Forehead gem

Forehead gems are heavily scripted jewels that affix to the wearer's forehead.

There are several types of forehead gem.

Faendryl

Forehead gems with the Faendryl loresong are considered old-style. They are alterable only with owner permission (GM Xynwen) because there are some touchy restrictions.

Lore Song

Your song coaxes the gem in your hand to open up a whole new world for you. Suddenly, you see yourself within the corridors of a magnificent palace. Everyone else in the castle seems to be either unaware of you or is ignoring you. Beautifully embroidered crimson tapestries adorn the walls of the great halls within. Centered upon each tapestry is the regal crest of House Faendryl. You reach your destination, a door at the end of the hall, right before the vision fades from your sight.

The blue sapphire gives up its secrets willingly to your voice. Your eyes are filled with the scene of a plush bedroom occupied by a beautiful dark elven lass and her handmaidens. A silver tiara sits upon a mirrored armoire in one corner of the room. Your eyes scan the mirror quickly, which reveals the reflection of a wizened dark elf entering the room. Slowly, the vision removes itself from your sight.

You continue to bathe your blue sapphire in gentle melody. Soon, your nostrils are assaulted by the scent of rose petals. Your eyes cloud over and you're back in the dark elven lass' bedchamber, a room fit for a princess. The old man is there too, but you catch him as he is embracing the young girl affectionately, but not passionately. A small pin bearing the Sorcerer's Guild insignia adorns his black robes. As he retreats from the embrace, he opens his hand, revealing a number of sparkling gems within. He says to the girl, "For you and your handmaidens, my dear, on the occasion of your wedding. It is only a small token of my fondness for you and your father. May the beauty of these gems always pale in comparison to your own." A smile lights up the girl's face as she gets up to hug the old mage. Just as you begin to understand what you're seeing, the vision spins away in a haze.

Your song gets the blue sapphire to reveal its long-held story. Images begin pouring into your mind at a frantic pace. You see a majestic ship getting ready to set sail. A beautiful elven princess, wearing a faintly glowing gem on her forehead, is surrounded by a number of handmaidens all wearing similar gems. They wave from the deck of the ship at a large crowd assembled at the dock. At the front of the crowd is the old sorcerer from the previous visions standing next to an aged Faendryl wearing a golden crown. The scene fades and is replaced by another, of the crown-wearing Faendryl and the sorcerer standing in a torch-lit chamber. A single tear sweeps down the face of the monarch. The sorcerer pauses for a moment and speaks, "Sire, they will pay with a thousand deaths for what they did to our beloved princess or I will die trying to make it so." That vision too spins away, and is replaced by another of a large island filled with what were once magnificent buildings that are now wrecked and ruined. Smoldering heaps mark the landscape of the island. A scant number of ships dot the harbor of the isle. Your view soars towards one of the ships, upon which stands the aged sorcerer, anger and hate filling totally black eyes. You snap out of the vision a bit startled.

Your singing allows you to pull a vision from the grasp of the blue sapphire. It starts slowly at first, part of your field of view still being filled with your actual surroundings. Soon, though, your attention is focused on a cache of gems falling through ocean-green water, causing ripples as they do. Finally, after what seems like a very long time they hit the bottom. The vision fades as this happens and is replaced with image-after-image of storm and wave crashing across the surface and floor of the ocean you were just staring at. Large and small things alike from the ocean's depth are thrust here and there, and spread across the vastness of the ocean. The tides leave some strangely untouched, and others are spread to the four corners of Elanthia.

You barely begin to carry a tune as the gem unravels its mysteries for you. Two halflings are diving to the ocean surface, equipped with raggedy equipment, and fishing nets, their lines coming from a large ship sailing with a pirate flag on its mast. They catch various forms of tropical fish and other ocean habitations, placing them in small jars they've brought with them. Once the jar is filled they tie it to a line and the jar is quickly snatched back up towards the ship. After some time, some shiny objects on the ocean floor catch their attention and they dive for them. After examining the faintly glowing gems they retrieve, they smile brightly, and return to the ship.

Ebon Gate 2009 Raffled Set

Four forehead gems were raffled by the merchant Nikhail at Ebon Gate 2009. They are special and have a shared custom loresong that tells a specific story. They cannot be altered.

Items

a pebbly olive and ivory starstone

A white starstone of spectacular size has been oval-cut to highlight the patterns within its depths. Inclusions of black and night blue form eight symmetrical spirals that emanate from a paler blue crystal inclusion at the very center of the gem. A small band of star-carved gold is inset into one edge of the gem, engraved with minute script. Faint crimson stains are barely visible along the gold's edges.
In the Common language, it reads:
I give you the sun, the moons, and the stars, for you have answered my dreams.

a velvet black moonstone carved into a crescent

Black as the velvety night, the moonstone is carefully polished to accentuate its inner fire that casts a halo about the gem with each brush of ambient light. The crescent moon cut of the gem is outlined in meticulously inlaid silver. Miniscule script winds its way along the silver edging, and faint flecks of crimson wedge themselves into the crevices betwixt silver and stone.
In the Common language, it reads:
I give you the sun, the moons, and the stars, for you have answered my dreams.

Came in a box:
a small moon-carved ebonwood box with a brass lock
The viridian-sheened ebonwood box is lined and padded with silver-starred black velvet cut into a crescent shape. All along the outside of the box, the moons of Elanthia are carved in various stages of waxing and waning, and a tiny brass keyhole is nestled between images of Tilaok and Liabo.

With a key:
a miniature brass key
In the Common language, it reads:
To Open The Moons

a polished twilight blue dreamstone traced with midnight inclusions

a heart-cut red sunstone with ebon markings

Loresong

You cup the white starstone delicately in your hand and focus your voice on it. Suddenly, you find yourself in a garden filled to overflowing with brightly hued rosebushes. A young woman lies in the grass at the edge of a pond, idly running her fingers through the bright blue waters. A bronze fountain of a mermaid sprays water high into the air from the center of the pond, birds fly merrily over head, and the scent of lilacs and roses fills the warm afternoon. A noise behind you causes the woman to sit up, a smile lighting her face as a young man enters the garden. She hurries over to meet him, and they kiss passionately as the scene fades.

The white starstone grows warm in your hand, giving off silvery gold glimmers as you sing to it. The smell of lilacs swirls about you, and the vision comes into focus. Surrounded by a circle of lilac trees, the young man chisels away at a piece of marble, stopping every so often to mop his brow. The scene skips ahead to show him leading his blindfolded lover toward the now complete altar, an engagement ring and a bright pink rose resting on top. A series of visions flits across your sight, the couple kissing, the two walking hand in hand, and other scenes of happiness and new love.

With a swirl of dark red rose petals, the scenes are obscured, and when the petals flitter out of your sight, you see the young man looking slightly angry as he argues with the woman. She kisses him on the cheek, whispering something soothing into his ear, then slips from the garden into the cottage beyond. The man is left behind, slightly appeased but with a worried frown creasing his brow.

Just before the scene fades, you see a black rook with emerald green eyes watching the man from the top of the garden's stone wall.

As you sing to the starstone in your hand, your present reality fades, and you find yourself standing in a small, homey cottage. In one corner, the young woman works on sword, hand-etching a pattern of briars and roses along the flat of the blade. Around her are various bits of metal art. A different young man, an aristocrat, stands before her, waving a knife about and pointing at its broken hilt as he tries to get her attention. At long last, she looks up at him, points imperiously to a counter, and then turns back to her work. The man scowls, but he drops the knife on the counter, along with several gold coins, and walks out.

The scene shifts slightly as the woman moves out the back door of the cottage and into the garden. Once again, her young man is working in the ring of lilac trees. He laughs as she tells him of the aristocrat, then kisses her and returns his attention to the handful of gems on his table. She watches him painstakingly carve a design into each gem. He speaks a few words that carry the force of a spell, and the gems absorb the magic. He puts several completed gems into a velvet pouch that he hands to the woman. However, four gems he puts into a small box and pockets, shaking his head as if he has a secret when she looks at him questioningly.

With a golden flash, the scene abruptly changes. Once again, the young man and woman argue, and once again, the woman tries to reassure him. This time, however, she is not so successful. He storms away. The scene grows cloudy and begins to fade, and as it does so, the emerald-bright eyes of the rook glare down at you.

Holding the starstone close, you whisper your song to it. Ebon mist swirls about you, dissipating into a grey day in the garden. The man pulls out his box of four gems and works on them, but his heart is clearly not in it. A stray cat winds its way about his feet, purring loudly even as the man scowls at it. The cat persists, and the man sits back, allowing it access to his lap, where it quickly ensconces itself. The man relaxes, and soon, a happy smile crosses his face. The scene skips a bit. Night has fallen, the cat is gone, and the man awakens in his lilac circle. The young woman approaches him with a bouquet of rue and pink roses, and they kiss passionately, all arguments forgotten. Something emerald glints in the boughs of a lilac tree, its living light unnoticed by the lovers.

Another time skip, another parting, another reconciliation. Similar scenes repeat themselves, covering the course of several weeks, and each time, the unnoticed rook presides over it all. Finally, your singing pulls forth a more solid scene again. The woman kisses the man goodbye. Soon thereafter, the now-familiar cat jumps into the man's lap, but instead of snuggling up to him as it usually does, it puts its front paws on his chest and looks him straight in the eye. No amount of singing can coax sound to the vision, but judging from the man's expression, the feline speaks to him. The cat suddenly jumps off his lap, disappearing into the nearby rose bushes, and leaving the man looking stunned.

Several minutes later, the same cat comes wandering back, snuggling up in the man's lap. The man glances at the cat with trepidation, but it just purrs and makes itself comfortable. He closes his eyes and does not notice the emerald gaze of the rook from within the nearby rose bushes. The scene abruptly goes to black.

Swirls of rose petals obscure your view, but the magic of your song pushes through, and the vision returns to show the man skulking behind the woman, his eyes mad with suspicion. The woman ducks behind a building and does not emerge. When the man finally goes and looks, she is gone.

The scene skips again, and the man sits, talking to the cat. He yells and shakes his head in disbelief, pushing the cat from his lap and stalking away.

A flurry of rose petals open up a new scene. The woman is leaving, a mended knife in hand, and she kisses the man goodbye. He seems unappeased, and she smiles a bit sadly as she walks out of the garden. She doesn't notice the look of longing and love on his face, nor the apology that catches in his throat. He sits by the pond, idly playing with the four cut gems he is always working on when the cat comes bounding up to him and tries to snuggle into his lap. With a fit of rage, he grabs the animal around the throat and throws it into the pond. He appears to be murmuring "liar, liar" as the thrashing beneath the surface stills.

You take a deep breath, then aim your voice's magic at the moonstone. The vision snaps into clear view almost instantly.

With a triumphant caw, the emerald-eyed rook flies down from the garden wall, transforming into a cat identical to the other and then into an old crone. She cackles gleefully.

The man stares at her uncomprehendingly before turning to look into the pond. His confusion turns to horror as a body, not of a cat but of a young woman, his young woman, rises to the surface, tangled about in lake weed.

A crack of thunder breaks your concentration, and the vision disappears.
Loresinger shivers slightly as he sings softly to the moonstone. The rich perfume of roses lingers momentarily in the air.

The moonstone grows ice-cold in your hands as your voice coaxes the final vision from it. The man frantically pulls the woman from the pond, but it is too late. Storm clouds brew overhead, and lighting flashes in the distance, and still the crone laughs. In a rage, the man snatches up a broken blade that has fallen from his love's pocket and drives it into her throat.

In a flash of crimson, the scene jumps forward. The man weeps openly over the body of his beloved. A wispy figure drifts away from the corpse, unnoticed by the grieving man, and with a rush of magic, her body becomes one with the garden.

Behind him, the blood of the dying crone spills across the ground. Once bright roses grow dark, and the four precious gems lie forgotten in a pool of scarlet.

Rose petals, velvety and dark, fall from the garden's bushes and, caught in the violent eddies of the impending swarm, obscure the scene, leaving behind the rich perfume of roses as you pull your gaze away from into the black moonstone.

Other

There is a new forehead gem script. It has a new loresong. You can find one in the digging game. The 4 raffled here are also in the new style, which adds way more flexibility in altering, but these 4 are not alterable. They are special and have a shared custom loresong that tells a specific story. New-style ones also require my permission, but are more customizable. I'm also very generous with my permissions to alter. Mostly I just want to make sure I explain the weirdness personally to those going to alter it, to make sure everyone's clear on the restrictions. Things you can do now: pick the colour of the sheen that it casts (must make sense to the gem), put on a custom loresong if you win one and the merchant is willing (provided it isn't already a loresonged item), a LONG and a SHOW.