The Dark Lantern

This article is about the object. For the ninth season of Eon, go here.
The Dark Lantern is an entropic reaper's lantern and possible major artifact which the party found in the Ruins of Eldergrin during Season Seven, Episode Four. It came with a scythe, and the party retained both, intending for the scythe to be a weapon for Herr Doctor. The scythe was destroyed, but the lantern remains, and is currently carried by Ashra. 
==Function==
When held during a fight with an evil-aligned creature, the lantern provides Protection from Evil with a 10 foot radius, regardless of the alignment of the holder. It has not been tested against other aligned creatures. 
The lantern extends the range of the holder's darkvision by thirty feet while held out. It also allows the holder to see through magical darkness which their darkvision normally would not pierce. 
A UMD check can cause the lantern to give the wielder a random temporary unholy bonus to a random stat. This effect was described as channeling souls, a deeply evil act. Doing this did not feel immediately evil or good, however, though it did noticeably dim the lantern. 
Destroying the lantern is very difficult, but can be accomplished with a Shatterspike. As Leilah Maloch discovered, doing so will end the entire multiverse in a singularity. 
It was found with one light, apparently a soul, in it, and now has uncountably many. According to the accidental near-destruction of the multiverse, these are actually stars which will go supernova when the lantern is destroyed. The stars can be seen more clearly in a Mirror of True Seeing. 
There have been implications that the lantern is meant to interact with and/or destroy the phylactery of High Regent Xenteroth, but nothing concrete about how to do so and whether the lantern would be destroyed as well. Talnec Franco claimed that there are many reaper's lanterns, each made in an attempt to collapse the upper planes into the hells. They never work. The souls collected come from the matching scythe, which is probably out there somewhere. 
==In Eon== 
The party found the lantern as part of the treasure hoard beneath the Temple Discordia, along with a matching scythe. Herr Doctor claimed the scythe as a weapon, and took a fighter level to gain proficiency, but never wielded it. Claire retained the lantern to go with it. 
After leaving the ruins, a strange curse affected several party members during Season Seven Episodes Eight and Nine. The curse caused them to gain temporary sanity points at the rate of approximately one every twenty minutes. According to Ethan's research in the Libris Mortis, this was the beginning of their transformation into entropic reapers. Claire and Herr Doctor were the first to be affected. By piecing together dreams received the night before by Sam Ash, Kruglor, and Claire (witnessed by Ashra, who was in Claire's mind at the time), then applying Xenteroth's Sequence to the words in the dreams, the party worked out a cure. Said cure consists of prayer to Nerull and ingestion of a drink a potion made of holly and mistletoe. (The prayer can be made on their behalf by other party members, but the symbol of Nerull will be burned into the afflicted's skin regardless.) Soon after the curse was lifted from Claire and Herr Doctor, it affected Ashra; after she was cured, no other party members have experienced it. 
While Claire and Herr Doctor were crazy, Ashra disposed of the scythe on the Elemental Plane of Water. Kruglor later cut it into pieces with Vishnu's mech, but the lantern remains intact. Kruglor was given the lantern to dispose of, but instead he used it to play Double Dragon Ante with the slaver Neax Hiss so that he could win training in Planecrasher. He won the lantern back and sold it to the party for safekeeping. Claire then took it with her when she parted ways with the company. It was handed back to her by an unknown old man during her rescue from Hellfire Prison. 
Claire took it with her on her crazy journey through the portal at Wroth's End, then delivered it personally to Ashra in Bisau at Ethan's request. She had stuffed the bottom full of Malvont Dollars. Kruglor took it from Ashra to allow her to reestablish contact with Zaphodel, then gave it back after the battle ended. Ashra now carries it. 
During the Awakening, the lantern began to pulse and detected as a multiple consciousness similar to that of the Scarlet Brotherhood. In a Mirror of True Seeing, the stars within were swirling madly and forced a Will save. When all other intelligent items lost consciousness and function, it also stopped appearing on Detect Thoughts, but is still pulsing and still has its static abilities (Protection from Evil and improving darkvision.)
Ashra asked Talnec about the lantern, and he explained some about the general function of reaper's lanterns. It is likely that the scythe accompanying the Dark Lantern was not its scythe. During the battle with Orcas, Ashra channeled some of the lantern's power into a Wisdom bonus. This act did not immediately make her evil. 
Ashra channeled energy from the lantern while raising Icania Vandril from the dead. This worked; whether it changed him is unclear.
Category:Artifacts
Category:Why We Can't Have Nice Things