Primordial Staff (5e Equipment)

Staff, legendary (requires attunement) A long staff made of unknown wood-like material, it's 7 ft long, weights 4 lb. and has a shiny orb on its top. There are 21 of them, one for each primordial element, and one for Heaven and one for Hell.

Description

A long staff made of unknown wood-like material, its 7 ft long, weights 4 lb. and has a shiny orb on its top. There are 21 of them, one for each primordial element. These staves were created and used eons and eons ago by the first mages. The Orb emits a faint glow, so faint that you can hardly see it, even in complete darkness (it does not shed enough light to light up the area around it). The glow is always any color besides the actual color of the orb, the reason is unknown even for today's magicians. The orb changes color once per day at midnight until the element has been discovered.

The Eternity Staff

The most powerful of the staves is the staff of the eternity element. By itself, it does not do anything. It can however absorb the other staves, and gain the powers of the staves it absorbs. Once it has absorbed all of the other 20 staves, the first time it is used, it explodes causing the effects of all 126 spells at the same time, and the other staves are randomly distributed across the multiverse. The eternity staff will be pulled toward another staff within 1 mile. A strength of 6 or higher is necessary to keep the staff from moving in that direction by itself. An attuned wielder of the eternity staff will feel dissatisfaction until the other staves are all absorbed.

Which Staff

The dungeon master may choose or roll randomly for which primordial staff is found. Roll 1d20 if you want the eternity staff to be among the possibilities, or roll 1d20+1 or 2d10 if not. Use the table below. Or just pick a staff of one element.

Attunement, Discovery, and Control

• Attunement - Attunement takes one month. During the attunement period, the staff will cast a random 4th level spell per day (midnight to midnight) at a random time of day. Roll 2d10 for a random element for that spell.
  • Once the staff is attuned, the wielder can try to discover which staff it is.
• Discovery - When one of the 21 staves is found, the element of the staff is not revealed, it must be revealed:
  • By performing a great (8th or 9th level) magic of the same element or
  • By studying the staff for 1 year.
  • By rolling a d6 for a random spell, once per day. The columns are numbered 1 to 6. Each time the staff is used another random spell is rolled again.
• Control - Once each of the spells of that element has been fired once, the wielder gains control of which spell to cast from then on.
  • The wielder may continue to use the staff to cast a random spell, but this is now rolled on a d12 with spells 7-12 being the planar spells shown in the eternity row.

Eternity Spells

• Once the wielder attunes with and gains control of the staff, they may also use spells on the eternity row in the table below.
  • Spells such as conjure elemental and gate are limited to the element of the staff, for example the primordial fire staff can only conjure a fire elemental, and the infernal gate can only gate to an infernal plane.
  • Spells with this limitation are: Conjure Minor Elementals, Conjure Elemental, Plane Shift, Shapechange, Planar Binding, Planar Ally, and Gate.
  • All staves can use the eternity element spells once their nature is discovered.
  • The elemental spells draw creatures from the one of the 19 elemental planes or the plane of Heaven or Hell based on the staff, not just the earth, air, fire, water elements.

Six Spells Per Day

Once you control the staff, you may cast one spell per level every actual day. That is a 24 hour day from midnight to midnight, not the usual 'after a long rest'. The spell at each level may be the eternity spell or the specific staff spell. The staff only casts two spells per day until controlled, one 4th level as listed above, and one random one if the wielder decides to do this to discover the nature of the staff.

An attuned staff can ONLY cast spells that are based on its element as listed below.

d20	Element	Color	1. Level 4 Element Spell	2. Level 5 Spell	3. Level 6 Spell	4. Level 7 Spell	5. Level 8 Spell	6. Level 9 Spell	'Cantrip'
1	Eternity	changing	7. Conjure Minor Elementals	8. Conjure Elemental	9. Planar Ally	10. Plane Shift	11. Planar Binding	12. Gate	'
2	Order	white	Aura of Purity	Circle of Power	Globe of Invulnerability	Crown of Stars	Antipathy/Sympathy	Foresight	Sanctuary
3	Chaos	orange	Confusion	Mislead	Scatter	Symbol	Maddening Darkness	Storm of Vengeance	'
4	Light	yellow	Greater Invisibility	Dawn	Sunbeam	Prismatic Spray	Sunburst	Prismatic Wall	Light
5	Shadow	violet	Shadow of Moil	Creation	Eyebite	Forcecage	Illusory Dragon	Weird	'
6	Spirit	pink	Locate Creature	Geas	True Seeing	Etherealness	Glibness	Astral Projection	'
7	Mind	tan	Compulsion	Awaken	Mental Prison	Project Image	Telepathy	Psychic Scream	Message
8	Earth	brown	Stone Shape	Wall of Stone	Move Earth	Reverse Gravity	Earthquake	Shapechange	'
9	Air	clear	Storm Sphere	Cloudkill	Chain Lightning	Whirlwind	Control Weather	Invulnerability	'
10	Fire	red	Fire Shield	Flame Strike	Investiture of Flame	Fire Storm	Incendiary Cloud	Meteor Swarm	Fire bolt
11	Water	blue	Control Water	Maelstrom	Conjure Fey	Plane Shift	Tsunami	True Polymorph	'
12	Cold	cyan	Ice Storm	Cone of Cold	Freezing Sphere	Simulacrum	Mind Blank	Power Word Heal	Chill Touch
13	Life	lavender	Aura of Life	Animate Objects	Heal	Resurrection	Clone	True Resurrection	Shillelagh
14	Death	grey	Blight	Contagion	Circle of Death	Finger of Death	Feeblemind	Power Word Kill	'
15	Celestial	pearl	Death Ward	Legend Lore	Planar Ally	Conjure Celestial	Holy Aura	Mass Heal	'
16	Infernal	black	Dominate Beast	Infernal Calling	Harm	Power Word Pain	Dominate Monster	Blade of Disaster	'
17	Time	indigo	Dimension Door	Hold Monster	Flesh To Stone	Sequester	Demiplane	Time Stop	'
18	Nature	green	Conjure Woodland Beings	Commune With Nature	Wall of Thorns	Regenerate	Animal Shapes	Mass Polymorph	'
19	Space	magenta	Freedom of Movement	Scrying	Find the Path	Teleport	Maze	Imprisonment	Mage Hand
20	Complexity	chartreuse	Fabricate	Modify Memory	Programmed Illusion	Mirage Arcane	Mighty Fortress	Wish	'
21	Void	anti-light	Banishment	Destructive Wave	Forbiddance	Divine Word	Antimagic Field	Ravenous Void	'

• The staff will cast any spell as if the wielder is using the 9th slot of magic.
• The dungeon master may customize this item for their campaign, swapping out spells as they see fit.
• The staff may be wielded by a cleric, druid, warlock, or wizard, but not a sorcerer.
• If the staff is broken, the most recent user of the staff will NEVER be able to use spells of the element of the staff again. Once broken, the staff disappears to reappear whole again in the next 6 days, somewhere randomly in the multiverse.

Primordial Planes

As dungeon master you can of course do what you want with your cosmology and integrate this staff however you like.

If you have not constructed the layout of your elemental planes, this is a layout designed to go with the primordial staves:

A possible layout for the planes Credit: Jon Grover, 2020

Default elemental for each plane

Plane	Default Elemental
Eternity	Banshee
Order	Coatl
Chaos	Black Pudding
Light	Cyclops
Shadow	Cloaker
Spirit	Ghost
Mind	Intellect Devourer
Earth	Earth Elemental
Air	Air Elemental
Fire	Fire Elemental
Water	Water Elemental
Cold	Young Rhemorhaz
Life	Shambling Mound
Death	Wraith
Heaven	Unicorn
Hell	Cambion
Time	Rust Monster
Nature	Otyugh
Space	Roper
Complexity	Chimera
Void	Invisible Stalker

5.00

(one vote)

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