Book of Shadows

Book of Shadows is a rare tome in Landorya. Its known origin is The Book of Shadows was first compiled during the Age of Fractured Stars by a rogue Naga arcanist known as Ssiveth the Hollowed, who defected from the Naga's sacred poison-libraries beneath the Sunken Delta and collaborated with a cabal of Desert Scholars exiled for heresy, the founding members of what would become the Obsidian Circle. Together they transcribed forbidden Umbral Glyphs stolen from a seized Celestial Order reliquary, binding them with Naga death-rites to create a living grimoire that grows darker with every ritual performed within its pages.. Its most cited abilities include Shadow Weaving: The reader may shape ambient darkness into solid constructs, barriers, chains, or blinding shrouds, lasting until sunlight or Aether-flame touches them., Ritual of Unraveling: A multi-hour ceremony within its pages can dissolve enchantments woven by the Order of the Starlight, effectively unmaking protective wards and blessed seals., and Venom-Script Compulsion: Text copied from the Tome and pressed against living skin forces the victim to answer three questions with absolute truth, after which the script burns away, and so does a layer of the victim's memory.. Accounts also warn of a drawback: Every ritual cast from the Tome permanently dims the reader's own shadow, after thirteen uses, the shadow vanishes entirely, marking the wielder as Hollow-Touc…

At the height of the Obsidian Circle's power, the Tome was used to unravel the Starlight Wards protecting the Aether citadel of Vel-Soran, allowing the Circle to plunder its inner vaults, an atrocity the Order of the Starlight still names the Night of Stripped Light. The Celestial Order's subsequent purge shattered the Circle, and the Tome passed through the hands of a Fey Court exile, a Drakonian mercenary warlord, and finally a halfling antiquarian of the Mosshollow settlements, none of whom fully understood what they carried. After the halfling's mysterious disappearance near the Iron Mountains border, the Tome vanished from all official records; the Celestial Order's standing confiscation decree has never been lifted. Current intelligence from Order of the Starlight inquisitors suggests the remnants of the Obsidian Circle have relocated the Tome somewhere beneath the Sun-Scarred Peaks, trading favors with the Sphinxes, who, disturbingly, have not denied it.