Adulterated Lineages of the Primordial Flesh

Breeding Pit, Anson Maddocks, 1994

The moon shone that night, its disk complete, like polished horn or dulled ivory. There Marwan stood. He was one of the pale people, tall and gaunt, and so the fullmoon rays shone through him, revealing the contours of his bones, the colour of his liver and kidneys. But more was unveiled. The new lobes bulged, beating as hearts in the old flesh of Marwan. From them flowed ichors, hormones, and types of cells found in no being born from a womb. These too were made brilliant in the silver light. The bodies shuddered, they convulsed. They squirmed with their strength and lent it to their host.

Marwan leaped from roof to roof like a cat. His pursuers tried to follow suit, making fools of themselves in the process. He turned to laugh at his enemies fumbling over themselves. Seeing Marwan pause, Yasmin raised her arms to cast a harmless light charm. Marwan felt a sudden tightening of all the muscles in his body. His implanted organs failed for a second. He lost his balance. His feet slipped from the lip of a roof. His skull cracked open when he struck the earth.

The Anatomy of the eye according to Hunayn Ibn Ishaq, from 13th century manuscript

A History

From the Primordial Flesh, from some unknown source in antiquity, came Exquisite Organs and surgeons who know how to bind them in new flesh. They kept the old flesh too, they preserved it, they cherished it. But the mind is eager to tinker, even with perfection. The flesh was mingled with geomancy and devilry and alchemy and necromancy and the blood of rulers. 

Make Me One With Unclean Meat

The new lineages are much blunter, cleverer tools. The organs are distinctive, active. They will slip into any gaping wound and integrate themselves, no surgeon required. They are eccentric, each lineage blessed and cursed with a particular side effect. How they reproduce is largely mysterious but they can be found in just about the same situations as normal Exquisite Organs. 

Organ Spells:  Found in dubious medical treatises and scrolls of made of skin

Birth Organ, R: 15ft  T: A Living Body D: Permanent 

You cause an organ of a random adulterated lineage to be born in a body. The target may attempt a Con save to stop the birth. Normally, the organs produced by this spell provide no stat bonuses but if you expend 500GP in alchemical regeants and sacrifice an animal while casting the spell, the organ provides +1d6 to a random ability score. 

Emergency Transplant, R: Touch T: 2 Organs in Bodies D: Permanent 

You touch 2 bodies and select 2 organs within them. The organs flow through you, swapping hosts. Each target body may make a Con save to resist this effect. 

20 Corrupt Lineages

All organs give a permanent bonus to a stat, usually +2 or greater

1. Strength - Increased Muscle Mass, Tertiary Lung, Increased Adrenaline
2. Dexterity - Improved Neural Sheathing, Faster Metabolism, Improved Fine Motor Skills
3. Constitution - Secondary Liver, Secondary Heart, Increased Bone Mass
4. Intelligence - Secondary Hippocampus, Increased Neural Density (not always in the brain)
5. Wisdom - Improved Vision, Increased Neural Plasticity
6. Charisma - Pheromone Glands, Improved Social Awareness

1. Lineage of the Esoteric Tongue
Organs of this lineage are incredibly light, almost weightless, and a light blue or turquoise color.
Once implanted with an organ of this lineage, you develop an allergy to magic. You get an itch when in the presence of magical places or beings. Whenever a spell is cast within 60ft of you, you undergo a spasm and drop what you're holding. You cannot wield or wear magical equipment, you burst out in hives if you try.

2.  Linage of the Midnight Lodge
Organs of this lineage are dark in color, produce a pitch black oily substance, and are prone to failure. If you roll a 1 on a check or save associated with the organ, it fails completely, you lose the stat bonus the organs provides and you will go into septic shock and die in 1d10 days if the organ is not removed. The defective organ can be made into a potent poison by a chemist.

3. Lineage of the Blood of the Warping Wood
Organs of this lineage look a fetus gestated in a tree stump, they have sightless eyes wound with thin roots, little arms with woody talons. Once implanted with an organ of this linage, you develop a terrible bloodlust. When you see and smell fresh blood, you are driven into a frenzy like a barbarian's rage. The rage can only be ended if you ingest a pound of blood and flesh.

4. Lineage of the Chthonic Star
Organs of this lineage are bulbous and rubbery, like big water balloons full of slushy ice, and highly bioluminescent. When you are in darkness, the organ glows a pale red in your body. Without taking major measures to hide your luminescence, you cannot hide in darkness.

6. Lineage of the Archon's Sons
Organs of this lineage are a dull yellow color and produce fluids that look like mercury but are sour to the tongue. Once implanted with an organ of this lineage you lose the ability to lie, directly and indirectly. You cannot lie by omission or even refuse to answers questions directed at you.

7. Lineage of the Limestone Shaws
Organs of this lineage are always warm and have cracks in them like a heated coal. Once implanted with an organ of this lineage your body temperature rises greatly as if you have a bad fever. If you overheat any further, perhaps because of being in a hot climate or wearing heavy clothing in sunny weather, you will fall unconscious from heat stroke.

8. Lineage of the Hive Lords
Organs of this lineage look like bits of white chewing gum, all chewed up and spat out. Once implanted with an organ of this lineage, all your pores begin to produce a sticky mucus. It takes double the amount of time for you to remove equipped armor or drop held items.

9. Lineage of the Tide Walker
Organs of this lineage have a tough exterior that looks like mother of pearl. Interfacing tubes poke through cracks in the shell. Once implanted with an organ of this lineage, you become slightly amphibian. If you don't keep your skin moist you begin to wither. You constitution score lowers by 1 for each day you go without moistening, you die when it reaches 0.

10. Lineage of the Grey-Bearded Emperors
Organs of this lineage are slightly hairy, sometimes fine as dander or bristly as a bear. Organs of this lineage have latent personalities trapped inside them, such as a (1. Bigoted Senator 2.  Blustering Sophist 3. Brilliant Sycophant 4. Beautiful Courtesan 5. Bold Tactician 6. Bespoken Politician 7. Bashful Priest 8. Beneficent Governor). The personality is confused, a pagan, and used to being extremely privileged. The personality has a 1 in 8 chance of asserting itself over yours when you wake from sleep or any other unconsciousness. Increase this chance to 6 in 8 if you are under the effect of mind altering drugs.

Organic Landscape 3, Igor Vitkovskiy, (Source)

11. Linage of the Eternal Academy of the Love of Understanding
Organs of this lineage are pocked like meteors and porous as a sponge. Once implanted with an organ of this lineage, your body begins to slowly turn to marble. You will be completely immobilized in 2d6 months. You get +4 to your AC and you speed is divided in half when your are halfway to being fully frozen. Basilisk stomach acid is one of the compounds which can reverse this effect.

12. Lineage of the Divided King
Organs of this lineage are desiccated, deposits of salt and calcium cling to them. Once implanted with an organ of this lineage, you begin to mummify. After 1d4 weeks you will be technically dead but cling to unholy life until you are destroyed or the organ is removed. In this state, you are vulnerable to water. For every round you are in contact with water, you take 1d8 damage.

13. Lineage of the Twisting Hermit
Organs of this lineage look like crushed beer cans but darker, more muscled. Once implanted with an organ of this lineage, your limbs become incredibly easy to slice. Whenever you are hit by a slicing attack, there is a 1 in 8 chance that one of your limbs will be severed from your body.

14. Lineage of the Sun Horned Bull
Organs of this lineage are a rich orange, like a brilliant egg yolk, and almost perfectly, uncomfortably, round. Once implanted with an organ of this lineage, you must wake and sleep with the sun. When the sun sets you fall to sleep and when it rises you awake.

15. Lineage of the Unfortunate Weaver
Organs of this lineage are dark purple, web-like threads hang from them. Once implanted with an organ of this lineage, you become a locus for evil, as if tied to it by invisible threads. The Undead, devils, demons, and all other abominations and ne'er do wells can detect your presence up to 6 miles away. They will be drawn to you.

16. Lineage of the Angelic Viscera
Organs of this lineage sprout thorn-like spikes, make a dull moaning sound, and have a sense of moral duty. If an organ of this lineage is in the presence of a subject who acts more righteously than its current host, it will bust from the host's body and implant itself in the new subject.

17. Lineage of the Reborn Garden of Paradise
Organs of this lineage have a pair of small wings sprouting from them, always flashy with gorgeous feathers. Once implanted with an organ of this lineage, your body begins to weight much less. Strong gusts of wind will lift you off your feet unless you are weighted down.

18. Lineage of the Triumphant Temple
Organs of this lineage are slightly architectural. Cartilage structures like roofs, columns. Arteries like elaborate doorways. They also smell like incense. Once implanted with an organ of this lineage, you become the seed of a dungeon. Whenever you level up, you have a level in 20 chance of running off into the wilderness and assuming the fetal position. You sink into the earth, you expand, you deepen, monsters are drawn to you. Once the process is fully completed you are a dungeon with a number of floors equal to your level. The hazards and creatures have personalities similar to yours. Your own treasure and items and more can be retrieved from within.

19. Lineage of the Barren Legion
Organs of this lineage have a metallic smell. They are covered in lesions the shape of a shield boss.
Once implanted with an organ of this lineage, you cannot help but stand at attention when you hear trumpets, drums, or any other bombastic martial instruments being played.

20. Lineage of the Tyrant's Banquet
Organs of this lineage are covered with little lips, closed tight. From a few of them beaks poke out. Once implanted with an organ of this lineage, you develop strange cravings. Each week you crave (1. Fine Olive Oil 2. Caviar 3. Mollusks 4. Honey 5. Quail Eggs 6. Spiced Dates 7. Oranges 8. Sheep Eyes 9. Crow Guts 10. Octopus). If you cannot satisfy your craving within the week, the organ dies. You lose the stat bonus the organs provides and you will go into septic shock and die in 1d10 days if the organ is not removed.

This post is dedicated to Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi, the falasuf and physician

12 Marvels of Science

Illustration from a transcript of Muhammed ibn Umail al-Tamimi's book Al-mâ' al-waraqî (The Silvery Water)

Count yourself lucky to live in this day and age. In antiquity there were many marvels, but much was  lost. There was great glory, but it faded and fell away. There was much knowledge, but it was mixed with falsehood. Today we have the Way. As we step from the past into the future, we search for what embers of the old are worth salvaging. 

In 690, following the civil war, ancient treatises on light and the shape of the world and the workings of the organs were brought to the court of the Successor. 719 saw the secret of glass working rediscovered, recovered from the Women who protected it. Now, the Pale Folk study their bodies under the light of the full moon. Blood vessels and nerve endings are mapped, like rivers in a foreign country. Every city has a new hospital and every governor is advised by astronomers and mathematicians, whose fields did not exist a few decades before. Engineers invent luxurious fountains and pump black oil from the earth. The chemists distill tinctures or serums and pass them to physicians for experimentation. Just last year, a cataract was plucked from an old woman's eye, as if by magic. Today I saw a man with an astrolabe, and he taught me to understand the sky. 

There is light and conversation and music in the Successor's house. In libraries and schools creed and sect mean nothing, as all are brought together in the pursuit of what is good and what is true. Barren hills become observations, opening the pages of the heavens. The scribes labor over books and copies of books. They translate from papyrus to paper, from the old languages to the tongue of today. But don't just take my word for it, take a closer look.

 Linger after prayers, hear the dialogue among the congregants. They talk of infinity and space, eternal or finite. Buy sherbet and flavored ice in the market. It is sweet and cold and your tongue has never known its like. And look at these, 12 marvels of our modern knowledge, each an ingenious and extraordinary fruit, plucked from the orchard of the Way, growing in antique soil. 

Each would make a splendid gift, each would fetch a mighty price, each is unlikely to be found or even understood outside the Successor's domain. 

A illustration of al-Jazari's perpetual flute from his Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices

1. The Spy Glass: A brass tube with several lenses fitted inside. The tube is beautifully engraved with images of (1. Birds 2. Stars 3. Flowers 4. Horses). When held to the eye, the Spy Glass makes far away objects appear closer. The lenses can be removed and used as magnifying glasses.

2. The Water Clock: An unwieldy brass and lacquered wood box with the numbers 1-12 written on it and a small arm set into it. When water is poured into a spout in top of the clock, the arm moves across the face of the clock, from one numeral to the next in the course of an hour, resetting to 1 once reaching 12. The clock must be refilled and recalibrated once a month and can’t function in the cold.

3. The Hydraulic Servant: A small metal automaton dressed like a nomad from the north. It has a control panel on its back and is powered by water. The automaton can be programmed to do simple tasks, such as carrying things, opening doors, or grabbing things but it can only be programmed to do one task at a time. A liter of water is enough to power the automaton for a day, it cannot be operated in the cold. Secretly, the automaton has a little magic within, it cannot be detected as magical but will be effected by dispel magic, anti-magic zones, ect.

4. The Perpetual Flute: A contraption powered by water consisting of two flutes, two water reservoirs, and a tilting pipe into which water is poured. The flue can be programmed to play any tune or even make sounds like speech but quickly repeats itself. A liter of water is enough power the flute for a day, it cannot operate in the cold.

5. The King’s Water: An incredible acid which can dissolve anything but glass. A vial of the King’s Water can dissolve a 5x5ft cube of material over the course of 30 minutes.

6. The Hurricane Lantern: An oil burning lantern made of a wick held in a brass body protected by a glass dome. Its flame cannot be extinguished by winds and it trims its own wick via an ingenious mechanism.

7. The Nostril of Bahamut: A heavy weapon that uses a handpump and tube to cover enemies in sticky, burning oil. The Nostril’s maximum range is 20ft. The oil burns for 2d4 damage a round and cannot be extinguished by water. A burning target can smother the flames by taking a round to stop, drop, and roll. If the Nostril’s pilot wick is not ignited before being fired, it just covers targets in oil. Liquids other than oil can be propelled using the Nostril.

8. 1d6 Naptha Pots: Clay jars full of oil, sulphur, and nitrates plugged with a wick. Several seconds after ignition, the jars explode, dealing 2d8 damage to everything within 10ft of it.

9. The Compass: A magnetized piece of metal suspended in water and laid over the four cardinal directions. It always points north.

10. Physician’s Kit: A box the size of a suitcase containing the latest innovations in medicine. It is full of herbs to treat different ailments and infirmities, smelling salts, acid for cleaning wounds, and soap for cleanliness. A kit has 2d4 charges. Each charge can be used to restore 1 point to a damaged ability score, let a person reroll a save against disease, or restore a creature to consciousness. Additionally, the kit’s charges may have other uses. The herbs are good for cooking, for example.

11. 1d6 Lightning Bombs: Like a naptha pot but filled with pyrotechnic compounds. Explodes in a blinding flash which disorients sighted beings within 10ft of it.

12. The Hollow Needle: A metal tube with a plunger at the back and a sharp piecing tip. The needle creates suction. It can be used to carefully and precisely extract fluids or small objects, such as parasites or contaminants, from the body or just suck up liquid. The effects of potions administered via the needle last 2 rounds longer.

Further Reading: This post is inspired by the Golden Age of Science in the Islamic world, but the inventions on this list are not all accurate to the period. The telescope, for example, was invented in the 17th century in the Netherlands. If you'd like to know more about this period, I'd suggest watching Jim al Khalili's Science in a Golden Age series or just reading "List of inventions in the medieval Islamic world" on wikipedia as a start.

This post is dedicated to Kallinikos, the petroleum consultant 

Exquisite Organs of the Primordial Flesh

Organic Tile Material, Tyler Smith, 2019 (Source)

The thing came in a jar. Maybe the jar was copper, textured like snake scale. Maybe the jar was clay, painted with black figures of surgeons and their heroes. The jar was full of liquid. The thing sat in the sludge like an embryo in the yoke. It was inert, perfectly so.

You kept the jar in your saddle bag, it bounced with the bolts of linen and the sacks of spices. Your camel didn't seem to mind, it was just a few more pounds to carry. Later, when you had the time, once you had eaten the camel and the spices and sold the linen, when you lived in a house with clay walls right near the temple, you kept the jar on a shelf. A curiosity from the old days, you told guests.

That much was true. You were still quite curious. You didn't tell guests about the other jars. The growths that covered the wall, like tumors turned to stone with age. The vaulted ceiling from which the desiccated bodies hung, tubes pouring from their dry orifices. All that you neglected to mention. But you were still curious.

Cane in hand, you went to the temple. The initiates had no clue. They reminded you to seek fullness with the Lord and washed your feet and meekly speculated about what the words of the Prophetess had really meant.

With your finest robes, you went to the house of wisdom. The historians were full of clues. The jar certainly had telling but strange designs. The anatomists were confused, they took a sample of the fluid. You declined to give them any more. The astronomer did your horoscope and you left.

Putting a veil over your face, you went to the back of a house near the bazaar of irregularities, closed by an agent of the Commander of the Faithful when you were still nimble in the saddle. The Surgeon was pleased. She smiled wide. She brushed the dust from the Codex Universae Medicus and read. She read with a fervor, greater than reciting priests or debating scholars.The tantalizing words flowed down, forming summary and quotation. You could only grasp the important bits.

"The flesh and spirit have always been at odds." You heard "Their method was flawed, they looked out instead of in for the answer... The Complete Supremacy of Flesh... the mystery in ligament and spinal fluid... The flesh will prove to be the cure to itself...to bring about its own perfection.... I cannot imagine any way but the through the Exquisite Organs... there will be a great and primal healing."

She took the Exquisite Organ from the jar, the inheritance of the Primordial Flesh, the glory of the unbroken lineage of Sublime Surgeons dripping in its carefully synthesized amniotic fluid. She counted the lobes, tested the membrane, she saw that it was ready to live again. It was time to operate.

Illustration from a 15-16th century edition of Mansur's Anatomy 

Find Me the Primordial Flesh 

The genesis of the Exquisite Organs is unknown. They have may have been fabricated by the Surgeon-Priests of antiquity, torn from the carcasses of mythical giants, bred over generations for greater and greater perfection. They can be found in specialized jars or preserved in mummified corpses or harvested from the bodies of living hosts. Each is worth its weight in gold to anyone who knows what they're buying. 

Find Me a Doctor

We live in a time of great medical marvels but Sublime Surgeons are hard to come by. They may be found in the halls of schools of medicine and anatomy, or as practicing doctors in slums and border towns, or as the personal physicians of amirs and aristocrats. Most surgeons could attempt to implant the Exquisite Organs if able to educate themselves about the proper procedure by reading the Codex Universae Medicus. Realistically, the chance of rejection is quite high but we can waive that for player characters.

20 Exquisite Organs

1. The Intercession Gland (Emergency Petrification Gland - inserted at the brain stem)
When you are reduced to 0 hitpoints, your body (but not your equipment) rapidly turns to stone. In this form you remain alive and regain hitpoints as if you were resting. When you receive magical healing of any kind, your body becomes unpetrified. A trained magic user can tell how to reverse the petrification process by examining you for a few minutes.

2. The Dragon's Tongue  (Noxious Parotid Gland - inserted in the cheek)
Your saliva is highly acidic. 10 minutes of sustained spitting is enough to melt a fist sized amount of any material as or less durable than metal. If your spit gets in somebody's eyes, it blinds them for a minute (but does no damage). Additionally, you can digest most organic materials, including bone and tough chitin. Food loses all its flavor to you.

3. The Mighty Cord (Fibrous Colonic Reinforcement Complex - inserted in abdomen)
You have a cable made of your calcified and extended large intestinal tract which comes out from your belly button. The cable is about as flexible as rope and as strong as steel, it is 20ft long. If the cable is tugged with a great deal of force, it will be pulled out and take most of your internal organs with it, killing you almost instantly.

4. The Blood Furnace (Energetic Myeloid Stem Cell Sack - inserted in the chest)
Your blood is highly nutritious and about as flammable as lamp oil. 1 hp worth of blood is equivalent to one ration or a flask of lamp oil. You smell absolutely delicious.

5. The Sanguine Mind (Aggressive Lymphoid Stem Cell Sack - inserted in the chest)
Your blood is independent and semi-sentient. When outside your body, you can command your blood to flow and climb in any direction. If your blood contaminates the blood stream of another creature, you can control their body for a minute.

6. The Wizard's Marks (Spell/Marrow Interfacing Complex - inserted in the back)
Your flesh can function as a storage space for spells. When you are the target of a spell, you have a 1 in 6 chance of absorbing it. You can store 1 spell this way and can cast it as if it were a scroll. You can have this organ implanted multiple times. Each implantation increases the number of spells you can store by 1 and increases your chance of absorbing spells by 1 in 6.

7. The Flame Body (Explosive Lymph Nodes- inserted in arms, abdomen, and thighs)
When you die, or when you will it, your body explodes as per a fireball spell. You can will your limbs to explode independently of the rest of your body, treat exploding limbs as a fireball with 1/4 the area of effect and damage. If your limbs/body are regenerated, they maintain their explosive powers.

8. The Priest's Chamber (Adaptive Bone Cavity - inserted in the abdomen or thigh)
You have a box hidden in your body. The box sits under a layer of skin than can be peeled back and is about as strong as a metal safe. There is a code word, chosen by you, that opens the box.

9. The Legislator's Larynx (High Resonance Larynx - inserted in the throat)
You can raise your voice to incredible volumes. When you shout, you can be heard clearly as far as 6 miles away. Once a day, you can shout loud enough to make all non-deafened creatures in your immediate surroundings spend the round clutching their ears in pain. This makes your voice hoarse and you can only whisper for the rest of the day.

10. The Gourmet's Womb (Gastric Reproductive System- inserted in the abdomen)
By eating a raw chunk of a creature's flesh, you can begin to gestate a clone of it in your implanted womb. The clone takes 1d6 weeks to fully gestate, becomes an adult in 3 days, and dies a week after that. Gestating a non-humanoid clone this way is ill advised, beware under cooked food.

Organic Squish, Rafał Mierzejewski, 2018 (Source)

11. The Queen Bee Gland (Apisized Sudoriparous Glands - inserted in the chest)
 You produce a highly adhesive, waxy substance from your pores. The substance remains sticky for an hour after secretion. In a round, you can produce enough of the substance to cover an item or small object. In 10 minutes you can coat a 5' square area in the substance.

12. The Progenitor Gland (Intra-Organ Reproductive Gland - inserted in the abdomen)
This gland encourages other Exquisite Organs to reproduce. Other organs take 1 month to gestate another of their kind in the host body and each organ can only ever produce 1 offspring this way. New organs must be removed from their birth-host and inserted in another before they can reproduce again.

13. The Tortoise Skin (Super Keratinous Dermal Glands - inserted in the neck)
You can no longer feel pain or pleasure. All physical damage you take is reduced by 1d6 and if you would take 2 or less damage, you instead take none. However, you cannot tell how much health you have. The GM records your HP. You or another person can determine how much HP you by spending a round performing a medical examination.

14. The Slave Collar (Controlled Electric Impulse Generator - inserted at the brain stem)
Your body can be controlled using a special device (usually discovered alongside the organ) which looks like a remote control made of bits of bone, copper, and carefully chiseled obsidian. If this device is destroyed, the organ sends an electric shock to your brain, killing you instantly. The device cannot control you or fry your brain if you are more than 100ft away from it.

15. The Alabaster Arsenal (Rib Honing Complex - inserted in the chest)
Your ribs stick out from your chest slightly, all are sharp. You (or anybody else) can pull out a rib to use it as either an arrow, crossbow bolt, or a dagger. Rib weapons disintegrate one day after being removed from your body. By default, you have 24 ribs, you regenerate 1 each day. If more than 8 ribs are removed from you in a single day you take 1d6 damage.

16. The Philosopher's Gallbladder (Saturated Colic Gland - inserted in the abdomen)
Your body produces dark green gallstones. These stones transmit sound from within 10ft of them to your abdomen, from which the muffled sound can be heard. If a stone is cracked open, perhaps after being thrown from a sling, it produces a terrible scent which burns the noses of creatures with acute senses of smell and dissuades those with human-like senses of smell from being it its presence. You can produce 1 of these stones each day, they last for a week outside your body before disintegrating, and their stench lasts for a day.

17. The Piercing Eye (Hyper Sensitive Photoreceptor Groups - inserted behind eyes)
You can activate specialized sensors in your eyes which allow you to see by heat in the dark and see through solid matter. You can see through roughly 2-3ft of most materials but not through metal. You can activate your eyes 3 times a day for 10 minutes each time.

18. The Ocean Lung (Independent Respiratory Lobe - inserted in the abdomen)
You have an extra lung with extraordinary capacity and endurance. You can breathe smoke, ash, and poison gas without risk to your health. You can inhale enough gas/smoke to fill a 15ft radius sphere and can keep the gas inhaled for as long as you can hold your breath.

19. The Usurper Organ (Considered Immune to Categorization - inserted in the chest)
You have a small tube erupting from your chest, it resembles a flower and a mouth at once. When you feed the tube with the marrow of a whole humanoid body, your body begins to regenerate quickly, returning you to full health. If fed once a week, your body begins to age in reverse, returning to a state of unnatural youth in the course of a few months. If not fed weekly, your body ages rapidly. If not fed for a month, you die of old age.

20. The Meteor Heart (Copperous Mesenchymal Stem Cell Sack - inserted in the chest)
You are, essentially, a human electromagnet. You can activate and deactivate your magnetism at will. While active, metal objects up to 20ft away are pulled towards you and will stick to you. Items small enough to be held in one or two hands are pulled at a rate of 20ft per round, larger items are pulled at a rate of 5ft per round. Weapons pulled towards you make an attack against you (as if they had +0 to hit) when they come in contact with you.

This post is dedicated to Hunayn ibn Ishaq, a Nestorian at the heart of the Abbasid Golden Age

Treasures from the vault: d20 magic items

Before the pale folk of Beshara conquered the world and brought it under the true light of The Lord, there was an age of darkness. It was an age of tyrant rulers whose cruel rituals edified false deities, the traitor archons who spurned their duty to the eternal kingdom of grace so that they could rule their own domains. All the people of the world suffered in slavery, the goods of their labor were squandered, and all kingdoms were set against each other in bloody struggles for power.

Despite the sorry state of civilization, there was light in this age too. Antiquity has produced some of the most ingenious and wondrous items known on earth, which wizard-artificers in our current age cannot equal. Some of these marvels have been recovered and preserved, while others await discovery in the desert. So come, open the vault and feast your eyes on the treasures of the past which lay within.

Ruins of Balbeck, Miner Kilbourne Kellogg, 1844

1. Cups of Judgment: A silver goblet with the name of a crime engraved on the bowl. Any person who drinks from the cup and has committed the crime written on it is struck dead as soon as the liquid passes their lips. The cup is obviously magical and has a judgmental aura. The cup has a conservative disposition and there are rumors that a ritual exists which can change the crime written on the cup. Most cups have one of these crimes written on them to begin with:
1. Murder
2. Adultery
3. Treason
4. Blasphemy
5. Corruption
6. Lechery
7. Cowardice
8. Arson
9. Theft
10. Immodesty

2. The Book of Denial: A book with a perfect black cover and 2d10 perfect black pages. If a secret, an idea, or a spell which nobody else knows is written on one of the pages and the page is destroyed, the idea/secret/spell is annihilated from the universe. It cannot be discovered or otherwise generated again. If multiple people know the piece of information you want to annihilate, they all must sign the page before it is destroyed.

3. Eternal Ice: A ball of ice about the size of a fist that never melts. Aristocrats would carry these to keep cool on hot, dry days. One ball of eternal ice can keep a small room refrigerated.

4. Perfect Nails: Long, thin nails of an unknown material. They were once used to hold together effigies of tyrant kings and false gods. Any two things connected by the nails cannot be separated without first removing the nails.

5. Gardener's Locket: Scholars speculate that the Lord used this to make all the oddest things on earth. A simple locket of silver and dark green stone. One half is styled as a sprouting seed, the other as an embryo. If the fruit or seeds of two different plants are placed together in the locket, it can turn them into a hybrid with the characteristics of both species.
d20 sample characteristics:
1. Cactus spines, the plant can be used as a weapon
2. Aloe oil, the plant's juices can heal burns
3. Ironwood bark, the plant is very durable and a good construction material
4. Bamboo metabolism, the plant grows very quickly
5. Nightshade poison, the plant induces vomiting if ingested
6. Corpse Flower perfume, the plant has an odor which animals dislike
7. Pine resilience, the plant can grow in very cold climates
8. Potato's root, the plant produces edible tubers
9. Fey pollen, the plant's pollen causes drowsiness and memory loss in some cases
10. Coconut seeds, the plant produces very durable seeds
11. Grass roots, the plant has deep roots that can hold any soil together
12. Paradisaical fruit, eating one of the plant's fruits restores 1 hp
13. Thistle's itch, contact with the plant makes people start itching themselves frantically
14. Starfruit magic, eating a diet composed mostly of the plant's fruits grants long life
15. Joshua tree resilience, the plant can survive in dry and hot environments
16. Barley hardiness, the plant can grow in poor soils and could be a staple crop if widely cultivated
17. Sandalwood scent, the plant has a lovely fragrance and burning it draws supernatural beings
18. Morning Glory blooms, the undead cannot pass strings of the plant's blooming flowers
19. Mangrove resilience, the plant can grow in swamps and salt water
20. Tobacco resilience, the plant is almost immune to insect infestations

6. Merciful Linen: A fine white cloth which no dirt, no oil, and no blood can stain. It was woven by a priestess on her wedding night. She smothered her husband with it the next day. Wounds inflected by weapons wrapped in the cloth cause no pain.

7. Turtle Lamp: An oil lamp made from a turtle's shell embellished with gold leaf and a copper handle. Spells cannot be cast in the light of the lamp and it burns away illusions.

8. Tyrant's Seat: A fine pillow embroidered with gold thread. It is a supremely comfy pillow, anybody who sits on it will find themselves unable to rise from it without succeeding a saving throw.

9. Vessel of Alliances: A bronze bowl engraved with pagan figures, one side shows a city at war and another shows it at peace. The metal of the bowl is corroded, gone all green and black. If two people mix their blood or spit in the bowl they cannot lie to each other and can't knowingly betray each other (i.e reveal their location to an enemy, lead them into an ambush, kill them in a 'hunting accident', ect)

10. Great Drake's Teeth: A bag of black fangs ripped from the mouth of an unfortunate monster a long time ago. Planting the teeth in the ground like seeds will cause them to sprout into tall, strong people with skin the color of gold, bushy black hair, and eyes like a cat. They will obey whoever sowed them but are extremely warlike and will constantly petition their rulers to resort to violence. Once properly equipped, there are few forces in the world who could defeat these people in battle.

Illustration by Jesse Balmer, 2019

11. Composite Creature: An enchanted construct, or perhaps a gift from a forgotten deity. This creature can shape shift into kind of mundane animal at the whim of its master. It is easily frightened and has a particular fear of open flames. If the composite creature panics, it turns into a (roll 1d6) 1. Elephant 2. Tiger 3. Mouse 4. Songbird 5. Horse 6. Viper and can't transform again if it is not calmed down.

12. Infinite Mint: A device that spelled the eventual financial ruin of a whole empire. It looks like a mortar and pestle but is much heavier, a strong horse is needed to transport it. When a coin is ground in the mint, it divides into 3 coins. The copies are almost undetectable but evaporate in 1d6 months. The copy coins cannot be further split by the mint.

13. Spell Cuirass: An iron cuirass styled to look like a lithe torso. It is decorated with intricate lapis lazuli patterns and bits of metal from a meteorite. A magic user can sync themselves to the armor by sleeping in it for a night. Whenever the synced magic user casts a spell, a copy of the spell is cast on the wearer of the cuirass. If the spell is an area of effect spell, the area is centered on the cuirass wearer. Spells can't be copied this way unless the cuirass has a living wearer, their vital force is required to completes the mystical circuit.

14. Golem Stamp: A fine stamp with pagan writing on it. Stamping an object with the stamp causes it to become animate for 1d6 days. The animate object can be given a single command which it will try to fulfill for the duration of its life. The object becomes inanimate if the stamp is wiped off.

15. Flood Jewel: A dark blue gem set into a dull silver ring. It sounds like the ocean when shaken.  If the gem is broken, water gushes out. The gem contains enough water to flood a whole village for a few days or submerge an entire level of a dungeon.

16. Surgeon-Priest's Blade: A strange combination between a knife and a saw. The handle is bone and engraved with pictographs of burial rituals. Limbs chopped off by the blade remain alive and can hop/crawl around for directed by the will of the limb's original owner. After 1d8 days pass, the limb must be reattached or it dies.

17. Drum of the Revel: A huge drum made from the hide of a sacred ox. People who hear the drum beats cannot help but start dancing and singing. The revel can only end when the drummer faints from exhaustion as they too are compelled to keep beating the drum.

18. City in a Jar: A perfect, tiny city, in a glass jar. It once sat in the crown of a powerful queen and survived the fall with only a single crack running down the side. The people in the city are quadrupedal, have aquamarine skin, and do everything with their dry, dexterous tongues. The city itself is in perfect order and harmony. All of its institutions are moral and incorruptible, all its inhabitants are kind, and everything is in perfect repair. You can enter the city by running your hand along the crack in the jar and slipping inside. By resting a day in the city, you'll be restored to full hp +1d4 extra. If outsiders stay in the city any longer their influence will cause it to fall into chaos.

19. Keystone of Ur: A huge carved stone plated with copper. A building or wall that incorporates the keystone into one of its arches cannot be leveled until the keystone is removed.

20. Spying Bowl: A well polished silver bowl, the bottom has a mirror-like quality. If you slosh the blood, hair, or skin of a person along with some water in the bowl the mirrored bottom with reveal that person's deepest fears and anxieties.

This post is dedicated to Shiduri, the wise tavern keeper

Clear River Jellies

I wanted to write a monster that played with the information available to PCs. So I wrote this, the Clear River Jelly.

Look at these dangerous fellows.
(Source)

The marshes of the lower river Sargal are home to carnivorous, gelatinous creatures called Clear Jellies, River Jellies, or sometimes Glass Jellies by foreigners who know what glass is. They start out tiny, just eating insects and algae, but once they grow in size they become a threat. The jellies aren't fast but they've developed a few adaptions which help them hunt. One, they're clear, even large ones can barely be seen floating down the river. Two, their bodies are full of a numbing agent which dulls the sensation of them digesting you. Fish often swim through River Jellies and don't realize they've being eaten until its too late, same thing happens to unlucky swimmers. Large river jellies are pretty brave and pretty clever. They'll wait by the river's edge to snatch prey, they'll bust holes in the hulls of boats and drag them into the water.


River Jelly
Large ooze, unaligned
Armor Class: 8
Hit points: 45 (6d10 +12)
Speed: 10ft., swim 15ft., climb 10ft.
 Str 16 (+3) Dex 6 (-2) Con 15 (+2) Int 4 (-3) Wis 6 (-2) Cha 1 (-5)
Damage Resistances: acid, fire
Condition Immunities: blinded, charmed, deafened, exaustion, frightened, prone
Senses: blindsight 60ft (blind beyond this radius)
Languages --
Challenge: 2 (450 XP)

Amorphous. The jelly can move through a space as narrow as 1 inch wide without squeezing

Invisible in Water. The jelly is invisible while fully immersed in water.

Anaesthetic body. Any creature which takes acid damage from the jelly must make a DC 13 constitution saving throw. If it fails, a feeling of numbness fill its body and it cannot tell how many hitpoints it has. This effect lasts for an hour. If a player character is effected by this trait, the DM records their HP for them. If a creature suffering from this effect takes acid damage from the jelly again, it must attempt the saving throw again. If it fails, it is paralyzed until the end of its next turn.

Actions:
Pseudopod. Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 5ft., one target. Hit: 9 (2d6 +2) bludgeoning damage plus 3 (1d6) acid damage.

River Jelly can be made into a potent pain killer if a pound of it is boiled for half a day and then strained through a piece of cloth. A creature who drinks the resulting clear-ish sludge may ignore one of their minor wounds and must make a DC 14 constitution saving throw. If they fail their save, the jelly is too effective and they become numb and are unable to tell how many hitpoints they have. Both of these effects last a day.

Most people who live along the river know how to properly process River Jelly and will show the PCs the procedure if they manage to catch or collect a River Jelly.

I want you to imagine aggressive ballistic jelly. Now that's good D&D.
(Source)

This post is dedicated to Hannah Glasse

Beware the Nameless Dead

Last time I wrote about the self, how it is constructed, and how it can be broken. Here are some monsters who actually use those rules.

Who am I? I want to be you.
(Source)

When a person dies their self breaks and flies across the dreaming world. All the parts are frightened, spinning and whirling, all except memory.  It knows where to go. It flies across the vast expanse of the dream, over the river of death, to that cold, quiet land from which none return. The other parts are less astute, they have other places to go, bodies of descendants to take root in, halls of ancestors to return to. If a shaman does not guide these parts to their proper home then they might return to their useless skin and try to make it move. Shuddering to half-life, cold, unwhole. This is how the Nameless Dead are born, usually.

Sometimes when a hard fall is taken, when an arrow goes right past the heart, when you lose your breath for just a moment too long your whole self is thrown in disarray. Are we dead? Do we live? You might lay for days, in a shallow grave, not sure of anything. When your parts are all in order, when you rise again, you are missing something. You are not quiet yourself. Not alive. Not whole. Your memory has gone ahead to the land of death without the rest of you. You too are one of the Nameless Dead.

The Nameless Dead wander the world aimlessly. Their faces are all strangely blank, impossible to keep fixed in your mind. When war rages across the steppe or strikes through the forests of the upper river, they follow the war path like scavenging animals. They dig up the recently dead, feeling over the cold flesh, sucking up what dregs of vital energy remain. They wander through looted homesteads, basking in the ashes of extinguished fires. Their skin is like ice, to feel it is to have your life ripped from you, into them. They do not know they can do this. They just grab and grab, so amazed to feel warm again, to be touched again like this. Is that what it felt like? Before?

How soft you are
Love and Pain by Edvard Munch, 1895

They also scavenge for memories. They cannot remember, by definition, but the other parts of the self can still recall being whole. It’s an odd sensation. Each piece knows something different about the past, they cannot agree. They are desperate to feel like a self again, to be somebody instead of this nobody. They pick up trinkets and mementos. They tell themselves stories. This is my walking stick. It was my mother’s walking stick. Now it is mine. Me. I am me. These things become full of memories, heavy with connections and false recollections. One of the Nameless Dead could talk to you for hours about themselves, all their stories, all their friends, in all their objects so lovingly held. They like to hear about your memories too. They can see it, fluttering in you, making you who you are. Somewhere, deep inside themselves, they know they can pull it out of you, like hot air being sucked out of a tent when the flap is opened. It is an instinct not a choice. They must be whole again.

1 in 12 of the Nameless Dead are technically alive, just clutching to life. 

Nameless Dead

Medium Undead, Evil

Armor Class: 12

Hitpoints: 17 (4d8)

Speed: 30ft
STR 12 (+1) DEX 14 (+2) CON 10 INT 10 WIS 12 (+1) CHA 1 (-5)

Damage Immunities: Poison, Necrotic
Condition Immunities: Charmed, Exhaustion, Poisoned

Senses: Darkvision 60 Ft., passive Perception 11

Languages: Whatever it knew in life

Challenge Rating: 1 (200 XP)

Tell me your name. The Nameless Dead have advantage on all attack rolls against creatures whose name it knows. (A note on names: Any title which would cause your ears to perk up if you heard it counts as your name. Even a pseudonym may become a real name if its internalized.)

Still hanging on. All effects which detect the undead (such as Detect Good and Evil) have a 3 in 6 chance of failing to identify the Nameless Dead or of identifying them as living if possible.

Actions:

Draining Touch. Melee Weapon Attack: +2 to hit, reach 5ft, Hit 2d4+2 necrotic damage. The Nameless Dead regains hitpoints equal to half the amount of damage dealt by this attack. Any physical contact a living creature makes with the Nameless Dead (such as grappling it or being grappled by it) causes this attack to automatically hit them. So long as contact is maintained, the living creature is hit by this attack at the start of their turn until contact ends.

Eat Memory. The Nameless Dead may attempt to steal the Memory of an unconscious humanoid it can touch and whose name it knows. The humanoid must succeed a DC 16 Charisma saving throw or lose their memory. Without a Memory:

Your proficiency bonus is -2

You lose all armor proficiencies

You forget everything you know and you cannot form new memories. You can only remember things by using objects and mementos to fix information in your unwhole mind.

All your acquaintances forget you. All your friends, family, enemies, and allies have a 4 in 6 chance of forgetting you. All your closest friends and any animal companions you have have a 2 in 6 chance of forgetting you. Even if you are remembered by a person, your face seems vague and indistinct.

If the Nameless Dead is killed, then the memory it has stolen escapes and is lost in the spirit world, a shaman can retrieve it in exchange for  10d20 gp in gifts and one favor, to be rendered at a later date. The Shaman will then enter a trance to find and return the missing piece, which takes 1d6 days.

 A shaman can also return the stolen memory to your self over the course of a few hours for half the cost if you can bring the Nameless Dead, stolen memory and all, to them. This ceremony will destroy the Nameless Dead. 

Something odd happens when a number of the Nameless Dead get together. They start talking to each other. They share false recollections, fake histories, and come up with a story to explain why they're all out here, missing something. They act the part, picking up or making the appropriate props and giving admittedly hammy performances. When they come upon the living, they try their best to seem normal but their hunger for a memory often overtakes them, especially if their guests refuse to play along or ask too many probing questions. They'll drop the act and fall upon you mercilessly, shouting "WHAT IS YOUR NAME YOUR NAMTELL ME YOUR NAME PLEASE."

If the party encounters a group of the Nameless Dead, roll a d10 on the table below to determine what delusion they abide by. Consider that it might at one point have been true. 

1. They raise tattered banners. They think they are warriors.

2. They wear the skulls of horses. They think they are shamans in a trance.

3. They drag loose reigns along the ground. They think they are lost horsemen.

4. They carry bags of stones and dry grass. They think they are merchants

5. One goes ahead of the rest in a tattered robe. They think they are a chieftain and their retinue

6. They wear wreaths of withered flowers. They think they are a wedding party, but nobody is sure who the bride and groom are

7. They all show off broken chains and burst ropes. They think they are escaped slaves

8. Each has a distinct marker of identity, a busted harp, a rusty sword, ect. They think they are heroes from an old story

9. They carry a bloated corpse (it might be a calf) wrapped in rags. They think they are children looking for a place to bury their mother.
10. They drag the dry carcasses of sheep and dogs behind them. They think they are shepherds.

I am me. Don't you remember?
(Source)

Don’t be naïve. Having the wrong memory is worse than having none. There are scars vividly remembered which don’t appear on the skin. There are thoughts deeply known which the will cannot construct. There are ghosts of passions which the follower cannot understand. There is a terrible sensation. It’s hard to describe. You are you. You are not you, you are somebody else.

Once fitted with a stolen memory, the Nameless Dead wanders back to a home it never knew. It is remembered, connected to false relatives and friends. A beloved daughter returns from battle. A child taken in a raid finds his way back home. A lost farmhand stumbles out of the bush. A spurned lover comes crawling back. Were they this tall? Was he this thin, this pale? Did she talk like that? Was her skin always this cold? Does it really matter? We’re all safe, together again.

This is how a Name Eater is born. It grows fat off of siphoned life force and learns better how to control its growing powers. It is aware of its double nature, of the incongruity within its self. It knows it should be someone else. Here are all these freshly familiar faces. They look so happy. One of them must have the right piece. 

Name Eater

Medium Undead, Evil

Armor Class: 13 (natural armor)

Hitpoints: 52 (8d8+16)

Speed: 30ft
STR 14 (+2) DEX 16 (+3) CON 12 (+1) INT 10 WIS 14 (+2) CHA 8 (-1)

Damage Immunities: Poison, Necrotic
Condition Immunities: Charmed, Exhaustion, Poisoned

Senses: Darkvision 60 Ft., passive Perception 12

Languages: Whatever it knew in life

Challenge Rating: 4 (1100 XP)

Tell me your name. The Name Eater has advantage on all attack rolls against creatures whose name it knows.
Whole Enough. All effects which detect the undead fail to detect the Name Eater or identify them as living if possible
Vampiric Aura. Living humanoids who take a long rest within 200ft of the Name Eater lose 1 hitdice and cannot regain hitdice by any means while within the aura. The Name Eater gains all hit die lost this way and may spend them to use its other abilities. (whenever an action calls for an amount of hit dice, noted as hd, to be rolled, those dice are spent. xhd notes that any number of available hitdice of any size are to be rolled.)

Actions:

Draining Touch: Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5ft, Hit 3d6+2 necrotic damage. The Name Eater regains hitpoints equal to half the amount of damage dealt by this attack. If hit by this attack, the target must succeed a DC 14 Constitution saving throw or have a hit die stolen by the Name Eater.

Siphon Life (1 per day): The Name Eater attempts to pull the life from 1hd creatures who are up to 1hd x 5 feet away from it. Each creature must make a DC 14 Constitution saving throw. A target takes xhd necrotic damage on failed save and half as much on a successful one. The Name Eater regains hit points equal to the amount of damage done by this ability.

Revitalize: The Name Eater consumes some of the energy it has stolen to heal itself. The Name Eater regains xhd hitpoints.

Dislocate (1 per day): The Name Eater may break it's self into it's five parts, becoming a gust of wind with a fly speed of 40ft and dropping everything its wearing. After 4hd rounds it reforms. 

Twist Memory (3 per day): The Name Eater manipulates the memory of a humanoid within 20ft of it. Roll xhd, the Name Eater may alter the target's memory in one of the ways below depending on the result of its roll.

1-3. The Name Eater may alter a major detail in a memory (i.e who you were speaking too)
4-6. The Name Eater may erase a memory (i.e you forget the whole conversation)
7-10. The Name Eater may implant one of its own memories in the target
11-12. The Name Eater may implant a compulsion in the target (i.e a desire to visit the deep wood)
16+. The Name Eater may do all of the below to the target and change their name

 The target of this ability will not notice that it's memory has been changed, but the Name Eater can be seen doing something strange, as if its casting a spell.

Swap Memory (Recharge 5-6): The Name Eater swaps its memory with that of a humanoid it can touch unless they succeed a DC 16 Charisma saving throw. Unconscious creatures do not get a save. The Name Eater may use Swap Memory as a free action against any creature it reduces to 0 hit points. When two people swap memories they exchange:
-The contents of their memories
-All proficncies (skills, weapons, ect)
-Facial features, but eyes remain the same
-Identities and names (i.e if you have Gertrude's memory, you think you are her)
Acquaintances, friends, and enemies will recognize a person based on their whose memory they carry but strangers may notice incongruities (you look awful young for a woman whose says she's seen so many seasons). Don't think of a memory swap as the minds of two people being sorted into different bodies. Rather imagine it as if two new people who should not exist have been created out of old parts. Though identity and the associated memories remain stable, those parts of a person are forced to interact with a different personality. The follower and will of Donar the Barbarian may react differently to the mournful memories of Lord Debonair's lost lady love.What experiences may have caused Lord Debonair to become hopeless and limp may fill Lord Debonair in Donar's skin with brooding and rage.

Each face is my own.
The Kiss by Edvard Much, 1897

A Name Eater is a jealous force, more like a shadow that moves through people than a person itself. All it wants is to say is "I am me" and know it is true. It constantly switches memories, sorting them into wrong bodies, causing others to suffer from the same anguish as itself. It can't fully comprehend what it's doing. It just does. It can only steal recollections, dim awareness that something is deeply wrong are borrowed and cycled through the same persons over and over again. The Name Eater does not know that each attempt to repair itself has failed. It sees the contentment it was starved for drain out of the faces of those it thinks are family. It loses track of which memory went where. These faces are all so marred now. Who are you? Are you me? Are you my mother, my friend, my brother? I'm so sorry. Let me fix you, let me try. Who are you?  Are you me?

Name Eaters know they can fight and how but they do not want to. If they can tell that someone is close to uncovering their horrible secret that they themselves don't fully understand they will try to isolate and neutralize them by altering their memory or stealing it. If they are threatened with violence they will be cautious about using their powers, they try to conserve hitdice. If out numbered or outgunned they will be quick to dislocate themselves and flee, usually picking up another memory somewhere else.

Notes on running a Name Eater: For each npc who might have their memory shoved into a player's character, write down a few formative memories, opinions, and important relationships to help with role playing as well as whatever proficiencies they have. A farmer or laborer might be trained in nature, animal handling, or survival. The monster manual states that commoners have 1d8 as hitdice but I think 2d4 works a bit better for the purposes of running a Name Eater.

To help keep track of how many hitdice a Name Eater has stolen, you can make a simple table with all the different dice sizes, like so:

Stolen Hitdice

d4s:

d6s:

d8s:

d10s:

d12s:

Possible Scenarios/Adventure Seeds:

1. Simple, an isolated farmstead has a Name Eater in its midst. The residents have noticed the strange goings on, they think the farm is haunted by an evil spirit living in a nearby mound.

2. A group of soldiers is transporting one of the Nameless Dead which had stolen a companion's memory to a shaman. It became a Name Eater during the journey and now the party is tearing itself apart with paranoia. 

3. A Name Eater has stolen the memory of a shaman and understood what it is. It wants to get its true memory back from beyond the river of death. 

4. A string of murders, people are reported dead and then seen killing others. A Name Eater is behind the slaughter. 

A person is a question. Now answer me.
(Source)

What cure is there?

Name Eaters leave wakes of agony and grief behind them. Memories which don't fit their other parts, scars of loss and distrust. Sure, life can go on with mismatched memories but nothing will ever be the same. A shaman can help, but most don't know how to break the self apart, only how to heal it. The Lapuans have shamans who would be willing to perform the correct rites and certain unscrupulous magicians, those who deal with evil spirits, also know how to crack the self and put it together again.

If none of these options are available, there is a more dangerous route. If two people with swapped memories each take near lethal damage at the same time then there is a chance that their memories will be knocked out of them and return to their correct owner. I'd say that chance is around 3 in 6, 4 in 6 if you manage to get both people unconscious at the exact same moment. 

Take care, my dearest
Mother and Son, Osip Braz, 1896

Not much can be done for the Nameless Dead. If their memory really is gone beyond the river, only a miracle could bring it back. A mother's lamentation can often do the trick, it's happened before. A great spirit would have to intervene though, One Eyed Chief, Mother Huldra, Sky Father.

But it's not always that bad. There's a 2 in 6 chance that the lost memory is caught in the fens and the stones around the river, or denied passage across the cold water. This chance rises to 5 in 6 if the Nameless Dead is technically still alive, just clinging to life.

It is dangerous to go that far through the dreaming world. A shaman will demand a great favor indeed and his journey will take 2d6 days. They'll return absolutely exhausted but warmth, life, will begin to return to whoever it is who has been made whole again. They'll spend 1d4+1 weeks in a coma but they can make a full recovery. There is a 4 in 6 chance that they've brought something back with them from the land of death, roll 1d4 on the table below, the item will found clutched in their left hand. 

Items:

1. A feather from Desires-to-Know. A large raven’s feather which glitters all colours in the moonlight. Hold it and you will remember everything perfectly. Burn it and inhale the smoke and you will learn one secret. Roll 1d4: 1. The location of a forgotten treasure 2. The secret weakness of a powerful monster 3. The name of an ancient ancestor 4. The greatest fear of a great leader

2. A stone from the bank of the River of Death. It is round, blue, cold as ice. If you clench it in your hand its chill flows through your body. The dead and the undead will recognize you as one of their own.

3. A swan feather. Long and white, running your finger through the barbs makes them crackle with cold electricity. Carry it on you and your self cannot be broken in the mortal world. However, death is closer to you. To succeed a death save you must roll a 13 or higher.

4. A piece of a hero. He was chopped up and thrown in the river a long time ago. This is a part of him, his viscera and his bone. Anybody who eats it is put into a coma forever. They do not age and cannot die. If a whole village and all its livestock mourn for the comatose person for a week they will wake. They will tell you death was the best sleep they've ever had.

This post is dedicated to my friends. You know who you are. 

Gifts from One Eyed Chief

One Eyed Chief has many names in many countries. Famed One and Grey Beard. Raven Feeder and Terrible One. He has been everywhere and remembers everyone. He is patron of the ecstasy of madness, the terror of war, and all those who seek power above all. Outlaws, kings, and magicians call to him and he answers. He appears as an old wanderer wearing blue, an ancient chieftain dressed for war, a huge wolf with black fur, and a raven with a mouth full of entrails. He always has a single piercing blue eye with a rectangular pupil. Sometimes he uses a glass eye to trick those who know him. He comes to our world to sow discord, discover secrets, and test the hospitality of men. He will refuse all food offered to him but accepts drink readily. He is selfish and anxious and vicious. He kills those he favors and those who draw his attention. He eats their flesh as they hang and takes their spirits to his hall.

You will be noticed by One Eyed Chief if you do any of  the following:
-Provide food for the ravens and wolves by causing men to turn on each other
-Find victory on the field of battle through incredible bravery
-Protect or advance the cause of people who are not gender conforming
-Make great sacrifices for knowledge
-Quickly gain worldly power  through cunning
-Betray your allies for personal gain.

One Eyed Chief can be contacted by hanging an animal from a tree and slitting it open. A chieftain is the best animal to offer him but he will accept bulls, horses, and slaves in a pinch. If ravens descend to eat the sacrifice you know he has accepted it. You will be visited in your dreams. You will find yourself in a dark hall with a dying fire. One Eyed Chief will speak to you from his throne in the darkness, his eye smolders like a dying star. His voice is soft but firm and flows through the hall like music. He knows every secret and tells you to look out for yourself first. His laugh is insincere and more akin to raven's squawking.

If you have pleased One Eyed Chief and advanced his many causes, you will be visited in your dreams. He will appear as an old man and meet you on the road of the dreaming world. He will offer you a gift. He has collected many strange and dangerous things over the years. He knows just what will temp you and just what you need. Or just roll a d20 and see what he has for you. He will kindly explain how to use his gift and then you will awake with it clutched in your left hand. Nobody on watch could tell you how it got there. 

1. One-Eyed Chief's Battle Standard: A huge Raven in profile on a red field, the banner is tattered at the bottom.

When you raise the standard of One-Eyed Chief as an action all your allies who can see and hear you gain the following for the duration of combat. The banner does nothing if you do not bellow your war-song:

-Advantage on all attack rolls

-Advantage on all saving throws

-Gain +3 AC

When you raise the standard of One-Eyed Chief, you gain the following:

-You are vulnerable to all damage types

-You make all saving throws at disadvantage

-All attacks against you are made with advantage

-If you drop to zero hp, you die instantly

If the banner is dropped during the battle, due to death, cowardice, or any other reason, all your allies are treated as if they themselves were raising One-Eyed Chief's standard and lose all its benefits. This ends if it is picked up again.

When the battle ends, huge ravens descend and feast upon the corpses. If you ever flee a battle, the standard evaporates. If the carrier of the banner turns his back on the enemy, the standard evaporates. Treat such a situation as if the banner had been dropped.

2. A Flask of the Inspiration Mead: A drinking horn with a leather cap filled with a sweet-smelling golden liquid. There are three sips of mead in the horn. It tastes vaguely of blood.

When you drink the mead your body and mind feel like they are on fire. You are bursting with energy. You do all work twice as quickly, you will win any battle of wits you engage in, you can answer all questions on lore perfectly, you can compose verse which is magical, timeless, and profound, you are charming and attractive in ways nobody could match. This effect lasts 10 minutes and when it is gone your mediocrity becomes painfully obvious.

When you drink the mead in battle, you enter a battle trance like no other. You gain resistance to all damage types, advantage on all melee attack rolls and damage rolls, your speed increases by 10ft, you make one extra melee attack as a free action against any target whenever you make a melee attack, and you must attack the nearest creature each turn. This effect lasts for a minute or until you’re knocked unconscious. When the rage ends, you gain 3 levels of exhaustion.

3. The Wanderer’s Whetstone: A smooth, spherical stone which can be easily held in one’s hand. It can be used to sharpen melee weapons which do slashing or piercing damage. It takes 5 minutes to sharpen a single weapon and grants that weapon +2 to damage rolls for a day. If used on farming implements, the sharpened tools can do work twice as fast for a day.

After seeing the stone’s work, envy and greed are aroused in people’s hearts. If any fight over the stone, their bladed weapons become sharp and loosed from their sheaths, causing horrible lacerations. People of low status, slaves, and peasants have their throats instantly slit if they fight over the whetstone.

4. Skin-Stealing Dagger: A dagger with an incredibly sharp blade set into a fine wooden handle. Just touching the blade draws blood but causes no pain. The knife can be used to take the skin off an unconscious being. This process takes an hour. The victim will not notice until they awake. If you aren’t wearing a skin (not excluding your own, you can use the dagger to remove it), you can assume the empty skin of any other creature to take on its appearance and statistics, though your eyes remain the same. Empty skins are tempting to lost souls and evil spirits who will steal them to do mischief and inhabit them to do violence. This is a very crude way of shapeshifting. Any skin removed by the knife can be exited 1d4 times before it rips and is made unusable. If you give a skilled shaman 5d10 gp in gifts he can prepare a skin so that it is usable for a year. If you do not have a skin, your speed is 5ft, you have only one hand, you have disadvantage on all d20 rolls, and you will die in 2 days.

5. One-Eyed Chief’s Wolf Skin: The hide of a huge wolf, with leather straps and a clasp so that the hide can be secured around your shoulders. When you pull the skin over your head, the hide wraps around you and you assume One-Eyed Chief’s wolf form. You have black fur but your eyes remain your own. You can remove the skin as an action.

You are a large beast with 65 HP, 14 AC, 60ft Speed

STR 18 (+3) DEX 15 (+2) CON 15 (+2) INT 12 (+1) WIS 12 (+1) CHA 7 (-2)

Keen Hearing and Smell. You have advantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on hearing or smell.

Pack Tactics. You have advantage on attack rolls against a creature if at least one of your allies is within 5 ft. of the creature and the ally isn't incapacitated.

Call of Nature. When you taste the blood of a person for the first time each day you must make a DC 10 Intelligence saving throw. If you fail it, your wolf from loses one intelligence permanently. If you lose 9 intelligence this way, you lose your memory of your former self and cannot take off the wolf skin. One-Eyed Chief will give you a new name.

Actions:

Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: (2d6 + 4) piercing damage. If the target is a creature, it must succeed on a DC 13 Strength saving throw or be knocked prone

Howl. Once every two weeks, you may call One-Eyed Chief’s pack. They have the same statistics as your wolf form but lack Howl and have an intelligence of 3. The members of the pack are as follows: Devours the Sun, Hunter of Shepherds, Destroyer of Boundaries, Hungers in Winter. It takes 3 days for the pack to arrive to an urban location, 1 day to arrive at a rural location, and in the deep forest they arrive in a minute. The pack will follow your orders but are hostile to all civilized life. They wish to devour all people and all animals who live behind fences and within walls. If you return to your human form they will turn on you, all except Hungers in Winter. The pack will follow you for a day before dispersing, killed wolves can be called again in two month. Hungers in Winter will try to speak with you in her wolfish tongue, trying to achieve higher orders of speech, trying to warn you of something.

When you return to your human form, you are filled with an animal rage and an endless hunger. The smell of blood drives you into a rage. The sight of the deep forests makes you desire to run on all fours.

6. One-Eyed Chief’s Stave: A quarter staff of ash wood who’s worn tip looks like it once held a spear’s point. Treat as a +2 weapon against those of lower social standing, cannot be used to attack outsiders or guests. If you are an outsider or exile, all people are above you in social standing. The staff is richly carved with 18 scenes describing the abilities it possesses. For example, the 2nd scene depicts a man breathing life into another and the 11th a mighty shield wall. The 18th scene is utterly indescribable but entrancing to gaze at.

If you wield the stave, you may do one of the following once a day:

1. Give a person complete confidence in their own success and thus advantage on their next saving throw, attack roll, and skill check

 2. Restore an unconscious person to full hitpoints

 3. Dull the edges of all bladed weapons held by nearby enemies

4. Burst all chains and break all locks, magical or otherwise, constraining you and your nearby allies
5. Strike an enemy with an attack which cannot miss

6. If you are the victim of a hostile spell, make the spell effect it’s caster instead as a reaction

7. Quench a fire of any size

8. Turn two enemies to friends or resolve any dispute between two people

9. Ensure any journey by water reaches its safe completion

10. Make any people wearing animal skins (as per One Eyed Chief’s Wolf Skin, Skin Stealing Dagger, or a druid’s Wild Shape) who you can see forget their humanity forever

11. The shields of nearby allies increase AC by 4 rather than 2 for 10 minutes

12. Revive the spirit of any person who has been executed or has died by violence whose body you can touch, they must answer your questions and cannot deceive you

13. Bless a newborn child so that they cannot die by violence, they can still be horribly injured and tortured, but it can never kill them

14. For a minute, you know the name of every spirit and mortal and can recognize them as if they were an old friend. You can solve every riddle with ease.

15. Sing a mighty ballad to call upon one of One Eyed Chief’s allies (of the GM’s choice)

16. Make any mortal fall in love with you for a night

17. Make yourself accepted as a friend would be by any person in any social situation

These are not spells or magical effects. They just happen.

7. A Piece of the Huldra’s Fire: A round gold coin with reddish tint. 30 men died to retrieve this one piece. It calls to its brothers, subtly pulling the hand which holds it towards the Huldra’s Fire, or to some other great or cursed fortune in a pinch. The coin can guide its holder through the most winding water routes safely. Weak willed people become obsessed with stealing the coin if they see it. 

8. Prince Killing Dart: A sprig of mistletoe sharpened to a wicked point. It will instantly kill anybody who is blessed with a great destiny or is heir to a great fortune or is an especially beloved child or is gaining popularity and power rapidly if it is successfully thrown at them. The dart requires two people to throw and one must be related to the dart’s intended victim. When these conditions are met and the dart is thrown, roll a d20, if the result is greater than 2 then the dart hits. Nobody killed by the dart can be brought back to life and their spirit cannot be consulted by any means.

9. Spear which Breaks Swords: An iron spear head. It is long and speckled with rust. A few old-words are carved along the point. If it touches a magic weapon, that weapon breaks into five pieces. The wielder of that weapon is cursed with bad luck so that they suffer a great loss. A loved one dies. A home is destroyed. A fortune is made forfeit. A battle is lost.

If the spear head is attached to a shaft, it is a +2 weapon and when thrown makes its damage rolls with advantage

If the Spearhead is attached to One Eyed Chief’s Stave, it becomes a +4 spear with all the abilities of both items. The old words engraved upon the spearhead become legible again: “It that Sways” they read. In addition, the spear returns to your hand when thrown at the beginning of your next turn.

10. The Helm of Terror: A circlet of oak wood with a lead disk fitted in its center. This is not the helm of terror; the true helm is your own fearsome aura which emerges from you when the oak circlet is worn. Your eyes look serpentine, your brow emits a bright light, and nobody can gaze upon you without succeeding a Wisdom saving throw whose DC is equal to 11 + your Charisma mod. If they fail they are terrified of you and flee in fear for 6 rounds. If they fail by 6 or more, they are paralyzed with fear and may attempt the save again at the end of their turn.

11. Atli’s True Arrow: The Rowing people know him as Atli, the wolf in the skin of a man. He was the greatest Khan to rule the Meager Country and the lands beyond it. Nobody is sure how he died. Some say he was killed in battle, murdered at his wedding, suffered a horrible nosebleed, killed by grief after being tricked into eating his own sons, ect.

This arrow might have killed Atli, it certainly remembers doing so. Dip it in the blood of an enemy and it will deal 6d10 piercing damage against them and cause massive internal bleeding, requiring immediate medical attention or magical healing. If the victim of the arrow is any kind of steppe nomad, you get advantage on attacks made against them with Atli’s true arrow.

12. A thread of Destiny: A few strands of thread the color of gold, about the length of your forearm. If you tie it around your arm, you are blessed with luck. You may reroll any d20 roll once a day. When you do so, you see the flow of destiny before you for an instant, it is horrifying. You die so many times.

If you take a lock of hair and burn it with the thread, the hair’s possessor will be cursed with bad luck so that they suffer a great loss. A loved one dies. A home is destroyed. A fortune is made forfeit. A battle is lost.

13. A Sip from the Well of What Once Was: It looks like water, held in a wooden bowl wrapped tightly in leather. There is very little left. Three drops of water remain in the bowl.

When a drop of water touches your tongue, destiny unfolds before your eyes. It looks like a tapestry on the loom, threads wind around the world, water runs up and down at once. It is circular and infinite. You can ask one question and it will be answered perfectly and in depth by visions of what is, what was, and what should be. Afterward, your dreams will be haunted by images of eternity and your demise.

Magic Circle by John William Waterhouse, 1886

14. A Severed Hand: Severed a few inches above the wrist, tendons dangle, bone is splintered, it was ripped off. It is four fingered and bears a distinctive tattoo: a ring of stars and strange symbols around the wrist. The tattoo glows blue when the hand is pointed North.

When you hold the hand, its fingers tap against your palm, communicating through the strange language of the body, it ‘speaks’ in the choppy scrip of a telegram. You can tap back as if an old instinct were returning. The hand will give advice.

The hand’s personality can be described thusly:

-Believes deeply in the value of honorable behavior and just conduct in life and war

-Trusts traditional power structures completely and wishes to defend them

-Obsessed with violence, particularly revenge and self-disfigurement. Violence against ourselves will save others and violence against others will save ourselves.

-Admires acts of personal sacrifice for the sake of others above all else

-Has a deep respect for those who carry through on their promises, even if doing so hurts them

-Hates exiles, outlaws, traitors, usurpers, liars, and One-Eyed Chief above all other criminals

-Terrified of wolves

The hand is most likely to communicate to offer counsel during disputes which need adjudication, chastise dishonorable behavior, and lionize honorable behavior.

If you gain the liking of the hand and find yourself subject to its praise, you will be visited in your dreams by a tall figure in a heavy blizzard. He has eyes like blue stars and the stump of his right arm drips blood. His voice is deep but sounds like a whisper in the whipping snow. His name is Steward of the North Star. He is the lord of oaths, of laws, and of war. He defended his people, he saved them, but he cannot lead them. He is full of a rage to protect. He will offer to swear himself to you. It will cost you in flesh but you will make up for it in spirit. If you accept, you awake missing your left hand. It has been replaced by the severed hand, the fleshes are not separated clearly, the Steward’s pale skin mingles with yours. You gain the following:

-You now have 2 right hands

-You speak with the voice of justice, when you adjudicate disputes all parties will accept your judgment without contest, unless they are chiefs or mighty warriors

-When you turn northward and stand still, your eyes burn like blue stars. You cannot be moved against your will. You have advantage on all saving throws.

-If not wielding a weapon, the Steward’s hand will drop what it’s carrying and draw a weapon when combat begins. It refuses to wield spears or javelins or wands and will break them in twain.

-You gain proficiency with all types of swords, expect rapiers because they are too dainty. When making a weapon attack with a sword held by the Steward’s hand, treat your strength as if it were 22.

-You are terrified of wolves. You must flee from them if they are in your sight and their howls paralyze you with fear for a round.

-You are possessed by the spirit of Steward of the North Star. As long as you act in accordance with the Steward’s values, he will not interfere with you. He will ask you to justify any violence you intend to commit by his hand, appealing to him via his own views about violence will yield success most readily. In addition, he desires to execute outlaws, murder followers of One-Eyed Chief, and protect the weak preferably at great cost to himself. If your wills conflict, you must contest control of your body (via the Straits of Anián possession and ego rules). The Steward has an ego of 10. If the contested action relies specifically on the Steward’s hand, his ego is 11. If you do something deeply dishonorable (lie, cheat, steal), the Steward will not interfere, but will attempt to gain control of your body so as to choke you into unconsciousness. He will give you two chances before he tries to make you kill yourself.

Steward of the North Star will continue to speak with you in your dreams, weather you accept his fealty or not. He tends to lecture and addresses you with a mixture of respect, love, and contempt. If you die, One-Eyed Chief will return for the hand.

15. A Golden Torque: A glimmering armband beautifully made, etched with Old-Words and the faces of ravens. There are plenty of these to go around.

When you don the Golden Torque it clenches around your arm and cannot be removed. You become one of One-Eyed Chief’s chosen, you have forged a bond of debt. He owns you.

Wearing the torque makes you a born leader. You gain the following.

- Men will be eager to swear fealty to you.

-Even a modest dowry can secure you a marriage into a powerful house.

-You can cast command twice a day using charisma as your spellcasting ability.

-You can sing a powerful war-song as an action, giving your allies +2 to their attack rolls and damage rolls for the round so long as they can sing the chorus

16. The Bolt which Killed Friend of Deep Waters: A crossbow bolt with a barbed tip and blue fletching. It was fired into the shoulder of the primordial singer, Friend of Deep Waters, who could sing flesh to wood, water to honey, and sand into grain.

If you have the bolt’s tip embedded in you, you cannot cast spells or speak and no guardian spirits can be called to your aid. This lasts after the bolt is removed and until you can be purified by a great water-spirit or travel to a distant land. After you are free of the bolt’s effect, you forget the time you were affected by it.

17. The Ashes of a Powerful Witch: Contained in a skull filled with wax. The ash seems to glitter slightly. If you eat the ash, you are put into a powerful trance state. All the realms of the spirit world are close to you and you may visit them as you please almost instantly. You can walk from the River of Death to One-Eyed Chief’s hall in a moment. One skull of ash can fuel 5 trances.

18. The Wanderer’s Cloak: A dark blue cloak made of wool. Donning it makes you appear aged and renders you unrecognizable to all who know you, so long as you act the part of the old grey hair. This disguise also fools spirits and magic cannot reveal your true identity. Effectively you now have two separate identities. While wearing the cloak you gain the following:

-Carrion birds and scavenging animals will do your bidding if they are hungry. They expect to be fed.

-By tapping your walking stick against the ground three times, you may summon nearby minor spirits to your aid. House spirits, hidden-people, and land sprits can be called, but they may recognize your elderly form from somewhere else and do not like being bothered over and over again.

19. A Great Serpent’s Scale. One-Eyed Chief offers these in black and in yellow. There are many false scales taken from lesser wyrms but these are true scales from the great serpents themselves. Roll a d2.

1. Scale of the Jet Serpent. Grants the holder resistance to acid damage. You can breathe under water with ease.

Hanging on to it for too long causes lust for power to posses your heart. After a week, you cannot help but become enraged when commoners and slaves fail to show deference to you. You gain the following.

- Your chest is full of power. Once a day as an action, you can breathe a gout of acid in a 20ft by 5ft line. Any creature in the area must make a DC 12 Con saving throw. They take 2d6 acid damage on a failed save and half damage on a successful one. The acid leaves sticky globules of burning matter in the area it effected, turning it into difficult terrain for a minute.

-Your hands are full of sharpness. Your unarmed melee attacks deal 1d6 slashing damage.

After two weeks, you cannot help but become enraged when free-men and warriors fail to show deference to you. You gain the following.

-Your tongue is long and thin. You can speak to serpents and reptiles and they will do your bidding. If the creature is domesticated, it must to succeed a DC 9 Wis save to resist your influence.

-Your chest burns with potential. You can now breathe acid in a 30ft line. It’s save DC increases to 14.

After a month, you cannot help but become enraged when chiefs, shamans, and heroes fail to show deference to you. You gain the following.

-Your hands are even sharper. Your unarmed melee attacks deal 1d8 slashing damage.

-Your chest is bursting with energy. You can breathe acid in a 40ft line. It’s save DC increases to 15. It deals 2d8 acid damage. If a target fails its save against your breath attack and is wearing armor, their AC decreases by 2 until they can get their armor repaired.

-Your flesh blossoms with gleaming black scales. Your unarmored AC increases by 2.

After a month and two weeks, you cannot help but become enraged when your closest allies fail to show deference to you. You gain the following.

-Your chest is like a great engine of destruction. You may use your breath attack 3 times a day.

-Your eyes are that of a great serpent. Once a day as an action, you may reveal your horrible nature to all creatures who can see you. They must succeed a DC 16 Wisdom saving throw or be overwhelmed by fear, they have disadvantage on all attacks and ability checks and they cannot move closer to you willingly. They can repeat the save at the end of each of their turns.

After another week, your humanity is gone. Your blood is poison to all life. Your mind has evolved into a completely serpentine intelligence. You recall your other life, but is the life of another person, a collection of memories which only happen to be in your head. You are the Great Jet Serpent now. You cannot suffer these fools any longer. You leave one night with all the loyal, submissive, followers you can rally.

2. Scale of the Gold Serpent. Grants the holder resistance to poison damage. You can breathe water easily.

Hanging on to it for too long causes greed to posses your heart. After a week, you cannot help but covet gold, you cannot bring yourself to part with it. You gain the following

- Your chest is full of power. Once a day as an action, you can breathe a cloud of poison gas in a 10ft cone. The cloud lingers for 2 rounds, or until winds blow it away. Any creature who begins their turn in the cloud, must make a DC 12 Con saving throw. They take 2d6 poison damage on a failed save and half damage on a successful one.

-Your hands are full of sharpness. Your unarmed melee attacks deal 1d6 slashing damage.

After two weeks, you cannot help but covet silver, you cannot bring yourself to part with it. You gain the following.

-Your tongue is long and thin. You can speak to serpents and reptiles and they will do your bidding. If the creature is domesticated, it must to succeed a DC 9 Wis save to resist your influence.

-Your chest burns with potential. You can now breath poison in a 15ft cone. It’s save DC increases to 14.

After a month, you cannot help but covet copper, you cannot bring yourself to part with it. You gain the following.

-Your hands are even sharper. Your unarmed melee attacks deal 1d8 slashing damage.

-Your chest is bursting with energy. You can breathe poison in a 25ft cone. It’s save DC increases to 15. It deals 2d8 poison damage. If a target fails its save against your breath attack, it is weakened for a round.

-Your flesh blossoms with gleaming yellow scales. Your unarmored AC increases by 2.

After a month and two weeks, you cannot help but covet everything which is not made of a precious metal and has a value of at least 5 GP, you cannot bring yourself to part with such items. You gain the following.

-Your chest is like a great engine of destruction. You may use your breath attack 3 times a day.

-Your eyes are that of a great serpent. Once a day as an action, you may reveal your horrible nature to all creatures who can see you. They must succeed a DC 16 Wisdom saving throw or be overwhelmed by fear, they have disadvantage on all attacks and ability checks and they cannot move closer to you willingly. They can repeat the save at the end of each of their turns.

After another week, your humanity is gone. Your blood is poison to all life. Your mind has evolved into a completely serpentine intelligence. You recall your other life, but is the life of another person, a collection of memories which only happen to be in your head. You are the Great Gold Serpent now. You cannot afford to live with these thieves any longer. One night you slip into the water and are gone with all the loot you can carry.

20. A Missing Eye. It comes in a leather pouch filled with water. Its pupil is rectangular and misty with cataracts. Its optic nerve twitches slightly. It is not given lightly. It should not be One-Eyed Chief’s to give. But here it is, in your hand, watching you. If you hold the eye for 3 hours, your right eye’s iris begins to turn a dark blue, after 6 hours your pupil begins to elongate, after 10 hours you begin to go blind in your right eye. After 14 hours, your eye is identical to the one in the pouch. If you relinquish the Eye before this point, your eye returns to normal by next morning. If you do not, your new eye feels cool in your skull, it no longer blinks and cannot close but is always wet, dripping. When you try to shut your eyes, you still see. You see a vast ocean, a massive tree, the memory of destiny in a water droplet, and the intention of the future in a shard of ice. It takes awhile to get used to.

- You are blind in one eye. You have poor depth perception, you have disadvantage on all ranged attacks. Even your good eye’s vision seems foggy sometimes, clouded with visions. You have disadvantage on all perception checks relying on sight.

-No matter what skin he wears, you can identify One-Eyed Chief but you cannot reveal his identity to others. He will smile and wink at you.

-When you look a person in their eyes, you can see their plans for the future. Peasants see eternity stretched before and behind them but chieftains and heroes see change and upheaval and victory.

-If have spoken to a person recently, you can hold a possession of theirs, concentrate and see through their eyes. You can do this until it has been as three days since you last spoke with your target.

-You can sit in meditation for an hour under a tree. While you do so, you see visions of the past replay themselves over the landscape around you. You can do this once a day.

-You may whisper the name of a place, a person, or an object which is known you to the Eye in its pouch. For a week, the Eye acts as a compass and stares at the object of your desire. You must fill the pouch with the blood of a chief before you can use this ability again. It takes 1d10 days for the blood to be absorbed by the Eye.

If the Eye is removed from your person for an hour, your right eye begins to burn, you can feel your optic nerve dying. This continues for another hour, after which you are left with a dry socket full of dust. You lose all the abilities the Eye granted you, except the blindness. A cataract like ice will form over your one good eye in a month and render you blind. One-Eyed Chief will come to reclaim the Missing Eye, where ever it is.

This post is dedicated to Dan McCoy, thanks for responding to my, admittedly rude, email. I hope the Gnosticism thing goes well