Wretched Ring (Patreon)

Ring, very rare (requires attunement)

This ring is carved from blackened bone. The first time you touch it, you can momentarily hear the wails of countless lost souls. You have resistance to necrotic damage and can use the following properties while wearing the ring.

Smoke Step. You can use a bonus action to cast the misty step spell from the ring. When you do, the mist appears as a dark smoke instead.

Raise Horde. You can use an action to summon up to 8 skeletons. When you do, you can choose to replace 2 skeletons with a warhorse skeleton, or 4 skeletons with a minotaur skeleton instead. Each creature remains as long as you concentrate (as if concentrating on a spell), to a maximum of 1 hour, or until it drops to 0 hit points, at which point the creature collapses and disappears in a plume of bone dust. The summoned creatures are friendly to you and your companions. Roll initiative for the summoned creatures as a group, which has its own turns. They obey any verbal commands that you issue to them (no action required by you). If you don't issue any commands to them, they defend themselves from hostile creatures, but otherwise take no actions. The GM has the creatures' statistics. Once this property of the ring has been used, it can't be used again until you finish a long rest.

Curse. This ring is cursed, and becoming attuned to it extends the curse to you. When you begin a long rest, make a Wisdom saving throw. The DC is equal to four times the number of times you've used the ring's Smoke Step property since the last time you finished a long rest. On a failed save, you gain one level of exhaustion and don't gain any benefit from the long rest, as horrific nightmares keep you awake and restless. The DC then resets to 0.

They called me a wretched soul for what I’d done, and I would tend to agree. For even in the land of dreams, the heresy I'd commit would haunt me into wakefulness. The creeping toll was heavy, but fair, and to this day I don't sleight the Dream Shaper for its choices.