Interaction between Black Cabin and Ring of Mind Shielding

dnd-5emagic-itemsrime-of-the-frostmaidensimultaneous-effectssoul

Spoiler warning: this question contains a spoiler for Rime of the Frostmaiden campaign, a relatively minor one in relation to the main plot but quite an impactful one from player's perspective.

I'm running Rime of the Frostmaiden campaign and the players just arrive at the Black Cabin, next session we will be exploring it. One of them has a Ring of Mind Shielding (DMG, page 191) and one of its properties is this:

If you die while wearing the ring, your soul enters it, unless it already houses a soul.

For those unfamiliar with the Frostmaiden, this is what is supposed to happen in Black Cabin:

Players trigger a huge explosion that is deliberately designed to kill at least most, if not all of them and they get stuck there as spirits until they solve the quest. This is the exact wording that the campaign book uses: "If a creature (…) dies inside the Black Cabin, its spirit (if it has one) leaves the body and assume a spectral form on the Border Ethereal (…)."
My players are low level, with not too much HP so I'm expecting them all to (temporarily) die there.

Therefore I am wondering what RAW should happen to the player with the Ring here. I'm inclined to rule that the property of the Cabin overrides the ring and the same thing happens to this player as to the rest of the party since it's not going to be very fun for her otherwise to be separated from everyone else with nothing to do most of the session but I'm wondering if the rules support this, I don't want the player to feel like I'm using the DM fiat to force an outcome.

I am familiar with the specific beats general thing, I'm not quite sure whether it applies here though or whether it can be established which one is more specific, the Cabin or the Ring.

Best Answer

The description of the past events and objects in the cabin suggest that the Ring is overwhelmed by Cabin's power.

The description of the events happened in the cabin says

Six months ago, Macreadus, a sage and devout follower of Lathander (god of the dawn and rebirth), formed a plan to end Auril’s everlasting winter. He holed up in the Black Cabin, where he spent all his time assembling a weather-controlling magical device called the Summer Star, using knowledge he gleaned from a book about Netherese artifacts. Macreadus’s device was similar in design to a mythallar (see appendix D), but much smaller.

Considering that

the information for creating such artifact come from a book about Netherese artifacts (remember that Netheril was a magocratic empire) and the magic item that Macreadus tried to create was a smaller version of a legendary item

and that the Ring of Mind Shielding is an uncommon magic item, hence second to last regarding "power level" of magic items:

Rarity provides a rough measure of an item's power relative to other magic items. (DMG, page 135)

we can conclude that the description strongly suggests that the soul/spirit\$^1\$ of PCs are trapped by the cabin.

As a DM, you can obviously rule otherwise.

Since the above reasoning is based on a free interpretation of the description of the events happened in the cabin and on "power level ordering" of magic items, as DM one can decide that the ring's power overcomes the cabin curse, above all if you are worried about superseding player agency by just saying "your ring does not work".

In this case, I provide a couple of possible rulings.

Suppose that all the PCs die in the cabin, but the Ring bearer\$^2\$ does not suffer from the cabin's curse and their soul is trapped in the ring. After sometimes (hours or days, up to DM) a NPC enters in the cabin, finds all the PC's bodies and wear the Ring of Mind Shielding: the PC soul trapped in the Ring can communicate with the NPC and maybe they can involve this person in solving the cabin quest:

If you die while wearing the ring, your soul enters it, unless it already houses a soul. You can remain in the ring or depart for the afterlife. As long as your soul is in the ring, you can telepathically communicate with any creature wearing it. A wearer can't prevent this telepathic communication.

If you do not want to involve any NPC, since the PC soul can leave the ring at any time, they can decide to leave because they can not do nothing: you could hence rule that once the soul has left the ring, instead of reaching the realms of afterlife, it is trapped in the cabin, together with the rest of the party.

Finally, as suggested in Molot's answer you still may give the player a choice.


\$^1\$ Let's assume that spirit and soul have the same game meaning.

\$^2\$ Frodo, is it you?