Three Planar Staves and a Very Special Dagger 2


As I was settling into bed the other night, the mental image of the staff of the planar tear popped into my mind and wouldn’t go away. I thought you might enjoy seeing stats for that, as well as two more staves. Since I love doing “and one more thing” for my collections of magic items, I created… well, a very special dagger that its owner would really like back.

Staff of the Planar Tear

Staff, very rare (requires attunement)

This staff is made of bone, capped at one end with two copper tines. Between the tines is an almond-shaped space of inky nothingness, the nonexistent matter of planar boundaries. When you hit with an attack made using it, you deal an additional 1d12 force damage.

The planar tear is 3 inches long and 2 inches wide, but it can widen upon command to receive inanimate objects up to 3 feet long by 2 feet wide. Extradimensional space on the other side of the tear can hold up to 1000 pounds of nonliving matter. Living matter, undead creatures, or constructs placed inside the tear take constant force damage until they are torn asunder. Retrieving an item from the planar tear requires an action.

Placing a staff of the planar tear inside a bag of holding, handy haversack, or portable hole, or vice versa, instantly destroys both items and opens a gate to the Astral Plane, as described in the bag of holding.

When you are the target of a banishment, plane shift, or other effect that causes you to change planes, you can redirect yourself to any plane other than the one you’re currently on. When you cast banishment or plane shift on an unwilling target, the target has disadvantage on the saving throw.

Staff of the Fey Wanderer

Staff, rare (requires attunement)

This staff is made of gnarled wood, inlaid with silver. A cheerful, owlish face is carved into the wood well above the grip. You can use Dexterity or Charisma in place of Strength to modify attack and damage rolls that you make with this magic weapon.

The staff has 6 charges, which are used to fuel the spells within it. You can cast longstrider (1 charge), misty step (2 charges), or blink (3 charges). You can expend 6 charges to cast plane shift, though it can only move you from the Material Plane to the Feywild or vice versa.

The staff regains 1d4 + 2 expended charges each day at dusk. If you expend the staff’s last charge, roll a d20. On a 1, the staff fades away into a gossamer nothingness.

Staff of the Chained God

Staff, legendary (requires attunement)

This staff is made of dried, hardened blood, with a black iron chain coiling around it from end to end. You gain a +3 bonus to attack and damage rolls you make with it, to spell attack and damage rolls you make while using it as an arcane focus, and to Constitution saving throws you make while holding it.

The staff has 9 charges, which are used to fuel the spells within it. You can cast ray of sickness (1 charge), shatter (2 charges), conjure minor elementais (4 charges), conjure elemental (5 charges), and planar binding (5 charges), using your spell saving throw DC. You can cast contact other plane once with the staff, and regain the ability to do so at dusk. While you are attuned to the staff, any contact other plane spell that you cast is directed to the Chained God, Tharizdun. If you fail your Intelligence saving throw against this spell, you don’t become insane, but the Chained God’s bindings are permanently weakened.

The staff regains 1d8 + 1 charges each day at dusk. If you expend the staff’s last charge, roll a d20. On a 1, 2, or 3, the staff’s maximum number of charges increases by 1, it regains charges equal to its maximum charges, and the Chained God’s bindings are permanently weakened. When the Chained God’s bindings have been weakened 1d6 + 3 times, the staff crumbles to dust and is destroyed and, well. You know. So do some other very important chains.

The DM rolls and tracks this number secretly.

The Lady’s Lost Blade

Weapon (dagger), legendary (requires attunement)

This dagger was made from a blade bound to a hilt that clearly came much later, and fits it only poorly. It is made of a mysterious, mottled-green-and-brown metal, and its shadow is enough to cut through flesh.

You gain a +3 bonus to attack and damage rolls that you make with it, and you are immune to banishment and maze while you carry it in hand or on your person. The Lady of Pain can’t ignore these immunities, but if she sees it, she can summon it back to its place on her mask as an action if you fail a DC 25 Charisma saving throw.

When you are in bright or dim light, you can make melee weapon attacks against creatures up to 15 feet away who are in the same area of bright or dim light. This changes all of the weapon’s damage to force damage.

Once on each of your turns when you hit a creature with this weapon, it has disadvantage on attack rolls and ability checks until the start of your next turn.

You can sense portals leading into or out of Sigil. If you touch the dagger to a portal as a bonus action and succeed a DC 15 Charisma check, it can act as a portal key for that portal for 1 minute. The Lady of Pain knows which portal you have activated. (With thanks to Samhaine for this great idea)

Conclusion

To be blunt, I have no certainty that any of these rarities are okay. Could I get away with a lower rarity (or more likely, adding another insanely good power) to the Lady’s lost blade? Maybe. It’s a perpetual problem for me in magic item design, compounded by the fact that I manifestly do not care when running my own games.

The staff of the Chained God might turn out to be part of another published product, if I can clear my writing schedule enough to make it happen.

Many thanks to the inestimable Dan Dillon for his notes on the design of the Lady’s lost blade, which I have incorporated into this version.


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2 thoughts on “Three Planar Staves and a Very Special Dagger

  • Craig W Cormier

    These are all super evocative and fun.

    I always love an item that blows up when placed in an extra-dimensional space, so adding another one is great. It does make me wish there was an easy shorthand for these types of items, rather than having to list them out each time someone makes something similar.

    The Staff of the Fey Wanderer is very nice and I love that every time you use its Plane Shift power you have a chance of losing it. Makes the use more of a gamble. Also, the player could get trapped in the Feywild, which is always fun.

    The Staff of the Chained God has the kind of potentially catastrophic consequences that are really interesting to me in a game. This is the kind of item I would give to a group of 5th level PCs just to give them all sorts of time to break the chains.

    The Lady’s Lost Blade is also super cool. Anything that deals with expanding the lore of the Lady of Pain is always welcome.