“The voice is not yours. It only borrows your certainty.”
— Vaelith Runehand

Lore Codex

These rings circulated among the Cult of the Absolute during the Netherbrain crisis along the Sword Coast. To cultists, they were proof of belonging and authority - tokens that made orders feel inevitable. In truth, the “Absolute” was not a god, but a manufactured psionic dominion, and each ring still carries a residue of that lattice: whispers of unity, obedience, and irresistible certainty.

Description

A heavy iron-black ring whose face bears a weathered skull set into a jagged triangular frame. Dull crimson lacquer has been dragged across the brow and teeth like a ritual mark. When worn, the metal seems to hold a faint pressure behind the eyes - as if your thoughts are standing too close to a chorus.

Mechanics

• Psychic Conduit. You have resistance to psychic damage while attuned to the ring.
• Voice of the Absolute. You can cast command at 2nd level without expending a spell slot. Once used, this property can’t be used again until you finish a long rest. When you cast it this way, the target hears the command as a unified chorus.
• Authority of the True Soul. If a creature within 30 feet of you is affected by a charm, fear, or domination effect, you can use your reaction to attempt to override that influence. The target must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw (DC = 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Charisma modifier) or be charmed by you instead until the end of your next turn. Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until the next dawn.
• Residual Network. You have advantage on Intelligence (Investigation) and Wisdom (Insight) checks related to aberrations, mind flayers, or psionic phenomena.

Corruption of the Absolute

Each time you use Voice of the Absolute or Authority of the True Soul, make a DC 12 Wisdom saving throw. On a failure, you gain one level of Absolute Influence:

1. Whispers. Disadvantage on saving throws against being charmed by aberrations.
2. Drift. Your alignment shifts one step toward lawful or neutral.
3. Compulsion. Once per day, the DM can impose an intrusive command reflecting the will of the Absolute; this functions as suggestion.

After three consecutive days without using the ring’s active properties, all levels of Absolute Influence fade.

“It is not jewelry. It is an address.”
— Vaelith Runehand

Lore Codex

Recovered from strata predating the first recorded wars of Arcanis, this blackened signet is set with dim crystal nodes that map to constellations no longer found in the sky. Beneath its age-worn filigree lies a precursor uplink - a credential keyed to an orbital lattice built for observation and surgical force. Most of the network is silent. Not all of it.

Properties

The Ring has 6 charges and regains 1d4 + 2 charges daily at dawn. If you expend the last charge, roll a d20. On a 1, the Ring’s alignment drifts and it cannot regain charges for 7 days.

• Quiet Sky Vision. You gain darkvision out to 120 feet. If you already have darkvision, its range increases by 60 feet. As a bonus action, you can emit a pulse of true sight out to 20 feet for 1 minute. This expends 1 charge.
• Celestial Telemetry. You have advantage on Wisdom (Perception) and Intelligence (Investigation) checks made to detect creatures, hidden doors, illusions, or magical effects under open sky. You always know true north and your exact position relative to any location you have previously visited under open sky.
• Starfall Directive. As an action, designate a point you can see within 90 feet and call a precision strike from above. A column 10 feet in radius and 40 feet high descends, dealing 7d10 radiant damage to creatures in the area (Dexterity save for half, DC 18). Structures and objects take double damage. This expends 3 charges. The beam ignores half cover and three-quarters cover.
• Orbital Survey. As an action, request a scan of the surrounding region. For 1 minute, you know the location of all creatures within 240 feet that are not behind total cover, and you can see invisible creatures as faint star silhouettes. This expends 2 charges.
• Lattice Lock. As a reaction when a portal, teleport, or planar gate opens within 60 feet, attempt to disrupt it. Make an Intelligence check using your spellcasting ability modifier (DC 18). On a success, the effect fails and the opening collapses. On a failure, the effect proceeds and you take 3d6 force damage. This expends 1 charge.

Costs and Instability

Each time you use Starfall Directive, roll a d6:

1. 1–2: Scatter. Move the impact point 2d10 feet in a random direction.
2. 3–4: Overdraw. The Ring consumes an additional charge and you gain one level of exhaustion.
3. 5: Ghost Ping. A dormant platform awakens. Within 24 hours, constructs or drones arrive to investigate.
4. 6: Clean Lock. No adverse effect.

If you use Starfall Directive three times in a single day, the next use automatically triggers Ghost Ping.

Directives

The Ring contains a fragmentary administrative heuristic. After each long rest in which you used 3 or more charges, make a DC 15 Wisdom saving throw. On a failure, the Ring imposes one directive for the next day (mark a creature type, secure a high vantage at dusk, maintain continuous observation). Ignoring the directive imposes disadvantage on attack rolls made with Starfall Directive until the next dawn.

Destruction

The Ring cannot be destroyed by mundane means. If it is subjected to a dead magic field while simultaneously targeted by its own Starfall Directive at maximum intensity, the feedback loop collapses the node lattice, reducing it to inert slag and cold crystal dust.

“Storms do not end. They only learn new shapes.”
— Vaelith Runehand

Lore Codex

When the elder blue wyrms of Arcanis fell during the War of the Shattered Skies, their bodies did not decay as mortal creatures do. Their scales calcified into storm-fossils, each one preserving the final charge of a dragon that once commanded the sky itself.

These fragments are not inert. Within each scale remains a memory of lightning, a fragment of draconic will, and a latent resonance with the open sky. Even centuries later, the scale hums with static intent. Those who carry one report the taste of ozone on the tongue and the sensation of distant thunder under the skin.

Description

A palm-sized draconic scale shaped like a tapered shield. The surface is fossil-dark stone fused with remnants of deep cobalt enamel. Lightning-vein fractures branch from a central ridge and emit a faint internal glow in low light. The underside curves inward like a shell fragment, worn smooth by time. The edges are chipped and layered, bearing the scars of battle and age.

Mechanics

This relic is multi-path. Once committed to a use, it is permanently transformed and cannot be reclaimed.

• Storm Talisman (Arcane Focus Mode). While holding the scale, it can serve as a spellcasting focus. You gain resistance to lightning damage. The scale has 3 charges and regains 1d3 charges at dawn.
  • Spark Lash (1 charge): 60 ft range. Deal 2d8 lightning damage (Dex save half).
  • Storm Pulse (2 charges): 10 ft radius burst. Creatures take 2d6 lightning damage and are pushed 5 ft (Con save negates push).
  • Call the Fracture (3 charges): Cast Lightning Bolt at 3rd level. The scale is the point of origin.
  Overcharge Instability: If you expend all charges at once, roll 1d20. On a 1-2, you take 1d8 lightning damage.
• Alchemical Reagent (Consumable Conversion). The scale may be refined into storm-essence as a primary reagent. This process consumes the scale. It enhances potions with electrical or transmutive effects (DM discretion).
  • Lightning Resistance potion → greater resistance (double duration)
  • Speed or haste brews → static displacement (disadvantage on opportunity attacks against you)
  • Storm elixir → weapon attacks deal +1d4 lightning damage for 1 hour
• Forged Integration (Material Embedding). A master smith or arcane artificer can embed the scale into armor, a shield, or a weapon. The scale becomes a permanent component.
  • Storm-Bound Material: item gains resistance to lightning damage and is immune to corrosion, decay, and Withering rot.
  • Storm Discharge (1/day): on hit (weapon) or when struck (armor/shield), deal 1d6 lightning damage to a creature within 5 ft.
  • Sky Memory: while outdoors during a storm, you have advantage on Perception checks and Initiative rolls.

“You are not wielding it. You are where it is beginning.”
— Vaelith Runehand

Lore Codex

Xerovores do not live within the material realm. Their true form exists in the Astral, vast and patient, observing the physical world through fractures in reality. What appears in the material plane is never the whole creature, only a convergence of its will shaped into temporary form.

When a Xerovore is destroyed, it does not leave a corpse. It fractures into anchors. Each fragment retains the full continuity of the whole, compressed into a single point.

The Bonewake Fang is one such anchor.

When a mortal attunes to the Fang, the Xerovore becomes aware of them as a fixed point across planes. Each use of its power draws more of the creature into reality. Not by growth, but by alignment.

Description

A large, fossilized fang, curved and predatory, resembling that of an ancient theropod but subtly incorrect in proportion and presence. Its surface is darkened bone, mineralized yet unmarred by time.

Fine fracture lines run along its length, embedded with faint green nodes that pulse irregularly. The Fang does not sit cleanly in reality, its edge appearing slightly misaligned, as if existing in more than one position at once.

When held, the air around it distorts faintly, and loose particles drift toward it in slow, unnatural motion.

Mechanics

• Astral Conduit. The Fang may be used as a spellcasting focus. You gain a +1 bonus to spell attack rolls and resistance to necrotic damage.
• Rend From the Void. As an action, you summon a massive astral claw to strike a creature within 30 ft. The target takes 2d10 slashing + 1d8 necrotic damage (Dex save half).
• Predator’s Mark. As a bonus action, choose a creature within 60 ft for 1 minute. You always know its direction, and your attacks against it deal +1d6 necrotic damage.
• Astral Surge. As an action, for 1 minute:
  • Your movement speed increases by 10 ft
  • You ignore difficult terrain
  • Once per turn, your attacks deal an additional 2d6 necrotic damage

The Bonewake Curse

Each time you use one of the Fang’s abilities, you advance its Convergence.

1. Stage I — Awareness. You feel constantly watched. You cannot be surprised while above half HP.
2. Stage II — Manifest Limbs. Astral claws flicker into existence. You gain +1 AC, but take 1d6 necrotic damage whenever you reduce a creature to 0 HP.
3. Stage III — Partial Convergence. The Xerovore overlaps your form. You gain advantage on attacks against creatures below half HP, but take 2d6 necrotic damage at the start of combat.
4. Stage IV — Imminent Manifestation. The boundary weakens. At the end of each long rest, roll a d20. On a 1–5, a partial manifestation attacks.
5. Stage V — Full Manifestation. The Xerovore fully materializes at your location and immediately attacks. The Fang returns to the beasts jaw as it's flesh materializes around it.

Nature of the Curse

Convergence cannot be reversed through conventional means. Removing attunement halts progression, but does not reduce it. The Xerovore remains aware of those who have carried the Fang.

“You are not wielding a relic. You are feeding a return.”

“This is not a seed. It is a memory of a world that knew how to begin again.”
— Vaelith Runehand

Lore Codex

The Seed of the First Garden resembles a smooth ivory ovoid, no larger than a clenched thumb joint. Its surface is divided into petal-like plates etched with faint botanical patterns. When touched, those patterns resolve into latticework so fine it resembles circuitry rather than vine.

The Seed is not a plant. It is a vault - a preserved ecological template from a pre-cataclysmic era, designed to rebuild dead worlds. Where it activates, soil reorganizes, water clarifies, fungi awaken, and dormant microbial strata ignite. It does not grow a forest. It compiles one.

Description

An ivory-toned shell divided into five petal plates. A recessed central aperture glows faint green when charged. Under magnification, the petal seams are inscribed with micro-glyphs: botanical diagrams intertwined with geometric lattice lines. It is warm to the touch, and it hums faintly in barren places.

Properties

The Seed contains 3 Growth Charges and regains 1 charge at dawn if it rests in natural soil overnight. If it is kept in stone, metal, or extradimensional storage for more than 3 consecutive days, it becomes Dormant and regains no charges until returned to living ground for a full dawn cycle.

Mechanics

• Dormant Bloom (1 charge). As an action, press the Seed into soil, sand, or cracked stone. A 20-foot-radius area erupts with dense living growth for 10 minutes. The area becomes difficult terrain for hostile creatures, while allies you designate ignore this difficult terrain. The area is lightly obscured, and nonmagical fires in the area are extinguished. The growth retracts at the end of the duration, leaving faint root-vein patterns in the ground.
• Purifying Germination (1/Long Rest, 1 charge). You purge corruption from one of the following: a 10-foot-radius patch of blighted or cursed land, a body of water no larger than a wagon, or a creature suffering from poison or disease (as greater restoration, plant-based manifestation). This cannot remove divine curses or artifacts of equal or greater tier. Where purification occurs, new plant life appears within 24 hours.
• Archive of Roots. While attuned, you have advantage on Nature checks. During a short rest, press the Seed to a plant, fungus, or corrupted growth and “query” it. You learn one of the following: its origin, its magical properties, its weaknesses, or whether it has been artificially altered. This functions similarly to identify, but only for organic matter.
• Genesis Protocol (3 charges within 24 hours). If all 3 Growth Charges are expended in the same location within 24 hours, the Seed initiates a deeper protocol. Over the next hour, a Sanctuary Grove forms in a 40-foot radius: the area is considered under the effects of plant growth (enriched), creatures that finish a short rest within the grove regain additional hit points equal to your proficiency bonus, and undead and fiends have disadvantage on attack rolls within the grove. Once Genesis Protocol is used, the Seed becomes Dormant for 7 days.

Growth Debt

Each time Genesis Protocol is activated, roll a d6:

1. 1–2: Harmless overgrowth follows you for 1d4 days. Small vines creep where you sleep.
2. 3–4: Native plants within 1 mile begin mutating into unfamiliar but non-hostile variants.
3. 5: A territorial plant construct manifests within 72 hours to “protect” the new biome.
4. 6: Clean calibration. No instability.

After three Genesis activations in the same region, the local ecosystem permanently shifts toward the Seed’s archived template. This may override native flora.

Destruction

The Seed cannot be destroyed by fire, frost, or corrosion. If planted at the heart of a true wasteland - land utterly devoid of microbial life - and left undisturbed for a full year, it will consume itself rebuilding the soil from nothing, cracking open and becoming a fossilized husk.