Staff of the Snail (Patreon)

Staff, uncommon or rare (requires attunement by a spellcaster)

This wooden crook has a large snail shell at its top. While holding it, the wood by the shell softens and turns into the body of a large snail, which aimlessly looks around as if to take in its surroundings. The staff can be used as a magical quarterstaff. When found, this staff is an uncommon magic item with the following properties.

Slowing Attack. The first creature you hit with an attack with this staff on each of your turns has its walking speed reduced by 5 feet until the start of your next turn.

Slow. While holding the staff, you can use an action to cast the slow spell from it, using your spell save DC. This property can't be used again until the next dawn.

Curse. This staff is cursed, and becoming attuned to it extends the curse to you. As long as you remain cursed, you are unwilling to part with the staff, keeping it within reach at all times. While cursed, your walking speed is reduced by 5 feet, and you can feel a sense of sadness from the magically embedded snail in the staff. An identify spell reveals the staff has a spirit bound to it, but not the fact that it's cursed.

You remain cursed until targeted by the remove curse spell or until either a banishment or dispel magic spell of 5th-level or higher is cast on the staff. If the staff is banished or dispelled, you can feel a great sense of relief wash over the staff as its trapped spirit is allowed to depart at last. When this happens, the staff becomes a rare magic item that isn't cursed with the alternate properties below.

Charges. The staff has 10 charges and regains 1d6 + 4 expended charges daily at dawn. When you expend the last charge, roll a d20. On a 1, the staff withers and turns to dust, leaving only a nonmagical snail shell behind.

Improved Slowing Attack. The first creature you hit with an attack with this staff on each of your turns has its walking speed reduced by 5 feet until the start of your next turn. When this happens, you can choose to expend 1 of the staff's charges to halve the creature's speed until the start of your next turn instead.

Spells. While holding the staff, you can use an action to expend some of its charges to cast one of the following spells from it, using your spell save DC: antilife shell (5 charges), polymorph (4 charges; the form of a Tiny snail), resilient sphere (4 charges), or slow (3 charges).

The wizard had long since forgotten what it was like to walk. To breathe air. Their cursed existence had just become the staff they'd been trapped within, capable of only a fraction of the power they once controlled. To be freed of it, to be extracted from this timeless prison, would be the sweetest of release.