Ioun stones

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Ioun Stones are magical items for the Dungeons and Dragons role-playing system, which are based on similar artifacts from Jack Vance's Dying Earth series.

When functioning, they float in a circular pattern around their bearer's head, and grant various benefits based on their color. Two stones of the same type will repel each other, and when drained of power, a stone becomes a dull grey, but still possesses the characteristic floating. In the original Jack Vance stories IOUN stones are highly prized by arch-magicians, and are acquired from a race known as the archveults, who mine them from remnants of dead stars (in his book Rhialto the Marvellous). In 2E dungeons and dragons it had been conjectured in Dragon magazine that IOUN stones instead come from the Positive Material Plane: however under the recent 3.0/3.5 editions of the rules they are instead manufactured by spellcasters in the same manner as other magical items.