Frozen Skull

The Frozen Skull was the first of the three abiri created by the archmage Baan, Destroyer of Worlds. Since its creation, it has turned up in numerous vegari. It has a reputation for often having been at the center of some catastrophe or villainous plot, and is widely thought of as a thing of great evil. This may be a myth; any abar can be used for evil, and, despite its sinister appearance and the malevolence of its creator, there's no firm reason to believe that the Frozen Skull is any more innately evil than any other abar. True or not, however, this belief still follows it.

Description

The Frozen Skull appears like a life-sized human skull made of clear ice. In size and in contours it exactly matches a human skull, complete and well defined in every detail, with separate teeth, visible sutures, and an articulated jaw. So well shaped is it that one can be more precise and say that it appears to be the skull of an adult male human. The play of the light through the ice of the Skull has led some to describe it as beautiful—at least from a distance, before one is aware of its nature.

Of course, as the powerful eximium it is, the Frozen Skull, despite being made of ice, cannot be destroyed by a means so mundane as melting. No matter how much heat is applied, the Skull keeps its form, and indeed its temperature never rises above zero degrees Celsius.

History

The Frozen Skull was created out of Baan's native veigur, a world called Araa. After establishing a nearly impregnable fortress at the top of a frigid mountain, Baan began the spells that would draw the world's essence into the chosen vessel. Accounts differ as to whether this vessel was merely a block of ice sculptured to look like a human skull, or an actual skull turned to ice. If the latter, it could explain the Frozen Skull's malignance (if there is indeed anything to explain), as it could be that the spirit of the person the skull came from is still trapped inside the abar, and twisted to evil by its imprisonment and torment (assuming it wasn't evil to begin with).

Baan's procedure did not go without opposition. Despite the inaccessible location of his fortress, and the wards he had set up around it, some would-be heroes did manage to reach him and try to put a stop to his plans. None of them, however, was a match for his magics, and his work was often interrupted but never halted. Finally, one group of companions, after preparing as well as they could and gathering all the aid the dwindling world had left to offer, beseiged Baan's fortress in a final assault. By then, Baan's procedure was almost done, and he managed to delay them just long enough for them to reach his inner sanctum just as his work was finished. The Frozen Skull was complete, and the first use he made of it was to turn his would-be nemeses into statues of ice.

Powers

Like all abiri, the Frozen Skull is an immensely powerful talisman. Among its best known powers are gelefaction, thelxis, and the creation of ice in nearly any shape and quantity. Unlike the Skull itself, the ice created by the abar, whether ex nihilo or by transmutation, has no special resistance to heat, and will melt as easily as any similar block of the substance. The Skull can also, however, lower the temperature of an area, either temporarily or permanently, and by this means its glacious gifts can be preserved.

The Frozen Skull also wields some power over undead, forcing them to obey its owner's commands. It can also bring corpses back as undead, or raise the ghosts of the dead whose corpses aren't available. The Frozen Skull can generate a few kinds of undead that seem not to be produced by any other process: the pruinous malgabe and the watchet eselon. An owner who really learns to tap into the powers of the Frozen Skull can feasibly have an entire army of undead at his call.

The Skull grants its owner certain ipsial powers as well. The owner of the Frozen Skull becomes nearly impervious to damage. He can become invisible at will, can sense the presence of other invisible objects, and can see in total darkness. He can translocate himself over vast distances, including between planes, carrying a significant amount of external matter with him if he wants. He can also turn himself into ice, but, unlike unwilling victims, maintaining his mobility (and sharing the Skull's resistance to heat).