Wand of Harrowing Illusions

by Frazer 👁 181 views

Charges: 7 (regains at dawn)

The wand is slender and black as a moonlit cavity, carved from a single piece of obsidian. Its surface swirls with impossible colors that shift when you’re not looking directly at it. Fine silver runes crawl along the length, tracing sigils that glow faintly when an illusion would appear. A pale thread of moonlight runs through the core, lending a cold, humming warmth to the touch. When you speak its name, you hear distant whispers that seem to be whispering your deepest fears back at you.

Spectral Fright As an action, you may expend 1 charge to unleash a wave of illusory horrors within 60 feet. Choose up to six creatures you can see within range. Each target must succeed on a DC 15 Wisdom saving throw or be frightened for 1 minute. A frightened target can repeat the saving throw at the end of each of its turns, ending the effect on itself on a success. While frightened, the target has disadvantage on ability checks and attack rolls, and its speed is halved. The effect ends early if the target is ever out of the line of sight of the wand or after the duration on a successful save.

Lore

Legends tell of a court jester-illusionist who carved this wand from a shard of night itself. Tales claim the wand could reveal a person’s unspoken fears as tangible, but harmless, phantoms—yet the terror felt by witnesses was real enough to spark silence in crowded theaters and empty villages alike. The Wand of Harrowing Illusions has wandered between artists, tricksters, and spies, leaving behind rumors that the phantoms it conjures feed on the credulity of those who gaze upon them.

History

Crafted in the暗mist workshops of the Shimmering Court by Ilara the Veiled, a master of performance magic, the wand later passed through the hands of a traveling troupe known as the Gossamer Chorus. Soldiers swore the illusions pubicly frightened commanders into making rash decisions, while villagers swore the phantoms whispered the names of hidden wells and lost fortunes. Its most famous owner, a diplomat who used it to unnerve a tyrant into stepping down, reportedly left it to a wandering magic-user’s guild with the instruction that its horrors remain harmless and purely perceptual.

Created by Frazer 👁 181 views