Kuroth's Quill (Major Artifact)
Kuroth’s Quill was made famous through its use by the Oeridian thiefly hero god. His exploits are legendary throughout the Flanaess, and include the daring theft of Schandor’s Gavel while the Court of Essence (in the Overking’s Palace in Rauxes) was in session; the surreptitious removal of a necklace of flawless, matched emeralds from the coffin of Vlad Tolenkov (while the vampire slept); and similar perilous (and lucrative) exploits. Many attribute Kuroth’s skill to his discovery of the ancient quill that now bears his name.
Appearance: Kuroth’s Quill is a large feather quill, about 18 inches long, whose feather has worn thin and reedy over the years (the plume is approximately one and one-half inches across at the top). Some of the horizontal feather “spines” are missing, and the Quill appears to have seen better days. The spines themselves are a variety of cooler colors, with blues and greens predominating. Ink stains the lower two to three inches of the Quill’s shaft, and the spines begin to fan outward about six to seven inches up from the base of the shaft’s tip. The spines are shorter closest to the tip, and grow longer as they continue up the spine.
Recorded Powers: Kuroth’s Quill can be commanded to detect the largest treasure within 100 miles, and will act as an unlimited duration locate object spell within that range, allowing its wielder to home in on the target location through feelings of “closer” and “further” to indicate proximity. It can scan into other planes that intersect with Oerth (including the ethereal, astral, and shadow planes, as well as demiplanes). The treasure detection will cease once the wielder is within a one-half mile radius of the loot, and she is on her own from that point onward. This power can be used once per month, and will function continuously to provide directional and distance guidance, so long as the user doesn’t abandon the hunt. The owner can attempt to direct the Quill to ephemeral treasures (true love, the most handsome elf, etc.), but the Quill will almost always try to combine such activity with more profitable ventures (so that the wielder may end up finding the fairest maiden who happens to be wearing 25,000 gp worth of diamond jewelry, for example).
In addition to its primary power, Kuroth’s Quill has the following abilities:
- The Quill will scribe perfect dictation for any conversation within 120 feet, so long as the wielder can see the conversation participants (this includes through various scrying methods). This can be performed once per day. The Quill writes in the native tongue as spoken during the conversation, and does not translate in any manner. It can scribe in any language which has a written form, and can scribe on any smooth surface (from paper to sword blades to stone). The Quill does not require ink, and can scribe on wet surfaces as easily as it can on dry ones. It can be used to create tattoos of dictation (or of maps; see below). The transcriptions that it produces are in its owner’s handwriting.
- The Quill can draw a map of the environment in a 50 foot-radius around the wielder, for up to four hours at a time, once per week. It will extend the map drawing as its wielder moves beyond the edges of the map. The Quill does not draw pictures that are not maps (i.e., it will not create portraits or landscapes, etc.), and it draws from an overhead, omniscient point-of-view (as if looking down from above onto the area being mapped). It can also jot notes about specific map features if so commanded.
- The owner is immune to the effects of the maze spell and similar spell-like powers, and cannot be lost in a physical maze. The Quill will always point toward the nearest exit, and provides up/down directional guidance as well. This power can be used three times per month.
- The Quill can create a perfect copy of any written document’s writing content or of any map. The drawing style, penmanship quality, and signatures will be exact forgeries. The Quill does not copy the paper itself on which the original was created, however, nor does it age the drawing medium of its duplicates to match that of the original. This ability can be commanded twice per month.
- Once per month, the quill can be thrown as a slaying dart +3, and it will kill any creature that it hits (including constructs and undead), if the target fails to make a Fortitude save (DC 25); note that the Quill has no returning functions, and must be recovered manually from such rough usage.
Curse: Kuroth’s Quill inspires great faith and self-assurance in its owners, who feel that with its powers at their disposal, that there is no challenge that they cannot overcome. The DM should regularly boost the ego of the PC, and encourage her to take any risk, no matter how dangerous or ill-planned it seems. The greater the challenge, the more the DM should urge the wielder to forge ahead.
If the wielder does not employ the Quill’s treasure hunting powers and follow-up on them with looting activity at least four times per year, the Quill will drain a point of Wisdom, activate its detection powers, and encourage the character to seek out the largest treasure within its range. A Will save at CR 31 can resist this effect if the wielder is unwilling, with a penalty of –1 to –4 according to how many forays the PC has failed to attempt within the past year).
Current Location: Kuroth is known to keep his Quill safe, although from time-to-time he returns it to Oerth as a test for thieves throughout the world. Anyone who discovers the Quill may keep it for as long as they are able, once they find it, and survive the challenges of its recovery. The most reliable method for determining whether Kuroth has kept the Quill in his possession, or if he has secreted it away for the finding, is to contact one of his clerics (who are themselves notoriously difficult to find), and to steal one of their possessions. Having proved his worthiness, if the seeker then returns the stolen object to the cleric, he or she may request a boon in exchange, including information about the Quill. All of Kuroth’s clerics will honor such requests.
Suggested Means of Destruction: Kuroth’s Quill is its own worst enemy, but it has managed to escape from many situations that would have surely destroyed any other artifact. Some legends suggest that if the Quill copies all of the millions of texts in Gresil’s abyssal library (Gresil is the Demon Prince of demonic lore), it will be worn down into a non-magical nub through such continuous usage. Darker tales hint that if the Quill is used to slay Delleb, god of reason, intellect, and study, that it may cease to be.
