Save Crystals (Suh-vah Krees-Tahls)

Mindarthis the Mathemagician is responsible for many things: most of his contributions to the Unified Magic Theory remain consistent over two thousand years later, his Fire Fractals spell defeated an army of Ice Demons, and his research into "levels" and "challenge ratings" is still the foundation of many training programs, ranging from elite soldiers to Dungeon Burger staff.
How ironic, then, that the thing he is most known for is what he considered his biggest failure.
Mindarthis spent over a hundred years working on what he called Save Crystals - artifacts capable of restoring someone flawlessly if they died. Being able to send endless waves of soldiers would allow whoever possessed a Save Crystal to win any war. He channeled arcane energies potent enough to destroy entire nations, and compressed them into floating crystals no more than 5 feet in any dimension. In the end, he managed to create three Save Crystals. Unfortunately, they suffered from complications that prevented them from being properly usable:

• All three only worked on those whose "level" or "challenge rating" was a prime number, rendering them useless for large parts of the armies.
• Once attuned, one could not unattune themselves from a Save Crystal, and the magical energies prevented the user's "level" or "challenge rating" from growing, resulting in stagnation.
• The Red Save Crystal eventually became known as the Paranoid: after the first few deaths, the crystal would trigger more and more readily for an attuned person, eventually re-materializing them at the crystal whenever they fell asleep.
• The Yellow Save Crystal became known as The Mad: the memories of death would never fade, eventually driving its users insane.
• The Blue Save Crystal became known as The Stolen: its glow attracted an ancient blue dragon, who stole the crystal. When the dragon's lair was finally located, an empty void was found where its hoard was expected to be, and the dragon and crystal were never seen again.

After several years, Mindarthis discovered a way to unattune oneself from the crystals, involving grease and ooze fluids, and freed those who were attuned to the Paranoid and the Mad. The Paranoid was subsequently lost when the dwarven kingdom that had purchased it was overrun by fire elementals (it was located inside a volcano), and Mindarthis destroyed the Mad himself. Legends of the Save Crystals, however, have outlived the crystals, and even Mindarthis, despite their short-lived existence.

Item type

Unique Artifact