aripockily

[Radiance] Weapon - Noblelight Runners

When properly charged and enchanted, these types of boots are meant to last for the full duration of a labyrinthron game. Knock-offs or decommissioned boots often find their way to Ellumara's Dark Market and into the hands of thieves and adventurers.

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Noblelight Runners
Wondrous item, rare

While you wear these boots, they shed dim light in a 5-foot radius. Its light is noblelight, the illumination of the Phosphora lumenguild.

Noblelight Surge. These boots have 5 charges and regain all expended charges daily at dawn. While you wear these boots, you can use an action or a bonus action to expend 1 charge and immediately move up to 30 feet. While moving this way, you are subjected to the following effects:

• You ignore difficult terrain.
• You can only move in straight lines. You must move at least 10 feet before you can change direction during this movement.
• You must attempt to move the full 30 feet, running into obstacles if required. If you run into an obstacle, you stop moving and take 1d6 bludgeoning damage for every 10 feet of movement you haven't spent, rounded down. If the obstacle is a creature, it also takes this bludgeoning damage.
• During this movement, you produce an afterimage that leaves behind a 5-foot-tall, 1-inch wide solid translucent wall of light along your path of travel. The wall sheds dim light out to 10 feet. This wall lasts for up to 1 minute and requires concentration (as if you were concentrating on a spell). Whenever you produce a new wall, it is added to any existing walls you are concentrating on and you concentrate on them collectively. Each 5-foot square panel of wall can be destroyed (AC 15; 10 hp; immunity to poison, psychic, and radiant damage).

If a creature wearing Noblelight Runners (including you) touches, runs into, or makes a successful melee attack against a wall of light created by a pair of Noblelight Runners, that creature takes 2d8 force damage. Any walls of light that creature had created with its boots immediately disintegrate.

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Very Rare Variant. The very rare version of this item has these changes. It has 7 charges instead of 5. Additionally, when a creature ends its movement in a space within 5 feet of you, you can use your reaction to expend 1 charge and move up to 20 feet. While moving this way, you are subjected to the effects described in the Noblelight Surge property.

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DESIGN COMMENTARY

The Phosphora lumenguild is the guild of noblelight or plasmalyte, the "neon" or "noble gas" production of light. Their aesthetics are rooted in TRON, the coolest kind of light (which I now realize I unfortunately probably can't use again for Cosmos III - Technomancy out of need for originality)

These boots are clearly styled after the TRON lightcycle. Boots tend to not require attunement, so much of the work was limiting their use in a way that doesn't render them useless. At minimum, they allow for bonus action "Dashing" (assuming an average of 30 feet of movement.

The extra Dash caveats are mostly flavor playing a lightcycle game. The straight lines and 10-foot corner turns are one way to make it harder to produce tight enclosures with the wall. The requirement for moving all 30 feet forces creatures to run into other walls if necessary. Upon hitting a wall, it's game over and your walls disappear! The flavor text refers to a possible use for these boots in minigames (in which they don't have charge limits).

There's no uncommon variant because these walls sort of reproduce the effects of certain enclosure spells (wall of stone), and Rare is the lowest rarity for 5th-level spells. If the conditions are perfect, the boots essentially let you cast that spell (sort of) twice. The Very Rare variant upgrades the boots' utility, allowing you to perform additional maneuvers if another character wearing these boots were to come along, allowing you to possibly force them to crash.

Visually, the boots are simply black boots with light lines carefully placed to emphasize their contours and silhouette. The lines in the front and back of the boots help them stand out against the shadow. To make the black material more interesting, I added some material characteristics to it (like the stitch/breathable fabric you see in shoes).

[Collab] Caballine Spinefish - High-Res

Head down to the creator docks because we've got a boatload of fishes coming in!

Featuring the incredible, creative artwork of Edwin Atelier, Rudok‘s Tavern, Sol‘Kesh, Stained Karbon Maps, and The Fluffy Folio, comes a school of strange fishes, each set in equally surreal fishing location maps. Each part of the collab, a fish and a map, releases over the course of the next couple months!

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Caballine Spinefish

This glowing spinefish, featuring the luminescent caballine crystal, primarily inhabits deep subterranean lakes whose mineral-rich waters are warmed by the planet’s mantle. As the spinefish matures, dissolved iron and manganese deposit layers of mineral growths that form a protective scale-like carapace. Upon this carapace, the rare, valuable, magical caballine crystal forms. Long-time patrons may even recognize caballine from the very old Unearthed Gems compendium.

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Stained Karbon Maps

This collaboration wouldn't be possible without the Nick Fury of this pescine Avengers: Stained Karbon Maps. As part of this release, they have gifted high-resolution versions of their crystal lake map, included here. But there's so many variants of the caballine spinefish's home, so please check out their patreon page for more!

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More Fishes??

But wait there's more! Follow these links to check out the other creators' fishes as well.

• Edwin Atelier's Sporeglimmer Angelfish

• Rudok's Tavern's (coming soon!)

• Sol'Kesh's (coming soon!)

• The Fluffy Folio's Fan-Finned Fern Fish

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[Collab] Caballine Spinefish

Head down to the creator docks because we've got a boatload of fishes coming in!

Featuring the incredible, creative artwork of Edwin Atelier, Rudok‘s Tavern, Sol‘Kesh, Stained Karbon Maps, and The Fluffy Folio, comes a school of strange fishes, each set in equally surreal fishing location maps. Each part of the collab, a fish and a map, releases over the course of the next couple months!

——

Caballine Spinefish

This glowing spinefish, featuring the luminescent caballine crystal, primarily inhabits deep subterranean lakes whose mineral-rich waters are warmed by the planet’s mantle. As the spinefish matures, dissolved iron and manganese deposit layers of mineral growths that form a protective scale-like carapace. Upon this carapace, the rare, valuable, magical caballine crystal forms. Long-time patrons may even recognize caballine from the very old Unearthed Gems compendium.

——

Stained Karbon Maps

This collaboration wouldn't be possible without the Nick Fury of this pescine Avengers: Stained Karbon Maps. As part of this release, they have gifted a free version of their crystal lake map, included here. But there's so many variants of the caballine spinefish's home, so please check out their patreon page for more!

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Higher Resolution

To see the printable page version of the caballine spinefish with a little more flavor text, head over to this post. You'll also find high resolution of the Crystal Cave map (thank you again to Stained Karbon Maps!)

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More Fishes??

But wait there's more! Follow these links to check out the other creators' fishes as well.

• Edwin Atelier's Sporeglimmer Angelfish

• Rudok's Tavern's Nebulous Stargazer

• Sol'Kesh's Esslinter

• The Fluffy Folio's Fan-Finned Fern Fish

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[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.

[Radiance] Weapon - Emberhome

A flame of Ellumara's Great Furnace flickers within the firewell of the hammer. Though small, its light and embers possess the same inspirational and persevering quality of its venerated source.

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Emberhome
Weapon (light hammer), rare (requires attunement)

You deal an extra 1d4 fire damage to targets you hit with this weapon.

Brilliant Flame. This weapon sheds bright light in a 20-foot radius and dim light for an additional 20 feet. You and allies have advantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks made to examine targets inside the bright light. You can use an action to suppress this light until you use another action to restore it.

Emberlight Blessing. While you wield this weapon, you can use a bonus action to release the embers within. The embers fill a 30-foot radius sphere centered on the weapon that lasts for 1 minute. This sphere does not move, spreads around corners, is filled with bright light, and grants the following benefits:

• At the start of each of their turns, creatures of your choice gain temporary hit points equal to their proficiency bonus. These temporary hit points last until the sphere ends.
• Creatures of your choice in the sphere can re-roll one damage die each time they make a successful attack. They must use the new roll.
• When you make a thrown attack with this weapon while you are in the sphere, the weapon immediately flies back into your hand after you hit or miss with it.

Once used, this property of the weapon can't be used again until the next dawn.

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Uncommon Variant. The uncommon version of this weapon lacks the Emberlight Blessing property.

Very Rare Variant. The very rare version of this weapon grants a +1 bonus to attack and damage rolls made with it.

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DESIGN COMMENTARY

The weapon is rather basic in its overall design: bonus damage in line with its theming (that also encourages continued attunement and use), and a single-use ability.

The Emberlight Blessing ability is a simple buff for you and your team:

• Granting temp HP
  (about 3-4 HP per 3-4 characters at this level for an average battle about 3-4 turns long, for an average total of 42 temporary HP)
• Possible bonus damage
  Re-rolling produces an average bonus damage of 1.5 at this level (tested using d12 and 2d6) Assuming 3-4 average characters in an average battle about 3-4 turns long with 2 attacks per round from Extra Attack, that's an average of 37 bonus damage per use.)
• Returning items when thrown are generally situational, so they don't factor into this calculation.

These bonuses places it comfortably in the Rare range - the bonus damage and the Emberlight Blessing accounting for about half its power.

Visually, I maintained the design language of the Emberlight guild. It was fairly easy to put together (fire in a cage). I'm not sure I really sold the weight of the hammer that well. With hindsight I would probably thicken up the cage a bit more to give it heft, and reduced the flanges to make its bludgeoning damage more approrpiate. The back of the hammer was intended to be shaped like an anvil, but I rendered it as a flat piece of metal because of how the cage logistics didn't really make sense. I should have thought about it more before I moved onto rendering. Ah well.

[Radiance] Item - Armguards of Inner Flame

The metal braces of these guards wrap around the arm like an organic weave, bolstering the body with the inextinguishable flame of the Emberheart. The flamebearers of the Ellumara's Great Furnace wear protective gear like these to safely handle fire and worship the flame. 

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Armguards of Inner Flame
Wondrous item, very rare (requires attunement)

While you wear them, these armguards grant you a +1 bonus to your AC. When you use these armguards to make unarmed strikes, you can choose to deal fire damage instead of your normal damage. 

Illumination. While you wear these armguards, they shed bright light in a 10-foot radius and dim light for an additional 10 feet. You can use an action to suppress this light until you use another action to restore it. While the armguards' light is suppressed, its Burning Spirit and Rise from Ash properties are also suppressed. 

Burning Spirit. When you would gain a level of exhaustion, roll a d6. On a roll of 4 or higher, you don't gain it. 

Rise From Ash. The light of these armguards protect you while you wear them. When you would you be reduced to 0 hit points, you can use your reaction to instead set your current hit points to 5 times your proficiency bonus. When you take this reaction, fire also sweeps out from you, dealing 2d8 fire damage to each creature of your choice within 10 feet of you. The bracers can't grant this benefit again until the next dawn. 

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Rare Variant. The rare version of this item does not grant a bonus to your AC. 

Legendary Variant. The legendary version of this item grants a +2 bonus to your AC instead of a +1, and its Rise From Ash property deals 4d8 fire damage instead of 2d8.

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DESIGN COMMENTARY

The Emberheart lumenguild is a guild centered around buffing yourself and your allies, to persist with the spirit of the flame despite the odds (whereas the Dawnstar guild are proactive debuffers/abjurers of enemies). There's a ton of options for fire-based items, so I really searched for something different and visually exciting - an almost fluid look not often associated with fire and inner strength.

This item has a lot of minor properties, either situational or redundant, but important to the theme. I wanted to simplify my items but these seemed too important to cut.

• Replacing regular damage with fire will rarely be important (only monks really make use of unarmed strikes; vulnerabilities are rare in 5e so the benefit for switching types rarely come into play; unarmed damage should be magical by this level of play anyway)
• Natural illumination is not fully necessary since any character can light a torch, cast a light cantrip, or have darkvision.
• The avoidance of exhaustion is extremely situational (one of the rarest enemy-inflicted conditions). There's some interesting uses for the latter feature, however — many exhaustion effects can be self-inflicted (e.g. the optional exhaustion rules for not resting/sleeping), so that's one way to thematically "push ahead" without rest.

The basic AC increase is in the style of the Rare Bracers of Defense.

The other main feature is a phoenix-adjacent fiery resurrection, also tying into the idea of persisting fire. The power level varies, but on average allows you to either continue maintaining spells or effects (by avoiding falling unconscious), or take one massive hit. It's hard to compare this to an existing item, so I sorta eyeballed it. Very Rare seems an acceptable place to put this.

This one took double the time I normally spend on art! Visually, I wanted something that had an almost fluid look not often associated with fire and inner strength, while looking striking when viewed in silhouette. The Emberheart lumenguild visual design is a lot of metal striping, sort of like a cage protecting the "heart." This is carried into the cage-like metal strips which also follow the muscle lines to produce the visual of metallic muscles. I lineworked the front bits of metal, but wisely left the back bits of metal as a single overpainted piece. The back is also tuned to a low opacity so that it reads as faded against any solid background (which is great, but not good for nonsolid backgrounds lol) A bit of heated metal color helps sell the temperature. Probably wouldn't do this again without good reason!

[Xan Rockman] Item Cards

Quick Download Links:

• PDF Card Files
• JPEG Card Files
• 8.5x11 Print & Play

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Item Cards:

• Archrider's Whistle
• Bag of Holding
• Boots of Bounding
• Clap Chop
• Cramwow
• Crown of Owl Command
• Djinn in Tonic
• Fire Brand
• Gratesword
• Mighty Pen
• Omnistrike-8
• Party Rock
• Pet Rock
• Relay Rocks
• Stonewalker's Wraps
• Wand of Clams
• Weapon of Alarm

Note: If an item has variant rarities, it's printed on separate cards.

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CARD KEY

Some information on cards have been simplified to save space. Here's a short key on how it works:

Card Icons. There are several icons located on the lower-right of each card front to assist in quickly identifying their type. If there's no special icon, that means it doesn't apply (e.g. nonmagical items will not have an attunement or rarity icon)

Key Properties. Certain properties have been condensed. You might see some of the following:

• "Attacks" for static bonuses to attack, damage
• "Defenses" for static bonuses to AC, etc.
• "Special" for modifications to standard objects
• "Spells" for shortened spell lists.

Key Words. Immediately after property names, you might see in italics words that simplify the property. Key words like Action; 1/dusk implies the property requires an action to activate, and can only be done once between dusks. DCs as a property references any saving throws the property forces. Others like 3 charges; regains 1d6+3 at dawn describes the charges.

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PRINTING CARDS

The cards are all sized for standard tarot-sized cards (70mm x 120mm) with a 3mm bleed (the area around the edge that is cut off by a printer). There are two ways to print these cards:

• Professional Services. Any standard printing service will let you upload the cards' JPEG files and send them to print. Nowadays, this should be a simple process. You will have to print on both sides.
• Self-Printing. You can also print the Print & Play PDF on 8.5" x 11" or similar-sized paper. After printing, follow the instructions to fold and cut out the cards yourself.

Errata

I'm just one person so I'm bound to make mistakes. This page collects all errata and clarifications issued for my published compendiums, organized by title.

(As I revise old compendiums, I'll add a link to errata and any changes made to this list).

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Nightmares of Dreamsend

• Page 21. The DC for the Psychosis item's phantasmal killer spell is 18.

Shadow of the Blighted Sun

• Page 45. The DC for the Horn of Resounding Echoes item's thunderwave effect is 13 (uncommon), 15 (rare), or 17 (very rare).

[Radiance] Weapon - Prominence of Dawn

The founder of Ellumara and the Dawnstar lumenguild was said to carry the rays of the sun on them and wield their righteous light with great intensity. In darkness, the weapon's tail lashes out like a solar filament, burning all within its unexpectedly distant reach.

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Prominence of Dawn
Weapon (whip), very rare (requires attunement)

You have a +1 to attack and damage rolls you make with this weapon. It deals radiant damage instead of slashing, and deals an extra 1d4 radiant damage to targets you hit with it.

Illumination. The weapon sheds bright light in a 20-foot radius and dim light for an additional 20 feet.

Photospheric Aura. While wielding this weapon, you can use a bonus action to expand the weapon's bright light to a 60-foot radius and its dim light to an additional 60 feet. This light is sunlight, and lasts for 1 hour or until you use an action to end it. For the duration, when you make a weapon attack with the weapon on your turn, your reach for it increases by 10 feet for that attack. Once used, this property of the weapon can't be used again until the next dawn.

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Rare Variant. The rare version of the weapon lacks the Photospheric Aura property.

Legendary Variant. The legendary version of this weapon has these changes. You have a +2 bonus to attack and damage rolls instead of +1. Additionally, for the duration of the Photospheric Aura property, you can make a melee attack with the weapon against any target in the weapon's radius of bright light as if it were within your reach. The weapon magically extends your reach for this attack and deals an extra 3d10 damage if it hits. Once the weapon has hit a target this way, its reach can't be extended this way again until the next dawn.

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DESIGN COMMENTARY

Fun fact! The solar "flares" of the sun when it forms a loop and such are called "filaments" or "prominence," hence the name!

The +1 weapon and +1d4 damage essentially combines to the Rare rarity tier. The illumination is a ribbon, though possibly a detriment since there's no way to turn it off like a sun blade.

The main property that brings it up to Very Rare is Photospheric Aura, which reproduces the effects of daylight, except it's also sunlight. Sunlight is especially good when traveling through the Underdark/Umberhollow/other dark areas, if a little situational. The increased reach for the whip also means your reach is now 20 feet (only during attacks on your turn, but not for determining opportunity attacks). This increased reach is helpful, but not necessarily overpowered since the difference of 10 feet can usually be covered by movement.

The Legendary variant, however, is where things get spicier. The one extra boost to damage and up to 60-foot reach gives the wielder variety in use. Overall, it's pretty good at evoking the thematic "reach" of the sun.

[Radiance] Item - Dawn's Eye Lantern

Clerics of the divine Dawnstar guild once wielded these lanterns in their crusade against the forces of darkness. Intricate holy symbols inscribed into their metal frames permit channeling of divine spells without a free hand.

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DAWN'S EYE LANTERN
Wondrous item, rare (requires attunement)

While wielding this lantern (as if it were a weapon or shield), you can use an action to light it. While lit, the lantern illuminates its space with bright light, and its lens emits bright light in a 20-foot-cone and dim light in the larger cone beyond for an additional 20 feet. You can reorient this cone of light at the start of each of your turns (no action required). The light is nonmagical. It lasts until you use an action to extinguish it, or until you no longer wield the lantern.

Radiant Ward. You have advantage on saving throws against effects caused by Aberrations, Fey, Fiends, and Undead in the lantern's area of bright light.

Lantern's Wake. This lantern has 4 charges and regains 1d4 expended charges daily at dawn. While you wield the lantern, you can use a bonus action to modify the light in one of the following ways: 

• Focused Beam. You expend 1 charge to focus the light on a creature within 20 feet of you. The creature must succeed on a DC 15 Constitution saving throw or be blinded until the start of your next turn. Aberrations, Fey, Fiends, Undead, and creatures with the Sunlight Sensitivity trait have disadvantage on this saving throw. 

• Repel Dark Presence. You expend 1 charge to infuse the light with divine magic. Until the start of your next turn, the lantern's light becomes bright light that fills a 15-foot-cone or a 30-foot-line originating from the lantern (your choice) aimed at a point or target of your choice. For the duration, this area of light is sunlight and suppresses the effects of magical darkness.

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Uncommon Variant. The uncommon version of the lantern has these changes. The Lantern's Wake property requires an action instead of a bonus action to use. The DC of the Focused Beam option is 13 and the light created by Repel Dark Presence is not sunlight.

Very Rare Variant. The very rare version of the lantern has these changes. It has 6 charges and regains 1d4+2 expended charges daily at dawn. The DC of the Focused Beam option is 16. When you succeed on a saving throw caused by an Aberration, Fey, Fiend, or Undead in the lantern's area of bright light, the creature takes 2d10 radiant damage.

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DESIGN COMMENTARY

This lantern is one of two dedicated to the first lumenguild, the Dawnstar. They're a sun-based cleric guild and essentially founded Ellumara. Their sun magic guided the city through its dark times until it emerged to become what it is today. They are abjurers and ward extraplanar threats with magical light.

Thematically, this lantern draws from the Alan Wake games, which deals a lot with light and stripping the shadows. The Radiant Ward feature grants boons to the wielder for about ~15% of battles overall (combined percentage of combats that involve Aberrations, Fey, Fiends, or Undead. This feature is strong if always active, but is adjusted weaker to account for the simple strategy enemies can employ to avoid it (just walk out of the light's cone).

It also has 4 uses of the two options. Both requires a bonus action, so its activation cost is minimal. Focused Beam basically grants you advantage on your attacks if you succeed or allow you to escape; the Repel Dark Presence option is a situational benefit designed to temporarily negate enemies that use magical darkness or just vampires. Both are short-duration enough or situational enough (and the blinding is single-target) that it only accounts for about 1/3 of the item's total combat power.

Visually, the lantern is designed as a bulls-eye lantern, a sort of focused light source used during Victorian times. I'm not the happiest with how it turned out because the design doesn't quite look self-explanatory or cohesive, but that's the challenge with the more mundane-looking objects that need to look somewhat functional. The "supports' do help make it look like a sun's rays at least. I'm not sure what went wrong with the glowing lens but it doesn't quite look right either. Unfortunately, most of the references I used had unlit lenses so ... tough luck.

Theme Poll #4

I was worried I had used up any and all ideas for light while working on Shadow of the Blighted Sun, but I was pleasantly surprised to find more ideas to explore. Granted, the upcoming Corespark items have less to do with light and more to do with lightning, but it's part of the in-world flavor, I suppose.

Again, thank you for your generous support! It's so lovely to continue getting the opportunity to do this at all.

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Let's take a look at the options for the next theme. The poll concludes 2 weeks before the release of the most recent compendium (around mid-May). If you have any requests or ideas, feel free to leave a comment below.

• Cosmos III - Technomancy. The Aripockily Cosmos expands again with more technomantic items, a cybernetic warrior, an artificially intelligent warlock patron, and new explorations in the Grid: the primary technet world to which most devices connect.
• Dungeon Eternal: The Shifting Labyrinth. Descend into the maze-like dungeons of a forgotten city, walls magically built by a mad trap-obsessed, dungeon-loving magoarchitect. Does it guard forbidden secrets? Or do they simply enjoy dungeons? Includes (tentatively) modular dungeons, traps, rooms, encounters, treasures, and dungeon-themed items.
• In Footsteps of Giants. Encounter the societies of giants including new types of giants such as sand and gloom giants, as well as the colossal god they worship that may one day reclaim the world for giantkind.
• Tiny Adventures. You may be the size of mice but adventure never ends. Use makeshift weapons made from everyday objects like the needle rapier, and fight small beasts now the size of dragons! A conversion template transforms existing stat block into their relatively giant counterparts.

[Radiance] Item - Lumenguild Staff

These staves signify a position of leadership in Ellumara's lumenguilds, each passed down from one official to the next. Over time, many have been sought by mages or black market collectors. Each staff is said to pale in comparison to those held by the lumenguilds' original founders.

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Lumenguild Staff

Staff, very rare (requires attunement by a bard, cleric, druid, sorcerer, warlock, or wizard)

This staff is associated with one of Ellumara's four lumenguilds: Corespark, Dawnstar, Emberheart, or Phosphora. It can be wielded as a magic quarterstaff that grants a +1 bonus to your spell save DC while you wield it. 

Illumination. This staff sheds bright light in a 20-foot radius and dim light for an additional 20 feet. While you wield it, you can use an action to extinguish the light or light it again. 

Charges. The staff has 10 charges for the following properties, and regains 1d6+4 expended charges daily at dawn. If the last charge is expended, roll a d20. On a roll of 1, it harmlessly explodes, creating a 30-foot radius sphere of colored dim light centered on it. The light fades after 10 minutes.

Flash of Lumemancy. The staff’s light flares in the presence of your magic. While wielding staff, when you force at least one creature in the staff’s bright light to make a saving throw against your spell save DC, you can expend 1 charge from the staff to shine on one of those creatures (your choice; no action required). If that creature fails its saving throw, it is also blinded until the start of your next turn. You can use this property only once per turn.

Lumenguild Spells. This staff has 10 charges. While you wield it, you can cast a spell from it by expending the necessary charges, using your spell save DC. The staff's available spells corresponds to its associated lumenguild, and targets affected by its spells shed dim light in a 10-foot radius for the spell's duration. 

• Corespark. Haste (3 charges), scorching ray (2 charges; deals lightning instead of fire damage), thunderwave (1 charge).
• Dawnstar. Beacon of hope (3 charges), daylight (2 charges), guiding bolt (1 charge).
• Emberheart. Blur (2 charges), burning hands (1 charge), slow (3 charges).
• Phosphora. Color spray (1 charge), hypnotic pattern (3 charges), mirror image (2 charges).

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Rare Variant. The rare version of this staff grants no bonus to your spell save DC and lacks the Flash of Lumemancy property.

Legendary Variant. The legendary version of this staff grants a +2 bonus to your spell save DC instead of +1, and also grants you resistance to a damage type that corresponds to the staff's associated lumenguild while you wield it: fire (Emberheart), lightning (Corespark), psychic (Phosphora), or radiant (Dawnstar).

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DESIGN COMMENTARY

This is the second of the two items dedicated to Ellumara's guilds and sort of this theme's "spell" item. It's also one of few objects that make sense in the hands of someone within a city where light and light-magic is common, and also has recognizable visibility (e.g. characters will see someone holding the staff for sure).

Staves are kind of weird in 5e's balancing because they (for some reason) tend to run higher on the power. It's probably because they're usually limited to spellcasters or have a provision that allows for their destruction, though in practice it shouldn't affect most games (GMs control magic item rewards and don't use the last charge, etc).

I kept the staff in line with the pre-established staves (10 charges, possibly destroy on a roll of 1). I kept the spell bonus and spell levels low. 3rd-level spells translate to ~3 spells per day maximum. The Flash property adds a new way for characters to drain charges faster.

• The spell bonus was important for this because players need a reason to keep using the staff (and taking up the attunement slot) even after all the spells and charges have been expended.
• The Flash of Lumemancy was also important because the staff needed to speak to the flavor of light magic (not a lot of light or blinding spells in 5e).

Shedding light; I don't really consider a boon, as any character should have ways to make light (magically or nonmagically).

For Legendary variant, 3rd level spells is pretty low for the tier of play (compared to available spells by then), but the DC bonus and resistance still makes it an attractive option. Also, the staff's spells still have one option relevant to that tier of play (haste, slow/blur, mirror image, beacon of hope).

[Radiance] Item Cards

Quick Download Links:

• PDF Card Files (coming soon)

• JPEG Card Files

• 8.5x11 Print & Play (coming soon)

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Item Cards:

• Armguards of Inner Flame

• Coppercoil Plating

• Dawn's Eye Lantern

• Emberhome

• Flare Arrow

• Gleam

• Hololight Prism

• Lumenguild Staff

• Lumenguild Torch

• Magnified Aegis

• Neon Write

• Noblelight Runners

• Plasmalyte Ring

• Prominence of Dawn

• Raybreaker

• Ruby Pointer

• Stoplyte

• That-Which-Hungers-For-Light

• Thunderstrike

Note: If an item has variant rarities, it's printed on separate cards.

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CARD KEY

Some information on cards have been simplified to save space. Here's a short key on how it works:

Card Icons. There are several icons located on the lower-right of each card front to assist in quickly identifying their type. If there's no special icon, that means it doesn't apply (e.g. nonmagical items will not have an attunement or rarity icon)

Key Properties. Certain properties have been condensed. You might see some of the following:

• "Attacks" for static bonuses to attack, damage

• "Defenses" for static bonuses to AC, etc.

• "Special" for modifications to standard objects

• "Spells" for shortened spell lists.

Key Words. Immediately after property names, you might see in italics words that simplify the property. Key words like Action; 1/dusk implies the property requires an action to activate, and can only be done once between dusks. DCs as a property references any saving throws the property forces. Others like 3 charges; regains 1d6+3 at dawn describes the charges.

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PRINTING CARDS

The cards are all sized for standard tarot-sized cards (70mm x 120mm) with a built-in 3mm bleed (the area around the edge that is cut off by a printer). Any standard printing service will let you upload these files and send them to print.

You will have to print on both sides.

[Radiance] Item - Lumenguild Torch

Where leadership of a lumenguild is identified by a magical staff, those with some enforcing power are identified by smaller torches. Guild members are quick to point out that it's not the size of the torch that matters.

——

Lumenguild Torch

Weapon (club or mace), uncommon (requires attunement)

This weapon is associated with one of Ellumara's four lumenguilds: Corespark, Dawnstar, Emberheart, or Phosphora.  

Illumination. This weapon sheds bright light in a 20-foot radius and dim light for an additional 20 feet. While you wield it, you can use an action to extinguish the light or light it again.  

Radiant Flash. While the weapon is lit, you deal an extra 1d4 damage to targets you hit with it. The extra damage’s type is determined by the lumenguild this weapon is associated with: fire (Emberheart), lightning (Corespark), psychic (Phosphora), or radiant (Dawnstar). Once per attack, when you roll a 4 on the extra damage, you can produce one of the following effects of your choice:  

• You roll a d4 and add it to the total extra damage dealt. 

• The target must succeed on a DC 13 Constitution saving throw or be blinded until the end of your turn. 

——

Common Variant. The common version of this weapon lacks the Radiant Flash property, and the light it sheds is nonmagical.

Rare Variant. The rare version of this weapon also grants a +1 bonus to attack and damage rolls made with it and its DC is 15 instead of 13. 

Very Rare Variant. The very rare version of this weapon also grants a +2 bonus to attack and damage rolls made with it and its DC is 17 instead of 13.

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DESIGN COMMENTARY

Part of the focus of this theme is the four lumenguilds of Ellumara. Some of the items in the theme will be devoted to each guild; there's a couple items designed to work with all four guilds — like this one! (I realize there are so many guilds in my fictional cities so I hope to find more creative options for future projects too).

This item is meant to be held by the general or more common members of the guild, so I chose a torch: a pretty common light implement that also doesn't get iterated on enough. The club and mace are good choices too since they don't get used almost ever.

Power-wise, an extra d4 of damage is about the same level as an unattuned common item (+1 to attack/damage vs +2.5 damage). The additional effects from rolling a 4 on the d4 makes up for the attunement requirement. The potential extra d4 translates to a ~0.6 bonus to damage (1/4 of a d4); the possible blind condition is situationally useful if you have multiattacks (because the condition only lasts until the end of your current turn).

The Rare and Very Rare variants follow the basic power increase (+1 / +2 bonus to attack/damage), and combos a bit better once players get access to better spells/features (like multiattack or haste).

[Radiance] Weapon - Ruby Pointer

The core idea for this design was created one fateful day by a lonely feline-inclined master glassworker, later co-opted by the Luxwatch to assist with distant weapon targeting.

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Ruby Pointer
Weapon (javelin, pike, spear, or trident), uncommon (requires attunement)

You have a +1 bonus to attack and damage rolls made with this weapon, which emits a thin beam of red light from its tip. You can speak a command word to suppress this light beam until you speak another to restore it (no action required for either command).

Target Painter. Whenever you take the Help action to aid an ally's attack against an enemy, you can choose a target within 60 feet of you rather than within 5 feet, pointing this weapon's light beam at that target. This action only grants advantage to your ally's attack if it is a ranged attack. The Help action's benefit ends early if the target breaks line of sight to you, or if you are blinded, incapacitated, or die.

Distracting Dot. As an action, you can point the weapon's light beam to distract a creature within 60 feet of you. If the target can see you, it must succeed on a DC 13 Wisdom saving throw or it has disadvantage on ability checks and attack rolls until the end of its next turn. Feline creatures such as cats, tigers, and rakshasas have disadvantage on the saving throw.

—

Rare Variant. The rare version of this weapon has these changes. Its bonus to attack and damage increases to +2, and the DC of the Distracting Dot property is 15.

Very Rare Variant. The very rare version of this weapon has these changes. Its bonus to attack and damage increases to +3, and the DC of the Distracting Dot property is 17. When you take the Help action to aid an attack using the Target Painter property, you can aid two allies of your choice instead of one.

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DESIGN COMMENTARY

In terms of power, the weapon sorta varies depending on the party. It's hard to make a fair comparison, since the mechanics are rather unique. Normally, uncommon items should have this many properties in one; I would normally cut Distracting Dot, but the idea was just too fun to leave out.

Target Painter is complicated to measure. On the one hand, the 60-foot range is massive. On the other hand, this benefit only applies to ranged attacks (prohibiting its use for certain melee procs like smites), can be ended early without much expenditure (by moving out of line of sight), and advantage is normally fairly easy to obtain in a 5e game.  I rated this as slightly above net-neutral, since in most cases there's better things to do with your action. It could be compared to true strike, which is a well-known iffy cantrip

Distracting Dot would be fairly good if it didn't require an action, as once again there are usually better things to do with your action. Still, it's helpful in situational battles if a party needs to avoid one particularly deadly enemy. One could theoretically compare it to a poison effect, sort of like ray of sickness but without the damage. I also rated this as slightly above net-neutral.

Combined with the +1 weapon property, I felt this was above neutral enough to land in the uncommon rarity. It doesn't quite feel powerful enough for a rare item.

Very Rare allows the Help action to aid one extra character, which is 1 more advantage than normal, which places it on par with typical actions at that tier of play .

[Radiance] Weapon - Stoplyte

Decorated leadership of the Luxwatch are expected to forge their own signature weapons by hand. Each one is outfitted with three enchanted colored lamps, each with the mystical power to exert different forms of control over a quarry.

——

Weapon (maul or morningstar), rare (requires attunement)

While you wield this weapon, creatures cannot move you against your will.

Control Lights. This weapon’s three lamps are normally unlit and can only be lit using this property. When lit, each lamp sheds bright light in a 20-foot radius, and dim light for an additional 20 feet. This light bears the same color as its lantern. Depending on its color, the bright light produces an effect described below:

• Green Lamp. While in the area of bright green light, creatures you designate (including you) can take one additional action on each of their turns. This action can only be used to make one weapon attack or take the Dash action. 
• Yellow Lamp. While in the area of bright yellow light, creatures you designate are slowed. Their speed is halved and they have a -2 penalty to AC. 
• Red Lamp. You can command a target within the area of bright red light to stop. You can do this as a bonus action, or as a reaction when the target enters the area. The target must succeed on a DC 15 Wisdom saving throw or its speed is reduced to 0 until the start of your next turn. 

While you wield this weapon, you can use an action to flip a switch and light one lamp of your choice from the weapon. While a lamp is lit, roll a d6 at the start of each of your turns. On a roll of 3 or lower, the lit lamp extinguishes and a new lamp lights, in the following order: green to yellow to red. If the red lamp extinguishes, no new lamp is lit. 

You can use the switch to light each colored lamp once. It can’t be lit using the switch again until the next dawn.

——

Uncommon Variant. The uncommon version of this item has these changes. The DC of the Red Lamp is 13, and the light automatically changes at the start of each of your turns instead of being determined by a d6 roll. 

Very Rare Variant. The very rare version of this item has these changes. The DC of the Red Lamp is 17, and the weapon deals an extra 1d6 radiant damage to targets it hits while one of its lamps is active.

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DESIGN COMMENTARY

Welcome all to a new theme! I have to be honest, I'm a little surprised Technomancy III didn't win, but I'm all for the Reign of Radiance. It's pretty interesting that we're going from Shadows directly to Light, too. It would be fun to pit the world of Azira against Ellumara, but alas, Azira is just too specific of a setting. This weapon is the first in the batch; I plan to have a couple general application light-themed items, plus a couple for each of the four Lumenguilds I'm developing (the sunstar, emberheart, corespark, and phosphora).

The Stoplyte is based on one of the most common light sources we see in a city, and each lamp color is related to that idea. The calculations return power values in the Rare mark, varying depending on how long an average battle lasts, but I used an average of 3 rounds. Green is designed to be more powerful than the others, slowly stepping down in utility until you reach Red. With a 50% chance of changing lights, each color should last 2 rounds on average. In some cases, you might not see Red light used in a battle at all.

• Green allows you to make one more attack, which is great if used effectively in a large party. For this, I took an assumed average of 3 extra attacks (including yourself), which is slightly higher than the usual expectation of 2 melee or ranged characters. Note that the 20-foot radius is usually fairly limiting to melee range, and that the extra action allows you to attack on the turn you activate the green lamp. Note that this is pretty far below the haste spell, which grants many more benefits including an AC boost, a bonus to Dex saves, and doubled speed that compounds with the extra Dash action; plus the spell lasts a full minute while this one lasts 2 rounds on average.
• After the green lamp, there's a 50% chance of the change, so you ideally should be within range of enemies, effectively making the green light more useful in close range.
• Yellow slows enemies; reduced speed can potentially keep distant enemies from approaching for an attack, but the -2 AC is also a boon against high AC enemies.  It's kind of like slow, except without many of the other effects. You might get 1-3 enemies in the aura at most, as any adversely affected enemy would eventually dip out and attack another more vulnerable party member (or use ranged attacks).
• Finally, Red light lets you reduce enemy speeds to 0. These uses are mainly limited to zoning creatures escaping or moving to attack your allies, or preventing creatures from entering melee with you until you're ready. The reaction cost is very good for that; the bonus action version requires a little more setup. This doesn't do anything against enemies that have ranged attacks/spells/effects (of which ~86% of enemies do), so it's not ranked that powerfully.

[Compendium] - Shadow of the Blighted Sun

Download the pdf to check out the 67-page compendium, featuring 2 player ancestries, 5 setting-specific feats for characters from Azira, 28 magic items and gear, 25 monsters, 6 deities, and 35 pages of lore for the Azira game setting including locations, adventure hooks, treasures, and rules for the Blighted Sun.

Though this one is 67 pages long I want to note that my goal has always been ~20 pages, and that's probably what it'll be for the next compendium.

Thank you so much to all the new patrons, as well as those of the past.  I'm also so happy to be able to do this at all.

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DESIGN COMMENTARY

I got really carried away for this one. On the one hand, it's pretty great that there's so much content for this interesting setting I love, but on the other hand I've been awake for almost 22 hours putting this together so... I'm very tired and don't have a lot to say about the compendium aside from I can't do this again lol

Okay so, just a summary of the coolest parts of the compendium

• New World. Entirely new setting, Azira ("azimuth"). Everyone lives underground because the sun is poisonous and very fatal. This changes society and turns cities into some very different places. I took cares to avoid overlapping with the D&D Underdark as much as possible; where those settings would focus on the "psionic" nature of the deep dark, I wanted to stay true to themes of darkness, shadows, gloom, and occasionally fungi.
• Blighted Sunlight. A cool new way to view a typical world, where the familiar surface is deadly and the scary caves are good.
• New Gods. Just a couple blurbs about the 4 main gods. There's someone old, someone new, someone dead, etc. I've always liked the whole Mistborn god body idea, so these gods also have "physical bodies" and that's how one of the gods died. Spoiler alert, the sun god is not dead, it's the ocean god. The sun god is just dying forever
• Lots of new locations. I wrote too many locations but I really wanted to be thorough with the breadth of content types. There's Zelkarth; they're a duocracy of mages and clerics. They've got some expected aspects of a shadow city (like "shadowdancing") but they've also got teleporting towers and crystals. There's Miza, the city of mirrors; they use mirrors to confuse the irradiated husks. There's a lot. I'm dying tired
• Way too many monsters and items too
• Okay thank you for bearing with me I hope you enjoy this as much as I did

[Preview] - Shadow of the Blighted Sun

This is a preview for January's Shadow of the Blighted Sun compendium! This 67-page compendium, featuring 2 player ancestries, 5 setting-specific feats for characters from Azira, 28 magic items and gear, 25 monsters, 6 deities, and 35 pages of lore for the Azira game setting including locations, adventure hooks, treasures, and rules for the Blighted Sun.

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Want to see more? Purchase it now either through Patreon's Shop or via DriveThruRPG!

[Shadow] Ancestry - Kyropti

The kyropti share many characteristics with bats: furred bodies, prominent ears, flight, and a small measure of echolocation ability. Unlike their distant cousins, however, they grow to 2 to 3 feet tall by adulthood with a wingspan of up to 6 feet. The sounds of a colony in flight can echo through expansive caverns for hundreds of feet.

 ——

DESIGN COMMENTARY

There are many custom fungi races, but strangely not as many batfolk. That's probably because they're never going to be quite that special, as their must-have features (flight and blindsight) already account for a majority of the ancestry's balance. I made that a little more balanced by adjusting how the wings work and adding at least the Keen Ears trait.

The inability to make weapon attacks while flying robs much of flight's power since it's really good for attacking from unreachable range (though I'm sure it's still possible with certain items). I wrote a more generic description, but made sure to enshrine the inability to cast spells or attack with weapons; there are some edge cases I've missed (like drawing/stowing items) but hopefully the intent is there and defined. Still, it's a great repositioning/climbing tool when combined with feet, so it's worth a lot.

Permanent blindsight is very strong, so kyropti have limited uses of it instead (flavored as a hold-over from an ancient ancestor). It'll negate hidden invisible enemies and the Blinded condition, but does not reveal enemies Hidden behind total cover; it also reveals illusions pretty easily. Each situation is kind of uncommon (encountering illusions, fighting invisible enemies, or getting blinded), but together its worth about 2/3 darkvision or two casts of say, dispel magic.

Then, Keen Ears is a ribbonish trait, since most perception checks tend to be sight-based.

All this combined already places the kyropti on the high end of average, so that's as far as I think I could push it. It mostly hinges on how the minorly tested flight and blindsight actually plays out in game, so let me know if you try out a kyropti!

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The kyropti name is taken from the bat genus 'chiropter'. Fun fact, it has the same modified pronunciation as 'helicopter' where the 'p' is pronounced despite helicopters get their names from 'helico' and 'pter' (spiral and wing).

[Shadow] Ancestry - Hyfaerrin

The fungal hyfaerrin are among the oldest inhabitants of Azira, having lived in the detritisphere eons before their introduction to surface dwellers. Their name, given by surface dwellers, refers to them as the children of Hyfaell, the newly ascended goddess of earth. Unlike creatures of flesh and blood, the hyfaerrin’s unique biology makes them keenly aware of the natural cycles of life and death, and rebirth. Their approach to life is comparatively slow, yet no less exciting.

——

DESIGN COMMENTARY

Since choosing the Aziran setting, where the whole planet would be permanently altered by how the sun just works, I knew I had to work on some unique ancestries. These are by no means a unique idea (bats and mushrooms underground? who knew?), so I primarily worked on their implementation.

For the hyfaerrin, the spiritual descendants of Hyfaell, goddess of earth, I wanted to keep them as nonmagical as I could. There were a number of characteristics that would have been fun to implement here, so the primary challenge was simplifying and unifying it. Ideas like being ageless and speaking with plants didn't make the cut; ideas like throwing spores were shifted to the Sporeheart Gardener feat instead. I wanted to keep them more physical and biological rather than the popular psionic route; I would have written Sporeheart Magic as a nonmagical trait if it wasn't more complex.

Overall, the hyfaerrin is on the higher end of average compared to existing ancestries. The poison resistance and spells count for a lot, so we can compare most of the hyfaerrin to dwarves. Trading out some of the dwarves'  bonus proficiencies for basic cantrips and a 1/day spell, plus the very minor temporary hit points (~4 THP at 5th-level) and you get the hyfaerrin. Note that the temporary hit points only works when absorbing a corpse of similar size, so unlikely to be useful while in a city. Even for min-maxers, carrying a Small/Medium corpse around for a set of THP per day would be a weird way to play. The hyfaerrin spell selection is intentionally designed to be one minor utility and one damage/targeted spell to avoid a powerful combination.

The hyfaerrin are centered around the Sporeheart Macromesh, a huge organic mycelium network. I was intentionally vague with their descriptions because fungi are so varied it'd be impossible to describe them all, but one detail I liked was that their language, instead of being spoken or carried via mind spores, is a wonderful color display. The way I wrote it, Hyfaerrin is communicated silently (as long as the recipient is within range) and in light (darkvision only allows you to see shades of gray). It's near impossible for other creatures to produce without a system of colored cloth. Keep in mind that spells with a verbal component still need them and would be spoken in Common!

[Shadow] Artifact - Zenith Catalyst

Inside this cube is a divine relic of the sun goddess Zentha, originally used for good but now as an instrument of death. According to Daybroken doctrine, the ultimate champion of Zentha is capable of withstanding the full force of the Blighted Sun. Based solely on this prophecy, fanatical Daybroken sects endeavor to create a device that can identify the champion — at the cost of thousands of lives.

—

ZENITH CATALYST
Wondrous item, artifact

A magical sundial atop this cube tells the current time.

Stored within this pulse bomb is the concentrated poison radiance of the Blighted Sun, and a fragment of the divinity that represents it. You can use an action to activate this bomb. The bomb emits a low hum until it detonates at next noon, releasing a burst of radiant energy that travels through nearly all materials in a 1,000-foot radius sphere around the bomb. Only a layer of lead with a thickness of 5 feet or more provides total cover against the bomb.

Each creature in the area must make a DC 20 Dexterity saving throw, taking 6d10 radiant damage and 6d10 poison damage on a failed save, or half as much on a successful one. A creature that takes four or more radiant damage this way immediately contracts Solar Sickness. A creature afflicted this way gains four levels of Solar Sickness instead of one.

Creatures, plants, and flammable objects within the bomb's blast radius instantly catch fire. A creature on fire takes 2d8 fire damage at the start of each of its turns. If an effect would douse the fire, such as a creature patting fire or throwing water on the fire (typically as an action), the burning creature can make a DC 20 Constitution saving throw. On a successful save, the creature ceases burning.

A creature killed by the bomb's radiant damage leaves behind an animated shadow on the nearest surface to opposite the bomb, a fragment of its soul stored within the surface. The shadows act out the last two seconds before its demise in a repetitive loop. At GM's discretion, a speak with dead spell may allow for brief communication with the shadow as if it were a corpse.

Once the bomb has been activated, it can't be activated again until it has spent 4d6 days directly exposed to the Blighted Sun.

Zenthan Solstice. At the GM’s discretion, this bomb also has this property. If the bomb detonates on the Zenthan summer solstice, the bomb’s radius becomes 10 miles and its DC becomes 25 for that explosion.

—

DESIGN COMMENTARY

No horrifying world is complete without an artifact and the villains capable of using it. Because it's an artifact, it's more interesting to describe how it can be used rather than its mechanics directly.

• The artifact is a bomb that detonates at one specific time, allowing a party to potentially stop it (or to write an adventure with a time limit). An example of the villains who might use it are the Daybroken, sun paladins. The damage dealt by the bomb is intentionally set so that an ordinary person could theoretically survive it without contracting Solar Sickness — truly the one-in-a-million prophesized to survive it.
• Another use is the aftermath. Sentient shadows reanimating after their death serve as a horrific backdrop to an evil plot, and offers some roleplay/exploration moments to trace the source of the blast.
• Of course, preventing the recharge of the cube can also be an adventure in itself.
• The Zenthan summer solstice is a decade-event, another avenue to design an adventure around prevent a massive world-ending weapon.
• And finally, there's potential clues to whatever divine relic was placed into this cube, from before the sun became a Blight.

Bombs and the sun is usually a natural sphere, but I wanted to design something to contrast that so that it would be more unnatural. The result is a lovely cube with cracks in it that makes it appear to struggle to keep itself together. The solar flaring was a massively difficult task to render (because in reference photos, it's usually backdropped against the black of void), so I eventually had to just stop and call it a day. A bit of motion blur helped smooth out the weirdness.

[Shadow] Weapon - Shadowkin

This sword was found in the Lost Depths of Azira, fully formed within the tenebrite veins that cross the abyssal valley. An unknowable shadow entity resides in the blade's shadow, either unable or refusing to respond to any attempts to communicate. Sometimes, the shadow just stares at its wielder for hours.

—

Shadowkin
Weapon (longsword), legendary (requires attunement)

The magic weapon grants a +2 bonus to attack and damage rolls made with it, and reduces any bright light in a 10-foot radius around it that isn't bright sunlight to dim light. While you hold the blade, you have darkvision out to a range of 30 feet if you don't already have it.

Accursed Shadow. When you attune to it, the weapon's sentient shadow merges with your own. Until you end your attunement to the weapon, you always cast a sentient shadow unless you're in an area of bright sunlight. The sentient shadow does not obey physics like other normal shadows, and cannot communicate ideas to you. On your turns, you can use a bonus action to telepathically command your shadow to produce one of the following effects. If you take this bonus action again, the previous command immediately ends.

• Animate. You command your shadow to change its size and shape, and move to any eligible opaque surface within 30 feet of you that is not illuminated by bright sunlight.
• Grasp. You command your shadow to fill the ground within 15 feet of you with grasping darkness, transforming it into difficult terrain. The shadows move with you. If you are not on the ground, this command fails.
• Intimidate. You command your shadow to briefly grow in size or assume a terrifying silhouette, granting advantage on the first Charisma (Intimidation) check you make until the end of your turn.
• Manipulate. You command your shadow to manipulate an object by manipulating the object's shadow, as if you had cast the mage hand cantrip. This command fails if your shadow is unable to touch the target object's shadow.
• Strike. You command your shadow to make a melee attack against a creature within 30 feet of you. Its attack bonus is the same as your bonus to hit with this weapon. On a hit, your shadow deals 1d6 necrotic damage to the target.
• Take Form. You can use a bonus action to command your shadows to condense into a gloomy semi-corporeal form, appearing in a space within 30 feet of you. It uses the statistics of a shadow, except it uses your bonus to hit using this weapon (instead of its normal attack bonus). It takes its turn immediately after yours, can't move more than 30 feet away from you, and obeys your verbal commands. The shadow form persists even when exposed to sunlight. It lasts for 10 minutes, until it is reduced to 0 hit points, or until you issue another command, after which it reverts to its original form. If your shadow's Strength Drain action kills a non-evil humanoid, it does not create a new shadow; instead, the corpse's shadow immediately merges with your shadow, and you learn any information it would freely share with an acquaintance. Such information includes general details on its background and personal life, but doesn't include secrets. Once you issue this command, you can't issue it again until the next dusk.

—

Rare Variant. The rare version of this weapon lacks the Grasp, Intimidate, Strike, and Take Form options for the Accursed Shadow property.

Very Rare Variant. The very rare version of this weapon lacks the Strike and Take Form options for the Accursed Shadow property.

—

DESIGN COMMENTARY

For the Rare version, this weapon is essentially a +2 weapon, plus the ability to cast mage hand while there is no sunlight around. There's some other minor properties (ish?), such as imposing disadvantage on Perception checks to see the character for those without darkvision (which is rare at this level), and short darkvision for those without it (not necessarily useful). This probably stretches to the strong side of a Rare weapon, but it's not out of the ordinary for what it is.

The Very Rare version adds an at-will Intimidation and at-will difficult terrain summon, which is useful for utility and combat. The difficult terrain is particularly effective for zoning out enemies.

The full Legendary version adds bonus damage from Strike, or bonus damage from a shadow. The shadow by itself is a weak creature, but has hit point and attack bonuses. Strength drain is such a detrimental property when it hits, up to a -2 to attacks for the rest of combat; luckily, a monster at the Legendary tier of play should easily destroy a shadow immediately afterward. This property is better suited as an information-gathering tool, delivering a final strike on a human you interrogate. All-in-all, appropriate for a Legendary tier.

The design of the sword feeds into the flavor text, in which the sword was found fully formed in the deep, made of a magical dark metal called tenebrite. I looked at a couple metal shapes for this, and settled for one that was a little spikey (selenium, I think?). The shadows cast on the ground are a little wonky, but important to immediately explaining what this sword might do.

[Shadow] Item - Sporeheart Corona

The edict of the Sporeheart Macromesh is one of balance — one must give to take from the mycelium. Spore-touched sages understand this well, trading their mundane vision for an enlightened form of sight.

—

Sporeheart Corona
Wondrous item, very rare (requires attunement)

To attune to this crown, you must wear it for the duration of the attunement period, during which the fungal colony burrows its mycelial network into your head. At the end of the attunement period, the crown permanently attaches to your skull and can't be removed. While attached the crown is attached to you, you are considered to be a Plant creature in addition to your existing creature type; effects that target Plants or affect them differently also include you.

The fungal colony also consumes your eyes, permanently blinding you. Only a wish spell or greater restoration spell cast at 9th-level can detach the crown and restore your sight.

Mycelial Symbiosis. While attuned, the crown bonds with your life force and grants you the following benefits:

• You have blindsight out to a range of 60 feet, which you can use to see. As normal, this blindsight does not reveal anything behind total cover.
• You can use an action to expend 1 unused hit die, agitating the spores on the crown. You cast the poison spray cantrip (spell save DC 17). The cantrip deals extra damage equal to one roll of the expended hit die.
• You can use a bonus action to expend 1 unused hit die, causing the crown to bolster your flesh with stiff mycelium. You gain temporary hit points equal to two rolls of the expended hit die + your Constitution modifier, which last for 10 minutes.

Ending Your Attunement. You can willingly end your attunement to the crown, though the crown remains attached to you (and you remain blind). While you are not attuned to the crown or while the crown’s properties are suppressed, the living fungi grant you a natural blindsight out to a range of 10 feet.

—

Legendary Variant. The legendary version of this crown has these changes. The DC for its poison spray cantrip increases to 18, and you have resistance to poison damage while you are attuned to the crown.

—

DESIGN COMMENTARY

This item was designed to go "all-in" with the blindness, a trait common to shadows and underground life. This is also an item to introduce the Sporeheart Macromesh, the fungal network beneath Azira's surface that keeps creatures alive without needing sunlight. It was a visual treat to design, combining aspects of a woodland crown, clicker fungal zombie growth, crown spires, and fairy rings. Unlike a crown, however, what I think sells this corona/crown is the mycelial network in the shape of eyes (consuming the eyes). I love that little detail.

Blindsight is a pretty strong trait, but surprisingly we have some way to gauge its effectiveness. For a start, the dagger of blindsight item is Rare, and grants blindsight out to 30 feet. Blindsight is strong, capable of revealing illusions and invisibility (but not hidden creatures). Blindsight out to 60 feet by itself is probably a Very Rare item based on this comparison.

With that established as a baseline, we can now look at the other properties. Permanent blindness beyond 60 feet is pretty bad, particularly for archers or spellcasters who need the range, though 60 feet is usually enough to cover a combat map. In reality, this blindness would severely limit one's ability to scout (distant enemies), navigate (no visible landmarks), read, experience color. That means this deficit should balance out the remaining properties.

Remaining properties: using hit dice as a resource is a drain on inter-battle potential healing — like regular charges if you don't spend hit dice, but equals losing health if you need them. The cantrip deals 3d12 + [d8-d12] damage at this level, which is about as much damage an average character at this level should deal anyway. Temporary hit points are not worth as much as actual healing for some minor reasons, so an extra roll of the hit die balances it out. All in all (at the very rare level), these are minor properties with a fairly minimal power output.

All in all, it doesn't seem strong enough to be Legendary, so Very Rare feels appropriate.

[Shadow] Weapon Set - Lunar Quell

The signature weapons of the Moon Runners and a crucial line of defense for those without innate protections against the Solar Sickness. The two shapes represent the hope and possibility hidden within the dangers of the night.

—

LUNAR QUELL
Weapon set (chakram and dagger), uncommon (requires attunement)

This pair of weapons, a chakram and a dagger, count as a single magic item for the purposes of attuning to magic items. While holding both weapons, you only make saving throws to resist Solar Sickness when you take 5 or more radiant damage from Blighted Sunlight Exposure, instead of 4 or more damage.

Exotic. You are only proficient with the chakram if you have the appropriate background or training (at GM's discretion).

Chakram. This basic ring-shaped weapon is a martial weapon used only by those familiar with their design. It has the Light, Finesse, and Thrown properties with a range of (30/120), and deals 1d6 slashing damage on a hit.

Lunar Cycle. While holding one of these weapons, when you throw or make a ranged attack with the other, the thrown weapon returns to your hand after you hit or miss your target.

Moonphase Strikes. This weapon pair is designed to complement each other through the mystical moon. If the first two weapon attacks you make on your turn both hit the same target, you gain one of the following benefits, as determined by your sequence of attacks.

• Crescent Moon. If you hit your target with the chakram first and the dagger second, the dagger attack deals an extra 1d4 radiant damage.
• New Moon. If you hit your target with the dagger first and the chakram second, the chakram attack deals an extra 1d4 necrotic damage.

—

Rare Variant. The rare version of these weapons grants a +1 bonus to attack and damage rolls made with either weapon. Additionally, while you hold both weapons, you can use an action to surround yourself with a veil of darkness. For 1 minute, all nonmagical light within 10 feet of you becomes darkness, and you can see through this darkness as if you have darkvision. While this darkness persists, when you are hit by an attack, you can use your reaction to reduce the damage dealt to 0 and then the darkness ends. Once you have created this darkness using these weapons, it can't be created again until the next dusk.

Very Rare Variant. The very rare version of these weapons has this change. You have a +2 bonus to attack and damage rolls made with either weapon, and you can create the darkness as described in the rare variant. You can create the darkness this way twice instead of once, regaining expended uses of the property daily at dusk.

—

DESIGN COMMENTARY

The base uncommon version of this item is simple - just a +1d4 damage per turn, which is about in line with an attunement Uncommon item (compare +2.5 damage to +1 to attack/damage from a non-attunement +1 weapon). There's two extra ribbons (properties that offer very minor benefits) for attuning to this — one allows you to travel across the surface of Azira at night without suffering from disease (though you still take damage). The other lets you use this weapon for ranged attacks without losing it, which is already the case for most weapons.

The variants get more interesting. The darkness you create isn't like the spell (it's not "magical" darkness), so the overall benefit is cover against creatures without darkvision (~35% of creatures) and negating one instance of damage (useful at all levels!). In the world of Azira, however, that darkness will also save you from Blighted Sunlight!

The weapon was designed for those who travel the surface of Azira at night where Blighted Sunlight reflects off the moon. They're moonrunners, usually monks, so the weapon took a chakram and a moon-shape. I really like how this turned out, with the crescent moon-like dagger and the circular new moon marked with astrological lines. In use, the chakram fits inside the crescent dagger. Maybe a little more texturing would have added some visual interest.

[Cosmos] Item Cards (Parts 1 & 2)

Quick Download Links:

• PDF Card Files
• JPEG Card Files
• 8.5x11 Print & Play 

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Item Cards:

• Adrena-Shot
• Aethos Photon Barrier
• Asteroid Belt
• Atomic Edge
• Auto-Scanner
• Black Sun Amulet
• Bravos Personal Drone
• Flight Jets
• Gamma Pinnacle X-2
• Heat Shield
• Helix Thunder
• Horoscope
• Hyperion Rail-7
• Jar of Biomass
• Jar of Stardust
• Mask of Many Phases
• Mini-Meteor
• Moon Shard
• Nebula Shroud
• Neutron Starhammer
• Orb of Atelia
• Orbital Ring
• Starburst Cannon
• Starfall
• Sun Shard
• Sun Slayer
• Techno-Prosthetic Limb
• Vita-Shot
• Void Grenade
• Void Shard

Note: If an item has variant rarities, it's printed on separate cards.

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CARD KEY

Some information on cards have been simplified to save space. Here's a short key on how it works:

Card Icons. There are several icons located on the lower-right of each card front to assist in quickly identifying their type. If there's no special icon, that means it doesn't apply (e.g. nonmagical items will not have an attunement or rarity icon)

Key Properties. Certain properties have been condensed. You might see some of the following:

• "Attacks" for static bonuses to attack, damage
• "Defenses" for static bonuses to AC, etc.
• "Special" for modifications to standard objects
• "Spells" for shortened spell lists.

Key Words. Immediately after property names, you might see in italics words that simplify the property. Key words like Action; 1/dusk implies the property requires an action to activate, and can only be done once between dusks. DCs as a property references any saving throws the property forces. Others like 3 charges; regains 1d6+3 at dawn describes the charges.

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PRINTING CARDS

The cards are all sized for standard tarot-sized cards (70mm x 120mm) with a built-in 3mm bleed (the area around the edge that is cut off by a printer). Any standard printing service will let you upload these files and send them to print.

You will have to print on both sides.

[Shadow] Item - Pointe of the Shadowdancer

A popular cultural display on the streets of Zelkarth, shadowdancing combines fluid, graceful stances with intermittent teleportation through the darkness. Zelkarthi master dancers wear especially lavish pointes custom designed for each routine.

—

Pointe of the Shadowdancer
Wondrous item, rare (optional attunement)

While you wear these shoes, when you start your turn in an area of dim light, your walking speed increases by 5 feet until the end of your turn. If you start your turn in an area of darkness, it increases by 10 feet instead. You also gain darkvision out to a range of 30 feet, if you don't already have it. 

Optional Attunement: Gloomstep. You gain this property if you attune to these shoes.

These shoes have 5 charges and regains all expended charges daily at dusk. When a hostile creature ends its movement in a space within 5 feet of you and you are in an area of dim light, you can use your reaction to move up to teleport up to 10 feet to an unoccupied space you can see. If you are in an area of darkness, you can take this reaction to teleport up to 15 feet instead. The target space must be in dim light or darkness.

Immediately after you teleport, you can make one melee weapon attack against a target within reach, and you have advantage on this attack.

—

Uncommon Variant. The rare version of these shoes have 3 charges instead of 5, and you cannot make an attack after you teleport using the Gloomstep property.

Very Rare Variant. The very rare version of these shoes have 7 charges instead of 5. Additionally, when you teleport using the Gloomstep property, you can expend 1 additional charge to teleport up to three times the normal distance.

——

DESIGN COMMENTARY

For many, darkness is all about mobility, so shoes related to darkness are a must. The rare Boots of Swiftness already grant a blanket +10 to speed, so the variable speed increase and +30 foot darkvision roughly equates the Rare version without attunement. When attunement is included, advantage on five attacks per day is relatively minimal, nowhere close to as devastating as a Shadow monk. Though the benefits all require dim light or darkness, I typically assume players are using it most optimally (i.e. planning for an underground campaign).

I had initially envisioned the shoes as boots, but later felt that I had drawn too many boots and needed something different. Shadowdancing later came to be and I moved toward pointes or ballet shoes. I probably should have identified a proper material to render first, or a viable color scheme, but it still turned out alright. Nothing "big" to capture the eye, though.

[Shadow] Armor - Blackmaw

Only the most brave or foolhardy would dare to wear the decapitated head of a sombragon, a fiend of living darkness, as armor. Cold shadows endlessly flood out of the dark maw, slipping along the ground surface like the arms of an eldritch horror.

—

Blackmaw
Armor (hide), very rare (requires attunement)

You have a +2 bonus to AC while you wear this armor. While you wear this armor, its flowing shadows transforms nonmagical bright light in your space into dim light, and you gain darkvision out to 60 feet if you don’t already have it. 

This armor has 5 charges for the following properties, and regains 1d4+1 expended charges daily at dusk.

• Armor of Shadows. Whenever you take radiant damage, you can use your reaction to expend 1 charge to gain immunity to that instance of damage.
• Belching Gloom. As an action, you can expend 1 charge to cast darkness. If you target your armor with this spell, you can expend additional charges to modify it in one or both of the following ways: you expend 1 additional charge to allow yourself to see through the spell's magical darkness; you expend any number of additional charges to empower the spell — for each extra charge expended, the spell's level increases by 1 and the sphere's radius increases by 10 feet.
• Consuming Void. While you are in an area of darkness, you can use an action to expend 1 charge and turn that darkness feral. Each creature within 15 feet of you that is also in darkness must make a DC 17 Charisma saving throw, taking 3d8 necrotic damage on a failed save or half as much on a successful one. For each 1 you roll on the necrotic damage dice, you gain 5 temporary hit points that disappear after 1 minute.

—

Rare Variant. The rare version of this armor grants a +1 bonus to AC instead of a +2. It has 3 charges instead of 5, and regains 1d3 expended charges daily instead. The DC of its Consuming Void option also decreases to 15.

Legendary Variant. The legendary version of this armor grants a +3 bonus to AC instead of a +2. It has 7 charges instead of 5, and regains 1d4+3 expended charges daily instead. The DC and damage of its Consuming Void option also increases to 18 and 4d8, respectively.

——

DESIGN COMMENTARY

Fun fact: this was initially named Shadowmaw, but I realized there were way too many items with the word "SHADOW" in it.

It would be easy to create a cloak of shadows, so I challenged for a different type of defensive shadow item. The result was a piece of armor themed with the visual of an open mouth and swallowed darkness.

Because this is Hide armor, the worst type of Medium armor, the +2 is really just a +1 Chain Shirt, or a mundane Breastplate. Hide is complicated to balance because it's a -2 compared to a breastplate, so one would be tempted to give it a +2 to balance it out. On the other hand, Hide is the only non-metal Medium armor druids can wear (assuming you play strictly by rules), so it'd be a straight upgrade for them. In the end, I consider the +2 AC equal to a +1 for purposes of balancing.

The dim light helps with Stealth, but only when in bright light against creatures that don't have darkvision (which is somewhat uncommon). Darkvision, on its own, becomes less valuable at this tier of play as players gain access to more ways to mitigate darkness.

The options themselves are each worth about a 2nd-level spell per charge (Armor of Shadows is like a hyper Absorb Elements, but radiant damage is fairly rare and big radiant damage shouldn't happen often; Belching Gloom is self-explanatory; Consuming Void deals about as much damage and range as Shatter, except it deals no damage on a failure). Consuming Void does potentially grant temp HP, but a 3/8 chance to grant a measly 5 or 10 wouldn't affect much (it's more designed for the "consumption" flavor). Casting five 2nd-level spells is appropriate for Very Rare (staves allow for twice as much magic potential, and this armor already has other useful properties).

The legendary version gets a bump to Consuming Void because damage at that tier of play is so trivial it needs a side boost.

Pretty happy with how this one turned out. Visually, I took a second crack at creating an armor with fangs for this one. My last attempt for this was Winter's Hearth, which didn't look that great, so I'm glad I could sort of "redeem" myself. The best decision I made was shifting the maw to the side, which created a much more interesting silhouette than a centered mouth would. The "hide" in the armor is darkness now in the shape of furs, which looked great. To differentiate that in color, I made sure the leathers were desaturated red/yellow, and added red cloth to give it more directionality and dynamism.  Topping that off, the bright metal plates creates visually readable designs.

[Botany] Item Cards

Quick Download Links:

• PDF Card Files
• JPEG Card Files
• 8.5x11 Print & Play

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Item Cards:

• Bladepetal
• Celestial Horn (Angel's Tears)
• Cinderleaf (Cinderleaf Salve)
• Cloak of Blossoms
• Faryonda's Botanical Garden
• Guardener's Rake
• Hand Pistil
• Kingslock (Royal Antitoxin)
• Sauliver's Rose
• Serpyte's Lily
• Wormstone's Brim

Note: If an item has variant rarities, it's printed on separate cards.

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CARD KEY

Some information on cards have been simplified to save space. Here's a short key on how it works:

Card Icons. There are several icons located on the lower-right of each card front to assist in quickly identifying their type. If there's no special icon, that means it doesn't apply (e.g. nonmagical items will not have an attunement or rarity icon)

Key Properties. Certain properties have been condensed. You might see some of the following:

• "Attacks" for static bonuses to attack, damage
• "Defenses" for static bonuses to AC, etc.
• "Special" for modifications to standard objects
• "Spells" for shortened spell lists.

Key Words. Immediately after property names, you might see in italics words that simplify the property. Key words like Action; 1/dusk implies the property requires an action to activate, and can only be done once between dusks. DCs as a property references any saving throws the property forces. Others like 3 charges; regains 1d6+3 at dawn describes the charges.

---

PRINTING CARDS

The cards are all sized for standard tarot-sized cards (70mm x 120mm) with a built-in 3mm bleed (the area around the edge that is cut off by a printer). Any standard printing service will let you upload these files and send them to print.

You will have to print on both sides.

[Shadow] Item - Horn of Resounding Echoes

Ancient Aziran dwarves used horns like these when charting the cavern systems around their subterranean homes. After the Blight forced society and other monsters underground, they have become more of an attention-grabbing hazard. Nowadays, they're used mainly for dwarven ceremonies.

—

Horn of Resounding Echoes
Wondrous item, uncommon

You must use an action to blow into the horn. When you do, it produces a reverberant sound heard up to 120 feet away whose echoes linger five times as long. 

Thunderburst. Whenever you blow into the horn, you can choose to roll a d20. On a roll of 18 or higher, you produce the effects of a thunderwave spell (save DC 13).

Resonant Echo. You can use an action to blow into this horn, producing a powerful blast of sound that can be heard up to 300 feet away. Unless you are deafened, the echoes allow you to learn the basic details of the environment within 60 feet of you: the general layout—typically walls, ceilings, and objects—as well as the location of creatures that are not Hidden from you. You glean nothing from areas that are magically silenced or areas protected against sound. What you learn is limited to the moment you blow the horn, and does not provide you with detailed information such as the number of creatures in a horde, or information about motion, such as the direction a creature is headed. Once you use this property, you can't use it again until after 1d3 dusks. 

— 

Rare Variant. The rare version of this horn has these changes. The Thunderburst property produces the effects of the thunderwave spell cast at 3rd-level instead of 1st-level (save DC 15 instead of 13). Additionally, the range of the Resonant Echo property is 90 feet instead of 60 feet. 

Very Rare Variant. The very rare version of this horn has these changes. The Thunderburst property produces the effects of the thunderwave spell cast at 5th-level instead of 1st-level (save DC 17 instead of 13). Additionally, the range of the Resonant Echo property is 120 feet instead of 60 feet.

——

DESIGN COMMENTARY

I designed this item as a product of cavern exploration — as a way for past NPCs to assist in mapping out dangerous dark caves. The idea was (sorta like echolocation) to use echoes to accomplish this, kind of like a brief Daredevil vision. This property is a very strong one; it originally functioned like blindsight, but I later remedied it to be a little stronger allowing for seeing behind corners.

I used a couple ways to balance this property. As a basis, it doesn't require attunement because it's already a limited item that doesn't provide much consistent benefit. To remedy this, I extended the recharge duration to 1d3 days, and ensured that when using the property, it will always alert nearby stealthy or hidden creatures. As an item, its best use is mapping the layout of a maze; it has minor use as a way to detect invisible creatures, but you'd have to follow up with an ally capable of casting faerie fire before the invisible enemy moves.

To keep the horn from being a one-trick pony, I added the Thunderburst property. It's mostly for flavor since it's unlikely you'd have it work as intended in combat.

Visually, I experimented with a couple ideas. I went all-in on the dwarven design though it's not that visible :(, and I liked how the wings improved the silhouette even though it doesn't really make sense. The wings could be bat wings or dragon wings, both of which have blindsight. I even added a  small dwarven pattern on the wings, but it looked a little too much like ribbed metal flooring so I turned that down a bit. Overall not my favorite, but respectable.

[Shadow] Item - Murkweaver's Glove

Murkweavers have mastered the unique art of crafting objects from solidified darkness, uncovering its beauty in transience. Much like snow, the shaped void is ever temporary and gradually vanishes in the presence of light.

—

Murkweaver Glove
Wondrous item, rare (requires attunement)

You only have access to the glove's properties while you are in an area of dim light or darkness. If you are ever exposed to bright light from a daylight spell or any sunlight, all properties of the gloves are suppressed until 1 minute after you are no longer exposed.

Blackhand. You can make unarmed strikes with this glove, which deals 1d6 damage. You can shape the shadows immediately before each strike (no action required), dealing your choice bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing damage.

Gloomshaper. As an action, you create a nonmagical trinket or an illusory image that can fit in your hand and that lasts until the end of your next turn.

Shadowboxer. Your glove blends into the darkness. For the first unarmed strike you make on your turns, you are considered invisible to your target for the purposes of the attack. Both you and your target must be in an area of dim light or darkness for you to gain this benefit. 

—

Uncommon Variant. The uncommon version of this glove does not have the Shadowboxer property. 

Very Rare Variant: Murkweaver's Hand. The very rare version of this glove also has the Murkweaver's Hand property. You can use an action to cast darkness or arcane hand from the glove, using a spellcasting ability modifier of +5. The arcane hand spell ends early if the summoned hand ever enters an area of bright light. Once you cast a spell, you can't cast that spell again until the next dusk.

——

DESIGN COMMENTARY

This item was designed for two niches; one to interact with darkness in a different way (I don't think the game has dealt with shaping darkness as a material? It's usually an area or the absence of light), and to design something for unarmed strikes. This would be pretty good for the Shadow monk. I hope to explore Murkweaving later on in the compendium; there's going to be a feat for it at the very least.

The Blackhand and Gloomshaper properties are mostly for flavor with minor effect on most gameplay. The Shadowboxer is the major one, which follows a general structure of two minor properties and one major property for a Rare item. Shadowboxer is a very nice and useful once-per-turn boost to attacks. You'd have to be careful, though, since the item's properties can be negated easily by sunlight.

Visually, I wanted something with a striking silhouette, hence the claws and the dark threads that run along the fingers. The glove was originally going to be a gauntlet, but the softer glove form meshes better with the idea of weaving. The smoke-like effect of darkness is the third form of darkness illustrated here, the other being the fire-visual for the shadow blade and the smoke-visual for the umbrashroud. It implies there's divisions even within the darkness.