First Knowvaa's Crown

Forged from an unknown purple metal, this heavy crown bears four rows of gemstones: yellow, blue, violet, and green stones set like watching eyes along its band. A single gem larger than a clenched fist rises at the brow, shaped like a living eye beneath a faceted lid. Whenever the crown’s power stirs, that gem blinks once, and the metal gives off a low, bone-deep hum.

In the first winter of the Antimatter Nightscape, the city’s astronomer-priests placed the purple crown on Knowvaa’s head and named her queen. Its four colored rows marked the laws she swore to uphold: memory, distance, identity, and death. The brow gem was not part of that ceremony. It appeared years later, after Knowvaa returned from the sealed observatory beneath her palace, carrying the eye in both hands and refusing to say whose gaze she had stolen.

For three nights afterward, every mirror in the Nightscape showed a different sky. On the fourth, the queen vanished. Her court claimed assassination; her enemies claimed ascension. The crown remained in her abandoned estate, humming beneath a sheet of lead. Each year, on the date of her disappearance, the brow gem blinks seven times—and one palace door appears where no wall stood before.

• Artifact Focus. The crown can serve as a spellcasting focus. While attuned to it, you gain a +3 bonus to spell attack rolls and to the saving throw DCs of your spells. You can cast spells through the crown without providing material components unless those components are consumed or have a listed cost. Its spellcasting ability is your own, or DC 20, whichever is higher.

• The Fourfold Eye. You gain darkvision out to 120 feet and can see invisible creatures and objects within 30 feet. You have advantage on Intelligence (Arcana) checks made to identify a spell as it is cast.

• Knowvaa’s Sight. The crown has 7 charges and regains 1d6 + 1 expended charges each day at dawn. You can expend charges to cast one of the following spells through it, requiring no components: detect thoughts (1 charge), see invisibility (1 charge), counterspell (2 charges), clairvoyance (2 charges), dominate person (4 charges), or disintegrate (6 charges). The crown’s spell save DC is 20.

• The Queen’s Foresight. Once per dawn, you can cast foresight on yourself through the crown. This spell requires no components and does not require concentration when cast this way.

• Eye of Antimatter. When you cast a spell of 6th level or higher through the crown, you must succeed on a DC 17 Constitution saving throw or take 4d10 psychic damage and become blinded until the end of your next turn. On a failed save, the crown’s brow gem blinks repeatedly, revealing your location through walls and darkness until the start of your next turn.

• Unquiet Attunement. Once you attune to the crown, you cannot willingly end the attunement unless remove curse, greater restoration, or similar magic is cast on you. The crown’s low hum can be heard within 30 feet whenever you cast a spell through it.