[Compendium] - Reign of Radiance

Download the pdf to check out the Lumemancer Archetype — a unique mechanic that allows you to swap in new subclass features — as well as a lumemancer spell list, 8 radiant feats, 6 light spells, 72 adventure hooks & discoveries, 32 radiant items, and 10 radiant foes, including swap-in stat blocks for the shadow aberrations of the Black-Beyond. Within the book, you'll also discover 18 pages of lore about the Radiant City of Ellumara and the mysteries and legacy left behind by the sudden vanishing of its founder.

When I wrote this compendium I really thought I wasn't going to hit over 30 pages, but the page-count caught up to me. I often repeat this but I'm still aiming only for ~20 pages  for the next compendium.

Here's a couple independent snippets of the book so you can print them out easier:

• Glowforged Guardian - huge glowing constructs that are dormant around the city, for some unknown reason

• Glow Wyrms - glowing draconic wyrms you can slay! Just avoid their luminescent acid

• Ellumaran Feats - a collection of light-magic-based feats for your Ellumaran character

Thank you patrons old and new for your spectacular support. Please enjoy the little pocket of world here and make something special in your games!

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DESIGN COMMENTARY

I seemed to have gotten carried away with the page count again, though not as far as Shadow of the Blighted Sun. The content all feels right and necessary within the scope of what felt exciting to explore. The introduction of lumemancy and its implementation necessitated inclusion of certain spells, monsters, and backgrounds. I feel what's presented is a fairly brief top-down slice view and there's definitely more depth and potential implied.

Overall, if you've got a character or city you want to create/use in a game that's themed around light in all its forms (heat, radiance, guidance, protection, destruction, etc), this is the book for you.

Here's a quick overview of what you can find in Reign of Radiance:

• New Setting. A new city with just enough vagueness and limitation so that you can drop it wholly in your world or pull parts of it that get you excited. Ellumara is a (relatively) magical location, has four big guilds that run it, has a "new" type of light magic, and includes several mysterious features to draw players in. For example, 33 massive dormant glowing constructs scattered around the city wait for unknown reasons ... perhaps for their mysterious creator's return? Hmm...

• Adventure Hooks & Mysteries. Ellumara's founder, an eccentric genius, fought a war against shadow aberrations, created lumemancy, created the glowforged constructs, and more. One day he vanished and left behind all kinds of clues and mysteries. Instead of a single explanation for the mysteries, there are tables of ideas that offer solutions, reasons, and examples of clues to follow if you're running a treasure-hunt style game. Pick the one you best vibe with!

• New Magic Type. Light magic, or "lumemancy" (from "lume") is presented as modifications to existing rules. You'll learn what makes spells "light magic", modify existing spells to make them lumemancy. This is designed to be open-ended so that you can add spells not found in the SRD (the legal public rules document this compendium is constrained by) to the lumemancer spell list.

• New Rule Type: the Archetype! Because lumemancy is so broad, there's no single subclass or feat. Instead, the Lumemancer Archetype presents a bunch of features that you can swap/replace subclasses that you would normally get. For example, because light magic broadly includes evocation, conjuration, and illusion, you could play an Illusion Wizard and swap out the 2nd-level features for something more in-flavor with light magic. Really fun idea worth exploring for the future.

• New Spells. There are some reprints. Standouts: lash of light is a lovely weapon-based spell for gishes (like flaming sword but different). Shining shackle is a unique auto-success spell that plays with areas of bright light and darkness - flavorful to cast; fun to throw at players.

• New Feats. A bunch of new feats for that lumemancy/light magic flavor. One for the fighters, several Magic Initiate style feats for lumemancy, and some extras for those who have a background with one of Ellumara's four guilds. The guild feats are my favorites because they let you learn a cantrip, and have limited-use modifications for those cantrips that are flavorful for their guild.

• New Items. A lot of light/radiance related items. Includes one shadow-based artifact to sort of contrast with the light-based artifact in Shadow of the Blighted Sun. Self-explanatory!

• New Monsters. As usual there's the basic ones like lumemancers and light-based city guards. The ones that stand out are the glowforged guardians (the big constructs the city founder left behind) and a modification template for the unnamable eldritch shadow aberrations that the city's always at war with. There's a fun table filled with the aberrations' reference names (like "King-Who-Enthralls") and the statblock they modify (aboleth).

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