Right up there with mythical swords that blaze with fire, legendary armors that can wreathe a hero in fire, wizard’s staves that…make the mage…better at casting fire…huh. Anyway! Right along those powerful if not versatile devices in fantasy stories and games are pieces of jewelry imbued with magical powers. From the religious jewelry or holy symbols that priest-class characters often use to cast or enhance their spells to powerful rings that can ward against harm to mighty amulets that can bind extra-planar creatures to the wearer’s will, magical jewelry is a staple of fantasy characters.
In most role playing games, there are limits to the amount of enchanted jewelry and other magical items you can have and use. This is often done as a sort of “body slot” system, where a given part of your body can only hold one magic item of a given type. This is often used as a balancing factor against an abundance of magical jewelry; if it weren’t for being allowed only one ring per hand slot, enterprising and wealthy characters would gladly equip a different ring for each of its ten fingers, or maybe two or three rings per finger.
Where magical jewelry is concerned, the most common body slots to use are the two hand slots (one ring per hand), and the neck slot (for an amulet, necklace, or the like). Earrings do not seem to get much love, although a case can be made for using the head slot (normally reserved for hats, helmets, or, for those who want to be decked out in magical jewelry, tiaras, coronets, or crowns) for such things. Bracelets often use the “gloves” slot, which is also focused on the hands, cheerfully destroying whatever logic there was about certain parts of the body only being able to have so much constant magic applied to them, if indeed any logic was given.
One of the advantages of enchanted jewelry is it tends to have less of a themed functionality than other forms of enchanted equipment. A magic sword is probably going to have damage-causing effects, magical boots will enhance travel, hats will increase mental attributes, and so on. Rings, amulets, and other forms of mystical, psychic, or religious jewelry, however, will likely have a much wider selection of effects. This also means that there are likely to be more pieces of magical jewelry found in a given game than magical clothing. Weapons, of course, are still by far the most common.