Staff of the Eclipse (Patreon)

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

This staff has a crescent-shaped head made of pockmarked lunar stone. Floating within the crescent stone is a motionless, black orb. Regardless of how you look at the orb, it's always encircled by a ring of fire that faces you. The fire winks out if the staff isn't held. The fire is harmless, and it sheds bright light in a 10-foot radius and dim light for an additional 10 feet.

While holding the staff, you have darkvision out to a range of 60 feet. If you already have darkvision, holding the staff increases its range by 60 feet.

The staff has 10 charges. It regains 1d6 + 4 expended charges daily at dusk. If you expend the last charge, roll a d20. On a 1, the staff crumbles into dust and is destroyed.

Spells. While holding the staff, you can use an action to expend some of its charges to cast either the moonbeam (2 charges) or wall of fire (4 charges) spell, using your spell save DC. This version of wall of fire creates the same ghostly flames as moonbeam; it deals radiant damage instead of fire damage and doesn't ignite flammable objects, although it doesn't share moonbeam's other effects. You can increase the spell slot level of a spell cast from the staff by one for each additional charge you expend.

Blood Moon. When you cast moonbeam from the staff, you can choose to cause its dim light to be red. A creature that fails its saving throw against the spell also has its hit point maximum reduced by an amount equal to the radiant damage dealt. If this effect reduces a creature's hit point maximum to 0, the creature dies. The reduction lasts until the creature finishes a long rest. Once this property of the staff has been used, it can't be used again until the next dawn.

Coronal Flame. When you cast wall of fire from the staff, you can choose to cause it to embody the nature of an eclipse. When you do, the spell creates a ringed wall up to 20 feet in diameter, 20 feet high, and 1 foot thick; the area within the ring is filled with magical darkness until the spell ends. While holding the staff, you can see through this darkness as if it were dim light. When cast in this way, the spell deals fire damage instead of radiant, and you don't take fire damage as a result of entering the wall. You still take fire damage if you end your turn in the wall or within 10 feet of the side you selected when you cast the spell. Once this property of the staff has been used, it can't be used again until the next dawn.

Darken. You can use a bonus action while holding the staff to expend 1 charge from it to target a 15-foot cube you can see within 60 feet of you. Any nonmagical flames within the cube are extinguished, and any spell of 2nd level or lower creating an area of light that overlaps with the cube is dispelled. As long as you extinguish or dispel at least one source of light, you then gain 1d6 + 4 temporary hit points.

I hold no ill-will to my former compatriots in the Lightkeepers. When I joined them, I was young, bright-eyed, idealistic. And I don't believe I was wrong, nor do I hope for the others to follow my path.

But I cannot stay in their light. There are truths that I can no longer preserve, no longer accept a duty to keep from fading into the dark.

So I will pull those truths out of the sun, into the darkness they deserve, so others can stand safely in the light.

Consider this my farewell, and may the shadow I cast burn away memories that can only bring harm.

—Note left by former Lightkeeper Astien, now first of the Nightseekers