Source Starfinder #41: Serpents in the Cradle pg. 51
Bulk L
In life, Korius Zrayne was a quiet, unremarkable verthani who taught art at a small school in Cuvacara. He disappeared in 213 AG, vanishing from one of the most heavily surveilled cities in the Pact Worlds. When authorities investigated his tiny apartment, they found no sign of Zrayne, but did find his life’s work: an old-fashioned triptych, painted in glorious color on three pieces of wood.
Zrayne’s notes called it The Sublime Marriage of Infinity and Eternity, but it’s more often referred to as simply the Sublime Triptych. The triptych is 2 feet high and 3 feet wide when unfolded, bearing three images laden with symbolism and meaning. The side panels each depict a robed figure of uncertain species, their faces replaced by a stylized celestial phenomenon: on the left, a black hole of glittering darkness surrounded by accretion disks of spiraling matter; and on the right, a golden star circled by solar winds and orbiting planets. In the center panel, a twisting, azure pulsar crowns a verthani, whose hands reach out to each side panel.
The Sublime Triptych’s supernatural powers were discovered almost immediately: if one person touches the left panel while someone else touches the right panel, the figures depicted on the panels adopt the appearance of the individuals who touched them, including their species and dress. The person who touches the left panel gains the ability to use the black hole stellar revelation as a fully graviton-attuned solarian of their level once. The individual who touches the right panel can use the supernova stellar revelation as a fully photon-attuned solarian of their level once. When these powers are used, the character who touched the opposite panel takes damage equal to 1d8 for every two levels of the power that was used; for example, if a character who touched the right panel uses supernova as a 10th-level solarian, the character who touched the left panel takes 5d8 damage. Using either of these abilities causes spectral drops of blood to appear on the surface of the triptych. The ability to use these revelations recharges if a character takes a 10-minute rest to regain Stamina; alternatively, a character can spend a Resolve Point to recharge it immediately.
Both users of the Sublime Triptych are constantly aware of each other’s relative positions and condition (as the status spell) and have a very rough sense of each other’s emotional state (happy, angry, or frightened, for example). The triptych’s effects disappear after one hour, or if either individual who touched it dies.
Zrayne’s disappearance eventually became a cold case; after a suitable delay, authorities auctioned off his belongings, including the Sublime Triptych. Since then, the triptych has gone from private collector to museum to auction house, never staying in one pair of hands for too long.
A keen-eyed observer comparing the most recent auction photos with the original investigation logs might notice that the central verthani figure seems far more detailed now than it was in 213 AG. Scholars aboard the Idari theorize Korius Zrayne was somehow absorbed by his own masterpiece—but no one can agree if this was an accident or what the triptych was designed to do all along.
The Sublime Triptych loses all its powers if both users die in the same round; if either individual returns to life, the triptych regains its abilities as well.
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