New Item: Holiday Lights

Today, we’ve got a quick bit of homebrew, inspired by my players’ actions just the other day: Holiday Lights!

In my Reclaim the Wild campaign, I ran a short sidequest-type adventure, where the players had to save a modern-day town from repeating Christmas every day, caused by an enchanted snowglobe. During that adventure, as the Heroes fled from the roof of a mansion that once held the ensorcelling snowglobe, one of them used a string of electric lights as a makeshift rope to rappel down the manse’s masonry. Both they and I were delighted with this bit of MacGuyver-esque tomfoolery, and the Hero kept the string of lights after the adventure (as well as the other holiday gifts they earned for saving the town).

Of course, now that one of my players has a string of lights, I need to decide exactly what they do, and how they work. And if one Hero wants a string of lights, perhaps others will, too – either for their own bungled burglings, or just to decorate their homes and towns.

Check ’em out below!

As a note, Holiday Lights are a decidedly technological thing, and may not be well-suited to most Zelda campaign worlds. For instance, while they make sense in a setting like Spirit Tracks, they may feel out of place in a more typical “post-Breath of the Wild” world. If in doubt, discuss with your GM and/or players whether Holiday Lights are appropriate for your game – and if not, maybe decorate trees and windowsills in a more traditional way, using simple Candles!

New Mundane Tool: Holiday Lights

Holiday Lights: (Ancient) A string of Holiday Lights is 6 squares long, and functions much as a typical cloth Rope does, with one exception: Holiday Lights do not begin Burning if exposed to fire or extreme heat.

In addition, a string of Holiday Lights is lined with a number of small glass bulbs, spaced evenly apart; these bulbs may be painted a variety of festive colors, chosen when the string of Holiday Lights is created. These bulbs can be lit when the string is activated, functioning like a lit Candle in every square the string of Holiday Lights occupies. However, these lights cannot be used to start fires, as they do not have an exposed flame.

Holiday Lights can only shine while exposed to a suitable source of power, such as a steam engine, a waterwheel, an electrically-enchanted object, or an electrical creature. A small control unit attached to one end of a string of Holiday Lights can be used to turn the lights on, off, or set them to blink in specific patterns. Multiple strings of Holiday Lights may be linked end-to-end, allowing one control unit to manage multiple strings of lights.

A single string of Holiday Lights is sufficient to decorate a single Amenity, such as a a Kiosk or Tree. Buildings may require more than one string of Holiday Lights to be fully decorated.