CarrionGods: Death Mask Seance

An ancient practice, used in the early days of the nine rivers for those seeking to pass on their knowledge to future generations.

Since the advent of practices capable of simulating eternal youth, it has fallen out of favour. Its use still persists among those wishing to sleep away the centuries in a stupor interspersed by a few snapshots of consciousness.

Structurally speaking, the mask consists of a face sheet (usually carved from metal backed by skin), a nerve net (which overlays and connects to the cranial nerves of the wearer), and cranial spike, which inserts itself into the brain of the wearer. This deals two damage to the wearer and disables one eye if a socket is not made beforehand.

Within the fourth dimension, a closed loop life support system keeps the nerves alive but subconscious, it also features the actual mental storage itself.

When the wearer puts on the mask, they have very small parts of their mind overwritten by the previous bearer of the mask, allowing it to perform the act in their place.

Soul item - Death mask: This item preserves the contents of 3 mind slots from the creature that the soul belonged to, which can be used by the wearer of the mask. The mind within the mask can choose to inflict one psychic at the start of each round it is worn.

Due to the additional difficulties which arise from keeping the subjective experience of the self connected to the item, it costs 46 000s instead of the standard cost for soul items.

Older versions offer holistic preservation of the self, and every single mind slot they once possessed. These could only be created using the ancestral forms of soul magic, and as such the only surviving examples date from the pre imperial era.

Note - If using for other systems aside from carrion gods, 3 mind slots can store 3 skills, spells or languages inside them.

In addition the silver standard is assumed when listing costs, for DND this is meant to cost 46 000gp, not 46 000sp. Its sell value if found as treasure is not at all guaranteed to be anywhere near as much, and instead is entirely dependent on how famous and valuable the skill of the soul from whom the mask was made of is.

This post is part of the mask bandwagon, with Gin as my predecessor and my successor as of yet unnamed.