Xixilli's Flickering Enervation

If you cast this spell on your turn, you cannot take a bonus action on the same turn.

You touch a candle in a brass holder, sprinkled with sacred ash and impart the magic of your spell into it for the duration.

With a whispered incantation and a three-fingered wave, the gust of your passing wreathes the candle in empty, black flame, darker somehow at the center and leaving the air somehow emptier than its previous absence. The air around the flame in a 45ft diameter seems stiller, as though a weight hangs heavy over it. it is quite easy to mistake this stillness for chill. Your conjured flame stands, smooth and un-flickering, smokeless in the stilled air.

When one or more creatures that are not you enter the area of preternatural calm, the flame suddenly springs to life, depending on the general alignment of the creature, the fire's color ranges from a deep red (evil) to a cool blue (good), and from rigid and straight (lawful) to loose and wild (chaotic). If more than one creature enters the area, the flame averages their alignments for its substance.

It is immediately apparent to anyone being affected by the flame that it is affecting them. A DC 15 Wisdom (Perception) check allows any affected creature to know the exact direction of the source of their distress. The effects become pronounced shortly thereafter.

Exposure to the flame slowly draws in and consumes the life force of any creature that is not you. If you wish to release a creature from this effect, it requires you to whisper the creature's identity as it is known to you into the flame of the candle, i.e. a name if you know it or an identifying characteristic if not. Names preemptively whispered into the candle will be excluded from the spell when the creature enters the area.

For every round that a creature is exposed to the enervating flame, its condition worsens, slowly. Follow the following rules for determining the effects;

• Creatures exposed to the flame take 1d6 necrotic damage and reduce their Hit Point maximum by the same amount per round. (these hit points are restored on the next long rest).
• Creatures exposed to the flame at any point during the duration for a total of more than a round must make a Constitution saving throw every round or become ill, counting as poisoned for as long as they stay within the range and for a minute after.
• Creatures who has been sickened by the flame must make a Constitution saving throw every round or begin to lose bodily function. They suffer a level of exhaustion until they have at least three levels of exhaustion.
• Creatures with three levels of exhaustion who are exposed to the flame must make a Constitution saving throw every round or begin to fall unconscious. They count as paralyzed if they fail.
• Creatures incapacitated by exposure to the flame must make a Constitution saving throw every round or slip closer to the end. they count as unconscious.
• Creatures rendered unconscious by exposure to the flame must make a Constitution saving throw every round or die.

If a creature comes into direct contact with the flame, they must immediately make a constitution saving throw at disadvantage or suffer another stage of the above. Creatures currently affected by the flame cannot snuff the flame directly. Wind cannot be created in the area of effect of the spell. 

When the spell's duration ends, the flame dissipates. If the caster is in the radius of the spell's effect, the following effects happen in order;

• All max Hit Point drain done by the spell's effect is released in a burst of light, the caster gains hit points equal to the combined hit points drained by this spell's effects. Any Hit Point gain from this effect that exceeds the maximum Hit Points of the caster is converted into temporary hit points.
• If three or more levels of exhaustion were inflicted by the spell's effect, the caster heals one level of exhaustion.

If the flame was snuffed prematurely, none of the effects for the caster occur.