versatile (1d8)
This blackthorn staff is capped with a fractured silver halo enclosing a shard of milky crystal. Fine gold filaments spiral along its length, forming tiny prayers in Celestial that glow like embers whenever a fiend comes near. The wood is warm in the hand, but its shadow always points toward the nearest source of fiendish influence. When it strikes an unholy creature, the halo flashes with white fire and the sound of distant bells rings through the air.
Holy Weapon
You gain a +2 bonus to attack and damage rolls made with this magic quarterstaff. When you hit a fiend with an attack made using the staff, the attack deals an extra 2d8 radiant damage.
Unholy Bane
When you deal damage to a fiend with the staff or with a spell cast through it, you deal double the total damage of that attack or spell to the fiend. This doubling applies after all other modifiers and damage bonuses are calculated. Damage dealt to creatures that are not fiends is not doubled.
Consecrated Focus
While holding the staff, you have advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects created by fiends. In addition, the staff sheds bright light in a 20-foot radius and dim light for an additional 20 feet when you command it to do so.
Abandonment's Price
If the staff remains more than 100 feet from its attuned wielder for 24 consecutive hours, the attunement ends and the staff chooses a new owner. When this occurs, the former wielder takes necrotic damage equal to half their hit point maximum, rounded down. This damage ignores resistance and immunity, cannot reduce the creature below 1 hit point, and cannot be prevented by temporary hit points. The former wielder cannot attune to the staff again unless a remove curse spell is cast on them and a cleric or paladin of 9th level or higher performs a 1-hour consecration ritual.
Claim the Faithless
After abandoning its former wielder, the staff teleports to a willing good-aligned creature within 1 mile that has defeated a fiend within the last 30 days. If no such creature exists, it remains where it was until a suitable creature touches it; that creature immediately becomes aware of the staff's powers and its Abandonment's Price property.
Curse.
The staff's curse is concealed until it triggers or is revealed by identify, remove curse, or similar magic. A creature that knowingly attunes to the staff accepts its bond. Once the staff has been lost for 24 consecutive hours, its Abandonment's Price property activates automatically. The curse can be suppressed for 30 days by remove curse, but it returns if the staff is not recovered before that period ends.
Lore
The Staff of the Severed Halo was created to punish fiends that had infiltrated mortal temples by disguising themselves as saints. Its makers believed that a weapon meant to fight corruption must itself demand absolute devotion. The staff's power is therefore both blessing and warning: it can annihilate the unholy, but it will not tolerate being treated as a mere tool.
History
The staff was fashioned from a blackthorn branch grown above the grave of Saint Vael, a celestial-blooded exorcist who died sealing a demon prince beneath a ruined cathedral. During the cathedral's final defense, the staff was lost in the catacombs for a single night. At dawn, every survivor was found alive but weakened, and the staff had appeared in the hands of a young acolyte who had slain a demon with a kitchen knife. Since then, it has passed from exorcists to crusaders, always abandoning those who allowed it to be captured, stolen, or forgotten.
