This item will take center stage in a lv 18-20 adventure that I’ll be posting Sept 17th! Its going to be epic!
Wondrous item, artifact (requires attunement)
“Pride looks good in a crown”
Long before the creation of Miderra by the four gods, two great demons fought in another world. The winner of the feud decapitated the body of her rival and tossed his horned head to a sibriex to feast upon. The sibriex ate and warped its flesh and created a crown from his skull which he presented back to his mistress.
Attunement. If the crown is donned, the bones and skin of the crown immediately graft itself to the wearer and they warp in abyssal ways to accentuate the wearer’s most abhorrent traits. The crown only dislodges upon the creature’s death, but the changes it makes to the creature are permanent. The crown immediately attunes to them, without having to take a short rest. Their creature type also changes to fiend (demon). Neither magic nor divine intervention can reverse this transformation. Their alignment becomes chaotic evil, and they gain the following traits.
Demonic Tongue. You can speak, read, and write Abyssal.
Demonic Resistance. You have resistance to cold, fire, lightning, and poison damage.
Truesight. Your eyes grow bloody and covered in black veins. You can see in normal and magical darkness, see invisible creatures and objects, automatically detect visual illusions and succeed on saving throws against them, perceive the original form of a shapechanger or a creature that is transformed by magic, and see into the Ethereal Plane, all within a range of 120 feet.
Warped Features. One ability score of the creature’s choice increases by 4 to a maximum of 24. Another ability score of your choice decreases by 2 to a minimum of 3.
Crawling Flesh. As long as the creature starts their turn with at least 1 hit point, they regain 1d8 hit points.
Summon Demon. Once per day, the creature can use an action to attempt to summon a demonic ally. Roll a d100 and consult the following table to determine who answers the call. The summoned demon appears in an unoccupied space within 60 feet of its summoner, acts as an ally of its summoner, and can’t summon other demons. It remains for 1 minute, until it or its summoner dies, or until its summoner dismisses it as an action.
(01-05 one Balor, 06-15 one Goristro, 16-35 1d2 mariliths, 36-55 1d4 blabrezus, 56-00 1d8 hazrous)
Aura of Carnage. As long as this creature is conscious, hostile creatures within 10 feet of it gain vulnerability to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage unless they have resistance or immunity to such damage.
Random Properties. The crown has 2 Minor Beneficial Properties and 3 Minor Detrimental Properties, each determined by rollon on the appropriate table in chapter 7 of the Dungeon Master’s Guide.
Madness. As an action the creature may cast crown of madness (save DC 18). They do not need to concentrate or use their action to maintain control over the target to maintain the spell.
Destroying the Crown. The Crown of Carnage is a living item that is impervious to most damage. Only by wearing it into the negative energy plane, or dropping it into a sphere of annihilation can you stop it from healing causing it to flake apart into nothing.