The Chain of Willing Sacrifice
PDFMagical Properties
Artifact. The chain worn by Zebadiah Zorandor when he sealed himself inside Charoth's prison. He still wears it. It cannot be removed from him by any means he has discovered, and he has spent six thousand years discovering things.
The Chain of Willing Sacrifice is a length of fine-linked silver chain, neither long nor short, that sits against the skin of whoever wears it as though it belongs there. It has no clasp. It was not put on in any conventional sense -- it appeared on Zebadiah Zorandor's neck at the moment he completed the seal on Charoth's prison from within, and it has been there since. He has tried to remove it. He has tried many things in six thousand years of sealed imprisonment. The chain remains.
Its function is not fully understood even by its wearer. What Zebadiah knows, from six millennia of observation: the chain marks him as the willing sacrifice that sealed the prison. It is the physical expression of a commitment made freely and completely, and it will not release that commitment until the commitment's purpose is fulfilled. The purpose was the permanent containment of Charoth the Corruptor. The prison is empty. The purpose is not fulfilled. The chain remains.
He does not resent it. He has had six thousand years to resent it and has moved past resentment into something that is either acceptance or the thing that comes after acceptance when you run out of other options. The chain is part of him now in a way that goes beyond the physical. He is aware that this is significant and has not yet determined all the ways in which it is significant.
Properties
- Willing Sacrifice: The attuned wearer cannot die while Charoth the Corruptor exists in any form. At 0 hit points, the wearer stabilizes automatically and cannot fail death saving throws. This property functions regardless of the cause of incapacitation. It does not prevent unconsciousness, injury, or suffering -- only death.
- Charoth's Presence: The wearer always knows the approximate direction of Charoth, regardless of distance or planar barriers. This knowledge is a sense rather than a precise location -- a feeling of wrongness in a particular direction, like a compass that points toward something that should not exist. The strength of the feeling increases with proximity.
- Recognition: Creatures that serve Charoth -- wittingly or not -- recognize the Chain when they see it, even if they do not consciously know what it is. They experience a strong instinctive aversion to the wearer and must succeed on a DC 20 Wisdom saving throw to make a hostile action against the wearer on their first turn. On a failure, they cannot act against the wearer that turn.
- The Cost: The Chain cannot be attuned by anyone other than Zebadiah Zorandor. It is his specifically, in a way that goes beyond attunement mechanics. Any other creature that attempts to attune to it fails and takes 8d10 psychic damage as they briefly experience what Zebadiah experienced in the prison.