The Chandelier of Eldronas

Appearance:

The Chandelier of Eldronas is a seven-tiered traditional pattern chandelier made of mithril, orichalcum, and starsteel. The crystals were cultured and grown from several different exposed clathrates and retain those magical resonances. The chandelier changes color, emits its own flameless light, and can be played like a musical instrument, but rather than sound it produces atmospheric effects. With proper tuning, it can make the grand foyer seem like a winter wonderland with bright white light, and the crisp cool scent of fresh fallen snow. It can also call forth the scent of wildflowers and spring breezes or the cooling scent of leaves and autumn.

In this function, it is a three-ton magic scented candle and mood light.

Purpose:

While there are many stories of assassins scaling walls, and shapeshifting monsters flying into castles, the most common way a threat enters a castle is through the front gates. The most dangerous and fiendish of foes smile and pretend to be friends, allies, and confidants. Many castle defenses try to account for this with guards, and magical wards, and spells. These spells can spoofed, fooled, or dispelled by powerful magic users. This doesn't render them useless, but rather, they are still useful can can bring a sense of false security.

The main power of the Chandelier is Detect Alignment.

When Eldronas the archmage and their cabal enchanted the chandelier, they laid out its basic settings, knowing that in time things change, and their masterwork needed to be flexible as well. So, the chandelier is constantly detecting alignments, and magic by default. Most people lack a strong enough alignment to stir the artifact into noticing them. Those with strong chaotic alignments cause the chandelier to release a flashing of color and light (within its setting) thus a strongly aligned chaotic good NPC might be greeted with phantasmal snowflakes in a winter setting, or a swirl of different colored flower petals in a spring mode. Strongly aligned good characters tend to be illuminated, almost like an aura around them. Strong neutral alignments, rare as they are, will cause the lights to dim, and activity to slow, as the relic reflects their neutral nature with its disinterest. Evil-aligned NPCs will see whatever the setting is be inverted in their presence. Snow effects vanish in puffs of steam, leaves curl and smoke, and flower petals brown and wither, and it is pretty obvious that they are in conflict with the alignment setting of the relic.

The chandelier has a variety of if-then functions built into it, allowing it to take action if it detects a certain alignment. The current setting is that chaotic, neutral, and lawful alignments are illuminated, but otherwise left alone. If a chaotic or neutral evil NPC is detected, the chandelier notices them, marks them with an effect, and then targets them with a devastating and potent Sunburst spell. They take substantial damage, are temporarily blinded, and everyone around them only has to save against being dazzled by the effect. Undead take double damage from this relic, meaning that even powerful undead like Liches are wise to avoid the relic as it can take a long time to reincorporate their form.

There is a second setting it can be switched to, where it runs a different set of atmospheric effects, becoming more fiery, infernal, or twisting nether-esque display, and swapping good and evil. Evil NPCs are unmolested, while good-aligned characters are targeted with a horrific Darkstar spell that strikes them with a shaft of darkness, causing blindness, and crushing damage, as opposed to radiant damage. Learning this little trick requires some legendary research checks, and discovering the life and fate of Eldronas and their cabal.

Origin

The Chandelier of Eldronas was commissioned while Terrasquestone was still being built.

The telling of Terrasquestone would be its own saga, and one day it might well be. But it is enough to say that those were powerful and vigorous times, and that magic was great in the hands of mortals. There was a sort of contest as the castle was being built, and it was a game of oneupmanship. Who could craft the greatest item, the most interesting or innovative feature for the castle? Eldronas was contracted by Nian Gliacon Osanos, the Respendent Mirror. It took three quests to acquire the materials for the relic, and another to gain the eldritch power to awaken it. This took just over six years, and after it was completed, the nascent House Osanos took the symbol of the chandelier as their heraldic device, seven diamonds arranged in a downward pointing arrow beneath a gold bar against a white background.

The chandelier has hung in the great foyer of the castle ever since, and there have been six attempts to steal it, all of which have ended with piles of ash, and a few survivors chained in the dungeons beneath the great fortress.