Item: Whispering Staff
This gnarled wooden staff is carved with humanoid faces in various emotional states. When the staff is activated, the faces begin to whisper a variety of languages in sibilant tones, creating what seems to be nonsense to all but the staff's wielder or those they choose to affect. The staff functions as a Major Staff Of The Unblinking Eye. While using the staff, you gain a +3 item bonus to Decipher Writing, Identify Magic, and Recall Knowledge checks, regardless of the skill. When you invest the staff, you either increase your Intelligence modifier by 1 or increase it to +4, whichever would give you a higher value. You must select the skills and languages the first time you invest the item, and whenever you invest the same whispering staff, you get the same skills and languages you chose the first time.
Activate 1 (concentrate, mental)
Frequency once per round
Effect Through the staff's strange whispering, you gain a glimpse into the mind and desires of one creature you can see within 30 feet. Until the end of your next turn, that creature is Off Guard to you and takes a –2 circumstance penalty to saving throws against your spells.
Effect: Whispering Staff (Enemy)
Activate 2 (manipulate, mental, misfortune)
Frequency once per hour
Effect You point the staff at one creature you can see within 30 feet of you, causing the whispers to howl in that creature's mind. The target must attempt a DC 43 Will save. If it fails, whenever the creature attempts an attack roll, skill check, or saving throw, it must roll twice and take the worse roll. This lasts until the start of your next turn.
Activate 2 (concentrate, fortune, mental)
Frequency once per day
Effect You twirl the staff in three consecutive circles and call for the whispers to speak up. For the next minute, you and all allies within a 30-foot type:emanation around you can hear your staff's whispers clearly and distinctly, gaining benefit from their advice and mental protection. Whenever you and your affected allies attempt to Recall Knowledge or attempt a saving throw against a mental effect, you roll twice and take the better result. This is a fortune effect.
Effect: Whispering Staff (Ally)
Activate Cast a Spell
Effect You expend a number of charges from the staff to cast a spell from its list.
- Cantrip Detect Magic
- 1st Sure Strike
- 2nd Darkvision, See The Unseen, Translate
- 3rd Darkvision, Mind Reading
- 4th Clairvoyance, Detect Scrying, Telepathy
- 5th Mind Probe, Scouting Eye
- 6th Telepathy, Truesight
Trait Effects
Apex: When you Invest an Item that has the apex trait, it improves one of your attributes, either increasing the attribute’s modifier by 1 or to a total of +4, whichever would give you a higher score. This gives you all the benefits of the new attribute modifier until the investiture runs out: increasing Intelligence lets you become trained in an additional skill and learn a new language, increasing Constitution gives you more Hit Points, and so on. An apex item grants this benefit only the first time it’s invested within a 24-hour period, and you can benefit from only one apex item at a time. If you attempt to invest an apex item when you already have one invested, you don’t gain the attribute modifier increase, though you do gain any other effects of Investing the Item.
Invested: A character can invest only 10 magical items that have the invested trait. None of the magical effects of the item apply if the character hasn’t invested it, nor can it be activated, though the character still gains any normal benefits from wearing the physical item (like a hat keeping rain off their head).
Magical: Something with the magical trait is imbued with magical energies not tied to a specific tradition of magic. Some items or effects are closely tied to a particular tradition of magic. In these cases, the item has the arcane, divine, occult, or primal trait instead of the magical trait. Any of these traits indicate that the item is magical.
Staff: This magic item holds spells of a particular theme and allows a spellcaster to cast additional spells by preparing the staff.
Two-Hand: This weapon can be wielded with two hands to change its weapon damage die to the indicated value. This change applies to all the weapon’s damage dice.
Critical Specialisation Effects
Certain effects can grant you benefits when you make a Strike with certain weapons and get a critical success. This is called a critical specialisation effect. The exact effect depends on which weapon group your weapon belongs to, as listed below. You can always decide not to add the critical specialisation effect of your weapon.
Club: You knock the target away from you up to 10 feet. This is forced movement.
Related Items
| Name | Level | Rarity | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fiendbreaker (Heroic) | 20 | Unique | 1d4 |
| Dragonprism Staff (Greater) | 20 | Common | 1d6 |
| Staff of Arcane Might (Major) | 20 | Rare | 1d4 |
| Staff of Impossible Visions (True) | 20 | Uncommon | 1d4 |
| Staff of Providence (True) | 20 | Common | 1d4 |
| Staff of Sieges | 20 | Uncommon | 1d4 |
| Staff of the Desert Winds (True) | 20 | Common | 1d4 |
| Staff of the Magi | 20 | Rare | 1d4 |
| Staff of Nature's Vengeance (Major) | 18 | Common | 1d4 |
| Staff of the Dreamlands (Major) | 18 | Uncommon | 1d4 |
| Boreal Staff (Major) | 17 | Common | 1d4 |
| Celestial Staff | 17 | Uncommon | 1d4 |
| Chronomancer Staff | 17 | Rare | 1d4 |
| Hell Staff | 17 | Uncommon | 1d4 |
| Wyrm Drinker | 17 | Unique | 1d4 |
| Atmospheric Staff (Major) | 16 | Uncommon | 1d4 |
| Lyrakien Staff (Major) | 16 | Common | 1d4 |
| Spellstriker Staff (Major) | 16 | Common | 1d4 |
| Staff of Arcane Might (Greater) | 16 | Rare | 1d4 |
| Staff of Final Rest (Major) | 16 | Uncommon | 1d4 |