Mask of Madness

Out of polished wood, a grotesque face. Under furrowed brows like the knobbed end of bones, three wide eyes, pale like the moon, sink deep into sockets like stepwells. Cheeks like ripe cherries exude joy in unknowable knowledge. A wide, flat nose rides thin lips that stretch the visage low around its gaping maw. Rows of sharp and dull teeth hang like stalactites over monstrous tongue.

History

Brrzip the Enlightened once wore this mask in his travels around Morgrave, which led to one of the strangest events in Morgrave's history. Brrzip was a Grugga from deep in the jungles of the northern Cauldron. Next to nothing is known of her life before she began wearing the Mask, but it is believed with good reason that she was a shaman of her tribe. In the years following The Schism, Brrzip emerged form her jungle home wearing this macabre and grotesque, but oddly beautiful mask.
She traveled around Morgrave, never staying in one place for long, as her ravings were typically unwelcome. She spoke loudly of the end times, the dark things that float in liminal spaces that swat away entire worlds like flies. In near-silent whispers, she lamented her occult knowledge and the things she had seen when she closed her eyes and slept deeply. Despite an aversion to her, wherever she went, madness followed. First-hand accounts speak of her strange speech and demeanor that seemed to drive those around her mad. These people slowly turned insane, ranting about the creatures beyond the thin veil. As superstition reigned, these poor lunatics were usually put down, as much for their good as for the others.

The Fate of the Mask

Brrzip the Enlightened disappeared somewhere in Krag-a-Krach, after passing through a small town. By this time, word had spread of the strange Grugga with the awful mask, and a group of villagers hunted down the former-shaman and slew her in her cold blood as she traveled on the road. The villagers tried to smash and burn the mask without handling it directly, but not a single mark was imparted onto the light wood. Eventually, the leader of the vigilante villagers pushed the mask off the road and buried it under a cairn of rocks so no one would touch it again. Not long after, though, when they returned to the site to check on it, the mask was missing.

Item type

Unique Artifact