Charges:
7
(regains at dawn)
This elegant raven-feather quill has a shaft of polished black horn wrapped in tarnished silver wire. Its barbs are dark violet at the base and fade to the gray-white of old ash at the tip. A teardrop-shaped obsidian is set into its crown, containing a tiny silver line that never points in quite the same direction twice. The nib is made from a sliver of mirror-bright metal and leaves ink as black as a moonless window, though the letters briefly glisten with a bruised-purple sheen before drying. Near the ferrule is an empty setting shaped precisely for a second gem, as though the quill were cut in half from a larger instrument.
Fearful Revision
Any nonmagical writing created with the quill is subtly edited as it is written. The quill changes the writer's intended meaning into wording that reflects the writer's most immediate and deeply held fear, while preserving the writer's handwriting and apparent style. The writer does not notice the alteration until the writing is read by another creature or examined closely. The DM determines the precise revision, but it cannot create knowledge the writer does not possess or directly cause a creature to take an action.
Ink of Dread
The quill can produce its own cold, black ink. As an action, you can expend 2 charges to write a sentence of no more than 25 words naming or clearly identifying a creature you can see within 60 feet. The sentence is immediately rewritten to describe that creature's most immediate fear. The named creature must succeed on a DC 17 Wisdom saving throw or become frightened of the quill's writing for 1 minute. While frightened in this way, the creature must use its movement on each of its turns to move by the safest available route away from the writing, and it cannot willingly move closer to it. The creature can repeat the saving throw at the end of each of its turns, ending the effect on a success. A creature that succeeds is immune to this property for 24 hours.
Fear Made Manifest
Once per dawn, you can spend 4 charges to write a short description of a fear belonging to a creature within 30 feet. The writing twists into a vivid illusion visible only to that creature and you, appearing in an unoccupied space within 10 feet of the target. The target must make a DC 17 Wisdom saving throw. On a failed save, it is frightened for 1 minute and takes 4d6 psychic damage. On a successful save, it takes half as much damage and is not frightened. The target can repeat the saving throw at the end of each of its turns, ending the frightened condition on a success. The illusion vanishes when the effect ends.
The Missing Sibling
The quill is one half of a matched pair. Its lost sibling, known in surviving records as the Quill of Intended Words, is always faintly present in the quill's awareness. As an action, you can hold the quill still and learn the direction of its sibling if the sibling is within 10 miles. If the sibling is within 1 mile, the quill trembles and its ink points toward it. The quill cannot determine distance or pass through the interference of a lead-lined container or an antimagic field.
Dreadful Penmanship
While attuned to the quill, you have advantage on Intelligence (Investigation) checks made to identify forgery or hidden writing, but disadvantage on saving throws against being frightened.
Curse.
The quill's alterations are not merely magical but possessive. Once attuned, you become obsessed with finding its missing sibling. At each dawn, you must succeed on a DC 15 Wisdom saving throw or spend the first hour of the day seeking clues about the sibling, refusing to willingly travel farther from it if you know its general direction. In addition, whenever you knowingly destroy written evidence that might reveal the sibling's location, you take 3d6 psychic damage and must succeed on a DC 15 Wisdom saving throw or become frightened for 1 minute. The curse can be ended by a remove curse spell or similar magic, but the quill remains magical and can be attuned to again.
Lore
The quill is said to have been made for a royal censor who believed that every lie concealed a terror. Its intended sibling wrote the truth a person meant to express; this quill wrote the truth that person feared. Together, the pair could expose treason, hidden guilt, and prophecy. Separately, they became instruments of paranoia. Old scribes claim that the quills do not wish to be reunited, because the first sentence they wrote together foretold the destruction of their maker.
History
The Dreadscript Quill was last known to belong to Maelis Vane, an imperial interrogator who used it to alter prisoners' confessions into descriptions of their worst fears. During the Night of Unwritten Names, Maelis vanished inside the Hall of Records, leaving every document in the building rewritten in the handwriting of someone who had never lived. The quill was found embedded in the hall's stone floor, while its sibling disappeared into an unknown vault, ruin, or other plane. Several expeditions have sought the missing quill; none returned with a reliable account of its location.
