Echo of the Oni (Patreon)

Wondrous item, very rare (requires attunement)

This tattered leather cloak is lined with a blue, silken lining with gold and white patterns. The cloak contains the lingering power of an oni. While wearing it, you gain a flying speed equal to your walking speed and can hover, but can only fly up to 1 foot off the ground while doing so. In addition, you have advantage on Dexterity (Stealth) checks, and when you reduce a hostile creature to 0 hit points, you become invisible until the start of your next turn or until you make an attack or cast a spell.

Avatar of the Oni. You can use an action while wearing the cloak to draw more of the oni's power from the cloak. When you do, you cast a version of the enlarge/reduce spell on yourself from the cloak, using only the spell's enlarge option, with the following changes:

• You immediately gain 10 temporary hit points, which last until the spell ends.
• You're no longer limited in how high you can fly while wearing the cloak.

Curse. This cloak is cursed, a fact that is only revealed when the curse is extended to you. Each time you use the Avatar of the Oni property of this cloak, there is a permanent and cumulative 5 percent chance that the cloak's curse is extended to you. While cursed, the oni's malevolence takes hold of you: your skin turns blue and a pair of sharp ivory horns extends from your forehead, and you are unwilling to part with the cloak. In addition, the cloak casts suggestion on you at will (save DC 16), urging you to work toward whatever evil the oni's will desires at the GM's discretion. You remain cursed in this way until the cloak is targeted by a dispel evil and good spell, at which point your form returns to normal and the cloak loses this curse and the Avatar of the Oni property. A remove curse spell fails to end your attunement to the cloak or any of these effects, but does magically reveal the nature of the curse to the creature who cast the spell.

The giant-kin shogun rose from his throne of shattered spears to face the mysterious, drifting figure. They wore a scowling mask that leered from beneath a wide hat, and blackened horns lined the shoulders of a tattered, billowing cloak. The silence that fell between them told the shogun that his assassin must have already been slain.

With confident resignation, the shogun said, "So, that's the fate of my final loyal servant, it seems. I underestimated your mettle."

"Yes. You did. However, the assassin you sent was never loyal. Merely afraid," replied the figure. They lifted the mask and raised their head to reveal a soft face from beneath the hat. A blue-skinned human with small, ivory horns sneered at the shogun. While the face was distinctly feminine and new, the unbowed smile, skin, and horns were distinctly familiar. His oni servant, and the woman he'd so desperately wanted dead: fused.

The woman continued. "As you can see, we've...gotten close, since then. We've also discussed the matter of their employment with you."

The shogun chuckled, wryly, "Ah, so you've become the monster, then."

"Perhaps. But that was my price, and the peace the two of us made. For once, it seems the three of us are in agreement."

The shogun never saw the famed wyvern-hilted blade leave its sheath; only the warrior's fleeting shadow as darkness overtook his sight.