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Temporal Correction Device

wondrous item, rare (requires attunement)

Temporal Correction Device
Illustration: Gemini

A silver pocket watch whose hands occasionally move backward for a fraction of a second.

Temporal Correction

When you fail an attack roll, ability check, or saving throw, you can use your reaction to activate the device and immediately reroll the d20.
 You must use the new result.
 Once this property has been used, it can't be used again until the next dawn.

Temporal Instability

If the reroll is a natural 1, the correction collapses catastrophically.
 You become stunned until the end of your next turn as your mind attempts to reconcile multiple contradictory versions of recent events.
 The user manual describes this as:
"A statistically insignificant side effect."
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Lore

The Temporal Correction Device was one of Cassiodora Inayaris Pompellini Xifilius’s later works, created during what she referred to in private correspondence as her “unfortunate obsession with undoing embarrassment.” By this point in her career, Cass had already proven that time could be bent, folded, and temporarily persuaded to behave. The question that followed naturally, at least in her mind, was whether it could be persuaded to admit when it had made a mistake.
The device began as an experimental chronometric compass designed to “nudge probability toward more agreeable outcomes.” Early prototypes were less watch-like and more akin to tangled assemblies of ticking gears suspended in alchemical fluid. These versions did not so much correct events as they did create competing interpretations of them, leading to several documented incidents where laboratory assistants argued with themselves for hours about whether they had already finished lunch. Eventually, Cass refined the mechanism into a pocket watch that anchored itself to a single timeline and allowed a brief, controlled rewind of intention, not reality.
 Field usage quickly revealed both its brilliance and its temperament. Adventurers who carried the device described it as feeling less like a tool and more like a second chance that had opinions. It rarely intervened in moments of great drama, instead preferring to activate during small but consequential failures, such as a missed strike, a mistimed spell, or the exact moment someone realizes they should have moved five feet to the left. Cass reportedly considered this behavior “morally efficient.”
 The instability clause was added after what she diplomatically referred to as “the conversation incident.” During a test cycle, a subject triggered a cascade of overlapping corrections that left them briefly aware of several mutually exclusive versions of the same six seconds. The subject recovered, but insisted for the rest of the day that they had successfully dodged an attack in at least three realities and failed in two others. Cass’s response was to add a warning label and a footnote in the manual describing the effect as “a statistically insignificant side effect, assuming you are comfortable with the concept of singular identity.”
 Today, the Temporal Correction Device is both coveted and slightly feared. It is not trusted to make life easier so much as it is trusted to make failure negotiable. Those who use it often report a strange sensation afterward, as though the world briefly considered a different outcome and decided, with reluctance, to return to the original one.
Tags:lorereroll

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