Long time ago

The Hand of Finger

About a hundred years ago, a notorious thief terrorized Sigil's Market Ward. Noone ever found out his real name, but he became known as 'Finger', for his fingers were so apt to pilfer and steal that he could take a gehreleth's triangle without the fiend noticing for a full minute (actually, this is an example that really happened).

Noone was safe from Finger's fingers; he stole from Archons and Night Hags, from archmages and archfiends, it's said that he didn't even stop stealing from dabus!

He escaped the grip of the law for years, until finally he tried to steal a dagger from a slimy tanar'ri - only to find out the dagger was part of the fiend's body, and was as sticky as the entire fiend's body. Curiously, the tanar'ri (some say, it was a special kind of alkilith) didn't kill the thief, but instead gave him over to the forces of law (a story the Harmonium loves to tell even today!).

Of all the crimes Finger had committed, though, only very few one could be proven. That and his rogue modron lawyer Shan'r-4-X helped him escape death; still, the female Bariaur judge Sugarpie sentenced him, and his punishment was the "removal" of his left hand. The next day, the executioner's axe hacked off Finger's hand, and his career as notorious thief was over.

It's unknown what happened to Finger after those events, but it is known what happened to his hand: A chaos mage known as Shidderfudder casted a spell on the hand the moment after it was cut off, transforming it into a magical item. And with his next spell, he transported himself and the hand to another part of Sigil, where he sold Finger's Hand to an upstart thief.

Since then, the item has changed owners many times. The hand - which still looks like a normal human hand of dark blue colour - can be used by anyone who has lost his own left hand. Simply attaching it to the stump makes it merge with the wearer's body, becoming his real hand. It can only be removed by being cut off again.

The hand gives a Sleight of Hand bonus of one point for each level the wearer has achieved, no matter in which class or classes. The bonus only counts for the left hand, though.

What most people don't know is that the Hand of Finger still has a bit of its own life. Whenever the wearer doesn't use his hand for more than ten minutes, there's a 10% chance every hour the hand takes control of itself. It usually doesn't really do anything bad, but it might move over a table, scratch some part of the wearers body, or make a play with its fingers. In rare cases, though (if the percent roll was a 95% or higher), Finger's aggressions at the loss of his hand come through, and the Hand randomly attacks the wearer or anyone close to him.

The Hand has an attack roll of 10, and otherwise has all of the stats of the wearer it is attached to at the moment.

The Hand's wearer can gain back control of the item by making a Will saving throw against DC 16, which he can try once every minute. This isn't an automatic roll, though: The character has to come up with the idea himself, focussing on the hand for a full round. During that round, both the hand and the character cannot do any other action.