Mailshirt of the Wardragon

Armour (chain shirt), artifact (requires attunement)

Exactly one thousand years ago there was a great war in the firmament – or so the story goes – and one of the vanquished gods fell to earth. As befits a god, his weapons and devices were beyond human comprehension, and the impact of his dead dragon-steed created the circular lake known as Skyfall, which is more than a mile in diameter. The vanquished greenblood fell with his dragon-steed, and his body landed ten miles from the crater.

His mailshirt was an engine, like a watermill or a siege catapult. Those who found the mailshirt soon learned that even isolated links had wondrous properties. The chainmail was broken up and some links sold as holy relics, while the remainder of the mailshirt was enshrined and guarded by generations of warrior monks.

The mailshirt is a magic chain shirt that grants a +3 bonus to the wearer's AC. It does not prevent a non-proficient wearer from casting spells.

Random Properties. The mailshirt has the following randomly determined properties (determined per wearer):

• 1 minor beneficial property
• 1 major beneficial property
• 2 minor detrimental properties

Magic Eater. While wearing the mailshirt, you have advantage on saving throws versus spells. If you succeed on such a saving throw, the caster of the spell must succeed on a DC 18 Charisma saving throw or take 8d10 necrotic damage. If this damage reduces a creature to 0 hit points, the mailshirt consumes their soul.

Feat. If your campaign allows feats, you have the Healer feat while attuned to the mailshirt.

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Links. The mailshirt is made from thirty thousand dragonlinks, though some may be missing. The mailshirt glows orange while it is within half a mile of a loose dragonlink, unless it or the link is enclosed by lead and/or flesh. When all links are looped into the mailshirt and it is complete, it gains the following additional properties (which cannot be learned by the identify spell, though legend lore may hint at them):

Random Properties. The mailshirt has the following randomly determined properties (determined per wearer):

• 1 major beneficial property
• 1d4 - 1 major detrimental properties

Master of Weapons. While wearing the mailshirt, you have proficiency with all weapons, and a +1 bonus to attack and damage rolls made with weapons.

Powerful Build. You count as one size larger when determining your carrying capacity and the weight you can push, drag, or lift.

Spells. The mailshirt has 10 charges. While wearing it, you can expend 1 or more of its charges to cast one of the following spells (save DC 18) from it: absorb elements (1 charge), bones of the earth (4 charges), chain lightning (4 charges), erupting earth (2 charges), lightning bolt (2 charges), or telekinesis (2 charges).

    When you cast absorb elements in this way, you can also use it against force and radiant damage. Charisma is your spellcasting ability for this casting of telekinesis. The mailshirt regains 1d6 + 4 expended charges daily at dawn.

Sentience. The mailshirt, which was created by a meld of Chironian science and magic, houses a neutral evil machine or spirit called the Wardragon. It has an Intelligence of 18, a Wisdom of 11, and a Charisma of 20. It can communicate telepathically with its wearer and can perceive through its wearer's senses. As soon as the mailshirt is complete and being worn by someone attuned to it, it attempts to possess the wearer by making a Charisma check with advantage, contested by the wearer's Charisma check. If it succeeds, the wearer becomes an NPC under the DM's control, and their mental ability scores are replaced by the Wardragon's.

The Wardragon or the wearer may repeat the contest: once per day at dawn; once per day when the Wardragon is in control and takes a course of action that strongly conflicts with the wearer's ideal or bond (the wearer has advantage on this check); and once per day when the wearer is in control but is incapacitated (if the Wardragon succeeds on this check, it recovers from the incapacitation and any other condition that caused it; if the condition was unconsciousness caused by dropping to 0 hit points, it also regains 1 hit point).

While the Wardragon is possessing the wearer, it can cast each of the mailshirt's spells using 2 fewer charges (minimum of 0). Whether or not it is possessing the wearer, the Wardragon can choose to invoke Magic Eater against the caster of any spell that targets the mailshirt or includes it in its area of effect (even if the spell does not include a saving throw).

Personality. The Wardragon seeks world domination via military conquest, the occasional political subterfuge, and its advanced technological knowledge spanning to space travel and beyond. It thinks of itself as a machine that does not have 'mortal failings' such as emotions. Its methods are usually straightforward and forceful, so it is unlikely to try to pass as its wearer – though its deep voice would likely give it away if it tried.

Its ultimate goal is the destruction of magic – which it views as a disease that should never have existed – and of dragons. The name 'Wardragon' is a simple contraction of its mission: to war upon the dragons, until they are no more. And by extension, on magic itself, as it sees dragons as the originators of magic. Although it loathes magic, it recognizes that it must itself use magic in order to destroy magic.

If the Wardragon finds its host unsuitable (too weak, too argumentative, or with incompatible random properties), it can use an action to transfer the mailshirt to a new incapacitated or willing host it touches. Its attunement to its previous host ends, and it instantly attunes to the new host (breaking attunement to one of their other attuned items if needed).

Curse. Once you don the complete mailshirt, you can't doff it or break attunement to it unless the Wardragon allows it, and your Charisma is reduced by 2. Casting the remove curse spell or similar magic on the mailshirt suppresses this curse until the next dawn.

<div class='footnote', style=color:black>Art by Cathy Larsen