The Pliers

While intended for weird modern games like Liminal Horror or Odd Luck Charms, this MOSAIC Strict and CERAMIC Strict weird item is system neutral and can be used in any tabletop roleplaying game.

It's designed to be printed on the front and back of a bridge playing card. But you don't have to download the images in order to have the text, especially if the type is a little tiny for you. The download includes a text file, and the entire text of the object is below.

The Pliers

MOSAIC Strict and CERAMIC Strict Item

Written by Kirt A. Dankmyer

These look like an ordinary, relatively modern pair of pliers. When picked up for the first time, the person currently playing the character that picked them up (not the character) decides whether the information on how the pliers work is given to the character by a stern, deep telepathic voice, or not. The person playing the character may read this card before making the decision, but they don't have to.

The pliers can close holes, gates, openings and similar methods of egress and ingress of any size, from doors to planar gates to human mouths, henceforth called portals. To close a portal, one must point the pliers at the portal and open and close them at least three times while thinking about the particular portal that will be closed. The portal will be sealed as appropriate for the particular portal: A door might close and lock, a mouth might be sewn shut, or a planar portal might now require a certain object in order to pass through. The more times the pliers are "pumped," the more solidly the portal will be sealed, until after ten or more open-close cycles, the portal will simply disappear.

Each use of the object drains exactly 1/23rd of the user's life force. The person controlling the character may decide whether or not the immune system is compromised or not by the loss of life force, and whether or not they kind of bleed a bit by sweating blood. Life force heals as if the character was wounded with a sword or dagger, even though no such gash physically exists.

One does not have to desire a portal be closed, just think about the portal in some way, in order for the pliers to work. Because of this, while unlikely, it is possible to activate the pliers by accident.

The pliers cannot be damaged or destroyed, though they always look slightly used. They can be employed like ordinary pliers, but their gripping surface is unusually slippery, so they don't work very well.