#chardalyn

[helsfantasyart]

Made some little simple tokens for Icewind Dale. They’re basic and a bit sketch like, but I kind of like this style for tokens!

Get the pack from Ko-Fi!

[doldriest]

The Hunt for Chardalyn

The party finds a quiet empty chamber with two doors. In the room to the southwest, an iron lever juts from the wall like a warning. Inala lights a torch, its flickering glow casting long shadows. Skye continues, each step echoing through the cave like a drumbeat of fate.  They enter a vast chamber: a cell block. Several cells hang open, their doors ajar. A few remain locked. In one, a duergar…

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[mikeysketches]

Release the Chardalyn Dragon

[gigantic-spider]

Crown of Blackened Ice (Day 9 of Magic Item March, a 31-day series of homebrewed magic items)

(Image source: Paul Canavan, Icewind Dale - Wizards of the Coast; image description: A duergar, Xardorok Sunblight, with a long full white beard stands next to a waist-high triangular spire of chardalyn, a black crystalline material. His right hand and forearm are covered in a gauntlet of chardalyn, and he wears a jagged crown made of chardalyn. He is wearing a combination of metal shoulder armor and hides/furs.)

Wondrous item (very rare, requires attunement)

You have resistance to cold damage while wearing this crown.

When you successfully save against a spell of 5th level or lower, you may use your reaction to absorb the spell into the crown. If you absorb a spell in this way, no targets suffer negative effects of the spell, even if they would occur on a successful saving throw. While a spell is absorbed by the crown, you are treated as though you are concentrating on a spell. If you fail a concentration check or are incapacitated, the spell is released targeting you and you immediately fail the associated saving throw. As an action, you may release the spell absorbed by the crown, choosing new targets and using the original spell save DC. The crown may have only one spell absorbed at a time.

Background

Until I, Xardorok Sunblight, set my sights on this pathetic land of Icewind Dale, no one was daring enough to properly utilize chardalyn! Everyone said, “It’s dangerous.” “No one knows where it comes from.” “It whispers strange things in your mind and makes you evil.” Well all I know is that it’s powerful, and I’m gathering as much of it as I can to take over this frigid land! I’ve already had a gauntlet made out of the stuff and soon I’ll have my crown as well, and I would have had it sooner if my smiths didn’t keep dying mysteriously with their eyes turned into blackened pits and frostbite all over their limbs. It’s no matter to me, I’ll just keep fetching new ones up from my ancestral holdings until they get the damn thing done. Now I wonder if it’s possible to make something bigger out of chardalyn…

-Excerpt from the diary of Xardorok Sunblight, translated from Dwarvish

Story Hooks

Have you read Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden? Because if not, well, just go read that. There’s not much else to add here. Except that Xardorok’s crown is magic now.

[gigantic-spider]

Powdered Chardalyn (Day 13 of Magic Item March, a 31-day series of homebrewed magic items)

(Image source: indiamart - Black Potassium Humate Crystals, For Crops, Pack Size: 30 Kg; image description: A white dish holding fine, slightly shiny, black particles.)

poison (inhaled)

A creature subjected to this poison must succeed on a DC 15 Constitution saving throw or become poisoned for one hour. If the poisoned creature casts a spell, it takes 4 (1d6) psychic damage per level of spell cast (cantrips count as a level 1 spell for the purpose of this effect).

Background

Despite the well known magical absorptive properties of chardalyn, efforts to discover the magical properties of crushed chardalyn has evaded the best efforts of magical researchers for centuries. It was not until the deeply unethical experiments conducted by minions of Xardorok Sunblight that an important discovery was accidentally made: powdered chardalyn inside the body maintains its neutralizing properties. Instead of capturing and storing the magical energy released by the caster, it produces negative psychic feedback in the mind as the energy fights to make it out of the body. It remains incredibly difficult to produce, as a vast quantity of chardalyn must be ground incredibly fine to be able to enter the body, but it could potentially form a crucial weapon against spellcasters of all sorts.

Story Hooks

A wizard has lost the ability to cast spells without being wracked with horrible pain after prolonged torture in Xardorok Sunblight’s dungeons. They have heard of a way to purge their body of unnatural toxins in a mystical hot spring hidden deep beneath the Spine of the World. The question is, can they make it past the shrine’s elemental guardians?

Huge chardalyn deposits were destroyed in a recent earthquake, releasing an unknown amount of powdered chardalyn into the surrounding environment. Mages from around the Material Plane are concerned as to what this could mean for magic’s presence in the world. You have been asked to investigate the destroyed chardalyn spires and determine what ambient effects, if any, are present.