P - Prayers, Pans, Pilgrams, Pole...and a Princess Bride

Prayers from the Faithful is the clerics answer to Pages from the Mages. Prayers from the Faithful add a slew of new clerical spells long lost to the AD&D game. It was designed for use with the Forgotten Realms and for the 2e but can be easily adapted into any setting and edition of the game. The layout of the book is fairly straight forward explaining new prayers and the history behind them. I would not consider this essential and though I have not verified most if not all the spells may be in the multi-volume Priest Compendium. Still it is not a bad investment for the DM especially if they do not have the compendium and they are running a FR specific campaign.

Movie:

Pan's Labyrinth gets the nod only because I am sure a slew of other P entries today might be for my first choice. Pan's Labyrinth is set in 1944 Spain and deals with the real world issues that were going on there as the backdrop for the real story. That of a young girl and her discovery of a fantasy realm that exists on the fringe or just next to our own. The imagery for this movie surpasses the story in my humble opinion and this is saying something. It is had not to be moved by the story and still feel a sense of awe for the magical realm that the girl discovers. Still my first choice and all time favorite movie is The Princess Bride. It did not win Oscars like Pan's but it has left a bigger mark on gaming and fantasy culture than anything other than the most epic of movies and more than most of those....inconceivable but true!

Plot:

Pilgrims for one of the player characters deities, a cleric if they have one, arrive in town having suffered an attack on the road. One of the orders relics was stolen and a high ranking NPC kidnapped on the road not more than two days travel outside of town. If the player can not convince the party to participate in the retrieval of the object and rescue it may fall upon them to have the party as a whole subject to a Quest spell from one of the faithful. The real question is why an object of no real magical value was stolen and why the specific NPC taken when it is easily discovered that there are better people to have taken if ransom is the issue. Who knows why.....unless of course it was an inside job and the intent is really to set of an internal power struggle and clerical coup in the order?

Magic:

Pole of Tapping will appear as a non-descrip pole of anywhere between 5.5 and 10 feet in length. The Pole will typically be made of a hard wood though there have been some found that have been made out of metal and bone combinations. The Pole will be a +1 weapon though it can affect creatures that can only be hit by +3 or better weapons for some reason. The Pole allows the welder to cast a Hold Portal spell up to 6 times/day. It will also allow them to cast a knock spell on demand. Once per month the Pole has the ability to cast Otto's Irresistible Dance though if this is cast the Pole becomes inert for a full moon cycle or 28 days which ever is longer. An often unknown side effect of the Pole is a tapping sound that can be heard by those who would be opposed to the person carrying the Pole. This has a 60' range and causes a -2 to all surprise rolls for the party.