Memory Palace
Item 14Legacy Content
Uncommon Conjuration Magical Structure Source Grand Bazaar pg. 80Price 4,200 gp
Bulk — when not activated
A
memory palace is an elaborate magical structure that safely stores memories for easy access. It appears to be a miniature Taldan villa small enough to fit in the palm of a human hand.
Activate (10 minutes) envision, Interact;
Frequency once per day;
Effect The miniature grows into a building connected to the
Astral Plane for 1 hour. The
memory palace has a 30-foot-square central courtyard surrounded by 12 10-foot-square chambers. Arranged within these chambers are various items referred to as the palace's nodes—statues, tapestries, fountains, and other works of art are common, but a node can take other forms at the GM's discretion. As a 10-minute activity, you can imprint one extended memory onto a node: the contents of a specific simple book, for example, or the events of a recent adventure. When you do, the node changes its shape and appearance to visually represent the memory you have imprinted onto it. If the node was already imprinted with a memory, the old one can be overwritten to repurpose the node.
Memories you have imprinted on a node can be mentally accessed at any time by a creature holding the memory palace in its miniature form, regardless of who imprinted them. This grants a +2 item bonus to
Recall Knowledge checks relating to details specifically occurring within the memory. What exactly qualifies is up to the GM's discretion, but a node shouldn't grant the benefits for most uses of a given skill. For example, a node dedicated to a book about trees found in the Mwangi Expanse would help with Recall Knowledge checks for such trees, but it wouldn't grant the benefits for all
Nature checks to Recall Knowledge.
A
memory palace node can also store the text from a
spellbook or magical tome, but these memories aren't a substitute for having the book in your possession. A wizard can't prepare spells from a memory palace, though they could use it as source material to try to
Learn a Spell. However, since storing spells in a node would only benefit someone else who later discovers the
memory palace, few choose to take such an action. The memories contained within the nodes aren't real, and thus don't cause harmful effects, even if the source of the memory was a mental danger. Many
memory palaces have leftover memories from previous users—now long dead—imprinted on their various nodes.