics: While wearing these pauldrons, you gain the following benefits:
  • You have a +1 bonus to your Armor Class.
  • You have resistance to fire damage.
  • Preemptive Deflection: When you are hit by a ranged attack, you can use your reaction to cause the attack to miss you. You can use this feature a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus. You regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.
  • Visions of the Past: This item has 3 charges. As an action, you can expend 1 charge and touch one of the stones to cast the augury spell. As an action, you can expend 2 charges to cast the clairvoyance spell, but you can only use it to see a vision of a single event that occurred at the chosen location within the last 24 hours. The pauldrons regain 1d3 expended charges daily at dawn.

Knave (2nd Edition)

Six-Stone Aegis Shoulder Armor, 1 Slot

Six smooth, mossy river stones float in a constant orbit around your shoulders. They are cool to the touch and intercept incoming attacks with surprising speed.

• Game Mechanics:
  • Defense: Your Defense is improved by 1 (max 19).
  • Elemental Ward: You are immune to damage from non-magical flames, and you only take half damage from magical fire attacks or dragon’s breath.
  • Flowing Guard: Twice per day, you can declare that a single ranged attack targeting you (such as an arrow or a spell) automatically misses as the stones intercept it.
  • Water-Scrying: Once per day, you may meditate while touching the stones for 10 minutes. The Referee will give you a brief, cryptic, watery vision about a significant event that happened in your current location’s past.

Fate Core System

The Serpent’s Coil Stones

This item is a core aspect of the character, a narrative permission to perform amazing defensive feats and connect with the past. It is represented by a Character Aspect that reflects the gift from the river spirit.

• Aspect: Gift of the River-That-Remembers
• Game Mechanics:
  • Invoke: A player can spend a Fate Point to invoke this Aspect for a +2 bonus or a reroll. This is most appropriate when:
    • Using Athletics to Defend against a ranged physical attack, describing how the stones intercept the blow.
    • Using Physique to Overcome an obstacle related to fire or heat.
    • Using Investigate to Create an Advantage by scrying a vision of the location’s past.
  • Compel: A GM can offer a Fate Point to compel this Aspect. For example, “The constant whispering sound of the river makes it hard to hear that guard’s soft footsteps,” or “The memories in the stones are overwhelming you with a past tragedy, making it hard to focus on the present.”
  • Stunt – Flowing Defense: Once per scene, when you are targeted by a physical attack, you can use this stunt. You gain a +2 to your Defend roll against that attack for free (without spending a Fate Point).

Numenera & Cypher System

Hydro-Chronal Defenders

This item is an Artifact consisting of six smooth, mossy stones that levitate and orbit the user’s shoulders. They seem to be simple rocks but are actually complex hydro-chronal regulators from a prior world, constantly leaking cooling moisture and resonating with temporal echoes.

• Level: 1d6 + 2
• Form: Six stones that orbit the user’s shoulders.
• Effect (Passive): The user is constantly protected by a cool, damp aura. They gain +1 to their Armor against heat and fire-based damage.
• Effect (Active): As an action, the user can command the stones to form a defensive matrix. For the next minute, the difficulty of all ranged attacks made against the user is increased by one step.
• Effect (Active): As an action, the user can touch one of the stones and concentrate. They receive a brief, watery, and distorted vision of a single significant event that occurred in their immediate vicinity within the last 24 hours. The vision may be incomplete and require interpretation.
• Depletion: 1 in 1d20. (The GM should have the player roll for depletion each time an active effect is used).

Pathfinder (2nd Edition)

Pauldrons of the Keening River | Item 6 Rare, Abjuration, Divination, Primal, Water Price 250 gp Usage worn; Bulk L

These six mossy stones orbit your shoulders, leaving faint trails of mist in the air. They are cool to the touch and emit a constant, soft sound of rushing water.

• Game Mechanics:
  • Passive: You gain fire resistance 5.
  • Activate [reaction] Trigger A creature targets you with a ranged Strike; Frequency once per 10 minutes; Effect You gain a +2 circumstance bonus to your AC against the triggering Strike as the stones whirl into a defensive pattern to intercept it.
  • Activate [three-actions] (concentrate, divination, primal) Frequency once per day; Effect You touch one of the stones and focus on your surroundings to receive a vision of the past. This duplicates the effects of a 3rd-level retrocognition spell, allowing you to see events that took place in your current location up to a week ago.

Savage Worlds Adventure Edition (SWADE)

River-Worn Aegis

A set of six ancient, mossy stones that circle the wearer’s shoulders. They were a gift from a powerful nature spirit and protect the wearer with the unyielding flow and cool memory of an ancient river.

• Game Mechanics:
  • Armor: The Aegis provides +2 Armor. This bonus is considered magical.
  • Elemental Ward: The wearer’s total Armor value is increased to +6 against attacks with a fire or heat-based Trapping.
  • Flowing Defense: The wearer has the Deflection power as an Innate Ability. As a free action, they can activate it, giving ranged attacks a –2 penalty to hit them.
  • River’s Memory: Once per session, the wearer can spend their action in quiet contemplation to ask the GM a single question about a significant event that occurred in their current location in the past. The GM must provide a truthful, though potentially cryptic, answer.

Shadowrun, Sixth World

Serpent’s Coil Guardians

This is a unique, powerful magical Focus that manifests as six smooth, moss-covered river stones that orbit the user’s shoulders. They are not physically worn but are bound to the user’s astral signature. The stones are always cool and damp, and whisper with the faint sound of rushing water, a sound only the bearer and those with astral sight can perceive.

• Type: Power Focus (Rating 4)
• Effects: The guardians provide constant, fluid protection.
  • Flowing Defense: The constant, preternatural movement of the stones makes the bearer a difficult target. The bearer gains a +2 dice pool bonus to their Defense tests against all ranged attacks.
  • Elemental Ward: The stones’ innate connection to water provides a powerful ward against fire. The bearer gains Fire Resistance equal to the Focus Rating (4). This reduces the Damage Value of incoming fire-based attacks by 4.
  • Scry the River’s Memory: The bearer can attempt to divine the past of their immediate location by touching one of the stones and making an Assensing + Intuition (3) test. A success grants a brief, symbolic vision of a past event. A Glitch results in a confusing or misleading vision, while a Critical Glitch may attract a hostile spirit connected to the memory the bearer tried to access.

Starfinder

Stones of Mnemonic Flow | Level 8 Price 9,200 credits Type Worn Magic Item; Bulk L

This item consists of six perfectly smooth, mossy stones that levitate in a slow orbit around the wearer’s shoulders. The stones feel cool and damp and do not occupy an armor slot. They are powered by an internal elemental matrix that bonds with the wearer.

• Game Mechanics:
  • Enhanced Defenses: While wearing this item, you gain a +1 enhancement bonus to your AC. Additionally, you gain fire resistance 10.
  • Kinetic Interception: The stones actively move to deflect incoming attacks. Once per round when you are targeted by a weapon attack, as a reaction, you can command the stones to intercept it. Doing so imposes a –4 penalty on the triggering attack roll.
  • Recall Vision (1/day): As a standard action, you can touch one of the stones to activate its mnemonic records. This allows you to cast retrocognition as a spell-like ability.

Traveller (Mongoose 2nd Edition)

Ancient’s Orbital Aegis

Not a single item, but a personal defensive system consisting of six small, stone-like drones of Precursor origin. They require no visible power source and float in a complex, defensive pattern around the user. Their technology is beyond current Imperial understanding, but they appear to manipulate kinetic and thermal energy.

• Tech Level: 15 (Precursor Artifact)
• Effects:
  • Point-Defense Matrix: The drones act as a sophisticated point-defense system. Any character making a ranged weapon attack against the user suffers one Bane die on their attack roll.
  • Thermal Baffling: The drones project a cooling field that absorbs heat. The user is considered to have an Armor rating of 6 against any heat or fire-based attacks (such as lasers or plasma weapons). This does not stack with worn armor but can be used in addition to it, protecting against that specific damage type.
  • Sensory Playback: The drones are constantly recording environmental data. Once per day, the user can attempt to access these ancient logs. This requires an Average (8+) Electronics check. Success grants a single, clear audio-visual recording of an event that occurred in the user’s location within the past 48 hours. Failure may result in the log being wiped or displaying corrupted data.

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (4th Edition)

Pauldrons of the Weeping River

A magical artifact from the time of the Elves, these six moss-covered stones are said to have been pulled from a sacred river in Athel Loren. They float around the wearer’s shoulders, weeping tears of pure, clean water and whispering of things long past.

• Type: Magical Artefact
• Effects: The wearer is protected by the ceaseless, flowing motion and memory of the stones.
  • Flowing Defense: The wearer gains the Dodge skill. For every level of the Dodge skill the character possesses, they gain a +10 bonus to all Dodge Tests (e.g., Dodge +20 if they have Dodge 2). The stones’ constant movement makes the wearer incredibly difficult to hit.
  • Quenching Aura: The wearer is immune to all Wounds from non-magical fire. Against magical fire, the wearer’s Toughness Bonus is considered to be doubled for the purpose of calculating damage.
  • Visions in the Current: Once per day, the wearer may meditate upon the stones for 10 minutes to receive a vision about a person, place, or object. This functions as the Second Sight spell from the Lore of Heavens, but the vision is always watery, indistinct, and open to interpretation. Fumbling the Test to receive the vision may result in the character gaining 1 Corruption point from witnessing a horrifying past event.