Brazen head

A magical brazen head, sometimes called, simply, "Head", was owned by adventuress and countess Zaranda Star.

Description
The magically animated statue was a bust and head of cast bronze, carved in the image of a handsome, sharp-featured, bearded man with a high brow and narrow face. The mouth and eyes of the head were on carefully crafted hinges and could move. Otherwise, its features were rigid. It had expressive yellow eyes.

Personality
The head was fully sentient, both self-conscious and aware of its surroundings. It was perceptive, noticing a person's change in moods. It constantly claimed to possess many secrets that it could share with its owner, yet it never seemed to deliver on these.

In conversation, it had poor delicacy, similar to that of a satyr, and it often spoke inappropriate things. It had a lustful view of women and often made comments about their appearance. For example, it enjoyed ogling Zaranda and tried encouraging her to sleep in the nude.

Owners
The head claimed to have been passed from owner to owner over thousands of years. After remaining in Zaranda Star's possession for a time, the countess passed it off to the amethyst dragon Nyadnar.

History
The bronze head was created by a powerful wizard long before the birth of Elminster. It later ended up in the hands of a Zulkir of Thay named Baastat. The wizards of Thay were unable to obtain any useful information from the head&mdash;because it had willfully only spoken to them in riddles&mdash;and so they stored it away for hundreds of years.

After the Tuigan War, Zaranda Star, a hero of that conflict, was hired to travel to Thay to steal the head from the Red Wizards. She traveled to Thay with an adventuring band, hoping to return with the head and other valuable magical items to sell in Zazesspur for profit. The head was perhaps the most expensive item of all the loot that she collected on the adventure.

Soon after leaving Thay, Zaranda felt bad for the head, since it was sentient, and took it out of its chest secretly at times during the journey back to Tethyr. She also had her priest, Father Pelletyr, divine if the head was evil. It was not, but Zaranda came to believe that the head was simply a practical joke of the powerful wizard who must have created it long ago.

Appearances

 * War in Tethyr