Skull of Elgar

Although there are many noblemen and travellers that claim to have seen the skull of Elgar, most are lying. This skull lies in the vault of the Temple of the moon, this is so that no one can access it and its cursed energy. At all times there is a team of guards that are all masked and spelled so that they do not know the exact whereabouts in the vault the skull is, or who they’re standing with. The reason for the security is because this skull belonged to the most powerful dark mage that drew his power from the life force of others. 
When Elgar was alive he was a charismatic young man that would be found studying the way animals drew their magical energy from the earth so that it would give them a sixth sense and heighten their senses, so that they would be alert for danger and hunting. All the ways that the animal manages to survive in seemingly magical ways, he studied. Implementing what he found in small ways he created an aura about himself that he could project to gain a base level of vibrations that would alert him to anything in his immediate environment. Over time he shared what he learnt and managed to teach spies and scouts to use these added senses for their advantage. Gaining that kind of notoriety took the poor young man and catapulted him into a world of power and knowledge that he previously didn’t have access too. Unfortunately, it all went too his head, seeing how the rich lived compared to the poor shook him and he wanted to steal the power back from them to reset the tables for all those that were struggling.  In his trying to take back the power he fell into some very dark magic that at the time was purely theoretical as they were still learning about the boundaries of magic. He turned from studying animals to taking their essence once they’d died, specifically the elemental animals like fire snakes. Using their raw elemental power he gained skills and understanding no one could fathom, the power was like nothing he’d felt before from the other animals he’d studied. Eventually those who were researching the dark magic realised they could use his willingness to try out the magic for their own benefit, they killed fire snakes and fed them to him, enchanting him with their life force, until he didn’t even kill them just ate them whole so that his body could take everything they had and make it his. By now the madness of the elements was starting to take hold, it connected him to everything so deeply that he felt everything and it was too much. He lost his grip on right and wrong and just wanted to go back to normal, when the men tried pushing him into more of the darkness he snapped and took their lifeforce draining them through a single touch as he extracted the raw elements that make up a human and absorbed them as his own. He was unmatched with his power and knowledge the closest to an elemental force that a human has ever been the aura he put out sucked dry those who challenged him and protected him from those who tried to kill him.
Eventually after taking the life force of 13 men and many elemental animals he broke down after realising what he’d done. The realisation of his wrongdoings causing his brain to punish itself in shame, but with the power behind it it changed the physical make up of his brain causing sections to explode and beat against his skull changing the shape of the bone from the inside until he couldn’t take it and the pressure of the power and destruction caused the wave of power to emit from him and take out many people and buildings in the process, finally leaving him sagging in a lump with flayed skin and a beaten cracked skull.
Whilst no one can be certain of the spells that they performed on Elgar, it is said that in order for him to be able to wield such power they had to unify his essence to his material body, most specifically his skull. Anyone who wanted to possess even a fraction of his power or understand the spells could take his skull and use divination to find the spells they created.