The Gaze of Malacor

These look like they contain the trapped gaze of a multieyed monster, perhaps a Beholder or a mutated Kraken. Let's name them The Gaze of Malacor.

Backstory for The Gaze of Malacor

The Legend of Malacor's Abode:

Deep beneath the churning, freezing waves of the Kraken's Grave, where the water is thick with ink and old magic, lay the sanctum of Malacor the Many-Eyed. Malacor was not a true Beholder, but a rare abyssal horror, a creature of many limbs and an endless array of spectral eyes that saw beyond the physical realm, into the weave of fate itself.

Malacor used its central eye to predict the tides of battle, its outer eyes to see every potential future, and its numerous, mutated, non-blinking eyes to bind the souls of sailors to the deep. These eyes did not close, even in sleep, staring with a multi-hued, predatory intensity that drove men mad.

The Breaking and the Binding:

A brave party of adventurers, guided by the whisper of a blind oracle, sought to end Malacor's reign. The battle was cataclysmic, fought in an underwater cathedral of obsidian and bone. To defeat the horror, the oracle had prepared a complex ritual: as the adventurers shattered Malacor's central form, the oracle captured its vast, multi-dimensional vision.

Instead of an object, the oracle bound the raw psychic energy into the only pure conduit available: a clutch of fossilized deep-sea resin.

The Dice and the Gaze:

The result is The Gaze of Malacor, a set of polyhedral dice with translucent, swirled blue bodies resembling the depths of the ocean and the mist of Malacor's home. Trapped within each die is one of Malacor's preserved, multi-colored, and unblinking eyes, forever staring outwards, seeing everything, forgetting nothing. The green numbering is inked in the color of Malacor's final, venomous breath.

Unique Properties (for the DM)

These dice carry a fragment of Malacor's abyssal sight and its curse. When used in a campaign, they might grant minor boons or carry risks:

• The Staring Eye: The dice have a way of always settling so the trapped eye can see the player. They seem to follow movement, and leaving them in an open container can make nearby creatures uneasy, as if they are being watched.
• Malacor's Sight:
• On a Nat 20 (high roll), the player briefly glimpses a truth or a vulnerability, perhaps gaining a temporary insight bonus to an Investigation or Insight check.
• On a Nat 1 (low roll), Malacor's gaze intensifies. The player might see a terrifying vision of their own demise, suffering a small penalty (e.g., -1d4) to their next d20 roll due to a moment of paralyzing fear.
• Whispers from the Deep: During long rests, the player holding the dice might dream of the endless blue deep and feel an urge to cast the dice into the nearest large body of water, to "return the gaze home."

A powerful, ocular-focused magic item, The Gaze of Malacor is both a powerful tool and a reminder that when you look too long into the deep blue abyss, the abyss is already looking back.