Rainbow Bastion

Aura Strong abjuration and transmutation; CL 13th
Slot —; Price 48,000 gp; Weight 15 lbs.

DESCRIPTION

This heavy steel shield bears a surface of polished silver beneath an ever-shifting layer of translucent magical color. When viewed directly, ribbons of radiant crimson, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet, pink, white, brown, black, and cyan slowly move across its face like flowing stained glass illuminated from within. Along the rim are etched hundreds of tiny names in dozens of languages - not all of them known to history - representing those who stood openly as themselves despite persecution, hatred, exile, or fear. The shield is warm to the touch whenever used to protect another creature from harm.

Rainbow Bastion functions as a +3 heavy steel shield. While carried, the wielder gains immunity to magical fear effects and a +4 morale bonus on saving throws against charm, compulsion, and intimidation-based effects. Allies within 20 feet gain a +2 morale bonus on saves against fear.

Three times per day, when an ally within 30 feet would be struck by a melee or ranged attack, the wielder may declare the shield’s Interposing Radiance ability as an immediate action. Bands of multicolored force erupt outward, granting the ally a +6 deflection bonus to AC against the triggering attack. If the attack misses, shimmering spectral light explodes outward, causing hostile creatures within 10 feet of the protected ally to become dazzled for 1d4 rounds (Will DC 19 negates). The save DC is Charisma-based.

Once per day, Rainbow Bastion may invoke Stand Together as a standard action. For 10 rounds, all allies within 30 feet are linked by radiant strands of prismatic light. During this time, allies gain a +2 bonus to AC and saving throws while adjacent to at least one ally. In addition, whenever one affected ally is reduced below 0 hit points, another affected ally within range may voluntarily take up to half the damage that creature suffered as glowing force transfers the wound between them. Damage transferred this way bypasses damage reduction and resistances.

If the wielder uses the shield to successfully protect a helpless creature, stop a hate-driven mob, defend innocents from persecution, or openly oppose tyranny despite personal danger, Rainbow Bastion sheds bright light in a 60-foot radius for 24 hours thereafter. During this time, the shield’s enhancement bonus increases to +4. This increase is a sacred effect and does not stack with similar temporary enhancement increases.

LORE

Rainbow Bastion was first forged not for kings, conquerors, or saints, but for ordinary people who simply wished to survive long enough to exist openly beneath the sun. The oldest surviving accounts speak of hidden districts, secret festivals held behind locked doors, coded songs shared in crowded taverns, and defenders who stood watch outside gatherings that the wider world considered shameful or dangerous. In those fearful years, shields mattered far more than swords. The goal was rarely victory - only survival, dignity, and the hope of seeing another dawn beside those one loved.

The shield’s shifting colors are said to represent not merely identity, but visibility itself. Ancient enchanters believed that hatred depended upon isolation - upon convincing individuals that they stood alone against the world. Rainbow Bastion was therefore crafted as an ideological weapon as much as a magical one. Its enchantments were designed to make solidarity physically tangible. The flowing strands of light, the shared protection, the emotional resistance against fear and coercion - all were deliberate attempts to transform community into literal magical force.

Over centuries, the shield became associated with traveling guardians, rebellious temple sects, wandering performers, healers, and knightly orders devoted to protecting marginalized peoples across countless cultures. In some cities, carrying the shield openly became a declaration that one would stand between cruelty and its victims regardless of law, tradition, or consequence. Entire riots have reportedly broken upon its radiant barriers without claiming a single innocent life.

CONSTRUCTION

Requirements Craft Magic Arms and Armor, heroes’ feast, shield other, holy aura, creator must be good-aligned; Cost 24,000 gp + 1,920 XP

Kelwyn’s Notes

There are artifacts born from conquest, and there are artifacts born from endurance. The distinction matters more than many kingdoms care to admit. One may build empires through domination, yes, but civilization itself is more often preserved by those willing to stand in front of frightened strangers and quietly say, “No further.”

I find this shield deeply fascinating because it understands a truth that history repeatedly attempts to bury beneath banners and battlefields - hatred is frequently less interested in destruction than in erasure. There exists a particular cruelty in demanding that another soul make itself smaller, quieter, dimmer, less visible, less honest, merely to satisfy the discomfort of others. Rainbow Bastion opposes this not through vengeance, but through presence. It transforms visibility into defiance and companionship into armor.

Most remarkable of all is the shield’s refusal to glorify isolation. Many magical relics celebrate the singular hero, the lone champion standing above lesser mortals. This artifact instead grows stronger through proximity, mutual care, and collective survival. It does not ask whether its bearer is mighty. It asks whether they are willing to remain beside those who are afraid.

There is, I think, something profoundly beautiful about an object whose greatest magical power is the refusal to abandon people when the world decides they are inconvenient to love.