Scrying mask

Several scrying masks exist in game. The fox mask was given as a prize at the 2005 Ebon Gate festival by the Dark Lady Bone. The others were found in the digging game or in boxes through the treasure system.

The masks will cause the wearer to black out. While they are, they will unknowingly proclaim a prophecy.

The mask can be worn for divination once every 24 hours.

The Masks

a silver-framed leather crow mask

An intricate brass and silver framework covers the exterior of the crow mask. Feather-shaped gaps in the frame reveal the soft leather beneath, which has been dyed black, blue, and white by turns in a slim striped pattern. Three pieces of alexandrite have been set at places on the framework where strips of metal cross in particularly complex patterns. A black sigil has been inked on a white patch at the brow, and two spots of blood stain the leather just below the left eye. Owned by Zuzana

an ora-framed leather wolf mask

Images of stars and willow leaves have been incised along the strips of pale grey ora that cover and shape the exterior of the wolf mask. The leather beneath is tanned to a fine, supple softness and dyed chocolate brown. Two disks, each half mistwood and half ebony, hang on a leather thong to rest just above the right eye. A black and silver sigil has been painted on the brow. A few bloodstains mar the bottom edge of the mask.
Owned by Rovvigen

a feathered brass fox mask

An intricately incised brass framework has been layered over butter-soft leather of a pale tan hue to create a stylized fox face. A reddish leaf-and-star pattern has been painted across the leather in such a way that, interrupted as it is by the lines of the brass framework, it looks like fur. A twisted sigil has been painted in black and silver on the brow. At the edges of the mask, long black-barred grey feathers spread outward in a wide, wild mane.
Owned by Charna

an unknown description jackal mask

Owned by Archales

In Action

>wear mask
You set the brass fox mask carefully onto your face. It molds to your features like a second skin.

A hungry crackling sound begins around you. Your skin grows hot as if with fever, and you feel terribly constrained by everything that touches you. The crackling grows louder and louder, raging in your ears as if an entire forest were afire, and your vision sweeps away on a tide of red and gold.

You awaken flat on your back. When you open your eyes, faint stars flicker around everything before fading away.

Roundtime: 15 sec.

---

Zuzana fits her brass fox mask carefully onto her face.

Zuzana's eyes go wide before unfocusing entirely. Throwing her hands skyward, she cries,"Burning from Elanith, burning from the composers, burning from the respect! My martyr, my martyr, what has become of you?" Then, Zuzana's eyes roll back in her head, and she collapses to the floor as she passes out.

---

Eugenides suddenly throws back his head and spreads his arms wide, crying out, "Burning from the plague, burning from the consolers, burning from the puzzlement! Charted in fire, the future breathes ashes...." Then, Eugenides's eyes roll back in his head, and he collapses to the floor as he passes out.

---

A coldness begins to creep over you. It begins in your fingertips, but then it expands up your arms to flow up your spine and down your legs. The cold turns abruptly to ice, sending a massive shiver racking through your body right before the world dissolves in a stream of blue, green, and silver light. You float away on that light, leaving the world behind.

You awaken flat on your back. When you open your eyes, faint stars flicker around everything before fading away.

Roundtime: 15 sec.

---

A strange, slightly dizzy feeling overcomes you. You feel as light as silk, or a feather, or a wind sprite. The world spins and twirls away beneath you as you spread your arms to the wind's embrace. You feel nothing, hear nothing, see nothing but the rush of air all around you....

You awaken flat on your back. When you open your eyes, faint stars flicker around everything before fading away.

Roundtime: 15 sec.

---

Wearer raises a hand gracefully to attract attention. In a smooth, lyrical voice, she says, "Breathe in winter. Breathe out your peace. Water is never destroyed, and neither are you, if you see the answer." Then, Wearer's eyes roll back in her head, and she collapses to the floor as she passes out.

---

In a clear, cold voice, Wearer says, "The summoner of Tilaok, and the peacock garbed in amber-hued. What do they have in common? For one with spread wings, Tilaok is not unconquerable. Then, Wearer's eyes roll back in her head, and she collapses to the floor as she passes out.

Loresong

First Verse

A haze of pale rainbow hues shimmers around the mask briefly.

Chaotic impressions swirl through your senses -- vibrations of war and of healing, of natural forces and triumph, of loss and pent emotion, of elemental powers and bloodshed, of magic and of commonplace things. Unraveling the truth of the mask is like trying to thread a maze that changes with every step you travel. Even the most basic of properties, such as the mask's weight and value, are perfect ciphers.

Second Verse

There is a pause after Bardess finishes her verse. Suddenly, her eyes turn pitch black, and she shrieks, "A hazel-eyed martyr of the past, a hazel-eyed martyr of the past!" Then, she closes her eyes tightly, and they have returned to their normal violet hue when she opens them again.

A human man garbed in somber grey sorts through a stack of half-finished masks by the near-total darkness of a sky lit only by stars. Raising each mask in turn to his face, he peers through its eyeholes briefly and then sketches a symbol upon its brow with a paintbrush, chanting, "Power of prophecy, come to this visage."

The stars wheel overhead, and the night splits open, allowing a unicorn as pale as moonlight to crawl forth. Voices fill your head, crying wildly, "A hazel-eyed martyr of the past, a hazel-eyed martyr of the past!" Chaos layers over chaos, and the unicorn goes running off as the sky cracks like an egg. Out of that egg comes the real world, and you are returned to yourself again. The vision is over."

Third Verse

Bardess pauses for a moment at the end of the verse and cocks her head to the side as if listening to something far away. Then, nodding vigorously, she says, "I will follow you. You know the way."

Again, you quest for a thread of truth among the discordant vibrations. Following that seemingly true melody, you enter another vision.

A night breeze pushes through a field of larkspur. At the center of the field, a half-elven woman amuses herself by playing with the blossoms as if they were dolls. Sometimes softly, sometimes sharply, she voices the interactions between the various flowers, and her pearl grey eyes reflect the moonlight with luminous brilliance whenever she looks skyward.

Boring with the game, she informs one of the flowers, "I know! Let's see Daddy! Plucking the flower, she skips down the hill, not realizing that a group of sunny yellow soldiers watches from the branches of a nearby tree.

When she is gone, the soldiers swarm down and gather up the larkspur, but each stalk remains linked to its root system, producing a great, shimmering network of rootlets on the hill. From that web, a bald assassin arises, saying, "Follow me. I know the way." Then the hill and everyone on it are swallowed by fire, leaving you in long darkness before the vision ends.

Fourth Verse

Bardess looks a bit pale as she stares into nowhere for a long moment.

The vibrations twist and turn, but you concentrate on the thread of harmony that seems most devoid of illusion. A vision comes through the thread, sweeping you away with its power.

"Daddy, Daddy, Daddy!" the half-elven woman cries, running through the door of the cottage."

Immediately, the human man is on his feet, blocking the woman's approach toward the counter where he has been working. "I told you never to disturb me at night!" he roars. "Stay outside. Outside!"

"But the flowers said --" she falters, holding up a larkspur by way of explanation."

"Charl's spasmed whale, why do you think I care?" her father curses. "I can feel the masks awakening! I can feel them aligning to prophecy! I don't have time for this -- I don't have time for you!"

"But -- but --" the woman falters, pushing closer.

He lashes out backhand. The flower goes tumbling to the floor as his signet ring tears a furrow through the skin on the back of her hand. Two scarlet drops fly through the air. One stains only the floor, but the other strikes one of the masks.

If her father was angry before, he is livid now. Before her horrified eyes, he cuts the mask into little shreds. "You tainted it. You ruined it," he grinds out between his teeth. "Get out. Get OUT!"

This time, you recognize the harmonic shift as the story turns from truth to madness. You extricate yourself from the vision before the wave of chaos sweeps over you.

Fifth Verse

When Bardess finishes her verse, a mask of dripping blood suddenly covers her face, framing her eyes, cheeks, and lips in brilliant crimson. Then, it vanishes, leaving Bardess's face unmarked.

You locate the faint, pure strain of harmony that resonates to your voice. Another vision comes.

The human sleeps on a cot. His daughter rises from her nest of blankets on the floor and peeks briefly through the heavy curtains at the sunlight outside before tiptoeing out of the room.

With a purloined key, she opens the cabinet, and then she stands looking at the rows and rows of masks. Leaving the cabinet door open, she kneels and reaches under the cabinet. Rising, she has a bedraggled stalk of larkspur in one hand.

"Daddy likes them more than me," she whispers to the larkspur.

"Daddy likes them more than me," she says again.

"Daddy likes them more than me," she says a third time.

Then she presses the key into her hand until the skin breaks and the blood flows. Using her larkspur as a paintbrush, she dabs blood on every mask. Then she decorates the outside of the cabinet, ripping the wound wider each time the flow stems. After that comes the bedroom door, and the wall, and the counter, by which time blood flows freely from half a dozen cuts on her left arm.

She staggers, stumbles, and collapses heavily to the ground. As she falls unconscious, the vision releases you without any attempt to tangle you in chaos.