The Wailing Mask

THE WAILING MASK

Aura Strong enchantment and necromancy; CL 13th
Slot Face; Price 72,000 gp; Weight 2 lbs.

DESCRIPTION

This crudely carved wooden mask depicts a long, wailing face frozen in silent terror, its hollow eyes and stretched mouth lacquered in pale bone-white and pitch-black accents. When worn, the Wailing Mask fuses subtly to the wearer’s flesh, its interior unnaturally warm, as though it breathes with its own quiet hunger.

The wearer gains a +6 enhancement bonus to Strength, a +4 enhancement bonus to Dexterity, and a +10 competence bonus on Hide and Move Silently checks. Additionally, the wearer gains a +2 enhancement bonus to base land speed per 5 Hit Dice (maximum +10 feet at 25 HD). The mask also grants the wearer the benefits of darkvision out to 60 feet and the ability to use invisibility (self only) as a swift action 3 times per day.

However, the mask is cursed and cannot be removed willingly once donned without the use of remove curse, break enchantment, or similar magic (DC 20 caster level check).

Upon wearing the mask, the wearer must succeed on a DC 18 Will save or immediately have their alignment shift to Neutral Evil. Regardless of success, the wearer must make a Will save (DC 18) each day at dusk. Failure results in the wearer becoming overwhelmed with homicidal compulsion for the next 12 hours. During this time, the wearer must attempt to stalk and kill a sentient creature. The wearer gains a +2 morale bonus on attack rolls and damage rolls against any creature they have observed for at least 1 minute prior to combat.

Each failed save imposes a cumulative -2 penalty on future Will saves against this effect (to a maximum penalty of -10), representing the mask’s tightening psychological grip.

If the wearer goes more than 48 hours without killing a sentient creature, they take 1d4 points of Wisdom damage per day until they either commit a killing or are freed from the mask.

INTELLIGENCE

The Wailing Mask is an intelligent item (Int 14, Wis 16, Cha 18; Ego 16). It communicates via telepathy with its wearer, projecting whispers, screams, and distorted voices that mimic past victims or loved ones.

Alignment: Neutral Evil
Senses: 120 ft. darkvision and hearing
Communication: Telepathy (Common)

Lesser Powers:

• Detect Thoughts at will

• Invisibility (self only) 3/day

Purpose: To perpetuate fear through ritualized murder and to experience the terror of its victims.

The mask constantly urges stealth, patience, and theatricality in killing. It prefers drawn-out hunts over direct confrontation and will attempt to dominate its wearer (Ego check) if they resist its urges or attempt to remove it.

LORE

No two accounts agree on who first carved the Wailing Mask, though all insist it was not made for art, nor ritual, but for something far more intimate. The wood itself is said to come from a tree that grew where no sunlight touched the ground, its roots nourished by old graves and older secrets. Those who have studied its grain claim faint patterns can be seen shifting beneath the lacquer, like faces pressing from within.

The earliest recorded wearer was a nameless killer who left behind no history, only a string of impossibly precise murders. Witnesses described something unnatural in the way the figure moved, not fast, but inevitable. Doors locked themselves too late, footsteps sounded where none should be, and victims spoke of being watched long before they were found. When the killings stopped, the mask vanished with him, leaving only rumors that it had simply found someone new.

Over time, the mask has appeared and disappeared across regions and centuries, always accompanied by a pattern. The killings are never random, not truly. They are staged. Symbolic. Personal. The mask seems to prefer stories, selecting victims who know one another, who share history, and unraveling them like a playwright with a cruel sense of humor. Survivors often speak of hearing their own voices whispered back to them from the dark.

Scholars of cursed artifacts have come to a quiet consensus that the Wailing Mask does not merely drive its wearer mad, it reshapes them into something that reflects itself. The wearer does not lose their identity so much as have it twisted, sharpened, and hollowed until only obsession remains. In this way, the mask does not create monsters. It refines them.

CONSTRUCTION

Requirements Craft Wondrous Item, invisibility, detect thoughts, bestow curse, rage, creator must be Neutral Evil;
Cost 36,000 gp + 2,880 XP;
Special Ingredient: Wood taken from a tree grown over an unmarked grave, and a drop of blood from a sentient creature slain in fear.

KELWYN’S NOTES

Ah… yes. A deceptively simple thing, at least in name. One might almost mistake it for an object of mourning, something meant to honor grief rather than embody it. That assumption, I regret to say, would not survive first contact.

What troubles me most is not that it compels violence, but that it teaches it. Slowly. Patiently. It does not seize control outright - no, that would be crude. Instead, it encourages, rewards, and refines until the wearer begins to believe the impulses are their own. By the time the truth becomes clear, it is often far too late to matter.

There is a dreadful intimacy to such an object. It does not merely sit upon the face - it listens. It learns. It understands what frightens you, what excites you, what you might become if given permission. And then, with exquisite care, it gives you exactly that.

I would not call it evil in the way most would understand. That would imply something blunt, something obvious. No… this is something far more delicate. It is a curator of ruin, a quiet architect of transformation, shaping not just actions, but identity itself.

Should you ever find yourself holding it, I would advise a rare and difficult act of wisdom - do not ask what it can do for you. Ask instead what it already knows about you. And if you are wise… you will not linger long enough to hear the answer.