Tainted Leather (3.5e Equipment)
A Barker long ago discovered the process of tanning leather quite by accident, once whilst treating said leather, he cut his thumb and openly bled on his own work, not wishing to sell the said now inferior leather, he discarded it into the fire. Only later did he discover discover whilst cleaning the dead ashes from the fireplace, a piece of untouched, much darker leather had survived whilst the greater whole had been completely incinerated. Much confounded, over the next while, the barker experimented with combining both the tanning mixtures and freshly drained blood that a much tougher and resilient product resulted, forming a much darker, near black hue after drying. Before long, the process had been perfected, the blood used in the mixture had to have been drawn from a still living creature whom survived the entire proceedure. Sometimes refered to as devil's hide or the deadman's suit it is widely regarded as one of the lowest forms of protection one can don without sowing together fragments of human skin, due solely to the sadistic practices used to create premium tainted leather. One should beware those who sell such items, for they might be of a cursed nature.
Whilst this material is mundane for all intents and purposes before enhancement bonuses are applied, it nonetheless emits a weak supernatural evil aura from the near-black surface. This will cause the character's percieved alignment to appear as evil, even if their chosen alignment is Lawful Good it would be pecieved as Lawful Evil should the spell detect evil be cast, they would count as evil for all effects related. The effects however are not so extreme as to affect the wearer's attacks or defense should they attack a target under the influence of protection from evil or magic circle against evil unless their chosen alignment is evil in which case the spell would function as usual.
Because of the properties of the leather being much tougher, much less thickness is needed in order to achieve the very same results as leather armor, whilst being much lighter all over, divide the weight of the leather in two. This results in an additional +1 added bonus to the armor AC granted by the armor piece and reduces its armor check penalty by a further 2. Another strange property of this leather is an additional ease of use whilst casting spells, lowering the armor's total Arcane Spell Failure by 10%.
Whilst the leather is capable of withstanding near impossible, hellish temperatures, it nonetheless does not grant the wearer such thorough protection. The armor itself is immune to fire damage, though this benefit only grants the wearer an effect similar to the endure elements for environments with high temperatures such as volcanoes and deserts.
Whenever an item of tainted leather has been acquired, there is a 50% chance that the item in question will be cursed in some way shape or form, the severity of the curse is up to the DMs discretion. This may vary from reductions in the set's AC bonus to even ability score penalties.
Tainted leather has 10 hit points per inch of thickness and hardness 6.
Tainted leather is only suitable for armor and cannot be applied to weapons in any way shape or form. Tainted leather can only be applied to the following armor types and may include further varieties at the DMs discretion: padded armor, leather armor, studded leather armor and hide armor.
Cost: Tainted Leather costs an additional +2,000gp.
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