Archived Arsenal Day 8 - Sever (Patreon)

Swordtember Day 8 - Sever

Shadow Shear

Weapon (longsword), very rare (requires attunement)

The Shadow Shear is a peculiar weapon wielded by the Sharpa, a secretive sect of Veiled Mistress followers that operate within the Azalis Empire. The Sharpa trace their origins back to the Chaos Age, known for their fanatical devotion and mastery of shadow magic. They revere the Veiled Mistress as the sovereign of the shadow realm, embracing their own ‘shadow’ as a dark counterpart. Through arcane rituals, they grant their shadows independence, allowing them to move freely and even manifest as physical entities.

This sword serves as both a ceremonial tool and a weapon. In their rites, the Sharpa use the Shadow Shear to sever their own shadow, symbolically separating from their darker selves. In battle, they wield it to cut the shadows of their enemies, causing real harm to the owner’s physical body. Although it resembles a single pair of scissors, the weapon actually has two pairs of blades. The second, intangible set only manifests within the shadow it casts, becoming visible as a pitch-black silhouette in total darkness. The exact method and materials used to craft this strange blade remain a mystery, shrouded in the same shadow magic that defines the Sharpa’s existence.

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This weapon has finesse properties and you gain a +2 bonus to attack and damage rolls made with this magic weapon. In total darkness, the intangible blade fully manifests, and the weapon deals an additional 1d8 necrotic damage on a hit.

Shadow Slice. Once per turn, when you hit a creature standing in bright or dim light, you can cause a rift between them and their shadow. The target takes an additional 1d4 psychic damage as the blade momentarily cuts into their shadow. In addition, you can choose one of the following effects as you cut different parts of the shadow:

• You slice through the legs of their shadow and halve the target’s movement speed until the end of their next turn.

• You slice through the head or arms of their shadow and impose disadvantage on the target's next attack roll or ability check before the end of their next turn. 

Severed Silhouette. On a critical hit, instead of severing only the target's shadow temporarily, the attack fully cuts it off. The shadow animates into a creature under your control, using the statistics of a Shadow, but its size and movement modes match that of the creature from which it was severed. You can add your proficiency bonus to the Shadow's attack rolls, and the shadow's hit points are adjusted based on the size of the original creature. A severed shadow from a Small or Medium creature has 16 hit points, 32 hit points if it’s Large, 48 hit points if it’s Huge, and 64 hit points if it’s Gargantuan. The shadow cannot create additional shadows with its Strength Drain ability and acts immediately before the creature it was severed from on the initiative count.

Once a creature’s shadow has been severed, it cannot be severed again for 24 hours. The Shadow lasts until it is reduced to 0 hit points, or until the creature from which it was severed dies, at which point the shadow returns to the creature.

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All the files will be added to a new Swordtember 2024 folder that you can find in the Vault