I wrote previously about using puzzles and about playground rooms. This is something of a toy magic item for fantasy heroes to play with.

The Crystal Ball

While exploring a dank dungeon, the heroes find an ornate stand that is empty. Elsewhere, they find a crystal ball wrapped in cloth. If they put the crystal ball on the stand, it will swirl with life.

Ask your query, if ye may.
I will answer yea or nay.

If someone asks a yes-or-no question, the crystal ball will swirl again and produce an answer in the language the questioner used. If the answer is knowable, such as a factual question about the area, answer it correctly with either “Yes, it is so” or “No, it is certain.” If it doesn’t matter much to you, roll the die of fate. If the answer is unknowable because it requires knowledge of the future or something similar, answer with something noncommittal:

• The future is not yet fully written.
• The veil will soon be lifted on that mystery.
• The mists have not yet parted on that vision.
• Such questions are unanswerable.
• Such answers are unknowable.

Each question, regardless of the answer, costs the questioner 1d3 hit points, which manifests as weariness. After 10 hit points, the crystal ball will go dark until morning. The characters sense it’s “resting”.

Crystal balls are fairly fragile and will be damaged if dropped on a stone surface or its bearer takes a big hit or fall (8+ hp physical damage) and it isn’t well-packed and padded. If it’s damaged, the ball will gain a crack. It must now roll a 1d20 check to beat a 5 or give an incorrect answer. (It continues as usual to drain 1d3 hp for each question.) On a natural 1, it breaks open, ruined, and causes a minor wild magic effect to all within 10 feet. If it takes additional damage, the crystal ball breaks, delivering a major wild magic effect to all within 20 feet and ending its usefulness.

It’s important that you enforce these rules so that the crystal ball is effectively a consumable magic item and not an infallible, all-knowing answer machine forever.

Variants

Later, the heroes might encounter the idol of an evil god, which asks a yes-or-no question of them in its own infernal tongue, and answering incorrectly will bring doom. The heroes could repeat that question to the crystal ball, get an answer, and repeat it to the idol. (The crystal ball only answers questions from people; the idol only responds to answers from people, so they can’t just hold up the ball to the idol and have it answer the idol directly.)

Instead of draining hit points, the crystal ball could produce a minor wild magic effect on the asker with each question and a major wild magic effect on its destruction.

Or perhaps it doesn’t drain hit points, but you can only ask one question per day.

Perhaps the crystal ball already has a crack when the heroes find it.