Book of Souls
Book of Souls
Wondrous Item, Artifact (Requires Attunement)
This leatherbound book is as old as time, its cover emblazoned with the symbol of the harvest: the crossed scythes. This book is rightful property of the Angel of Death. The pages of the book are filled with lines, symbols, and other scrawlings in an Enochian script that shift, move and change unceasingly. These malleable markings are indecipherable to a creature that is not attuned to the Book of Souls.
The book has many abilities, but its primary purpose is in tracking the locations, movements, and evolving destinies of every creature in the universe. When you attune to this item, you gain the ability to locate any creature, as though by the locate creature spell (unlimited range). By speaking the creature’s name, the pages of the book fly open to a page that reveals the precise location of a creature in the Physical Realm or in the Veil. The Book of Souls cannot locate creatures that are warded against divination magic (such as by the nondetection spell), or creatures in other Realms of existence (such as Heaven or Hell). In addition to its location, you also gain insight into the state of the creature’s soul, its relationships to other creatures, its current temptations, and events that are possible to occur in the near future. Although this information is sometimes referred to as the creature’s “destiny” it is also important to remember that the creature has free will, and thus these relationships, temptations, and destinies are always changing and shifting because of the choices made by the creature. Thus, the ink of the Book of Souls is not permanent, which is why it is always rewriting itself and shifting to reflect the evolving destinies of every creature in the universe. The Book of Souls also has other abilities, outlined below.
Limited Sentience. The book is not fully sentient, but it benedictine shield has an innate understanding of its own purpose, and can alert the creature attuned to it if it senses a disturbance. If it senses something, somewhere in the universe is out of place or in need of attention, it flies open of its own accord and hovers in front of its wielder, to present a page that outlines the problem or disturbance. Usually such a disturbance is cause by demonic activity in the Veil, but it is up to the GM to determine if an event is significant enough to draw the book’s attention.
Lesser Incarnation. As an action, you can grant yourself and up to eight willing creatures a brief physical to the Material Plane. A burst of transmutation magic emanates from the Book of Souls, and each creature is given a temporary physical body, which appears in an unoccupied space in the Physical Realm, on the Material Plane. The physical body created by this ability appears utterly unremarkable in every way. Its height, weight, clothing, and every other aspect of its appearance take a form that causes it to completely blend in to the culture and time period in which it is created. In this new form, a creature retains its alignment; languages; proficiencies; and Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma scores. Its statistics and capabilities are otherwise replaced with a creature of level 3 of the same class and subclass as its own. If a creature has levels in more than one class, its new form can have levels in one or all of these classes, so long as its overall character level is equal to 3. All equipment (including the Book of Souls) remains behind in the Veil, and each creature appears in its new body with no items other than the clothing it is wearing. A creature stays in this new form for 24 hours, until it is killed, or until it dismisses its new form as an action. After that, the creature returns to its body in the Veil, regaining its original character level and equipment. Once this feature has been used, the magic of the Book of Souls is significantly drained, and it is unable to use this feature again until 2d12 dawns have passed.
book of souls
Azrael's Guide to the Apocalypse, printed pages 167, 168.