Philosopher's Information Concerning Binding Stones

Dear Seeker of Highkeep, and companions,

Your gift was of much interest. It is unusual to recover powerful weapons blessed by The Warlord. The magic of the Divine is the most challenging to unravel, and the most mysterious to us. We have endeavored to provide a worthwhile value for such a gift.

The stones you speak of, known as the Binding Stones of Amloch, are a unique item. From what we have been able to learn, they are also an ancient item, created more than 3000 years ago, before the Downfall, in the land of Hkar. How did they come to be in the possession of a wizard of Drankor in the later days of the Drankorian Empire? We know not, at least not yet, not without another gift to entice our curiosity.

Nonetheless, much can be learned from the story of their origins. When the Binding Stones of Amloch were created, the world was young, and rich in belief and magic. A cult, known as the Chainshroud, arose in these days, preaching slavery and dominion over their kin, and growing in power thanks to Sarqon, a god of evil, of slavery and domination, summoned into being by the strength of their devotion to their own superiority. The Chainshroud was defeated, at great cost, and Sarqon imprisoned, cut off from Taelgar, forever preventing divine power from being used in the aid of slavery.

It is no simple matter to imprison a god. An extraplanar prison was constructed, an entire plane where Sarqon and the souls of slavers could torment each other for eternity, forever unable to influence the Material Plane. The creation of a new plane is a powerful event, and the wizard Amloch was waiting. He captured some of the energy of the prison dimension in five stones, which you now possess. Afterward, Amloch became known as Amloch of the Stones, and there are many tales of his exploits that hint at the power of the stones.

The most famous tales are the stories of true imprisonment, when all five stones are combined to permanently bind a creature. I believe Delios the Sage has already spoken to you of this power. Also famous are the tales of Amloch’s many servants among the extraplanar powers: elementals, fiends, fey, even celestials. We believe that he used the stones to bind these creatures to his service, using different combinations of stones for different types of creatures. We believe that within the power of these stones is also the ability to temporarily entrap extraplanar creatures. Each resonance of extraplanar creature, and form of binding must be connected to a particular combination of stones, but we do not yet fully understand the key, and it is difficult to learn without experimentation with the item itself. But we include some notes on our hypotheses. Finally, it is said that Amloch was a master of traps and snares, which we believe, in part, to be the result of the magic of these stones.

Be warned, however, that use of this item is not without peril. The wrong combination of stones may very well risk effects you don’t intend: summoning a servant of the creature you wish to bind, for example, or creating a brief reflection of the homeland of the creature you wish to affect. Experimentation is dangerous, and you must proceed cautiously lest you accidentally create a infinitely deep pool for the water elemental you wish to bind to taunt you from, instead of a magic circle trapping it.

Signed,
The Ninth Artificer
On Behalf of the Ancient and Honorable Guild of Philosopher’s

Included on a separate page are the following notes:

We have given names to each stone based on our research and our whim, for ease of communication.

• The Mirror Stone: a silvery, highly reflective stone; seems associated with reflecting and mirroring energy
• The Chaos Stone: a streaked stone of swirling colors, that seem to shift when you are not looking at it, primarily reds, blues, whites, and browns; perhaps associated with disorder, chaos, or raw elemental energy
• The Echo Stone: a pure white opaque stone, with an odd optical effect that it seems to contain echos or reflections of itself; perhaps associated with the Feywild, or with duplications and echoes
• The Anger Stone: a harsh, jagged reddish stone, the color of fire and blood, holding it too long leads to a slowly growing sense of unease that turns to anger and rage; probably associated with fiends
• The Peace Stone: a smooth golden stone with a single brilliant white line around the diameter at the middle, holding it for a while gives you a sense of peace and calmness; probably associated with the Divine Realms of the gods

We guess that simple traps (meta-game: the Snare spell, the Web spell) can be cast using any of the stones. More complex bindings likely require combinations, probably pairs or trios. It seems that the Anger and Peace stones are opposed, and the Chaos and Echo stones are opposed. The role of the Mirror stone, however, is not clear. 

But does binding require the stone associated with the being to be bound? Or the opposed stone? Presumably each creature requires a unique combination of stones, so it cannot be as simple as requiring the associated and opposed stones. 

With access to the item, we could learn more.