Common Magic Item: Brightstone Torch

Brightstone Torch, wondrous item (common)

Brightstone Torches exploit the properties of Eberron Dragonshards to allow talented spellcasters to use the Light cantrip more freely, without breaking the bank. While the more useful Everbright Lantern is usually 50 gp, Brightstone Torches can be purchased for 2 gp standard, and less than 1 gp in lucky junkyard sales, making them eminently affordable for the average adventurer and within reach of most modest tradesmen.

When a Light cantrip is used on a Brightstone Torch, it emits Bright Light in a 20 foot radius, and Dim Light for an additional 20 feet. It remains lit for 4 hours even if the caster decides to use the cantrip again. While the casual use of Brightstone Torches requires the expertise of a magewright or an actual wizard, regular citizens can purchase the casting of the spell for 1 cp from a local magewright lamplighter.

Brightstone Torches can be put out with a single application of Prestidigitation, Thaumaturgy, or Druidcraft. They can also be covered with cloth or other mundane items to suppress their lighting property. Other common magic items that can put out small fires can also put out Brightstone Torches.

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Basically, Brightstone Torches are a way for me to reconcile the vision of Sharn and other sorts of places and similar cities in D&D with how people might go about it and what kinds of actions and situations PCs might encounter in these places. The trouble with the Everbright Lantern is that it is much too expensive. For player character, these are minor expenses. In the context of society and commoners, they're not. This matters when you're trying to assemble the way the city is organized and which people have what and why.

Keeping it fast and easy, one gold piece is usually tracked to $100 by comparing it to daily wages. This means that one single Everbright Lantern that's really only about as bright as a normal medieval torch (40 foot lighting range only) costs $5000. If you're lighting even a modest inn like the Stonehill Inn in Phandalin, you're looking at something like 4 Everbright Lanterns for a total capital outlay of 200 gp, or $20000. This is reasonable but a bit on the high side. Small cathedrals would be something like 300 feet long and about 100-120 feet wide. Presuming Bright Light only and a diameter of 40 feet per Lantern, that's three lanterns wide times about 7 long or 21 lanterns for a cost of 1,050 gp or $105,000. This is clearly way too expensive for lighting solutions for a small cathedral, and far out of reach for a small church even in a society where the middle class is a large portion of the population.

Bear in mind, Sharn's districts are supposedly brightly lit by magical lighting. The Lower Wards and the Cogs are especially dependent on Guild-sponsored magical lighting to allow them to work even in the daytime, as sunlight doesn't filter through down into the rooms in lower districts. This sort of pricing conundrums also exist for cities in the Forgotten Realms or Greyhawk - it is an issue anytime magical lighting solutions are involved.

The idea of a Brightstone Torch is that it is a very cheap common magical item that doesn't require a magewright capable of casting a Continual Flame, nor the costs associated with casting a permanent light. It designed to be cheap and accessible - not quite as cheap as basically free rushlights, but cheaper than candles in the long run, if you can afford the initial expense. Candles in Sharn might be produced mainly for ceremonial purposes, to fuel magical item creation, or for very poor folks who can't even afford a Brightstone Torch.

The existence of this item also gives rise to the most common activity of a professional lamplighter - they go down the streets twice every night to cast the Light cantrip on the Brightstone Torches that supplement the permanent Everbright Lanterns that illuminate the main avenues of a major city. These wouldn't only constitute the most reliable eyes and ears of a city on the streets, a PC might impersonate one in order to gain access to noble districts they may not otherwise be permitted to enter, or they might actually be professional Lamplighters themselves, and see or hear things on their nightly rounds that may be of use to their adventuring party.

Perhaps a wizard coming down the lonely street of a residential neighborhood has need of secrecy, so he might use a Lamplighter magic item to systematically turn off the street lamps before he delivers an important package to an unsuspecting family.