Swordtember Day 10 - Alien

Creeping Cranium

Weapon (shortsword or rapier), rare (requires attunement)

The Creeping Cranium is a creature originally birthed by an entity from the outer realm named Zheka’yici, also known as the Wandering Brain. This being breached into the material realm during the 1st Chaos Insurgency. In that era, the Wandering Brain would produce these creatures and bestow them upon its thralls—unfortunate mortals who had their brains consumed by it and subsequently replaced with a larva of the Wandering Brain. The Creeping Cranium served dual purposes: as an egg carrier and as a tool to inject its larva into other beings, thereby expanding its thrall army. However, after Zheka’yici's demise, the Creeping Craniums lost their connection to the hivemind and gradually became independent entities. While they are now quite rare, a few can occasionally be spotted in underground caverns or within the ruins of dungeons and hideouts constructed by The Children of One. Although they no longer maintain a connection to a hivemind, they have evolved the ability to form both physical and mental bonds with a host, resulting in a symbiotic relationship.

Living Weapon. The Creeping Cranium is a living entity. When you are attuned to this weapon, you form a telepathic bond with the Creeping Cranium, allowing for communication and control over the weapon as long as you are in the same plane of existence. To attune to the Creeping Cranium and each day after you take a long rest, you must spend at least 1 hit dice to feed it. Roll the hit dice and add the result to determine the Creeping Cranium's maximum hit points for that day. If its maximum hit points are 25 or above, you gain a +1 the larva DC and bonus to attack and damage rolls made with this weapon. If its maximum hit points are 50 or above, the bonus increases to +2. You cannot voluntarily end the attunement. The attunement can only be broken if you are targeted by a spell that ends a curse.

When not being carried, it can move on its own, using the statistics of a giant centipede. If reduced to 0 hit points, the Creeping Cranium rolls itself into a ball, becoming dormant and unresponsive for the next 24 hours.

Larva Injection. When you hit a creature with the Creeping Cranium, you can choose to have it inject a larva into the target. The target must succeed on a DC 14 Constitution saving throw or become infected with the larva. An infected creature takes 1d4 psychic damage at the start of each of its turns as the larva feeds on its mind. The creature can repeat the saving throw at the end of each of its turns, ending the effect on a success. If the creature fails three of these saving throws, the larva fully embeds itself, and the creature becomes charmed by you for 1 hour and is compelled to protect you during this time. If the charmed creature takes damage from you or your allies, it can immediately make another Constitution saving throw to end the charmed condition. Construct and undead are immune to this feature. Once this feature has been used, it can't be used again until the next dawn.

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all the files will be added to a new Swordtember 2023 folder that you can find in the Vault