Blood Idol (3.5e Equipment)

Blood Idol
''Blood for blood. Life for life.''

This shamanistic item is fashioned from a shrunken head impaled by rusted nails, set on a necklace of rugged thread. The head has no jaw, but fangs protrude from its upper jaw and its lifeless eye sockets have an eerie reddish gleam.

When this sinister item is donned, the wearer will quickly feel a weakness and lingering pain throughout his body. The pain will subside after an hour or so and leave a strange numbness, but the weakness remains. For as long as this cursed fetish has hold over its wearer, he has 1 less hit point per HD. This health loss is permanent and remains even if the blood idol is removed from the neck, though a remove curse spell will allow the wearer to regain his full health through natural or magical healing.

While the blood idol is worn however, the wearer can also take advantage of its blood magic. Each time he directly draws the blood of a living creature, he regains 1 hit point. For the purpose of this item, drawing blood is defined as doing 1 or more points of damage to a living creature that has similar blood, using weapons, spells, or abilities that deal piercing or slashing damage. The idol's blood-steal cannot restore the wearer's hit points past its newly lowered maximum.

The blood-steal is ineffective against creatures that are either unliving, have different blood, or have no blood at all, such as undead, constructs, aberrations, vermin, plants, oozes, elementals and non-native outsiders.

Prerequisites: Craft Wondrous Item, bestow curse, vampiric touch.

Cost to Create: 250 gp, 20 EXP, 1 day.