Candle of the Unmelted Tomorrow

by Frazer 👁 12 views

Charges: 3 (regains at dawn)

This slender ivory candle is veined with threads of silver and sealed in a tarnished brass holder engraved with scenes of events occurring in reverse: spilled wine leaping into a glass, shattered arrows rejoining their shafts, and corpses rising to take their final breaths. Its wick is black as midnight, but its flame burns a cold, translucent blue. When lit, wax crawls upward in delicate spirals, gathering beneath the wick as though tomorrow were pulling the candle back into existence.

Backward Flame When lit, the candle produces a pale blue flame that gives bright light in a 10-foot radius and dim light for an additional 10 feet. Its wax flows upward from the wick and reforms the candle rather than melting it. The candle can burn for up to 8 hours each day, and it never consumes itself. It can be extinguished normally or by its attuned bearer as a bonus action.

Borrowed Tomorrow While the candle is lit, its attuned bearer can use a reaction and expend 1 charge when a creature within the candle's bright light takes damage or fails a saving throw against an effect that would immediately deal damage or impose a condition. The consequence is delayed until the end of that creature's next turn. The creature suffers no damage or condition from that triggering effect until then, though ongoing effects continue to be resolved normally. At the delay's end, the damage is dealt or the condition takes effect as though the triggering event had just occurred. If the effect is no longer applicable, the delayed consequence is lost.

Glimpse of the Unwritten Day Once during each long rest, while the candle is lit, the attuned bearer can roll a d20 and record the result. Before the bearer makes an attack roll, ability check, or saving throw before the next long rest, the bearer can replace the roll with the recorded result. The bearer must choose to do so before rolling. The recorded result then disappears.

Waxen Reversal If the candle is extinguished before it has burned for 8 hours, its wax rises and restores the candle over the following hour. The candle cannot be destroyed by ordinary fire, though it can be destroyed by an effect that specifically destroys magic items.

Lore

The candle is said to have been made from the first birthday candle ever extinguished, recovered from a future in which no one remembered the birthday. Legends claim it does not predict tomorrow; it merely remembers it early. A collector known as Veyr the Last Curator keeps a catalogue containing the candle's exact current location, despite never having publicly admitted to owning it. Several treasure hunters have followed Veyr's clues to the same sealed room, only to find an empty pedestal and a note reading, "You arrived yesterday."

History

The candle was created by the chronomancer Ilvara Voss during an experiment intended to reverse a single fatal mistake. Instead, the spell folded the candle's entire existence backward, causing it to renew itself each day. After Ilvara vanished, the candle passed through the hands of prophets, assassins, and monarchs who used it to postpone disasters by one precious turn. It disappeared from history three centuries ago when Veyr the Last Curator purchased it at an auction whose guests swore they had already attended.

Created by Frazer 👁 12 views