Codex of Infinite PlanesEpic Level

Sandwiched between the heavy covers of this outsized volume are uncountable pages of metal with a dizzying array of images of symbols inscribed upon them.

Artifact: Wondrous item

Utility Power ✦ Daily (Standard Action)

Effect: Choose a location on any plane, even a location that you have never visited or seen. You and each willing ally within 5 squares of the codex is transported to that location. You could choose “a king's treasure room,” and you would appear in a king's treasure room somewhere. You could choose “a safe place,” and you would appear somewhere safe, although it might be surrounded by dangers.When you choose the location, make an Arcana check against a hard DC of your level. If the check succeeds, the transport occurs without incident. If the check fails, the transport occurs, but disaster follows you. The disaster could be anything: an earthquake, a disease, demons appearing with you when you arrive, years of winter, or worse.Nothing can stop the transport, short of the will of a deity or a primordial, and even that might be surmounted by sufficient arcane skill (at the DM's option).

Utility Power (Psychic) ✦ Daily (Standard Action)

Effect: Make a Charisma, Intelligence, or Wisdom ranged attack against the Will of a target from another plane. On a hit, the target is sent back to its home plane and cannot return to the plane you are in for 100 years or until the codex's other power is used. On a miss, you and the target take 6d10 psychic damage, and you are stunned until the end of your next turn.

This enormous book, the size of a small table, seems fit more for the hands of gods than mortals. Its obsidian covers enclose pages made from thin sheets of dull gray metal. Embossed upon or etched into the surface of every page are images both beautiful and horrific, and words in languages both rare and unknown. No matter how many pages its owner turns, another and another still remains, because the number of scenes that the book can depict from throughout the multiverse is truly without limit.The origin of the Codex of the Infinite Planes seems to be somehow entwined with the formation of the planes themselves. Certainly the book contains writing that cannot now be deciphered, but particular symbols in the book use the language of creation—those mysterious figures that runepriests now use to make their magic. Regardless of its origin, the codex appears in legend as an object upon which empires are founded—and one that brings them to utter ruin. Its powers seem to shift each time it comes to the fore in history, but it is said to have been used in eons past to transport whole armies from one plane to another. At one point a careless or inept user ended up bringing Garniax, the Indestructible Fiend, into the world—whereupon the codex had to be used again to send the demon back to the Abyss.

Published in Mordenkainen's Magnificent Emporium.