The Shining Trapezohedron
Description
A small gem-like stone closely resembling crystal. It is almost completely black, but has some crimson striations, and appears to shine with an inner light. The stone is a polyhedron with many irregular flat surfaces. It is roughly four inches thick, and is usually found in a peculiar yellow metal box with a hinged lid. The box is decorated with unknown, dot-formed hieroglyphs. When inside this box, the Shining Trapezohedron is suspended in its center via an odd series of supports extruding from the box's inner walls. The Shining Trapezohedron is impossibly old and is of obvious alien design. The Necronomicon states that this item was created on the planet Yuggoth and brought to Earth by the mi-go. De Vermiis Mysteriis claims that the Shining Trapezohedron did not originate on Yuggoth, but was instead brought there by the Outer God Nyarlathotep. Whatever its source may be, this item has always been sacred to cults worshiping the Crawling Chaos.
The history of the Shining Trapezohedron once it reached Earth is a long and diverse one. The elder things had it for some time, and mounted it in its yellow metal box to protect it from sunlight. It was salvaged from the ruins of one of their cities by the serpent people, who took it back to Valusia. Then it was sighted over the years in various ancient lands including Lemuria (where it was gazed upon by the first humans), Valusia, and Atlantis. After Atlantis sank beneath the waves, the stone dropped out of sight for a while until it was dredged up by a Minoan fisherman. It was sold to merchants from Khem and later fell into the hands of the Dark Pharaoh, Nephren-Ka. After years of use, he buried it along with an enchanted mirror in a sealed crypt. Both were found by the evil queen Nitocris. After her fall from power, the Shining Trapezohedron disappeared again until it was found in the possession of the Providence-based Starry Wisdom cult in 1844. After the cult was disbanded in 1877, this alien gem was left behind in their deserted church until it was discovered in 1935 by author and artist Robert Harrison Blake. After Blake's unusual death following a severe thunderstorm, a local doctor took the Shining Trapezohedron and, for reasons unknown, threw it into the cold waters of Narragansett Bay. Knowing the history of this artifact thus far, it is likely that the Shining Trapezohedron will reappear someday.
The Shining Trapezohedron has a number of magical powers. First, it beguiles most who look at it. The first time someone sees this artifact, a POW x3 roll is required to stop looking at it; the player may roll once per round. Success means that the person is unaffected by, or is able to throw off, the gem's bewitchment. Every round someone stares into the crystal, he or she sees bizarre and haunting visions of other dimensions, alien worlds, and gulfs of space and time beyond human imagination. For every five rounds that the person watches these images, he or she gains one percentile point in Cthulhu Mythos skill, up to a maximum of five, and loses one Sanity point; the Sanity point loss continues until the observer stops looking or goes insane. At the keeper 's discretion, a person who looks into the stone may wind up gazing upon a Mythos scene, thereby suffering an additional Sanity loss as per the game rules.
In addition, each round an individual looks into the stone there is a cumulative 10% chance that he or she will contact the Haunter of the Dark, an avatar of Nyarlathotep. When this happens, the unfortunate viewer feels a fearful sensation of an alien presence looking at him or her through the Shining Trapezohedron, and automatically receives another chance to stop looking. Further gazing causes the viewer to see the Haunter's blazing red tri-lobed eye, at a cost of 1D6 Sanity points.
Furthermore, once the viewer has contacted the Haunter, the Haunter will automatically be summoned as soon as the trapezohedron is immersed in darkness- say, by someone closing the lid of the box in which it's kept. The Haunter cannot manifest this way unless contact has first been made.
Finally, some Mythos writers claim that close proximity with the Shining Trapezohedron speeds up bodily metamorphosis, such as when one transforms into a deep one or ghoul.
