The Helm Of Dul’Gahn

Raglom the Wizard wearing the Helm shortly before taking
a fireball to the face and dying. The helm was recovered from his corpse.
Yes, beer bottles represent flying.

I’ve been adding more and more ‘h’s to the name of this item to try and obscure where I got the name of this artifact from. My wife recognized that it is Gul’dan from Warcraft with the first consonants switched on the syllables. If I had known that the artifact was going to be so important to my campaign I would have given it a better name. The Helm started as an item I gave to an antagonistic evil wizard. The wizard died during a siege and the party was able to loot his body in the chaos. The item was originally designed for mass combat; I had to adapt it for regular campaign play.

The powers of the helm were originally:

1: raise 2d4 stands of fallen troops as undead under control of the user, once per day

2: Open a dimension door to send troops from up to 18” away, three times per day

3: Permanent shield spell

4: Permanent protection from good

Wow. First of all after looking this up. I realized that I had forgotten about the last two powers. Oops. I am a bad dungeon master. The first two powers were meant to be used in unison to overwhelm fortifiations in mass combat. The second two were meant to explain the permanent protections that all wizards get using the mass combat rules employed in the battle. I also had a little backstory for myself about helm. I did not expect this to ever be relevant. Duhl ‘Gahn (the apostrophe is going to move around) was an incredibly powerful long dead evil wizard whose soul and consciousness lived on inside the helm. He offered his power to any magic user who dons the helmet. He would then try to take over the user. I decided that the evil wizard wearing the helm in the battle was powerful enough to contain Duhl’ Gahn’s consciousness.

At the time I imagined it as sort of a less successful demilich. By that I mean there were parts of Dhuhl ‘Ghahn’s skull placed into the helm and that the evil wizard somehow created the item himself and placed his own skull inside the helm. No, I have not figured out how that happened, but it definitely involved magic. Perhaps Dhulhlhh’ ‘hGhahhnshhh’s consciousness resides in its own demiplane, where it can carry out arcane research unbothered. Perhaps the purpose of the helm is to seed his consciousness throughout the prime material plane. Any way here are the mechanics for how HDhulhlhlhlhlh’ hGhahhhhhhhhhhhnn  takes over someone’s mind:

1.     Anyone wearing the helm can commune with HDhulllhhhhhhhhhhh’’’’’’hhhhGhahhhhhhhnnn and he will answer their questions with his arcane knowledge gained over millennia.

2.     Then the wearer must make an intelligence check. If the wearer succeeds nothing happens.

3.     Once the wearer has failed an amount equal to their intelligence score their consciousness is erased and they are now ‘’hhDhuhhhlllhhhhh’’’hhhGhahhhhhnnhhh.