The Soul Cage
Curved sharp edges shape the head of this heavy steel mace. Within them a red dark light rhythmically pulsates, a quiet whisper can be heard escaping the cage. In its white handle are inscribed words in a dead language which mean: “No Power Compares with the Light of the Soul”
+2 Heavy Mace (Maul): You have a +2 bonus to attack and damage rolls made with Timor Exstatis.
Dread: 1/Long Rest¹; When you hit a creature with this weapon, you can make it shiver with fear. WIS15 or be Frightened for 1 minute. A creature frightened in this way must use its turn to move away from you, using the Dash Action or the Dodge Action if it can’t move away. Save Ends².
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Soul Trapper: When you bring a humanoid creature to 0hp and kill them with this weapon, their soul is trapped in Timor Exstatis. Up to 3 Souls can be contained in this mace, when the weapon is full it can’t trap any souls until at least one is spent.
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Consume: When you hit a creature with this weapon, you can spend one of the souls trapped in it. When you do this you must also spend and roll some of your Hit Dice. The attack deals extra necrotic damage equal to the rolled Hit Dice.
Example: Grimm, a 5th level Fighter, hits a Goblin with Timor Exstatis, killing him. Now Grimm has one soul trapped inside the weapon. Later in the adventure Grimm hits the Hobgoblin Master with Timor Exstatis and decides to spend the Goblin soul he trapped. Grimm’s player decides to spend 3 of Grimm’s 5 Hit Dice, which are d10s. The attack deals an extra 3d10 necrotic damage.
On Notation
This is the first time I use some shortcuts to explain common magical rules. If you’re familiar with any DnD rules you probably don’t need these tags to be explained to you, but I made sure to link to better definitions of these effects. I intend to use these tags on all of my posts to avoid useless paragraphs describing things we DMs have done and read over and over again. Less Rules, More Cool Stuff.
Souls that Hurt
Timor Exstatis was my spin on a Mace of Terror. I love magic items that ‘Do Something’, giving the player a new option for their character instead of a higher stat. I mean, why not both? This mace was already doing something very powerful, making enemies run, but I wanted it to be an extra tool in the player’s kit. Using Hit Dice to power effects is my jam. They’re an unused pool of dice each character already has, that grows with them and is bound to the character’s healing. It screams to be utilised. So what this weapon gives the player is an opportunity to trade some of their ‘life energy’ to consume their enemies souls and defeat more. Metal.
The fact that you must acquire souls serves two purposes. It is more interesting than always having 3 ‘stacks’; that often means infinite stacks in a random ‘adventuring day’. It also motivates players to seek the kill, pushing the theme of Timor Exstatis being a soul-craving, creepy weapon. The limit on Humanoid souls helps reinforce what kind of sacrifice this power demands.
Remember that in 5e you only recover half of your Hit Dice upon finishing a long rest!
Hooks
Timor Exstatis is not a very ‘Virtuous’ weapon, but it doesn’t mean it can’t be used for a good cause. Be careful to drop this weapon in the hands of a less-than-perfect party. No one wants the ‘cop’ of the party to be opposed to the use of the weapon, it creates tension between players, and that’s no good. We may want tension between characters, but I don’t think this item will necessarily cause that.
Who is this weapon good for? For a villain. A mid-tier boss, someone who works for the BBEG but is just a lieutenant or emissary. Make your evil general wield Timor Exstatis and use some evil smites on the party. Wow, we just defeated the villain! What? We get to use its cool ability now?!
Here are some ideas:
| d6 | Hook |
| 1 | The weapon is a torture tool used by an evil cult to steal the afterlife from its victims. |
| 2 | A Death Knight wields Timor Exstatis against the party, killing their own minions out of combat to charge it. |
| 3 | The party reads about Timor Exstatis and the crypt where it’s buried while searching for a way to kill, or at least trap, a villain that keeps resurrecting. |
| 4 | The Paladin’s weapon gains the aspect of Timor Exstatis when they renounce their oath. |
| 5 | Timor Exstatis is the result of a high elven weaponsmith, gone mad trying to harness the power of the Soul itself. |
| 6 | Timor Exstatis was the holy weapon of a high cleric, but it was corrupted when she lost her faith. |
Variations
There could be hundreds of variations on the mechanic of using Hit Dice, but I prefer to give them more space on future items. Here are instead different flavours of this weapon, if you don’t dig the soul-consuming aspect of it.
| d4 | Name | Alignment | How to Gain Stacks | Damage Type |
| 1 | Maul of Mercy | Good | Whenever you bring a creature to 0hp with this weapon and don’t kill it. When the creature dies the stack is lost. | Radiant |
| 2 | Hidden Flame | Chaotic | On a natural 1 on an attack roll with this weapon. | Fire |
| 3 | Retributor | Lawful | When a creature uses all of its attacks against you and misses all of them. You can use the consume effect only against creatures that have granted you stacks. | Force |
| 4 | Goo-Infuser | Neutral | After finishing a long rest, make a CON saving throw DC 10. On a success the weapon gains a stack, on a failure you become poisoned for 1 hour. | Poison |
