Codex of the Infinite Planes, also known as Yagrax's Tome, was a cursed artifact that held terrible power.[1][2][3][4]
Description[]
The Codex was far larger than a tome should be,[2][3][4][5] with some saying it was the size of a small table.[5] A pair of strong men could barely lift the tome.[2][3][4] Deep black obsidian was used for the covers. The pages were sheets of hammered lead thin enough to fold like paper.[2][3][4][5] It lacked any sort of index or table of contents.[2][3]
Every page was illuminated with bizarre markings[2][3][4][5] in various rare and unknown languages, though some were denoted as being the Supernal script.[5] The reader always found another page no matter how many times the pages of the Codex were turned,[1][2][3][note 1] depicting an almost limitless number of scenes both beautiful and horrific[4][5] from across the multiverse.[5]
Powers[]
According to some, anyone opening the Codex for the first time risked being utterly annihilated,[1][2][4] being afflicted with an effect similar to the destruction spell.[4]
Every power within the Codex was triggered by reading.[2][3] Throughout history the exact powers of the tome seemed to slightly shift each time it arose to the fore,[5] but the Codex was consistently found to be capable of opening a portal to any plane of existence, any location on a Prime Material plane,[1][2][3][5] or demiplane.[2][3] Nothing could negate this travel, save for potentially the will of a god or primordial.[5] The Codex could also summon a greater fiend to serve the reader for a full day.[2][3]
In some cases, the Codex was found to have the power to banish creatures back to their home planes,[4][5] rendering them incapable of returning to the plane upon which that power was used for the next one hundred years, or unless their sentence was ended prematurely with the tome.[5]
Others equated the at-will powers of the Codex to various spells,[1][2][3][4] namely astral projection, banishment, elemental swarm, gate, greater planar ally, greater planar binding, plane shift, and soul bind.[4]
Each use of the Codex posed a cumulative risk of unleashing something terrible upon the owner,[2][3][4][5] a curse of unnatural events of other-planar origin.[2] These ranged from the following:
- Driving the reader utterly insane.[2][3] Some described this affliction of madness as being equivalent to the spell insanity.[4]
- Unleashing a catastrophic event,[3][5] like an earthquake[4][5] or years of winter.[5]
- Conjuring clouds of deadly poison.[2][3]
- Inflicting a disease.[5]
- Unleashing a storm of vengeance centered on the wielder of the Codex
- Trapping the owner's soul in a random gem on the plane and imprisoning their body beneath the ground.[4]
- Inadvertently summoning a fiend[3][4][5] or other evil outsider hell bent on destroying the owner of the Codex.[4] Sometimes it was a greater tanar'ri,[2][3] such as a balor, other times a pit fiend,[4] and in some cases several types of tanar'ri.[5]
- Causing the reader to utter a wail of the banshee and then subjecting them to the destruction spell every few minutes until they died.[4]
There were no known means of destroying the Codex. According to some legends it required either reading every page of the book or reading one page in particular that would open a portal upon the book itself.[2][3]
History[]
The origins of the Codex of the Infinite Planes remained unknown.[3][4][5] Some believed that it predated all human written languages[4] or that it was somehow intertwined with the very formation of the planes themselves.[5] Still other legends, told on Oerth, claimed that it was created on that Prime Material world on the Isle of Woes.[7]
Notable Owners[]
- Emirikol, a plane-traveling wizard, had possession of the Codex of the Infinite Planes at one point.[8]
- Keraptis, an Oerthian wizard, once possessed a page of the Codex.[9]
- Tzunk, an archmage who once attempted to conquer the City of Brass with the help of the potent artifact.[1][10] However, he could not best the four million efreet that protected the city and was eventually bound before the Grand Sultan of the Efreet.[10] Most his writings regarding the codex survived only in fragments, most of them filled with mad ravings about "a beast" and him having came to rule the City of Brass.[2]
- One of the earliest known wielders of the Codex was an Oerthian wizard-priest whose name was lost to time, though identified by some legends as being the aforementioned Tzunk. Through use of the tome he conquered the realms surrounding the Isle of Woes[1][3][7][10][11][note 2] and according to some legends even other planes of existence,[7] but ultimately the tome itself brought about the devastation of his tyrannical domain, sinking the Isle of Woes beneath the waters of the Nyr Dyv.[1][11]
Appendix[]
Notes[]
- ↑ In 1st edition the Codex was said to have merely 99 pages. Later iterations of the book did away with this detail, instead describing it as having near limitless pages.
- ↑ Iuz the Evil (1993) identifies Tzunk as the Wizard-Priest of the Isles of Woe, something The Adventure Begins (1998) did as well. Secrets of the Lamp (1993) went into more detail about Tzunk's misadventure in the City of Brass, but never connected him to the Wizard-Priest. Other sources, like Book of Artifacts (1993), imply that Tzunk came into the book's possession after the Wizard-Priest.
Appearances[]
References[]
- ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 Gary Gygax (1979). Dungeon Masters Guide 1st edition. (TSR, Inc.), pp. 156–157. ISBN 0-9356-9602-4.
- ↑ 2.00 2.01 2.02 2.03 2.04 2.05 2.06 2.07 2.08 2.09 2.10 2.11 2.12 2.13 2.14 2.15 2.16 2.17 2.18 2.19 2.20 slade et al. (February 1995). Encyclopedia Magica Volume II. (TSR, Inc.), p. 660.
- ↑ 3.00 3.01 3.02 3.03 3.04 3.05 3.06 3.07 3.08 3.09 3.10 3.11 3.12 3.13 3.14 3.15 3.16 3.17 3.18 3.19 3.20 3.21 David "Zeb" Cook (December 1993). Book of Artifacts. (TSR, Inc), p. 27. ISBN 978-1560766728.
- ↑ 4.00 4.01 4.02 4.03 4.04 4.05 4.06 4.07 4.08 4.09 4.10 4.11 4.12 4.13 4.14 4.15 4.16 4.17 4.18 4.19 4.20 4.21 4.22 Andy Collins, Bruce R. Cordell (July 2002). Epic Level Handbook. (Wizards of the Coast), p. 153. ISBN 0-7869-2658-9.
- ↑ 5.00 5.01 5.02 5.03 5.04 5.05 5.06 5.07 5.08 5.09 5.10 5.11 5.12 5.13 5.14 5.15 5.16 5.17 5.18 5.19 5.20 5.21 Jeremy Crawford, Stephen Schubert, et al. (September 2011). Mordenkainen's Magnificent Emporium. Edited by Cal Moore, Tanis O'Connor. (Wizards of the Coast), p. 106. ISBN 978-0-7869-5744-6.
- ↑ Gary Gygax (1979). Dungeon Masters Guide 1st edition. (TSR, Inc.), p. 124. ISBN 0-9356-9602-4.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 Adventure Maps included in Roger E. Moore (July 1998). The Adventure Begins. (Wizards of the Coast), p. 5. ISBN 0-7869-1249-9.
- ↑ Monte Cook (September 1998). A Paladin in Hell. Edited by Steve Winter. (TSR, Inc.), p. 9. ISBN 0-7869-1210-3.
- ↑ Standing Stone Games (February 2006). Dungeons & Dragons Online. Daybreak Game Company.
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 Wolfgang Baur (1993). Secrets of the Lamp (Adventure Book). (TSR, Inc.), p. 14. ISBN 1-56076-647-6.
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 slade et al. (February 1995). Encyclopedia Magica Volume II. (TSR, Inc.), pp. 659–660.