Book of Ebon Tides

This strange twilight-hued tome was written on pages of pure shadow weave, bound in traditional birchboard covers, wrapped with shadow goblin hide, and imbued with the memories of forests in the Shadow Realm. Its covers often dance with shadows as if it were resting in a forest grove, and some owners swear that a goblin face appears on them now and again. The sturdy lock on one side opens only for wizards, elves, and shadow fey (see Tome of Beasts). The book has 15 charges, and it regains 2d6 + 3 expended charges daily in the twilight before dawn. If you expend the last charge, roll a d20. On a 1, the book retains its Ebon Tides and Shadow Lore properties but loses its Spells property.

Ebon Tides. If you spend 100 hours over a period of 30 days or more studying the volume, you can perform a magical ritual to shift the structure of the Shadow Realm in particular ways. At any point after your study completes, you can expend 5 of the book's charges while spending 1 minute concentrating and performing invocations to transform the terrain near you. You don't need to repeat the study to use this property again. When the magic ritual completes, make an Intelligence (Arcana) check and consult the table below for the appropriate DCs. You can change the terrain in any one way listed at your result or lower. For example, if your result was 17, you could turn a small forest up to 30 feet across into a grassland, create a grove of trees up to 240 feet across, create a 6-foot-wide flowing stream, overgrow 1,500 feet of an existing road, or other similar option. Only natural terrain you can see can be affected. Built structures, such as homes or castles, remain untouched, though roads and trails can be overgrown or hidden. On a failure, the terrain is unchanged. On a 1, an overshadow (see Tome of Beasts 2) also appears and attacks you. On a 20, you can choose two options. Deities, fey lords and ladies (see Tome of Beasts), archdevils, demon lords, and other powerful rulers in the Shadow Realm can prevent these terrain modifications from happening in their presence or anywhere within their respective domains.

Shadow Lore. If you spend 1o minutes referencing this book while researching the Shadow Realm or its creatures, you double your proficiency bonus on Arcana, History, and Religion checks to recall lore about such subjects for the next 24 hours. If you don't have proficiency in these skills, you instead gain proficiency in them for the next 24 hours, but you are only proficient when recalling information about the subjects of your research. This research can be done during a short rest.

Spells. While holding the book, you can use an action to expend I or more of its charges to cast one of the following spells from it, using your spell save DC and spellcasting ability: cloak of shadow* (1 charge), darkness (2 charges), mirror image (2 charges), phantasmal killer (4 charges), see invisibility (2 charges), seeming (5 charges), shadow gateway* (5 charges), shadow step* (4 charges), or slither* (2 charges). You can also use an action to cast the douse light* or minor illusion cantrips from the book without using any charges. (Spells marked with an asterisk are from Deep Magic.)

Retributive Shadows. You can use an action to speak a special command word and rip the book in half. The book is destroyed and releases its remaining magic in a wave of shadow magic. Four 10-foot cubes of shadow move outward from the book in the cardinal directions, and each cube moves up to 20 feet each round, away from the point where the book was destroyed. This effect works like the creeping darkness (see Deep Magic) spell, except it creates four cubes instead of three, and the necrotic damage dealt by the spell increases by 1d6 for each charge remaining in the book. At the GM's discretion, this effect can work like the incendiary cloud spell instead of the creeping darkness spell, except the cloud is a cloud of shadow that deals necrotic damage instead of fire damage, is centered on you, and the damage dealt by the spell increases by 1d4 for each charge remaining in the book.

Book of Ebon Tides: