Coloman's Eye
It was one of the most hated rulers, King Coloman the Horrible,who had this beautiful Quartz orb made. He thought he would be able to see into the future, and he did, but due to his greed, he did not know the horrible fate that awaited him.
Full Item Description
Coloman's Eye is a circular orb of Milky Quartz, warm to the touch as if it was alive. It glows softly when in shadow or darkness, lit from within with magical werelight. There are many rumours circulating about it, including that it can tell the future.
History
The eighth King Coloman was known behind his back as 'Coloman the Horrible' and that was what he would go down in history as. His father had been a good king, never taxing too much, spending the taxes mainly on his subjects instead of himself, and ensuring that justice was relatively fair. But Coloman the Horrible soon became known for his wanton cruelty, torture, and extortion from rich and poor alike. The poor were reduced to near-starvation by the royal tax-collectors, and any attempt at protest as punished with lynchings and the burning down of whole villages.
The middle class, what there was of it, was brutally thrown back into poverty again, whilst the nobles risked being thrown into prison or beheaded on entirely concocted treason charges, so that the greedy King could take all their money and property for himself. The only men who truly liked the King were his well-trained, well-paid and well-indoctrinated bodyguards known as 'Coloman's Eyes' and it was they who twice prevented assassins from killing the King. The King became paranoid, not even trusting his Royal Mages. Instead he hired a foreign wizard of great skill from the lands beyond the ocean, promised to pay him well in jewels, and told him what he wanted-a crystal that could see as far into the future as he wanted.
From the royal mines a bolder of Milky Quartz was chipped by the slaves who had replaced the former well-paid free miners. It was then shaped and carved by the royal jewel firm, Grabitt and Runne. When it was the size and shape of a football, the wizard spent several months enchanting it in conditions of great secrecy, as the King did not want the news of what he was making to leak out. At last it was ready and he took it before the King and told him how to make it work for him. When he tried to explain the possible danger involved, the King gave a signal to his bodyguards who at once riddled the luckless wizard with crossbow bolts. The King had no intention of paying the wizard what they had agreed upon.
As the wizard's body was dragged outside the palace and thrown onto a pyre, the King touched the Eye, as he decided t call it, with both hands and asked to see several years ahead into the future, so he could find out who would plan assassination attempts and send his guards to deal with them. The Eye glowed softly and the King gained the knowledge he wanted, and ordered his guards to saddle up, find a number of nobles, and behead them on the spot without a trial.
An hour later he collapsed into a coma, a terrible look of fear in his face. There are those who say, rightly or otherwise, that the Royal Mages and doctors did not try as hard to bring him back to health as they normally would have done if he had been as good a ruler as his father. After a week during which he moaned and burbled, he died. It was decided that the Eye was to be taken outside the royal palace by two guards and smashed into shards with hammers and axes, but the guards secretly hid and then sold it without explaining what it was to a jeweller, getting the equivalent of a month's salary each in return.
Magic/Cursed Properties
The Eye can indeed tell the future, but at a terrible price. The deal that the wizard made with a powerful demon, was that an hour after it was used, the soul of the person who used it would be dragged into hell for as long as the amount of time seen into the future. So someone who only looked five minutes into the future would fall into a coma as if dead, then wake up after five minutes scared and possibly slightly mentally damaged but otherwise unharmed.
Someone who looked ahead for up to a week would spend that time with their body in a coma whilst their soul was trapped in hell, during which time his or her body might well have been buried alive. If the person had looked ahead more then a week into the future, then his or her body would die after a week, and his or her soul would be trapped in hell for good.
Plot Hooks-The Eye could be used by GMs to get rid of PC's who are god-modding and spoiling the game, or maybe a PC or an NPC could fall victim to it and the PC's must seek help before the victim dies, or even find a way to get into Hell to rescue the affected person.
To use it both hands are placed upon it and the user asks to see ahead X amount of time into the future.What it shows is genuinely the truth, not a lie.It will not however show the fate of the user-it only shows what goes on in the realm of life, not in the afterlife.
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? Responses (8)
'lit from within with magical werelight' - a nice phrase!
This is another lesson on the 'thou shalt not cast thine eyes upon the future'. It is nice that it is precise, but beware the price... and even if you are willing to spend a little time in hell (which is not such an easy thing as it sounds), you may not be able to react on the future when it happens.
However, it could be used as a device of espionage - if you know something will happen at a precise time (like, a secret meeting where the strategy of the war will be discussed), you can have a look without anyone knowing! This item is still very valuable.
A final warning to this interesting item: if you act to change the future, it will change... but not necessarily to your advantage.
Neat. Accuracy at a a somewhat incovenient price. What better way to destroy a cruel but paranoid tryant than to present him with such a gift?
Nicely done, well executed, good back story, and interesting points. Once you realize the limitation (either by story or personal event), you can work around it. Unless your people are good roleplayers, the GM will need will need to set the penalty or effect for being in hell/ (or insert place of beyond).
If there is a healer present, you can probably keep a person alive beyond that week. There are medieval records of coma victims being kept alive for a month on honey water and prayer. So with enough care, there might be possabilities, even without magic.
Paw up to you.
I like it. I've always enjoyed various future-seeing devices and plots, but this one has a nice twist. The price to use it makes its use horrifically limited unless you have good medical care to keep you alive.
I also appreciate the point made by manfred: if you act to change the future, you have no idea what the actual results will be....
well, this is certainly a good item and I enjoyed reading it. Looking into the future can be dangerous, double-crossing foreign wizards equally so. And the most important part is to always get all the instructions for your new uber-item before backstabbing your supplier.
You cant *$^$%^# with the future! the future *%$^#^$ with you!
This is quite a good item. Moons comments about the effects on the character is a good one - being in literal Hell should leave a mark.
I would at least have the user now have infernal _attention_. It is not often that a soul gets to leave that place. I'm reminded of an old Dragon magazine comic that showed a character who managed to escape hell one time being waited for by a 'welcoming' committee after his final passing..
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