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The Right Hand of Nagash

Mixing D&D and Warhammer Fantasy lore together.  The (highly updated) lich(e) from the Dead Wedding adventure was wielding this item.


The Right Hand of Nagash

Nagash, Supreme Lord of the Undead Nagash, Supreme Lord of the Undead is the father of necromancy. A grand vizier of Nehekara – a desert kingdom that existed 10,000 years ago in the region of Caroa – he managed to achieve immortality through lich-dom. He also brought back the pharaohs of the kingdom’s past – like Settra – and gifted them with immortality. The mummy-lich lord’s despise Nagash for bringing him back to life – it was not the immortality they had dreamed off -and their combined might destroyed the vizier. Nagash still has many followers among intelligent undead to this day. Regretta the Bronze Liche is one of them.

To attune to the hand, you must lop off your right hand at the wrist and the press the artifact against the stump. The hand grafts itself to your arm and becomes a functioning appendage. If the hand is ever removed, you die.

Minor Properties

The Right Hand of Nagash currently has the following minor traits:*While attuned to the artifact, you can’t be charmed or frightened.

  • While attuned to the artifact, you can’t be blinded, deafened, petrified, or stunned.
  • While attuned to the artifact, you can’t smell.

These traits change when the artifacts finds a new host. The Right Hand of Nagash has the following traits:

  • 1 minor beneficial property
  • 1 major beneficial property
  • 1 minor detrimental property

Major Properties

Each time you use one of the hand’s charges you must make a DC 25 Charisma saving throw or your alignment shifts one step closer to lawful evil. Once you become lawful evil the hand begins to slowly convert your biological matter into machine parts. After 1 year you become a liche – a lich with the construct subtype. You otherwise retain all of your abilities. You gain the following benefits while attuned to the hand:

  • Strength of the Dead.  Your Strength score becomes 20 unless it is already 20 or higher.
  • Death’s Cold Embrace. Any melee spell attack you make with the hand, and any melee weapon attack made with a weapon held by it deals an extra 2d8 cold damage on a hit.
  • The Winds of Magic. You may spend a charge to recover an already cast spell as a bonus action. The number of charges expended determines the maximum spell level you may recover.
  • Nagash Wills It. The hand has 8 charges. You can use an action and expend 1 or more charges to cast one of the following spells (save DC 18) from it: finger of death (5 charges), sleep (1 charge), slow (2 charges), or teleport (3 charges). The hand regains 1d4 + 4 expended charges daily at dawn.

Removing the hand for any reason kills you leaving only ash and dust. Only a wish spell or divine intervention can resurrect you. Destroying the Hand.

Destroying the Hand. While attuned and attached to The Right Hand of Nagash it may be destroyed if the target is killed by Settra the Imperishable – the legendary mummy lord and implacable foe of Nagash – the hand burst into flame, turns to ash, and is destroyed forever. Any other attempt to destroy the hand seems to work, but the artifact reappears in the lair of another lich devotee of Nagash, where it waits to be rediscovered.

Posted in 5e, Dungeons & Dragons, Gear, The Dead Wedding, The Divine Heir and the Jade Regent

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