Through the many efforts of the Greyslayers and the Engineers with the assistance of Master Inar for the past 5 years you have been working on the perplexing use of the Chaos Wheel.

This perfectly round golden orb, the size of two fists held together, is perfectly smooth and without imperfection. It is a heavy weight with a mass that exceeds it size. All testing with conventional means proves that it cannot be chipped or damaged and is impervious to acids or weathering of any kind. It does not conduct electricity and floats on the surface of water with a buoyancy that should not be for its weight and density.

Magical detection is also unique to this item. Occasionally when detect magic is cast it provides a strong aura of magic, cascading around it in strange nimbus. The schools of magic seem to change on a whim, sometimes overlapping and swirling together chaotically. At other times, when detect magic is cast nothing emanates from this strange orb, as if it was a mere mundane object made of gold.

As strange as that is, it appears to be linked to the amount of chaotic energies that happen around the sphere. The more chaotic the immediate environment around the sphere is, the more it emanates magic. It also seems to be able to affect the chaos in the environment around it in strange and unique ways.

There seems to be no way to attune to the object. It was an experiment of casting magic directly into the sphere that produced the most results. Lower level magical effects cast into the orb was absorbed, causing the orb to produce what has become known as a “Chaos field” around the orb. Higher level magics cast into the orb resulted in a small localized wyldstorm to be produced in the lab itself. The damage was extensive and unique.

After rebuilding the lab other experiments were tested on the orb. When the unique magic used in the Dispel Magic spell is cast on the orb, it seems to have the opposite effect of other spells, causing the Chaos Field around the orb to diminish or extinguish itself entirely.

On one expedition your party attempts to use the orb in the Grey Wastes. By casting Dispel Magic on the orb, you discovered that it can quell the effects of the Grey Wastes and its weird warping of magical effects, if only for a time, allowing normal magical effects and spells to take place while inside the Grey Wastes.

The orb, you discovered, has a detrimental effect on magic used to teleport or transfer the orb from one realm into another. When placed inside a bag of holding by one of the engineers, the resulting explosion and Wyld storm it created ruined the lab and cost several Junior Engineers their lives.

Further study of the orb, and additional research that is being discovered by the Engineers, has determined that the orb itself is not the entirety of the Chaos Wheel, but a mere part of the Chaos Wheel. Further discoveries link this orb to mentions of the Chaos Engine, a device used to power the Chaos Wheel.

You believe that if you can find the harness or additional pieces of the Wheel that you can then activate the Wheel and remove the blight that is the Wyld storms that rage across the lands.

As of right now though, the Greyslayers and the Engineers are at a loss as to where exactly the remaining pieces are located.

The three rings that were found floating around the Chaos Engine was designed as a buffer and a shield against the chaotic energies of the Wyld storms. These rings deflected the strange chaotic energies and helped shield the Engine from discovery. They are now burned out and useless, no longer functioning and unable to provide any clues on how they operated. They make a nice bangle though.

How the orb functions:

A magic user can cast a spell, any spell, into the orb. The spell is then absorbed by the orb and produces an effect, based on the power of the spell. If repeated casting of a spell of similar level is cast on the orb it slowly ramps up the effect. For instance, a lvl 1 spell cast twice on the orb produces a level 2 chaos field. A level one spell must then be cast 3 times in order to ramp the effects up to a level 3 chaos field.

When Dispel Magic is cast on the orb it cancels out the effects of the orb on a per level basis. So, if the orb is at level 4 Chaos field, and a lvl 4 Dispel Magic is cast on the orb, then the effects of the orb cease. The Dispel Magic effect can be cast multiple times in a row in order to reduce or remove the effects of the Chaos Engine.

What is unique is that there seems to be no corresponding time length for how long the orb is active. A level 2 spell effect has lasted both several hours and a few minutes. This seems wholly random at this point in your experiments.

Additionally, when Dispel Magic is cast on the Engine while inside the boundaries of the Grey Wastes, it removes the strange magic distortion effects normally associated within the Grey Wastes. The range that it seems to calm the wastes are 30ft radius around the Engine per level that the Dispel Magic effect was cast at.

This calming effect only seems to work when the orb is off. If a spell effect other than Dispel Magic is cast on the Engine while in the Grey Wastes a completely random effect takes place, from the creation of a Wyld storm on a lvl 1 spell to the Chaos Field level one on a 5th level spell.

At the end of the last experiments the Engineers and agents of the Bank are on a keen lookout for any additional 5th age resources that they can discover in relation to the wonders of the Chaos Engine and Chaos Wheel.