Starlance Wand
Also known as: Starbolt Wand
A slender rod of pale ashwood tipped with a shard of compressed aether-crystal, its surface etched with the tight, looping rune-script favored by the Desert Scholars of the Sunken Academies. When wielded, it discharges a volley of hissing azure bolts that streak unerringly toward their mark, leaving faint scorch trails that smell of ozone and hot sand.
Artifact Details
- Type
- Weapon
- Rarity
- Common
- Origin
- The Starlance Wand was first standardized by the Desert Scholars of the Sunken Academies during the era of the Great Cataloguing, when the Scholars sought to arm their junior initiates with a reliable, low-risk arcane implement that required no years of memorization. Master artificer Solin Drav of the Third Calculus Hall devised the core schema, bonding compressed aether-crystal harvested from the Order of the Starlight's traded surplus into ashwood staves, etching each with a simplified binding rune to cap the bolt-count and prevent catastrophic overload.
Overview
Starlance Wand is a common weapon in Landorya. Its known origin is The Starlance Wand was first standardized by the Desert Scholars of the Sunken Academies during the era of the Great Cataloguing, when the Scholars sought to arm their junior initiates with a reliable, low-risk arcane implement that required no years of memorization. Master artificer Solin Drav of the Third Calculus Hall devised the core schema, bonding compressed aether-crystal harvested from the Order of the Starlight's traded surplus into ashwood staves, etching each with a simplified binding rune to cap the bolt-count and prevent catastrophic overload.. Its most cited abilities include Fires a volley of two to four unerring azure aether-bolts that never miss their intended target, even around partial cover., Each bolt strikes with concussive force proportional to the wielder's arcane focus, making it reliably lethal in numbers., and The wand recharges its bolt-charge slowly by absorbing ambient aether from the atmosphere, granting one charge per hour of rest.. Accounts also warn of a drawback: Prolonged reliance on the wand is known to atrophy the wielder's natural spellcasting intuition; Desert Scholar masters warn that initiates who lean on it past…
History
For generations, the Starlance Wand has been the first arcane implement pressed into the hands of Desert Scholar initiates upon their induction into the Sunken Academies, as commonplace to them as a quill. During the Orc Incursions into the Amber Reaches, entire ranks of Scholar auxiliaries wielded them in coordinated volleys, their massed azure bolts turning the tide of skirmishes where blades alone could not. The design schema was eventually stolen by a Gnomish merchant consortium and reverse-engineered into cheaper, faintly inferior copies sold across the market stalls of the Shimmering Isles and the human city-states of the interior. Today, genuine Scholar-made wands bear the seal of the Third Calculus Hall on their ferrule, while countless forgeries circulate among hedge-mages, mercenaries, and curious Halfling tinkerers throughout Landorya.
Powers & Abilities
- ✦ Fires a volley of two to four unerring azure aether-bolts that never miss their intended target, even around partial cover.
- ✦ Each bolt strikes with concussive force proportional to the wielder's arcane focus, making it reliably lethal in numbers.
- ✦ The wand recharges its bolt-charge slowly by absorbing ambient aether from the atmosphere, granting one charge per hour of rest.
- ✦ A novice wielder suffers no spell-recoil, making it one of the safest ranged arcane implements available to untrained hands.
Curse or Drawback
Prolonged reliance on the wand is known to atrophy the wielder's natural spellcasting intuition; Desert Scholar masters warn that initiates who lean on it past their first year of study often struggle to cast even rudimentary spells unaided, their arcane instincts dulled by the wand's effortless precision.