Harry Clarke Project - Pit & Pendulum, Cloak & Dagger

Piteous Cloak - The Piteous Cloak is an ebon-dark garment made from countless strips of black fabric, hung like a cape around the shoulders, fastened with an tarnished silver brooch in the likeness of a rat. The Cloak is black like brimstone, black like night. The floor-length strips do not hang limp, are never still, but move instead as though underwater, as though they float and flow about the wearer as she moves.

The Cloak will act to defend its owner if she is accosted, first wrapping around the assailant to bind and gag them, holding them helpless and immobile, then tightening to crush and strangle them for d6 damage per round, unless they can resist the prodigious strength of its covetous grasp. The grip of the Cloak is like a clutching fist, wringing the lifeblood out of its victims like water from a damp cloth. Anyone slain by the Cloak is pulled into the darkness of its folds and consumed utterly, so that not one trace of them remains, not one single bone nor stain of blood.

The Cloak's owner can disrobe and leave it in her sanctum as a guardian. In poor light it seems to blend with the shadows, and easily surprises the unwary visitant.

To befriend the Cloak is to become its new owner, but this requires appeasing the spirit of the rat that dwells within its tarnished brooch. The rat spirit feels affection for its owner and does not share its loyalty promiscuously, but it can be won over in the usual manner of mollifying hostile spirits, provided that, during these negotiations, it is given a fresh corpse to ingest each time it requires additional appeasement to persuade.
 
The Cloak never forgets an old master, however, and can never be compelled to harm one, even to protect its current owner. There is a 1-in-6 chance that any magician encountered in the same environs where the Cloak was discovered is one such former owner.
 

  
Pendulous Dagger - The Pendulous Dagger is a weapon of uncommon hostility. It appears as a masterpiece quality dagger, etched with filigrees of silver and inlaid with whorls of gilt. It is most notable for its tip, for instead of narrowing to a point, it suddenly flares out like a paper fan to become a wickedly sharp crescent moon.

When wielded in close quarters, and struck with critical acuity, the Dagger momentarily lengthens to become an executioner's blade, and will lop off the head of any target unable to save themselves from this death stroke.

When thrown underhand, it transforms again, becoming a pendulum that swings from the ceiling toward its target, dealing d12 damage on a successful blow. Regardless of the outcome of this swipe, its backswing may hit or miss independently, and deals an additional d12 damage if it strikes. Unless its master aimed either attack with fumbling clumsiness, the Dagger will unerringly return to her hand after it swings back. (Though if her aim failed her so critically, she will likewise be forced to dodge the pendulum's sweep.)


Both these items are apt to be discovered within the dungeon acting as hazards to travail the unwary wanderer. To escape the Piteous Cloak is, as ever, akin to saving oneself from paralysis, while to dodge the Pendulous Dagger's sweep is like unto being saved from a wand or a stave. Any perceptive soul who questions if these wonders might be taken as treasure should be answered in the affirmative; otherwise, someone versed in the lore of artifice or the art of trapmaking who inspects either object more generally may roll to realize that they are removable, transportable, and valuable.


This post is in response to Cavegirl's Harry Clarke Community Project, and it's licensed CC BY 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/