Charges:
7
(regains at dawn)
This palm-sized music box is built from black walnut polished until it shines like still water. Its lid is inlaid with a silver mourning dove whose wings are formed from tiny musical notes, while a ring of pale blue moonstones circles the keyhole. Inside, delicate brass cylinders and crystal teeth turn without visible gears. The box has no winding key; it winds itself whenever a dead heart remembers its bearer. Its melody is always intimate and imperfectly human, sometimes accompanied by the faint sound of humming from somewhere just beyond hearing.
The Song They Keep
When a dead creature who knew you in life thinks of you, the music box opens and plays the song that creature hums in that moment. The song can be heard only by you and creatures you designate. You immediately know the dead creature's name, its emotional state toward you, and whether it is on your plane of existence. If more than one dead creature is thinking of you, the box plays the song of the one whose feelings are strongest. If no dead creature is thinking of you, the box remains silent.
An Inherited Promise
When you attune to the music box, a dead creature who knew you presents a small, specific obligation through a vision woven into the melody. The Dungeon Master determines the request, which should be possible to fulfill, require no more than a day's work once reached, and be appropriate to the deceased's relationship with you. You may refuse the obligation, but the attunement fails. Once you accept it, you cannot voluntarily end your attunement until you fulfill the request or receive the dead creature's forgiveness. If circumstances make the obligation impossible, the Dungeon Master may allow you to renegotiate it through the music box.
Keepsake of the Unfinished
While attuned to the music box, you can use an action to cause it to replay the last song it heard from a particular dead creature who knew you. As the song plays for 1 minute, you may perceive a silent, ghostly image of that creature as it appeared in life. The image can gesture and point but cannot speak. Once you use this property, you cannot use it again until the next dawn.
Conversation Beyond the Grave
The music box has 7 charges and regains 1d6 + 1 expended charges daily at dawn. You can expend 3 charges to cast speak with dead without requiring a corpse. The target must be a dead creature who knew you in life and whose soul is free and willing to answer. The spell's questions and answers occur through the music box's melody, and the spell uses your spellcasting ability if you have one; otherwise, its spell save DC is 18. The music box cannot contact a creature whose soul has been destroyed, transformed into an undead creature, or claimed by a divine power that bars the communication.
A Refrain for the Living
You can expend 2 charges as an action to play a stirring melody for 10 minutes. You and up to six creatures of your choice who can hear it gain advantage on saving throws against being frightened or charmed. A creature affected by this melody can also add 1d4 to one death saving throw made before the melody ends.
The Promise Kept
When you complete the inherited obligation, the music box plays a new, radiant arrangement and grants you a mark of remembrance. Until you finish a long rest, you have advantage on saving throws against death and can cast sending once without expending a spell slot or charges, provided the message is addressed to a dead creature. Afterward, the box chooses a new deceased person connected to you and may offer another obligation the next time you voluntarily attune to it.
Lore
The box is said to have been made by Elian Voss, a composer whose beloved died before hearing his final song. Unable to accept that music could end with death, Elian built an instrument that listened for memory rather than breath. The first melody it played belonged to his beloved, who had been dead for eleven years. Every owner since has heard music from the departed, but none has heard the same melody twice. Bards claim the box does not truly preserve songs; it preserves promises that were never given a proper ending.
History
Elian Voss disappeared after the first performance of the box. It was later found beneath the floorboards of his abandoned theater, accompanied by a list of twenty-three names and a single unfinished verse. The box passed through the hands of mourners, royal confessors, grave robbers, and at least one archmage who reportedly used it to negotiate with the ghost of a murdered queen. It now appears wherever someone has inherited a duty that the dead were unable to complete themselves.
