There is a place where scarcely a tree covers the land and the people live in caves, in fear of the killing sun. In this land they perform foul sacrifices of human blood to appease the rain god, called Dur’tak. This started in days long past when the tribe was blessed with a miracle maker, a man called Yastar. As he grew the shamans of their tribe schooled him in all the ways of magic known to them. Yastar quickly surpassed his masters in their arts. When he knew his teachers had no secrets remaining, he left the village to find a place spoken of only in myth, Murtok Inneth, which means The Blood Oasis.
Yastar returned only one week later. He was silent for a full month in the house of his father. One day he sat up and looked at his father and said “I peered into the edge of the pool, I saw where the demons dwell. I know their thoughts.” On this day he made his first mask. He gathered clay from the riverbed and herbs from the riverbank. His father told him, “This will bring us no food. Go now, and hunt for me, as I hunted for you while you lay in my house.” But Yastar persisted in his efforts. He formed a mask of blue clay, with a gaping mouth and huge nostrils and no eyes. When the mask was done he gathered the people together and bade them to have a feast with what little they owned. He wore the mask and danced and gave thanks to Dur’tak. His father, hearing of the revelry, was incensed. He found Yastar dancing and took him by the collar and shook him. Yastar was angry; he shoved his father back, who lost his balance and tumbled out of the cave and down a cliff. As his father’s blood tainted the clay in the riverbed Yastar wept tears of anger and pain, and the clouds too split open and poured upon the people.
Yastar was horrified with what he had done. His people shrieked and jumped around the fire, lost in the frenzied rain dance. Yastar gathered his father’s body and took also the red stained clay and his father’s teeth, broken out during the fall. This time he crafted a death mask, and it was to be his last. He shaped it like a skull, and put the symbol for “the End” on it. Yastar’s people sacrificed him to their new god when he told them there would be no more dances, and they took his father’s death mask. This mask gives the power of the dead to the living.
Death Mask of Dur’tak: Major Artifact D&D 3.5
+10 Intimidate
3/day Death Knell (DC 13)
1/day Slay Living (DC17)
1/week Soul Bind (DC 23)
The Mask can store any number of souls. Each ally within 100’ gains the benefits of Death Knell when Soul Bind is used.
Strong Necromancy; CL 20th; Weight 2 lb.
