Curse of Strahd 5e
Gulthias Staff
Lore
This staff is crafted from a spongy, black length of wood. The Damned took it from a mad druid who had been perched on the loading winch in the Wizard of Wines Winery. It was obviously magical, but its dark properties eluded them at first.
Kasimir Velikov used his magic to identify the staff's arcane properties. The staff was made from a branch of a Gulthias tree, a name that Puck recognized from her study of faerie mysteries: wherever a tree or plant is contaminated by a fragment of a wicked soul or a dark power, a Gulthias tree can rise to infest and corrupt the surrounding forest. The presence of the staff and the blights haunting the forests of Barovia suggested that a Gulthias tree used to create them was hidden somewhere in the valley.
Properties
Staff, rare (requires attunement)
Charges. The staff holds up to 10 charges and regains 1d6+4 of its expended charges daily at dusk. It had 10 charges when Kasimir identified it.
Blight Bane
Because the blight monsters and staff were created by the same Gulthias tree, while you are attuned to this staff, blights and other evil plant creatures do not regard you as hostile unless you harm them.
If the staff were to be broken or burned to ashes, it would send a violent arcane surge through its connection between itself and any blights within 300 feet, causing each blight to immediately wither and die.
Unnatural Aura
The party noticed that Lae'boo and other beasts, including the Martikovs' horses, became visibly uncomfortable while the staff is near. Beasts become discomforted while within 30 feet of the staff's evil.
Blooddrinker's Strike
The staff can be wielded as a magic quarterstaff. On a hit, it deals damage as a normal quarterstaff, and you can expend 1 charge to regain a number of hit points equal to the damage dealt by the weapon. However, using this dark power will claw at the user's mind, and may drive the user mad. Each time a charge is spent, you must succeed on a DC 12 Wisdom saving throw or be afflicted with short-term madness. While acknowledging that harnessing the staff's power to defeat Strahd is worth the risk, Kasimir cautioned that long-term use of the staff over the course of years could drive one completely insane.
