The Solar Ring is a finger ring issued as standard equipment to every knight of an order, activated at will to flood an area with light and to aid descents into darkness.
| Type | Magic ring (order equipment) |
| Known bearer | Sir Sixto |
| Spanish entry | Solar Ring |
Description
The unlit ring is not described. Lit, it gives not a beam but “a lot of light”, enough to “illuminate a whole area”. The light is stated to be ultraviolet: “It is ultraviolet light.” At least one, the ring of Sir Sixto, bears an engraved solar sign.
Issue
All the knights carry one, alongside the circlet of command, as part of the same equipment; the order’s capacity to descend is institutional rather than heroic. Rings have also been given to companions outside the order. Their recorded use is underground and in darkness: the rift, dark spaces, combat.
Properties
- Light. It “can summon sunlight” across a whole area. A warning is recorded against a bearer who tried to summon it: “don’t do it”.
- Descent. It slows falls and aids jumping, but bearers “could go down but not up”.
- Breathing. It protects breathing where air is lacking.
- Limit. Its continuous light does not kill vampires.
Paired with the circlet, it equips the complete knight: the circlet for command, the ring for terrain. Since it does not solve the ascent, leaving is the hard part of an expedition.
Conflicting accounts
- One account holds the ring summons true sunlight, with a stated exception for vampires.
- Another takes “it is ultraviolet light” as proof it was never sunlight, sunlight being only the effect’s name.
- Sunlight that reaches the rift at precise moments is a natural phenomenon, not the ring’s effect, though some indexes have conflated them.
Open questions
- Whether “sola ring” is the same object mispronounced or a distinct item is unresolved.
- Whether the solar sign marks rank or is common to all rings is unknown.
- How knights ascend, and why summoning the light was warned against, is unknown.
- Radius, duration and number of uses are not recorded.