Cards of Power

This is beyond doubt my best work.

The cards of power were originally created in order to empower people in order to help them fight. While not all powers were useful in a combat encounter, they could always be used to shift the battle to ones advantage, if planned in advance.

Over the centuries the magic governing the cards changed and got corrupted. This made the cards not only have negative effects, but also changed how the cards worked. When they were first created you could pick up and look at as many cards as you wished, until you had a power you liked, but after about 10000 years you were only able to pick one up and you'd receive a random power, whether you wanted it or not.

Cards

Hourglass

Activate to gain 1 minute of double turns per round, but creature age 10% of their total lifetime when the power ends

Eye

Activate to gain 9 m of truesight for one hour, but loose all other forms of vision outside of that for the duration.

Flame

Activate to gain an aura of intense heat for one minute, dealing a number of d2 equal to your character level of fire damage in a 1.5 m radius around you per round, but move at half speed.

Skeleton hand

Activate to gain 18m of x-ray vision for 1 min, but suffer one level of exhaustion when it ends

Heart

Activate to make a creature that you can see and can be charmed your friendly ally, but you loose one random friend.

Snake tongue

Activate to be able discern all lies within 9m for 10 min, but loose the ability to communicate truth for one hour.

Shield

Activate to gain immunity against one random type of damage for a day, but have disadvantage on saving throws against all other damage types for the duration.

Notes

Once activated, a power can not be deactivated for the duration.

Hourglass: Roll initiative a second time and add it to the turn order.

Heart: The interpretation of "loose a friend" is up to the gm. It may mean that one friend dies, or that they are not friends anymore, or that the friend can no longer be found, or any other fitting interpretation.

Snake tongue: The hours accumulate, so if the power is activated for two minutes straight, the creature is unable to communicate anything true for two hours, and not one hour and one minute.

Item type

Magical