Shadow Tag (Patreon)

Wondrous item, rare

This silver coin is embossed with the visage of a hooded, near-faceless figure with eyes that are always dark. While holding the coin, you can use an action to whisper its command word and toss it into a creature's shadow that you can see within 10 feet of you. When you do, the coin magically dissolves and tags the creature's shadow, causing a smoky, pitch-dark copy of the coin to appear in your hand instead.

While you're within 1000 feet of the tagged creature's shadow, small points of light appear within the dark coin's eyes that look in the shadow's direction. If the dark coin's eyes are looking toward the shadow, you can grasp the coin and use an action to speak its command word again, destroying the coin and immediately teleporting you to an unoccupied space within 5 feet of the tagged creature. Alternatively, when you destroy the coin, you can force the tagged creature to make a DC 15 Charisma saving throw. On a failed save, the creature teleports to an unoccupied space on solid ground that you can see within 15 feet of you. A creature can choose to fail the saving throw.

If the tagged creature doesn't have a shadow, such as if it becomes invisible, the dark coin's eyes disappear until the creature's shadow reappears. The dark coin remains for 24 hours or until you destroy it. If the dark coin lasts for its full duration, there is a 50 percent chance that the normal coin reappears and replaces it. If the coin doesn't reappear at the end of the duration, it's destroyed.

It was an ingenious trap, The Ravenheart had to admit: a curling mass of steel tendrils converging to, in a moment, render him immobile — the earl's work had improved. Triggering at the vault's exit was brilliant as well, striking when he was unguarded. Yet he smiled, the flash in his eyes matching the shaded coin in his hand. The game was his.

The earl burst in to find his trap encircling where the lauded criminal had been. As the man deactivated the device, shivering in his triumph, Alistair Rook's unseen smile grew. Invited to witness the thief's capture after appearing beside the earl in a seemingly empty hall, he watched the tendrils retract; all that fell from them was a letter, set with a raven's mark.