Staff of Magical Permutations

The Staff of Magical Permutations is a favorite magical item of the late Master Gabriel Rora of Rora and Callia. Carved from the gnarled stem of a young yurusth tree in Els'tar's far reaches, the grayish brown staff is inverted from the way it grew in life, tappering to a smaller end at the bottom, and the root ball at the top carved into a hexagonal prism at the top. In the center of the holllowed prism is a dull but scintilating crystal. The sides of the staff are smooth but twisted randomly in short turns.   The staff was create by Gabriel Rora years before leaving Els'tar for Karenth during the War with the Dragon Lords. He harvested the tree in the southern reaches of the continent of Els'tar in Els'tar while he was adventuring. The tree caught his eye, so he cut it down and put it in his dimensional pocket. The crystal he found in the hoard of an ice dragon he and his companions slayed on the northern glacier of the continent.   The gem is imbued with the soul and memories of a powerful fey wizard who Gabriel had befriended. The fey was wounded in battle with an adder and was bound to die. He asked Gabriel to keep his soul safe, and the wizard did so by trapping it in the crystal. When he created the staff, he assumed that the powers of his friend would be the only thing to come from the staff, but instead, the staff became sentient as a reembodied fey.   The fey and the crystal have the power to alter the material elemental effects of a spell, often randomly to a new effect, but 40 percent of the time, the desired effect of the wizard will occur. When casting a spell, if the wizard focuses it through the staff, he or she can change the material elemental effect of the spell to another of their choice. Some of the material effects are fire, water, dirt or mud, air, metal, lightning, crystal, snow, ice, ice cream, tomatoes, thunder, spider web, brass, steel, sound, and chocolate pudding. For example, if the wizard is trying to create a ball of fire, they can request that the ball instead be one of the other elements. Regardless of the element chosen, the element disappears after the same amount of time as the spell would normally last. Thus casting a fireball, choosing it to be metal, would create and exploding ball of metal shards, which would all disappear after they read their maximum radius of the spell. A spider web creation could be done with sound, and so it would last for several minutes or longer.   The staff has a bit of an attitude problem if angry, and in these cases, the chance of the crystal working as intended goes down to 10%. It is good to keep the staff happy, and to have good conversation with the staff. The staff speaks aloud, and is fluent in fey, common, elven, draconic, dwarven, chicken, gnome, halfling, and fish.   The fey's name is Dystian, and has been quite distraught since Gabriel died several hundred years ago. As such the chance of the staff working with the correct effect is 25%.   Currently the staff is in the Chambers of Masters in Great Roran College of the Mystic Arts. The masters speak with the staff frequently, but none use it due to its uncertain effects. The Rora family are the owners of the staff, but the wizard masters are the guardians of it for the time being.