Horns of Naraga

Aura overwhelming varied; CL 22nd Slot head; Weight 8 lbs.

DESCRIPTION

This intimidating helm bears a pair of sweeping dragon horns rising from an imperious setting of scarred, sigil-etched copper.

Whenever the wearer of the Horns of Naraga touches a living creature (even as part of casting a spell or a touch attack), the touch deals an additional 5d6 points of negative energy damage and the wearer gains these hit points as if she had cast vampiric touch. The wearer of the helm is immune to acid and can see perfectly in darkness of any kind, even that created by magic. When worn by an undead creature, the Horns of Naraga reduces all damage taken from positive energy by half.

Once per day, the wearer can order the helm to transform into an ancient black dragon that obeys unquestioningly for 1 hour before reverting back to a helm. Slaying the dragon does not destroy the helm, but it does prevent this ability from being used for 1 week. While the helm is in dragon form, the helm's owner does not receive any of the helm's other benefits.

DESTRUCTION

The Horns of Naraga can be destroyed by crushing it between the jaws of an ancient black dragon's skull in the middle of a desert with the sun at its zenith.

HISTORY

In the decades preceding Tar-Baphon's battle with Aroden, the wizard launched a stealthy campaign to claim the Isle of Terror, sensing a strange “thinness” there that he hoped to turn to his advantage. Resistance to his plot came in the form of a triune of deadly black dragons, Istravek, Naraga, and their lethal mother Karamorros, who claimed the island as their own. Tar-Baphon managed to negotiate with the dragons, and even enlist the younger wyrms in his plots, but Karamorros ever denied him passage into the island's interior, her personal realm. It wasn't until Istravek was wounded in Tar-Baphon's service that the wizard realized the extreme possessiveness Karamorros felt for her offspring, as the elder dragon razed one of his hermitages as punishment for jeopardizing her son. Tiring of the wrathful elder dragon, Tar-Baphon tricked the draconic siblings into one of his fortress laboratories and shackled them there, traveling soon after to the Isle of Terror, where he threw scales torn from her children at Karamorros's feet. Only the threat of further tortures stayed the elder wyrm's lethal response. Tar-Baphon demanded passage into Karamorros's sanctuary, and the dragon could not refuse.

None know for how many years the dark wizard toiled at the heart of the Isle of Terror, digging through layers of the Darklands until his magic managed to tear a rift in the fabric of reality itself, opening a rent into the Negative Energy Plane. To test the passage, Tar-Baphon called upon Naraga, having no more need for shackles as his experiments had transformed both her and her brother into raveners. Mad with fury, Karamorros attacked Tar-Baphon, but was restrained by the claws of her rotting daughter. The black dragon and the ravener fought brutally but finally Naraga clutched her mother and dove into the Wizard-King's Pit, disappearing into the bottomless depths. When finally Tar-Baphon called upon his servant, Naraga came, but the ravener was crippled and broken by the battle, and the wizard blasted what remained to pieces. Splinters of her bones retained unexpected properties, however, imbued with negative energy, necromantic power, and some vestige of her mother's fury. These Tar-Baphon took up, harnessing their might to craft what came to be known as the Horns of Naraga.

As for Karamorros, no sign of the great wyrm ever reemerged from the cavity called the Wizard-King's Pit. But those few who have traveled to the Isle of Terror claim only Tar-Baphon's most minor holdings and guardians remain, and his greater secrets were stolen away by a force greater than any looter. Auguries also speak of great tunnels clawed from the deep earth, winding to connect with the deepest reaches of the Wizard-King's Pit, infusing these recesses with energies antithetical to life. Some speculate that Karamorros, or what's left of the dragon matron, seeks to avenge herself against Tar-Baphon and any who support his return.

RAMIFICATIONS

Anyone who would possess the Horns of Naraga has much to consider, particularly the helm's present owner.

• • Imprisoned with the Dead: When Tar-Baphon was imprisoned within Gallowspire, so too were the Horns of Naraga. Claiming the helm would thus mean shattering the prison that keeps Golarion's most infamous lich locked away. Yet rumors have long persisted that Gallowspire is not an inescapable prison and the Whispering Tyrant's seneschal discovered a secret path to freedom. If this is true, who knows what other evils might seep from the accused tower?