[Cosmos] Item - Technomage's Eye

Microscopic arcane text and colors flicker across the pupils of this prosthetic eye. Popular variations by Figma Technologies offer distinct fashionable styles and connection bandwidths.

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Technomage's Eye
Wondrous item, technomancy, uncommon (requires attunement)

This spherical prosthesis replaces a lost eye. You must spend the duration of the attunement period with this eye in the empty eye socket. While attuned, it functions identically to an eye and grants you the following benefits:

• You gain darkvision out to a range of 30 feet if you don't already have darkvision.

• You have a +2 bonus to your Passive Perception.

• You can use the eye as if it were a holopad that transmits data directly to your mind. Additionally, while you have permissive access to a system with an open channel to a Gridspace, you can use an action to see out to 30 feet around the Gridspace Ingress until the end of your turn.

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DESIGN COMMENTARY

This item is from the original book, though it had no associated art. This one was revamped to 1) add more art as opposed to text, and 2) add more interactions with Gridspace, the "digital world" of this setting. This eye grants darkvision and a +2 bonus to passive Perception, which are pretty minor benefits. Most races tend to have darkvision already, and 30 feet is still small and not useful for exploration. Passive Perception doesn't tend to come up in games and also don't apply to checks, the latter of which are the more active version of Perception. A +2 is also minor in itself - half of advantage. Finally, the ability to see into Gridspace without needing to jack into it is a situational, flavor benefit, with the intention of letting players scout for danger.

Overall, these are minor benefits, especially because it requires attunement.

Within the Cosmos setting, Figma tech is the trendy technomancy wearable corporation. It just makes sense they would produce multiple lines of eyes (that function like a holopad) with lots of color variations!

From a visual point, I had to make sure the design of this eye feels mostly mundane and does not overshadow the Orb of Atelia. I chose a simple chrome outer plating and focused more on designing metal elements that looked like a pupil. I avoided the camera lens effect in favor of a couple of current-activated moving chips. Then I chose red to ensure the eye looked less human (and more like a Terminator and/or sharingan from Naruto), adding three white lenses to better sell the effect.