First piece of lore
Starting your research on the strange lamp, you quickly come into contact with an old wizened sage in [location] who informs you that records of traditions and book keeping of exotic artifacts are best studied at the Trihall. It takes you a couple of attempts at convincing the librarians there to allow you access, but eventually your charm (or persistence) grants you access, though you are left to look through the incredibly boring tomes on your own. Spending the better part of the day figuring the complicated indexing system of these old hawks, you do manage to find an interesting set of books with details of traditions through the ages, one of them detailing foreign influence in the Gawenhald Empire.
Digging through the pages, you learn that a flock of genasi immigrants brought flasks like yours into the central dalelands of the empire, where they settled down with the blessing of Emperor Ulthor Baine the Third, following a military campaign against Dorkanni forces in the southern seas where their mastery of the elements turned the tide of battle, and spared the mainlands of the empire much destruction at the hands of its foes.
This event took place some 900 years ago, and flasks like yours were exchanged as gestures of goodwill between the leaders of the genasi and the Gawenhald emperors. It didn't take long before the smiths of the region fashioned copies of the original lamps, and they soon became popular among citizens of the empire, symbolizing good luck and fortune, but little of the supposed primordial power of the original lamps. When the Calamity destroyed the dalelands, tabaxi traders supposedly showed great interest in claiming these flasks, shipping some of them back to Baxxikhan where their trade princes sought to unlock their true potential.
Upon reading this, you seek out some of your contacts in the docks, and eventually find an old and smelly tabaxi, who confirms that your flask is not a copy, but an original piece that still has some of the ancient magic in it. He doesn't know how to operate the flask, but he does dare to offer you a pitiful amount of gold to take it off your hands, which causes you to walk away in anger, none the wiser of how to investigate your heirloom further.
Second piece of lore
You figure that in order to learn more about the flask, you must first learn about the people that brought them to Gawenhald. The old empire were known to forge alliances based upon mutual discretion, so at first you harbor little hope in finding anything about the genasi from the dalelands. As you return to the Halls of Knowledge, you manage to convince one of the younger acolytes to aid you in going through some of the records in exchange for "favorable seats at the upcoming blazing" - something that will infuriate Ashley when the day comes, but for now, it'll have to do. The acolyte is surprisingly sharp in bringing forth carefully arranged timelines of genasi families in the region, placing them shamefully next to your own unorganized notes.
You learn that immigrant genasi claimed to be of the "Conflux" - a strange people that followed in the wake of supernatural events causing rifts between the Prime and the planes of elemental chaos. These people were resistant to the elemental magic of the Dorkanni - a powerful noble house of the Dao that dwelled in the plane of unending earth. They harbored a hatred toward the malicious Dao, who had supposedly enslaved them several millenia ago. The records sadly mentions little else of interest surrounding the origin of these genasi, but you take note to perhaps ask your own family of these people when you get the chance.
The acolyte brings you the only records publicly available on the subject of late wars in the Gawenhald Empire, and you learn that the Dorkanni genies managed to usurp the older duergar kingdom of Konkelhaut on the Blackstone island in the southern Lunadorian Ocean. Since Gawenhald maintained little contact to these strange dwarves it is unclear what happened exactly, but some event caused the island to partly submerge into the ocean before Dao overlords spawned forth and enslaved what remained of survivors. They soon cast their eyes on the mainland and its riches, which is what caused the conflict between the two powers.
You get the hunch that flasks like yours might have played an important role in this tragedy, yet you can't quite piece it together, and your time and diplomacy can only bring you this far.
Third piece of lore
As you are about to conclude your research, the clerk at the library takes heart at your beaten expression, and hands you over a copy of a book of fairy tales from the years following the Calamity, written by the famous gnome bard Hinky the Fairlegged, who famously tragically died in a sled incident in the Howling Fields. You have nothing better to do, so when you finally get to relax a bit in the warmth of your home, you take out the book, and read through some of the tales, but one of them sparks your interest. The tale of the Gemmed Lord. Reading through the childrens tale, it becomes clear to you that the Gemmed Lord might actually refer to one such Dao lord, who became magically trapped in a lamp that looks exactly like the one you hold in your hand. The duergar King, Hektor, were so consumed with greed that he ate the diamonds of the mountain to keep them from the hands of his rivals, supposedly turning into a powerful demon when he finally ate too much. His people then killed him, and splintered his diamonds into fashionable weapons, but awaking his anger in the process, he returned as a vengeful lord of the Earth who became known as "Enku" - which is Undercommon for "genie".
The story continues with the King turning all of the precious diamond weapons to kill those that made fun of him. When the last duergar were killed, the King ruled his mountain alone until the hero of air and fire tricked the King into jumping into a flask made of gold, that could keep him and his diamonds safe from his greedy rivals forever. The King vowed to never leave the flask again, before a treasure that could match his own was placed before him. The hero then returned the duergar souls to peace, and claimed the remaining riches of the mountain.
It seems a stretch at first, but the more you think about it, the more it makes sense to you. The fairy tale might not be a true historical record, but maybe, just maybe... this lamp holds the spirit of a vengeful Dao, who might just re-appear when the circumstances are just right. You only hope that this circumstance does not come to be. But then again, what might the appearance of such a a powerful creature bring with it. Perhaps in freeing such a being, a favor could be returned?
Word count: 1,174
