No Strings on Me
While bound to Mr. Joe, you can’t be charmed or possessed.
Puppeteering
Whenever you cast the dominate beast or dominate person spell, you can take total and precise control of the target as a bonus action, rather than an action. Additionally, you can concentrate on two of these spells at once, taking control of both targets using one bonus action, and making only one saving throw to maintain concentration on both spells.
Spellcasting: Soul Strings
While bound to Mr. Joe, you can cast the following spells, without expending a spell slot:
At will: command
2/day each: dominate beast, dominate person
1/day each: compulsion, irresistible dance
You regain all expended uses of these spells when you finish a long rest.
Trait: Dummy
While bound to Mr. Joe, your skin appears wooden and lacquered, your joints seem to be wooden hinges, and your nose grows into a conspicuously long peg. While you remain motionless, you are indistinguishable from a puppet. Moreover, you can throw your voice, causing it to originate from any point you choose within 60 feet of you.
Mr. Joe was a show-stopping puppeteer who climbed to the height of godhood. Those who bind him can find that his strings can manipulate others as well as he manipulated puppets.
Legend
When Ruse, the trickster god, perished, none truly believed his fate until his last will and testament was proclaimed by the other gods: there would be a contest of cunning and subterfuge to determine his successor. Only one truly worthy of the mantle of “God of Lies, Lord of Fools” could ascend to godhood in his passing. Many, from powerful demigods to lowly jesters, arrived at the Temple of Ruse to engage in the contest.
Among the contestants was an entertainer known as Hogarth the Astounding, who dressed in wizards’ garb and performed mundane tricks with his “assistant,” a ventriloquist’s puppet named Mr. Joe. In the contest, Hogarth barely avoided elimination, but
managed to persist to the final ten.
In the final game, each contestant was given a unique signet ring. If any contestant could secure all ten rings, then step into the lit pyre at the temple’s center, they would ascend to Ruse’s place at the divine table. After a week of feints and illusions, a demigod of gambling assembled the full set of rings. Stepping into the flames, he was immolated in screaming agony; one of his rings, a wooden fake, burned to ash on his finger.
It was then that Hogarth revealed his grand façade: beneath his robes were wooden joints and marionette strings; he was but an elaborate fabrication, a puppet expertly controlled by Mr. Joe, a geppettin— an animated puppet-person—posing as a prop the entire time. Mr. Joe, held the true signet ring, whereas
Hogarth’s was a fake as convincing as himself.
Picking up the remaining rings, Mr. Joe stepped into the flames and ascended to become Sham, Lord of Trickery.
Personality Trait
While bound to this vestige, you gain the following personality trait: “I love to put on performances for others, especially when using unwilling participants.”
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