The Scorpion Lute
Mechanics & Inner Workings
The lute has only one real property. Once attuned to the owner by playing a complete song, the Lute represents a miraculous oddity choked up by the great laughing god Hlal herself. In part, placed in the world to tempt the adventurous; and in part, placed in the world because the deity wanted to see how many would die using it.
The lute cannot be destroyed. It’s preserved by divine favor, arcane luck, and tightly woven pacts with the skies and the earth. If you hit it with a sword, it is the sword that runs the risk of damage (the lute doesn’t injure back, it simply cannot be injured). If hit a rock wall with it, the lute is intact without a scratch. It is ornate and beautifully sculpted. Many former owners have discovered perverse but useful properties to the lute stemming from this favor…
The lute necessarily floats in any water or water based environment–it cannot sink (which says nothing about the holder being strong enough to hold onto it while they are sinking). When something harmful is incoming, it simply doesn’t happen and reality wraps back around that fact.
The lute, then, when held flat and one tucks tightly behind it, grants cover (though not a shield). An inferno on one side of it is simply room temperature directly behind it. If you were to stand on it and fall 100ft., you would hit will all the speed appropriate, but the lute immediately negates the force on impact (and no force means no damage for you). However, if you simply held it close while falling, whatever part of you hits the ground would not be “airbagged” by the lute (though the part of your body above it would).
It cannot be transformed. It cannot be altered. It counts as a magic weapon (though still an improvised weapon). One could hold up a city’s multi-ton gate of iron if you propped the lute under it.
Created from The Scorpion Lute (scroll down)
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