Arcane Heart

What use is a human heart, anyway?
It's a small sacrifice for power like that.

— Harkan the Heartless, Wizard

The Arcane Heart is a heart-sized lump of black crystal with streaks of gold and red, with hollow quartz tubes jutting out at irregular intervals. Even when inactive, it radiates an aura of power, and touching it without gloves leaves a numb tingle on the skin. To use the Heart, a spellcaster must replace his own heart with the crystal, at which point it fuses with his flesh and fills with his lifeblood. It glows a deep red, pulsating steadily. Crystals of black and red will begin to grow from the recipient's back, curving into rough circles that can be latched close, forming the second component of the Heart's dread magic.

The surgery required to implant the Arcane Heart is complicated and risky. Nothing is more embarrassing for an ambitious wizard than going through all this trouble, then dying of infection.

The "wearer" of the Arcane Heart functions as if they were under a Communion Anchor spell at all times, but which only links to spellcasters who wear the crystal collars growing from his back. These unfortunate souls are under a permanent Communion Link spell, chaining them to the Heart. Unlike regular Communion spells, there is no limit to the heart's reach, and escape does little to free them from being used by the Anchor. Six of these collars can grow from the wearer's back at the same time, and unless latched around a neck, they petrify into useless stone within a week or so. Growing a collar from crystal sliver to useable form takes about a month.
The collars are tough, but can be broken by mundane means. Such destruction alerts the heart's wearer, though it does not tell them which collar was broken, only that one of them has been severed.

It's current whereabouts is unknown, but rumor has that a powerful Necromancer has it... Which is probably not great news.

Related

Rarity - Power

Greater

Magic Used

Astral and Blood

by http://www.tribalartasia.com/

Communion

The Arcane Heart was made by a wizard who had hopes to use it to power a Communion spell of apocalyptic proportion without having to bother with whether or not the other parties wanted to participate on it. Through great sacrifice and powerful ritual, the Heart was completed, and was first used to power a spell that wiped out a town, just as an experiment.
As so often happens, the wizard in question was slain by a party of adventurers who found that just a touch excessive, and has since travelled around Ithekshem, trading hands and hearts for years.