Scorpion Crown (Magic Crown)

An artifact of enormous evil power, the scorpion crown is currently in the ruins of Shattados's Palace. Physically, it resembles a large scorpion crafted of heavy, cold, black iron in the shape of a crown, with the legs encircling the head, and the stinger curling up over the head. It radiates a high degree of both magic and evil.
While the crown is clearly very powerful, it has no real practical use, instead it bears a terrible curse. Anyone unfortunate enough to place it on his or her head will experience its curse firsthand. The wearer is agonizingly transformed into a master scorpion, with no saving throw possible. Any individual who owes the wearer allegiance in any form must then successfully save vs. spell at-5 or be transformed into a manscorpion. It is Rary's hope that he can circumvent the negative aspects of the crown and bend the manscorpions of the desert to his will.
The crown's area of effect is limited to the Bright Desert and Abbor Alz. If it is taken from there, the original curse will still be active, but the crown will not, for example, cause luz to turn into a master scorpion and his barbarian allies to turn into manscorpions. Rary is unaware of this aspect of the crown's powers, which will make it useless to him even if he manages to avoid the curse.
The Bright Desert can still be saved from the scourge of Sulm's descendants. If the crown is eliminated, all manscorpions and monarch scorpions are immediately destroyed, and the Bright Desert will slowly begin to revert to a reasonably fertile, if somewhat arid, region. These changes take place over a century or more, and do not affect ongoing campaigns.
Of course, destroying the crown is no easy matter. As described in the Book of Artifacts, artifacts are vastly powerful items, and can only be destroyed by extraordinary means. The exact means of destroying the crown is up to the DM. Suggestions include dropping it into one of the active volcanoes in the furnaces of Baator, melting it in the breath of a lawful good great wyrm, taking it to an Outer Plane (such as the Negative Material Plane) where it cannot exist, or carrying it to a place beyond Oerth via spelljamming ship, to be destroyed by a focoid, rogue moon, sentient star, or other exotic space creature.
Category:Encyclopedia Magica Magic Items
Category:Magic Items
Category:Magic Crowns