Chiming bells, flowers everywhere, true love on the bride’s mind. To most, this scene appears to be a perfect excuse to celebrate, eat their fill, and drink until the morning. However, which emotions running high, from all parties involved, any competent wizard will tell you that it is a perfect day for magic. All this excess energy, all these emotions, just begging to be used, for better or for worse.

A Bloody Wedding Band is a very simple plot device. Basically their stories are all the same, one way or another, a bride was killed on her wedding day. All of those excess emotions can cause a particularly willful woman to remain past her death, usually in the form of her wedding band, but it can just as easily be anything else within her reach. This gives the ring an ego score and a magical aura. The Wedding Ring contains a portion of its wearer’s sentience, and only desires to conclude its life. The ways it can do this are numerous, and depend on the circumstances of the death. One of the more common ones, and one that leads to some of the more interesting role-playing opportunities, is if the groom killed his lover. Whether it was a calculated thing, an attempt to steal her dowry, an act of jealousy, believing that she was unfaithful, or just a spontaneous drunken rage, the spirit will most likely try to hunt him down, and force its wearer to give an appropriate punishment. However, the PCs may not agree with this particular vigilante justice…

This can very easily be used to advance the plot if the players get distracted. Perhaps a reoccurring villain is the particular offender here. If the PCs have gotten to ignoring him, a Bloody Wedding Band can be used to get him back in their lives. It can also be used to start a new adventure, perhaps the murderer was involved in something far larger, a cult meant to summon a dark demon god, or a society trying to organize a coup against all the country’s leaders. Wherever the ring drags the PCs, it can coincidentally be right where they need to be to start your latest plot. Or, alternatively, if you just need to distract the group for a week, this could be a fun side quest.

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