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Mask of the Shadowed Gaze

wondrous item (headgear), very rare (requires attunement)

This smooth, featureless black mask reflects no light, and wisps of shadow trail from its edges. While wearing it, your eyes glow a deep crimson.

Veil of Darkness

You can see normally in darkness, both magical and nonmagical, to a distance of 120 feet.

Shrouded

You have advantage on Dexterity (Stealth) checks while in dim light or darkness, and creatures have disadvantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks to detect you in such conditions.

Shadow Step

As a bonus action, you can teleport up to 30 feet to an unoccupied space you can see that is in dim light or darkness. Once you use this feature, you can’t do so again until you finish a short or long rest.

Crimson Sight

You have advantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on sight and on Intelligence (Investigation) checks made to discern the nature of an illusion.

Cursed

The mask is bound to shadow and secrecy. While attuned to it, you cannot speak above a whisper, and your voice takes on an eerie, hollow quality. Additionally, while in bright light, you have disadvantage on Charisma (Persuasion) checks as the mask makes you appear unsettling and unnatural. Removing the mask breaks the attunement, but doing so requires an action and causes you to suffer psychic damage as the shadows momentarily resist being cast aside.

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Lore

Long ago, in an age when shadows whispered secrets to those who dared listen, there was a sorcerer known as Veythis the Veiled. Shunned by mortal scholars for his obsession with the unknown, he sought knowledge in the space between light and darkness, where reality frayed at the edges. It was said he ventured beyond the veil of the Material Plane, wandering into the Twilight Abyss, a realm of living shadow. When he returned, he carried with him a mask of utter blackness, featureless and cold, as if it had swallowed all light from the world it came from.

Veythis claimed the mask granted him vision beyond mortal limits, allowing him to see through deception, step through darkness, and listen to the whispers of the unseen. But those who met his gaze spoke of something unsettling—the way his eyes burned like embers in the void, as though something else was looking through him. Some said the mask did not merely grant sight, but allowed something from beyond the veil to watch through his eyes.
The mask's origins are uncertain. Some claim it is woven from the essence of the Twilight Abyss itself, a sliver of a forgotten god’s shadow. Others believe it is a remnant of the first darkness, a fragment of night before the dawn of the world. Whatever its true nature, the mask has passed through many hands—assassins, warlocks, and seekers of forbidden knowledge. Yet none have kept it for long. The longer one wears the mask, the deeper the shadows seem to whisper, and in time, the wearer begins to wonder: