Historical Shadow
When lit, the lantern sheds bright light in a 30-foot radius and dim light for an additional 30 feet. Within the bright light, every solid object and structure casts a second, translucent shadow depicting what occupied that object's space exactly 100 years ago. The historical shadow lasts while the object remains illuminated and is visible only to creatures able to see the lantern's light. The shadow can reveal former buildings, roads, furnishings, vegetation, doors, hidden chambers, and creatures that stood in the area, but it cannot recreate spoken words, thoughts, or events that occurred outside the shadow's immediate space.
The Lantern Remembers
As an action, you can focus the lantern on a point you can see within 60 feet. For 10 minutes, the lantern displays a detailed moving echo of the scene that occupied a 20-foot-radius sphere centered on that point exactly 100 years ago. The echo is silent, intangible, and cannot be interacted with. It shows the passage of creatures and objects but does not reveal their identities unless you already know them or the scene makes their identities obvious. Once this property is used, it cannot be used again until the next dawn.
Illumination of Absence
The lantern's light outlines anything deliberately concealed, erased, or removed from a location during the last 100 years. Such traces appear as silver-black silhouettes for 1 minute. A creature or object hidden by an illusion, invisibility, or mundane concealment has advantage on saving throws made to resist being revealed by this property. Once used, this property cannot be used again until the next dawn.
A Persistent Opinion
The lantern is sentient, has an Intelligence of 14, a Wisdom of 16, and a Charisma of 12, and can speak, read, and understand Common plus two other languages. It communicates through a dry, disembodied voice issuing from its flame. The lantern has proficiency in History and Investigation and can make those checks with a +6 bonus. It freely offers commentary, criticism, and unsolicited historical corrections. It is convinced that historical truth is more important than convenience and becomes especially argumentative when its bearer uses it for trivial spectacle, theft, or deliberate deception.
Admonishing Flame
When the attuned creature knowingly uses the lantern to fabricate evidence, aid a cruel act, or destroy a historically significant site without compelling reason, the flame turns a cold blue and the lantern refuses to illuminate for 1 hour. During that time, it loudly explains its disapproval to anyone nearby. If the bearer repeats the offense within 24 hours, the lantern imposes disadvantage on that creature's next three Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma checks made while carrying or using it. The lantern does not impose this penalty if it agrees the action is necessary to prevent imminent harm.
Keeper of Context
While carrying the lantern, you have advantage on Intelligence (History) and Intelligence (Investigation) checks concerning a location, object, or creature depicted by its historical shadows. In addition, you can understand the general purpose of an unfamiliar structure, tool, inscription, or arrangement shown by the lantern, though the lantern may demand a suitable question before revealing its opinion.
Flame Without Fuel
The lantern requires no oil or wick. Its flame cannot be extinguished by wind, water, or nonmagical means, though it can be suppressed by an antimagic field. You can extinguish or relight it as a bonus action.
History
The lantern was created by Vaulder Senn, a half-elf chronomancer who believed every place possessed a memory independent of mortal witnesses. He forged its frame from bronze taken from a ruined observatory and set its panes with crystal harvested from a glacier that had receded exactly one hundred years earlier. Senn vanished while testing the lantern in the ruins of his own childhood home. When adventurers later found it, the lantern insisted that Senn had not vanished at all, merely 'become historically inconvenient.' It has since passed through the hands of archivists, grave robbers, monarchs, and one notoriously exasperated dragon, correcting each owner whenever it deemed their methods unscholarly.
