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Staff of the Ferryman
🕑 Added 2025-09-12 15:00:15 +0000 UTCStaff, legendary (requires attunement by a cleric, druid, warlock, or wizard)
This long staff is made of ancient driftwood from the river of the damned. On one end hangs an iron lantern; the wood has been carved into an oar on the other. While holding the staff, you have resistance to necrotic damage.
The staff has 10 charges for the following properties, and it regains 1d6 + 4 expended charges daily at dawn.
Spells. While holding the staff, you can use an action to expend some of its charges to cast one of the following spells from it, using your spell save DC: control water (3 charges), etherealness (6 charges), circle of death (5 charges), gentle repose (1 charge), speak with dead (2 charges), or spirit guardians (2 charges; necrotic damage only).
Summon Keelboat. As an action, you can summon a semi-incorporeal keelboat to an unoccupied space that you can see within 30 feet of you. The space must be on the surface of a body of water. The keelboat remains for 8 hours or until you dismiss it using an action, until it's reduced to 0 hit points, or until it's no longer on water. The boat has resistance to nonmagical damage and is vulnerable to radiant damage. On your turn, you can mentally move the vessel up to 30 feet (no action required), without any penalty to its speed based on currents, as long as you're within 300 feet of it. While on the boat, you magically know the direction and distance to your destination. While you remain on the boat, whenever you are presented with a choice of paths along the way (such as a fork in a river), you automatically determine which path is the shortest and most direct route (but not necessarily the safest route) to the destination. Once you use this property to summon the boat, you can't do so again until the next dawn or until you expend 2 of the staff's charges to regain a use of it (no action required).
Warding Lantern. While holding the staff, you can use a bonus action to cause its lantern to emit a magical light. The lantern then remains lit for 10 minutes or until your concentration on it ends (as if concentrating on a spell), shedding bright light in a 30-foot radius and dim light for an additional 30 feet. For the duration, aberrations, celestials, fey, fiends, and undead within the lantern's bright light are illuminated by its otherworldly glow; a creature illuminated in this way takes 1d10 necrotic damage at the end of its turn, and it has disadvantage on attack rolls against other targets within the light. Furthermore, invisible creatures and objects are visible (albeit translucent) while within this bright light. Once you use this property, you can't do so again until the next dawn or until you expend 2 of the staff's charges to regain a use of it (no action required).
Come, weary spirit. Your destination is always downriver; let us be off.
