Grimoire of Envy

To be strong for others... do not lie Fenbalar... you are a grimoire because you are greedy and lust for more and more power. Power for power's sake, that is what sets The Grimoires apart from the weak, common mage.

• The Grimoire of Envy awakens to Fen for the first time.

The grimoire of envy is the name of Fen's grimoire spellbook. It had only recently awoken on the adventure and seems to be sentient in a manner of speaking, visiting Fen in his dreams to guide him to become a more powerful grimoire. Notably the Envy seems to use the voice of Fen's deceased father and addresses Fen as 'son'.  The Grimoire of envy is a black heavy tome-like spellbook with chains running across it's spine and cover that Fen uses to holster the book on his belt. The cover of the grimoire looks like a broken hand mirror with an eye resting in its centre, when Fen casts a spell, the grimoire floats in his palm and opens to the correct pages before sending forth the magical symbols to create impactful spells. From the low amount of interactions, Fen has grown to believe that his grimoire cannot be trusted as it endlessly lusts to consume more power, specifically other grimoire users, this has led Fen to believe that grimoire mages aren't inherently evil but, rather, run the risk of being corrupted by their books and ultimately possessed by them.  The grimoire of Envy has a number of abilities that Fen is aware of since it manifested:

• The Grimoire holds within it's cover and pages a dark abyss afterlife where it stores the souls of former wielders of the grimoire and grimoire users that were killed by the former mage that possessed Envy. It seems to be able to draw off the identity and voices of those dead within it's afterlife or use them to speak as it utilises Fen's father to address the mage as 'son' and speak in his father's voice. 
• If Fen watches a creature die from within 30 feet then he can use a reaction to prompt his grimoire to absorb the creatures soul into its cover. When the grimoire does this the eye on it's cover flares with black smoke and the creature is held in a temporary demiplane that tears and plucks at the creatures very soul, an indescribable level of suffering. While Fen holds a creature in the grimoire he can ask them up to 3 questions or choose to release them, the creature answers as itself but is desperate to escape that dimension to such an extent it will rapidly answer any questions to please their interrogator. However, if Fen asks all three questions of a creature then it's soul is fully destroyed and erased as though it never existed.
• If Fen kills a grimoire mage then he can use his reaction to cause the Grimoire of Envy to absorb the mage's soul and grimoire. The next time Fen takes a long rest, his grimoire of Envy will manifest a new ability that mimics the ability of the grimoire mage that was absorbed.
• The Grimoire of Envy possesses some degree of foresight or divination as it seems to be able to find the names of other grimoire users for Fen to track down and hunt. It also notably knows small biographical details of the creature and will judge their characters (for example, the grimoire referred to Bazzle as a 'coward' and Kerrak Cauchmar as a 'monstrous creature'.

Item type

Book / Document

Rarity

The Grimoires are a collection of magical spellbooks throughout Alturis though they each have unique identities, ideals and abilities. The Grimoire of envy is one in a series of these grimoires.