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What's a Wangjangler?

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A recurring, nebulously-defined magic item in our campaign is The Wangjangler. It spans time, space, and IPs to find a target, no matter where they are.

The idea is lifted from You Suck At Cooking, who defines "wangjangle" as "to stir or mix". Therefore, a "wangjangler" is any device used for that purpose.

At some point in time1, we needed to find a ghost that was haunting Elysium, a space resort we'd been invited to after saving the Pact Worlds for some R&R.

Much to the resort manager's dismay, things started going badly wrong. Space ghosts were blamed, and we were issued a device that would give us a hot/cold reading if we were near the "ghost". This device, a pile of junk held together with duct-tape, cucumber wheels, and magic, was dubbed the "wangjangler", on account of it being makeshift crap like its namesake so often is:

A man's arm with a cord tied from shoulder to hand. Various kitchen implements, like large spoons and mashers, are hung on the string. He is using one very awkwardly to wangjangle a bowl of chickpeas.

Despite every wangjangler being unique -- the ones used in Avernus were distinctly demonic, while the Eberron ones have been steam punk'd -- it has become a recurring character. There's no continuity between them, but they're our ever-present friend.

When the DM needs to get us from Point A to Point B with the minimum possible amount of sidetracking2, our good buddy the Wangjangler comes out, and we're always excited to see it.

  1. May 31st, 2019 ↩

  2. The minimum is never, ever zero. But the risks of letting us roam the span of Khorvaire to gather relics from different manifest zone is simply too great. We need a guard rail or else we'll start a war between Karrnath and Breland. At minimum. ↩