For those whose characters fear going to the afterlife due to lack of faith or knowing where they are likely going is unacceptable, the soul capture ability would be valuable. Reluctant followers of some deities would seek this out, with eternity spent in a ring being preferable to typical devotee destination.

An interesting use for the ring is that it could come "pre-loaded" with a soul.

This would be someone who died wearing the ring and chose (and is still choosing) to remain in the ring.  Maybe they're avoiding an afterlife they fear, or maybe they're hoping to find a way to get the new user to find them a new body.  Lots of possibilities for a creative/sinister GM.

- The soul hopes to instruct, or get the user to seek out information on, some necromantic magic that will put the soul in a new body... or trick the user into using magic that allows them to possess the user.

- The soul is using this to renege on a deal with an entity, and now that entity has reason to seek out the user to get the ring and collect.

- The user finds out about said deal, and extorts information from the soul under threat of destroying/dispelling the ring and sending the soul to its original fate.

LOTS of long-range story possibilities with this, outside its more apparent utility.

Question... can the soul read all the wearers thoughts?

i dont think so its only communictation

Yes. If the soul within the ring is benevolent, it could act as a mentor to a PC. If it's malevolent, it could get up to no end of mayhem.

Imagine the effect of this ring on an unsuspecting player who begins to "hear voices"...the implications are truly fascinating. What might "the voices" tell the PC to do? Would the PC make the connection to the ring? Could the PC become possessed? Or the willing minion of whoever was inside the ring?

There's a real opportunity for some NPC style interaction here. I'm contemplating putting one of these into a campaign I'm building. I think this might end up being a "know your audience" kind of affair...but I'm quite intrigued by this little item...

This is an important quotation... Dose this stop psychic damage?

I had an interesting thought about this ring. I ran Curse of Strahd and the party ranger died whilst wearing this ring. Being only 3rd level with no way to raise her, I pondered a solution. Then I remembered that some Barovians were born without souls, and went about their lives like empty shells. What would happen if one of these Barovians with no soul put on this ring whilst a soul remained inside? Could the soul pass into the new body and take over? Would the shell simply gain a soul of its own and retain its personality and memories? Or could the two minds coexist? Would anything happen at all? Curious what others think of this.

i would say the rule of cool judges this to be possible haha

Could it prevent people form learning a the wearers true name

Creatures can telepathically communicate with you only if you allow it.

Does this mean sentient items still can communicate with you, or are they also considered creatures?

If I slip this onto a npc and kill them,could l "brain wipe" them and make them learn all my spells so l have a indestructible spell book? I know it says it needs attunement,but that can likely be done with some good rolls.

It does say a soul can choose to depart to the afterlife. I assume most people don't want to be an eternal spell slave, and using a person as a spell book is probably outside the classification of spell book.

So can the creature be mind controlled while wearing this ring like via the Dominate spell?

I really like the art of this one. it fits the theme but isn't blatantly obvious and also looks nice.

No, not per se.

Quote from Vola_Idocrase >>

I had an interesting thought about this ring. I ran Curse of Strahd and the party ranger died whilst wearing this ring. Being only 3rd level with no way to raise her, I pondered a solution. Then I remembered that some Barovians were born without souls, and went about their lives like empty shells. What would happen if one of these Barovians with no soul put on this ring whilst a soul remained inside? Could the soul pass into the new body and take over? Would the shell simply gain a soul of its own and retain its personality and memories? Or could the two minds coexist? Would anything happen at all? Curious what others think of this.

Certainly weird and creepy enough for that campaign... I would say go for it.

The campaign my PC half-elf bard is in just had our 41st session and we’ve been playing for almost 2 years. In his background, the village he, his moon elf mother, and his wood elf bard mentor lived in was destroyed almost 20 years ago during an attack, and my PC bard was the only survivor he knew of, so he has been searching for his mother and his mentor all this time. That’s been his major goal and why he started traveling with the party.

In this most recent session, he was reunited with his bard mentor (his only friend ever) and learned that his mother was killed by an arrow in the attack, but she died wearing a Ring of Mind Shielding, a family heirloom from her noble blood family my bard never knew about. She made the bard mentor promise to give the ring to her son when things were safe, but the mentor was taken captive while my PC bard was safe and hidden away.

My DM used the bard giving my PC bard his mother’s Ring of Mind Shielding as a way for my PC bard to have one final farewell with his mother. She hadn’t moved on until she could say goodbye to her son. It was genuinely the most intense, heart-wrenching RP moment I’ve ever had in a game, and using this ring was such a clever way for my DM to work in a character from my PC’s backstory who didn’t make it, but still allow me as a player to have an emotionally satisfying and bittersweet way to finish my bard’s quest to find his mother rather than just learning that she was killed and that being it.

There’s been talk in the comments of having the ring be “preloaded” with a soul, and my DM just shocked me and ripped my heart out when I realized that the preloaded soul was one so personal to my PC. Highly recommend this, especially if your DM is sneaky like mine and reskins the look of the ring so your players can’t recognize what it is from the description. It’s HIGHLY effective.

I'm playing a dwarf 3 cleric/4artificer. My dwarf was born in a dwarven empire in the underdark. We are losing the war against lichs,aberration, orcs, etc. Very slowly but losing anyway. We Lost our most arcane knowledge in the lost of 1 great city. So Divine Magic is our stand in this war. The Empire send me to recover arcane knowledge for the propose of this battle. I went to surface and thats i became artificer. One of My endgame goals is to create one of this rings for backup up if i die my mind and knowledge of arcane power remains at the service of the Empire. A selfish goal is to convince the DM to modify my Magic craft of this ring to kill myself and put My soul in a gem ir special ring. This stone/ring i want to bond with a some kind of golem i Will create to continue fighting the war like and eternal warrior. Some kind of variety of Magic jar or similar.

Sorry about My English but isnt My native language. Is Spanish

Quote from Quirks >>

For those whose characters fear going to the afterlife due to lack of faith or knowing where they are likely going is unacceptable, the soul capture ability would be valuable. Reluctant followers of some deities would seek this out, with eternity spent in a ring being preferable to typical devotee destination.

 true