Desecration (Patreon)

Armor (shield), legendary (requires attunement)

A wretched sarcophagus, now an unrecognizable hollow shell of its former splendor. While holding this shield, you have a +2 bonus to AC. This bonus is in addition to the shield's normal bonus to AC. This shield can hold up to 7 charges and regains 1d6 +3 charges daily at dusk.

Pale Sense. Whenever an Undead creature comes within 100 feet of this shield, its eyes glow with a red light. A CR 8 or lower Undead creature that starts its turn within 5 feet of this shield must make a DC 16 Wisdom saving throw, becoming frightened of it on a failed save.

Deathly Whispers. While holding this shield you can spend a charge to cast the Speak with Dead spell. When you cast the spell this way, you and the corpse understand each other even if you do not share a common language. You can spend an additional charge before asking a question to compel the corpse to answer you truthfully.

Grave Calling. As an action while holding this shield, you can spend 3 charges to awaken the malevolence dormant within this desecrated relic. Each other creature within 20 feet of you must make a DC 17 Charisma saving throw. On a failed save, the target takes 3d10 necrotic damage and becomes tethered to this shield as shadowy arms take hold of their soul.

While tethered, a creature suffers the following effects:

• The creature must spend 2 feet of movement for every 1 foot it moves when moving away from you.
• Any healing the creature receives is halved.
• If the creature dies, its soul is sucked into this shield and cannot be revived except by the Wish spell and this shield regains a charge.

At the start of each of your turns you can spend a charge to maintain this effect. It ends early if you choose to end it (no action required), you drop this shield, or you become incapacitated. If a creature moves more than 100 feet from you, its tether breaks.

How monstrous an act it is to desecrate the final resting place of a weary soul. To contort it into a horrid mockery of its original purpose, as though it were nothing but a collectible to be put on display.

Is it any surprise that such dark and terrible malice would come to and fester within this sacred sarcophagus, an energy borne of those very same injustices? Yet even in its sorry and malformed state, it still seeks to fulfill some semblance of its original duty, grasping at the spirits of the deceased to harbor within itself. A charge now misshapen and twisted; and eternal curse in return for transgressions irredeemable.

Curated Curio [1/24]: Something Stolen from an Ancient Tomb - Control / Utility