Description
This delicate silk half-mask shimmers with an oily, iridescent sheen that shifts between deep purples and blacks depending on the light. The fabric feels unnaturally cool to the touch, almost liquid in texture, and clings to the skin like a second layer. When not in use, the mask appears smooth and featureless, but faint impressions—like faces pressing against fabric from beneath—occasionally ripple across its surface.
The edges are trimmed with fine silver thread that seems to pulse with a faint, rhythmic glow, as if mimicking a heartbeat. Those who stare at the mask too long report feeling watched, even when no face adorns it.
Mechanics
Veil of Borrowed Faces (Rare Wondrous Item, requires attunement)
This mask has 3 charges and regains 1d3 charges daily at dawn.
Absorb Visage: As an action, you can touch a humanoid who has been dead for no more than 1 hour and expend 1 charge. The mask absorbs their exact facial features, voice, and general appearance (including hair color and style, eye color, and distinctive markings). The mask can only hold one visage at a time; absorbing a new face erases the previous one.
Borrowed Identity: While wearing the mask with a stored visage, you can use a bonus action to assume that creature’s appearance. This transformation affects your face, hair, voice, and general physical characteristics, but not your clothing, equipment, or body type beyond minor adjustments (up to 6 inches taller or shorter, appearing thinner or heavier). The disguise lasts for up to 8 hours or until you remove the mask.
Creatures attempting to see through your disguise must succeed on a DC 17 Wisdom (Insight) check. You have advantage on Charisma (Deception) checks made to pass as the individual whose face you wear.
Limitation: The mask cannot absorb the faces of constructs, undead, or creatures that have been dead for more than 1 hour. If you attempt to absorb a face from an invalid target, the charge is wasted.
Notes
This item could be found on an assassin working for a shadowy organization, or perhaps discovered in an ancient tomb belonging to a cult of shapeshifters. The creepy factor makes it perfect for morally gray situations—do the players use a dead person’s face? How do they justify it?
Potential plot hooks:
- Someone recognizes the party member wearing a stolen face
- The mask begins to “remember” the people whose faces it has worn
- A powerful entity wants the mask back