This massive tower shield stands as tall as a door and weighs as much as one. Its face is a single, flawless pane of silvered glass framed in ornate mithral and adamantine filigree. The mirror does not reflect the world around it normally; instead, it shows distorted glimpses of winding corridors lined with countless other mirrors — a window into one of the hidden demiplanes known as the Plane of Mirrors.
The shield was forged in an age when a cabal of Nerra (mirror-skinned planar travelers) and a fallen solar attempted to bind an entire mirror plane into a single physical object, creating a weapon that could turn every assault back upon its maker. The ritual succeeded only partially. The resulting artifact became both a conduit to that demiplane and a prison for its power. Those who attune to it feel a constant, subtle pressure behind their eyes, as though something on the other side of the glass is watching — and waiting.
While you are attuned to the shield and wielding it, you gain the following properties:
- +3 Bonus. You gain a +3 bonus to your AC while wielding this shield.
- Reflective Retribution. Whenever a creature makes an attack roll against you and misses, that attack is redirected and instead strikes the attacking creature (the source). Use the original attack roll result to determine whether it hits the attacker’s AC.
- Spell Redirection. If you are targeted by a spell or other magical effect that affects only you and you succeed on your saving throw against it, the spell or effect is redirected and instead targets its source (usually the caster or originator of the effect).
- Arcane Deflection. You have advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects that only target you.
- Planar Immunities. You are immune to force damage and radiant damage. In addition, whenever an effect would deal radiant damage to you, you instead regain a number of hit points equal to the radiant damage that would have been dealt.
- Missile Reflection. Magic missile and similar effects that would automatically hit you automatically miss instead and are reflected back at their source, dealing damage to the originator as if they had been the original target.
- Gaze Reflection. You automatically succeed on saving throws against gaze attacks and similar visual or ocular effects (such as a medusa’s Petrifying Gaze, a basilisk’s gaze, or a vampire’s charm). Any gaze attack or other effect that requires an attack roll against you automatically misses. In either case, the effect or attack is reflected back at its source.
The shield is door-sized and exceptionally heavy. While wielding it your speed is reduced by 5 feet, you have disadvantage on Stealth checks unless your strength score is 16 or higher.
Destruction
The Aegis of the Mirror Realm can be destroyed only from within the specific mirror plane to which it is bound.
A creature must first use the shield itself as a portal (by pressing the mirror face against a suitable reflective surface while concentrating) to physically carry the artifact into its connected demiplane. There, the wielder must locate the nexus mirror at the heart of that particular mirror plane — a colossal, cracked pane of glass that serves as the anchor between the demiplane and the Material Plane.
At the nexus, the wielder must deliberately allow their own mirror duplicate (the opposite-aligned reflection that spawns upon entry) to strike the Aegis with a killing blow or a 9th-level spell redirected through the shield’s own magic. The resulting feedback shatters the artifact, collapses the demiplane, and unleashes a violent surge of radiant energy and dozens of mirror duplicates into the Material Plane at the location of the original mirror used as the portal.
The destruction is never clean. Even if successful, fragments of the mirror plane often bleed into reality, creating temporary rifts filled with Nerra scouts, mirror mephits, and hostile reflections of the destroyers themselves.
Shields require the Utilize action to Don or Doff. You gain the Armor Class benefit of a Shield only if you have training with it.
Notes: Bonus: Armor Class, Advantage: Saving Throws, Immunity: Radiant, Immunity: Force, creature that has a Strength score of 16 or higher, Negation, Combat, Warding
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