Attached to this rod is a hemoglobe containing a drop of blood from Arathin, the God of Knowledge and Death, stolen centuries ago by an unknown godslayer. The rod itself is forged from tempered necropyre, fitted with conduits that collects charge from the storming skies. With the blood as the catalyst, this rod can revive even the most stubborn of enemies, and the lich-king Agonus wielded it to maintain his army.
---
Arathin's Rod of Reanimation
Wondrous item (quarterstaff), artifact (requires attunement)
You have a +3 bonus to attack and damage rolls made with this magic weapon, and you deal an additional 1d8 lightning damage to targets you hit with it.
Lightning Rod. While attuned to the rod, you are immune to lightning damage. If an ally within 5 feet of you would take lightning damage, you can use your reaction to grant your ally resistance to that instance of lightning damage.
Biomancy Magic. This rod has 7 charges for the following properties and regains 1d4+3 expended charges daily at dawn. If there was a natural thunderstorm the previous day and the rod was exposed to the sky for its duration, it regains all expended charges instead. Additionally, if you would take 20 or more lightning damage from a single source, the rod regains 1 expended charge.
Spellcasting. While holding the rod, you can use an action to expend the necessary number of charges to cast one of the following spells without providing material components (spell save DC 17): call lightning (3 charges; the lightning flashes from the rod instead of the sky), false life (1 charge), guiding bolt (1 charge; spell deals lightning damage instead of radiant), ray of enfeeblement (2 charges), revivify (3 charges; this spell cannot target the same creature again for 7 days), speak with dead (3 charges), unseen servant (1 charge).
Reanimate. While holding this rod, you can expend 7 charges to cast raise dead. You can cast the spell normally by providing the material components required, or cast a special version of it that requires no material components. The special version revives a target with only a portion of its original self and has the following changes:
These effects last until the target dies, or until you cast raise dead on it and provide the required material components. This spell still fails if the target is unwilling to return to life. If you successfully cast this spell on the target, the target returns to normal.
Once raise dead has been cast from the rod, it cannot regain charges for 7 days.
Destroying the Rod. The rod can only be destroyed if it is returned to the soul-laden city of Iridell in the Hollow Plane where Arathin's body still resides, and the blood in the hemoglobe is reabsorbed by the body. However, if at least one creature reanimated by this rod's raise dead spell still lives, the rod cannot physically be brought into the Hollow Plane.