Item from Curse of Strahd by Tracy & Laura Hickman, Chris Perkins / Wizards of the Coast
Ancient amber caskets in the Amber Temple that contain imprisoned vestiges of dark entities — they offer gifts of immense power at terrible, often hidden costs.
The amber sarcophagi are massive caskets of translucent amber, each containing a vestige — the remnant of a dead or dying dark entity imprisoned by the wizards who built the Amber Temple. The vestiges cannot escape, but they can communicate with anyone who touches their sarcophagus, whispering offers of power. Each vestige offers a different dark gift: immortality, resurrection, invulnerability, forbidden knowledge, or raw magical power. Each gift comes with a cost — physical transformation, personality corruption, loss of memory, or worse. The costs are rarely disclosed upfront. The vestige that granted Strahd his vampirism resides in one of these sarcophagi. The sarcophagi represent the module's deepest moral challenge. The power they offer is real and could tip the balance against Strahd. But accepting a dark gift changes you, and in Barovia, change rarely leads somewhere good.
Also known as: amber sarcophagi, the sarcophagi, the amber vaults, the dark gift caskets