I was a little rushed getting the Secret Society Ring out, and some ideas came to me tonight, so some thought on how to use the Secret Society Ring to drive adventure:
Firstly, I was thinking that the identification sensation would vary from society to society: a spider cult would feel the sensation of spider legs along their spine, members of a celestial back conspiracy would see the other member with a halo, and so on.
So someone who is sensitive to magic emanations might still get the sensation that the ring triggers when member exchange handshakes when they touch someone wear one of the rings. How would they react? And what might they do to find out why that sensation was triggered?
A flawed ring, one that just requires that it be worn for a day to align it to the wearer, and that wearer would suddenly be treated as a friend and ally by people they had never before met. How long can they keep up the charade? What about when other member of the conspiracy start asking them for help and expected that it will be given, what then?
What is the group found a stash of these rings and the ritual to activate them? What would they use them for? And if they do use them, how will they react when they start encountering other people who have activated rings of the same type?
How would you use the rings to spark adventure?
Image “Ring” by Celtic via The Metropolitan Museum of Art is licensed under CC0 1.0
Sea of Stars RPG Design Journal 