Azure Index (5e Equipment)
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An Azure Index is a book. A book kept by all Azure Mages and some hunters of supernatural beings who value it equally. It contains useful information on all the creatures the keeper has deemed worthy to be entered into its pages with ones the keeper/writer has met being written in the bound pages. These books are also usually kept by Celestial Hunters and some contain information on creatures whose information have been forgotten but rarelly will someone share information. A person trained in the use of these confusing books can glean information about all sorts of creatures. After a fight and while the memory is fresh you can spend 10 minutes writing down information on the creature(Max HP, AC, speed, all actions).
In case you are within 30 feet of a magical creature or one capable of using magic and have perhaps jotted down information from a library, word of mouth or another azure mage/hunter you can use a bonus action to make a History skill check to quickly refresh your memory. On a successful skill check, you now know the creature's Maximum Hit Points, its AC, its base walking speed, its Actions, Reactions, and Legendary Actions.
Most Azure mages start off with an Index given by their teacher which intentionally has but a few and relatively weak monsters(also leaving out the extremely common beings in the material plane since all but a few know about them eg.humans, elves, dwarves, goblins etc). The goal is to not jsut to fill their apprentices heads with grandiose dreams but to also give them an immediate goal to work towards. They know that with time their apprentices will keep looking out for myths/legends/stories about monsters and jot down any potential information they learn(on unbound note pages) and that if they're able and lucky they will be able to ascertain what the truth is. Each Azure mage is very proud of their individual accomplishments tending to not reveal information about the monsters they have at the "top" of their index with the few exception being great monsters given as a gift from teacher to student marking the part where absorbing the essence of it would make the student equal.
Due to the Azure Mages being rare and esoteric not many know about their ways and so they cannot guess what the book is by the characteristic azure color of the cover. Of course most powerful organization/beings who would have knowledge of them already have a database or index themselves of different type of beings disabling the need to hide the easily recognisable book from fear of theft.
If they are being sold they are probably filled with the "lower tier" monsters of the region and should cost about 75g, the more powerful creatures and traits that are written the more expensive it is. A blank book with the Azure cover and numerous pages costs 25g.
Cost: 75g
Weight: 6lb
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