[Necromancy] Item - Reverent Beacon

Carrying a sacred flame bestowed by Halean, the God of Sun and Life, the radiant paladin surges into battle against the undead. Even with her regiment decimated, not a single moment of fear crosses the paladin's face as she watches a bone giant rise from the blackened ash.

The light will protect her; the light will guide her.

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Reverent Beacon
Wondrous item, very rare (requires attunement by a good character)

When lit, this lantern sheds bright light in a 20-foot radius and dim light for an additional 20 feet. You can use an action to extinguish the fire or light it again. While you hold this lantern, you can cast the sacred flame cantrip from it (spell save DC 17).

Entrust the Flame. While attuned, divine wards suffuses the lantern's area of bright light with antinecrosis. Creatures in the bright light have advantage on saving throws made to resist necromancy spells and necromantic effects, and Undead creatures in the bright light have disadvantage on attack rolls.

Blaze the Beacon. You can use a bonus action to touch the lantern and increase its divine protection. For the next 10 minutes, its area of bright light gains the effects of an antimagic field spell that only affects necromancy spells and necromantic magical effects, including the necrotic corruption of the Necrosheer Wastes. This bonus action can't be taken again until the next dawn.

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Legendary Variant: Fan the Spark. The legendary variant of this lantern increases its spell save DC from 17 to 19 and also gains this property. As an action, you can touch a weapon to the lantern's fire and transfer a portion of the fire to that weapon. You can take this action once, and can't do so again until the next dawn. The fire lasts for 1 hour or until its wielder uses an action to extinguish it. While the fire persists, the chosen weapon gains the following benefits:

• The weapon sheds bright light in a 10-foot radius and dim light for an additional 10 feet.
• The weapon gains the effects described by the lantern’s Blaze the Beacon property. As normal, the property’s benefits are limited to the weapon’s area of bright light.
• If the weapon is nonmagical, it becomes a +2 weapon and deals an extra 1d10 radiant damage to targets.

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DESIGN COMMENTARY

It's important to include an anti-item within every theme that is oppressive or dark. This is especially true for the Necrosheer Wastes, whose necrotic corruptions can be extremely deadly.

This lantern was a way to enact the idea of an "antimagic field that only affects necromancy." Originally, this was a permanent effect for the bright light, but upon later evaluation, I felt that would be quite powerful in the right settings - like a permanent 8th level spell. Also, the Fan the Spark property was also originally part of the base Very Rare level. It was a cool visual idea that really lends to the flaming sword paladin + holy leader. The fire does create ostensibly a Very Rare weapon, but it only applies to nonmagical ones. Since players should already have a bunch of magic weapons by this level, this really shouldn't matter, but you could always give a flaming weapon to your sidekick NPC.

I think the best way to evaluate this item is evaluate as if it was normal. Note that, despite its situational use in campaigns, it shines exceptionally well for prepared parties, particularly if they know they're about to enter a dangerous undead dungeon.

The bone giant mentioned in the flavor text, though it won't show up in true capacity in the compendium, shows up in a couple ways - there's a version of a Bone Guardian and a Bone Titan Hand that I'm real excited to share.

The visual design for the lantern was a fun challenge, too. I was reminded by my flavor text that this was likely a flame of Halean (the God of Sun and Life who wishes to die), so I incorporated more Aureliate motifs into the base of the lantern, as well as the Sun-Top pyramid onto its hood. The spikey bits all have 10 rays (more Aureliate numbering). I struggled with the lantern cage, but eventually settled on a single ring of halo rays and the molten solar pattern even though fantasy people probably haven't looked at the sun this way!