It's magical per Channel Divinity and it says the area is filled with dim light. It doesn't need to say it supersedes natural bright light any more than it needs to say it supersedes natural darkness. If you want to argue that an area can be filled with both dim and bright light, I think that's clearly against the RAI of the concept, but okay. The flight still works though in that case.
It's magical per Channel Divinity and it says the area is filled with dim light. It doesn't need to say it supersedes natural bright light any more than it needs to say it supersedes natural darkness. If you want to argue that an area can be filled with both dim and bright light, I think that's clearly against the RAI of the concept, but okay. The flight still works though in that case.
So then why do spells have to clarify when the snuff out magical light?
also again as people have asked where is the rule that says magical light supercedes all other sources. To pretend that brightly light and dim light can’t exist in the same stance when lighting in D&D works on a sliding scaled (darkness < Dim light < Bright light) so it’s pretty clear from rules and other guidelines that any source of bright light overrides dim light, magical or not. we have spells that clarify how they interact with lighting. Therefore by the lack of how it works being written in the spell we go to the general rule. And the general rules is that bright light overrides dim light.
if that was untrue than nothing could be light ever becuase darkness was there first and therefore your torch can’t send out light to cover the darkness since you can’t have darkness and light in the same space. As you say if an area is dimly lit it is impossibly to make that area brightly lit. Which makes no sense btw
That is what the discussion has been about. Some people are saying the ability isn't able to be used because the natural light overrides the dimlight created. Others are saying that the Dim light takes priority over other nonmagical light for one reason or another.
Because of the wording, either option is valid and like most things is something worth bringing up to your DM if it is a concern. I know how I would, and have, ruled it but it will vary DM to DM
I'm aware. I read through and agree with your stance. Since the conversation had mostly been about more discreet light sources I was hoping to have someone explain what the effects of being fully blanketed in natural daylight would be from the other perspective.
Assuming the natural light overrides the dim light for the sake of science, would creatures still be able to benefit from the temp hp and anti fear/charm effects? Is the sphere still there even if the dim light is not?
It's magical per Channel Divinity and it says the area is filled with dim light. It doesn't need to say it supersedes natural bright light any more than it needs to say it supersedes natural darkness. If you want to argue that an area can be filled with both dim and bright light, I think that's clearly against the RAI of the concept, but okay. The flight still works though in that case.
If your argument rests on it being magical, you need to cite some text that says that makes any difference at all. As far as I can tell, and I’ve looked, believe me, it doesn’t matter at all whether the light is magical or not. It all behaves the same way, uses the feature specifically says otherwise.
I’ll ask you the same question I asked the other poster: is it your contention that if you cast light in broad daylight, the ring between 20 feet and 40 feet from the caster becomes darker?
Weighing in here. Light and Channel Divinity use different wording for a reason.
Light: You touch one object that is no larger than 10 feet in any dimension. Until the spell ends, the object sheds bright light in a 20-foot radius and dim light for an additional 20 feet....
Twilight Sanctuary: As an action, you present your holy symbol, and a sphere of twilight emanates from you. The sphere is centered on you, has a 30-foot radius, and is filled with dim light.
One is shedding light, it does not talk about changing the surroundings that could affect said light. The other specifically states that it creates a new effect that changes how light operates. So Light is shedding light, basically just casting light out from a point. Twilight Sanctuary is not shedding dim light. It is creating a magical sphere around you, that is anchored onto you, and inside that magical sphere is filled with dim light. Not shed, filled. This implies you have an actual magical barrier around you, one that controls the light within, and fills it with a specific light. Think Watery Sphere but bigger and filled with a certain type of light rather than water.
To me this means that inside said magical sphere all light is dim light, as it is FILLED with said light, period, no caveats given with said wording. But magical rules apply, this is a magical effect and spells like Darkness, Daylight, etc... specifically say how they interact with magical lighting. So Such spells can change the inside of a Twilight Sanctuary sphere, but regular torches, sunlight, and such, cannot, as they are ot magical with specific rules to overwrite this magical sphere's effects.
So what level of magic is channel divinity then?
those two spells call out specifically how they interact with other forms of light. Twilight sanctuary does not tell y how it interacts with other lights. Filled does not imply “only” something filled with water can still have ice created in it unless the spell specifically says it can’t. D&D is expecting based rules. If it doesn’t say it overides light then it doesn’t do that. Filled with dim light implies that the spheres has no origin point not that it overrides other light sources (except those that are overrides by the general rules for lighting).
light says emanates because can also sniff it out. But you can’t cover the light from twilight sanctuary becuase it is filling the space aka no source to cover.
Weighing in here. Light and Channel Divinity use different wording for a reason.
Light: You touch one object that is no larger than 10 feet in any dimension. Until the spell ends, the object sheds bright light in a 20-foot radius and dim light for an additional 20 feet....
Twilight Sanctuary: As an action, you present your holy symbol, and a sphere of twilight emanates from you. The sphere is centered on you, has a 30-foot radius, and is filled with dim light....
One is shedding light, it does not talk about changing the surroundings that could affect said light. The other specifically states that it creates a new effect that changes how light operates. So Light is shedding light, basically just casting light out from a point. Twilight Sanctuary is not shedding dim light. It is creating a magical sphere around you, that is anchored onto you, and inside that magical sphere is filled with dim light. Not shed, filled. This implies you have an actual magical barrier around you, one that controls the light within, and fills it with a specific light. Think Watery Sphere but bigger and filled with a certain type of light rather than water.
To me this means that inside said magical sphere all light is dim light, as it is FILLED with said light, period, no caveats given with said wording. But magical rules apply, this is a magical effect and spells like Darkness, Daylight, etc... specifically say how they interact with magical lighting. So Such spells can change the inside of a Twilight Sanctuary sphere, but regular torches, sunlight, and such, cannot, as they are ot magical with specific rules to overwrite this magical sphere's effects.
The exact same thing can be said of a non-magical dim torch. A dimly-lit torch fills an area with dim light. Here's the thing about light: it's additive. If a volume is brightly lit, and then that volume gets filled with dim light, that's just more light. Unless there are specific rules that say this dim light darkens bright light, "fill" versus "shed" doesn't matter. They mean the same thing.
A couple people have suggested that general rules exist somewhere that say magical lighting conditions overwrite natural ones, but no one has been able to actually produce a reference to any such rules. In the absence of such a reference, there is no mechanical difference between the cleric's ability and a dim torch, because the feature text doesn't say there is. You say it "specifically states that it creates a new effect that changes how light operates," but it doesn't. Nothing about the feature says it changes how light operates. It says it fills the volume with dim light, which, again, is exactly what a dim torch does.
You're trying to invent a new sense of the word "fill" to justify what you think should happen, but it breaks down at even the most cursory thought, because "fill" can be and routinely is used to talk about completely normal-ass light. Light is additive. You cannot take away light by filling an area with more light, unless the feature text actually says that's what happens.
Weighing in here. Light and Channel Divinity use different wording for a reason.
Light: You touch one object that is no larger than 10 feet in any dimension. Until the spell ends, the object sheds bright light in a 20-foot radius and dim light for an additional 20 feet....
Twilight Sanctuary: As an action, you present your holy symbol, and a sphere of twilight emanates from you. The sphere is centered on you, has a 30-foot radius, and is filled with dim light....
One is shedding light, it does not talk about changing the surroundings that could affect said light. The other specifically states that it creates a new effect that changes how light operates. So Light is shedding light, basically just casting light out from a point. Twilight Sanctuary is not shedding dim light. It is creating a magical sphere around you, that is anchored onto you, and inside that magical sphere is filled with dim light. Not shed, filled. This implies you have an actual magical barrier around you, one that controls the light within, and fills it with a specific light. Think Watery Sphere but bigger and filled with a certain type of light rather than water.
To me this means that inside said magical sphere all light is dim light, as it is FILLED with said light, period, no caveats given with said wording. But magical rules apply, this is a magical effect and spells like Darkness, Daylight, etc... specifically say how they interact with magical lighting. So Such spells can change the inside of a Twilight Sanctuary sphere, but regular torches, sunlight, and such, cannot, as they are ot magical with specific rules to overwrite this magical sphere's effects.
The exact same thing can be said of a non-magical dim torch. A dimly-lit torch fills an area with dim light. Here's the thing about light: it's additive. If a volume is brightly lit, and then that volume gets filled with dim light, that's just more light. Unless there are specific rules that say this dim light darkens bright light, "fill" versus "shed" doesn't matter. They mean the same thing.
A couple people have suggested that general rules exist somewhere that say magical lighting conditions overwrite natural ones, but no one has been able to actually produce a reference to any such rules. In the absence of such a reference, there is no mechanical difference between the cleric's ability and a dim torch, because the feature text doesn't say there is. You say it "specifically states that it creates a new effect that changes how light operates," but it doesn't. Nothing about the feature says it changes how light operates. It says it fills the volume with dim light, which, again, is exactly what a dim torch does.
You're trying to invent a new sense of the word "fill" to justify what you think should happen, but it breaks down at even the most cursory thought, because "fill" can be and routinely is used to talk about completely normal-ass light. Light is additive. You cannot take away light by filling an area with more light, unless the feature text actually says that's what happens.
But the wording of torch does not say it fills a space with light. D&D uses specific wording for specific reasons.
"A torch burns for 1 hour, providing bright light in a 20-foot radius and dim light for an additional 20 feet. If you make a melee attack with a burning torch and hit, it deals 1 fire damage."
Notice the word FILL does not appear.
It doesn't matter, bro. It's not technical language. 5e relies on words meaning what they always mean, unless they specifically define the terminology. A torch does fill an area with light, because that's what the word means. You're bending over backwards to pretend "fill" means something arcane and specific, but it doesn't! You're just making stuff up, my guy. If you want to actually make an argument, stop fabricating and cite some rules text that defines "fill" to mean what you want it to mean.
From the description of the feature I'd say the sphere is "set" to dim light.. it says it creates a bubble of twilight, so you sort of have this magical area which is always dimly lit, otherwise I I think the wording would be more similar to other sources of light... To me atleast it doesnt read as if twilight sanctuary is is actually emitting light like a torch would... rather it's a bubble of semi-darkness... Honestly from a thematic perspective I also think It'd be kinda weird for them to design something the creates twilight, but only if you're in darkness.
It's obviously a problem that it doesn't say how exactly it interacts with magical and non magical light, hopefully 7bitbrian's efforts will give us a proper answer.
Again - If D&D had to rewrite how everything interacts the books would be 1000s of pages long.
the lack of it saying how it interacts with other light sources is the answer. It means we look at the general bright light overpowers dim light, and dim light over powers darkness.
seeing as everyone is going for thematic - the domain says that twilight protects against the evils lurking in the dark so it frankly makes thematic sense that it does nothing in the presence of sunlight. Since the day is not a tome that the twilight domain cares for but it cares to protect those from the dark.
Perhaps thematic wasn't the most appropriate word I could've used. What I ment that the feature reads to be creating a sphere which is set to appear as certain time of day in in a bubble, so to have it only actually affect areas in darkness doesn't really fit with what the description is going for.
I can absoutely understand your point of view, but I personally think it's taking a unique looking feature and turning it into merely a light source, which I don't believe the description seems to intend it to be.
But if we do talk about thematics.. I don't know exactly what you're quoting there, but from the description of the class I can find, it says that the cleric represents the calm and joy of twilight between darkness and light, so it makes far more sense thematically that the cleric would emit a sphere set the to this time of comfort, rather than simply emitting light.
Edit: Just to clarity, I'm purely arguing for RAI here, RAW I agree with what you're saying.
What happens when a Twilight Cleric activates Twilight Sanctuary in an open environment full of natural daylight?
The damaging effect of Twilight Sanctuary still applies.
The area within the sanctuary is at normal natural daylight.
Thanks for the response Farling.
RAW does seem to be quite lacking in implementing what I believe the RAI to be behind this ability. It seems unnecessarily complicated to track the sphere as a radius of effects but then also seperately have to track what kind of lighting is in that sphere. Especially if that source of light is more discrete than full daylight.
But I won't go into my interpretation any more than that. RAW is RAW is RAW and here RAW is lacking the same text that effects like Daylight and Darkness spells have and the PHB rules on lighting have nothing to say on the specific subject either. I'm interested to see what, if anything comes from the post thrown at Crawford for clarification.
So we never got an official reply on this? Bummer.
I'm firmly in the camp that RAW and RAI the effect creates a bubble of twilight (dim light) which then synergizes with the 6th-level Steps of Night feature, enabling its use irrespective of outside lighting conditions. While we haven't had an official ruling, Jeremy Crawford's tone in this interview is that the twilight domain balances light and dark, and forcing dim light is thematically appropriate.
You can use your Channel Divinity to refresh your allies with soothing twilight.
As an action, you present your holy symbol, and a sphere of twilight emanates from you. The sphere is centered on you, has a 30-foot radius, and is filled with dim light. The sphere moves with you, and it lasts for 1 minute or until you are incapacitated or die. Whenever a creature (including you) ends its turn in the sphere, you can grant that creature one of these benefits:
You grant it temporary hit points equal to 1d6 plus your cleric level.
You can draw on the mystical power of night to rise into the air. As a bonus action when you are in dim light or darkness, you can magically give yourself a flying speed equal to your walking speed for 1 minute. You can use this bonus action a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.
Divine Strike
8th-level Twilight Domain feature
You gain the ability to infuse your weapon strikes with divine energy. Once on each of your turns when you hit a creature with a weapon attack, you can cause the attack to deal an extra 1d8 radiant damage. When you reach 14th level, the extra damage increases to 2d8.
Twilight Shroud
17th-level Twilight Domain feature
The twilight that you summon offers a protective embrace: you and your allies have half cover while in the sphere created by your Twilight Sanctuary.
Let's take it step by step:
The first feature has two bullet points. Both of them are negated by any source of light brighter than Dim. Darkness of any kind won't stop them.
With Steps of Night, you cannot fly in any source of light brighter than Dim, again, darkness of any sort will not stop you.
Divine Strike makes no mention of light at all, so can be used no matter what the lighting conditions.
Twilight Shroud can be used no matter what the lighting conditions. In darkness, you have total cover, and in any other condition, you have half cover.
This whole thread is only about adjudicating whether Twilight Sanctuary "sets" light to dim light (i.e. can make bright light dim), or just sheds dim light (which does not affect bright light).
Making bright light dim has utility beyond enabling Steps of Night, such as enabling a Drow PC to fight effectively in daylight (suppressing Sunlight Sensitivity), or giving a Shadow Blade advantage. To me, that seems like something a twilight cleric would/could do.
Does Twilight Sanctuary set light to dim? No. The word they use is "filled". It makes the caster into something like a torch, a point source that the dim light radiates from, that cannot make a Bright light, has a shorter range, and that can't set things on fire. It gives quite amazing powers for that, but then, it is a power granted directly from the Divine. Does it affect bright light? No. Does it help a Drow? No. Does it give a Shadow Blade advantage? Yes.
Does Twilight Sanctuary set light to dim? No. The word they use is "filled". It makes the caster into something like a torch, a point source that the dim light radiates from, that cannot make a Bright light, has a shorter range, and that can't set things on fire. It gives quite amazing powers for that, but then, it is a power granted directly from the Divine. Does it affect bright light? No. Does it help a Drow? No. Does it give a Shadow Blade advantage? Yes.
Right; we disagree on the meaning of that word "filled," and all the arguments for each side have already been made. I hope we get an official ruling!
Given that this is a thread from November of last year, it seems unlikely there will be an official ruling, and I'm sure you already know this.
It seems clear that Steps of Night was not intended to allow people to fly no matter what the conditions. They would have said so if that was the case. There wouldn't be a need to mention the degree of light.
There are three degrees of light in the game; Bright, Dim, and Dark. Twilight Sanctuary works beautifully in two of the three. To allow it to nullify the third, as it was clearly not intended to do, it would need a name like Twilight Invulnerable Fortress.
You might have better luck in a different forum entirely. The Dungeons and Dragons Discussions forum in particular, and I'd say the best one there is Rules & Game Mechanics. An option would be the Class forums, where you will find them talking about Twilight Sanctuary already.
If I were to rule it as a DM I'd definitely make the dim light override any bright light etc. It seems the intended to me, at least I'd rule it as such. It would be pretty cool having this cleric of twilight, no, avatar of twilight, being able to blot out the sun in a sense.
Where dark transitions to day, that is called twilight. Where day transitions to dark, that is also called twilight. In the interview I linked, Crawford explains:
There are there are terrors in the night, but night is also when we rest...and so I wanted us to again explore that liminal space between light and darkness: that "Twilight Realm" where things might be scary, but it also might be a place of comfort. It might be that place that because the light isn’t shining on you harshly, you feel safer, you feel calmer...there can be a great power not only in storytelling but also in life of the quiet places where the light is softer: where things dim a bit.
RAI, I think it's clear that "Twilight Sanctuary" means magically creating a liminal space of twilight, not holding up a weak flashlight. And that is also how I interpret "filled with dim light."
I'm sorry to have necroed an old thread; I didn't want to post a duplicate only to have the same conversation. I was just checking if anyone knew of an official ruling. If and until then, we'll all keep running it the way we see fit!
It's magical per Channel Divinity and it says the area is filled with dim light. It doesn't need to say it supersedes natural bright light any more than it needs to say it supersedes natural darkness. If you want to argue that an area can be filled with both dim and bright light, I think that's clearly against the RAI of the concept, but okay. The flight still works though in that case.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
So then why do spells have to clarify when the snuff out magical light?
also again as people have asked where is the rule that says magical light supercedes all other sources. To pretend that brightly light and dim light can’t exist in the same stance when lighting in D&D works on a sliding scaled (darkness < Dim light < Bright light) so it’s pretty clear from rules and other guidelines that any source of bright light overrides dim light, magical or not. we have spells that clarify how they interact with lighting. Therefore by the lack of how it works being written in the spell we go to the general rule. And the general rules is that bright light overrides dim light.
if that was untrue than nothing could be light ever becuase darkness was there first and therefore your torch can’t send out light to cover the darkness since you can’t have darkness and light in the same space. As you say if an area is dimly lit it is impossibly to make that area brightly lit. Which makes no sense btw
I'm aware. I read through and agree with your stance. Since the conversation had mostly been about more discreet light sources I was hoping to have someone explain what the effects of being fully blanketed in natural daylight would be from the other perspective.
Assuming the natural light overrides the dim light for the sake of science, would creatures still be able to benefit from the temp hp and anti fear/charm effects? Is the sphere still there even if the dim light is not?
If your argument rests on it being magical, you need to cite some text that says that makes any difference at all. As far as I can tell, and I’ve looked, believe me, it doesn’t matter at all whether the light is magical or not. It all behaves the same way, uses the feature specifically says otherwise.
I’ll ask you the same question I asked the other poster: is it your contention that if you cast light in broad daylight, the ring between 20 feet and 40 feet from the caster becomes darker?
So what level of magic is channel divinity then?
those two spells call out specifically how they interact with other forms of light. Twilight sanctuary does not tell y how it interacts with other lights. Filled does not imply “only” something filled with water can still have ice created in it unless the spell specifically says it can’t. D&D is expecting based rules. If it doesn’t say it overides light then it doesn’t do that. Filled with dim light implies that the spheres has no origin point not that it overrides other light sources (except those that are overrides by the general rules for lighting).
light says emanates because can also sniff it out. But you can’t cover the light from twilight sanctuary becuase it is filling the space aka no source to cover.
The exact same thing can be said of a non-magical dim torch. A dimly-lit torch fills an area with dim light. Here's the thing about light: it's additive. If a volume is brightly lit, and then that volume gets filled with dim light, that's just more light. Unless there are specific rules that say this dim light darkens bright light, "fill" versus "shed" doesn't matter. They mean the same thing.
A couple people have suggested that general rules exist somewhere that say magical lighting conditions overwrite natural ones, but no one has been able to actually produce a reference to any such rules. In the absence of such a reference, there is no mechanical difference between the cleric's ability and a dim torch, because the feature text doesn't say there is. You say it "specifically states that it creates a new effect that changes how light operates," but it doesn't. Nothing about the feature says it changes how light operates. It says it fills the volume with dim light, which, again, is exactly what a dim torch does.
You're trying to invent a new sense of the word "fill" to justify what you think should happen, but it breaks down at even the most cursory thought, because "fill" can be and routinely is used to talk about completely normal-ass light. Light is additive. You cannot take away light by filling an area with more light, unless the feature text actually says that's what happens.
It doesn't matter, bro. It's not technical language. 5e relies on words meaning what they always mean, unless they specifically define the terminology. A torch does fill an area with light, because that's what the word means. You're bending over backwards to pretend "fill" means something arcane and specific, but it doesn't! You're just making stuff up, my guy. If you want to actually make an argument, stop fabricating and cite some rules text that defines "fill" to mean what you want it to mean.
The damaging effect of Twilight Sanctuary still applies.
The area within the sanctuary is at normal natural daylight.
From the description of the feature I'd say the sphere is "set" to dim light.. it says it creates a bubble of twilight, so you sort of have this magical area which is always dimly lit, otherwise I I think the wording would be more similar to other sources of light... To me atleast it doesnt read as if twilight sanctuary is is actually emitting light like a torch would... rather it's a bubble of semi-darkness... Honestly from a thematic perspective I also think It'd be kinda weird for them to design something the creates twilight, but only if you're in darkness.
It's obviously a problem that it doesn't say how exactly it interacts with magical and non magical light, hopefully 7bitbrian's efforts will give us a proper answer.
Again - If D&D had to rewrite how everything interacts the books would be 1000s of pages long.
the lack of it saying how it interacts with other light sources is the answer. It means we look at the general bright light overpowers dim light, and dim light over powers darkness.
seeing as everyone is going for thematic - the domain says that twilight protects against the evils lurking in the dark so it frankly makes thematic sense that it does nothing in the presence of sunlight. Since the day is not a tome that the twilight domain cares for but it cares to protect those from the dark.
Perhaps thematic wasn't the most appropriate word I could've used. What I ment that the feature reads to be creating a sphere which is set to appear as certain time of day in in a bubble, so to have it only actually affect areas in darkness doesn't really fit with what the description is going for.
I can absoutely understand your point of view, but I personally think it's taking a unique looking feature and turning it into merely a light source, which I don't believe the description seems to intend it to be.
But if we do talk about thematics.. I don't know exactly what you're quoting there, but from the description of the class I can find, it says that the cleric represents the calm and joy of twilight between darkness and light, so it makes far more sense thematically that the cleric would emit a sphere set the to this time of comfort, rather than simply emitting light.
Edit: Just to clarity, I'm purely arguing for RAI here, RAW I agree with what you're saying.
Thanks for the response Farling.
RAW does seem to be quite lacking in implementing what I believe the RAI to be behind this ability. It seems unnecessarily complicated to track the sphere as a radius of effects but then also seperately have to track what kind of lighting is in that sphere. Especially if that source of light is more discrete than full daylight.
But I won't go into my interpretation any more than that. RAW is RAW is RAW and here RAW is lacking the same text that effects like Daylight and Darkness spells have and the PHB rules on lighting have nothing to say on the specific subject either. I'm interested to see what, if anything comes from the post thrown at Crawford for clarification.
So we never got an official reply on this? Bummer.
I'm firmly in the camp that RAW and RAI the effect creates a bubble of twilight (dim light) which then synergizes with the 6th-level Steps of Night feature, enabling its use irrespective of outside lighting conditions. While we haven't had an official ruling, Jeremy Crawford's tone in this interview is that the twilight domain balances light and dark, and forcing dim light is thematically appropriate.
Let's take it step by step:
The first feature has two bullet points. Both of them are negated by any source of light brighter than Dim. Darkness of any kind won't stop them.
With Steps of Night, you cannot fly in any source of light brighter than Dim, again, darkness of any sort will not stop you.
Divine Strike makes no mention of light at all, so can be used no matter what the lighting conditions.
Twilight Shroud can be used no matter what the lighting conditions. In darkness, you have total cover, and in any other condition, you have half cover.
So what have I missed?
<Insert clever signature here>
This whole thread is only about adjudicating whether Twilight Sanctuary "sets" light to dim light (i.e. can make bright light dim), or just sheds dim light (which does not affect bright light).
Making bright light dim has utility beyond enabling Steps of Night, such as enabling a Drow PC to fight effectively in daylight (suppressing Sunlight Sensitivity), or giving a Shadow Blade advantage. To me, that seems like something a twilight cleric would/could do.
Does Twilight Sanctuary set light to dim? No. The word they use is "filled". It makes the caster into something like a torch, a point source that the dim light radiates from, that cannot make a Bright light, has a shorter range, and that can't set things on fire. It gives quite amazing powers for that, but then, it is a power granted directly from the Divine. Does it affect bright light? No. Does it help a Drow? No. Does it give a Shadow Blade advantage? Yes.
<Insert clever signature here>
Right; we disagree on the meaning of that word "filled," and all the arguments for each side have already been made. I hope we get an official ruling!
Given that this is a thread from November of last year, it seems unlikely there will be an official ruling, and I'm sure you already know this.
It seems clear that Steps of Night was not intended to allow people to fly no matter what the conditions. They would have said so if that was the case. There wouldn't be a need to mention the degree of light.
There are three degrees of light in the game; Bright, Dim, and Dark. Twilight Sanctuary works beautifully in two of the three. To allow it to nullify the third, as it was clearly not intended to do, it would need a name like Twilight Invulnerable Fortress.
You might have better luck in a different forum entirely. The Dungeons and Dragons Discussions forum in particular, and I'd say the best one there is Rules & Game Mechanics. An option would be the Class forums, where you will find them talking about Twilight Sanctuary already.
<Insert clever signature here>
If I were to rule it as a DM I'd definitely make the dim light override any bright light etc. It seems the intended to me, at least I'd rule it as such. It would be pretty cool having this cleric of twilight, no, avatar of twilight, being able to blot out the sun in a sense.
Altrazin Aghanes - Wizard/Fighter
Varpulis Windhowl - Fighter
Skolson Demjon - Cleric/Fighter
Where dark transitions to day, that is called twilight. Where day transitions to dark, that is also called twilight. In the interview I linked, Crawford explains:
RAI, I think it's clear that "Twilight Sanctuary" means magically creating a liminal space of twilight, not holding up a weak flashlight. And that is also how I interpret "filled with dim light."
I'm sorry to have necroed an old thread; I didn't want to post a duplicate only to have the same conversation. I was just checking if anyone knew of an official ruling. If and until then, we'll all keep running it the way we see fit!