Loek
2022-08-18, 05:31 PM
Looking around at creating a darkness themed character, I quickly found that things are rather limited in the field of darkness related magical items.
So I did what anyone who's bored at work would do, I homebrewed some stuff. Please read and provide me with your feedback.
Below are 3 items I've come up with so far. (A fourth, an everlasting darkness item, inspired by "Continual Flame", "Everbright Lantern" and such, seemed overpowered in the hands of a warlock, so I'm thinking no on that one)
The wand is rather straight forward and mostly needs balancing on rarity/amounts of uses (Devil's sight warlock, I'm looking at you)
The bottle of everlasting shadow is based on the eversmoking bottle, but made to work with a devil sight warlock. That said, it's not supposed to become a permanent darkness for them, instead it should be more of a RP touch with some impact on the rest. The dimlight/increased darkness can be useful in battle, but could also be used in situations like: creating an ominous atmosphere during a negotiation with underworld characters, hiding some/all of ones features while meeting someone, or my favourite: finally giving the devil sight warlock some level of darkness so they can get some bloody sleep already!)
The bottle of living shadows should in essence be a thematic way of introducing an alternate form familiar to a player. The free materials and the healing in the bottle are meant to offset the attument cost, while the "dismiss into the bottle" is mostly there for flavour and tying the whole things more closely to the bottle.
Wand of Darkness
Wand, rare (requires attunement by a spellcaster)
This wand has 7 charges. While holding it, you can use an action to expend 1 of its charges to cast the Darkness spell from it.
The wand regains 1d6 + 1 expended charges daily at dawn.
Bottle of everlasting shadow
Wondrous item, uncommon
Shadow-like smoke leaks from the brass-stoppered mouth of this brass decorated glass bottle. When you use an action to remove the stopper, a cloud of thick shadows pours out in a 10-foot radius from the bottle. The light level in the cloud's area is lowered by one level (Bright light becomes dim light, dim light becomes darkness), this even effects those with darkvision and/or Devil's Sight (See table below). You can use an action on your turn to increase or decrease the radius of effect by 5 feet, up to a maximum radius of 20 feet.
Light created by spells of 2nd level or higher will suppress (parts of) the shadow cloud for the duration of their overlap.
The cloud persists as long as the bottle is open and within the cloud. Closing the bottle requires an action. Once the bottle is closed, the cloud disperses after 1 minute. Once the bottle is closed, sunlight or a magical lightsource can also disperse the shadow at a rate of a reduction of the radius of 10 feet per round.
Effective light levels for creatures with various senses:
-
Bright Light
Dim Light
Darkness
Normal Vision
Dim Light
Darkness
Darkness
Darkvision
Bright Light
Dim Light
Darkness
Devil's Sight
Bright Light
Bright Light
Dim Light
(Note, I consider the whole "Devil's Sight doesn't work on dim light" thing to be stupid and generally assume they can see in both darkness and dim light as if it was bright light.)
Bottle of living shadows
Wonderous item, uncommon (requires attunement by a spellcaster)
This glass bottle slowly fills itself with a oily shadow-like liquid. Once per day, this liquid can be used in place of the material components required by the Find Familiar spell.
When you use the liquid in this manner, the Shadowling form (Stats below) is added to the forms that your familiar can take.
The Shadowling familiar cannot be temporarily dismissed in the same manner as a normal familiar. Instead it can move into the bottle of living shadow. Doing so requires an action from either you or the familiar, while it is within 5 feet of the bottle. The reappearing method is similar, requiring an action by you or the familiar and it will appear within 5 feet of the bottle.
The Shadowling familiar heals 1 hit point for every 1 minute it spends inside the bottle.
The Shadowling is a variant of the "Inkling Mascot" (SCC, 195) with the following changes:
Type is Fey instead of Ooze
Remove the "Ink Spray" action
Growing magical items:
The above items are all fun and games, and hopefully somewhat balanced, any feedback is welcome.
However, in the process of putting this together, I got sidetracked by the idea of "growing magical items" (aka: Legacy weapons, The Fizban items like the Dragon Vessel etc)
And I was thinking if some of the above items would make a fun growing item.
Two main ideas came to me: Merge the bottles! and Grow the Familiar!
Neither of these ideas has crystalized all that much, but let me throw some ideas at the wall and maybe with your help I can make something of it.
Merge the bottles!:
Common: Provides only the liquid for the material component for find familiar
Uncommon: Add the Shadowling and all other features of Bottle of Living Shadows
Rare: Add Bottle of everlasting shadow to the mix
Very rare: Some form of shadow walking? (Maybe not the short range bonus action that the sorcerer and monk get, but more something teleport like? (Once per day/short rest)
Legendary: Something darkness or shadow related? :-p Maybe a temporary boost for the owner? Shadow dragon form, shadow armour? Or maybe something that can be toggled on and off. Like Shadow of Moil? Or some sort of master of darkness things (extingish all sources of light below spell level/item level X/Y. Even making the sun shine less bright in a massive radius. Something like that?
Grow the Familiar!
Common: Provides only the liquid for the material component for find familiar
Uncommon: Add the Shadowling and all other features of Bottle of Living Shadows
Rare: Boost the Shadowling (Based on increased HD, size or maybe some ability from the summon shadowspawn spirits or maybe some darkness related spell-like ability/spell storage?)
Very Rare: More boosting of the Shadowling
Legendary: We keep on boosting it. Maybe adding something from the shield guardian such as "in the field regeneration" and/or it's shield reaction.
(Note, due to warlocks of the chain, this idea needs extra attention to balancing)
(An example would be to have it grow in size with each rarity, from tiny to large. While the hd increases: 4d4, 6d6, 8d8, 10d10. The attack (for those lovely Chainlocks) grows from a single 1d4 with 5ft to a double 1d8 or some such. For abilities, things like the shadow spirit's "Terror Frenzy" and/or "Weight of Sorrow" might be interesting. Alternatively a shadow walk/step like teleport. And at the very high end of things, maybe the shield guardian's "Shield". As for the spell-like/spell storage. I'd limit it to Rare and above, and only to certain darkness/fear related spells?)
Anyhow, like I said, while I like the idea of these growing magic items, I haven't really settled on anything yet. So feel free to contribute.
As for the call to action, I'm looking for finetuning/feedback on the 3 main items. And any and all ideas and feedback on the growing magical items.
Some specific topics to look at: Amount of charges and how fast they return for the wand. Size and duration of the cloud for bottle of everlasting shadow (also the interaction with (magical) light). And frankly the entire bottle of living shadows. (And the rarity/attunement of the lot of them as well)
Thanks in advance.
So I did what anyone who's bored at work would do, I homebrewed some stuff. Please read and provide me with your feedback.
Below are 3 items I've come up with so far. (A fourth, an everlasting darkness item, inspired by "Continual Flame", "Everbright Lantern" and such, seemed overpowered in the hands of a warlock, so I'm thinking no on that one)
The wand is rather straight forward and mostly needs balancing on rarity/amounts of uses (Devil's sight warlock, I'm looking at you)
The bottle of everlasting shadow is based on the eversmoking bottle, but made to work with a devil sight warlock. That said, it's not supposed to become a permanent darkness for them, instead it should be more of a RP touch with some impact on the rest. The dimlight/increased darkness can be useful in battle, but could also be used in situations like: creating an ominous atmosphere during a negotiation with underworld characters, hiding some/all of ones features while meeting someone, or my favourite: finally giving the devil sight warlock some level of darkness so they can get some bloody sleep already!)
The bottle of living shadows should in essence be a thematic way of introducing an alternate form familiar to a player. The free materials and the healing in the bottle are meant to offset the attument cost, while the "dismiss into the bottle" is mostly there for flavour and tying the whole things more closely to the bottle.
Wand of Darkness
Wand, rare (requires attunement by a spellcaster)
This wand has 7 charges. While holding it, you can use an action to expend 1 of its charges to cast the Darkness spell from it.
The wand regains 1d6 + 1 expended charges daily at dawn.
Bottle of everlasting shadow
Wondrous item, uncommon
Shadow-like smoke leaks from the brass-stoppered mouth of this brass decorated glass bottle. When you use an action to remove the stopper, a cloud of thick shadows pours out in a 10-foot radius from the bottle. The light level in the cloud's area is lowered by one level (Bright light becomes dim light, dim light becomes darkness), this even effects those with darkvision and/or Devil's Sight (See table below). You can use an action on your turn to increase or decrease the radius of effect by 5 feet, up to a maximum radius of 20 feet.
Light created by spells of 2nd level or higher will suppress (parts of) the shadow cloud for the duration of their overlap.
The cloud persists as long as the bottle is open and within the cloud. Closing the bottle requires an action. Once the bottle is closed, the cloud disperses after 1 minute. Once the bottle is closed, sunlight or a magical lightsource can also disperse the shadow at a rate of a reduction of the radius of 10 feet per round.
Effective light levels for creatures with various senses:
-
Bright Light
Dim Light
Darkness
Normal Vision
Dim Light
Darkness
Darkness
Darkvision
Bright Light
Dim Light
Darkness
Devil's Sight
Bright Light
Bright Light
Dim Light
(Note, I consider the whole "Devil's Sight doesn't work on dim light" thing to be stupid and generally assume they can see in both darkness and dim light as if it was bright light.)
Bottle of living shadows
Wonderous item, uncommon (requires attunement by a spellcaster)
This glass bottle slowly fills itself with a oily shadow-like liquid. Once per day, this liquid can be used in place of the material components required by the Find Familiar spell.
When you use the liquid in this manner, the Shadowling form (Stats below) is added to the forms that your familiar can take.
The Shadowling familiar cannot be temporarily dismissed in the same manner as a normal familiar. Instead it can move into the bottle of living shadow. Doing so requires an action from either you or the familiar, while it is within 5 feet of the bottle. The reappearing method is similar, requiring an action by you or the familiar and it will appear within 5 feet of the bottle.
The Shadowling familiar heals 1 hit point for every 1 minute it spends inside the bottle.
The Shadowling is a variant of the "Inkling Mascot" (SCC, 195) with the following changes:
Type is Fey instead of Ooze
Remove the "Ink Spray" action
Growing magical items:
The above items are all fun and games, and hopefully somewhat balanced, any feedback is welcome.
However, in the process of putting this together, I got sidetracked by the idea of "growing magical items" (aka: Legacy weapons, The Fizban items like the Dragon Vessel etc)
And I was thinking if some of the above items would make a fun growing item.
Two main ideas came to me: Merge the bottles! and Grow the Familiar!
Neither of these ideas has crystalized all that much, but let me throw some ideas at the wall and maybe with your help I can make something of it.
Merge the bottles!:
Common: Provides only the liquid for the material component for find familiar
Uncommon: Add the Shadowling and all other features of Bottle of Living Shadows
Rare: Add Bottle of everlasting shadow to the mix
Very rare: Some form of shadow walking? (Maybe not the short range bonus action that the sorcerer and monk get, but more something teleport like? (Once per day/short rest)
Legendary: Something darkness or shadow related? :-p Maybe a temporary boost for the owner? Shadow dragon form, shadow armour? Or maybe something that can be toggled on and off. Like Shadow of Moil? Or some sort of master of darkness things (extingish all sources of light below spell level/item level X/Y. Even making the sun shine less bright in a massive radius. Something like that?
Grow the Familiar!
Common: Provides only the liquid for the material component for find familiar
Uncommon: Add the Shadowling and all other features of Bottle of Living Shadows
Rare: Boost the Shadowling (Based on increased HD, size or maybe some ability from the summon shadowspawn spirits or maybe some darkness related spell-like ability/spell storage?)
Very Rare: More boosting of the Shadowling
Legendary: We keep on boosting it. Maybe adding something from the shield guardian such as "in the field regeneration" and/or it's shield reaction.
(Note, due to warlocks of the chain, this idea needs extra attention to balancing)
(An example would be to have it grow in size with each rarity, from tiny to large. While the hd increases: 4d4, 6d6, 8d8, 10d10. The attack (for those lovely Chainlocks) grows from a single 1d4 with 5ft to a double 1d8 or some such. For abilities, things like the shadow spirit's "Terror Frenzy" and/or "Weight of Sorrow" might be interesting. Alternatively a shadow walk/step like teleport. And at the very high end of things, maybe the shield guardian's "Shield". As for the spell-like/spell storage. I'd limit it to Rare and above, and only to certain darkness/fear related spells?)
Anyhow, like I said, while I like the idea of these growing magic items, I haven't really settled on anything yet. So feel free to contribute.
As for the call to action, I'm looking for finetuning/feedback on the 3 main items. And any and all ideas and feedback on the growing magical items.
Some specific topics to look at: Amount of charges and how fast they return for the wand. Size and duration of the cloud for bottle of everlasting shadow (also the interaction with (magical) light). And frankly the entire bottle of living shadows. (And the rarity/attunement of the lot of them as well)
Thanks in advance.