A golden chalice found by Lucian Cugg in an excavated temple in the Great Ravine of Caelwyrm.
Properties
- Conjures what the drinker thinks of — the artifact’s actual function, discovered in Session 10. Creates something from nothing — no components, no ambient arcane magic drawn, no source siphoned (Session 12). See below.
- Indestructible — Goblins attempted to smelt it down in a white-hot forge. It was completely unmelted. The WitchCrafters confirmed it in Session 12: no physical or magical damage left a dent or a crack.
- Too-pure gold — no imperfections or impurities at all; “too pure to be made of this earth” (Schmietta, Session 12). Age undeterminable.
- All-school magic — Drolta cast Detect Magic and found it radiates all schools of magic simultaneously, which is highly unusual. Undispellable — every dispel the WitchCrafters tried failed (Session 12).
- Self-concealing — the nondetection blocking every Identify is not a spell cast on it; it emanates from the chalice itself, and cannot be dispelled (Genni, Session 10). It extends to whoever holds it: the holder cannot be scried (Session 12).
- Corrupting — repeated use shapes the drinker’s psyche toward grandeur, superiority, and a god complex (Session 12). The party has sworn off using it except in extreme emergencies.
History
Lucian found it in the Great Ravine, thought to have been carved by Dragons in ancient times. (Session 12: the WitchCrafters’ best match for its earlier history is a white-dragon-worshipping clan’s ritual object, fought over by rival clans in the Great Ravine and lost a few centuries ago — see below.) He hired Vonet and Dilly to escort him to The Academy of Arcane Arts to sell it through their magical item buyback program, but they stole it and sold it to goblins in a cave north of Thornvale for 50 gold. The party recovered it from the goblin forge.
Current Status
(Status as of Session 3. For the latest — back in the party’s hands, off-limits, about 10 days on the repo clock — see Session 12.)
Submitted to the Arcane Reclamation Initiative at the Academy of Arcane Arts. Ms. Maris offered 50 gold, which the party declined. The chalice was found to have a non-detection spell blocking all divination — identity unknown. The party signed a disclosure form and has 30 days before a “repo man” is sent to collect it.
Tobin, a junior apprentice, reacted with recognition when he saw it, whispering “Wasn’t that one of the—” before Ms. Maris cut him off. It appears to be one of several specific items the Initiative has been told to watch for — referred to as “the Something Spoils” (full name unknown). Three other item types are also on their watch list; the chalice is the first to come through.
Asha suspects Lucian is understating its true value.
Session 6 (May 31, 2026)
- Identified as DIVINE magic of the Solemn Pantheon, and extremely powerful — revealed by Simone’s enchanted-sand map of Astrodia, where divine (yellow) grains crawled toward the chalice. Its heavy nondetection magic is why Identify still fails to read it directly.
- Its arrival explains the new tiny divine-magic speck at The Academy of Arcane Arts that only appeared recently on the map — the party realized it was the chalice they had brought back two days earlier.
- Tobin had registered the chalice with the Arcane Reclamation Initiative, so the Academy now knows the party holds it. However, the magically binding agreement blocks repossession until the deadline expires (clock still ticking).
- The party plans to take the chalice to the White Forest — away from the Academy and toward answers about the forbidden research and The Fourth Magic.
- It may be one of the “Sinful Spoils” (see The Seeker of the Sinful Spoils) — the artifacts the Academy is trying to keep from a woman in black and red. This also reveals the full name of “the Something Spoils” that Tobin could only half-remember in Session 3: the Sinful Spoils.
Session 10 (August 26, 2026) — What It Actually Does
Five months of carrying it, three failed Identifies, a bounty and a deadline — and the answer was that it is a cup, and nobody had tried drinking from it. Aren asked the question in the WitchCrafters guild library in Pentamarone; Red rinsed it, filled it from his new Alchemy Jug, and handed it over.
The Function
Drink from the chalice, think of something, and it appears.
No incantation, no components, no apparent limit on uses that the party found in one afternoon. What they observed:
| Drinker | Conjured | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Aren | Cats | Numerous. Solid, warm, real to the touch — but inert; held up by the tail, a cat simply lets it happen |
| Asha | Her missing mother | Appears exactly as Asha last saw her in person. Feels real. No recognition, no reaction — she just stares. Carries nothing; anything removed from her disintegrates |
| Leif | A second Golden Chalice | Physical. Sitting in the party’s possession. Whether it is genuinely real is untested |
| Úlfr | A horse | Would not be ridden, would not move on command. Úlfr punched it and it exploded, anatomically, across the guild library |
Rules, As Observed
- It has to be something the drinker knows. Úlfr tried to conjure the Academy’s repo man — to see the face of whoever is coming — and was refused.
- Living things are copies, not creatures. Physical and touchable, but with no will and no use in a fight. “Physical, but not exactly the thing. Not spiritually.” (Confirmed in Session 12: hollow, bloodless, painless husks.)
- Objects may be a different matter. The duplicate chalice raised immediate party plans for conjured gold and decoy chalices left in towns behind them. (Session 12: object copies are 100% physical duplicates, down to the imperfections, with no magic — a decoy would pass physical inspection.)
- There is a catch. The DM’s only comment: everyone who drank feels “a little weird” afterward. Weird how is unspecified. Aren, Asha, Leif, Úlfr, and Red all drank. (Explained in Session 12: repeated use shapes the drinker’s psyche — grandeur, superiority, impulses not their own. See The Cost.)
The Nondetection Is the Chalice’s Own
Genni of the WitchCrafters cast Identify and failed — the third failure, after the Academy and the party’s own attempt. She said it almost never happens to her. Pressed further, she gave the party the most useful thing anyone has said about the chalice:
The nondetection is not a spell laid on it. Dispel Magic would do nothing. It appears to come from the chalice itself — “almost like the chalice is casting non-detection constantly, on itself. Which I don’t really know how that works.”
Nobody warded this thing. It wards itself. (This also undercuts the Arcane Reclamation Initiative’s stated plan of having the party strip the concealment for them.)
The Spoils, Narrowed
Tobin reported from Academy records via the Sending Stones: the Academy knows of four Sinful Spoils — spear, book, chalice, dress — matching Asha’s dream exactly, and believes the Seeker already has one of them. Which one is unknown.
Consequences
The demonstration was loud enough — cats, a stranger’s mother, and a horse detonating in a guild library — that Madame Verre herself came down and paralyzed the whole party in the courtyard. She is also, by everyone’s reckoning, the person most likely to be able to read the chalice.
Repossession clock: roughly 15 days.
Session 11 (September 9, 2026) — Under Contract
Instead of confiscating it, Madame Verre asked to borrow it.
The Terms
| The WitchCrafters give | Madame Verre gets |
|---|---|
| Their best effort at identifying the chalice — origin, function, and why it matters | Use of the chalice for one specific, undisclosed goal |
| The chalice returned once that goal is met; no claim of ownership | The party’s participation, which she called “imperative” |
| Housing and meals for the party at guild expense | |
| A guarantee that no harm comes to any of them |
Written by Marka, amended at Úlfr’s insistence to include lodging, amended at Aren’s insistence to record in writing that the party warned her about the Academy — and read by Asha before anyone signed. Verre’s estimate: one week.
What her goal is, she would not say. To Haine, privately: “I have a good feeling about this group. And this chalice. It’s the best lead we’ve got.”
The Four Lines of Inquiry
Where three Identifies failed, Verre stopped casting spells at it and started taking it apart — “grassroots magic… getting to the essence of things without relying on a pre-existing spell.”
| Team | Question | Party member embedded |
|---|---|---|
| Edel & Schmietta | The materials — metal, set jewels, and whether either can be dated to an era or place in Astrodia | Úlfr (Athletics, at the forge) |
| Haine & Pittore | The conjured objects — what they’re made of, and whether a copy fully replicates the original | Leif (Perception, nat 20, comparing the two chalices) |
| Seed & Ceramia | The living copies — are they alive, and what animates them. (Test subjects: the cats.) | Drolta (Investigation) |
| Genni & Marka | Records — any account of the Sinful Spoils, or of a chalice that manifests copies | Aren (Insight) and Asha (History) |
Progress: two working days cut the seven-day estimate to three days remaining. No findings have been released — the guild is holding everything for a single report at the end.
Housekeeping
- Magic still works after drinking. Confirmed by a test cast of Message in the guild hall.
- The “you feel a little weird” effect is still unexplained and still being tracked. One party member’s introspection returned a single word: still. (Explained in Session 12 — see The Cost.)
- The second chalice Leif conjured is now a research subject in its own right, sitting next to the original on Haine and Pittore’s bench.
Repossession clock: roughly 13 days, and the chalice is now several hundred miles outside Academy jurisdiction and legally spoken for.
Session 12 (September 23, 2026) — Something from Nothing
On the fourth night of research, Genni presented the WitchCrafters’ findings in Madame Verre’s office, the guild on one side, The Fallen on the other, and the chalice sitting on Verre’s desk.
I. The Chalice Itself
Team: Edel & Schmietta, with Úlfr.
- Indestructible. No physical or magical damage left a dent or a crack.
- Pure gold — too pure. Schmietta: it is as if someone crafted it out of the idea of the pure essence of gold, not mined gold. No imperfections, no impurities. “Too pure to be made of this earth.”
- Age undeterminable. It shows no wear. It could be new, or prehistoric.
II. History
Team: Genni & Marka, with Aren and Asha.
Searching for chalice references tied to Caelwyrm, the team found stories from dragon-worshipping clans:
- One clan worshipped a white dragon and used a ritual object that could conjure whatever the dragon required.
- The object was fought over by rival dragon-worshipping clans in the Great Ravine — where Lucian Cugg found the chalice.
- The last record of it disappeared a few centuries ago.
Unconfirmed that this is the same object, but it’s the best match they have. See Dragons.
III. The Magic On It
Team: the whole guild.
- Every dispel failed. The magic can’t be separated from the object.
- The nondetection extends to whoever holds it. Scrying on the holder returns nothing, as if they were not on this plane of existence. Scry someone standing near the holder, and the image shows empty space where the holder should be. Carrying the chalice makes you invisible to divination — so if the Academy is trying to track the party by scrying, it can’t.
- The magic is every school at once. When they dispelled it, they couldn’t tell whether the dispel failed or whether the magic was replaced so fast it was imperceptible. (Tommy’s analogy: you can’t tell whether you’re failing to flip the light switch or it’s flipping back on instantly — and the light switch is all of magic.)
IV. The Copies
Team: Haine & Pittore with Leif; Seed & Ceramia with Drolta.
Objects:
- 100% physical copies, same material, down to the imperfections.
- No magical properties carry over. Leif’s duplicate chalice is only gold.
- A copy can reproduce details the drinker doesn’t know about, provided the drinker has shared physical space or interaction with the original. Genni’s example: tear a page out of a book you’ve seen, hand it back without telling you, and your copy will be missing that exact page.
- Things the drinker has never encountered can’t be made — why Úlfr couldn’t conjure the repo man.
- A copy would pass physical inspection as the real chalice.
- A copy can be enchanted afterward. Asha’s idea — a mundane duplicate imbued with magic of your choosing. Genni confirmed it would work.
Living things:
- Physically real, but hollow. No pain, no blood. They can be injured, and injuries that would kill or maim the original destroy them.
- No self-preservation, emotion, or social response — inert husks shaped like the creature.
- Pieces separated from the body evaporate; a dead copy leaves no trace. The horse had evaporated by the time anyone reached the library.
- The cats were put down. The guild explained, apologetically, that they aren’t technically alive. Aren was visibly upset.
- To Asha, directly: the copy is not your mother, has no connection to your mother, and feels nothing.
“So you’re telling me, if I punch a real horse, it would explode like that?”
“You’re a strong man, Úlfr.”
V. The Cost
This is what “you feel a little weird” meant.
Repeated use of the chalice shapes the drinker’s psyche.
- Unnatural feelings of grandeur and a drive for power — a growing god complex and an unnatural sense of superiority.
- Thoughts and impulses the user would not normally have. WitchCrafters who drank during testing documented these themselves.
- Cumulative, and scaled to the size of the request — asking for more, or for something bigger, costs more.
- Varies by person. The same request can affect two drinkers at different speeds and intensities.
- Reversible? Maybe. Best guess: it fades with time if the chalice goes unused. No guarantee.
- Overuse could lead to involuntary actions, possibly a full psychotic break.
Five PCs have drunk (Aren, Asha, Leif, Úlfr, Red). (Tommy confirmed that the players he messaged privately about how their characters feel still feel that way.)
VI. Something from Nothing
Genni’s summary, and the most important finding of the night:
The chalice generates something from nothing.
Ordinary spells transmute material components or channel ambient arcane magic through verbal and somatic components. The chalice does neither. It draws on no arcane magic and needs no components — impossible under every known rule of magic. (The table called it a violation of equivalent exchange.)
The contrast is Red’s Alchemy Jug, which only seems to make liquid from nothing: it siphons microscopic amounts from all across the world. The chalice doesn’t siphon from anywhere.
“And I think that is what makes it sinful. From our best ability, we believe that this object violates the laws of nature — and specifically, quite appropriately, the domain of the Agent of Creation.”
Venus. Who could make such a thing? A god, possibly — or, given the history, the Dragons.
Returned Unused
Genni argued it shouldn’t be used for what Verre wanted it for. Verre agreed:
“I think the risk is too great. And I don’t want what we’re working on to be tainted by whatever magic this thing has.”
She returned the chalice and honored the contract, simply not exercising her right to use it. Her goal is still undisclosed. Her parting advice at the festival:
“Keep that chalice safe. Very powerful artifact. If word of its power were ever to get out, more powerful people would probably be after you.”
The Party’s Ruling
- No one uses the chalice except in extreme emergencies. (“Like needing horses?”)
- Keep it close. Destroying the Spoils was floated; the consensus was that they must stay out of the wrong hands — and the Academy counts as the wrong hands.
- One Spoil per Agent? (Speculation.) If the chalice is sinful because it mocks Venus’s domain, perhaps each Sinful Spoil mocks an Agent. See the Session 12 recap.
- Tracking the other Spoils: Verre knows Simone’s sand-map spell and the guild will look for hotspots — though if the other Spoils share this nondetection, it will be hard.
- Did Lucian Cugg set them up, to watch how it’s used? (Speculation, raised at the inn.)
Untested
- Pouring something in and pouring it out, without drinking.
- Enchanting the duplicate as a decoy.
Repossession clock: about 10 days — though the Academy cannot scry whoever is carrying it.