[Radiance] Weapon - Neon Write

These weapons are a common sight in Ellumara, used across all spectra of social, political, and economic divides. Many of them are used for basic signalling, advertising, communications, or other expressions of self.

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Neon Write
Weapon (any melee), uncommon (requires attunement)

The head or point of this weapon is made of light forged by a skilled photonsmith. It sheds bright light in a 10-foot radius and dim light for an additional 10 feet, and deals an extra 1d4 radiant damage when you hit with it.

Light Trail. While wielding this weapon, you can use a bonus action to speak a command word and activate the weapon's glow. Until the end of your turn, the head or point of this weapon leaves behind a trail of light whenever it is moved. This trail is motionless, is intangible, and sheds dim light out to 10 feet. It fades away after 1 minute, and ends early if dispelled or if it overlaps any area of magical darkness. It can be used to form writing, symbols, or other basic drawings.

Solidify Light. While wielding this weapon, you can use an action to speak a command word and solidify the weapon’s light. All light trails within 5 feet of you created by this weapon become solid, levitating, glowing objects. They form around creatures and other objects inside them. If a creature is inside a light trail when it solidifies, it can use its reaction to move up to 5 feet out of the trail. If the creature fails to do so, it is restrained by the light.

The objects last for 1 minute. They can support up to 500 pounds, have an AC of 15, and have immunity to poison, psychic, and radiant damage. If any of the objects take 10 or more damage from a single source, all of them fade away. Once you take this action, the weapon’s light trails can’t be solidified again for 1d4 + 1 hours.

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Common Variant. The common version of this weapon does not deal extra damage, lacks the Solidify property, and does not require attunement.

Rare Variant. The rare version of this weapon grants a +1 bonus to attack and damage rolls made with it. Additionally, its Solidify Light property solidifies trails of light within 10 feet of you instead of 5.

Very Rare Variant. The very rare version of this weapon grants a +2 bonus to attack and damage rolls made with it. Additionally, its Solidify Light property solidifies trails of light within 15 feet of you instead of 5.

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DESIGN COMMENTARY

This item isn't guild-specific, but the example used here is the Phosphora lumenguild, the neon-inspired lords of Ellumara's undercity. The weapon's name is a play on the game Neon White, which has nothing to do with lights, but it's fun so whatever!

The item's stats are very straightforward: bonus damage to encourage attunement and use, plus a single-use ability for flavor. The extra damage accounts for all of the weapon's power. The other ability is a designed to be a utility feature, primarily for creating objects for traversal or solving puzzles. There's a possibility for combat use where you might solidify the light around creatures to trap them, but the setup is convoluted (you'd have to spend multiple actions to draw the light and solidify them; plus the light is very fragile) that you might as well attack instead.

The depth and complexity of what you could draw with the light is up to the GM to decide, but an acceptable guideline is you could move up to your speed and leave behind a basic trail of light, or move up to half your speed if your trail is complex like a symbol or writing. (Note that Solidify Light only works within a radius, so you can't make a wall out of it or anything.

The common variant is just a glowing sword, which is cool. It doesn't do anything that another object (torch, etc) can't do, which is why it's common. The other variants follow a basic strategy.

I picked a sword for this weapon because there weren't any swords in the theme yet. The design of the sword is just a straight blade, drawn from curved shortswords and katanas, sort of a cross between the two. The material being black and "light" was pretty simple otherwise, but I paid more special attention to accentuating the sword's silhouette. The light trail was weird to render out, striking a balance between making them bright ("light") or translucent to keep attention on the sword.