The Labyrinth is a diverse and wonderful place. Why settle for stock stone temples and vaulting churches when your holy sites can be as varied as the planes themselves?

This series explores several places of power considered holy, for GMs to provide meaningful backdrops to their adventure concepts. Players may find this article useful to establish personal goals for their characters or to flesh out their backstory by connecting themselves to these sites.

The Provident Tower

The shadowed paths through the Labyrinth are sparsely guarded. Few factions are willing to venture outside of the safety of their havens. The Provident Watchtower appears in traveler’s hour of need, banishing the dark and concealing the weak.

Many minotaur explorers and scholars agree on several facts. The tower appears to be of Qorad design, though not built to house those titanic beings. The Tower is invisible to all but the most desperate, and it moves throughout the branches of the rings of the World Tree.

Who Is Worshipped in the Tower?

In Midgard, the elves that guard the Provident Tower live along the shadow roads, moving it through dark locales to respond to endangered travelers. It is dedicated to Sarastra and Holda, elven goddesses who share the responsibility of concealing and moving the Tower and the protection and light it affords. In the Labyrinth, this joint venture is shared by Solana and Sabateus. The tower is an important holy and strategic site for members of the Concordans.

The Appearance of the Provident Tower

The Tower appears differently in different worlds, masking itself to avoid appearing out of place. In many worlds, it has appeared as a lighthouse or lonely gatehouse on a bridge. In subterranean settings, the tower has appeared as a crystal-studded stalactite-fortress, offering light and refuge to those wandering dark caves. Forsaken wastelands full of mutated creatures and nomadic tribes have seen the tower as a monstrous firefly, with fortifications built on the insect’s back. More primeval worlds have seen the tower as an immense silver bonfire, encircled by the hide tents of the priests and sharpened wood spikes. In whichever world you experience the Provident Tower, it’s a safe haven for travelers.

Available Services

Traditional temples ask or require a monetary donation for their services. Provident Tower patrons ask for certain services instead of coin. Downtime activities are explored more fully in the Tales of the Valiant Player’s Guide.

Service	Effect	Cost
Duty’s Perspective	The PC gains 3 Luck.	The PC takes a full day’s shift on the walls of the tower.
Grateful Travelers	PCs wanting to use the carousing downtime activity to find contacts do so as cost describes, without additional gp for social rank of the contact desired.	The PCs must save their newfound contacts from attackers on the paths of the Labyrinth and bring them back to the Tower for care.
Light And Dark	The priests of the Provident Tower will marry those willing to be bound to one another as a religious service downtime activity.	The married folks spend the next 7 days protecting the shadowed paths the Tower lies on, together.
Reclaim Artifact	The PCs receive the tabard of the last watchman or the staff of light and dark.	The clergy of the Provident Tower insist that the PCs help in reclaiming a Concordant stronghold from a shadow giant and her shadow beasts (see Tome of Beasts 2 and Tome of Beasts 1 respectively).
Tongue Of The Void	The PC can take the training downtime activity to learn Umbral or Void Speech in half the time.	The PCs participate in a cleansing ritual to handle the magical stress of learning these languages. The PCs must make DC 15 WIS save or suffer an indefinite dread effect (see Game Master’s Guide).
Watchful	The PCs are immune to the blinded condition for the next 24 hours.	Participating PCs must take a purifying wine and succeed on a DC 13 CON save or suffer one level of exhaustion. Even if the Constitution saving throw is unsuccessful, the PC is still immune to the blinded condition.

Controlling the Provident Tower

The Provident Tower can be attuned to, like certain magic items, granting the attuner certain liberties in controlling its lair actions. Situations or powerful items (listed only by name in this article—they are free to be invented by GMs) reduce the time to attune to the Tower to 1 action, allowing the power to change hands in the middle of battle!

To attune to the Provident Tower, a creature must do one of the following:

Oath of the Watch. The Tower forms the shadows below it into imaginary shapes, testing the attentiveness of the creature wishing to attune to it. The creature must stand watch for 4 hours. During this time, the tower tests the aspirant, requiring three separate successful DC 18 WIS (Perception) checks. Each time a creature fails a check, it takes 2d6 necrotic and 2d6 radiant damage. If a creature drops to 0 or fewer hit points, it does not become incapacitated. Instead, it can continue to make WIS (Perception) checks until it takes a total amount of damage equal to its hit point maximum. The creature attunes to the Watchtower if they are willing to die in the attunement process or have passed the required WIS (Perception) checks.

Light and Shadow. The light of the Tower fills competing creatures vying for control with visions each round. Each vision provides the creatures with choices between safeguarding travelers or harming their attackers. Participating creatures must make a DC 15 CHA save. On a failure, the Tower creates a will-o-wisp and two shadows (see Monster Vault) that attack creatures within the tower. The first creature to succeed on three CHA saves attunes to the Tower. Once a creature involved in Light and Shadow is attuned, the will-o-wisps and shadows are destroyed.

Potent Relics. The tabard of providence negates any disadvantage to WIS (Perception) checks provided by terrain, distance, or darkness. The staff of light and dark allows creatures to take 2d8 psychic damage instead of summoning creatures on a failed CHA save in the Light and Shadow challenge. Possession of both items reduces the time and requisite WIS (Perception) checks or CHA saves in Oath of the Watch or Light and Shadow to a single successful check or save.

Once attuned, the Provident Tower allows the attuned creature to use the following lair actions.

Lair Actions

On initiative count 20 (losing initiative ties), anyone in command of the Provident Tower can take a lair action to cause one of the following effects. A creature can’t use the same effect two rounds in a row.

• Banish Darkness. A bright flash of light emanates from the Tower. Each enemy creature attempting to hide or sneak has disadvantage on their attempts until the end of their next turn. Enemy creatures affected by the invisibility spell or similar magic have those effects suppressed within 120 feet of the Tower.

• Conceal The Weak. The Tower folds shadows over the weak like a blanket, concealing them from harm. Three creatures of your choice within 120 feet of the Tower become invisible, as the spell, until the end of their next turn.

• Illuminate Transgressors. The Provident Tower bathes creatures in silver light. Enemy creatures within 120 feet of the Tower must succeed on a DC 15 DEX save or be affected by the faerie fire spell until the end of their next turn.

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