NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="BSF" data-source="post: 1213042" data-attributes="member: 13098">Hey!  This sounds like fun.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />I'll see what I can come up with.Looted from an Ithillid city:A silver dipped skull with 4 tentacle sized holes to the brain cavity and gemstones in the eye sockets.  The skull is roughly the correct size for a female elf.  Anyone holding the skull will feel tendrils entering their head, probing their brain - then pain and fear as a lamprey-like mouth begins to suck their brain out of their head - then blackness before they recover their sense of presence.They have just experienced the affect of a Pyschic Death Impression; one of the higher art forms for the mind flayers.  Normally, the taste of fear and death is a quick, temporary thing.  It is over all too soon, much like taking a very small sip of excellent brandy or having a bite of a masterfully done meal.  Death impressions allow a mind flayer to relive that taste over and over again.  Imagine savoring a gourmet meal as often as you would like, that is what a Psychic Death Impression is for a mind flayer.This particular piece of 'art' was a special project to capture the entire pyschic impression of a hated drow priestess, not just the moment of death.  The death impression is the first impression that occurs.  With practice, the characters can ignore it and begin trying to access the rest of the priestess' pyschic impression.  The next easiest impression to access is the battle with the mind flayer that the drow priestess lost.  In is completely from her perspective, including the uncertainty as her spells fail to affect her attacker, her pathetic pleas to her inferior goddess and her shock & dismay when she finally succumbs to a mind blast, stunning her long enough for the mind flayer to walk up behind her, insert it's tentacles ... this impression flows into the original impression.The drow's personality and memories were captured and bound to the gems in the eye sockets, in much the same way that a psicrystal is created.  However, it is merely a psychic echo without true sentience.  A disciplined mind can access the personality and ask it questions.   The personality has all the memories of the drow priestess.  So, the personality can provide information on Drow society, religion, military tactics, interactions with other races, anything that a high level drow priestess could be expected to know.  The Ithillid used this to learn more of the drow and how to defeat them.  As well, it is a neat toy at parties where he could pass it on to other Ithillid so they could savor the defeat of the drow as well.  If the personality realizes it is dealing with surface-worlders, all of it's disdain and spite will swell forth.  Perhaps some diplomacy would be useful to bypass the hatred that the personality has for those dwelling under the sun.  Alternately, a psionic character can tap into the power that bound the personality to the gems and dominate the personality.  In itself, this is merely an interesting item that gives you some ability to express more of the underdark, or other story-related elements.  It isn't particularly powerful in a combat-oriented manner.  You could throw some minor psionic bonuses onto it.  You could also change it so that instead of a drow priestess, it is a drow wizard, maybe an alienist that Agar might have a blast talking to.  Perhaps he can even learn some new spells from it?If you go with the personality echo angle, I would suggest that the personality has no active memories.  Each time a character begins to interact with it is, essentially, the first time from the perspective of the personality.  This makes it a bit less convenient to use since the characters will need to retread a lot of old ground as they they learn more.  It also lets you take a lot of that off-camera until you add a particularly spicy story morsel to the game.  Or, you can leave it with a developing memory, which brings in all sorts of fun.  However, you already have an aware personality item in the party.  No sense competing with the Shara ball for attention.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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