[Shadow] Item - Lumendamp Rod

A clever gnomish invention, these rods leverage the twisting motion to strike a strip of the dark metal tenebrite, amplifying the material's innate darkness aura. Surface travellers carry a rod as a contingency for the Blighted Sun.

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Lumendamp Rod
Rod, uncommon

You can use an action to twist open this rod, revealing a core that absorbs light in a 10-foot radius sphere around the rod. Within this area for the next 10 minutes, nonmagical bright light becomes dim light, and nonmagical dim light becomes darkness. Additionally, creatures in the sphere's dim light or darkness have resistance to radiant damage for the duration. When the effect ends, the rod becomes nonmagical.

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Common Variant. The common version of this rod does not grant resistance to radiant damage.

Rare Variant. The rare version of this rod has the following changes. It lasts for 1 hour instead of 10 minutes; its sphere’s radius increases to 20 feet; and its sphere also affects magical light created by cantrips.

Very Rare Variant. The very rare version of this rod has the following changes. It lasts for 1 hour instead of 10 minutes; its sphere’s radius increases to 30 feet; and its sphere also affects magical light created by spells cast at 3rd-level or lower.

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DESIGN COMMENTARY

For this item, I wanted a counterpart to the glimmerstones that would be usable as everyday gear. Functionally, I imagine them like those tactical/military glowsticks, except it does the opposite thing. That's ... pretty much it!

For art, it had to straddle a line between being visually interesting and visually simple (because functionally, why would look that special?). I focused more on texture instead, adding very dim contrast light at the ends of the rods and some smokey particle texture to complicate the darkness.