Living Gem

The Living Gem was a powerful and dangerous artifact that played a significant role both in the Era of Skyfire and during the Living Gem War.

Description
The Living Gem was a floating multi-faceted ruby that glowed. It was as large as a human head.

Powers
The majority of mortals who touched the Living Gem were magically absorbed into the gem, both body and soul. Since their souls were consumed by the gem, they could not even be raised from the dead.

Those mortals—never undead—who touched the Living Gem with two hands with the intent to control it would sometimes succeed at mastering the gems power. A successful master of the gem never needed to touch it again; in fact, he or she felt a strong desire not to.

The Living Gem's master could allow others to touch the gem to gain the power to control it as well, but these were secondary masters, and the gem would obey commands from the primary owner over any others.

To steal control of the gem from another required touching the gem with two hands, as above, except wresting control from another was more challenging and dangerous a task. If a new master was successful, the previous master's body and soul were absorbed into the gem.

Only dying or becoming undead freed a master from ownership of the Living Gem.

Controlling the gem required mental commands and concentration. The gem could be controlled from any distance, which was a part of what made the magic object so powerful.

The gem could be moved at the command of the owner; otherwise it levitated in place. It could be summoned to teleport from any location to the master's.

The gem served much like a crystal ball in that the master could use it to scry on any location. The image could be made to appear on one of the facets of the gem or upon the surface of an illusory mirror created by the power of the gem. The viewer could use the gem's magic to teleport to any location visible by such scrying.

Evocation spells could be cast into the Living Gem, which were stored until any owner or co-owner willed them to be invoked. At such a time, the spells would originate from the current position of the gem.

The Living Gem also absorbed any spells cast at its master, with the exception of curses, even if the gem were in a location no where near its owner. On the contrary, curses against the owner always succeeded but were prevented from killing the owner outright.

The Living Gem was not actually alive, but it had a residual sense of self from the countless souls it had absorbed over the millennia from many worlds. Those who possessed the gem saw reflections of their own lust and greed, and confused them into thinking that the gem was alive. The Living Gem ultimately drove its masters insane in as little as a few days to as long as a few years.

Some scholars believed that the Living Gem could be destroyed only by a touch from the scepter of a surviving member of the Djen still living on the Plane of Air. Others believed that the demilich Shoon VII could somehow consume the all the life forces from the gem, draining it of all its magic power. Finally, it was said that perhaps immersion in the pool of Evergold could quench the gem's dark magic forever.

History
The gem first came to Faerûn from the Plane of Fire, being a weapon used by the Army of Flame, led by the efreeti Memnon, against the Djen of the Calim Empire. With substantial aid with the powerful gem, the Army of Flame wreaked havoc on the Calim Empire over a period of time known as the Era of Skyfire, until the war was finally ended by the elven high magic of the baelnorn lich Pharos.

Historical records of the nomadic humans of the region have been discovered that suggest that the Living Gem survived the fall of Memnonnar and remained in what would later become the Lands of Intrigue. Documents found in the ruins of Shoonach further suggest that the gem played a role in the rise of the Shoon Imperium thousands of years later.

In any case, the final qysar of the Imperium, Shoon VII was definitely aware of the Living Gems existence, having discovered its location, though it is not clear that he ever acquired the artifact for his own use before his own supposed death and the fall of the Empire.

In the, a wizard adventurer from the city of Schamedar in Calimshan, arranged for the theft of the Tome of the Unicorn from the Green Rooms of Ruathym. The wizard's name was Shond Tharovin. It took a year for Shond to understand how to use the book and to communicate with the trapped soul of Shoon VII and agreed to free the lich in exchange for information on the whereabouts of the Living Gem. Shoon kept his agreement and revealed that the gem was hidden in the Forest of Mir.

Shoon had told Shond that the gem was located in "a long-lost temple to the Great Slug, Ghaunadaur, beneath the roots of the Murabir's Woods." It took ten years, until the early months of  before Shond finally recovered the gem from a subterranean temple in Mir,   some 20 miles southwest of the Vorpal Tower in a location in the Underdark far from the influence of Lolth and her priestesses.

He returned to Schamedar in the month of Mirtul and began bringing the gem to meetings with the Council of Vizars. Within a month, he had murdered or exiled all of that city's Council of Vizars, declaring himself its new ruler. Claiming to be receiving orders from the Living Gem about the future greatest of Calimshan, he demanded that all citizens join him in the gem's worship. He established a religious order of rainbow-robed priests, called the Cult of the Living Gem, and commissioned the construction of a temple.

The people of the countryside rose up against Shond Tharovin's rule, finding leadership in a group calling themselves the Seven Satraps. In response, Shond used the power of the gem to summon dark horrors to attack the rebels and villagers living along the River of Ice.

Shond himself was finally defeated in the month of Eleint by the power of a curse called down by an archmage named Yoond Shalshymmyr. The curse resulted in Yoond's death, but it succeeded in stopping Shond, transforming him into an immense gibbering mouther. Shond was driven by the citizens of Schamedar into the sewers below the city.

However, the Cult of the Gem now controlled the Living Gem, and they continued to use its powers to terrorize the people of Schamedar, sending down lightning bolts and fire. It took an extended siege by the forces of the Seven Satraps to finally retake the city in and depose the Cult, but the survivors of the cult managed to escape with the gem, and it is not known what became of either them or the magical artifact.

For some unknown reason, a number of dwarven houses sought the Living Gem for generations to the point of obsession.