One thing that crossed my mind while preparing for the upcoming pirate campaign was: “Why does every magical item have a practical purpose?”

Where are all the duds, the failed inventions, and the “it sounded like a good idea at the time” items? And I am not referring to cursed gear, wondrous items with unfortunate drawbacks, or evil artifacts meant to bring ancient evils back into power. I’m talking about ridiculously flawed or highly impractical magical items.

Consider this: here, in the real world, we live in a wonderful technological landscape with countless knickknacks that make life easier. We have computers, phones, airplanes, and all sorts of cool things that serve a clever purpose or fit a need of the masses. Conversely, we also live in a world that has useless crap like these.

So my idea was to borrow from reality and thereby introduce oddball magical items that either cater to an absurdly unique and specific task, or serve a purpose that no sane mortal would’ve ever considered necessary or requested.

Here are some examples I came up with at the top of my head.

a magic tiara that grants you the psychic ability to cut fruit with your mind

an enchanted bow that transforms all ammunition launched into random species of fish

a sacred cock-ring that only makes the lower half of your body invisible

a mystical scabbard that prevents your sword from being drawn if an unauthorized user tries to use it, but locks the blade in place for 100 years if there have been three consecutive failed attempts

Naturally, this idea is meant to be used sparingly; if overplayed it is almost certain to lead to player frustration and tedium. The goal of this premise is to introduce practically useless but functionally interesting items, which challenge the PCS to come up with a worthwhile way of using them. Any fighter can wield a +5 magic sword, but what if they were given a sword that heals people when you cut them with it? You’ve thrown the PCs for a loop, and now they’ll have to adjust their strategies for this unprecedented curveball. Plus it’ll be hilarious watching them try (and possibly fail) to use these magic items.

Maybe this is a terrible idea and I’m a horrible troll GM. But hey, it sounded like a good idea at the time. ;)