Shadowbound Donjon

Description

A shadowbound donjon is traditionally crafted from wood harvested in the darkest part of a forest. The birchwood of Upwold is particularly prized for use when crafting this implement, although dark pinewood from Karov and aged oak from the depths of Semmerholm are equally valuable. Interestingly, wood taken from forests that have been touched by the Vallorn seems to be especially difficult to shape into a shadowbound donjon. There is a suggestion that the vitality that infuses the area around these vegetable abominations has a lingering effect even after the entity's grasp on the forest has been broken, and that energy renders the wood less suitable for an enchantment that fixes living things in place.

When the power of the staff is invoked it locks the wielder and the target alike into a conceptual prison, unable to move. Some wielders speak of a dimming of vision when the staff is invoked, as if they were wrapped in imprisoning shadows, although the target rarely experience this phenomenon. Some volhov suggest that the power of the staff works by first imprisoning the wielder, then spreading that effect to the target via the dark wood of the staff.

The staff is often inscribed with one of the runes Feresh, which represents majesty; Aesh, which can represent stability; or Hirmok the rune of dominion.

Rules

• Form: Staff.
• Effect: Once per day when you cast the paralysis spell you can do so without spending any mana.
• Materials: Crafting a shadowbound donjon requires twelve measures of ambergelt and three measures of iridescent gloaming. It takes one month to make one of these items.

An excerpt from "Things Scipia the Mountebank is no longer allowed to do whilst a member of the Holberg Eagles Free Company"

134. Announce that she has purchased a “Fortress of Darkness” when in fact she has purchased a magical staff.

135. Stop supply carts by paralysing the oxen.

136. Use her staff to paralyse the last person back to the bunk-room while insisting that failure to do so “would be wasting the magic.”

137. Ask paralysed barbarians about their hairstyles during battle.

138. Ask paralysed barbarians about anything during battle.

139. Paralysing patients during chirurgy is not “providing medical assistance.”

140. Own a shadowbound donjon.