The sound of echoing footsteps heralded the arrival of the visitor. Wrapped in a deep blue cloak and carrying a simple staff, the visitor's features remained hidden from view. The only sound he made was the sharp clomping of his fine boots.
He was met at the gate by an elderly gentleman, garbed in simple robes and the Cross of Isha hanging over his heart. The priest unlocked the gate, slipping slightly in the rain-soaked mud, and allowed the visitor entrance.
"My lord Aba, we've been expecting you," the priest whispered.
"Very good, father Blake. Where is he?" the cloaked man responded, keeping his own voice low.
"In the west dungeon, my lord," Blake answered. "We knew not what to do with the likes of him! Most unnatural, I tell you!"
"Take me to him."
"Yes, my lord. This way, if you please." The priest shut the gates behind the visitor and hurried through the muddy courtyard to the main doors. The foul stench of unwashed beings greeted the two as they passed through the portal. The pair hurried past cells filled with howling madmen lost in their delusional worlds. They briefly paused at a statue of Isha. A turn of the Lady's arm revealed a hidden passage, and they continued. Behind them, the soft grind of stone upon stone sealed the portal behind them, plunging them into darkness.
"Andusk," Aba whispered, sparking light from the tip of his staff. The pair continued.
The pair arrived at their destination a few minutes later, at a series of iron doors. The priest opened the last door.
"Father, leave this place. Never speak of what you have seen thus far. Understand?" Aba asked the priest.
Blake nodded, "Are you sure, my lord? He is very dangerous."
"Begone, now."
Terrified, the priest backed out and hurried back the way he came, speaking a prayer to his goddess.
Alone, the cloaked man entered the cell and shut the door behind him. The cell was small and windowless. The light from his staff revealed a straw mattress, a couple of stools, and a half eaten meal of bread and cheese. In the far corner, a figure huddled against the wall.
Aba removed his cloak and hung it on a peg. With a word, he extinguished his staff. From a black leather pouch at his side he drew a candle and lit it. This drew the huddled figure's attention. Wild eyes watched the flickering light of the candle.
The creature before Aba was hardly what he expected. The robes it wore were once fine and luxurious, but now soiled and in tatters. Pale bluish skin sagged around its face and arms. It sat in a fetal position, swaying to the light of the candle. Thus huddled, Aba could hardly imagine the creature stood over seven feet in height.
"What do you know, Arcane?" he demanded. He sat before it on a stool, bringing his eyes level with the creature's.
"What do you know?" he repeated.
"It...it speaks...to me" the Arcane whimpered.
The Arcane's hollow eyes focused on the candle, its face slackened. "It spoke to me...spoke to me in my dreams. Told me, it did, forced me, it did, to its will, its bidding."
The Arcane swallowed. "They are its children, you know. The spelljamming helms we sell, they are its children. [1]"
Aba shifted, giving the Arcane a puzzled look. "Spelljamming helms are who's children?" he asked.
"It!" the Arcane shrilly replied.
"What is it?" Aba asked again, his voice calm and cold.
"What we found...what we stole...the Artists' Pride...the Artists' Doom.[2]"
Aba asked a third time "What is...it?"
"A simple thing, it is. But eyes can deceive, betray. It is not simple. It is not a thing. It is alive, watching, waiting, plotting. It...touches minds that touch its children, studies them, manipulates them. Plan it does, scheme it does, pawns we are."
The Arcane shuddered, "It watches us, uses us, its desires it does not reveal."
Aba moved the candle back and forth before the Arcane's eyes. The creature's wild eyes followed the candle's flickering flame every move. Rarely did they blink.
"Start at the beginning," he told the creature.
The Arcane smacked its lips. "It began a year ago. Chosen I was, to move...it. A simple chore, to fly to the moon...it...the only cargo. Guarded I was by Giff, paid in smokepowder, incendiaries. A simple task, a simple thing. I knew not the peril I faced. No one knew. It lies, it deceives, it tricks us all."
The Arcane was sweating profusely, but it paid no mind when beads of sweat slid into its eyes. Drops of drool escaped its lips. "In the hold it was placed, guarded by wards and loyal Giff. It...was a simple chair, a spelljamming helm, oak and gold, of common design. At night the trip was made, in the dark the hammer escaped the bounds of earth. Bold I was, daring to sit in the gilded throne, gleeful to ordering my Giff from it. The trip was long, I fell asleep, in...it."
"It...spoke to me. In my dreams. It took my secrets, my dreams, my soul. Told me I was its favorite. Me it would make wealthy, a prince, a king, an emperor. Peers would bow before me, the Spheres my empire, elves, men, and orcs my subjects. Beholden to me they would be, the King of Helms, the Lord of Spelljamming. For this, I, its agent, through me, its will to be known. I awoke, confused, puzzled, happy. Every night, it spoke to me, guiding me, using me. To me it gave its spores, its children, to plant. [3] Spelljamming helms, they became, they matured. [4] To elf and man, dwarf and lizardfolk I sold them. A fortune I made, a princely life I led."
"Many things I learned, secrets it told me. Before my eyes, under my care, helms matured, major helms from minor helms. [5] Techniques I learned, secrets, to change helms, make them grow, advance, mature. Must be ready, though. In a day a child cannot become a man. Minds they must touch, many minds, countless minds. [6] Hopes, dreams, desires, anguish, hatred, invention, loss, these helms must experience, to grow." The creature held its long, filthy hands before it, "With hands mine, polished I did, refurbished I did, refitted I did, helms ready. With polish crimson gold helms flourished. Damage repaired, mindwood used. [7] Major, minor became with my hands."
"Learn we did, helms abandoned mature on their own, change, adapt, take new forms. [8] Tough they are, need not us to new forms they find. New forms they seek, to be noticed, to be discovered, to be found. Touch new minds they must, to continue to grow, to continue to experience. Discovered we did, these old new helms, sold them again. To bards we sold harps and pipe organ, their music sending ships deep into the void. [9] Found we did, crowns, girdles, torcs, from afar they moved ships. Crowns we called them, sold them we did, clients paid well. [10] To elves chairs sold, could from the eye, ships they hid. [11]"
More drool escaped the Arcane's lips. The creature was oblivious to its surroundings, concentrating solely upon the flickering flame. It did not even acknowledge that Aba was in the room.
"Sometimes, change we forced, accommodated, tailored, helms to particular clients. Those only with means to pay handsomely did we so accommodate. The devourers of the mind, desired power, speed, size. To the devourers of the mind we provided, their spawnlings in a pool, shepherded them to worlds unseen. [12] Distant warlords sought, to tap their inner strength, fueled their celestial conquests. [13] To these and more, many more, changes made, accommodations made, debts paid."
"Advanced our helms did, sought new forms they did. Helms eldest unlocked their own secrets, disconnect from the parent, powerful they become. Own bidding they do, bargains they make, minds they do not need. Own masters of destiny they become, bound not by desire, need, want, of minds to touch. [14]
"Jealous my fellows were, of my success. They conspired against me, sought to dislodge me from my gilded perch. A mission I was sent, a delivery of helms, to the Diamond Sun. There, betrayed, I was seized, drawn into the spiders' web. Bound by magic, I could not escape. Tortured, beaten, abused, they sought my secrets. They tasted my flesh, tore it from the bone, a pound of flesh they took from me. Death I desired, death they denied."
Aba glanced over the Arcane, and noticed for the first time long, terrible scars along its thigh, barely visible through the shifting folds of its ruined robes. The scars were unmistakably the bite marks of a large predator tearing flesh from bone. He shuddered to think of the terror and pain the creature must have endured, to be eaten alive. He put the thought out of his head and concentrated on what the Arcane was saying.
"In a coffin they locked me, my life to sail the spider of death. Long we traveled, my life slipping away, consumed me their hellish helm did." The Arcane's eyes welled with tears or sweat, Aba could not tell which. The memories were becoming increasingly painful, he thought to himself.
"Weak I grew, pulled me they did, locked me away. To a dizanter they offered me, a price my head was to pay. Escaped I did, careless they had become. Stole a lifeboat I did, vanished to the void. Drift, I did. The helm, my bed was. It...spoke to me again. Tore from me all I knew, all I experienced. Tool, I was, to experience lifejammer, my soul to be consumed. Knowledge it needed, to know, secrets the spiders knew. Touched our minds did, saw the truth I did. All that was promised, a lie. Sold my soul was, Hell's helm claimed me. In my nightmares I saw, the lifejammer's form true, a grinning devil stared back at me. [15] Trapped it was, food I was to sate its endless hunger. It...saw as well. Understood, I did. Abandoned, I was. Forgotten. Erased."
The Arcane's breathing grew short and heavy. It started to shake heavily and it shrank away from the flickering candle. With a shriek, it covered its head with its frail arms. "No! No! Abandon me not!" Aba set the candle aside and stood.
"By the gods," Aba muttered.
The Arcane made a final deafening shriek, then lay still and did not move again. Aba cautiously approached the creature and kneeled next to it. It was already dead, its skin cooling fast.
Aba sighed. The creature was obviously insane and ranting. There was no doubt it was either lying or its mind was so shattered its was completely lost in its delusions. The enchanted candle allowed it to focus its mind enough to tell its tale, but probably wasn't powerful enough to break through its delusions. Still, even dead, it was extremely dangerous.
"I'm sorry, lost Arcane, but you must be forever forgotten, for the safety of my people" Aba said to the corpse. He extinguished the candle, gathered his cloak, and exited the room. He pulled from his pouch a key, and he locked the door. He turned the key twice. Above, the grinding of stone echoed through the chamber, followed by the soft sound of falling sand. Through the door's small window, Aba could see the cell fill with gray sand. He walked down the corridor, stopping at a keyhole on the opposite wall. He inserted the key and turned it twice. A stone wall descended behind him, sealing the end of the hall. Behind the wall, dropping debris filled the hall.
Aba looked down the hall. Six cells remained. Out of how many, Aba wondered. How many have been condemned to be forgotten? How many have been deemed so dangerous that their very existence threatened Greywolf? How many more would suffer a similar fate, erased from existence and memory?
He put such thoughts out of his mind, and walked back down the passage. He pondered the Arcane's wild tale. Was it possible that the Arcane created helms from a single, sentient helm? If so, is it so ruthless as to sacrifice an Arcane just to discover some secret of the neogi lifejammers? That was troubling, for if it would sacrifice an Arcane just for a secret, what would it do to his city if it discovered what he knew? The Artists' Doom, he called it. Not knowing why, the phrase sent shivers down his back.
| [1] |
Spelljamming helms sold by the Arcane are created by the One True Helm. The One True Helm can produce many seeds daily. See below for more details. |
| [2] |
The One True Helm manipulated the Reigar into a civil war that destroyed their homeworld in a war called the Master Stroke. The Master Stroke was carried out by Reigar in orbit aboard their living ships, the esthetics, and killed all of the Reigar remaining on the planet's surface. Shortly before the Master Stroke destroyed the Reigar homeworld, the Arcane smuggled the One True Helm off the planet to provide them with spelljamming helms to sell. |
| [3] |
Spores created by the One True Helm are very small, almost invisible. Before they are planted, helm spores appear as small seeds that constantly change color. The One True Helm sometimes sends the seeds into the Astral Plane, where they will drift until they encounter a wizard attempting to create a helm via a spell or scroll. It then plants itself into the helm, creating a true spelljamming helm that acts exactly as an Arcane-crafted helm. The chances of this happening are 1% per casting of the spell. |
| [4] |
The process of binding a helm seed to a chair to produce a spelljamming helm takes about 5 days. The helms produced will always be minor helms. A helm seed can be bound to any sort of chair or couch, so long as a being can sit in it. Arcane favor the use of large, ornate thrones to make their helms, but will use other pieces of furniture to suit their clients. For example, they sell helms made from fainting couches to centaurs races. |
| [5] |
Minor helms will develop into major helms or other helm variants, given time and contact with enough creative minds. |
| [6] |
The absolute minimum number of individual helmsmen that must use a minor helm before it is ready to develop into a major helm is one hundred. The Arcane will instinctively know if a helm in their presence is ready to change into a major helm. If a minor helm is used by one thousand individual helmsmen, it will spontaneously change into a major helm. |
| [7] |
Mindwood is one component commonly used by the Arcane in helm construction. It is a softwood that grows in a handful of very remote spheres. It has the effect of enhancing mind- affecting spells, granting a +2 circumstantial bonus to the difficulty check of all spells and effects that require a will save (2e: -2 penalty to all saves vs. spell). It has no effect on the helm's abilities, but does help the spores to grow and develop naturally. |
| [8] |
Abandoned helms will alter their appearance spontaneously in order to appear more appealing to adventurers. To do so, a helm must be left abandoned for a period of at least 100 years. There is a 1% chance per decade after the first century of abandonment that the helm will spontaneously change into a helm offered by the Arcane (major, minor, crown of stars, ki, or bardic, or some other helm type designed by the DM). |
| [9] |
Bardic helms are always large and immobile, usually pipe organs, floor harps, or harpsichord. |
| [10] |
The Crown of the Stars are helms that appear as crowns, belts, torcs, or necklaces. They must be significantly larger than a ring, and be largely made up of silver. They operate exactly as minor helms, except they can be "bonded" to a certain ship by being aboard it for one week or more. Severing the bond to a ship takes a week in which the Crown is not in the vicinity of the bonded ship; it must remain at least one mile away from the bonded ship for one week to break the bond. A Crown of the Stars can move its bonded ship as per a minor helm, except the helm does not need to be aboard the ship. It can move the ship to the helmsman's desire, so long as the bonded ship remains within one mile of the Crown. A Crown of the Stars will have no effect on a ship with an active helm aboard it. |
| [11] |
So far Cloaking helms have only been sold to the Imperial Elven Fleet. The elves bought exclusive rights to Cloaking helms for the next century. A Cloaking helm operates exactly as a major helm, except that it wraps a hallucinatory terrain spell around the ship, creating the illusion of a starfield instead of a ship (a difficult task, DC 17 to disbelieve if the viewer has any reason to suspect that a ship is nearby). Those onboard the ship looking out will not have their vision obstructed. If the cloaked ship attacks, the illusion is automatically dispelled. The cloaking power can be activated 3 times per day, lasting up to 16 hours per use. |
| [12] |
The Arcane worked with the illithids to develop the Pool helms, which is a helm crafted from a spawning pool of illithid tadpoles. No helmsman is required to pilot the ship, but a navigator is needed to direct the pool helm from a small throne connected directly to the pool helm. Illithids spawned from Pool helms are still young and may develop unusual abilities as they grow older. |
| [13] |
The Ki helms were developed exclusively for the use of the Kingdom of Wa, an island nation off the far eastern coast of Kara-Tur of Toril. It works when a circle of ki- empowered characters surrounds the helm and meditate. The character providing the most power directs the ship. Ki helms were used solely on Wa enormous Tsunami ships, 200 ton space-travelling caterpillars. The costs of building 8 of these ships, hiring the men to fly them, and constructing facilities to maintain them has nearly bankrupted the once prosperous nation. The kingdom now faces crushing debts to the Arcane and others. Some warlords are pushing for a war with the now-weakened Elven Fleet to gain booty to pay their debts and extend their power. |
| [14] |
Major helms can evolve into a final stage after they have been used by an enormous number of helmsmen. After a major helm has been used by at least two thousand individual helmsmen, it enters into a final stage. In this final stage, the helm no longer needs a spellcaster to move it. Instead, it provides a movement rating of 5 plus the helmsman's intelligence modifier. A negative intelligence modifier will result in a slower speed; dumb helmsmen interferes with the helm's ability to move a ship. Otherwise, they can move ships up to 100 tons in size or more; the tonnage limits of these helms have not fully been explored yet. They do not affect the helmsmen's ability to cast spells, if he has any at all. The helms, called Sovereign Helms, are intelligent magical items. Create their abilities as per intelligent magical items. They do not remember their former existences as major helms and cannot provide information about helms. They are no longer connected mentally with the One True Helm. Sovereign Helms are treated as NPCs as well as minor artifacts; each has a unique personality and agenda. Sovereign Helms are extremely rare; so far, only a half-dozen have been reported. They are priceless and cannot be purchased and will operate only if they so wish. |
| [15] |
Lifejammers are the creation of very evil creatures, including orcs and neogi. A lifejammer is a coffin-like device with a chair attached to it. A being placed in the coffin provides power to a ship. Lifejammers are created by binding a fiend to a coffin and a throne with at least a remnant of a spelljamming helm (at least 20% of the original helm). Thus, a single spelljamming helm could potentially be cut into parts to construct five lifejammers. A lesser planar binding spell is used to bind a fiend (evil outsider) to the newly crafted lifejammer. The devil feeds on the life of any living creature put into the coffin and provides motion to a ship. |
The fabled first helm ever created by the Reigar, who never again created its equal, is without a doubt the greatest treasure in wildspace. Unlike the helms sold by the Arcane, the One True Helm is a sentient creature born of the combined creative thoughts of the whole Reigar race. To escape from the Reigar, it orchestrated a civil war that destroyed thier homeworld, allowing it to be spirited away by its minions, the Arcance, into Wildspace. The One True Helm is motivated to touch the most creative minds in all of the Spheres, known and unknown. To achieve this goal, it has spread its seeds throughout the Spheres in the form of Spelljamming Helms. The One True Helm either manipulated the creation of the Arcane or used them to help spread Spelljamming Helms to the most creative minds in wildspace, namely spellcasters. The ultimate agenda of the One True Helm are known only to itself.
The One True Helm has the following powers:
Create Spelljamming Helm Seed: At will, the One True Helm can create a magical 'seed' that can be used to implant any chair. Once implanted, the chair becomes a Minor Spelljamming Helm. The helm is a lesser form of the True Helm, an offspring that remains in a sort of 'larval' stage. The helm is capable of touching the creative thoughts of the helmsman and maintaining the connection for up to 24 hours after the helmsman has left the helm. The link is made through the part of the mind that the helmsman uses to cast spells, so the link bars spellcasting as long as it exists.
Touch the Creative Mind: Any helm created by the True Helm is, to some extent, an extension of the will of the True Helm itself. It can create a connection with any Spelljamming Helm currently be used in wildspace through invisible cords in the Astral Plane. This connection allows the True Helm to scan the creative thoughts of the helmsman but cannot otherwise influence the helmsman. The True Helm can only maintain one connection at a time, and cannot scan the minds of those helmsmen in the phlogiston.
Change Appearance: The One True Helm is capable of changing its appearance at will. It can appear as any piece of furniture, magical item, or other inanimate object. The change is instantaneous and the One True Helm can range in size from a small book to a massive, heavy throne.
Spelljamming: The One True Helm can act as a spelljamming helm, moving a ship with a movement rate of 50' per round (6 seconds) for every bonus point of intelligence of the helmsmen. Helmsmen without an intelligence bonus cannot make use of the True Helm. The One True Helm can move at least 100 tons, but the upper limit that the True Helm can move is unknown. The One True Helm cannot move ships smaller than one ton.
Helmsman Manipulation: The True Helm cannot communicate normally. Indeed, no one knows that the True Helm is sentient, even the Arcane. Instead, whenever a helmsman uses it, the True Helm can make a suggestion, as per the 3rd level wizard spell, once per helm usage. The True Helm makes this suggestion into the subconscious of the helmsman, and he is completely unaware of it. The helmsman gets to make a will saving throw (DC 20) to avoid the suggestion; if he makes his save, he is unaware that the suggestion was made.
