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Player > Items > Magic > Vessel of Hylax
Starfinder Adventure Path #21: Huskworld (Attack of the Swarm! 3 of 6) p.45
Level: 20
Price: Priceless
Bulk: 1
A vessel of Hylax is a bowl fashioned from carved chitin. Two
are known to exist, both originating on the Liavaran moon
Nchak. The vessels are ancient holy relics, their creation
said to have occurred during the reign of a Forever Queen
who ruled Nchak before the Gap. When the shirrens arrived
in the Pact Worlds and showed great devotion to Hylax,
the philosopher worms of Nchak, due to portents they and
their queen had seen, sent one vessel to the shirren colony
on Ilemchuuva. The relic was a gift intended
to make Ilemchuuva another great center of
Hylax worship.
Oral tradition and recent
academic research uphold each
vessel's most famous power.
A creature that willingly
drinks water from this vessel,
with full knowledge of the
outcome, immediately and
irrevocably transforms into
a new insectile form. The
exact form manifested follows
some obscure criteria that
neither priests nor researchers
understand. Most sapient creatures
become shirrens or trox, with a rare
few becoming another sapient insectile
species, such as bolidas, dessamars, or
formians. Other creatures transform into
a variety of insectile forms, some closely
resembling their former body shape. Elementals, outsiders,
and undead creatures can't be transformed, nor can any
creature that can't benefit from the mystic cure spell.
A transformed creature recalls its former life and body. It
retains any class features, feats, and skill ranks it formerly had.
Its class, base attack bonus, and base save bonuses are also
unchanged. The creature loses the traits of its former species
and gains those of the new one, including recalculating ability
scores and base Hit Points as a member of its new species.
Abilities reliant upon features the new species lacks are
retrained as part of the transformation. Any gear the creature
carries or wears at the time of transformation adapts to the
creature's new form.
A vessel of Hylax can also be used to cast the reincarnate
spell on a sapient creature, acting as the soul beacon that
spell requires without being consumed during the spell. The
reincarnate becomes a shirren or trox, or more rarely, some
other sapient insectile species. When returned to life with a
vessel of Hylax, a person suffers none of the drawbacks of the
reincarnate spell, reviving with full vigor.
A vessel of Hylax can be destroyed only if a sapient creature
the bowl has transformed fills the bowl with its blood, then
uses a wish or miracle to reverse the transformation while
simultaneously wishing the bowl polluted. The polluted bowl
must then be destroyed (AC 11; immune to cold, electricity, and
piercing; hardness 25; 55 HP). If the polluted vessel remains
undestroyed, it can be reconsecrated with a ritual that requires
the remove affliction spell (DC 31). A vessel of Hylax is 1 bulk.
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