Oscrinia's Wondrous Lantern

[Deleted]

OSCRINIA'S WONDROUS LANTERN: A matte black lantern of curious design. Anyone touching the lantern or its user when it is being lighted can see the illumination shed by this device (3" radius). To anyone else, the light is not detectable and neither provides illumination nor gives any clue to its use or presence. The "light" of this device extinguishes the infravisual capability of any creature within its radius and likewise renders anyone within 3" of the lantern undetectable by creatures with infravision. The lantern must be carried by the person lighting it, giving the wondrous lantern to another or setting it down immediately makes its light visible to all.

A magical item I wrote up as a "what if" exercise. Let me know what you think, (+) or (-) feedback welcome.

[jakdethe]

Fantastic, I love stuff like this, and this in particular would be of great use to an adventuring party. I would love to have a book filled with interesting magic items like this, and general useful adventuring gear, like elven rope; an old school magical emporium of sorts.

[scottenkainen]

Yes! Exactly!

Uh, oh. You've accidentally triggered a Paizo rant...

A few years back, when Paizo had its first annual contest to pick a new designer, I submitted a magic item and didn't advance past the first round. Now, I have always preferred to tell myself I was disqualified for already being published, but the truth is that what I made was something like this above -- a practical magic item anyone would want to have, that wouldn't break anyone's campaign no matter how low-magic it was. But what Paizo wanted was nerd candy -- flashy, overpowered magic items that read well but aren't very useful.

Sigh.