Charges:
7
(regains at dawn)
This fist-sized ball of gray-blue twine is wound around a black iron spindle hidden at its heart. Fine silver fibers run through the thread like veins, and tiny knots form shifting symbols resembling roads, names, and open eyes. The twine is always faintly damp, smelling of rain on old stone. When activated, one end slips free and crawls across the ground with purposeful movements, climbing walls, squeezing beneath doors, and tugging steadily toward what the holder has lost.
Thread of Recovery
While holding the ball, you can speak the name of one specific object, creature, or place that you have personally possessed, known, or visited and that you have genuinely lost. You can then expend 1 charge. The twine unspools toward the target, tugging in your hand and forming a visible path along the safest available route. The thread can extend up to 10 miles and remains unspooled for 1 hour, or until it reaches the target. If the target is farther away, on another plane of existence, or protected from divination magic, the thread points in the target's general direction but does not unspool. The ball cannot locate a creature or object that you have willingly abandoned or given away.
Certain Direction
The thread does not lead to an illusion, decoy, or duplicate. If the target has been destroyed, died, or ceased to exist, the thread unspools toward the place where it was destroyed or where the creature died. If the target is moving, the thread continually adjusts its course.
Unbreakable Twine
The magical thread has AC 20, 10 hit points, and immunity to psychic and poison damage. It is immune to being cut by nonmagical weapons. If severed, it vanishes and reappears wound around the ball when the property is used again.
The Former Claimant
The ball's original owner, a revenant named Maelin Vey, is mystically aware whenever a charge is expended. Maelin immediately learns the direction and approximate distance to the ball, provided it is on the same plane of existence, and can perceive the last minute of the ball's surroundings through the thread. Maelin cannot control the ball through this property, but relentlessly seeks to reclaim it.
Reluctant Guidance
Once per dawn, when you expend a charge, Maelin can force the thread to tug toward Maelin instead of your chosen target. You must succeed on a DC 17 Wisdom saving throw or the ball unspools toward Maelin for 1 minute, during which time you cannot use Thread of Recovery. On a successful save, the ball functions normally, but Maelin still learns your direction and approximate distance.
Curse.
The curse is hidden until the ball's Reluctant Guidance property first activates or the item is identified. Once attuned, you cannot willingly end your attunement to the ball unless remove curse or similar magic is cast on you, or you return the ball to Maelin Vey. Maelin is a relentless revenant who believes the ball was stolen from her and will pursue its bearer across kingdoms. Returning the ball to Maelin ends the curse, but Maelin may not allow the former bearer to leave alive.
Lore
The Errant Thread was spun from the burial shroud of Maelin Vey, a legendary explorer who mapped roads that no longer exist and recovered treasures believed to be beyond reach. Maelin claimed the ball could find anything that had been truly lost, but insisted it had never once led her to something she was not meant to find. Those who hear the thread whisper say that the ball does not distinguish between a lost possession, a lost loved one, and a lost enemy.
History
Maelin Vey commissioned the ball from a blind weaver who used silver taken from a fallen star and thread harvested from a hag's loom. Maelin later vanished while pursuing a stolen royal seal into the drowned catacombs beneath Veyr. Years afterward, her revenant returned to the surface, convinced that one of her companions had taken the ball and abandoned her below. Adventurers have repeatedly found the Errant Thread in places connected to things they desperately sought, always shortly before Maelin appeared to reclaim it.
