Dragon Heartstones
The dragons of Wyrmurrin are mysterious and ancient in their ways. One of the least understood facets of these creatures is their ability to create and store their personality within gleaming gemstones, called heartstones.
Origin of Heartstones
As a dragon matures, enzymes from its mouth, usually used as fuel for its breath weapons, will collect in the back of its throat, eventually crystallizing into a gemstone. As this gemstone grows in size, a dragon subconsciously channels aspects of its personality into the stone, forming a heartstone.
For would-be dragon slayers, a dragon's heartstone is among one of the most valuable resources that can be collected from a dragon. The heartstone of an adult dragon will usually fetch between 5,000 and 10,000 gold, with the heartstone of an ancient dragon being a priceless artifact.
Skilled artisans can disassemble and utilize parts of a dragon's heartstone in ways to enhance weapons, or as components for crafting powerful spells.
Heartstone Shards
Some of the chromatic dragons will seek to perfect themselves, oftentimes at the cost of their own strength. These dragons seek to rid themselves of their baser or weaker traits, such as sorrow, empathy, or fear. These dragons can go through a process called heartstone sundering, where they disengorge their heartstones, break off shards of the gemstone, and seal away various aspects of their personalities within the shards. As a dragon removes shards from its heartstone, some of its abilities will become weakened. In exchange, it gains the benefits of being rid of its weaker emotions.
Death and Heartstones
When a dragon is slain, its heartstone and all of its shards go inert, losing all personality traits sealed within them. They retain most of their elemental abilities, but do not regain charges after they are expended.
Art from Zach Sharts
Akkhayraeas
The ancient blue dragon, the storm drake Akkhayraeas, has long ago broken off flakes of his heartstone to seal away his various emotions. He created a total of four shards, containing within them his fear, empathy, sorrow, and trust. He then scattered these shards in various dens across the land. Each shard appears as a jagged sapphire-colored stone, arcing with electricity, and creates unnatural thunderstorms around it.
Shard of Fear
This shard contains Akkhayraeas' emotion of fear. While separated from this shard, Akkhayraeas is immune to fear, but his Wisdom score decreases by 2.
The shard has 3 charges, and regains all expended charges daily at dawn. If you attune to the shard, you gain the following abilities:
- As a reaction to taking lightning damage, the you can expend a charge to use the shard to absorb the impact. You gain resistance to lightning until the start of your next turn.
- When you are reduced to under half your maximum hit points, it must make a DC 16 Wisdom saving throw. On a failed save, your movement speed is reduced to 0 and you become frightened, with yourself as the source of your fear. You can repeat this save at the start of your turn if you has more than half your maximum hit points.
Shard of Empathy
This shard contains Akkhayraeas' emotion of empathy. While separated from this shard, Akkhayraeas regains 18 (1d20 + 8) hit points whenever he kills a creature, but his Wisdom score decreases by 2.
The shard has 3 charges, and regains all expended charges daily at dawn. If you attune to the shard, you gain the following abilities:
- As an action, the you can expend a charge from the shard to channel a bolt of lightning. Make a ranged spell attack (+8 to hit) at a target you can see within 120 feet of you. On a hit, the target takes 4d10 lightning damage. Repeat the ranged spell attack, originating from the original target. On a hit, the second attack deals 1d10 less damage. Repeat this until the attack misses, there are no targets within reach, or the damage is reduced to 0.
- When you target a creature with under a quarter of its maximum hit points with an attack or spell, you must make a DC 16 Wisdom saving throw. On a failed save, you must choose a new target or lose the attack or spell. This extends to area effects, such as the explosion of a fireball.
Shard of Sorrow
This shard contains Akkhayraeas' emotion of sorrow. While separated from this shard, Akkhayraeas is gains a bloodlust, allowing him to make a Bite attack as a bonus action whenever he kills a creature, but his Wisdom score decreases by 2.
The shard has 3 charges, and regains all expended charges daily at dawn. If you attune to the shard, you the following abilities:
- As an action, you can expend a charge from the shard to channel a bolt of lightning. Makes a ranged spell attack (+8 to hit) at a target you can see within 120 feet of you. On a hit, the target takes 4d10 lightning damage. Hit or miss, each creature within 10 feet of the target must make a DC 16 Strength saving throw or take 3d8 thunder damage and be knocked prone.
- When a creature within 60 feet of you dies, you must make a DC 16 Wisdom saving throw. On a failed save, you are wracked with sorrow, and become incapacitated. At the end of each of your turns, you must repeat the Wisdom saving throw. After failing three of these saving throws, the effect last for 1 hour, and you stop making these saves. After succeeding on three of these saving throws, the effect ends.
Shard of Trust
This shard contains Akkhayraeas' emotion of trust. While separated from this shard, Akkhayraeas automatically knows if he hears a lie, but his Wisdom score decreases by 2.
The shard has 3 charges, and regains all expended charges daily at dawn. If you attune to the shard, you gain the following abilities:
- As an action, you can expend a charge from the shard to release a wave of thunder. Each creature within 30 feet of you must make a DC 16 Constitution saving throw. A creature takes 6d8 thunder damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one. A creature made of inorganic material such as stone, crystal, or metal has disadvantage on this saving throw.
- When you make a Wisdom (Insight) check to determine the validity of a statement, you must first make a DC 16 Wisdom saving throw or automatically believe the statement.
Kyur'Oa
The ancient green dragon, the venom drake Kyur'Oa, has long ago broken off flakes of her heartstone to seal away her various emotions. She created a total of three shards, containing within them her sloth, gluttony, and pride. She then gifted these shards to her most trusted followers. Each shard appears as a jagged emerald-colored stone, fuming with toxic gas, and causes plants to wither around it.
Shard of Slothfulness
This shard contains Kyur'Oa's slothfulness. While separated from this shard, Kyur'Oa no longer needs to sleep, but loses the ability to take short or long rests. Instead, she automatically regains 17 (1d20 + 7) hit points every hour.
The shard has 3 charges, and regains all expended charges daily at dawn. If you attune to the shard, you gain the following abilities:
- When you regain hit points from a short rest, you can expend a charge to regain an additional 30 hit points.
- At the start of your turn, you must make a DC 16 Wisdom saving throw if you have more than half your maximum hit points. On a failed save, you can use either an action or a bonus action, not both. If you attempt to cast a spell with a casting time of 1 action on a failed save, roll a d20. On an 11 or higher, the spell doesn't take effect until your next turn, and you must use your action on that turn to complete the spell.
Art from Spencer Wright
Shard of Gluttony
This shard contains Kyur'Oa's gluttony. While separated from this shard, Kyur'Oa no longer needs to eat, but loses her Bite attack. Whenever she could make a Bite attack, she can instead make a Tail attack.
The shard has 3 charges, and regains all expended charges daily at dawn. If you attune to the shard, you gain the following abilities:
- You can expend a charge to use a bite attack which deals 1d6 piercing damage plus 1d6 poison damage. If the attack hits, it deals its normal damage, and you regain hit points equal to your Constitution modifier.
- You must eat 10 times the normal amount of food each day in order to benefit from a long rest.
Shard of Pride
This shard contains Kyur'Oa's pride. While separated from this shard, Kyur'Oa is immune to charm, but her Charisma score decreases by 2.
The shard has 3 charges, and regains all expended charges daily at dawn. If you attune to the shard, you gain the following abilities:
- You can expend a charge to pronounce an order, limited to 5 words or less. Each creature within 30 feet of you must make a Wisdom saving throw. On a failed save, the creature must follow this order on it's next turn. This feature has no effect if the target is undead or if it doesn't understand your language, but will still function if your order is directly harmful to it.
- You become boastful and haughty, susceptible to influence by other creatures. You have disadvantage on Wisdom saving throws.