Those extremely warm-looking mittens that Bernie Sanders wore at Joe Biden’s inauguration? Those are now D&D items, and they’re completely busted.
Bernie Sanders is no stranger to being a meme, but this particular image of him sitting cross-legged with a frumpy expression and comically enormous mittens at Joe Biden's inauguration has become an instant internet sensation. The picture was just too perfect--it's just Sanders sitting there alone, adhering to social distancing norms; meaning it was all too easy to crop him out of the shot and place him in any number of increasingly unlikely places and situations.
A quick Google search will show you how the internet has used this image. We're here to discuss those mittens, which were actually completely hand-made by a Sanders supporter. Sanders, being the thrifty kind of guy that he is, isn’t one to turn over his wardrobe every so often, so eagle-eyed Sanders observers will see those same mittens in photos from winters past.
And now, thanks to an RPG game designer, those mittens are available for use in your D&D campaign.
We’ve got Bebarce El-Tavis, creator of the Power Outage RPG system, to thank for creating the Mittens of Redistribution, perhaps the most party-friendly magic relic you’ll ever see in a D&D campaign.
First, these mittens make taking care of inventory easy thanks to the ability "Redistribution of Wealth." Wave your hands over any unwanted piece of gear and it magically turns into its fair market value in coins distributed evenly amongst the party members. Handy!
But the most broken thing these mittens can do is "Lending a Hand," which actually gives different party buffs that the user can apply at will. There's no time limit to how long this buff lasts and no condition for how they're activated, so we can only assume the effect can be granted at will and for as long as the user wants.
Anyway, the wearer can choose between giving the party +5 defense against cold attacks (which one assumes means +5 AC to attacks causing cold damage), +3 on all Charisma-based checks when outside of combat, or advantage on all offensive rolls against a Chaotic Evil target.
The wearer can also use "Seize the Means of Production," which provides +5 to all grapple and climbing-based checks, and "Universal Healthcare," which gives each member of the party one use of the Healing Word spell.
There's definitely some need for errata on the Mittens of Redistribution because if you can swap abilities at will and abilities last forever, that's an infinite number of Healing Words that the party can cast.
A bit of playtesting is required, but still a fun addition to spice up your D&D campaign.
Thanks, Polygon!