Vaethmor Kel
The tomb-wardens of Vaethmor were scholar-knights charged with sealing a city that had broken its covenant with mortality, a place where no one died naturally for three generations. When the wardens finally collapsed its gates, each sealed a fragment of the city's unspent death into their cloaks, vowing to carry what the city refused. The cloak remembers that compact and will not let its wearer go easily, for it was made to hold what ought to be released.
Appearance
A heavy cloak of deep charcoal wool edged with tarnished silver thread, its inner lining stitched with dense rows of tiny script in a script no living scholar reads.
Mechanics
When you are reduced to 0 hit points, the cloak erupts with ward-light and instantly stabilizes you, then grants you temporary hit points equal to your proficiency bonus times four when you regain consciousness.
Ward of the Fallen Threshold
When you are reduced to 0 hit points, the cloak activates without any action on your part: you are immediately stabilized and do not begin making death saving throws. When you next regain consciousness, whether through a healer, a spell, or the stabilized condition eventually ending the dying state, you gain temporary hit points equal to four times your proficiency bonus. This property can activate once per long rest.
Curse of the Borrowed Breath
Vaethmor Kel was sealed with a hunger it cannot shed. The curse binds to the attuned wearer during the first long rest taken while wearing the cloak, revealing itself as a compulsion: the wearer feels an inexplicable reluctance to remove the cloak, as though the fabric has grown into their skin. Mechanically, the wearer cannot willingly remove the cloak or end attunement to it unless they first succeed on a DC 16 Wisdom saving throw, which they may attempt once after each long rest. Until the curse is broken by a remove curse spell or similar magic, the cloak counts against the wearer's three-item attunement limit and cannot be displaced by attuning to a new item.
DM Notes
The save DC of 16 is intentionally high for rare tier to make the curse genuinely threatening rather than cosmetic. A character with a +5 Wisdom modifier succeeds roughly 50% of the time per long rest, meaning the curse typically persists for multiple sessions before being shaken naturally. The DM should emphasize the attunement-slot cost as the primary friction: being locked into this item prevents swapping to a more situationally useful attuned item. The once-per-long-rest trigger is the key balance lever: the cloak provides a powerful safety net but cannot rescue the wearer from consecutive near-death encounters in the same adventuring day. Pair this item with enemies that apply ongoing damage or battlefield hazards to make the temporary hit point payoff feel earned. Remove curse is the intended exit, giving the party a clear solution without making the curse feel arbitrary.
Generated with: Level 5 · Cursed ancient theme · Heroic · Rare