Fast Travel Unlocked
The nobles of Lost Babylon had their way to cross the Pale Sands. These candles have been smuggled and lost for centuries. They are a rare find but they carry with them the weight of a forgotten faraway land.
Starlight Travel: The Black Babylon Candle has 2d10 charges when found. As an Action, a creature can light the Candle to teleport themself and any other creature that is also touching the candle to a location they are thinking of. The creature must have seen the location, even in a dream or vision.
The creatures become engulfed in a sphere of light that rockets to the sky, even passing through solid objects, like ceilings or earth. The sphere travels through the sky and lands violently within 24 miles of the desired location. For every 24 miles traveled (or 1 Hex), the Candle loses a charge, and its size is reduced accordingly. If the candle runs out of charges mid-journey, the creatures land as far as the candle has taken them. The voyage itself lasts only a minute per charge consumed.
Each creature engulfed in the sphere of light must CON13, on a failure they drop unconscious for 1d4 hours at the landing location, otherwise they feel strong nausea for the next hour.
Ancient Journeys, Limited Escapes
This item is an adaptation of a magical artifact seen in the 2007 movie Stardust, based on the 1999 fantasy novel by Gaiman. It’s a favorite of mine. Babylon is not only a wonder of our past, but a name so evocative in our collective unconscious that I had to take it as-is for my setting. Our fantasy worlds are built on top of crumbled empires, and having a vague, mythicized idea of them in our minds can only help to build setting and make our players gasp.
I called this item the ‘Black’ one because it somewhat implies that there are other mystical candles from this ancient era, like the mind-shattering White one (but it’s not yet time for it).
As far as the 24 miles range, it is only a convention, the distance a party travels on the road in a day, a hex on my maps. You can and should adapt it to the distances in your world. You can as easily determine that one stack of the candle equals one day of travel, or something else, like 6 miles, 2 nautical leagues, or 10km.
The number of charges is more relevant than one would hope. If you’re not comfortable or prepared to let your party return home from the depths of the jungle without harm, maybe skip this one. I think in a good sandbox this item gives the party interesting choices. The fact that the charges are limited forces them to save it for a rainy day or an urgent situation.
In my own game the party used the candle both to scout the next location, while the rest of the crew moved their ship there, and to escape a boss fight gone wrong.
Ultimately, I think the Black Babylon Candle should be thrown in early in a campaign, as part of those first loot hoards. Having a trick in the sleeve not only makes the players feel in control later in the campaign but also opens the road to new narrative turns.
Hooks
No variations for this item, as different colored candles will appear as full articles sooner or later. We can still think of some cool ways to seed this item in your world!
| d6 | Hook |
| 1 | The Red Wizard tells the party there might be a way to get there faster, but he needs convincing to reveal the precious item to them. |
| 2 | The party has found only the precious golden string enchanted with the magic. Their friendly Alchemist tells them that she could make the Candle whole with Black Wax from the lair of the Striped Menace. |
| 3 | The Caliph has three of these Black Candles in his treasures, an heist to steal them could be the only way to escape the Prison City. |
| 4 | In the Ancient Library of Akilosath, one half-candle has been left inside a scroll, unnoticed for centuries. |
| 5 | A small Black Babylon Candle is found in a pack on top of a desolate mountain, something must have stopped this ancient traveler on their journey across the sky. |
| 6 | In the City of Brass, the hub of the Six Worlds, in the middle of the Elemental Plane of Fire, merchants sell these candles as mundane items, as they are the standard to traverse the Burning Sea. |
