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You pick up the tiny, star shaped piece of metal and hold it lightly between your forefinger and thumb. It looks to be a shuriken. You know very little about the weapons other than the fact that assassins like to use them, or so you've heard. This one seems quite ordinary except for a tiny sigil on the tip of one of the points. "You know, I have a friend who uses shuriken on a regular basis. What a hoot! His take on the whole thing is this: they're small, they're sharp, they don't do much damage and you are more likely to cut yourself throwing the damn things than you are to actually hit an enemy. Even if you do happen to hit someone, you usually just end up ticking them off. That's why he had a friend create these . . ." These were originally created by a mage named James who worked as a guard in Cerandia. It turns out that he had been stuck working with a skulker, Timogen, for some time. (A skulker is a thief who has opted to work for the law as opposed to lifelong imprisonment after being caught.) Now, Timogen was a talented bloke but he just wasn't cut out for direct confrontations. Neither was James, for that matter. At any rate, James decided to create the Shuriken of Holding so that when Timogen was forced into defending himself, he could simply neutralize the attack and wait for the muscle to show up. When you make a successful hit on a target, the shuriken automatically casts Hold Person on the target. The target gets to make a saving throw as per the spell description in the AD&D Player's Handbook. Of course, this item does have one, little drawback. Should you happen to accidentally cut yourself with it, that counts as a hit. It will cast Hold Person on you. That can be a real pain in the patookas if you're in serious danger of being pummeled by an angry opponent. I highly recommend wearing gloves when using the shuriken. A little treat for those of you, like myself, who have very non-combat oriented characters. I actually have some characters that have serious negatives to their "To Hit" scores. This is a highly "Eeeeek! Danger! Throw something and run!" item. It's right up there with hot water and caltrops.*Grin* |
